IPFS Alpha Demo – Distributed Web

Really looks interesting, I like that there went some thought into integrating with the existing web, lowering the barrier of entry compared to other projects.

(Thinking of the webfont/JS discussion going on in another thread: so when can we start to deliver fonts and jquery content-addressed from this? ;))

I'd like to understand how http interface discovery works? Is there a single http gateway, or is there some kind of DNS integration with multiple gateways?

I googled and found my answers, this question has been asked quite a bit.

I can't wait for this to become a huge mainstream(-ish) thing that everyone knows about like Tor.

- This is what many of my friends initially thought "Cloud Technology" was, and were disappointed to find out that the cloud tech we have today isn't truly peer-to-peer.

- This has immediate application for distributing data generated by governments.

- I don't have to use rsync or capistrano to deploy websites. I can write locally to an ipfs content address, and the servers will automatically pick it up.

- This would be awesome as a way to distribute public Docker containers or App containers.

- Containers + ipfs can potentially make for a highly portable app, one where both the code and the data are portable. At the very least, you wouldn't have to create a data container and link a different container to get that data out. Some potentials are things like redesigning Diaspora, or even running distributed copies of OpenFarm. (Any non-profit, open-sourced crowd-sourced data project, like OpenFarm, would seriously benefit from this -- people can contribute compute, network, and storage by installing a container with that stuff already there).

- DRM might actually work. (I've brought this up before, and it has been really unpopular with people since they are not rationally thinking about the societal value of DRM). The problem with current DRM schemes is that it puts the power on the side of the merchants. Using neutral third party schemes don't work well. There is also the problem of when the merchant shuts down and kills the asset servers. What we really want to do is register rights in a p2p setting like with Counterparty or one of the blockchain technology. IPFS would solve the asset distribution and storage problem. (Enforcement is interesting, and one potential idea that just bubbled up: if you can have a web of trust, you can have a web of distrust; use peer pressure to mitigate bad actors; this works well if people actually want some reasonable way of having property rights over data).

- Promise Theory. Been reading and thinking a lot about this. I see promise theory as a possibility for helping with human-to-AI interactions. It's core premise is based upon documenting intent and evaluating trust in actions out in the open. IPFS would allow AIs to publish intent as well as publish their evaluation of trust. This allows for reputation management for AIs.

- A similar application above would work for reputation management for humans. For example, TaskRabbit, ELance, and other gig markets currently lock up reputation data as proprietary. On the other hand, reputation published on IPFS would be portable. (It could also be built on web-of-trust, something brought up by that co-opt consultancy posted here). This is also an application of Promise Theory.

The ideas keep coming up, will start up an ipfs node and store some of that there.

I believe that this distributed p2p internet will the ultimate threat to internet companies. Imagine we no longer need to trust a corporation with all of our data, imagine we no longer need to be victims of attention theft while using services that is entirely powered by nodes of the network.

This is of course very far off and not at all the perfect utopia I am describing but this is definitely the right way to go and eventually the future.

Not sure if ipfs.io will take off, unless it offers something that regular internet does not, the name could also be changed to something more catchy.