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What's silly about it? Content-addressable decentralized storage -- not tied to a cryptocurrency -- is really valuable for censorship-resistant archiving of pol

by gwerbin 23d ago

What's silly about it? Content-addressable decentralized storage -- not tied to a cryptocurrency -- is really valuable for censorship-resistant archiving of politically-sensitive data (such as climate change research).

muragekibicho 23d ago
It's the crypto aspect that's silly. Tech is cool IMO. However, the crypto adjacency makes it all look scammy tbh.
- Grombobulous 23d ago
  In addition to that, this noble goal of being an insurance policy against censorship never played out. How hard would it be for a country to block the clients and browser extensions you need to use it in the first place? Or to develop a firewall technology that’s capable of blocking the traffic? Probably not that hard, especially since nobody uses IPFS for anything business critical since it’s not all that great at doing things that you need from file storage systems. Most reasons you store files somewhere benefit from not being decentralized. You usually want some combination of performance, security, durability, and availability. Decentralization is not generally a demand of file storage. The only reason it’s decentralized is because blockchain and crypto was hype 10 years ago.
  - chriswarbo 23d ago
    > The only reason it’s decentralized is because blockchain and crypto was hype 10 years ago. IPFS is not "blockchain" or "crypto"(currency). It's much closer to git-over-bittorrent. Note that both of those things were decentralised long before "blockchain" and "crypto" existed. The makers of IPFS also made a crypto thing called Filecoin; but that's a different project. Avoiding IPFS because of crypto is like avoiding the Web because of social media.
    - deleted 23d ago
      [deleted]
jazzyjackson 23d ago
Except it wasn’t censorship resistant at all, in that your node advertised itself as a node with a-z files on it. Separately you could put it behind a vpn or run a vps you paid for with monero, but fundamentally it’s more of a way just to pin a file to an address that works no matter what domain or IP the file is behind.
- fc417fc802 23d ago
  Censorship resistant in the same sense that bittorrent is, with no single centralized server or domain registration to target.
  - inigyou 23d ago
    But bittorrent has been successfully censored. People are afraid to run it because they know their ISP will forward them demand letters.
    - fc417fc802 22d ago
      That's not what we were talking about here. But as long as we're on this tangent I hardly think using a VPN constitutes a high bar to clear. There are still plenty of jurisdictions remaining in the world that in practice don't care to enforce copyright law against individuals (or sometimes at all).
      - inigyou 22d ago
        Most western governments are currently in the process of making anonymous VPNs illegal.
        fc417fc802 22d ago
        Evidence? But also, so what? By definition the VPN will be exiting in a country tolerant of the conduct in question. It's also possible to purchase from an operation headquartered there, or even to directly purchase a VPS.

by gwerbin 23d ago

muragekibicho 23d ago

It's the crypto aspect that's silly. Tech is cool IMO. However, the crypto adjacency makes it all look scammy tbh.

Grombobulous 23d ago
In addition to that, this noble goal of being an insurance policy against censorship never played out. How hard would it be for a country to block the clients and browser extensions you need to use it in the first place? Or to develop a firewall technology that’s capable of blocking the traffic? Probably not that hard, especially since nobody uses IPFS for anything business critical since it’s not all that great at doing things that you need from file storage systems. Most reasons you store files somewhere benefit from not being decentralized. You usually want some combination of performance, security, durability, and availability. Decentralization is not generally a demand of file storage. The only reason it’s decentralized is because blockchain and crypto was hype 10 years ago.
- chriswarbo 23d ago
  > The only reason it’s decentralized is because blockchain and crypto was hype 10 years ago. IPFS is not "blockchain" or "crypto"(currency). It's much closer to git-over-bittorrent. Note that both of those things were decentralised long before "blockchain" and "crypto" existed. The makers of IPFS also made a crypto thing called Filecoin; but that's a different project. Avoiding IPFS because of crypto is like avoiding the Web because of social media.
  - deleted 23d ago
    [deleted]

jazzyjackson 23d ago

Except it wasn’t censorship resistant at all, in that your node advertised itself as a node with a-z files on it. Separately you could put it behind a vpn or run a vps you paid for with monero, but fundamentally it’s more of a way just to pin a file to an address that works no matter what domain or IP the file is behind.

fc417fc802 23d ago
Censorship resistant in the same sense that bittorrent is, with no single centralized server or domain registration to target.
- inigyou 23d ago
  But bittorrent has been successfully censored. People are afraid to run it because they know their ISP will forward them demand letters.
  - fc417fc802 22d ago
    That's not what we were talking about here. But as long as we're on this tangent I hardly think using a VPN constitutes a high bar to clear. There are still plenty of jurisdictions remaining in the world that in practice don't care to enforce copyright law against individuals (or sometimes at all).
    - inigyou 22d ago
      Most western governments are currently in the process of making anonymous VPNs illegal.
      - fc417fc802 22d ago
        Evidence? But also, so what? By definition the VPN will be exiting in a country tolerant of the conduct in question. It's also possible to purchase from an operation headquartered there, or even to directly purchase a VPS.