Some Intro.

I've stumbled upon an article explaining the differences between existing storage protocols and I somehow remembered I've read a piece from @threespeak where they elaborated on how they plan to solve the problem of centralized storage service by incentivizing an average Joe to act as a node.

To understand the nature and benefits of the IPFS system, it's important to address the flaws in the traditional HTTP web architecture.

To begin with, HTTP user data is stored on centralized servers, which are owned, controlled, and governed by big corporations. This ownership and control provide them privileges to acquire, manipulate and abuse our privacy for personal benefits. It wouldn't be the first time big corps made huge profits by selling our data to the highest bidder to influence our preferences. I won't go too deep into it, but I find such a practice disturbing and deeply immoral.

On a further note, it's just one of many possible attack vectors to take into account when game theorizing.

Another thing to consider is the fact it could be misused by the governments to disable information flow in a specific nation. Every tyrannic and autocratic regime prioritizes information-sharing and communication networks to be under their domain. So basically, they can unilaterally disable access to the internet making millions of people paralyzed. This is especially problematic if we deduct that the internet can only rise in value as more and more utilities, jobs, and networks come into existence. By banning the internet the whole system collapses, and yeah, not many people think in such extremes, but they should. Otherwise, we might just get fucked heavily.

Technicalities.

There are technical limitations to HTTPS/HTTP due to their centralized nature and one point of failure. Not only it's possible to delete, remove or censor content, but it's also actually easy to congest the network by creating a bottleneck on the main server. DDoS is quite a popular technique, used to sabotage the performance of the centralized network for whatever reasons.

Although there are tools to prevent or decrease such events from happening, malicious actors seem to be great at finding ways to destabilize and attack networks.

Definition.

Through the HTTP protocol, resources are exchanged between client devices and servers over the internet. Client devices send requests to servers for the resources needed to load a web page; the servers send responses back to the client to fulfill the requests. Requests and responses share sub-documents -- such as data on images, text, text layouts, etc. -- which are pieced together by a client web browser to display the full web page file.

In addition to the web page files it can serve, a web server contains an HTTP daemon, a program that waits for HTTP requests and handles them when they arrive. A web browser is an HTTP client that sends requests to servers. When the browser user enters file requests by either "opening" a web file by typing in a URL or clicking on a hypertext link, the browser builds an HTTP request and sends it to the Internet Protocol address (IP address) indicated by the URL. The HTTP daemon in the destination server receives the request and sends back the requested file or files associated with the request.

Basically, the web we're currently using utilizes so-called location-based addressing to store and retrieve files. To put things into a perspective, let's say you want to access some HTML file from xy.com. We'll access this location via browser and in return, we'll get the file we requested. If however, the file has been removed from that XY server for whatever reason, we won't be able to access the file anymore.

Now, what if someone else had a copy of that file we're looking for? It would be nearly impossible to track that person and request for them to share that copy.

On a further note, something I've never considered to play the role is a physical limitation to how fast the information can travel. And now, on top of such limitations imagine millions of people requesting the same document. It's relatively easy to deduct what's going to happen.

From what I understood, IPFS solves this problem.

IPFS and #SPK

IPFS stands for the interplanetary file system. It's a peer-to-peer open-source protocol for file storage that uses content-based addressing, rather than location-based addressing. This means that to track the file/document, we don't need to know where it is, but rather what it contains. Every file has a Hash function that cannot be separated from the content it is relative to. That's how @threespeak plans to utilize the #Hive blockchain.

The hash function creates a unique fingerprint for every file. So if we want to retrieve a file, we’ll ask the network “who has this file (QmSNssW5a9S3KV...)”, and then someone from the IPFS network who has it will provide it to us. We can verify the integrity of the file by comparing the hash of what we requested against what we received, and if the hashes match, then we know that the file hasn’t been changed. This hash function also helps de-duplicate the network, such that no file with the same content can be submitted twice since the same content yields the same hash. This optimizes storage requirements and also improves the performance of the network.

IPFS basically works by connecting all devices on the network to the same file structure.

IPFS should be used to store only relevant and important files, that are marked and determined by pinning, whilst irrelevant information should be removed by the garbage collectors.
This way, the protocol sustains its storage, by simply eliminating data that only eats the space.

LIMITATIONS

Like with every technology, IPFS has some challenges to solve before going mainstream, and those who manage to address and solve the issues will end up usurping massive value.

TO begin with, one of the biggest issues is keeping the files available.

When you pin data on the IPFS node, you are telling that node that the content is relevant, and thus shouldn't be deleted by the garble collectors. "Pinning" actually prevents important data to be deleted permanently. However, the problem is that you can only pin the data on your node.

You cannot force other nodes to pin the data for you, so to be sure your content stays pinned, you have to run your own IPFS node - which is a great thing, but not many are willing to learn how to set up one, and not many are willing to do any relatable work haha. People are lazy.

Another limitation is the actual sharing of files. You have to share a file link (content address) with someone else on the network via a traditional communication mechanism, say an instant message, email, Skype, Slack, etc. This means file sharing is not built into the system. People have developed crawlers and search engines on the network, but it will likely take some time before it all catches on.

Search engines will have to be built on top of the #SPK network to make it as easy for the end-users to get along with this new system.

Information weights more value than any other physical property, therefore, something like the #SPK network will save the world's most important knowledge, and that's powerful!

Tokenomics, Governance, and IPFS will be the game-changer.

In the upcoming days, I'll try to demystify #SPK tokenomics and explain (to myself as well) the benefits of having three different currencies.

If you learned anything feels free to make me rich by upvoting! he he