IPFS#

If IPFS is BitTorrent + git, and ActivityPub is Distributed Messaging + Linked Data, then p2p-ld is IPFS + ActivityPub. We build on IPFS and are heavily inspired by its design and shortcomings revealed by practical use.

Summary#

BitSwap#

IPLD#

Multiformats#

libp2p#

Problems#

  • Slow access!

  • No identity misses the social nature of infrastructure. Where bittorrent had trackers, there is no similar concept in IPFS to organize archives.

    • Hence the need for filecoin, an exogenous incentive to store, but then it becomes transactional which generates its own problems.

    • Trust! eg. its use in phishing attacks is because there is no way to know who the hell a given CID is owned by. It needs to be possible to do social curation, or at leats know when something is riskier or not.

  • Lack of metadata means having to build a lot of shit post-hoc, like IPLD and multihashes and codecs and whatnot.

Overlap#

  • Merkle DAGs

Differences#

  • Not permanent storage! Identities retain custody and control over objects in the network.

References#