Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why Becoming Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and Distributed Will Improve Preservation and Free Speech (Amongst Other Things)

IPFS animation



Summary: A quickstart-type explanation of how IPFS works and why it works for us; the main benefit is long-term preservation and resistance to censorship

OVER a month ago we started seeing technical problems at Groklaw (which is still offline by the way) and that's why we started reproducing Bill Gates deposition videos, encoded as Ogg files for/by Groklaw more than a decade ago.



"We realise the concept may be baffling to people who grew up on BBS (centralised), dial-up modems, Netscape (HTTP) and never used things like newsgroups."The information published here needs to outlive this Web site (let's face it, no site lasts forever and the Web itself will perish sooner or later). So it's not a bad idea to distribute and decentralise this site, ensuring the same material can come from lots of different nodes all around the world. We realise the concept may be baffling to people who grew up on BBS (centralised), dial-up modems, Netscape (HTTP) and never used things like newsgroups. That's a lot of us who embraced the Internet and then the Web (which is too bloated 2 decades after it became commercially available to the private market outside universities, military and so on).

IPFS logoAt the moment we use IPFS (not gopher or SFTP or many other options; even GNU has one). We've received help from an IPFS expert, who assisted setup at our home, which now has one of many nodes (IPFS is growing faster than people realise). The technical details aren't too 'gory' or baffling to those who have used P2P applications since the 1990s (popularised by media file-sharing). As someone put it a couple of years ago: "In computers, communication protocols usually exist in bundles (called a protocol suite) of several layers. For example, the Internet protocol suite consists of 4 layers, each of which is responsible for specific functions. In addition to communication protocols, an important relationship to understand is the basic structure of the interconnections between the computers. This is known as the system architecture. Several exist, but the two types relevant to us are client-server and peer-to-peer networks. The internet is dominated by client-server relationships, which rely on the Internet Protocol suite. Of these, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the basis for communication."

That's in rather simple terms. Here's another somewhat older explanation:

Redundancy is central to digital preservation. When only one copy exists, it’s easy to destroy it. Backups and mirrors help, and the more copies there are, the safer the content is. The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a recent technology that could be tremendously valuable in creating distributed archives. [...] IPFS is based on a radical vision. Its supporters say that HTTP is broken and needs a replacement. What they mean is that location-based addressing by URLs makes the Web fragile. If a server loses a file, you get a 404 error. If the serving domain goes away, you don’t get any HTTP response. IPFS ensures the persistent availability of files by allowing multiple copies on nodes of a peer network. The trick is that they’re addressed by content, not name. An IPFS identifier uses a hash of the content. This protects against file tampering and degradation at the same time; it also means that objects are immutable.


Our IPFS node runs on a Debian-based Raspberry Pi with Gopher as in the Go language, not the gopher protocol. In due course we might expand to more protocols. Ultimately we'd like to think that many people who aren't already reading the site using full RSS (XML) will adopt non-Web protocols. The Web is far too bloated and it's increasingly being monopolised by companies that shove DRM and surveillance down everyone's throats. The Web became the 'Disney of the Internet', governed by the likes of the RIAA and their Microsoft sidekicks. It's time to get rid of that and perhaps the simplest correction is complete abandonment of the protocol (the fatigue is rapidly growing). You don't need the Web to get information; the Web is sometimes more noise than signal, cluttering the minds and undermining society.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Coming Soon: Microsoft Fake Results, Mass Layoffs, and Silence About All the People Microsoft Pressured to "Quit" (So That They Don't Get Counted as Layoffs)
there will be more mass layoffs
Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
 
China is Already Culling GAFAM (Not Just Microsoft Windows)
OS monoculture or "OS hegemony" may be coming to an end
The "Telephone Operating System in the Vatican" is 95 Years Old, Vatican Moved to GNU/Linux
Maybe Microsoft is down to zero already
If Tesla Shares (and Alleged Value) Fell 55% (From $489 to $222) in a Few Months Maybe It's Not Worth Anything At All (It's Just Gambling)
Tesla swasticars have turned from a "status symbol" into a "public embarrassment" and cause for casual humiliation
Chromebooks' Adoption in Sweden No Longer Depends on Schools
School breaks are when classrooms are shut
No, IBM is Not Investing $150 Billion in the US and It Doesn't Even Have That Kind of Money
Here we go again... media as a vehicle of lobbying and misinformation
Leak: The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Does Not Consult Staff on Crucial Matters and Bypasses the Administrative Council (AC) to Do Illegal Things
violations against the EPO's very staff
New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025