Powerful Technology | P2P Content Addressable Networks
There is a relatively new kid on the block to get to know if you haven't done so yet. It's called P2P Content Addressable Networks in some circles. It's kind of like the grown up less teenager-like version of P2P file sharing networks like Kazza or Bitorrent. There are two that I follow closely. There are certainly more you can find as well. The two I follow are IPFS and Swarm.
These types of storage systems are interesting and trending toward major impact due to some of their attributes. There are many. I can't possibly address them all in one post. I focus on five attributes. They are permanence, peer to peer, distributed, secure and replicated.
Permanence. When you store data on these peer to peer networks it has the potential to truly be permanent and permanently addressable over time. Estimate of the average age of a web page vary from 40 to 100 days. That means any link you like will likely evaporate, the content will move, someone will not pay the domain fees, etc. It will just be gone forever. Have you ever gone to a URL only to find that the website simply isn't there any more? So, these new systems offer the promise of a permanent web. Juan Benet of IPFS notoriety is perhaps the most eloquent on this subject.
Peer to Peer. No servers needed. Let me say that again. You and your friends in the peer to peer network ARE the servers. You are the data center. Your application will be hosted a this peer to peer network of storage. You will not have to lauch machines "in the cloud." You are the cloud. It's cloud all the way to the edge. At scale this should have the economic effect of driving the cost of a data center to near zero for many types of applications. The potential impact of this is astounding. This image,
Is hosted on IPFS. If you click the link to see the little ponies and the man praying to them for some reason you will say … SO WHAT? It's just a weird picture. However, realize that the person who posted that picture can go away, decide not to host it any more and pay generally nothing for that image to stay online at that link conceivably for ever. That's different and the same thing works for certain types of web applications.
Here is an example of a video streaming from IPFS just in case you wondered if video sharing sites were somehow immune.
Distributed. The web is distributed already. It's on the internet. However, in the case of peer to peer networks performance and moving of data is FAR more efficient due to the distributed and shared flow of data across many nodes in the system.
Secure. Networks like IPFS are cryptographically secure. Networks like Ethereum's Swarm are backed by powerful technology like the Etherum Blockhain. Funny enough, IPFS clusters of nodes are called swarms. Then, Ethereum called their storage a swarm. So, that's confusing. It gets worse when you release any blockchain, like Ethereum, could probably run on an IPFS Swarm! What? Maybe they will some day. Makes sense to me.
A world of walled gardens has arisen that appears to control VAST amounts of content that people care deeply about, like a picture of your child’s first birthday. If your photo hosting provider goes out of business and stops paying their data center costs (AWS or private) then that lovely memory nugget just goes poof and you have very little recourse. Companies that back their storage with P2P Content Addressable Networks remove this risk. If they go poof you should still be able to get to the stored content.
There are also entire walled countries where the government does not want certain data moving in and out. Systems like this make it very difficult to patrol any such fine grained policies.
Replicated. More copies everywhere diced up and able to be put back together. If you host your data, like a photo, from your laptop and then later loose the laptop there will be copies elsewhere that are accessible from other devices. It’s a little like popular cloud photo storage and sharing services but it’s decentralized and your data isn’t in some walled garden behind a 47 page terms of use that blithely assigns usage rights to the garden owner to profit from your child’s photo.
Some examples
A few projects and companies that are leveraging P2P Content Addressable Networks now or in the future that are noteworthy are:
Mango
This is truly a distribute git / github concept.
ipfs.io
A form of Distributed World Wide Web and a protocol to make it work.
IPFS Tube
A demonstration of how you might think about replicating a product like YouTube.
NeoCities
IPFS archiving and downloading is now supported by all web sites on Neocities.
OpenBazaar 2.0
Peer to Peer commerce. It's anticipated that the next major release of OpenBazaar will be IPFS backed. This solves many issues around how to host your OpenBazaar store.
In Closing
I have barely scratched the surface in this post. Get your running shoes on, this will be an interesting race and you want to be in this one.
Hi, I am Kent Langley. I am the author of The 41st Square. My primary site is at www.productionscale.com where I am the Chief Exponential Officer(CxO). ProductionScale helps companies activate data using a proprietary process. That makes data useful for people and computation. I am core faculty at Singularity University where I teach Data Science and Exponential Organizations. I am the Head of the Global Exponential Organizations Movement. I am fortunate to work with a TREMENDOUS network of AMAZING people from all around the world every day who make it all worth doing.
All opinions here are my own opinions and not those of any other organization or human being.
