InterPlanetary File System

Ipfs.io
Introduction:
The IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is an open-source project developed by the team at Interplanetary Networks and many other open source community contributors. It is basically a hypermedia distribution protocol that is addressed by identities and content. The protocol allows the creation of highly distributed web-based applications. IPFS designed to make the web safer, more open and faster as well.

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Brief history and plot:
The IPFS is a tribute to J.C.R. Licklider’s vision for an “intergalactic” Web and is the brainchild of Juan Benet, who moved to the U.S. from Mexico, earned a degree in computer science at Stanford and then started a company acquired by Yahoo! in the year 2013 and, last year at Y Combinator, founded Protocol Labs, which now successfully running the IPFS project and the modest aim of this organization is to replace protocols that have seemed like facts of life and serving for the last 20 years. As a peer-to-peer and distributed file system which seeks to connect different computing devices with the same system of files. The technology seeks to add and advantage on internet and HTTP in several ways. The developers and modern era technologies use content-addressing so content can be decoupled from its origin servers, and can be stored permanently. It means content can be served and served very close to the actual user, perhaps probably from a computer available in the same room as well. Content-addressing allows us to verify the content, files or data too because there are possibilities that other hosts may be untrusted. And once the user’s device has the file or content then it can be cached indefinitely for other users in the network. InterPlanetary File System also addresses security problems that already plague our HTTP-based Web: Content-signing and content-addressing protect IPFS-based sites and also making DDoS attacks completely impossible. And in order to help mitigate the damage of discontinued websites, the IPFS technology also archives important public-record content, and can then easily store important and public-record content.

How it works?
IPFS is a peer-to-peer, content-addressable hypermedia distribution protocol. The project seeks to connect and communicate all computing devices with the same system of files. At some point, IPFS is similar to the Web but it could be seen as an isolated BitTorrent swarm, exchanging objects within any one Git repository. IPFS combines an incentivized block exchange, a distributed hash table, and a self-certifying namespace. It has no single reason of failure and also nodes do not need to trust each other. The shared files, data or media over the network are stored and arranged in block structure similar to that of the bitcoin blockchain. The files content are linked using hash keys that can be then used to access the same from other computers. IPFS can be installed on any computer using the binary files that are available on the website and also join the network. The IPFS protocol can be also used to build distributed applications on versioned file systems such as Git, which can be accessed through the computing devices over the network.

How ipfs is changing the internet?
IPFS is not a well-known internet technology yet, even there are lots of technologies already available, but this technology is also spreading quickly by word of mouth among open source community contributors. The computer and internet users are excited by the strength of IPFS technology and to highly improve the streaming speed and file transfer across the web or internet. The IPFS technology is even much more important than this as it eliminates the requirement of web services to have a centralized server and making the possibility to completely re-architect the internet as well.

The IPFS filesystem can be easily accessed through a number of ways including over HTTP and via FUSE. A file from local storage can also be added to the existing IPFS filesystem and making it available to the world of internet. The files available in the filesystem are referenced by their hashes, so the technology is caching friendly as well. The files are distributed using a protocol based on Bittorrent. It means that users who are viewing the files or content aid in serving the same file or content to others on the network. IPFS technology has a name service called as IPNS, a global namespace based on PKI, used to offer the build trust chain, is compatible with other NSes and can also map DNS, .bit, .onion, etc. to IPNS.

Why we have a slow, forgetful and fragile internet?
InterPlanetary File System technology is a new peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol which aims to supplement, or also even replace the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that is ruling over the internet now. The probelen with HTTP is that when users access to a website today then their browser has to be directly connected to the computer systems that are hosting and serving that particular website and even if their hosting servers are far away and also the transfer process takes up a lot amount of bandwidth. The files, data and content providers pay huge amount of cost because each network has a peering agreement and while every single network hop costs dollars to the data service provider and wastes extra bandwidth. The another worst problem with HTTP is that, HTTP downloads a file from a single computer at any particular time, instead of getting data packets or pieces from a wide range of computers simultaneously. Consequently, a expensive, slow Internet, made even more costly by predatory last-mile carriers, and the accelerating growth of network connection requests from smartphone devices. It is not only expensive and slow but it is unreliable as well. If any of the link in an HTTP transfer cuts out for unknown or known reason then the whole transfer breaks.

IPFS would help the Internet grow:
IPFS’s final core advantage is the decentralized distribution that makes it possible to access Internet content, files and media despite sporadic Internet service or even while offline. Now developers can develop a website and web applications that have no central origin server. They can be distributed similarly to the distributed network such as Bitcoin. This is actually something which cannot be done by HTTP and would especially be a boon to networks without top-notch connectivity and also to accesses outside of metropolitan cities.

Conclusion:
The Internet and the web in its current form have been same for decades now. While the usage of bandwidth has definitely increased and with growing improvements in internet based technology, data costs went down drastically. On the other hand deep down the framework on the internet remains unchanged. The increased familiarity and dependence of internet among organizations, governments and individuals has made it an irreplaceable piece of technology of the current era which one can’t imagine living without. The internet is improving itself each passing day, the average internet experience across the world and the individual user leaves a lot to be desired. It is because even the web based applications are becoming data intensive and overly process. The file storage and transfer technologies currently have a chance for a huge amount of improvement and there is only one player who intends to optimize it with a completely new protocol. This new protocol makes use of different technologies similar to the one used by bitcoin. The IPFS is the totally new decentralized hypermedia distribution protocol which optimizes the way data, files or media is stored on the internet these days. The InterPlanetary File System distributes all the files over the network and allows it accessible to all other computers connected to the network at the same time. The technology is created by InterPlanetary Network and the InterPlanetary File System works similar to BitTorrent in which one single file can be shared among a number of computer users.

Learn More Here...https://ipfs.io/