IPFS

The Viability of IPFS

Models

How to host content on a IPFS-based website or file host.

• The CDN/Cloudflare Model - You run a node, or use ipfs.io, to access the data from the clearnet.
  • Benefits: No user enumeration: IP access logs remain centralized.
  • Drawbacks: then just use cloudflare
• The IPFS.js Model - Every user just loads the IPFS javascript in their browser to load it up. Metamask works well enough as a browser extension.
  • Benefits - Formal servers are not necessary. Any user can just volunteer to work as a seed.
  • Drawbacks - IPFS.js STILL doesn't yet have DHT. https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs/pull/856
  • Also users can be enumerated by IP addresses. i guess an evil government agency or SJWs could entrap users by hosting some banned hashes and logging ips, much like how the peers of a torrent can be logged. This is much more insidious and hurtful to the innocent because the files may never have been loaded intentionally while scrolling down a webpage.

The user enumeration problem

what we have inside tor/i2p is probably the best you can get. federated inside tor. servers don't see ips, users can't find servers, servers can't see servers. the biggest drawback is no ip bans. So you'll have to use SpamAssassin or shared banned hashes of files, or just put in hard work to fight spammers and illegal content.