The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a new hypermedia distribution protocol, to complement – and eventually replace – HTTP. It improves the security, performance, operation modes, and data friendliness of the Web. In particular, it yields a powerful new model, where websites and web applications are decoupled from origin servers, are distributed trustlessly through the network, and are encrypted, authenticated, and executed safely.
Important properties include:
- immutable content-addressed graph (merkle dag, git, sfsro)
- mutable key-addressed name system (sfs-inspired)
- transport-agnosticism and clean protocol layering
- files are an abstraction on top of the merkle dag
- flexible graph data model (both json and xml friendly)
- clean layering on the web - works with today's browsers.
- clean layering on unix - can mount the web in the OS FS
- usable in IoT and other untraditional cases
This talk will cover:
- the major problems plaguing today's web,
- the architecture of IPFS (how it fits in the network stack, how it is deployed, how the problems are solved)
- powerful new models for the web (distributed, offline-first, authenticated)
- examples of important use cases (package managers, OSes, archives)
- a discussion on open source protocol R & D
- future research, development, and deployment directions
The talk will include a broad look at The IPFS Project, and a discussion on evolving the network stack through open source protocols R & D.
Today, IPFS is classified as alpha software, yet it is robust enough to be in use even in production.
Most notable related work includes: SFS, BitTorrent, Git, Bitcoin, CCNx/NDN, GNUnet, Freenet, Tahoe-LAFS.
Juan Benet created IPFS, Filecoin, and other protocols. He is the founder of Protocol Labs, a company improving how the internet works. He studied Computer Science (Distributed Systems) at Stanford. You can reach him by email at juan@ipfs.io.
