- How it works
The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a peer-to-peer distributed file system that seeks to connect all computing devices with the same system of files. In some ways, IPFS is similar to the Web, but IPFS could be seen as a single BitTorrent swarm, exchanging objects within one Git repository. In other words, IPFS provides a high throughput content-addressed block storage model, with content-addressed hyperlinks. This forms a generalized Merkle DAG, a data structure upon which one can build versioned file systems, blockchains, and even a Permanent Web. IPFS combines a distributed hashtable, an incentivized block exchange, and a self-certifying namespace. IPFS has no single point of failure, and nodes do not need to trust each other.
I installed IPFS on my laptop a few weeks ago and have been playing around with it. The fact that it's completely compatible with HTTP, and is planned to work be completely compatible with DNS (and Namecoin) makes me think this has a better chance of success in the near term than some of the other projects with similar goals. There's also filecoin, described by IPFS founder Juan Benet as a "sister protocol", which incentivizes seeding others' content. (Unfortunately, there's nothing more than a white paper for filecoin yet.) Benet mentioned in yesterday's thread on HN that "very soon, you wont need to install anything to use IPFS. it will "just work" with js on today's browsers." Exciting! I love that there are a handful of projects going after the distributed web.