One of the rare use cases of a blockchain actually being useful. A federated internet archive that uses a blockchain to validate that the saved data has not been altered by a malicious actor trying to tamper with proofs
That would be really cool but horribly inefficient because of the sheer amount of storage required
I mean you don’t need the blockchain for that. The same way that distro mirrors don’t need the blockchain. It can be federated, with each upload being verified through hashes that they are in fact the real upload. I would argue that something like blockchain would remove the authority from them, granting the position of a bad actor spinning up enough servers to be able to poison the blockchain just because they had the computing power, claiming authority
The thing is sometimed articles must be removed from IA (copyright (I disagree with that one) or when information is leaked that could threaten lives), with a blockchain this would be impossible
I’d be interested in seeing real examples where lives are threatened. I find it unlikely that the internet archive would be the exclusive arbiter of so-called deadly information
There was an actual example where a journalistic article about afghanistan accidentally leaked names of some sources and people who helped westerners in afghanistan, which did actually endanger those people’s lives.
That’s an excellent question. Unfortunately I do not have an answer. But I believe it’s worth discussing some means of redundancy for the IA; even if it’s as simple as rsync to other hosts.
Maybe it’s time to federate the IA.
One of the rare use cases of a blockchain actually being useful. A federated internet archive that uses a blockchain to validate that the saved data has not been altered by a malicious actor trying to tamper with proofs
That would be really cool but horribly inefficient because of the sheer amount of storage required
The core feature of all blockchain tech.
To be fair that would not necessarily be because of the blockchain part, more because of the decentralized/federated nature of this theorical network
Sure, but the networking and consent-finding are defining features of a blockchain. Nobody calls a git repo a blockchain.
I mean you don’t need the blockchain for that. The same way that distro mirrors don’t need the blockchain. It can be federated, with each upload being verified through hashes that they are in fact the real upload. I would argue that something like blockchain would remove the authority from them, granting the position of a bad actor spinning up enough servers to be able to poison the blockchain just because they had the computing power, claiming authority
isn’t this what ipfs is?
The thing is sometimed articles must be removed from IA (copyright (I disagree with that one) or when information is leaked that could threaten lives), with a blockchain this would be impossible
Perfect.
I’d be interested in seeing real examples where lives are threatened. I find it unlikely that the internet archive would be the exclusive arbiter of so-called deadly information
There was an actual example where a journalistic article about afghanistan accidentally leaked names of some sources and people who helped westerners in afghanistan, which did actually endanger those people’s lives.
You need a useless 51% of good nodes to assure that, making it even more wasteful.
I don’t know if that’s a good idea.
How would you go about implementing the infrastructure for that?
That’s an excellent question. Unfortunately I do not have an answer. But I believe it’s worth discussing some means of redundancy for the IA; even if it’s as simple as rsync to other hosts.
They’ve been using Filecoin