Evaluate using ipfs for decentralization file storage

[akshithg]

Web site: http://ipfs.io/ Github: https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs Sample use case: https://ipfs.pics/

[dazzaji]

Speaking with Christian from Consensys today, I learned about IPNS (for naming). Looking into it, I found this: https://github.com/ipfs/examples/tree/master/examples/ipns

Wondering if this could be used for variable data in the "account file" or used in some other way to implement the IAuth design pattern. What do you think?

[akshithg]

Yes Dazza, IPNS can be used for exactly what you have said. Its like the DNS server equivalent. An account file which varies can be resolved using a reference which doesn’t vary. Which in our case is very essential.

I’ll look into the implementation details. Please do share your learning about it too.

Best Akshith G

On 06-Mar-2016, at 4:18 PM, Dazza Greenwood notifications@github.com wrote:

Speaking with Christian from Consensys today, I learned about IPNS (for naming). Looking into it, I found this: https://github.com/ipfs/examples/tree/master/examples/ipns https://github.com/ipfs/examples/tree/master/examples/ipns Wondering if this could be used for variable data in the "account file" or used in some other way to implement the IAuth design pattern. What do you think?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LegalComponents/IAuth/issues/11#issuecomment-192870153.

[dazzaji]

Excellent, thanks for confirming the hunch!

Given the excitement about IPFS and the elegant way it achieves portability by existing more or less in space to start with, I am leaning toward elevating IPFS and IPNS to be included in the next release milestone. I think the release should include 1) migrate to AWS (which you could talk me through, potentially), and 2) integrate IPFS as soon as there is a stable AWS build and working implementation and 3) attempt to use IPNS for the account owner file. If that makes sense to you, please add a Release 0.2 Label to the issues and attach it to this issue and the AWS migration issue (plus any others you think are critical path for the next release version).

FYI - after that I'm thinking the most important functional thing is incorporating some custom MIT scopes to protected resources and other scopes (like for creating/modifying files) with github and google.

---

| Daniel "Dazza" Greenwood, JD | Personal: DazzaGreenwood.com | Consulting Service: CIVICS.com | MIT Research: Law.MIT.edu | Email: dazza@CIVICS.com | Mobile: 617.500.3644

On Mar 6, 2016, at 6:30 AM, akshith gunasekaran notifications@github.com wrote:

Yes Dazza, IPNS can be used for exactly what you have said. Its like the DNS server equivalent. An account file which varies can be resolved using a reference which doesn’t vary. Which in our case is very essential.

I’ll look into the implementation details. Please do share your learning about it too.

Best Akshith G

On 06-Mar-2016, at 4:18 PM, Dazza Greenwood notifications@github.com wrote:

Speaking with Christian from Consensys today, I learned about IPNS (for naming). Looking into it, I found this: https://github.com/ipfs/examples/tree/master/examples/ipns https://github.com/ipfs/examples/tree/master/examples/ipns Wondering if this could be used for variable data in the "account file" or used in some other way to implement the IAuth design pattern. What do you think?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LegalComponents/IAuth/issues/11#issuecomment-192870153.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[akshithg]

Sure thing. I’ll start making progress on the release 0.2

Akshith G

On 06-Mar-2016, at 5:50 PM, Dazza Greenwood notifications@github.com wrote:

Excellent, thanks for confirming the hunch!

Given the excitement about IPFS and the elegant way it achieves portability by existing more or less in space to start with, I am leaning toward elevating IPFS and IPNS to be included in the next release milestone. I think the release should include 1) migrate to AWS (which you could talk me through, potentially), and 2) integrate IPFS as soon as there is a stable AWS build and working implementation and 3) attempt to use IPNS for the account owner file. If that makes sense to you, please add a Release 0.2 Label to the issues and attach it to this issue and the AWS migration issue (plus any others you think are critical path for the next release version).

FYI - after that I'm thinking the most important functional thing is incorporating some custom MIT scopes to protected resources and other scopes (like for creating/modifying files) with github and google.

---

| Daniel "Dazza" Greenwood, JD | Personal: DazzaGreenwood.com | Consulting Service: CIVICS.com | MIT Research: Law.MIT.edu | Email: dazza@CIVICS.com | Mobile: 617.500.3644

On Mar 6, 2016, at 6:30 AM, akshith gunasekaran notifications@github.com wrote:

Yes Dazza, IPNS can be used for exactly what you have said. Its like the DNS server equivalent. An account file which varies can be resolved using a reference which doesn’t vary. Which in our case is very essential.

I’ll look into the implementation details. Please do share your learning about it too.

Best Akshith G

On 06-Mar-2016, at 4:18 PM, Dazza Greenwood notifications@github.com wrote:

Speaking with Christian from Consensys today, I learned about IPNS (for naming). Looking into it, I found this: https://github.com/ipfs/examples/tree/master/examples/ipns https://github.com/ipfs/examples/tree/master/examples/ipns Wondering if this could be used for variable data in the "account file" or used in some other way to implement the IAuth design pattern. What do you think?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LegalComponents/IAuth/issues/11#issuecomment-192870153.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LegalComponents/IAuth/issues/11#issuecomment-192881153.

[dazzaji]

This just in from Akshith:

Update on the IPFS integration. i. IPFS

• Integrated
• every time the identity file is updated, the updated version is committed to IPFS, which will return a reference (hash)
• this reference is accessible publicly. IPFS has no means to limit access to the file. It acts as a public git repository.
• this hash is displayed on the user profile page
• anyone with that hash can fetch the ID file from the ii. IPNS
• Not integrated.
• Though IPNS is a great solution, by virtue of its ability to resolve a static reference(hash) to a dynamic file (the identity file) the current implementation has limitations explained below.

So this is how IPNS works as of now.

• Every IPFS node which runs on a machine has an ID - which is an hash of the public key of the node.
• this ID is the static part which when resolved using IPNS will give us a dynamic file.
• At the moment, IPFS supports only one ID per instance of IPFS running on a machine.
• What this translates to is, we can only have one identity file per node.
• IPFS teams says, they will soon supports multiple ID’s per node.
• At that point it would make sense to implement it.

A good analogy here is, The current IPFS implementation is like a Bitcoin client which supports only a single wallet. The future implementation will give it capabilities like a bitcoin client which can have n number of wallets.

• Wallet here is like a store for a single identity file.

Let me know how should we take this forward. We can discuss this over the call too.