ZeroNet, RetroShare and other distributed networks. Problems of long-term storage of information.

[Balancer]

This is not yet an entire article. Rather thoughts on how to ensure the eternal storage of information and resist censorship I have repeatedly voiced these thoughts in different places in Russian, but I have never translated into English Forgive me if something is not clear through the electronic translator. The text will be great, it's hard for me to read it

I have been on the Internet for over 20 years, since 1996. For the last 20 years, my first site, created in 1997, was fulfilled. And one of the main problems that I saw during this time is the unreliability and short-lived storage of information. After 5-10 years, most links are no longer available. People lose interest in supporting personal sites. Large business projects are being closed. Some materials or sites are directly deleted for violations of changing laws. Or at least at the whim of the moderators. As a result, you find a link to a rare, necessary material - and it is already inaccessible. 404 or even "Host not found".

There was an interesting site of my friend on the theme of esotericism. There were his poems, stories, other creativity. A friend died. The site was deleted for lack of payment for hosting. All that he wrote - was lost. I was not yet ready for such losses and did not keep it all.

There are many interesting videos on YouTube. I'm reviewing the tape of my "favorite" there and I see in a few years instead of half of them the gray rectangles "video is unavailable" or "the account was deleted."

I've become a little smarter and now at least I make automatic backup of favorites on Twitter. And what is the result? I save the text, but I did not start to save pictures. I review the archive and see that a lot of messages have disappeared. I'm going to watch - the accounts of those who wrote these messages were deleted.

And so everywhere! The Internet is a very, very unreliable place for long-term storage of information!

...

I figured it out. I will not write a full text, but I will break it into several small posts and I will write for several days, ok?

 

[Balancer]

The solution to this problem can be distributed systems. Obviously, centralized systems are too vulnerable and capricious. If you keep your own website, it will disappear when you stop doing it. If you use a third-party solution of a major player on the market (Facebook, Google, Twitter, WordPress ...), there are no guarantees that the service will work tomorrow or that materials will not be deleted at the mercy of the moderators. Did either of you count how many projects were already killed by the same Google?

In distributed networks there is no dependence on one owner. And once posted information in them can be stored for as long as any one of the network members is interested in it.

But this decision is largely theoretical. In practice (for the development of p2p-networks I have been monitoring for more than 15 years) problems begin:

- Most p2p networks (and protocols - I do not temporarily share these concepts temporarily) does not support dynamic content. You can not go to the p2p-forum and discuss there the new album of your favorite musical group, laid out in Bittorrent.

- Most p2p networks are very slow. Often in the tens, sometimes hundreds of times slower than the usual Internet. Hi, i2p!

- You often do not have information about how many live copies of information are available on the network. Do I need to do something to create additional copies of interesting materials and is it possible in the network at all. Actual for IPFS.

- In many networks, you often store content that you do not need. Yes, it can be broken up and encrypted (as in FreeNet) for a safety net and no one will ever find out what is stored on your computer, but do you need it? In some cases, for example, to store dirt on ZOG, this is really necessary. But this is another story.

Is there an ideal solution in practice?

 

[Balancer]

The above was a rhetorical question, of course

The short answer to this question is: no. Today there is no perfect solution to the problem. Although there are solutions that are as close to him as possible. And number one on this list for me is ZeroNet.

ZeroNet: Decentralized websites using Bitcoin crypto and the BitTorrent network

- In ZeroNet there are habitual social solutions: blogs, microblogs, forums, even Wiki. All the usual dynamic content and in a completely familiar form.
- ZeroNet works very quickly. Unbelievable, but there are even chats there This is provided both directly by the fast exchange on the network and by the fact that all the client's work does not happen with the network, but with a local copy of the data.
- ZN allows you to communicate anonymously, including bypassing all kinds of government interlocks. Because of this, the network is very popular in China.
- Content in ZN is available as long as there is at least one user with this content. Even if the original author has not been online for a long time.
- Usually, the minimum number of nodes distributing content is fairly accurate. And it is clear, whether it makes sense to support the distribution or you can leave it to other users.
- There are so many proxies / gates - nodes that allow you to peek into the ZN from the normal Internet without the need to install ZN in your home. For example, my blog, accessible through one of these proxy: Balancer's Blog (EN) - ZeroNet

There are, of course, disadvantages that do not allow ZeroNet to be considered an ideal solution:

- You must install the client program on the computer. Although it is not difficult and the main work then still comes from the usual browser, but it's still an action that repels many who are used to just launch the browser.
- There is no good solution for Android yet. Recently, a third-party program appeared, but not very convenient.
- The problem of working with large files has not been solved yet. There are solutions, but in general ZN is still bad, for example, for distributing movies
- The problem of spam is not solved as it should. While users in ZN little this is not a real problem, but sometime it will have to be solved.
- Well and, at last, in ZN for the present there are really few participants. The number of servers in this network hardly exceeds 30,000 pieces, and the number of participants may be less. For example, I support 5-6 servers

But today it is already a really very powerful tool for communication and publishing websites, in the availability of which many years later without any support you can be sure, like anywhere else.

I finish the first part and will continue later, maybe tomorrow.

 

[Ringel05]

The above was a rhetorical question, of course

The short answer to this question is: no. Today there is no perfect solution to the problem. Although there are solutions that are as close to him as possible. And number one on this list for me is ZeroNet.

ZeroNet: Decentralized websites using Bitcoin crypto and the BitTorrent network

- In ZeroNet there are habitual social solutions: blogs, microblogs, forums, even Wiki. All the usual dynamic content and in a completely familiar form.
- ZeroNet works very quickly. Unbelievable, but there are even chats there This is provided both directly by the fast exchange on the network and by the fact that all the client's work does not happen with the network, but with a local copy of the data.
- ZN allows you to communicate anonymously, including bypassing all kinds of government interlocks. Because of this, the network is very popular in China.
- Content in ZN is available as long as there is at least one user with this content. Even if the original author has not been online for a long time.
- Usually, the minimum number of nodes distributing content is fairly accurate. And it is clear, whether it makes sense to support the distribution or you can leave it to other users.
- There are so many proxies / gates - nodes that allow you to peek into the ZN from the normal Internet without the need to install ZN in your home. For example, my blog, accessible through one of these proxy: Balancer's Blog (EN) - ZeroNet

There are, of course, disadvantages that do not allow ZeroNet to be considered an ideal solution:

- You must install the client program on the computer. Although it is not difficult and the main work then still comes from the usual browser, but it's still an action that repels many who are used to just launch the browser.
- There is no good solution for Android yet. Recently, a third-party program appeared, but not very convenient.
- The problem of working with large files has not been solved yet. There are solutions, but in general ZN is still bad, for example, for distributing movies
- The problem of spam is not solved as it should. While users in ZN little this is not a real problem, but sometime it will have to be solved.
- Well and, at last, in ZN for the present there are really few participants. The number of servers in this network hardly exceeds 30,000 pieces, and the number of participants may be less. For example, I support 5-6 servers

But today it is already a really very powerful tool for communication and publishing websites, in the availability of which many years later without any support you can be sure, like anywhere else.

I finish the first part and will continue later, maybe tomorrow.

Looks to me like you are trying to "sell" ZeroNet and your blog.

 

[Balancer]

Looks to me like you are trying to "sell" ZeroNet and your blog.

Well, I'm not just going to write about ZeroNet, but about other solutions But, in general, yes, I'm trying to promote ZeroNet. This is, indeed, a very pleasant thing.

 

[Ringel05]

Looks to me like you are trying to "sell" ZeroNet and your blog.

Well, I'm not just going to write about ZeroNet, but about other solutions But, in general, yes, I'm trying to promote ZeroNet. This is, indeed, a very pleasant thing.

Just wondering. If you make money directly off of promoting ZeroNet (or just promoting another board/blog without the owner's permission) then that's a board no, no which will get you banned.

 

[Balancer]

If you make money directly off of promoting ZeroNet...

In ZeroNet, as in most decentralized systems it is impossible to earn. They are completely non-commercial.

There are commercialized systems, such as Steemit, where you can do "cryptocurrency mining" by writing posts, but they are just not interesting to me. Although they are decentralized in terms of architecture, they are centralized in the management of the system. Although, if someone seems to be interesting, I can write about them

 

[Balancer]

However, in order not to have an opinion that I wrote about one system and stopped to advertise only it, I will continue Although, due to haste, it's a little brief.

RetroShare

- Retroshare
- RetroShare - Wikipedia

It is such an all-in-one combine. The program is installed (Windows and Linux versions), the network enters (not the most trivial procedure) - and is ready. You can with other network members:

- Communicate on the forums
- Conduct correspondence both in the mail and in the chat rooms
- Share files with other participants
- Publish files in special channels

All this - with a high claimed degree of anonymity. RetroShare is a friend-to-friend network where the interaction is only between trusted users. Although, according to the "rule of five handshakes," the connection is almost everyone with everyone, RS allows you to build closed networks "only for your own". It's enough not to add anybody to your friends. This ensures high security and anonymity of the network, but this also greatly reduces the speed of the network and its popularity.

If ZeroNet main goal - easy and quick access to the usual forums / blogs, etc., then RS main goal - secure anonymous communication and file sharing. ZN is an open scripting (Python + JavaScript) platform that can be extended by various applications by third-party authors. RS is a monolithic compiled application. But, unlike ZN, RS solved the problem of distributing not just large files, but even huge file collections.

Here is a link to an example of the work of RS is no longer possible, because the system does not have Web-gates. To look at the RS, you will need to install it or look at the screenshots. I have a system in Russian, so it will not be obvious, but it's easy to find someone else's screenshots in Google:

 

[Balancer]

About ZeroNet can also be read in Wikipedia: ZeroNet - Wikipedia

 

[Dalia]

This is not yet an entire article. Rather thoughts on how to ensure the eternal storage of information and resist censorship I have repeatedly voiced these thoughts in different places in Russian, but I have never translated into English Forgive me if something is not clear through the electronic translator. The text will be great, it's hard for me to read it

I have been on the Internet for over 20 years, since 1996. For the last 20 years, my first site, created in 1997, was fulfilled. And one of the main problems that I saw during this time is the unreliability and short-lived storage of information. After 5-10 years, most links are no longer available. People lose interest in supporting personal sites. Large business projects are being closed. Some materials or sites are directly deleted for violations of changing laws. Or at least at the whim of the moderators. As a result, you find a link to a rare, necessary material - and it is already inaccessible. 404 or even "Host not found".

There was an interesting site of my friend on the theme of esotericism. There were his poems, stories, other creativity. A friend died. The site was deleted for lack of payment for hosting. All that he wrote - was lost. I was not yet ready for such losses and did not keep it all.

There are many interesting videos on YouTube. I'm reviewing the tape of my "favorite" there and I see in a few years instead of half of them the gray rectangles "video is unavailable" or "the account was deleted."

I've become a little smarter and now at least I make automatic backup of favorites on Twitter. And what is the result? I save the text, but I did not start to save pictures. I review the archive and see that a lot of messages have disappeared. I'm going to watch - the accounts of those who wrote these messages were deleted.

And so everywhere! The Internet is a very, very unreliable place for long-term storage of information!

...

I figured it out. I will not write a full text, but I will break it into several small posts and I will write for several days, ok?

Hello, i use the translate too in French/ English.It must be said that everything depends on the servers used on the internet same thing for the images, the links after a long time they can disappear

 

[Balancer]

It must be said that everything depends on the servers used on the internet same thing for the images, the links after a long time they can disappear

Yes it is. We can not know in advance which of the servers will continue to work in a year or 10 years. And we can not say whether our content will remain there, even if the server itself will work. Therefore, the only way to ensure the guaranteed safety of information, as long as it is necessary for someone - is to use technology without central servers. Decentralized systems.

 

[Dalia]

It must be said that everything depends on the servers used on the internet same thing for the images, the links after a long time they can disappear

Yes it is. We can not know in advance which of the servers will continue to work in a year or 10 years. And we can not say whether our content will remain there, even if the server itself will work. Therefore, the only way to ensure the guaranteed safety of information, as long as it is necessary for someone - is to use technology without central servers. Decentralized systems.

Sadly, Nothing last forever, i already made a thread that is very interesting about The duration of a life ( animals, Objects )



When humans go extinct: How life will evolve after we’re gone ?

 

[Balancer]

Somehow I completely forgot about this topic I ought to tell you more about SSB Patchwork, but laziness. But there is an interesting observation of the geography of ZeroNet

Previously, I did not follow the number of active and possible connections in ZeroNet. And it was more often measured by hundreds. And here I see on the laptop - 17723 available peers. It became interesting to turn the globe

Most of all the peers in Europe and, especially, in East Asia. China, Japan - rule in the ZN.

Slightly less in the US and Canada.

In South America, there are a lot of peers, but along the coasts. Apparently, in the central part no one lives

Even fewer peers in Africa, but even there are:

In the case of Russia, there is a great unevenness in the settlement: