Mastodon: Feature: Decentralized storage and hosting for your social network services-by leveraging blockchain&IPFS

[zumbatan]

Introduce the feature you want to discuss:

Background to problem, alt. feature history
Problem: censorship of the internet, downfall of servers, storage capacity, scalability.

Kind of feedback you are looking for
you find my idea a) makes sense-> and b) is technically feasible? , and c) you support this idea or any related similiar (which) idea?

Possible solutions / or if there are no solutions

solution: secure encrypted decentralized communication and storage. Hosting of your full network on IPFS linked to the blockchain, how? via SHIFT:

please , we urge you considering somehow integrating blockchain technology into your social network service combined with future bullet proof storage solutions , the future will be all about decentralization and IPFS.

we urge you to look into SHIFT https://www.shiftnrg.org/#/ as possible proof of concept partner, they are opensource, have already APIs and DaPP ready IPFS decentralized hosting and storage solutions, take a look whether you can anyhow leverage their tech! talk to them on their ryver chat, in order to provide an even more secure and decentralized social networking system!! so that not any kind of router or server or (governmental/ISP) censorship issues can bring down mastodon, period! And that you are not limited by storage and scalability .

thx for your comments.

[nynhex]

I'm interested in this, but this would be a potentially major overhaul of the architecture. I'm sure maintainers and contributors will chime in.

[rigelk]

@zumbatan as pointed out by @nynhex the current architecture doesn't fit the distributed model of blockchains. Please read about decentralised vs distributes services.

[redtachyons]

See https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/477#issuecomment-272697221 and #360

[ghost]

This is spam, I've seen this piece of text on multiple places..

https://reddit.com/r/tutanota/comments/85nmfo/httpsapptutanotade_unavailable/dw7lqwp?context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/tutanota/comments/86t4l2/decentralized_storage_and_hosting_for_your_email/

And possibly many more places.

[zumbatan]

@nynhex @rigelk @Lionirdeadman @redtachyons i am not spamming! just not familiar with mastodon community structure, therefore i just posted multiple places so that i is seen by relevant people. i posted for example also here: https://discourse.joinmastodon.org/t/decentralized-storage-and-hosting-for-your-social-network-services-by-leveraging-blockchain-ipfs/861/4

i understand your doubts, but as this is highly new and innovative space which we have here which changes dynamically (blockchain/ipfs) please I suggest you and everyone else who sees any kind of potential in my idea/vision , to contact directly the SHift team, i am not Shift. I just had this spotaneous in my view highly valuable idea to make mastodon future proof, solve longterm storage and even more decentralized and secure by leveraging anyhow Shift`s tech.

Shifts founder is called RALF and another member is called Heisenberg. both very talkable on their ryverchat:

https://shiftnrg.ryver.com/application/login

just get in touch with them for any questions you might have, you are all great Devs and understand each other effectively:) maybe it is not so complicated how some of you think? as i understand it could even be a smoothless API and "plug n play" sort of thing via Shift... but again, i am not the expert, Shift is.

would be nice if you updated this post of mine, whether anyone followed up and did any kind of proof of concept with Shift or ruled out the meaningfulness of it…

thx & good luck @Devs"!

[nynhex]

Doesn't seem like this is of interest. There are too many issues to triage right now, to consider introducing blockchain and retooling architecture. Besides implementing this would have to be a feature flag or opt-out config since a lot of public instances are running older tagged releases and it may or may not introduce breaking changes.

My .02c, close this 👎

cc: @Gargron

[ProgVal]

censorship of the internet

IPFS does not solve this issue.

storage capacity

IPFS does not solve this one either.

Hosting of your full network on IPFS linked to the blockchain

we urge you considering somehow integrating blockchain technology

Stamping "blockchain" on it doesn't make it a good idea.

bullet proof storage solutions

There are no bullet-proof storage solution, because someone ultimately has to pay for the storage.

provide an even more secure and decentralized social networking system

A blockchain wouldn't make Mastodon more decentralized, on the contrary. We don't want all instances to store the whole state of the network.

i am not spamming!

Yeah, right...

I just had this spotaneous in my view highly valuable idea

How humble.

[wxcafe]

lol

[zumbatan]

@ProgVal @nynhex
haha what a quick kill!

censorship of the internet

IPFS does not solve this issue. --> I keep my definitive YES for this one (from my knowledge there is no better suited tech concept than ipfs for tackling huge-scale internet censorship in the future, for the whole world)

storage capacity

IPFS does not solve this one either. --> Here, too I keep my YES. Storage is huge issue, currently centralized cloud systems dominating the world. IPFS from my understanding will be the future. either you get on the train or not. stored files at the end would be much better secured via IPFS, again from my humble understanding.

still appreciate ur feedback, again you are the experts, you must know it i guess. I like mastodon concept and wish you best of luck hope you make it mainstream.

[rigelk]

again you are the experts, you must know it i guess

Then take @ProgVal's word for truth. You provide no argumentation to support your claims, I don't see why we should provide one against it.

[nightpool]

this thread is off topic and unproductive. if you have specific suggestions for how to improve mastodon, feel free to create issues for them. something as vague as "use blockchains" isn't useful or actionable.

there are already many other issues for discussing the pros and cons of using ipfs for distributing media on mastodon. if you want to talk about that specifically, use one of those tickets