IPFS is the Distributed Web - <AUTHOR> http://ipfs.io <comment> d--b I have a truly naive question about the distributed web: what makes the supporters of it think it will be any different from the original web. I mean, isn't it likely that at some point, there will be the need for a centralized search engine for it? Isn't it unavoidable that big companies like facebook runs their own non-distributed subnetwork, so that it can deliver standard functionality to all its users? The original web IS distributed already, isn't it? It's just that organically, the way people use it has become a lot more centralized, no? Or am I missing the main argument for a distributed architecture?

<comment><USER2> The difference is IPFS (or similar) would distribute _content_. Currently communication is distributed, but content is not. IPFS is like https, but where every page is a bittorrent. There are challenges for security in distributing services and monetization. However, the key is that content would be distributed. YouTube probably would not switch to ipfs, but DNS (what was targeted recently) would make sense. A DNS host list should be more distributed. Even with DNS there is a dynamic content challenge. When a DNS entry changes, it would still need to propagate.

This brings it back to a distributed communication problem. If you could distribute content more consistently and 100,000 computers could step in as dns providers _with authentic data_ rather than concentrating dns at dyn or Google it would help. That will still require protocol updates so that the fail over uses local content. Really ipfs and distributed content could be a component to help with distribution. It definitely isn't a complete solution alone (yet -- there is a push to make it the solution).

<comment><USER3> The internet may run on content (storage) and communication, but both those things run on _computation_. Until computation can be safely distributed real changes can't happen

<comment><USER4> What do you mean? It seems to me that the single largest destructive force on the internet is forcible content takedowns. IPFS is immune to those.

<comment><USER5> In which way is IPFS immune to content takedowns?

IPFS provides no anonymity, so it won't take long before DMCA notices to start arriving.

<comment><USER6> > In which way is IPFS immune to content takedowns?

In the way that, if one node is forced to take down some information, that information may still be accessible from other nodes _under the same address as before_. It's not quite immunity: They can still harrass individuals. Call it "resilience", maybe.

> IPFS provides no anonymity, so it won't take long before DMCA notices to > start arriving.

It should compose well with Tor, I'd hope.

<comment><USER5> Which makes it about as resilient as regular content hosting, which is not very.

Does IPFS work with Tor?

<comment><USER7> >Which makes it about as resilient as regular content hosting, which is not very.

It is decidedly more resilient than regular hosting in that situation.

<comment><USER5> How so?

IPFS so only as resilient as you are good at dodging DMCA notices.

<comment><USER7> Because mirroring content on IPFS is trivial and transparent to the consumer. All it takes is a single user (or an arbitrary number) outside of US jurisdiction and the content is more or less DMCA-immune.

The equivalent is not practical in traditional HTTP, where content at risk of being taken down is scraped from the server and that snapshot-in-time is hosted as a mirror, generally at a different domain.

<comment><USER5> > Because mirroring content on IPFS is trivial and transparent to the > consumer.

Which is also why a regular consumer should never use IPFS and why prosumer should immediately disable caching and seeding upon install.

> All it takes is a single user (or an arbitrary number) outside of US > jurisdiction and the content is more or less DMCA-immune.

Perhaps so, but if your plan for resiliency is based on the kindness of strangers in countries where the DMCA nor censorship does not apply, it's not much of a plan.

Plus you'll still have to seed the original which opens you up to liability, as IPFS does not provide any kind of anonymity.

So, while better than traditional HTTP, IPFS isn't really immune to takedowns nor very resilient.

<comment><USER4> > Perhaps so, but if your plan for resiliency is based on the kindness of > strangers in countries where the DMCA nor censorship does not apply, it's > not much of a plan.

Have you ever used Bittorent? It works great.

<comment><USER5> It works great only for a limited number of use cases.

It's terrible for unpopular content, it is not immune to takedown notices nor is it very resilient in the face of a determined adversary.

<comment><USER8> Backing 'long tail' content with webseeds works well for Bittorrent.

...but that's the same as saying let's back the decentralized web with centralized resources erp.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. Which begs the question of why bother with the decentralization part at all of long tail / unpopular content?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I worry that this is another example of throwing technology at a social and political problem.

That the current web is centralized has little to do with its technical design, and everything to do with economic and structural incentives that have made it that way.

It's tempting to say "start afresh", but we'll just be trading our current problems for a new set of problems IPFS introduces. It's a law of nature that problems are always conserved.

I would rather we do the hard work of fixing the web we've got, in particular the hard issue of how to re-decentralize it.

<comment><USER10> > I worry that this is another example of throwing technology at a social and > political problem.

I'm so lost at this assertion. How is this a social / political problem?

IPFS is not permanent hosting. It is not an attempt to take power away from others and distribute it to the masses. It is purely a technical problem, which i think is objectively true.

I have a feeling that you believe IPFS is partially designed to subvert governments/etc. And to an extent, that may be _possible_ , but it is being built with DMCA's in mind. IPFS wants to allow governments / copyright holders to take content down from the network. It is not trying to become a pirate haven. Why? Well, mainly because piracy inhibits adoption. There may not be a way to DMCA _currently_ (i haven't checked in months), but there are Github issue(s) on it. The creators don't want to see IPFS blocked in countries because it can permanently host illegal content. Which makes a ton of sense.

The problem IPFS is trying to solve, as i see it, is purely technical. As advertised in pretty much every pitch i've seen for this technology, we are simply scaling too fast in storage and not fast enough in bandwidth. It appears impossible to handle the infrastructure load of files we are creating. IPFS solves this by automatically pulling content as locally as possible, reducing network overhead. Furthermore, it means that a DDOS/viral/etc of a central resource will not kill it. It's safely and mostly permanently (barring DMCA/etc requests) available.

So with that said, what political and social problem do you see IPFS trying to solve? I don't see any.

<comment><USER11> From the article:

"The Internet has been one of the great equalizers in human history and a real accelerator of innovation. But the increasing consolidation of control is a threat to that.

"IPFS remains true to the original vision of the open and flat web, but delivers the technology which makes that vision a reality."

This presents IPFS as the technological cure for the "consolidation of control" that threatens the Internet.

These are not purely technical problems.

<comment><USER10> That is unfortunate, because i have yet to see how IPFS is even remotely that. Especially since it wants to comply with DMCAs and etc.

The technology and the marketing seem at odds, to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So I've been thinking about creating a basic site running on IPFS and here's my dillema. The hash of each page is a sha256 of the contents right? So lets say you have 3 pages A, B and C, A links to B, B links to C, C links to A. How do you create all 3 pages with correct links to each other?

When you create page A you have to have the SHA of page B, but then to create page B you have to have the SHA of page C and finally to create it you need the SHA of page A. You get into this cyclical loop where you can't generate any page and link to others. What is the solution to this problem?

<comment><USER13> Well, IPFS allows you to upload trees of files to a single IPFS node. So you just create three webpages, put them into a single folder and use `ipfs add` on this folder. Your webpages will be available with relative links, being exposed at addresses like `/ipfs/<Sha>/page_a.html` and `/ipfs/<Sha>/page_b.html`.

Under the hood those pages will be standalone ipfs Duke nodes with separate hash addresses, and your root folder will be actually a set of pointers to those hash addresses — but you don't need to keep that in mind when uploading a site.

<comment><USER13> One can also study ipfs project websites (ipfs.io, dist.ipfs.io and so on). Those are just static bunches of files (html and resources) hosted in ipfs and served with a standard ipfs gateway (located on gateway.ipfs.io address). Gateway just looks up _dnslink TXT records for corresponding domains, and serves files from the ipfs hash address specified there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14>
        > Each network node stores only content it is interested in [...]

Isn't that the issue here? Storing data that will maybe be there later isn't really storing data. People want to publish something that must always be available, so why inject data into the IPFS network and hope it will be there in a year, rather than set up a $10/yr VPS?

        > With video delivery, a P2P approach could save 60% in bandwidth costs.

In my opinion, this may be true, but total costs will be greater. P2P solutions are awesome because they are resilient, not because they are cheaper. Distributing pirated movies by dumping them on public FTP servers is much cheaper than BitTorrent. BitTorrent appeared because the centralized method was not resilient enough against adversaries, not because it was cheaper (quite the contrary).

<comment><USER15> If I get it right, the idea is that if you want to make sure it's there one year later, you set up your own server and host the files on your own. IPFS just allows others to distribute a mirror of the files.

<comment><USER14> Why would nodes in the IPFS network voluntarily act as a load balancer for my VPS? Usually I have to pay for load balancing, so I'm a bit suspicious when someone claims I can get it for free from IPFS.

<comment><USER15> There is a lot of (mostly free) content that people are willing to distribute freely.

Take Wikipedia for example, even though it's changing very fast, I imagine a huge portion of it is static. If the latest version of each page was served via IPFS, somebody could setup a local mirror and people nearby would automatically use that.

<comment><USER14> I don't disagree with the fact that IPFS has value. I just don't like the way it's presented as a generic transport protocol that's "superior" to HTTP.

<comment><USER16> Just take a look at old torrents of obscure stuff and you'll see just how resilient bit torrent is. (it isn't)

<comment><USER17> It's more resilliant than HTTP: When you grab a torrent, you can download from any seeder. With HTTP, the host is specified, so if that host goes down, good luck.

In either case, if all the hosts go down and you didn't mirror it, you're screwed. However, IPFS makes it easier to mirror things.

<comment><USER18> While this sounds like it "should" be true. I think managing that will turn into something of a nightmare. IPFS is making awesome inroads into achieving that, but its not clear of the benefit over something like say freenet (other than freenet is very slow because it prefers privacy and resilience over speed).

I can see it being "really" useful as a backbone for something like Open Cobalt - [http://www.opencobalt.net/](http://www.opencobalt.net/) And I'm really looking forward to seeing that mature.

But the last time Open Cobalt seems to have been updated is 2010 - that's quite some time ago.

I wonder if it's being held up by patent trolls, but really all of them feels like more like a solution looking for a problem. That can take a very very long time to mature. Which is a shame.

<comment><USER17> Alpha 22 was actually released just last year, and it's still actively being worked on AFAIK. It's just that the website hasn't been updated, save for the downloads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If I try to host a javascript application that uses LocalStorage for saving data, it would be visible to any other ipfs JavaScript application because they all exist under the same domain, right? Have you thought about having the URLs be something like ipfs://<hash>/index.html instead of [http://local](http://local) host/<hash>/index.html so browsers keep the LocalStorage for each ipfs hash separated?

<comment><USER20> We're planning to use Same-origin policy to prevent this. It was first brought up here: [https://github.com/ipfs/go- ipfs/issues/651](https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/issues/651)

You can read more about same-origin policy here: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Security/Same-o...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Security/Same-origin_policy)

<comment><USER21> Putting a hash in the hostname/domain would also be using same-origin policy. The issue you linked refers to using suborigins, which seems to still be a draft proposal with no implementer buy-in outside of Chromium [1].

[1] [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1231225](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1231225)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you want to tamper with content on the web, the idea that content is fingerprinted in IPFS is a huge deal.

IPNS (the name service) then becomes the vulnerability, but that is also distributed.

<comment><USER23> Well, as I understood IPNS is a bit limited; it only has one resource and there is only one authority that can change content, the node in this case.

It does protect against DDOS, since old content remains visible and online but if the private key is leaked or the node is malicious, it has exactly 0 protection.

Even worse, if the private key is stolen, you can't do much about it unless you have DNS setup... which brings you back to centralized.

<comment><USER24> IPNS is bug Proof of Concept that mutable content is possible in IPFS, there is long running goal of InterPlanetary Record System that would include much more complex validity schemes including revokeation.

<comment><USER24> s/bug/big/ in my previous comment

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How do hosting providers fit in here, if at all? E.g., if I want to host a website on IPFS, do I publish it from my own machine and then wait a healthy amount of time for the content to be absorbed by the ether, or is there some way I can encourage other nodes to pick it up without requiring end-users to actively seek out my fresh material?

<comment><USER26> It seems that the role of a hosting provider could be: I pay you <amount> per month to fetch <hash> or <name> on <N> peers with bandwidth <bandwidth>.

Of course, the economics are quite different. In the normal web, you need to add more resources when a page becomes more popular. In a distributed web, more resources are a side-effect of a page becoming more popular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Suppose I'm poking around IPFS and unintentionally download some unauthorized copyrighted content. Is my computer going to automatically start sharing this content, exposing me and my ISP to legal action?

Or if there is a way to prevent sharing particular content that I've accessed, what's to stop me from leeching everything and never sharing anything?

(Edit: Ah, now I see "BitSwap" as possibly addressing my second question, but I'm still concerned about the first.)

<comment><USER17> For #1, yes. For #2, also yes, and there's nothing to stop you from leeching save the goodness of your heart and your own personal laziness.

<comment><USER27> Since it's impossible to know who owns, claims to own, or has licensed any particular content, #1 is a fatal flaw unless users can officially receive immunity (which seems doubtful). Otherwise we'll have a situation like speeding on the highway, where "everyone does it" at the risk of a random ticket, but in this case the fines are thousands to millions of dollars.

<comment><USER17> I don't see how it's bad: the hosting user receives no credit, and local mirroring keeps retrieval speeds high. Your users effectively become a giant CDN for you. Who would sue?

<comment><USER27> I wouldn't sue anyone. But I can watch music videos on YouTube without contacting all of the the relevant rights holders to ensure both the uploader and YouTube have permission to show me the video. On a distributed file share lacking anonymity and/or immunity, I have to ensure that _I_ have those rights before viewing (thus distributing) any content.

Immunity is not likely to happen, as it would amount to granting redistribution rights to anyone who downloads a piece of content. So the political solution is out. Anonymity is a requirement.

That's not to say IPFS is useless. It's just not going to "replace HTTP" or any significant part of the web as long as it's possible to see who's sharing what. Or if it does, the sharks will feed.

<comment><USER17> No, that doesn't add up: You only host data that's already available on a public network, pretty much by definition. If the rights distributor didn'f want it to be globally accessible, they wouldn't have put it up on IPFS.

<comment><USER27> I'm happy to play the naivete card when it comes to downloading. (If the producers didn't want me watching this CAM footage of a new release on YouTube, they wouldn't have uploaded it, wink wink.) I'm a bit more cautious when it comes to uploading.

<comment><USER17> But you're not uploading something that hasn't been, you're mirroring something that's already up.

<comment><USER5> You won't have any luck with that argument in court.

If you doubt me, see all verdicts for infringement when bitorrenting.

<comment><USER17> But this is very different: This is more like the original copyright holder putting something on BitTorrent, inviting people to download it freely, and them suing anybody who seeds it: By putting the data on a P2P protocol, you've kind of implicitly stated that you're okay with people seeding, or whatever the local terminology for the same is.

<comment><USER5> Um, no.

You have no guarantees that the content put up via IPFS is by the original copyright owner.

Thus immediately after you receive the infringing content over IPFS and start seeding it, you are infringing on the copyright owners rights. You have no recourse and no legal defenses to protect you.

<comment><USER17> Well, then, as soon as you receive notification, you can immediately stop hosting the data: it's like a DMCA takedown, but you have to send it to way more people.

<comment><USER5> Too late. Once you've retrieved content via IPFS, you are already infringing. You can still be sued, waiting for a DMCA notice won't save you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As a devops guy, I sort of think ipfs seems more useful as a private, backend sort of solution where you trust all the nodes. I'm sort of vaguely imagining it running as a shared file system in AWS, running on docker containers.

<comment><USER29> > where you trust all the nodes

Why do you think that's needed? Of course if majority of nodes cheated and said "sure, I've got that file" and send you random garbage instead so you have to retry, that would be bad. But if majority are running proper implementation, you don't really need to trust anyone.

<comment><USER24> You need just one node to send you the right data. No need for the majority.

<comment><USER29> You need a reasonable number of nodes. Likely a large majority. Otherwise you'll just keep redownloading garbage data and discarding it. And likely doing it slower than bad nodes can leave/rejoin the network with new ips.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Beware anyone on a metered connection - in 20 or so minutes, the ipfs daemon has used 3 gigabytes of bandwidth.

<comment><USER31> Did this useable continue indefinitely? I would hope that there was a socket throttling option.

<comment><USER30> Frustratingly I couldn't reproduce this and the bandwidth-using part of the IPFS daemon appears to be completely opaque - i.e. I had no clue what was using all the bandwidth (other than the fact there were 200+ connections).

No visibility into an app means it's unlikely to stay on my system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Ive been using IPFS to port and make serverless webapps.

[http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbLPfyehFnViKZpU237P6a6DpjCfWFSoDBMQFGU...](http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbLPfyehFnViKZpU237P6a6DpjCfWFSoDBMQFGUAgYW2t/)

<comment><USER33> what is it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does IPFS come with some kind of content filter or firewall to protect its users?

When child porn inevitably shows up, how do you protect yourself from accidentally downloading _and_ then seeding it?

<comment><USER34> By simply not downloading and seeding it. ;)

In IPFS you do not automatically relay things, you have to explicitly decide to.

<comment><USER5> > By simply not downloading and seeding it. ;)

You seem to have glanced over the qualifier I used: accidentally.

Given a hash for an IPFS resource, how do you know it does not contain child porn before you retrieve it?

Once you have downloaded it you have committed a crime. There are no take backs with strict liability crimes and IPFS provides no anonymity, so there is a record of you downloading _and_ seeding child porn.

> In IPFS you do not automatically relay things, you have to explicitly decide > to.

Really?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that immediately once you retrieve a hash via IPFS, you cache it and start seeding it.

<comment><USER35> > Given a hash for an IPFS resource, how do you know it does not contain child > porn before you retrieve it?

Given a URL for an HTTP resource, how do you know it does not contain child porn before you retrieve it?

> seeding

[https://freenetproject.org/help.html#childporn](https://freenetproject.org/help.html#childporn)

<comment><USER36> > Given a URL for an HTTP resource, how do you know it does not contain child > porn before you retrieve it?

As clueless404 stated, on the http web you don't automatically seed the content that you accidentally retrieved. On IPFS you're distributing it.

As an example, another posted here provided an IPFS link to resources, some of which are a copyright violation in some regions. In IPFS you can discover the nodes that are seeding it:

        $ ipfs dht findprovs ...contenthash...
        QmfWQHVazH6so9p27z27rr8TJSdBFGpH7hunDcaZ1EAQ2c
        ...

These are the node id's sharing the content. You can find all the IP addresses published by the nodes, including private ones:

        $ ipfs id ...nodehash...
        {
          ...,
          "Addresses" : [
            "/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/4001/ipfs/...hash...",
    	"/ip4/192.168.1.5/tcp/4001/ipfs/...hash...",
    	"/ip4/172.17.0.1/tcp/4001/ipfs/...hash...",
    	"/ip4/184.108.40.206/tcp/4001/ipfs/...hash..."
          ],
          ...
        }

If your node accidentally retrieved a hash containing content that was illegal or otherwise bad your physical IP is easily discoverable.

A database of bad hashes is easily calculated given existing content using:

        $ ips add -n foo.mp4
        added ...hash... foo.mp4

This generates a hash for a file without uploading it to IPFS. You can then use findprov to see if anyone is sharing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Interesting, I have two questions:

Can you create your private ipfs network? (accessible by anyone, upload only me)

If you upload sensitive material to the global ipfs network, what do you think will happen?

<comment><USER20> Private networks is something that we're working on (track it here: [https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/146](https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/146)) but it would be private-private, only access+upload between your nodes. "Accessible by anyone - upload only by you" is not gonna be supported since it doesn't really make sense. If someone has a hash of a file, they can rehost it because they can access it. In IPFS you're not locating files based on WHERE they are but their name rather.

<comment><USER38> > Private networks is something that we're working on

Pretty sure you can already do it by setting up your a node on _e.g._ a Digitalocean droplet, removing _all_ bootstrap nodes from its config file, and having everyone on the network replace the bootstrap node addresses in their config file with your server's address. Granted that's not a very user- friendly way to do it, but when I tried it it seemed to work.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, there is two things that is missing for it to be good. First is encryption of content in case something happens to leave the network and secondly rejecting the connections from anyone who is not supposed to connect to you.

With your current setup, if/when a node gets connected to someone else (maybe someone connects directly to you), your entire network will connect from that, since the connections will be shared with the peers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What problem does IPFS actually solve?

<comment><USER39> Content distribution. Many people however don't even realise this is a problem, because they have been spoiled by free-as-beer services provided by Google, CloudFlare, Github and various other companies.

<comment><USER5> Just exactly how does IPFS solve content distribution?

You still have to serve the content from a server, since you cannot depend on the kindness of strangers to persist your content.

<comment><USER40> The idea is that some fraction of users will be configured to reshare content, which helps distribution for popular content scale. This seems to work in practice for bittorrent.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but only for suitably popular content, as all the dead torrents will testify. This doesn't make IPFS very appealing to Joe Blow, content maker unextraordinaire.

<comment><USER34> Joe Blow would _just_ need to find some fans who think that keeping his content available for others is worth their while.

I believe this could work amazingly well for netlabels and indie bands.

<comment><USER5> Regardless of whether I think this is a bit of a far fetched use case or not, this really does nothing for Joe Blow and his content distribution needs.

But let's roll with it anyway. How does IPFS solve this problem, and more specifically how does IPFS solve this problem any better than just publishing a torrent of Joe Blows collected ramblings?

<comment><USER34> Sorry, I don't really care about your theoretical questions. IPFS is nice and fun technology. If you don't want to participate, you don't have to.

<comment><USER5> > theoretical

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Asking what problem a technology solves is a very _practical_ question. Countering with "IPFS is a nice and fun technology", is the very opposite, i.e. alluding to that there might be some _theoretical_ benefits to it, but that your mainly into it for gits and shiggles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> There's an interesting emphasis on developing nations not engaging with the Internet, but I think that might be partially cultural too. What tools have we given the developing world to really engage with the internet? The easy-to-use publishing platform often require an email and usually a real name. Both of these things may be unavailable to countries where being connected to thoughts posted online could be dangerous.

Most content is not written in simple english, and there's just not much incentive for somebody who may not know how to think critically/complexly (due to lack of western education) to engage with the internet.

I think distributed web is an interesting idea, and that IPFS really lists out some issues with the internet that we'd all win in solving, but I think maybe some of these, like developing nation web access, are solvable with current tech, and more culturally based solutions

<comment><USER42> I think the better solutions come from within the society, rather than being imposed from without (Cuba's flash-drive sneakernet). An outsider might provide the gross implementation, but it should be up to the locals to work out the messy details, even if it means they don't connect to the net, as a whole, on a regular basis. It's their lives on the line, they're going to have the best ideas on how to preserve them. An outsider is going to be, at best, somewhat ill-informed and at worst, inimical to the solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> So I've got a (let's say) WordPress blog. Where's the "here's how to get your existing content on IPFS in less than an hour" guide?

<comment><USER44> I think it'd have to be saved statically. Which actually makes this question interesting: How do you store comments on an IPFS site? Constantly updating a single file on IPFS?

<comment><USER45> Interesting question. I know nothing about IPFS other than what I've read in the past five minutes on Wikipedia, but:

1\. HTML wants badly for a nested relational document format. Essentially tin or mutt's "in reply to" and "references" headers.

2\. A comments stream is a) a parent document to which b) multiple child documents, themselves possibly having c) parent-child relationships, d) are associated. Rather than thinking of "threaded discussion == single document" think "threaded discussion == a set of related documents".

That gives the option of having a discussion "occurring" across multiple sites, with some form of trust, whitelist, blacklist, or other mechanisms for reflecting what you do or don't include in the discussion. Individual comments, as their own docs, could also be freestanding instances.

Finding children from the parent becomes an interesting question.

There's also the matter of versioning a document. Tying a git-like capability to this could be interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Some content here to play with: [0]

Interestingly some links to copyrighted material end in ¨Unavailable for Legal Reasons¨ however, running the daemon and issuing an ¨ipfs get hash¨ the download does start.

[0] [https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmU5XsVwvJfTcCwqkK1SmTqDmXWSQWaTa7ZcVLY...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmU5XsVwvJfTcCwqkK1SmTqDmXWSQWaTa7ZcVLY2PDxNxG/ipfs_links.html)

<comment><USER30> The "unavailable for legal reasons" message appears to be issued by the ipfs.io gateway - IMO perfectly reasonable.

<comment><USER46> Sure but it´s not really unavailable I mean.

<comment><USER47> Yep, but ipfs.io refuses to distribute it. Doesn't mean other IPFS hosts necessarily do

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Hey I have a related question: so with IPFS we all host bits of the internet, and with IPv6 our machines are all directly world-accessible, right? So how do we prevent this from turning into a huge pwn-fest? If routers aren't doing NAT and a bit of firewalling along with that, would each machine be completely responsible for its own security?

<comment><USER49> Home routers are doing IPv6 firewalling by default, no need for NAT. NAT is strictly inferior to firewalling.

(Of course you shouldn't put things on your internet-connected network that need the firewall, just look at it as a porous defense-in-depth element, just like with IPv4)

<comment><USER50> Does that mean they are assigning random IPv6 addresses to computers on the network for each peer or connection and maintaining a mapping in memory?

<comment><USER29> Normal static address is assigned. Whether it comes from the external range or from the link-local range doesn't really matter. You could potentially randomise the source at the exit to prevent identification of your hosts, but you don't have to.

For most practical cases just imagine you're getting a big ipv4 range. Whatever you can do with it - you can do the same with ipv6. NAT, no NAT, filtering, static or dynamic assignment.

<comment><USER50> That's what I'm asking. IPv6 feels like a regressiin over NATv4 because it can leak which internal device made a request. Is there a standard way to randomize addresses that works with ofd-the-shelf router firmware. Also, are link-local IPv6 leaking MAC addresses?

<comment><USER49> Yes, there is a standard since about 10 years ago. It's not dependent on your router firmware, in accordance with IP's end-to-end design philosophy (keep the network dumb, and hosts smart). Here's some links to get you started:

[https://slaptijack.com/networking/osx-disable- ipv6-address-p...](https://slaptijack.com/networking/osx-disable-ipv6-address- privacy.html)

[http://andatche.com/blog/2012/02/disabling- rfc4941-ipv6-priv...](http://andatche.com/blog/2012/02/disabling- rfc4941-ipv6-privacy-extensions-in-windows/)

As for link-local IPv6 addresses, those aren't even accepted by the socket API[1] in place of normal routable addresses. They're only used for low level things like neighbour discovery (IPv6 equivalent of ARP) and apps that go out of their way to use them. They aren't routable outside your L2 segment.

[1] as in:

       $ telnet fe80::something:something:42
       Trying fe80::something:something:42...
       telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Invalid argument

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This sounds like distributed Geocities, where you can have any content you like so long as it's static, or at least, changes in iterations of static files like a HTML-generator blog.

If you do anything that needs a central server, suddenly its advantages vanish. I could imagine Wikipedia using this; I couldn't imagine gmail doing so.

<comment><USER11> Most of the pages on the Web are still static HTML or something close to it, though.

<comment><USER51> Maybe but very few of them can do their job with _only_ static HTML.

<comment><USER11> I would say most of the articles linked to on HN could be static HTML pages. How practical HN itself would be on IPFS seems less clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> What I'd personally like to see is built in monetisation such that hosting and serving other peoples pages becomes a socialised cost and benefit although one would guess that such as feature would have to be deeply designed into the system itself, and cannot be added as an after-thought?

</comment><comment><USER53> I really hope something like this takes off.

Connecting and indexing documents has been the challenge of a few internet generations. Creating a document at a point of filing is a subtle but potentially large shift.

Hopefully this lands on homebrew soon to aid it's growth.

</comment><comment><USER31> I heard about IPFS at the Decentralized Web Conference in SF last spring. It sounded promising, long term. Anyone here using it right now? What are the costs for running it on a VPS, for example, bandwidth, storage, and CPU load?

</comment><comment><USER54> ipfs is fantastic, but it is half the solution. We also need a distributed p2p application framework, with which nodes can securely communicate and allow building distributed apps, like search.

We can think differently with ipfs. Traditional web allows everyone to publish content _somewhere_ , hoping that search engines will index it.

With ipfs, the same file (with the same content) is only indexed/stored once and then you reference the hash to get to the content.

This fact changes the problem of search.

Take all the world's movies. With ipfs + p2p network, you only need _one_ back end in the form of a distributed search index, which can index all the movies in the world.

Same with the world's music. You only need _one_ back end which can index all the music.

The index can be as simple as {"movie title": [sha256]}, where the array contains the hashes of different 'encodings' of the same content (eg. 'dvd rip', 'blue ray' or 'mp3').

Content can be indexed by all kinds of properties of course and it can grow organically over time to include more and more details.

With ipfs plus the p2p network we'll build 'apps', not 'pages'. People can have a list of 'apps' running on their machines - which are node instances in various distributed applications, sharing the same p2p network and using ipfs as storage.

Apps can have 'backend' and 'front end' parts - the back end is the part which participates in the p2p network, while the 'front end' provides a human interface to the back end, were users can search/browse/view the content.

Apps are distributed as git repositories stored in ipfs, while the 'core' running on the user's machine compiles the sources (inside a build vm) and loads the resulting binaries into containers running in virtual machines.

This would make it easy for devs to write and publish new distributed apps, making the network totally decentralised and virtually unstoppable.

Ps. If you feel that this insanity could work, then I'd love to discuss it in more depth - firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER23> IPFS is a pretty nice project, but it's pretty slow at times.

<comment><USER20> I work with IPFS so it would be very handy to know what you feel is slow exactly. We're working our hardest to make it as fast as possible but sometimes we fall through, so more information so we can fix it would be wonderful!

<comment><USER23> Most "slowness" is related to content that is either relatively fresh on the network or or rare content.

If my node is the only one seeding the file, accessing it via gateway.ipfs.io is slow but it's pretty obvious why; I'm the only provider.

So while for very public content IPFS is rather fast, if you share a couple files with a few friends, it's a bit slower.

Of course, this all depends on upload/download speeds, mine aren't stellar in both directions either.

Plus I'm rather certain that my ISP is throttling any kind of P2P traffic.

<comment><USER20> Ah, I understand. Yeah, it's not much we can do about that but in the future it can be expected that you'll be able to use some sort of service to help you with the initial seeding of the content.

So instead of you sharing a file from your home connection and five friends have to share that, you'll share your file with some hosting provider and once they have the file, you'll just send the same hash to your friends and you'll have at least 2 nodes providing the file.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Who exactly runs these nodes that store data?

<comment><USER56> Everybody that pins it or retrieved the file from someone else (second one to maximum cache size that is configurable). Files and folders are referred to by hash.

Usually you still need to run a server to seed the files, but if a file becomes popular it will be served from anybody who also retrieved it and likely persist in the network even if your server goes down.

Think of it as BitTorrent for the web. It has Gateways that allow current browsers to access the network and pointers to update content with a new version (that's /ipns/ not /ipfs/ \- the old version persists as long as someone hosts it).

What's also interesting is that due to the nature of the hashing algorithm (it's a merkle tree), you can "ipfs add" a directory, preserving the file structure inside, so websites on IPFS can use relative paths.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> We keep things that are important, and throw away the garbage. But if we keep everything, there will be mostly garbage.

<comment><USER11> It's impossible to keep everything. A system like this one keeps the things people access, rather than the current system where content remains available only at the will (and expense) of the publisher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> IPFS is vaporware. They are going to launch a token and try to take your money

</comment><comment><USER59> how does this differ from maidsafe?

</comment><comment><USER60> IPFS appears here every 6 months, every 6 months the same questions get asked, the same problems get raised, the same collective sigh of bewilderment/disappointment appears to emanate from the comments, and it goes away again for another 6 months. Everybody wants something this clever and community-spirited to work, but the basic problem is, I don't want my data to be vulnerable to slow, unreliable endpoints, or people switching off their IPFS servers. I can't really trust an unremunerated volunteer system with my data, and I don't believe that my keeping your data is remuneration enough for you to keep mine forever.

Peer-to-peer is excellent for ephemeral streaming stuff like chat, file transfer, even gaming. But it is not good for permanence unless some monetary remuneration gets involved, either via a centralizing entity asking for payments (dropbox et al), or a distributed monetization system like bitcoin. Somewhere, somehow, someone needs to get paid to keep the system running.

<comment><USER61> I would say the impermanence is one of the most appealing aspects of the system. Content that no one uses and that no one is willing to sustain gets culled from the network, what more could you ask for?

<comment><USER60> I assume you would also like ext4 to automatically delete your seldom used files, without asking?

<comment><USER61> That's absurd, ext4 solves a different problem. This is about distribution.

<comment><USER60> it is the Internet Protocol _File System_. The clue is in the name. The analogy is entirely relevant. This thing is not just a replacement for http.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> 504 Gateway timeout

A bit ironic :) (being distributed it shouln't be a single point of failure ;) )

<comment><USER29> It is distributed. The website should have a copy at /ipfs/QmRaS4AZriMzw9nekub7hojTnvQYsVTDqkYG7BggQsexNt (check TXT record). You just need to access it over the right protocol.

<comment><USER62> But I thought ipfs-js would make it run today within the browser...?

<comment><USER29> To use js-ipfs, you still need to host the script somewhere. Doesn't help when the whole host doesn't respond.

<comment><USER62> Right, ok, but then ipfs.io is already using ipfs-js itself? Because some time ago I checked and the reference impl was python, and the ipfs-js port was not complete yet.

<comment><USER63> (IPFS dev here)

js-ipfs, the Javascript implementation of IPFS, has made a lot of progress in the past 6 months. It's still early but totally usable.

We've been working on go-ipfs and js-ipfs interop so that browser nodes can talk to "native" nodes. It's not fully ready yet but soon. This will open a lot of doors for a more advanced network and applications using IPFS.

See [https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs](https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs).

As for your question re. ipfs.io using js-ipfs, the answers is no, it doesn't use js-ipfs implementation yet.

<comment> david-given Is there a working ipfs demo page anywhere? I've had a look around and can't find one (the closest appears to be Orbit, but the ipfs-js version is down).

I'm particularly interested in using ipfs pubsub capabilities. It looks like an interesting way of allowing multiple users of a web app to talk to each other without needing (much) server side support.

<comment><USER63> Unfortunately there's no proper demo page :/ We're working on improving the docs (we know this is big issues atm).

There's an old version (from June) of Orbit at [http://orbit.libp2p.io](http://orbit.libp2p.io) which you can try. Much has happened since and we're working on bringing the js-ipfs version Orbit back to a working state.

Re.Pubsub, I'm personally also very excited about it! :) The specs and general info are located here [https://github.com/libp2p/pubsub](https://github.com/libp2p/pubsub). go-ipfs merged pubsub into master some time ago with this commit [https://github.com/ipfs/go- ipfs/commit/e1c40dfa347e38bdc9812...](https://github.com/ipfs/go- ipfs/commit/e1c40dfa347e38bdc98126d422c495dc157b3642) and we're working to get it into js-ipfs here [https://github.com/ipfs/js- ipfs/issues/530](https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs/issues/530).

<comment><USER17> Can I just take a moment to talk about how happy I am that the IPFS team is actually taking protocol documentation seriously, allowing for multiple implementations and the ability to understand how the protocol works?

IPFS and Matrix seem to be the only teams doing this: Dat and SSB have vague protocol documentation at best, only documenting bits of the protocol at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Kind of Logo Do You Get for $5? (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/in-the-past-couple-years-startups-have-started-realizing-that-good-design-can-make-the-difference-2fdeb90d390a <comment><USER2> Running a design agency for over a decade, I've seen the price of logo proposals drop from €5K to about €1K. To most people, a logo is just something they want to use on their social channels and their website.

I don't think that's wrong. There's still room for an elaborate creative process of designing a company brand. But that's more for the bigger companies. The freelancers, startups and side-project hustlers usually just require "something nice".

Realizing all this, I recently launched an automatic logo generator: [https://mybrandnewlogo.com](https://mybrandnewlogo.com)

I think it strikes a nice balance between "something nice" and an affordable price. Not every logo is good, but tweak or generate it long enough and you quickly have something that looks good and is very affordable.

For $5, it's almost impossible to deliver something of quality. Even running a logo creator, you still have fees for using an icon library, hosting, etc.

<comment><USER3> How do you guys compare to logojoy?

<comment><USER2> We have automatic, good looking gradients, editable smart shapes, background effects / patterns, more editing / tweaking possibilities, and generally better design quality I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Ad-hominem attach"? They sold logos that were violations of copyright. That service could get you sued. That's not ad-hominem; that's crime. Calling it out is a responsible act, not an "attack on a competitor".

<comment><USER5> I'm guessing, but I imagine the editor asked the author to remove his company as it doesn't provide much to article other than background on the author. That could be communicated in the author bio, rather than paragraphs 4-6.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there an expection for an original logo from fiverr?

I just assumed people would know they were getting a stock image.

<comment><USER7> As someone who has never participated in that market, I've no idea how logos are valued. If, in my ignorance, I would look for the cheapest option in a legit looking place, I wouldn't expect to end up with a result that I couldn't use without breaking law.

<comment><USER6> Stock images are legal they are just resold a bazillion times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think that the concept around logo has been changed in recent times.

Having a great, professional logo that has been put hours of work in is no longer something that start ups (generally speaking) spend time and money on.

The logo is not that important in the early stages, what matters if whether the product is something that solves a problem and people love it.

Once that part is checked, then you can focus on creating a good brand-able logo that your brand will be remembered by.

<comment><USER9> The logo is also usually changed once or twice in the first few years of the company's existence, as traction builds and the product-market fit is tested. It makes sense to not get too attached to the initial logo. However if you are Coca Cola or Nike you probably want to have a memorable logo that will stand the test of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The $5 market is probably better served by those "AI logo generators".</comment>


Tencent buys 5% of Tesla - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/tesla-tencent-investment/ <comment><USER2> Tesla recently announced they are ramping up their Model 3 production even more than what some people thought was already optimistic numbers: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-27/tesla- mod...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-27/tesla-model-3-ramp- up-aims-to-crush-bmw-and-mercedes)

> For Musk to hit all of his targets, Tesla would need to build about 430,000 > Model 3s by the end of next year. That's more than all of the electric cars > sold planet-wide last year.

> Even if half of the Model 3 inventory shipped to other countries, 2 U.S. > sales under Musk's targets would outpace the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes C > class—combined.

> To sell that many $35,000 sedans in the U.S. "would be absolutely > unprecedented based on what we know about car markets today and how people > spend their dollars," said Salim Morsy, electric car analyst at Bloomberg > New Energy Finance. "It could happen. I'm pretty sure it won't."

If they could pull this off this might be a great investment by Tencent.

It's also great for the car industry and environment as well. Especially considering their work on automated driving. If they get that many cars on the road it would give them a ton of data and a big advantage/lead in AI over other companies. But it could also be setting the bar too high and setting them up for failure (even though they might otherwise have nailed targets).

Regardless, as a design fan it would be interesting to see so many Teslas on the road. They are great looking cars.

<comment><USER3> > environment as well

It's not going to do anything great for the environment and we've been over this on previous Tesla threads (years ago). Driving electric cars instead of hybrids in areas where the electricity is primarily derived from unclean sources is _not_ better than hybrids for the environment.

<comment><USER4> Unclean power plants are still vastly more efficient than the most efficient internal combustion engines. That's why trains are electric wherever possible.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_locomotive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_locomotive)

<comment><USER5> > Unclean power plants are still vastly more efficient than the most efficient > internal combustion engines.

I don't think so.

> That's why trains are electric wherever possible.

1\. Thing is, you don't have to refuel electric locomotives, so that saves time and logistics. Unless you plan to install a pantograph on the roof of your Tesla, you still have to refuel it.

2\. Unlike cars, diesel locomotives do not use any kind of direct transmission anyway, they generate electricity from Diesel engines to power electric motors. Because unlike cars, they have to transmit huge power and torque to make the first wheels turns, and mechanical transmissions are not good for that, but electric engines are. So since they use electric engines anyway, why not power them from electrical energy instead of diesel? That's why locomotives are electrical wherever possible.

<comment><USER6> You don't think so? Is that your opinion or a fact?

Most calculations I've seen seem to conclude electric are more CO2 efficient per mile; from 2 to 9 times depending on which state is producing the power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tesla shorts can't get a break. First a smooth $1B+ capital raise without a stock hiccup and now this.

<comment><USER8> I didn't short the stock but I can understand why someone would.

They are expected to generate over 90% of their value after 2020 [0]. There's the expectation that Elon Musk will definitely deliver, that Tesla market share will not be eaten up by other carmakers when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles. The expectation that electric and not another form of energy, such as hydrogen, will dominate, etc.

There's a lot that could go wrong and a lot of unknown variables. Then again everything might turn out fine, the point is that no-one know for sure.

[0] [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UBQtFu...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UBQtFuwrjtEJ:www.economist.com/news/business/21717421-three- financial-sanity-tests-whether-there-bubble-are-technology-firms- madly+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER9> > when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles

They've been "serious" for a long time. Chevy has been selling the Volt since 2010. If they were going to muscle out Tesla they would have done it by now. And it's not just about technology. Tesla has the customer reputation that companies like GM will never have again.

<comment><USER10> I own a Volt. Best car I've ever driven. GM doesn't care much for it. The only advertising they really do for it basically is trying to steal EV customers from Nissan's Leaf. Really dumb. And the dealers don't like it because 1) they don't know how to service them and especially 2) they almost never need servicing. If you run almost exclusively on electric, you only need like 4-5 oil changes in the entire life of the car. And the brakes last forever, too.

<comment> michel-slm I'm on a work visa here in the US, and I couldn't get financing on a Volt because GM Financial insisted on doing > 30 months lease on their hybrid cars (and my work visa expires before then, though it's likely to be renewed anyway).

Go figure. It's not like I can't afford the monthly payments.

<comment><USER11> Did you talk to an independent leasing company? You don't have to lease via the automaker.

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-greatest-auto-lease- dea...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-greatest-auto-lease-deal-ever-in- two-simple-steps)

<comment> michel-slm Will bear that in mind for next time, thanks! My other consideration is I am still trying to build a credit history, and don't really want more hard hits on my file than necessary...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I see this move as a blessing for Tesla to gain market share in China. The stock is valued for growth far into the future, and achieving that outcome is really iffy without a robust China market.

[edit] I'm speculating, but I don't think TenCent could have gotten as big as it has without the blessing of the Chinese government. That is the basis for my view.

<comment><USER13> > I see this move as a blessing for Tesla to gain market share in China.

Yes, and Tencent is betting on it, since Tesla Chinese market sales has just broken $1B [1], soon Chinese market will be Tesla's biggest market with Chinese government's policy leaning on supporting EV industries in a MAJOR way. Win-win!

[http://fortune.com/2017/03/03/tesla-one-billion-sales- china/](http://fortune.com/2017/03/03/tesla-one-billion-sales-china/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Tencent is a prolific investor. It holds equity in Snap, this year's hot > tech IPO, among others following an early investment. While that interest in > messaging makes sense since Tencent's operates China's dominant chat app — > WeChat — it isn't immediately clear whether the Tesla investment has > strategic undertones.

This was my immediate question as well. Is this purely an investment for its portfolio or is there a strategic element as well? I imagine being able to send/receive messags on WeChat as the beginning of something more.

<comment><USER15> Having access to the internals at Tesla is interesting and potentially powerful -- significant ownership share brings many benefits that are by no means small. Albeit on a need-to-know basis and through a peephole, it is nonetheless advantageous.

It may cost $1.7B but it guarantees continued access, whereas throwing technical exfiltration (ie: hacking) and manual exfiltration (ie: mole in Tesla staff) whose resources are limited and unpredictable.

It's also a good financial investment.

<comment><USER16> Can you explain what kind of access you mean? I thought preferential information sharing with specific investors violated SEC rules?

<comment><USER17> not if they have board seats

<comment><USER18> Yes, that's the real question. If Tencent obtained a board seat as well, then I could think of all sorts of scenarios that could benefit Tencent in China, but not necessarily Tesla.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I suppose the administration is going to argue this move supports Trump's claim that global climate change is a Chinese plot to undermine the American economy.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is this showing that they haven´t found a Chinese company that could compete against tesla? China is investing a lot in Solar energy, batteries and have car companies that want to become global players, and most of Tencent investments are on Chinese companies that make products focused on China and Asian markets. I do not know if they buying in open market tells more about Tesla potential or about China future in cars and energy.

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/tencent#/entity](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/tencent#/entity)

<comment> shawn-furyan A $2B investment doesn't really preclude other similar future plays for a $200B company. So I think there's not enough information to draw that sort of conclusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Worth noting that Tencent is also an investor in Future mobility which has been remarkably quiet since their funding announcement last year: [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/future- mobility#/ent...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/future- mobility#/entity)

</comment><comment><USER22> When I first read this, my head saw "Fifty Cent"...

And I thought "A _rapper_ has just bought $1.7billion worth of Tesla shares???" and was all ready to make "Has Tesla already become the Cristal Champagne of car brands?" gags...

Still, half a billion return in two weeks on a 1.7 billion play is pretty nice money...

<comment><USER23> Fifty Cent got a minority stake in Glaceau instead of a payment for endorsing their Vitamin Water. When Glaceau sold to Coca-Cola, that equity was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million.

<comment><USER24> Pretty sure 50 is bankrupt now.

<comment><USER25> > Pretty sure 50 is bankrupt now.

It was fake: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3470122/He-s-far- bro...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3470122/He-s-far-broke- Bankrupt-50-Cent-64-MILLION-assets-10-million-checking-stocks- earning-184-000-month.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Smart move. Tencent's investing but not controlling strategy make it good supporter of the new generation of ambitious entrepreneurs against AAAAF(Apple Alphabet Amazon Alibaba Facebook): \- JD \- Didi \- Snap \- Meituan-Dianping ……

<comment><USER27> > but not controlling strategy

I mean, they bought all of league of legends. Their primary driver is most likely "let's make money".

<comment><USER26> Games are Tencent's backyard and cash cow.

<comment><USER28> not entirely true, i imagine wechat is a huge advertising platform for the as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Tencent's reach is mind-boggling: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Investments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Investments)

</comment><comment><USER30> Funny. Just yesterday I commented on an HN thread that my first electric car would likely be Chinese, but that it might have the "Tesla" name on it.

</comment><comment><USER31> The Model 3 will come with full automation and an Uber competitor. Just a guess why they are so confident about hitting their numbers.

</comment><comment><USER32> this just shows how distrustful are Chinese about their own currency that they seek any way to store money abroad in safe harbor away from RMB and Chinese government

</comment><comment><USER33> Now I can get free legendary skins with purchase of a model 3? What time to be alive.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think they knew solar is the future, all around the world.

China has massive pollution, and most homes/businesses that have access to direct sunlight. (Yes--I know solar works 50% on cloudy day. It doesn't work well with a lot foliage coverage. China looks barren of trees--sadly.)

My hope is those solar tiles come down drastically in price. My hope is the average roof will be cost effective to put said tiles up.

I think those solar tiles will be Tesla's Trump card. It will probally be in four years, or more in the United States. We will need a new president. (I was for Trump putting Coal miners back to work, until I found out the problem is not regulations, but automation. Actually, I want clean air. We need a better way of supporting people affected by the elimination of old ways of doing things; like a Basic Income.). Sorry about being all over the place, but there are no simple answers. Trump is just finding this out.

I think Tencent saw a long value in the stock, even though their citizens will not likely buy Tesla's tiles. They will buy the cheapest knock-off as usual, but the rest of the civilized world will buy Tesla's product.

(I don't know what patents are on these new Tesla tiles, but I bet they are seen as a valuable commodity, even to a cheating society like China.)

</comment><comment><USER35> They should've bought 10%...or change their name to Fivecent

<comment><USER36> I think puns in the comment section belong to reddit

<comment><USER37> What, we can't have puns now? Lighten up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Digit-Al Shouldn't they have bought ten(per)cent?

</comment><comment><USER38> I only need Twocent to know this is a bad idea.

<comment><USER32> still better and less risky than keeping money in free falling RMB

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have a bad feeling about this...

</comment><comment><USER40> I thought I saw TenCent's name in Kong Skull Island

<comment><USER40> Ahh I guess they're not connected tencent pictures and tencent</comment></comment>


Speeding up Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://www.ubuntugeek.com/speed-up-firefox-web-browser.html

<comment><USER2> Pipelining and increasing max requests is considered harmful. Please do not enable these.

Both Mozilla and WebKit discourage this and for good reason.

<comment><USER3> What is the good reason?

<comment><USER4> See:

[http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/http/pipelining- faq.h...](http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/http/pipelining-faq.html)

 _This obviously has the potential to introduce a new category of evangelism bugs, since no other popular web browsers implement pipelining._

[http://hubpages.com/hub/Firefox-pipelining-speed-tweak- may-a...](http://hubpages.com/hub/Firefox-pipelining-speed-tweak-may-actually- slow-down-your-browser)

URL says it all.

<comment><USER3> The second article notes that for most modern webservers for those not using a modem (really, they still have those?) it should be faster.

And this: "Firefox will only send a maximum of 8 HTTP requests at a time in any case" - really? Anyone know if there is a good reason?

<comment><USER5> Because most people don't want each client making >8 connections to their web server at once. Nor would making more connections necessarily be faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The one biggest firefox speedup that linux users can get is by installing a Minefield nightly (Firefox 3). It's a night and day difference.

<comment><USER7> I tried it and didn't notice any difference. Just saying.

<comment><USER8> Download the latest 3.2a with TraceMonkey (Mozilla's answer to Chrome's V8 javascript engine) - it makes a world of difference.

[http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/lates...](http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest- tracemonkey/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Buried in a comment in the article is a mention of the FF extension Fasterfox which is nice: <http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/>

<comment><USER10> There's also swiftfox: <http://getswiftfox.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's also a nice Firefox plugin that you can use to make the pipelining changes. It's all here. <http://tinyurl.com/dgenbf></comment>


Taylor Swift Photo Contract: Break Our Rules, and We Can Break Your Gear - <AUTHOR> http://petapixel.com/2015/06/23/taylor-swift-photo-contract-break-our-rules-and-we-can-break-your-gear/

<comment><USER2> "Gear", in this case, meaning the medium the photos are stored on. The headline (and image in the post) try to make it sound like thousands of dollars of camera equipment is on the line here, when really we're talking about SD cards. It's a modern equivalent of saying that if you violate the contract, you have to give us the film and/or negatives.

<comment><USER3> I doubt the "authorized agents" would distinguish a camera from its SD card. I can't imagine that said agents would be anyone other than hired private security.

<comment><USER4> This is probably a "cover you ass" clause in case there's an altercation between security and the photographer. It's easy to imagine a low paid security guy resorting to saying "I told you you can't take pictures here" and smashing the camera.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's... it? This contract isn't that bad.</comment>


Tracking the Trump Scandals on Brietbart, FoxNews vs. NYTimes - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/18/15646098/right-wing-media-collective-memories <comment><USER2> Related: an analysis of media coverage of the Trump Administration's first 100 days: [https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps- fi...](https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps- first-100-days/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Or, "Why Duck Duck Go is important".</comment>


Skype's Chief Development Officer Leaves Amid TechCrunch Comment Fiasco - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/18/skypes-chief-development-officer-leaves-amid-techcrunch-comment-fiasco/ <comment><USER2> Heh - this article should've been titled 'If You Threaten To Sue Us, You Will Not Get What You Want'. You'd think people would know that already.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps Madhu Yarlagadda would call this a "course correction"?

He wrote on the subject of course correction on his blog in a July 4th posting. His writing may give deeper insight into him than a list of accomplishments or complaints would.

<http://madhuyarlagadda.blogspot.com/>

About half an hour after the NYT story today, the position was added to his Crunchbase profile

<http://www.crunchbase.com/person/madhu-yarlagadda-3>

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't really get how this became a big deal at any point in the process. Yarlagadda should know to ignore random anonymous negative comments on something completely unrelated. And the Skype executives should know to ignore that too, and also ignore Yarlagadda's plea for positive testimonials. While Yarlagadda obviously got too involved over the comments, I don't see how it could or should lead to leaving Skype; it's understandable that someone would want friends to counteract a lot of negative press. Seems Yarlagadda's mistake was bringing too many soft acquaintances into the loop.

But I still don't get what any of it has to do with anything. If he spent all day at Skype browsing that thread trying to counteract or report or drown out that thread instead of doing any work, then I can see it, but so what if he took a comment thread on the internet a little personally? It happens to the best of us every now and again.

<comment><USER5> I think Skype made the right decision. As someone who lived through one I can tell you first hand that a company facing an IPO has to become all about image for that brief period between announcement and offering. The game is all about stability, professionalism and competence.

So the arguments you lay out are exactly why he needed to go. Because it WASN'T a big deal and he made it in to one. He(and his wife) did the exact opposite of what you should do and they did it publicly. The last thing a company facing an IPO needs is a loose canon who melts down in public.

<comment><USER6> You hit it. His only mistake was in getting involved in that non-issue. The only reason that the thread got into news was because he personally got involved in it.

When you are a public figure, you should at least know to avoid anonymous criticism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So... what was said?

<comment><AUTHOR> discussion here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1615524></comment></comment>


Cleveland Woman Could Go to Jail Because Her House Needs a New Coat of Paint - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7x57xq/this-cleveland-woman-could-go-to-jail-because-her-house-needs-a-new-coat-of-paint <comment><USER2> How is this not debtors prison?</comment>


FiftyThree Files Trademark For "Paper" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/04/fiftythree-files-trademark-for-paper/ <comment><USER2> Is this really the best usage of your funding cash? Seems like half of 53's $15M can go down the drain with this sort of thing. I sort of expect FB Paper to flop like the Facebook phone OS thing; if I were 53 I wouldn't be going so ballistic over this. Best case, they get the trademark and Facebook whittles down all of their funding in order for them to get it. Better for them to just move on and recognize that their product and Facebook's are different enough and it's not worth having the SEO from people searching the word "paper" to go into an expensive legal battle.

<comment><USER3> If there goal is to make money and let's be honest, that is the goal of most start-ups, is this really a bad plan? It seems like it is a high risk/high reward proposition that most people on here love. Sure the odds Facebook's Paper being a success aren't sky high. Same with the chance of Facebook agreeing to a licensing agreement on the name. But when you compare the potential income from that to a fancy iPad app and stylus, it seems clear that litigation route might be the better use of VC funds.

And that is the problem with the current legal environment.

<comment><USER4> I don't think they expect Facebook to license the name; I think they don't want to dilute their name.

EDIT: Interestingly enough for me, I found it kind of repulsive that King.com trademarked "Candy" but I don't find this repulsive (I guess because either I am a hypocrite, or because "Paper" is their entire product name).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Leaving aside the debate over trademarking common words, it's surprising FiftyThree hadn't already trademarked their product names. They charge a premium price for well-branded products - trademarking those names should have happened as a matter of course.

<comment><USER5> ...just read TFA, looks like they did do some trademarkin:

> FiftyThree's only trademark in the USPTO was for "Paper by FiftyThree".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why were people so up in arms over King's attempt to trademark "Candy", but suddenly it's OK to trademark "Paper"?!?

<comment><USER7> King used their trademarks to attack smaller players. FiftyThree is using theirs to defend against a larger player. Also, King has trademarked "Candy" across a lot of areas where they don't even have products. The application for "Paper" seems more specific.

<comment><USER8> FiftyThree also sort of did the same thing to a smaller player as well [http://figure53.com/notes/2014-02-04-david-and- goliath/](http://figure53.com/notes/2014-02-04-david-and-goliath/)

<comment><USER9> There's a link on HN but it didn't do very well... odd.

Upvote it back on the mainpage... looks like a bad title buried it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7179241](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7179241)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh.

See, yesterday I thought they were being quite civil and just getting some free publicity from the whole thing. But today...

<comment><USER11> There's no such thing as 'civil' when it comes to business, especially not when you're dealing with millions of dollars. When most business people (SV companies included) shake your hand they're holding a knife behind their back in the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1) Trademark rights are generally effective from date of use in commerce, not the date of filing.

2) Filing for registration isn't the same as filing an infringement claim.

3) The phrase "trademark for/on [some word]" is meaningless. Trademarks only exist for a word or name in the context of some class of product. "Lucky" brand jeans is a different mark than "Lucky" Strike bowling.

</comment><comment><USER13> This whole thing is so stupid because it's pretty evident that Facebook is going to just turn the real app into Paper if the metrics look good, and the working name "Paper" is going to probably be abandoned. It seems they decided to launch the thing as a separate app to get feedback before completely overhauling the Facebook experience on iOS. Of course, Facebook can't admit to this, so FiftyThree is off in a corner freaking out.

</comment><comment><USER14> Honestly, I think this was a defensive move in case FB decided to trademark 'Paper'.

</comment><comment><USER15> They need to if they're going to be serious about keeping the name "Paper" with no mention of 53. To me it seems an absurd goal because it will be very expensive and has no substantive benefit for the product, But if having a single word generic mark on their application is desired they need to get out there and defend it. They will probably need to pursue "Papers By mekentosj.com" and other similarly named products to be successful.

</comment><comment><USER16> That should go well. Just today I was taking notes on a product that clearly stole their brand: a piece of loose leaf notebook _paper_.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's good that Facebook finally gets a taste of their own medicine (they've sued other sites for using Book in their name).

<comment><USER18> well come on. How much is Facebook worth vs. how much is "53 Paper" worth?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I know Facebook using the name without communicating first feels wrong, but this is just petty and won't succeed.

</comment><comment><USER20> After reading this I kind of regret buying Paper's (FiftyThree) digital pencils/brushes/etc. A drawing app wanting to kill the use of that word in other industry verticals... i think "trademark troll" is now a real thing

<comment><USER21> So you should be able to start a computer manufacturer and call it Apple?

<comment><USER20> No. I should be able to start a magazine and call it Apple. Facebook isn't launching a drawing app nor FiftyThree a social network.

<comment><USER21> But both are competing in the the same place, the app store, over the same thing, your attention and money.

<comment><USER20> That's an absurd argument. You are saying Kayak.com is competing directly against kayak (boat) retailers on Google because they have the same name. I'm sorry but that "competing" argument is pure speculation, borderline bs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Come on, 53. That whole story is the best thing that can happen to you. Publicity.

<comment><USER23> A company who've raised $15m in funding isn't looking for the sort of publicity you get among people who talk about tech company Trademark cases most of whom knew about them anyway.

If the whole thing was mainstream maybe but this isn't really publicity for them, not in any meaningful sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'd be interested to see how FiftyThree proves damages in this case, and whether or not the judge will make a call for the punitive damages.

I definitely think that there's no doubt about it: the FiftyThree Paper sales will certainly take a hit, and the brand is diluted hugely, especially for those who haven't encountered it yet.

This was obviously a conversation that Facebook had, and chose to do it anyway - not sure exactly what the result of the conversation was internally, but it almost certainly had to have some phrase like "well, if they sue us, we can handle it."

<comment><USER25> Any comment relating to "Oh, I first thought Facebook acquired Paper by FiftyThree" could be used as proof that it's causing brand/name dilution, etc..

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you don't want someone to eventually use the same name as you, you shouldn't use something so generic.

I'm sure they weren't the first, and won't be the last, person to use "paper".

</comment><comment><USER27> why didn't they do this before? I guess they figure they can't get a trademark on a word like "Paper" and now they're just filing it to grab some headlines?

</comment><comment><USER28> Good luck, seriously. There's 0 reason for facebook to care.

</comment><comment><USER29> What losers</comment>


Suing the US govt over searching laptops at the border - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/technology/aclu-border-patrol-lawsuit.html <comment><USER2> Discussed 2 days ago (540 points, 117 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15240781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15240781)

</comment><comment><USER3> > _In March, Joseph B. Maher, the acting general counsel for the agency [the > Department of Homeland Security], defended the practice in a USA Today > opinion piece. "These electronic media searches have produced [...] > convictions for child pornography, intellectual property rights > violations..._

How are child pornography or IP rights violations a matter of national security? If they are then anything is -- which is probably their idea, but they shouldn't be let run with it.

<comment><USER4> Of course. Besides they can say that pedophile is a criminal so she/he might also want to bomb the capital. Or something.

Another stretch I know of is someone who is a US-citizen but did not want to give out their laptop password. So they try to wait him out at the airport for as long as they can - 8 hours I believe. No water (I mean who knows maybe you can build a bomb from water) no ability to stand up or walk (you might run). Sit in one spot for 8 hours. After which he still didn't want to give out the password and they had to let him in because he is USC and 8 hours ran out. So guess what they did - they packed him in a car and drove him to another airport (!!!) and told him the 8-hour clock resets (first amendment supposedly does not apply to airports on any ports of entry). After 2 hours the officer smiled and told him they can do it endlessly, because they will just come back to the previous airport. My friend gladly gave up password and was let go 45 minutes later.

Edit: no, my friend has not been anywhere with this. I asked him about this, he said that he is afraid of going anywhere since he had whole laptop hard drive with music that he cannot prove (anymore??) he has bought it, so it might be assumed illegal downloads. Its been almost 2 years. I think he moved on.

<comment><USER5> That sounds as if some crimes were committed against your friend. He/she should definitely speak up or go to the press or a lawyer with this. If substantiated this would be a pretty big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "These electronic media searches have produced information used to combat > terrorism, violations of export controls, and convictions for child > pornography, intellectual property rights violations and visa fraud,"

One thing people don't realise is that it's very difficult to be completely sure that all the data cached in your device is completely legal in every country. The best is to travel with wiped out devices and load them on the other side.

<comment><USER7> Business idea : service that backs up your whole phone, like an image of the disk, then you wipe the phone and "install" the image from the services cloud. It could maybe be doable on androids, or only rootes phones.

<comment><USER8> What's wrong with iCloud?

<comment><USER9> All your data is "safe" in a USA-based data center?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> These are authoritarian fascist policies that are brazenly infringing on people's personal effects, content whether a diary, phone or laptop is your inviolable personal effect.

They can search the physical books and laptops all they want but not the content, that is crossing a huge red line that simply cannot be crossed in any free state and raises serious questions about our constitution, the rule of law and the court system.

When it comes to China or Russia we automatically presume the moral high ground to point fingers, but then do not detect the contradiction in this quiet acquiescence or being reduced to seeking workarounds in chrome books and such.

There is a dissonance of principles observed more in posturing and grandstanding that makes criticisms of other states not a commitment to principle but the worst kind of denial and jingoism.

It really is time to stop reacting and quietly reflect on what we have become. Are we simply a society of income and access to products with everything else open to expediency and pretension.

</comment><comment><USER11> Out of curiosity, as I have not crossed the us border for a while, what are currently the odds that an average HN reader is required to disclose computer/phone contents? These discussions and news kind of imply that it would be quite common, but somehow it feels unbelievable that it would be that common...

<comment><USER12> I travel to the US frequently as do many of my colleagues. I've never heard of such a case. You usually see the door to the interview rooms and last time I could see it while I was in the queue, I believe no one except employees entered it while at least 200 people entered the country.

Not significant but would assume it's very rare. Considering how many people enter the country each day, even a 1:10000 chance would produce a lot of cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How can one be sure that an unlocked device won't be manipulated in order to make a false conviction?

</comment><comment><USER14> I dont understand that behavior - what if I just send the device via fedex/dhl? It will cross the border unchecked and I can pick it up on the other side.

<comment><USER4> ?? Who told you packages are not checked? Of course they are. Twice I ordered harddrive from USA to be shipped to Europe (10TBs are much cheaper than buying in EU) and twice it had attached huge brochure that my electronic device was inspected and images might be done and while they don't believe they damaged it, if I have issues with it, I should call.

<comment><USER15> They can image the device, or possibly even refuse it entry if they can't read the contents, but they cannot detain, harass or otherwise coerce the owner of said device while it's in the mail. Mailing an encrypted hard drive is likely reasonably safe with regard to unauthorized access to its contents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> About time someone calls them out on that BS

</comment><comment><USER17> What is the actual motivation for doing these searches?

</comment><comment><USER18> The last time I have been searched for written or published contraband was at the East German border.

East Germany was an all-encompassing state with the desirable (parasitic) jobs being government jobs.

"Western" governments currently expand in similar fashion. Unless someone works in a hot field like web development, government jobs are the safest bet with guaranteed pensions.

The government takes care of its own, inventing useless work for the people on its payroll and sucking dry the productive parts of the population.</comment>


Clinton Wants Tech Firms to Hand Over Data on Terrorist Take Downs - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28644203/new-worry-tech-firms-that-dont-want-hand

<comment><USER2> As if she has any credibility left to speak about security issues.

Let's hear from her after she's prosecuted for compromising classified information. If that had been anyone else, they'd already be warming a concrete bunk in a federal supermax.

<comment><USER3> On the contrary, she was practicing good security by keeping her emails out of the hands of the intelligence community!

<comment><USER2> LOL, yeah, the american intel community. Everyone else has already read them.

The americans just haven't gotten to the point in their data review of monitored internet traffic to see them yet.</comment></comment></comment>


AHN: when did customer support materialize into a smiling girl with a headset?  - <AUTHOR>

I can understand bad design decisions and business card websites. But for websites that rely on online sales above all else? I simply cannot <i>believe</i> the amount of stock photography of smiling phone operators and, worst of all, the number of websites happily using those photos. <comment><USER2> BTW, there is one whole website dedicated just for such photographs: <http://www.headsethotties.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh no, why would you provide me with such a rich source of entertainment so close to the sleeping hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Like it or not, the headset girl has turned into the universal symbol for "here's how to contact customer support". It's not cool, and it's not creative -- but it's a very effective way to be sure that people (who can't be bothered to read) find your support number.

Even more than that, it's a quick way to show that you have phone support, which can boost customer confidence even if the customer doesn't need to use it.</comment>