In the last article, we found four problems with the current Internet:

1.Low security

2.Inefficiency when meeting users' increasing needs

3. Serious centralization

4, easy to review

Today we will discuss the security and efficiency of IPFS. Let's take a look together!

Security: No need to trust anyone

IPFS guarantees the security of the Internet by eliminating the need to trust the reliability of third parties. This is because all IPFS data is self-certified, which means that users can determine for themselves that the data received is trustworthy.

This self-authentication comes from the function of the hash function. Using the hash function to input data, a unique fingerprint called a hash value will be output. It is a unique identifier that makes it difficult to find two data that produce the same result, so it is impossible to forge the original data in practice. At the same time, we cannot use the hash value to reconstruct the data, which means that it does not damage the privacy of the original data, and cannot use the hash to copy the data.

This is mathematical knowledge about computer science. What does it have to do with IPFS?

In HTTP, when a user enters a website, the browser will fetch data on the location of the website server. This location could be hacked: they intercept the request, instead of sending a blog, they send a phishing website to get the user password.

But with IPFS, users will not request the browser, but instead request a hash that looks like this:

QmTkzDwWqPbnAh5YiV5VwcTLnGdwSNsNTn2aDxdXBFca7D.

Suppose the hacker blocked

QmTkzDwWqPbnAh5YiV5VwcTLnGdwSNsNTn2aDxdXBFca7D request and try to send a malicious phishing site, then the user can run the received data through the hash function, compare the received data hash value with the requested hash value, and then refuse to receive the hash value Mismatched data.

IPFS will always guarantee the integrity of the data.

Efficiency and speed

Since users query data based on the hash of their content, not their location, how do we know where to find this data at all? Where is the data? Which server is it on?

The answer is that data can be anywhere. IPFS is a peer-to-peer network that anyone can participate in. You can think of it as BitTorrent, a protocol often used to distribute pirated movies and songs.

And since anyone can distribute the data, it's much more efficient geographically if the data is next to the user. For example, a user in the United States does not have to ask for data from a distant server in China, he only needs to obtain the data from others near his geographic location, and vice versa.

Suppose there is a room with 100 HTTP users and 100 IPFS users, and they all want to visit the same website. How will their experience be different?

These 100 HTTP users will send requests to the site's location. Each request will bounce through the Internet, through a bunch of routers, until it finally reaches the server (most likely from Google and thousands of kilometers away), then send the requested data from the server and bounce it back again through a bunch of routers , Finally reached the hands of users.

100 IPFS users request data hashes from the IPFS network. If someone is holding files in the room, why bother going through a router and reaching a remote server? A geographically close user can share it with another user, and the user can also share the file with a third user.

In this case, content addressing is obviously more efficient than location addressing! Of course, this is all done in a secure way.

After reading this article, I hope you have a good understanding of the features provided by distributed Internet!