IPFS lacks anonymity

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12772093

I came across this link after reading the latest filecoin update, causing me to do a refresher on IPFS.

The TLDR is that IPFS does not protect the anonymity of either the user or the hoster, where the hoster can be caching content (which may not even have been downloaded).

  • Honey pots (state actor hosting illegal content to collect IP addresses of users)
  • Mining IP addresses hosting content (copyright abuse, illegal content, etc, monitored/recorded)
  • Blocking IPs which host bad content, causing unavailability of data

There are other areas IPFS has issues (e.g. guaranteed data persistence), but the above seem to be pretty major if you plan on using it for general data storage.

Edit: Not meaning to bash IPFS btw, as this is by design. It just makes for interesting discussions when used for certain applications on SAFENetwork like projects.

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Very interesting. It actually seems IPFS isn’t really any better than bittorrent when it comes to guaranteed data persistence, resilience and anonymity.

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