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CloudFlare's IPFS Gateway Makes it Easy To Create Distributed Web Sites (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the networking-world dept.

CloudFlare has introduced a new gateway that allows you to easily access content stored on IPFS, or the InterPlanetary File System, through a web browser and without having to install a client. From a report: With this announcement, CloudFlare also explains how you can use their gateway to create static web sites that are served entirely over IPFS. This allows users to create web sites containing information that cannot be censored by governments, companies, or other organizations. [...] With CloudFlare's IPFS Gateway, it is very easy to access files stored in IPFS using any web browser. To open a file stored on IPFS you would simply connect to the web address https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/[hash] URL, where hash is the hash of the file stored on IPFS.

40 comments

  1. Thanks for the press release msmash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll be sure to hand over access to my website to a third-party.

    1. Re:Thanks for the press release msmash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Technically, you're giving access to your website to everyone. That's how a website works.

    2. Re:Thanks for the press release msmash by Shikaku · · Score: 1

      You mean like you are when you pay for hosting? Or your ISP even if you didn't pay your hosting but are doing it yourself? A third party is required to even access the internet, let alone host something on there.

  2. Title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    why isn't the title of this one in that tan color with the blue stripe and the X to get rid of it?

  3. Beautiful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I love it.

    1. Re:Beautiful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I got this feeling on the summer day when you were gone
      I crashed my car into the bridge, I watched, I let it burn
      I threw your shit into a bag and pushed it down the stairs
      I crashed my car into the bridge

      I don't care, I love it, I don't care

  4. There goes the neighborhood by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Great, now CloudFlare will be serving yet even more illegal content than before.

  5. So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just Block cloudflare-ipfs.com

    et voila

    censored.

    passphrase === 'grievous'

    1. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, if you wan't to be granular, the whole URL. I may be missing smth. obvious, but in a setting where URL blocking have been implemented, such as Russia, this doesn't seem useful.

  6. They will probably censor some stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Stuff that's blatantly illegal in the USA AND toxic to Cloudflare's reputation will probably be blacklisted from this service as soon as someone complains an Cloudflare verifies it's illegal.

    I'm thinking k1dd13 pr0n.

    Stuff that's arguably illegal in the USA will probably be blacklisted from this service by court order.

    I'm thinking copyright violations.

    On the other hand, people hosting stuff that helps freedom-fighters in countries where the freedom fighters have the sympathy of the US government and the general public in America will be able to make good use of this, assuming the people doing the uploading or downloading the content aren't blocked via other means.

    1. Re: They will probably censor some stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clouldflare doesnâ(TM)t remove sites that engage in copyright infringement even if you send them a DMCA. They just forward it to the site operator and the site operator and just laughs at it. The underlying network does nothing.

      I wonâ(TM)t even go into how little CP CloudFlare removes. You find the site addresses from internet sewers already protected by CloudFlare like 4chan and then count how long till the site goes down. They stay online for months.

    2. Re: They will probably censor some stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      4chan?

      You kids have it easy today.

      Back in my day it we had to type it out longways, 00000100chan. Back in my grandpa's day there was no "4chan" on account of we couldn't count higher than three. Now get off my lawn!

  7. Ad? by DaMattster · · Score: 0

    Is this an ad for CloudFlare? I wouldn't touch CouldFlare with a 10ft pole.

    1. Re:Ad? by SpzToid · · Score: 2

      What is so bad with CloudFlare? What's your beef?

      I use their free DNS because I can refresh it globally at-will; I develop websites. They have other features that look nice, but frankly I haven't been able to get around to implementing much else from CloudFlare.

      --
      You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
    2. Re:Ad? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Funny

      What's your beef?

      That expression is not politically correct. You should say "What's your textured soy protein?"

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:Ad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's Textured Vegetable Protein, you soy supremacist.

    4. Re:Ad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's textured non-animal protein, you veggie nazi!

  8. I feel so out of date! by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
    I used to think if the access point is through a top level domainname, like https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ the ISPs or the governments controlling the ISP can block access to it.

    Looks like that is not the case. Dont know how people circumvent the simple blocks based on ip addresses.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:I feel so out of date! by teknopurge · · Score: 2

      Becuase the content is not hosted by Cloudflare - it's just a proxy. You can use many other means to access IPFS data.

      --
      Website Hosting
    2. Re:I feel so out of date! by BWS · · Score: 1

      $100 the GFW will be able to block it for 99% of the people in 3 years.

      --
      -- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
    3. Re:I feel so out of date! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Easy to block a TLD, but all IPFS gateways are interchangeable. If that one is blocked you just use the gateway at ipfs.io, or birds-are-nice.me, or one of several others. Or you can run your own IPFS node, with your own local gateway. So blocking a TLD doesn't achieve anything.

  9. reasons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    fair enough but whats the reason

    1. Re:reasons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a single point of failure. They can spy on everything.

      They block or highly annoy lots of legitimate users. Especially if you use a proxy or VPN, you will be annoyed so much as to not even want to visit those sites any more. Often, I don't and the owners of the site don't even know all the traffic they're missing out on.

      They also often block my regular old ISP address that I've had for 10+ years and has never been used for spam or anything. I think they must just block large IP blocks when one IP does something wrong. Very stupid.

      Fuck ClareFlare!

  10. April fools? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Captcha: trapped (it's a trap!)

  11. No censorship? by DogDude · · Score: 1

    "This allows users to create web sites containing information that cannot be censored by governments, companies, or other organizations."

    ... except Cloudflare, of course.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
    1. Re: No censorship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rubbish. You are free to publish or surf elsewhere.

    2. Re:No censorship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      CloudFlare isn't the only IPFS gateway, they are just the largest one announced, by far.

  12. You misunderstand him by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When he says "what's your beef" he means what pattern do you use as a "fill pattern" when over-writing a drive so you can later easily recognize parts of a drive that you previously wrote over.

    As for me, my beef is dead, as in 0xDEADBEEF.

  13. But CloudFlare will censor you directly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They have already put themselves in the role of anti-white Morality Gatekeeper for the world.

    What kind of a moron would trust these assholes to host a "censorship proof" site?

    Get fucked.

  14. Can Anyone Explain IPFS to Me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To me IPFS looks like Blockchain. "new" buzzwordy and misunderstood distributed file storage a la BitTorrent. Am I I not getting it? Is there any reason at all that anyone would actually want to use it?

    This seems like CloudFlare attention whoring, like every 'we're implementing Blockchain' company so far.

    1. Re: Can Anyone Explain IPFS to Me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A global content-addressed store is useful because there's no need for explicit authentication or versioning. Each root document is hashed and so everything it points to (assuming all hrefs/srcs point to ipfs hashes) is inherent in the hash of the root document, and verified on download so there's nothing for a MITM to exploit. Caching is straightforward (LRU/MFU, no need for explicit expiry policies), there are no namespaces or authentication to worry about. It's WORM so there's no need for global consistency checks or coherency control. Downsides, like any other caching service, is that there's no privacy, everyone knows what you're fetching, or at least the cache server does if it's offering you TLS. But for public sites the metadata analysis is enough to know what you're looking at anyway, so not a big deal.

  15. ha$htag ipfs con$piracy theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I I not getting it? Is there any reason at all that anyone would actually want to use it?

    This seems like CloudFlare [$pam]

    Ha$htag ipfs con$piracy theory.

    https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7522219498.pdf
    d
    ai

    This allows users to create web sites containing information that cannot be censored by governments, companies, or other organizations.

    Good Job! Double Plus Good

  16. the nuance of the tubes, was Re:No censorship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "This allows users to create web sites containing information that cannot be censored by governments, companies, or other organizations." ... except Cloudflare, of course.

    And your ISP exercising it's first amendment editorial control free speech.

    Selective enforcement. The authoritarians have sufficient power in this day and age that providing the illusion of free speech is not difficult for them. Most people don't understand the nuance of the tubes.

  17. has$htag under the radar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To me IPFS looks like Blockchain. "new" buzzwordy and misunderstood distributed file storage a la BitTorrent. Am I I not getting it? Is there any reason at all that anyone would actually want to use it?

    This seems like CloudFlare attention whoring, like every 'we're implementing Blockchain' company so far.

    Your point has a point. People have always been able to gpg encrypt big ass files and put them up with bittorrent and similar protocols. AFAICT just as resistant (i.e. not) to government and corporate censorship as this presumably is (because if there was magic it would have been in the slashdot summary, or early high rated comments, that is what slashdot is for after all). No magic here that I can see. Bittorrent with a new name that might fly under the radar of previous bittorrent censorship methods for as long as it takes relevant authorities to notice the difference and care.

    Bottom line lesson- if your free speech is on a dangerous mission, you might be wise to consider making an effort at flying under the radar.

  18. Can Anyone Explain Tor services to Me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like Tor services.

  19. Opera Unite by technosaurus · · Score: 1

    Older versions of Opera had this built in and many more features. It was ahead of its time and eventually dropped, but this is still not a good replacement. Unite could have been really awesome by now if they kept it going after the WebKit and then Blink switch.

  20. Troy Hunt's use of Cloudflare's caching by MatthiasF · · Score: 1

    Anyone interested in the IPFS model should read Troy Hunt's explanation earlier this month on how he brought down costs on his popular websites (Have I Been Pwned, Pwned Passwords, etc.).

    https://www.troyhunt.com/serve...