
Web2Web: Serverless Websites Powered by Torrents and Bitcoin - fraqed
https://torrentfreak.com/web2web-serverless-websites-powered-by-torrents-bitcoin-161008/
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tadeegan
When I looked into it, webtorrent still requires a centralized server to at
the very least set up the peer to peer connection. The problem is that there
isnt a way to avoid this with WebRTC. It also serves content to the initial
peer.

How is this serverless? Am I missing something?

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johnhenry
While the infohash is stored in the blockchain, the other immediate issues is
that to get the infohash, you still need to connect to a centralized third-
party such as blockexplorer.com. Browsers don't natively support TCP, which is
how normal torrent and blockchain clients connect to each other. WebRTC is a
workaround for torrents, but there doesn't seem to be a workaround for
blockchains If we want true serverless architecture within browsers, we, at
least, need browsers that support TCP connections.

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roblabla
What features of TCP would allow serverless connections ? AFAIK, even
BitTorrent (DHT) and others connect to a centralized "super-node" which then
gives them other nodes to connect to.

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johnhenry
Sorry, that was hastily written and poorly worded -- more accurately, we would
AT LEAST, need browsers that support TCP connections in order to connect to
the p2p networks that we already have. In practice we would need a lot more,
as even apps like BitTorrent and blockchains still rely on our centralized
internet infrastructure to some degree.

You mention the BitTorrent DHT, but I don't believe that it's necessary to
connect to a centralized super-node. You do, however; need the address of at
least one other peer to start. Unfortunately, the only way to assign an
address is through our ISP system which is centralized. For true peer-to-peer
architecture, normal people would have to connect the internet at the same
level that ISPs such as Comcast and AT&T connect to each other... think some
sort of large scale mesh network.

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striking
Two things:

First, how much BTC needs to be deposited per update?

Second, this doesn't provide a solution for anonymization, does it?

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flaviuspopan
This is a really fascinating concept - in reality there's no reason this needs
to be anchored to bitcoin, only a blockchain for hash verification. Maybe
another blockchain can be used that wouldn't charge transaction fees for
updating or registering? Also, this feels a little similar in ideology to
ethereum swarm ([http://swarm-gateways.net/bzz:/swarm/](http://swarm-
gateways.net/bzz:/swarm/)).

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fulafel
WebRTC does not need a centralised server. It can benefit from servers that
can lead together NAT or firewall victims but these don't have to be
centralised.

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akerro
Does it share the same weakness at zeroNet - maximum allowed size of a webpage
(100MB)?

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ayyn0n0n0
Why in the heck would you want a webpage to be 100mb+ ?!

I wouldn't say that is a weakness, you want your webpages to be as small as
possible.

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akerro
> Why in the heck would you want a webpage to be 100mb+ ?!

Websites have scripts, images, videos, ads, text. Image + thumbnail = 1MB,
gallery of images = 15MB, 600 posts with images, thumbnails, comments with
avatars = ... ?

My wordpress blog started in 2010 with images, thumbnails is 5GB, last time I
checked in July.

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ClassyJacket
But 100MB per page is ridiculous, expect for embedded videos. I'd be waiting
two minutes for each page to load.

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haggy
Also keep in mind that this isn't a traditional Request/Response model. Much
(if not all) of a "website" must be downloaded up front via the torrent
network, and then run locally. 100MB per request on a traditional site is
ridiculous but 100MB for downloading 1 very large web app from the torrent
network is not so crazy.

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diegorbaquero
This post killed BTorrent's tracker. It's back up now.

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dharma1
How much redundancy is there to protect against DDoS?

