Development of new utilities to enable sharing data that is persisted through IPFS

[aschmahmann]

IPFS Share Files currently makes it relatively easy to send data using IPFS using just a small amount of out-of-band communication. However, it would be interesting to look into developing utilities to add a few more features to applications looking to share data through IPFS.

These could include:

• Sharing data using only distributed (e.g. IPFS and libp2p) based tools (i.e. no copy and pasting of links or hashes from email, Slack, etc.)
• Cryptographically enforced sharing (as a way of both adding security and sidestepping some of the messiness of federation protocols)
• Creating something akin to a social graph/list of friends to keep track of who users might want to share data with
• Sharing structures that are interoperable across a variety of use cases such as: sending large files, collaborative documents and short chats/messages.

The idea is to make these utilities easy to use across applications and provide specifications so that they can be used in multiple different environments and programming languages.

If you're interested in having a conversation about this please fill out your availability at: https://doodle.com/poll/vqr9dnz7nffv7sf2

Some people who have expressed interest so far:
@olizilla @daviddahl

[olizilla]

Ace! Other prior art to be aware of

• Encrypted sharing via IPFS from @jbenet https://github.com/jbenet/ipfs-senc/tree/master/web
• Peergos https://peergos.org/
• Global Upload - https://globalupload.io/
• Eternum & Hearth - https://hearth.eternum.io/
• Filenation - https://filenation.io/
• Telescope https://github.com/josselinchevalay/telescope

I'm super interested in using the social graph to encourage optimistic co-hosting amoung friends, and it's something we'd like to add into the IPFS Companion, the browser extension https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion.

cc @lidel @fsdiogo

[aschmahmann]

Sounds great. Let's speak at 12pm EDT today (Oct 31), the Zoom link is in the Doodle poll.

[lidel]

Unfortunately I have a scheduling conflict, but would love to watch recording or read some meeting notes! :)

Some additional prior art and areas of interest:

• Design: Share files via IPFS
• UI for bi-directional file exchange spaces (a hackpad for file sharing)
• UI for encryption before upload
• UI for sharing mutable (IPNS) public folders
• Use Case: Pinning Buddy System ( "collaborative pinsets" )

[olizilla]

Thinking about sharing on IPFS as a reusable construct

Attended by:

• @aschmahmann
• @daviddahl
• @olizilla
• @lidel
• @fsdiogo

Actions / thought experiments

• what parts of peer pad would need to be implemented/duplicated to deliver a native desktop app.
• what would need to happen to make documents stored in peerpad shareable in another system?
  • standard names for keys in url hash fragments?
• what would it take to move keybase to IPFS?
• consider standard file paths for things vs IPLD schemas

Links

• some additional background on open annotation specs existing today: Do a SWOT analysis of the product pm-discussify#8 (comment)
• centralized annotation service: https://hypothes.is
• ipfs-based poc: https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/discussify-browser-extension

Notes

https://hackmd.io/B7phV7r4RTq9vfMXNCW3_g?edit

[Gozala]

This is really interesting to me, but sadly I was unable to join. It also happens that I'm looking into doing something similar to keybase for building a network of friends that data can be exchanged securely with.

One of the large challenges is how do I meet people and exchange keys if I have not met them before. I have written down some of the thoughts I have in that space that might be relevant here as well: https://hackmd.io/RGwgrGCKTqm1yuS8jRIJlA#

On thing that I believe still lacks in the IPFS space is versioned record system and something along those lines had being proposed recently ipfs/specs#191.

[aschmahmann]

There are a few people from the IPFS team having a zoom conversation tomorrow about identity. If you're interested please ping me or @pgte and we'll get you a calendar invite.

[Gozala]

@aschmahmann thanks. What time is it at?

[aschmahmann]

It's at Nov 20, 11am EST and I just sent you a calendar invite. If anyone else is interested either comment here (if your email is on your GitHub profile) or message me on IRC @aschmahmann (you can find me in the #ipfs channel on Freenode, remember to register so your messages don't get automatically filtered)