Uses of IPFS

IPFS with blockchain provides a more secure, trustworthy, and decentralized storage system that has brought many industries and economic sectors to its door for trustworthy and transparent storage. Some uses are listed below:

• IPFS on the Internet of Things(IOT):– Data/information generated by devices and sensors are so significant for decision-making purposes and with this, IPFS helps to ensure the integrity and authenticity of each piece of data.
• Government-related works: the electronic voting machine (EVM) could be hacked to modify the results of the election, but with the IPFS, this can be solved as the IPFS acts like a version control system, tracking all the changes at every step and also generating a unique cryptographic hash that is seen by all the nodes in the network. It keeps records of many of the confidential tasks related to foreign affairs or even military affairs that need to be kept secret and stored on the IPFS network.
• Healthcare: IPFS stores the more critical information of the patient and keeps all the records of the hospital in check, and they can retrieve the correct information whenever they require it.
• Supply chain management: We can track the product from its manufacturing to its overall journey and save those changes in our IPFS system for future purposes.
• Entertainment and media: The distribution and storage of media such as videos, images, audios, etc. becomes more cost-effective as IPFS distributes content in a decentralized manner, removing the central authority and its control. With IPFS, media can be downloaded from the nearest node rather than from a distant server, increasing the loading process and also controlling server traffic.
• Version control: IPFS acts like a version control system, just like GitHub tracking and preserves all the modifications done to the files. A modified file generates its own unique cryptographic hash that is different from the previous one. In this way, we can also ensure security and keep an eye on any undesirable changes made to the data or the product.

IPFS stands for Interplanetary File System. It is a distributed peer-to-peer network and a protocol for organizing, storing and sharing files and data. It works on the blockchain principle as IPFS itself is a decentralized file system on a distributed network. So, before moving ahead with the file transfer mechanism in the IPFS network and directly understanding the procedure of file transfer, we should first understand in brief about the IPFS and its terminology, which will help us understand the mechanism easily and how it actually works.

What is IPFS?

The IPFS protocol not only helps us to store or share files, but it also helps us to track new modifications or versions done on a file over a distributed network, just like on open source platforms. In IPFS, if a person’s system is connected to a network or is an IPFS node, then any changes or edits to the file done by one node are seen by all other nodes because every file has its own unique hash, just like blockchain, so it also provides transparency to the data.

Through out the article of understanding the file transfer procedure, we will be covering the following headings and before moving ahead we must be aware of these followings:

• IPFS node
• Hashing system of IPFS
• Working mechanism of file sharing on IPFS
• IPFS software installation Process
• Working of IPFS
• File sharing steps in IPFS
• Asymmetric IPFS Encryption
• Uses of IPFS
• Who is using IPFS
• Conclusion

So, let’s begin with IPFS node.

IPFS Node

It is basically a machine or a computer system that runs IPFS software in it and is connected to the IPFS network to store, share and retrieve data from the IPFS network of many nodes. Many IPFS nodes of a computer system that runs IPFS software in them make an IPFS peer-to-peer network in which files are shared and retrieved from one node to another node throughout the network and data is maintained by all nodes of the network.

What is Hashing System in IPFS?

Unlike the traditional system of data transfer over the internet, which uses many centralized protocols (ex. HTTP or HTTPS), whose job is to send requests for accessing a client’s data to a server and then retrieve data from the server for the client, IPFS uses the Content Addressing system rather than the Location Addressing system (used in HTTPS).

In Content Addressing system, the content or the data itself acts as an address for its location or its referencing. In IPFS, each piece of data is stored using a unique distributed Hashing system and we can say that content stored or organized in an IPFS network is based on its unique cryptographic hash rather than its location.

Cryptographic Hashing is performed using a special hashing algorithm called as SHA-256. Each file is identified by the unique hash allotted to it and this hash is used while transferring of files between the nodes. This unique cryptographic hash of each file is known as the Content Identifier (CID).

A cryptographic hash is the unique identity of a file stored on the IPFS network.