Akasha, a next-generation social media network powered yesteryear Ethereum in addition to the InterPlanetary File System, was unveiled on May three ‒ World Press Freedom Day. The signups for the alpha release are open. The projection is the brainchild of Mihai Alisie, cofounder ofBitcoin Magazine.
The Akasha, a Sanskrit word, is the unseen medium that pervades the universe and, inwards Eastern religions in addition to spiritual traditions, serves as a substrate for the “Akashic Records” ‒ a permanent repository embedded inwards the cloth of space-time for all the information that is always produced inwards the universe. Alisie’s projection doesn’t acquire that far yet: it exactly wants to flora a permanent repository embedded inwards the cloth of the Internet for all the information that is always produced online.
“Ever since I joined Vitalik [Buterin] inwards the Ethereum projection as cofounder inwards slowly 2013, I’ve dreamed virtually the ways Ethereum could live on used to solve or then of the biggest issues nosotros human face upward as a civilization,” says Alisie. “However, it wasn’t until early on 2015 when I get-go realized that nosotros are virtually to practise the missing puzzle slice that volition enable us to tackle ii of the most of import challenges nosotros human face upward today as a modern information-based society: liberty of aspect in addition to creative perpetuity.”
The work that the Akasha projection wants to solve is the impermanence of information online. Information ‒ spider web sites, documents, e-mail archives, video, etc. ‒ tin live on either purposefully deleted yesteryear the governments and/or corporations that command today’s Internet, or, to a greater extent than only but as tragic, exactly disappear for lack of maintenance of the fundamental servers where it’s hosted.
In fact, today’s Internet is becoming centralized, amongst billions of users subject on a handful of large services. Today’s Internet is besides fragile, because it relies on a centralized distribution model, amongst servers that come upward in addition to go. If a server goes downward for whatsoever technical or commercial reason, or is taken downward yesteryear the authorities, all the spider web pages stored on that server disappear.
“The adjacent fourth dimension yous stumble upon a 404 page recall that it is a minor tragedy inwards itself. It is almost as if our collective encephalon has lost a slice of its memory, sometimes forever,” says Alisie. “We are basically living inwards an information historic catamenia plagued yesteryear arbitrary censorship in addition to digital amnesia, affecting every Internet user.”
The Internet Archive, amongst its Wayback Machine that stores snapshots of spider web pages in addition to entire sites, tin permit recovering lost information if a suitable snapshot is available, but sometimes it doesn’t receive got the fourth dimension to brand a backup re-create if the master copy is deleted before long later creation, which tin fall out inwards illustration of rapid regime intervention.
It would live on expert to receive got a backup organisation built into the cloth of the Internet, but for that to fall out the Internet must evolve toward a decentralized, distributed infrastructure independent of fundamental servers. H5N1 limited but conceptually audio model for a decentralized Internet is provided yesteryear the BitTorrent network, where files are non stored centrally but locally on the computers of the network’s users. In Alisie’s words:
“What would fall out if at that topographic point was no server to delete information from in addition to instead the content would alive forever on a decentralized network serving information through a fractal of nodes? We’re virtually to uncovering out.”
After a lot of written report in addition to prototyping work, the Akasha squad has found a suitable technology scientific discipline stack to implement a decentralized, distributed Internet. The cornerstones of the Akasha stack are Ethereum in addition to the InterPlanetary File System, augmented yesteryear Electron, React amongst Redux, in addition to Node.js.
The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a peer-to-peer distributed file organisation that connects all participating nodes amongst the same file organisation in addition to permits edifice versioned file systems, blockchains, all the agency to a permanent distributed Web. IPFS has no unmarried request of failure, in addition to nodes practise non ask to trust each other. Recently, OpenBazaar, a blockchain-based decentralized marketplace, started integrating the IPFS into its platform.
In an article titled “Locking the Web Open, a Call for a Distributed Web,” Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, an early on Internet entrepreneur besides known for founding other pioneering initiatives such as the Internet Credit Union, Alexa in addition to the early on supercomputer society Thinking Machines, challenged funders, visionaries, coders in addition to activists to construct the decentralized Internet amongst technologies like to those used yesteryear the Akasha project.
Since Akasha is built on Ethereum, it volition receive got a built-in infrastructure suitable for micropayments. “In the get-go stage ETH volition live on the native token used within the Akasha ecosystem,” notes the Akasha website. “We chose to focus get-go on edifice a working decentralized application in addition to learning from the actual usage what sorts of problems nosotros should live on solving amongst a custom token.”
Perhaps Akasha could advance toward implementing the native Internet payment organisation in addition to other advanced features foreseen inwards Ted Nelson’s Project Xanadu, a conceptual precursor of today’s World Wide Web, which were never implemented due to lack of enabling technologies. “Humanity needs a meliorate habitation of Mind,” concludes Alisie referring to John Perry Barlow’s “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.”
The post Akasha Project Unveils Decentralized Social Media Network Based on Ethereum in addition to IPFS appeared get-go on Bitcoin Magazine.
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