DrupalCon Nashville 2018: Drupal on InterPlanetary File System. A blueprint for an uncensorable web
Channel: Drupal Association
Date: 11/04/2018

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

What led to this session?

A team has published a snapshot of tr.wikipedia.org, the Turkish version of Wikipedia on IPFS.

Why did that happen? Wikipedia went dark for everyone in Turkey. According to the independent watchdog group Turkey Blocks, the Turkish government had issued a court order that permanently restricts access to the online encyclopedia.

Why should the web move to IPFS?

Short answer, improving humanity’s access to information without the need of governmental agencies controlling that information.

How does IPFS works?

This section of session discusses how IPFS changes the addressing of information, moving from location addressing to content addressing.

IPFS is harder to attack and easier to distribute because it’s peer-to-peer and decentralized.



The session will also discuss the various aspects of IPFS like,

1. The content downloaded is cryptographically verified

2. If one IPFS gateway gets blocked, you can use another one.



and more.

So where does the challenge lie?

When there is content, our beloved Drupal needs to be part of it and deliver same editorial experience we enjoy, yet utilising the immutable nature of content on IPFS.

What is the Blueprint we are talking about?



We created a blueprint and the development is in progress. It needs more attention and more love from our Drupal community to make it a feasible and useful CMS to easily harness the power of IPFS in specific use cases.


The key idea of session will be brainstorming and collaboration on ideas to how to make it robust to make it top choice CMS for such use cases.

PS: Can we invite Julian Assange for this? He might just love it