Sharing a File – IPFS Blockchain

Let us try to understand the mechanism using an example

Imagine you want to share a pdf file to IPFS, you will put it into the operating directory. Next, to feature this file you will command the IPFS to generate a hash for the file, this offers it to the IPFS network. To share this particular file with anyone connected to the network, you will now just have to share the hash and they can duplicate the PDF.

Asymmetric IPFS Encryption

This encryption mechanism adds an additional layer of security to the files. The files are encrypted using a key and any malicious party will not be able to access the files without the desired key.

So imagine that before uploading the PDF on the network, you decide to encrypt it using your friend, Tom’s public key. Whenever Tom wishes to retrieve the file from the network, he will enter the hash, and then decrypt the file using his non-public key. Since nobody else has access to Tom’s non-public key, nobody else will be able to decrypt the file and it’ll be safe!

IPFS and Blockchain

Blockchain is a decentralized peer-to-peer network that provides immutability and thus, is the best choice to support traceability of data on a distributed file system like IPFS.

IPFS and blockchains share a similar structure and work well together. To understand it well, imagine it like IPFS would connect all different blockchain quite like how the internet connects all websites. It might as well act like a backbone structure for the new web. Like we link one page to another using a link, a link can be placed in Ethereum in order to link to some other network.

Hence, the future of IPFS and blockchain is quite closely related and they might be integrated to generate a consolidated engine of decentralised finance and applications.