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What is IPFSGate

The IPFSGate is an advanced public IPFS gateway, IPFS websites provider and IPFS storage. You can use the gateway to access the content located in the IPFS network directly from your web browser without installation of any software or plugin. You are allowed to browse any IPFS content via our default IPFS gateway or you can select from many 3rd party IPFS gateways. Those of you who use Tor Browser for a better anonymity can take advantage of Onion IPFS Gateway (IPFS over Tor network).

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IPFS dark web

Let’s take a look at the possibility to build up darkweb over IPFS network. In this small article I would like clearify some important things on this field. In the next article I am going to show you in a few steps some possible and sustainable solution how to run own small censorship-resistant marketplace over the IPFS network. First of all – IPFS is not a darknet, so all websites over IPFS can not be classified as a dark web in a true sense of a word. IPFS is a censorship-resistant network (like Tor or I2P which we understand as a darknet) , but in the case of IPFS, censorship resistance is achieved in a different way than in case of Tor or I2P. So where is the difference ? It is known that the IPFS is a distributed network and uses content-addressing instead of location-based addressing which uses HTTP protocol (and thus the Tor). In case of Tor (typical darknet) there is no information about the IP address of node which serve the content due to the onion routing. But in the case of IPFS, although the content is accessed by its hash (CID), the IP address of the node which server the content is clear and known. So basically node can be shut down or censored by authorities. The benefit of IPFS is that there can be tens, hundreds or even thousands of these nodes. And such a quantity is difficult to censor even for governments or authorities. All this has one important implication. IPFS is a great tool for making censorship-resistant only such content, where there is a societal consensus that the content should not be censored, although a minority of society (government, authorities) may want it. Tor can host child porn and drug markets because no one knows the IP address of the node who serve it. That is the difference. I believe that IPFS is not and will never be a suitable tool for the long-term hosting of a website that offers “hard” illegal content such as child porn or a drug markets. Because the owners of the nodes are known and it is their interest not to share such content to the network. So from the perspective of the dark web, where is the place for IPFS? I think that in order to share content (perhaps even illegal) for which there is a society-wide consensus that it is desirable.

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