Does Solid support content based addressing?

#1

Hi,

Sorry I have not finished watching the videos linked in other posts. But I have this question in mind:

Does Solid use/support content based addressing for the data?

From what I have read so far, it seems that Solid still uses the classic web URL to identify any piece of data. Is that true? Did I miss the part about identifying the data based on its content (e.g. like using its hash).

Thanks in advance.

#2

Solid is relatively agnostic about the storage, so it doesn’t really have meaning to ask if it provides content addressable storage.

It will work with content addressable storage, eg using SAFE Network, IPFS etc

#3

This is a very good question. A user could move his POD to another provider, some links would be then broken. Does any infrastructure take care, or will take care of this?

#4

Using SAFE Network as the backend takes care of this and many other problems associated with server based storage. Encryption/security/privacy, permanence of storage, public data, DNS/URIs, and the risk of centralisation or abuse by pod providers.

#5

Ok, I know about the potential of the SAFE Network, but my question was meant to Solid, because I asume that not every POD provider will use the SAFE Network as backend, right? Please correct me if I miss something.

#6

Sorry if it wasn’t helpful, but to clarify: no POD provider is needed if we make Solid work on SAFE, and doing so would have several important benefits, including solving the issue of domains and URIs, which will always be valid (no expirey, no server to maintain or service to keep paying for).

SAFE will not just slot in like another pod provider, but could be made an alternative form of Solid storage that would be compatible with any Solid app, at the same time as solving many of the concerns people are raising when they think about storing their data on their own server, or paying for a pod service. So this is why I responded. Hope it is helpful to some to learn about this! :slight_smile:

#7

This is really helpful for me. I can just wish all the bes to the SAFE community to master the challenges of implementing the Solid spec, it would be a dream! Thanks for sharing :+1: