Archives and Inter-Planetary Linked Data: The Perfect Fit

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
Decentralised, Peer-To-Peer, Blockchain-Based Academic Archiving & Publishing Ecosystem
We’re well underway with our development of KnowledgeArc Network, the decentralised, peer-to-peer, blockchain-based academic archiving and publishing ecosystem.
Latest Decentralised Technologies
Employing the latest decentralised technologies such as Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS), OrbitDB and Ethereum, we’re solving the problem of needing truly permanent repository solutions—permanent, immutable and censorship-resistant.
The Inter-Planetary Linked Data (IPLD) model provides us with a new way to describe information on KnowledgeArc Network along with the metadata that describes the information that’s being stored.
IPLD is built on top of IPFS, a decentralised peer-to-peer file storage system.
Location-Based vs. Content-Based Addressing
The brilliance of IPFS comes from the way it references what it stores: instead of the traditional method of using a location-based address to a document for file, IPFS identifies the file using a unique identifier, or hash. This is known as content addressing. Doesn’t make sense?
Here’s a brief example:
Let’s say I have some very important research I’ve undertaken and I want to distribute it to as many people on the web as I can reach.
Using some kind of web-publishing software, I upload this important research in a PDF I’ve called “my-academic-research-that-will-change-the-world.pdf” from my computer to a web site somewhere: https://my.uni.edu
I put it in a folder called “research-papers”.
I then distribute this file to everyone, with the web address https://my.uni.edu/research-papers/my-academic-research-that-will-change-the-world.pdf.
It’s critical that this research is easily accessible, unchangeable, and built to last for generations.
There are a number of problems with this solution:
- What happens if the web site address changes?
- What happens if the web site gets moved?
- What happens if the web site administrator decides to change the research papers path to something else?
- What happens if this file gets deployed to other web sites?
- How do I ensure people know that the file my-academic-research-that-will-change-the-world.pdf contains MY research and hasn’t been changed, manipulated or completely replaced?
Basically, the problem we have is that this important research cannot be guaranteed to:
- be accessible using the same address
- be unique
- be tamper-resistant
IPFS Solves These Problems
IPFS solves these problems by generating an identifier or “hash” based on the contents of the file. A hash which is mathematically unique enough to never result in a clash between two files.
By generating a hash based on the contents of my-academic-research-that-will-change-the-world.pdf, I can now locate this file no matter where it’s stored.
Additionally, IPFS includes a network of computers which can store this file so that it can be found from the network rather than from one computer (for example, https://my.uni.edu).
Linked Data – Decentralised
IPLD is another part of this decentralised picture. IPLD can link pieces of data together.
Again, taking our research ‘my-academic-research-that-will-change-the-world.pdf’, I can now add some metadata which I can link to the document.
Metadata might include:
- the title of the paper
- authors
- keywords
- an abstract from the paper
- other important descriptive information
Additionally, I can extend the linked data to include whole profiles about the author, link keywords to other data so that I can find similar works. I can even store links to revisions, so a historical change log of the paper could be easily retrieved from the most current version.
And The Benefit Of All Of This?
- Everything is uniquely identified based on its content.
- It can never be corrupted because the corruption will be easy to identify.
- It will be censorship-resistant because any change will generate a whole new set of identifiers.
- And it’s easy to locate because the identifier never changes.

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