Decentralized Storage & Distribution: BitTorrent & IPFS

This lecture covers the concepts of decentralized storage and distribution, focusing on BitTorrent and IPFS. It starts with the basics of storing data reliably on local machines and then delves into distributed systems, redundancy, and decentralized architectures. The instructor explains the CAP Theorem, emphasizing consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. The lecture explores the goals and challenges of storage and distribution, including scalability, security, and malicious attacks. It discusses building BitTorrent specifications, bootstrapping, and finding peers. Additionally, it covers IPFS, a fully decentralized P2P distributed file system, and its unique features like representing files in a DHT, versioning, and naming mutable data. The lecture concludes with a discussion on Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs) and their applications in local-first software.