Content Censorship in the InterPlanetary File System
Srivatsan Sridhar
Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2024 · Day 1 · Censorship
The InterPlanetary File System (**IPFS**) stands as the largest decentralized storage solution globally, underpinning thousands of participants and facilitating millions of daily content transfers. It serves as a foundational layer for numerous blockchain-based smart contracts, Non-Fungible Tokens (**NFTs**), and various decentralized applications, providing content-centric storage where data is identified by a **Content Identifier (CID)** derived from its hash. This design inherently supports content deduplication, data integrity, and efficient retrieval from the closest available location. However, this talk by Srivatsan Sridhar from NDSS Symposium 2024 reveals a critical vulnerability: a content censorship attack that can effectively prevent the retrieval of any chosen content within the IPFS network.