the InterPlanetary File System - the peer-to-peer content-addressed storage network (Protocol Labs, 2014) that made cids famous; tamper-EVIDENT by naming, but authorless: a hash proves what the bytes are, never who stands behind them.
The naming victory and the question it never asked: who signs for the parcel?
Etymology and backstory
Juan Benet's 2014 whitepaper stitched together Merkle DAGs, distributed hash tables, and BitTorrent-style swarming into "a content-addressed web." Its naming layer (multiformats, CIDv1) became infrastructure vocabulary far beyond the network itself. The grand ambition (replace origin-server hosting) landed partially; the naming discipline won completely.
Ecosystem
NFT metadata, decentralized-web archives, package registries; and IPLD as the generalized data model over content-addressed links.
In codexproof
the sharpest one-sentence contrast in the related work (reframed in the camera-ready, an Aug-strata item): IPFS is tamper-evident but AUTHORLESS - a cid says these are the bytes, and nobody is on the hook for them. Codexproof's envelope adds the missing layers: a signature (who), typed PROV lineage (from what), a trust schema (were they entitled), and revocation (do they still stand behind it).
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