AMA Recap - NDN Link
The session of AMA (Ask Me Anything) with NDN Link CMO Mark Nezvisky was conducted on 20th July 2020 at 7:30 PM IST (2 PM UTC).
In May 2020 NDN Link did IEO on OKEx, and we were excited to host them in our Indian community.
Live AMA at @CrytoPlayers started with a brief introduction by CMO Mark Nezvisky. The community had only 1 min to post their questions and within that short period, more than 350 questions were posted by members. However, due to limitation of time only 26 questions have been answered & 10 best questions have been selected for the reward. Here are some highlights of the AMA.
INTRODUCTION
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
My name is Mark Nezvisky, I’m the CMO of NDN Link. I got acquainted with the founder of NDN Link earlier this year and was impressed by the idea behind this great piece of technology.I instantly wanted to become a part of this revolutionary journey. My mission at NDN Link is to explain to people what NDN Link is in simple terms, so that anyone who’s interested in it may see the benefit.
My previous projects were in crypto, I also did some YouTubing, marketing and recruiting
ADMIN ROUND
a₿hisEk (host):
What is NDN Link? How & why is it evolved?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
NDN Link is Named Data Networking. It’s a Network Protocol that allows people on the Internet send and receive data without an IP address.
Why? Because statistically speaking the IP Protocol is failing to meet the demands of the modern market/Internet, moreover it brings many problems to Internet users. Most of the hacks online are associated with the vulnerabilities of IP Protocol
How? A brilliant group of researchers started the original NDN protocol in 2010 and gave way to many projects associated with the NDN protocol, NDN Link being one of them
a₿hisEk (host):
Are there any other projects which are working on this solution ?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Yes, for example, some big names https://blogs.cisco.com/sp/cisco-announces-important-steps-toward-adoption-of-information-centric-networking or this https://e.huawei.com/ph/publications/global/ict_insights/hw_203735/feature%20story/HW_204040 also Intel, Panasonic
a₿hisEk (host):
How NDN Link overcome the problem of data retrieval left by IPFS/FileCoin and Lambda projects ?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
First and for most I advise our audience to go over this article in their spare time, it goes much in-depth than what I’m about to say https://medium.com/ndn-link-official/ipfs-is-on-a-mission-to-improve-the-internet-through-ndn-8a43ad3958f5 secondly, we don’t compete with IPFS or Filecoin or Lambda. We are always looking to partner and create beautiful and useful products together each product/company has it’s own positioning on the market, there are companies that are researching the ndn protocol and are trying to adapt it to their infrastructure, to enhance their products, etc. Huawei, Cisco are great examples, which I’ve mentioned just now
We are building an infrastructure with NDN and blockchain, so that other companies could use it for their needs. Some companies might not be interested in investing into an infrastructure from scratch so a ready solution like NDN Link will become handy. As for data retrieval, IPFS and Lambda our doing a great job at addressing the issues, we also are going to do our part by focusing on data transmission specifically for large Content Delivery Networks and large video content in high quality.
a₿hisEk (host):
What is the major difference between Proof-of-Space-Time (PoST) & Proof-of Time-Space (PoTS) algorithm which NDN Link has proposed? And why its better than PoST ?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
To be completely honest we are still defining our consensus protocols, and right now we have something in mind like PoS+ Proof of Staking and Routing + Proof of Staking and Routing and Hitting 🙂
Initially, we started off with Proof Of Transmission, but since we haven’t released the consensus algorithm yet we are working on the mechanisms as well as the names so you might see some changes until the final release
I do mention briefly about the consensus algorithm in our latest update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpNn0wFOC10&feature=youtu.be or if you fancy text format https://medium.com/ndn-link-official/ndn-link-phase-1-technical-roadmap-46673c503a24
COMMUNITY ROUND
Hendra:
I saw your website you have discussed about NDN and P2P systems…
Can you please tell here in short about what is actual different between NDN and p2p system?? Is it same or having some difference??
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
P2P has a decentralization component to it because data is stored on different nodes of the network. NDN also has that type of decentralization but even more, because NDN can store data on any device of the network, including your home routers. Even though P2P is decentralized is some way it still uses and IP Protocol which is centralized. The data is dependent on an IP address and that’s the only way to fetch it whereas NDN uses the name of the data to fetch it and does not care on which device/server it sits those are just a couple of differences between the 2
Lakshya:
What is the naming mechanism of NDN LINK and explain its working process ?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
NDN Link has two types of parties on the network: the Content Producer and the Consumer. The content producer creates content and the NDN Link network applies a cryptographic signature on it with various information about the content; for example, its name, version, freshness, cryptographic key, etc. Whenever there’s an Interest from the consumer that matches the name and other information of the content then NDN Link delivers the corresponding data packet(content) to the (consumer)
Tommy:
On which problems of current Market, NDN Link is working on? & How NDN Link Effectively solves that problem?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Issues with quality of live streams for video content is a big area of interest for us, and the markets demand is growing each year for that, but the IP Protocol can’t handle the demand well. I’m referring to issues like glitches, freezes, interruptions, downtimes during live streams for a large group of audiences with HD videos and higher we solve that by moving away from central servers and caching live stream data on the routers/devices of the network, so that each viewer can get the live stream from a device that is nearest to them rather than fetching if across the globe
Hermawan:
Is your aim, to become the number one (leader) in the information centric self-organizing network Platform? and if so what will you say is your biggest strength to achieve it?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Leadership comes as a result of the ability to efficiently solve problems, if we can solve the problems of the Video Content Delivery market then we will naturally become the go-to product/service for millions of people but only time will tell what we would be able to achieve, that’s why we are taking one step at a time 🙂 granted that just like any project we would like to be the best :)
Ross:
1. NDN link has a mission and its blockchain is capable of accomplishing it. Being known is the most important thing now to reach adoption, so what has been your strategy to make this happen, and how has been the receptivity?2.The token is going to have a linear release of the token and in 6 years total supply will be released, what is the objective of this design, what are its advantages?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
We decided to address the mass adoption issue by going to businesses and offering them our infrastructure instead of the one they use now. for example, a particular company is having an issue with their product and service and that issue is associated with the problems of the IP Protocol that we are looking to replace, then, in this case, we offer them our NDN protocol instead, they test it and see if it works better, if yes, then they do the implementation based on it, their service or product may even remain intact but the way it would work would be noticeable to the end-user and to the company as well, for the end user it could be less problems with their streams, less glitches, and interruptions for the company it could be less storage space and overhead for maintaining huge servers, etc, because there are other big names working on the NDN protocol we believe that spreading the word about the protocol would be more convincing to other tech giants.
Aluta:
Sequel to the Recent CLOUDFARE down time, can you explain to us if NDNLINK is resistant to such attacks and how can ndnlink prevent such from happening?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
It depends on which downtime you’re referring to, if it’s related to hacking or server overload, then we can perfectly address that. For hacking, we have cryptographic signatures. All the data that sits on the server will have one, and if the server is hacked then who cares the data will remain intact
because only the party that holds the necessary keys can access the data
if it’s related to server downtime because of too many requests then this one is also easy to resolve, we simply cache all of that data on the node/routers of the network and users grab the data within their proximity instead of going to the central server each time.
If the data is private then private keys could be created, so even if it sits at your neighbor's router no one can access it by you plus there will be many copies of the same data so it’s not like your neighbor turns off the router and your screwed😄
Bottom line is that we focus not only on the server and device security but also on data security, in fact, data security is even more important than device security, wouldn’t you agree?
Mr Zoo:
On moving forward through your roadmap, what are your most important next priorities?
In Your roadmap you mention 4 phase CHRONO, GAEA, URANOS, TITAN. Can you explain it little more about your phases, Does NDN Link team have enough fundamental ( Funds , Community , ect ) to achieve those milestones?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Release of the consensus algorithm, then the testnet
Ijinlelomo:
1) The recent twitter hack really scared and surprised me. How will NDN Link prevent such hack, including DDoS Attack as well?2) What’s npChat? Can you tell us the functions and uses of the App? What values will it add?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Yes, some scary sh*t indeed but this is what we were telling people before — these types of hacks are not single instances
https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2019/instagram-hit-by-two-privacy-breaches-in-a-week.html
https://www.cybintsolutions.com/cyber-security-facts-stats/
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/17/youtube-down-video-service-reports-problems
I just don’t want to spam you with links, and I know I didn’t paste only hacks statistics but I’m just illustrating a point that hacks and downtimes of servers have a similar root cause and that is TCP/IP Protocol in the TCP/IP everything revolves around the central server if it’s hacked you don’t know if the website you’re accessing is safe if it’s down, you can’t even access the damn site whereas with NDN if the server is hacked — who cares the data on the server is safe.
If the server is down, no problem NDN will fetch the same data from ANYWHERE on the network, because multiple cached version were created
Kesya:
How does #NDN handle DDos Attack?
as we know this is a dangerous thing.
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
I highly recommend this article https://medium.com/ndn-link-official/preventing-ddos-attacks-with-ndn-2096e5ccd353
Jade:
I love how NDN link use greece terms in your phases, so Tell me to NDN link what is its ZEUS?NDN link can be used in smart Cities? To improve the Connection between citizens?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
I guess Zeus wasn’t invited to the party 😂 at least on this particular roadmap, maybe for the next we’ll think of a place for him 🙂
ATX29:
NDN Link is having a lot of big rivals like Google, iCloud, OneDrive. So in the future, does NDN Link have a plan to replace or cooperate with them? I think it will be a huge turning point for NDN Link
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Cooperate, and offer NDN Link’s infrastructure as I previously described
Serge:
Do you think that NDN Link completely replaced TCP / IP with a named data network (NDN) when creating a new underlying Internet infrastructure?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
not at once, it will take time before everyone will start using it. But it definitely has that potential. Just like IP took the infrastructure of the telephone lines and the Internet that we know today was created, in the same way, NDN does with IP, it runs on top of the same infrastructure and that’s the beauty, because companies, users don’t need to change their hardware infrastructure to adapt to this change just the logic of things becomes different.
Andrey:
Do you have help from government science entities or similar? Where does the research funding for the NDN project team come from?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
The original NDN team of scientists of the UCLA university is founded by the US National Science Foundation. The NDN LInk project that is built on top of the open-source project of the original NDN team and combined with the blockchain technology was initially self-funded and then we ran a round of private investments in April in this year and that’s where the funds are coming from now, the government is not helping yet :)
ATX29:
Ethereum presents the issue of scalability, are you planning to have your own native tokens and mainnet to address this issue? If yes, any specific time frame to launch your mainnet?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Hopefully, the mainnet will launch next year, but I can’t promise that. Once we do launch it then we will transition to our native token.
Dalmasca:
What does it mean to have a hierarchical structure of data names in the field of data transmission? Do data packets cache a copy of all transactions to meet the same data source requests in the future?..
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Hierarchical structure is the same structure as you have in your URL address bar NDN uses the same principle: youtube.com/ndnlink/ddos/attack and so instead of searching that video by 192.168.0.2 as an example it would search by hierarchical names which is simpler and less complicated for the system and leads to all the benefits that I’ve described during this ama it’s a subtle shift but super powerful :)
Tommy:
Where do you see your product actually being used by the community and solving the real world problem?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Everywhere where the IP protocol works, and that is simply the whole Internet :)
Termux:
Because this year the new Defi is warm and many also joined the DefiMy question is about competing projects.
Can you tell us which projects in this room have similar goals, how are they different from competitors?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
NKN is similar, IPFS is similar, Filecoin is similar, lambda, but each of them has their own positioning, something that I explained in the beginning of this ama
Karla:
🔸🔸🔸Currently the content in “ndn” is identified with a hierarchical name, and both the requests (the interests) and the answers (the data) are named after the content instead of an origin/destination address, i would like to know, how does this guarantee the security and exclusivity of my data?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Security is guaranteed by the cryptographic signature that is assigned to each data packet or in other words content(video, text, audio) that is uploaded on the Internet. So it doesn’t matter where your data resides, because a) there will be millions of copies of it and b) no one but you can access it. It’s like a crypto wallet — whoever has the keys controls the assets
Jolaine:
Please explain your relationship with INTEL and CISCO.
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
We work on a similar protocol and consult regarding best practices/approaches, that’s all I can disclose for now
VyachCrypto:
What are the main differences between NDN and TCP / IP, what are the advantages of using NDN over TCP / IP, and how can NDN LINK ensure the security of user data?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
We are fetching data on the Internet by name instead of the IP address this gives the possibility to shift the network from a server-centric paradigm to a data-centric one.
We apply cryptography to each data packet created on the Internet which secures the data traveling across the network and not only focusing on the safety of the endpoints and channels of communication.
We store data on routers and devices of the network and not only on central servers. This gives the network more scalability and speed because the data is always nearby no matter where you are; it doesn’t have to be fetched across the globe.
Tanya:
Can you share NDN Link vision for decentralized finance (DEFI)? What features are built into NDN Link to support DEFI?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Any online application/service can run on NDN because every online application/service currently runs on IP and NDN is replacing IP 😉
Shiva:
The LAG and connect interruptions are a typical issues of the online Gamers, can NDN Link the power to solve this problems, Considering its capacity in this area?
Mark Nezvisky (CMO):
Yeap, gaming is also one of area of interests because it’s related to live streaming and the solution would be the same as with live streams: move away from the central server and chunk up the data across the whole network to decrease the load.
AMA ended at 9:00 PM IST. It was our pleasure to host AMA with NDN Link, quite informative & knowledgable AMA it was. Have a look at AMA statistics:
Host from CryptoPlayers
1. @bshek — FounderSpeaker from NDN Link
1. Mark Nezvisky — CMOAMA Stats:-
Total Questions — 350
Total Answers — 26
Total Members — 14800
