I just uploaded a folder of 5 images to IPFS (using the Mac Desktop IPFS Client App, so it was a very simple drag and drop operation.)
So being that I’m the one that created and published this folder, does that mean that I’m the only one that’s allowed to make further modifications to it - like adding or deleting more images from it? Or can anyone out there on IPFS do that as well?
If they can, is there a way to prevent that from happening?
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UPDATED QUESTION:
My specific use-case has to do with updating the metadata of ERC721 Tokens - after they’ve already been minted.
Imagine for example a game where certain objects - like say a magical sword - gains special powers after a certain amount of usage or after the completion of certain missions by its owner. So we’d want to update this sword’s attributes by editing it’s Metadata and re-committing this updated metadata file to the Blockchain.
If our game has 100 swords for example, and we initially uploaded to IPFS a folder containing all 100 json files (one for each sword), then I’m pretty sure IPFS still let’s you access the specific files within the hashed-folder by their specific human-readable names (and not only by their hash.)
So if our sword happens to be sword #76, and our naming convention for our JSON files was of this format: “sword000.json” , then sword#76’s JSON metadata file would have a path such as:
http://ipfs.infura.io/QmY2xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/sword076.json
If we then edited the “sword076.json“ file and drag-n-dropped it back into our master JSON folder, it would obviously cause that folder’s Hash/CID value to change. BUT, as long as we’re able update our Solidity Contract’s “tokenURI” method to look for and serve our “.json” files from this newly updated HASH/CID folder name, we could still refer to the individual files within it by their regular English names. Which means we’d be good to go.
Whether or not this is a good scheme to employ is something we can definitely discuss, but I FIRST want to go back to my original question/concern, which is that I want to make sure that WE are the ONLY ones that can update the contents of our folder - and that no one else has permission to do that.
Does that make sense?
IPFS is immutable, meaning when you add your directory along with the files, the directory gets a unique CID based on the contents of the directory. So in a sense, nobody can modify it, not even you, because it's immutable. I believe this confusion can be resolved with more background on how IPFS works.
When you add things to IPFS each file is hashed, and given a CID. The same is true for directories, but their CID can more easily be understood as a sum of the contents of the directory. So if any files in the directory are updated, added, or deleted, the directory gets a new CID.
Understanding this, if someone else added the exact same content in the exact same way, they'd end up with the exact same CID! With this, if two people added the same CID, and a third person requested that file (or directory), both nodes would be able to serve the data, as we know it's exactly the same. The same is true if you simply shared your CID and another node pinned it, both nodes would have the same data, so if anyone requested it, both nodes would be able to serve it.
So your local copy, cannot be edited by anyone. In a sense, if you're relying on the IPFS CID as the address of your data, not even by you! This is why IPFS is typically referred to as "immutable", because any data you request via an IPFS CID will always be the same. If you change any of the data, you'll get a new CID.
More info can be found here: Content Addressing & Immutability
If you read all this and thought "well what if I want mutable data?", I'd recommend looking into IPNS and possibly ipfs-sync if you're looking for a tool to automatically update IPNS for you.