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David Dias

Research Director / ResNetLab

Education

MSc in Communication Networks Engineering, 2014

Universidade de Lisboa - Instituto Superior Técnico

BSc in Communication Networks Engineering, 2012

Universidade de Lisboa - Instituto Superior Técnico

David Dias led ResNetLab and served as the Director of the Research-Development organisation at Protocol Labs. Previously David worked at &yet, where he had the chance to collaborate with a number of different teams, helping them to improve and ship secure software by auditing web applications and delivering hands-on training in Node.js application security and the use of WebRTC. He has also conducted research at the Distributed Systems Group at INESC-ID Lisboa, later becoming an Invited Lecturer and creating the “Modern Web Development” course from scratch. Passionate about technology, David has served IEEE, Google, and Kairos, organizing several events and conferences, and even starting his own online events with the Lisbon JavaScript Conference (2012, 2013 and 2014) and Startup Scholarship.

Areas of Expertise

Distributed Systems, Networking

Publications

2022-11-07 / Journal article
To the InterPlanetary File System – and beyond!: Peer-to-peer file sharing would make the Internet far more efficient
When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in early 2020, the world made an unprecedented shift to remote work. As a precaution, some Internet providers scaled back service levels temporarily, although that probably wasn’t necessary for countries in Asia, Europe, and North America, which were generally able to cope with the surge in demand caused by people teleworking (and binge-watching Netflix).
IEEE Spectrum / 2022.11.07
Yiannis Psaras , Jorge M. Soares , David Dias
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2021-06-21 / Conference paper
Pulsarcast: Scalable, reliable pub-sub over P2P nets
The publish-subscribe paradigm is a wildly popular form of communication in complex distributed systems. The properties offered by it make it an ideal solution for a multitude of applications, ranging from social media to content streaming and stock exchange platforms.
DI2F / 2021.06.21 / Espoo, Finland
Joao Antunes, David Dias , Luis Veiga
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2021-06-11 / Conference paper
IPFS-FAN: A function-addressable computation network
Permissionless computation is one of the missing pieces in the web3 stack in order to have all the tools needed to “decentralise Internet services”. There are already proposals to embed computation in decentralised networks like smart contracts, or blockchain networks for computational offloading.
DI2F / 2021.06.21 / Espoo, Finland
Alfonso de la Rocha , Yiannis Psaras , David Dias
ResNetLab
Networking , Distributed systems
2021-01-14 / Report
Accelerating content routing with Bitswap: A multi-path file transfer protocol in IPFS and Filecoin
Bitswap is a Block Exchange protocol designed for P2P Content Addressable Networks. It leverages merkle-linked graphs in order to parallelize retrieval and verify content integrity. Bitswap is being used in the InterPlanetary File System architecture as the main content exchange protocol, as well as in the Filecoin network as part of the block synchronisation protocol.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2020-07-06 / Report
GossipSub: Attack-resilient message propagation in the Filecoin and ETH2.0 networks
Permissionless blockchain environments necessitate the use of a fast and attack-resilient message propagation protocol for Block and Transaction messages to keep nodes synchronised and avoid forks. We present GossipSub, a gossip-based pubsub protocol, which, in contrast to past pubsub protocols, incorporates resilience against a wide spectrum of attacks.
Dimitris Vyzovitis, Yusef Napora, Dirk McCormick, David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2020-04-18 / Report
Gossipsub-v1.1 evaluation report
Permissionless blockchain environments necessitate the use of a fast and attack-resilient message propagation protocol for Block and Transaction messages to keep nodes synchronised and avoid forks. We present GossipSub, a gossip-based pubsub protocol, which, in contrast to past pubsub protocols, incorporates resilience against a wide spectrum of attacks.
Dimitris Vyzovitis, Yusef Napora, Dirk McCormick, David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2020-03-30 / Conference paper
Censorship-resistant web annotations based on Ethereum and IPFS
Flooded by the propagation of false or biased news in the Web, people tend to resort to social networks to read posts from reliable sources, exchange commentaries with trustworthy parties, access first-hand content, or cross-check information that appears in news outlets.
SAC 2020 / 2020.03.30 / Brno, Czech Republic
João Santos, Nuno Santos, David Dias
ResNetLab
Distributed systems
2016-05-25 / Tutorial
Distributed web applications with IPFS
The contents of this document describe the tutorial session delivered at ICWE 2016, focused on Building Distributed Web Applications with IPFS. IPFS, the InterPlanetary File System, is the distributed and permanent Web, a protocol to make the Web faster, more secure and open.
16th International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE) / 2016.05.25 / Lugano, Switzerland
David Dias , Juan Benet
Distributed systems

Blog posts

2021-04-06 / News
ResNetLab on Tour tutorials go on-demand
We started the ResNetLab on Tour programme in late 2019 with the goal of onboarding the research and academic community to the IPFS architecture and the interesting open problems and research directions associated with the decentralisation of internet services.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2021-02-11 / Talks
IEEE GLOBECOM 2020 - The InterPlanetary File System and the Filecoin Network
IEEE Globecom is one of the flagship IEEE ComSoc conferences in the field of networks and communications – and, with over 2000 attendees, one of the largest conferences in the field.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems
2021-01-20 / Blog
ResNetLab 2020 in review: we love it when a plan comes together
We hope you spent some fantastic time with your loved ones during the holiday season. With the time to pause, rest, and reflect – and with the goal of kicking off 2021 in the best way possible – we decided to capture ResNetLab’s 2020 highlights, share what we’ve learned, and describe what we will be focusing on in 2021.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2021-01-11 / Blog
Beyond Swapping Bits: project review (and preview!)
If you have been following along for the past three months (1, 2, 3, 4), you know that we in ResNetLab started the Beyond Bitswap project with one goal in mind: to drive speed-ups for file-sharing in IPFS.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2021-01-01 / Blog
Our Bitswap nodes have become “jumping inspectors” (updated)
A few weeks ago, we shared how we have taught our Bitswap nodes to jump. If you recall from that post, the content discovery range extension gained came at the expense of an increased number of duplicate blocks exchanged in the network.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2020-12-10 / Blog
Teaching Bitswap nodes to jump
By now you may have heard about ResNetLab’s research endeavour to drive speed-ups on file transfers: Beyond Swapping Bits. Our recent blog post, “Honey, I shrunk our libp2p streams”, considers how adding compression to libp2p could lead to significant bandwidth savings.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2020-11-25 / Talks
IEEE/IFIP CNSM 2020 - The InterPlanetary File System and the Filecoin Network
ResNetLab was invited to present a 3.5 hour tutorial at one of the biggest conferences in the “NetMan” community, the 16th International Conference on Network and Service Management. We were impressed by the quality of talks, keynotes, workshops, and tutorials presented during the conference.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems
2020-11-03 / Blog
"Two ears, one mouth": how to leverage bitswap chatter for faster transfers
As part of ResNetLab’s research endeavour to drive speed-ups on file transfers, Beyond Swapping Bits, we present a new contribution to IPFS Bitswap protocol. We argue that Bitswap is currently discarding a wealth of information that could be used to its benefit, improving retrieval success and minimizing the latency to retrieve content.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2020-10-29 / Blog
Honey, I shrunk our libp2p streams
Today we’re excited to share the story of how we decided to explore compression for libp2p streams and ended up achieving up to a 75% decrease in bandwidth use when performing an IPFS file exchange.
Alfonso de la Rocha , David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2020-10-06 / Blog
GossipSub: An attack-resilient messaging-layer protocol for public blockchains
Securing permissionless networks is the bane of open networks, starting with the Internet and every overlay network that operates over it. This challenge has existed from the early days of the Internet to the current Web 3.
Yiannis Psaras , David Dias
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking
2020-07-01 / Talks
IEEE/IFIP DSN 2020 - The InterPlanetary File System and the Filecoin Network
ResNetLab was invited to present “The InterPlanetary File System and the Filecoin Network” in a 3-hour tutorial at the IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks! The conference, now in its 50th edition, has an established track record of top-quality research contributions, and is one of the oldest conferences in its subject area.
David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems
2020-06-08 / Talks
IPFS talk at the IRTF Decentralised Internet Infrastructure Research Group meeting
ResNetLab was invited to meet with the Decentralised Internet Infrastructure Research Group (DINRG) of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) to present and discuss the Software Architecture of the IPFS protocol.
David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems
2020-05-18 / Talks
NDN Seminar: a high-level overview of the InterPlanetary File System
ResNetLab was invited to present the “High-Level Overview of the IPFS Architecture” to the Named Data Networking consortium!
David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems
2020-05-07 / Talks
Next Generation Networks (NGN) group talk: A high-level overview of the InterPlanetary File System
The Next Generation Networks (NGN) group recently invited the Resilient Networks Lab (ResNetLab) to present a tutorial on IPFS. NGN is a vibrant group of academics, industry researchers and engineers working in the general area of — you guessed it — next-generation networks.
David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems
2020-05-03 / Talks
IEEE ICBC 2020: The InterPlanetary File System and the Filecoin Network
ResNetLab presented at one of the most prominent conferences in the area of Distributed Ledger Technologies: the IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies! IEEE ICBC 2020 took place remotely, was well-attended, and had an exciting programme both in terms of tutorials during the first day and invited talks during the main conference, where Vitalik Buterin delivered the keynote speech.
David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems
2020-04-17 / Talks
Gossipsub v1.1 at 'Open Tech Will Save Us' virtual event
ResNetLab was present at Open Tech Will Save Us virtual meetup, an event organized by the Matrix.org team during which participants could watch a live stream provided by Jitsi and ask questions using the Matrix protocol (often through a client like Riot).
David Dias
ResNetLab
Distributed systems
2019-12-30 / News
A new lab for resilient networks research
Resiliency is at the core of systems that are capable of standing the test of time, providing unshakable access for the many generations to come. A resilient system or network is fundamentally uncompromised by an isolated failure or network split.
David Dias , Yiannis Psaras
ResNetLab
Distributed systems , Networking