I have heard that the internet computer site runs completely on ICP but when you look it up it looks like it is using a cloud provider that is not listed as one of the data centers or node providers. Can anyone provide some clarification?
Unitas Global is a Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) company, not a hosting/cloud service provider. They focus on managing the network infrastructure of cloud, data centers, and other edge infrastructure. A kind of a company that provides service of routing optimization to improve internet performance. CMIIM
When it said hosted by: Unitas Global, it proves the website is not hosted on any popular web hosting provider (AWS, etc.), but is hosted by its own edge infrastructure.
So interestingly, this website keeps giving different hosting details for the same website after couple of refresh.
When youâre unsure whether a website is hosted on the Internet Computer (IC), you can inspect the HTTP headers, which often provide clues, including a canister ID. If you find a canister ID in the headers, you should be able to access the website directly using this canister ID which gives you a hint about its provenance.
internetcomputer.org https://oa7fk-maaaa-aaaam-abgka-cai.icp0.io/
You need to check the requests that go to internetcomputer.org
, the requests you have there are going to ic-api.internetcomputer.org
, which is not on-chain. The devtools only record requests after you open, so if you refresh after opening youâll see many more requests.
Thatâs because youâre hitting different boundary nodes, which are hosted in different data centres.
So how would i go about trusting what I see when I inspect websites in future to be onchain?
You should select specific resources to inspect their HTTP headers. For example, you might find this tutorial helpful (I just picked the first tutorial from a quick search on the web). There are other methods to inspect HTTP headers, such as executing commands in your terminal.
As I mentioned in my previous message, the presence of the canister ID in the HTTP header serves as a hint. If you are skeptical or wish to validate this hypothesis further, you can conduct additional analysis. This could include verifying the provided certificate, cross-checking the canister information across various sources, or directly contacting the canister, among other methods at the top of my head spontaneously.
The question of trust is a difficult one when it comes to what is served to your browser. The header is a hint, but any server could send the same header.
You can run a local proxy: Try Out the IC HTTP Proxy: A Leap Towards Decentralized HTTP
This will reduce the level of trust you need to have by operating the HTTP Gateway locally on your own computer, but itâs still very difficult to know for sure if a specific website is running through the proxy or not. This is something that weâre aware of though and would like to find solutions for this in the future.