Intrinsic references in distributed systems

The notion of intrinsic references, i.e. references based on the hash digest of the referent, is introduced and contrasted with that of physical references, where the referent is defined relative to the state of a physical system. A retrieval mechanism using intrinsic references, the Elephant Store, is presented. The use of intrinsic references in hierarchical data structures is discussed, and the advantages regarding version management, consistency and distributed storage are argued.