That’s a people problem, not a freenet problem. The same can be said about the fediverse. CSAM has been used exhaustively as pretext for surveillance along with terrorism, so I wouldn’t really use this as a reference. Lack of authoritarian oversight is the cost of freedom
Basically every platform that allows users to upload arbitrary content has this issue. It doesn’t even require presumed anonymity, people share this stuff on Facebook. I think Darknet Diaries Episode 93: KIK also helps show just how prevalent it is.
You can’t just handwave CSAM as a pretext. Every file-sharing platform that allows anonymity is rife with it. To operate an anonymous file sharing system is to enable child exploitation.
You can’t have CSAM of a child whose pictures were never uploaded to the internet. Post hoc measures are a law enforcement delusion, more of an aestheticization of a solution than a solution itself. The money they fruitlessly spend on establishing a surveillance apparatus could’ve been much better spent on programs teaching people about digital literacy and how to be a proper parent. Saying an anonymous file sharing system enables CSAM is equivalent to saying the existence of a printing press enables libel
the fediverse allows defederation, and i’m wondering if there’s a way that users can block content despite a collective persistence of it.
if user A circulates cat pictures, user B circulates dog pictures, and user C circulates both, can user A block dog pictures from B and C, but still see user C’s cat pictures? at that point it’d be up to the users/collectives to provide insight as to what addresses deal in unsavory content and helm each other block/filter, which comes back around like defederation.
that doesn’t guarantee creeps won’t circulate creep content. but i think the solution lies in community action anyway, both in helping prevent people from seeing things they wish they didn’t, and in apprehending offenders.
mine is not a super educated take, but it seems like it should be possible – i’m hoping smarter nerds than i could answer!
The design with the original freenet could be described as a collective communal hard drive. No individual knew or had control of what content, or more likely portions of content, their node held. They simply offered up an amount of space to the net along with bandwidth.
The data was all encrypted and defined by content hash keys with each request being passed from node to node asking for the key. If the node had it then it was passed to the node requesting it from them, which may or may not be the originator of the request.
Same way with inserts of content. That passing back and forth up a chain makes things functionally anonymous, but easily bottlenecked if you have some slow node in the path.
By not knowing or having control what’s stored on their own node it gives the operator plausible deniability in theory. Not sure if that was ever properly tested in a court.
that’s what i figured. i guess what i wondered is if users are able to revoke their willingness to (potentially) store something unsavory post facto and/or if the content link was shared to block prescriptively.
if i only wanted dog pictures on my computer and blocked any cat picture content i came across (for example), could that block all future attempts to store a portion of any content i chose to block, as long as the key/hash matched?
hypothetically, that aproach could narrow it down to where if virtually all people chose to block a file, it might stop circulating and only exist on a single person’s hard drive. i realize, though, that it wouldn’t take much to alter a file slightly and alter its hash therein
That’s a people problem, not a freenet problem. The same can be said about the fediverse. CSAM has been used exhaustively as pretext for surveillance along with terrorism, so I wouldn’t really use this as a reference. Lack of authoritarian oversight is the cost of freedom
What is the point of designing technology for people to use that does not account for common "people problem"s?
I think it’s important for people to understand just how large of an issue CSAM is on the internet. This recent article has some numbers: https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/child-abuse-online-statistics/
Basically every platform that allows users to upload arbitrary content has this issue. It doesn’t even require presumed anonymity, people share this stuff on Facebook. I think Darknet Diaries Episode 93: KIK also helps show just how prevalent it is.
You can’t just handwave CSAM as a pretext. Every file-sharing platform that allows anonymity is rife with it. To operate an anonymous file sharing system is to enable child exploitation.
You can’t have CSAM of a child whose pictures were never uploaded to the internet. Post hoc measures are a law enforcement delusion, more of an aestheticization of a solution than a solution itself. The money they fruitlessly spend on establishing a surveillance apparatus could’ve been much better spent on programs teaching people about digital literacy and how to be a proper parent. Saying an anonymous file sharing system enables CSAM is equivalent to saying the existence of a printing press enables libel
the fediverse allows defederation, and i’m wondering if there’s a way that users can block content despite a collective persistence of it.
if user A circulates cat pictures, user B circulates dog pictures, and user C circulates both, can user A block dog pictures from B and C, but still see user C’s cat pictures? at that point it’d be up to the users/collectives to provide insight as to what addresses deal in unsavory content and helm each other block/filter, which comes back around like defederation.
that doesn’t guarantee creeps won’t circulate creep content. but i think the solution lies in community action anyway, both in helping prevent people from seeing things they wish they didn’t, and in apprehending offenders.
mine is not a super educated take, but it seems like it should be possible – i’m hoping smarter nerds than i could answer!
The design with the original freenet could be described as a collective communal hard drive. No individual knew or had control of what content, or more likely portions of content, their node held. They simply offered up an amount of space to the net along with bandwidth.
The data was all encrypted and defined by content hash keys with each request being passed from node to node asking for the key. If the node had it then it was passed to the node requesting it from them, which may or may not be the originator of the request.
Same way with inserts of content. That passing back and forth up a chain makes things functionally anonymous, but easily bottlenecked if you have some slow node in the path.
By not knowing or having control what’s stored on their own node it gives the operator plausible deniability in theory. Not sure if that was ever properly tested in a court.
that’s what i figured. i guess what i wondered is if users are able to revoke their willingness to (potentially) store something unsavory post facto and/or if the content link was shared to block prescriptively.
if i only wanted dog pictures on my computer and blocked any cat picture content i came across (for example), could that block all future attempts to store a portion of any content i chose to block, as long as the key/hash matched?
hypothetically, that aproach could narrow it down to where if virtually all people chose to block a file, it might stop circulating and only exist on a single person’s hard drive. i realize, though, that it wouldn’t take much to alter a file slightly and alter its hash therein
Freenet probably never had enough usage to get to that point