5 ms·

Is IPFS infamous for illegal content? My perception was that it's still much too easy to trace the origin of content on IPFS and therefore not suitable for ill

Is IPFS infamous for illegal content? My perception was that it's still much too easy to trace the origin of content on IPFS and therefore not suitable for illegal things.

giancarlostoro 9y ago
Everyone's IP is public, and I think your home network gets exposed which I think is the worst part of it (or so I was told).
book_mentioned 9y ago
Depends on target market, so ideally non-technical perception (enterprise budget). There is probably still time to do effective marketing that conveniently doesn't emphasize it but discreetly assuages any concerns. However, I am hard pressed to find any sizable HN discussion that doesn't mention it? It's basically worrying about what shows up as downsides when Googling, since most potential customers are starting from zero.
013a 9y ago
It was used in Spain to host illegal websites organizing Catalonian independence. But yeah, its not a great pick for illegal activities against technically competent governments.
- letlambda 9y ago
  There's not much point in trying to hide what your doing, if what your doing is holding a public vote.
  - alexeldeib 9y ago
    You have it somewhat backwards -- they wanted to get the word out, and the government had been suppressing discussion actively. They used IPFS to circumvent that.
- gsich 9y ago
  'illegal'
StavrosK 9y ago
It's as much infamous for illegal content as hard disks are. That is, you can choose to host some, but you can also choose not to.
- prophesi 9y ago
  Yeah, it will eventually support having blacklists. So if you get a cease-and-desist letter, you can simply blacklist the offending content. It doesn't completely solve the issue, but it should help mitigate getting into legal trouble with it. For anonymous content, you'd probably have to handle the encryption/decryption yourself and use IPFS as the distribution.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    It supports blacklists now too. The bigger mitigation is that IPFS is a "push" and not a "pull" system, so you only store content you have explicitly requested.
    - joshfraser 9y ago
      Your blacklist becomes someone else's favorites list. Changing a single byte changes the entire hash, so blacklists aren't a great solution if censorship is what you're after.
      - atrus 9y ago
        Blacklists are double hashed, so they aren't useful for finding 'bad' content.
        tscs37 9y ago
        And who can assure that these blacklists won't be manipulated for someone's gain? Ie, surpressing activity they don't like on the network?
    - prophesi 9y ago

Is IPFS infamous for illegal content? My perception was that it's still much too easy to trace the origin of content on IPFS and therefore not suitable for illegal things.

giancarlostoro 9y ago

Everyone's IP is public, and I think your home network gets exposed which I think is the worst part of it (or so I was told).

book_mentioned 9y ago

Depends on target market, so ideally non-technical perception (enterprise budget). There is probably still time to do effective marketing that conveniently doesn't emphasize it but discreetly assuages any concerns. However, I am hard pressed to find any sizable HN discussion that doesn't mention it? It's basically worrying about what shows up as downsides when Googling, since most potential customers are starting from zero.

013a 9y ago

It was used in Spain to host illegal websites organizing Catalonian independence. But yeah, its not a great pick for illegal activities against technically competent governments.

letlambda 9y ago
There's not much point in trying to hide what your doing, if what your doing is holding a public vote.
- alexeldeib 9y ago
  You have it somewhat backwards -- they wanted to get the word out, and the government had been suppressing discussion actively. They used IPFS to circumvent that.
gsich 9y ago
'illegal'

StavrosK 9y ago

It's as much infamous for illegal content as hard disks are. That is, you can choose to host some, but you can also choose not to.

prophesi 9y ago
Yeah, it will eventually support having blacklists. So if you get a cease-and-desist letter, you can simply blacklist the offending content. It doesn't completely solve the issue, but it should help mitigate getting into legal trouble with it. For anonymous content, you'd probably have to handle the encryption/decryption yourself and use IPFS as the distribution.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  It supports blacklists now too. The bigger mitigation is that IPFS is a "push" and not a "pull" system, so you only store content you have explicitly requested.
  - joshfraser 9y ago
    Your blacklist becomes someone else's favorites list. Changing a single byte changes the entire hash, so blacklists aren't a great solution if censorship is what you're after.
    - atrus 9y ago
      Blacklists are double hashed, so they aren't useful for finding 'bad' content.
      - tscs37 9y ago
        And who can assure that these blacklists won't be manipulated for someone's gain? Ie, surpressing activity they don't like on the network?
  - prophesi 9y ago