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General question: when somebody will push into Filecoin some "bad" files (anything, from docs needed by the mafia to children being sexually abused, to fake vi

General question: when somebody will push into Filecoin some "bad" files (anything, from docs needed by the mafia to children being sexually abused, to fake videos/claims/whatever about you, to any other bad things you can think of), how can that be detected and then deleted? (ignoring here the theme related to accountability) Question based on https://docs.filecoin.io/introduction/why-filecoin/ https://docs.filecoin.io/introduction/why-filecoin/ : Filecoin resists censorship because there is no central provider that can be coerced into deleting files or withholding service. The network is made up of many different computers run by many different people and organizations. Faulty or malicious actors are noticed by the network and removed automatically. In this context I'm not a believer of "automatically".

yorwba 6y ago
In this context, "faulty and malicious actors" would be those who interfere with the operation of the network, e.g. by deleting files they consider "bad".
acdha 6y ago
I generally phrase this as “How is this safer than running a Tor exit node?”. If someone uploads illicit material to Amazon, they have enough lawyers & clout to have the FBI send them a letter demanding client information. If this is a peer-to-peer service, you have a non-zero risk that the SWAT team is going to show up at your home/office and demand you prove that you weren't aware of that content. That's going to deter a LOT of people.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
I think this is a serious problem - but probably not for the exact use case you list (mafia, sexually abused kids). It should be solved by allowing an "expensive" (a) "vote" (b) to override, or delete, or hide for a number of years. (a): expensive should discourage the option in general (b): proof-of-stake, proof-of-ownership, proof-of-work are some of the many ways in which you can define voting rights. Unfortunately, it doesn't work easily in practice. Example: You created a file (say, a CV, or a newspaper article in PDF) to discredit me, but it's a lie. To me, not having that file publicly accessible would be worth $1,000. You could blackmail me - give me $1,000 or I'll upload the file! But I think you might do it anyway, so I don't negotiate (never negotiate!!). The file is 1 MB, and it costs $1/year to keep it up and running on Filecoin. I should have an option to ask a voting pool to remove that file for $100. The pool agrees, and the money gets burned (I shouldn't create any incentive for someone to cash in the amount). However, you can upload the file again; or a slightly different version, and we are back to square one. It then goes to the "discoverability" of the file. That part is probably going to be decentralized too, so no court could "order" Filecoin to make a file not discoverable. How do we solve it? I think there will emerge a search system that provides services to censor, obfuscate, etc, a number of files, based on reasonable requests. Whoever builds that company, I bet it will not be poor.
- dfischer 6y ago
  Too abusable... state actors, etc... could control network and remove stuff by spinning up probabilities to inject within quorum’s. Not sure...
- zepearl 6y ago
  Thanks a lot for your brainstorming - some remarks are interesting. But overall the root problem would still exist and the solutions would have to gather a majority - e.g. asking a "pool" to remove a video would mean for the "pool" to watch that video (to ensure that the claim is valid) and after the first experience (if it's child porn) we would all probably have to call a psychiatrist to help us overcome what we've seen => not feasible, it would actually destroy the pool's mental stability which is, in this concept, needed to evaluate the contents (videos in this example). Edit: Being ignored by some search engine would still be a no-go for me. Knowing that some personal data (general files, pics, videos, whatever) exists somewhere would make me feel absolutely NOK.

yorwba 6y ago

In this context, "faulty and malicious actors" would be those who interfere with the operation of the network, e.g. by deleting files they consider "bad".

acdha 6y ago

I generally phrase this as “How is this safer than running a Tor exit node?”. If someone uploads illicit material to Amazon, they have enough lawyers & clout to have the FBI send them a letter demanding client information. If this is a peer-to-peer service, you have a non-zero risk that the SWAT team is going to show up at your home/office and demand you prove that you weren't aware of that content. That's going to deter a LOT of people.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

I think this is a serious problem - but probably not for the exact use case you list (mafia, sexually abused kids). It should be solved by allowing an "expensive" (a) "vote" (b) to override, or delete, or hide for a number of years. (a): expensive should discourage the option in general (b): proof-of-stake, proof-of-ownership, proof-of-work are some of the many ways in which you can define voting rights. Unfortunately, it doesn't work easily in practice. Example: You created a file (say, a CV, or a newspaper article in PDF) to discredit me, but it's a lie. To me, not having that file publicly accessible would be worth $1,000. You could blackmail me - give me $1,000 or I'll upload the file! But I think you might do it anyway, so I don't negotiate (never negotiate!!). The file is 1 MB, and it costs $1/year to keep it up and running on Filecoin. I should have an option to ask a voting pool to remove that file for $100. The pool agrees, and the money gets burned (I shouldn't create any incentive for someone to cash in the amount). However, you can upload the file again; or a slightly different version, and we are back to square one. It then goes to the "discoverability" of the file. That part is probably going to be decentralized too, so no court could "order" Filecoin to make a file not discoverable. How do we solve it? I think there will emerge a search system that provides services to censor, obfuscate, etc, a number of files, based on reasonable requests. Whoever builds that company, I bet it will not be poor.

dfischer 6y ago
Too abusable... state actors, etc... could control network and remove stuff by spinning up probabilities to inject within quorum’s. Not sure...
zepearl 6y ago
Thanks a lot for your brainstorming - some remarks are interesting. But overall the root problem would still exist and the solutions would have to gather a majority - e.g. asking a "pool" to remove a video would mean for the "pool" to watch that video (to ensure that the claim is valid) and after the first experience (if it's child porn) we would all probably have to call a psychiatrist to help us overcome what we've seen => not feasible, it would actually destroy the pool's mental stability which is, in this concept, needed to evaluate the contents (videos in this example). Edit: Being ignored by some search engine would still be a no-go for me. Knowing that some personal data (general files, pics, videos, whatever) exists somewhere would make me feel absolutely NOK.