3 ms·

OK, so someone posts a video of a child being abused. The person is prosecuted, tried, found guilty, and banged up for the rest of their days. What happens to t

OK, so someone posts a video of a child being abused. The person is prosecuted, tried, found guilty, and banged up for the rest of their days. What happens to the video? Because if the answer is "it stays accessible" then this technology is fundamentally broken and we need to stop using it or promoting it immediately.

hytdstd 5y ago
This isn't a totally hypothetical question, unfortunately: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abu...
sanderjd 5y ago
I tend to agree with your comments here, but note that it's not an easy answer: I don't think this problem only indicts technologies like IPFS, but also E2E encrypted communication services like Signal and WhatsApp. Are those also "fundamentally broken and we need to stop using them and promoting them immediately"? Maybe so, but it seems a heavy lift to me.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  Yes, as I've said elsewhere, I think we need to have a discussion about E2E and law enforcement. In order for our legal system to work, we need to have some access to "private" communications. I do get the need to prevent governments snooping on journalists and protesters. But I think there's also a valid need for access to evidence for our justice system to function properly. If we can't convict people without evidence (rightly), and we can't force people to incriminate themselves (rightly), then we must be able to access evidence somehow.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    The justice system functioned decently well before the time when ubiquitous surveillance was possible.
  - ngcc_hk 5y ago
    Reading this in Hong Kong with arrest and in jail without bail likely for years and then a law … and news agency employed 1000 people shut down just without any proper legal process just said so … sorry but it is hard to read about the justice system. Anyway, the child issue is also a problem vs sanction. Anyone hosting the data in a normal judicial system want will it be ?
    - marcus_holmes 5y ago
      My sympathies for your situation. I think the conversation about E2E needs to include journalists and protesters (as I mentioned above), I'm not minimising that aspect of it. And this conversation is wider than just E2E, too: Julian Assange is also sitting in jail without bail and without any proper legal process, and all his technological know-how didn't save him. In the normal hosting business, content like this is taken down by the hosting provider. For IPFS, a key question has to be "who gets to decide when content should be removed, and how does that happen?". If that person isn't a government because no-one trusts the government, that's fine. But someone needs to be able to make that decision and act on it. Then the usual legal channels can be followed for taking content down if necessary.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

hytdstd 5y ago

This isn't a totally hypothetical question, unfortunately: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abu...

sanderjd 5y ago

I tend to agree with your comments here, but note that it's not an easy answer: I don't think this problem only indicts technologies like IPFS, but also E2E encrypted communication services like Signal and WhatsApp. Are those also "fundamentally broken and we need to stop using them and promoting them immediately"? Maybe so, but it seems a heavy lift to me.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
Yes, as I've said elsewhere, I think we need to have a discussion about E2E and law enforcement. In order for our legal system to work, we need to have some access to "private" communications. I do get the need to prevent governments snooping on journalists and protesters. But I think there's also a valid need for access to evidence for our justice system to function properly. If we can't convict people without evidence (rightly), and we can't force people to incriminate themselves (rightly), then we must be able to access evidence somehow.
- adrianN 5y ago
  The justice system functioned decently well before the time when ubiquitous surveillance was possible.
- ngcc_hk 5y ago
  Reading this in Hong Kong with arrest and in jail without bail likely for years and then a law … and news agency employed 1000 people shut down just without any proper legal process just said so … sorry but it is hard to read about the justice system. Anyway, the child issue is also a problem vs sanction. Anyone hosting the data in a normal judicial system want will it be ?
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    My sympathies for your situation. I think the conversation about E2E needs to include journalists and protesters (as I mentioned above), I'm not minimising that aspect of it. And this conversation is wider than just E2E, too: Julian Assange is also sitting in jail without bail and without any proper legal process, and all his technological know-how didn't save him. In the normal hosting business, content like this is taken down by the hosting provider. For IPFS, a key question has to be "who gets to decide when content should be removed, and how does that happen?". If that person isn't a government because no-one trusts the government, that's fine. But someone needs to be able to make that decision and act on it. Then the usual legal channels can be followed for taking content down if necessary.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]