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While Locutus is an improvement on the previous Hyphanet model, I'm still concerned about the caching model. In Hyphanet, data would be cached the more it was u

While Locutus is an improvement on the previous Hyphanet model, I'm still concerned about the caching model. In Hyphanet, data would be cached the more it was used, and peers connected over multiple hops. This had the potential to cause huge headaches as authorities began investigating issues such as CSAM, because their understanding of how caching and requests work did not match up with how it actually worked. While, certainly, one could build a subset darknet, all it takes is one bad peer to expose the whole darknet to prosecution. I played with Freenet when it first came out, but when I realized the implications of this -- which later turned out to be true -- I destroyed the hard drive I had been using to run Freenet, just in case. Locutus seems less aggressive about caching data, but it still does some caching. Without really digging into the documentation or source code, I'd still be nervous about running it.

immibis 2y ago
Under EU rules (Digital Services Act) I believe an automated cache is treated similarly to a pipe - you're no more responsible for holding content in your cache (especially if encrypted!) than a Tor node operator is for someone accessing it through Tor. German police did raid the home of a guy who ran a lot of Tor nodes. Authoritarians don't need any technical excuse to raid your home - they can just do it if they want to scare you away from these platforms, regardless of how they work.
- nanolith 2y ago
  Unfortunately, US case law is murkier. There have been some notable convictions of people using the old Freenet to search or host CSAM. However, the digital forensics used in these cases was pretty sketchy. If someone simply caching data from downstream queries were held to the same standard, they'd also be considered guilty. I have no doubt that there was other evidence that led to the conviction of these individuals. But, I can only go on what I know, and what I know is that the standard of digital forensics evidence in those cases was subpar.
sanity 2y ago
Locutus (now Freenet) is more of a communication than a storage medium. It's focused more on allowing people to build decentralized tools like group chat[1] for realtime communication than be a content distribution network like bittorrent. We're also planning a decentralized reputation system based on the concept of "web of trust" that should do at least as good a job of ensuring users aren't exposed to unwanted content like spam or worse. [1] https://github.com/freenet/river https://github.com/freenet/river
- nanolith 2y ago
  That is reassuring. I hope that your team can build this web of trust, because it really is crucial. It is great to have a tool that allows ideas to be shared, but I think that consent regarding which ideas are shared or promoted is important, not only from a legal perspective, but also from an ethical one.
  - sanity 2y ago
    Agreed, any system that allows people to discover content needs to protect them from stuff they don't want to see, whether it's annoyances like spam, malicious attacks like DDoS, or extremely harmful content like CSAM. Centralized services don't do a great job of this but I think we can do better with a decentralized approach. We won't have a perfect solution overnight but we've already built important components of such a system (eg. ghost keys[1]). [1] https://freenet.org/news/introducing-ghost-keys/ https://freenet.org/news/introducing-ghost-keys/

immibis 2y ago

Under EU rules (Digital Services Act) I believe an automated cache is treated similarly to a pipe - you're no more responsible for holding content in your cache (especially if encrypted!) than a Tor node operator is for someone accessing it through Tor. German police did raid the home of a guy who ran a lot of Tor nodes. Authoritarians don't need any technical excuse to raid your home - they can just do it if they want to scare you away from these platforms, regardless of how they work.

nanolith 2y ago
Unfortunately, US case law is murkier. There have been some notable convictions of people using the old Freenet to search or host CSAM. However, the digital forensics used in these cases was pretty sketchy. If someone simply caching data from downstream queries were held to the same standard, they'd also be considered guilty. I have no doubt that there was other evidence that led to the conviction of these individuals. But, I can only go on what I know, and what I know is that the standard of digital forensics evidence in those cases was subpar.

sanity 2y ago

Locutus (now Freenet) is more of a communication than a storage medium. It's focused more on allowing people to build decentralized tools like group chat[1] for realtime communication than be a content distribution network like bittorrent. We're also planning a decentralized reputation system based on the concept of "web of trust" that should do at least as good a job of ensuring users aren't exposed to unwanted content like spam or worse. [1] https://github.com/freenet/river https://github.com/freenet/river

nanolith 2y ago
That is reassuring. I hope that your team can build this web of trust, because it really is crucial. It is great to have a tool that allows ideas to be shared, but I think that consent regarding which ideas are shared or promoted is important, not only from a legal perspective, but also from an ethical one.
- sanity 2y ago
  Agreed, any system that allows people to discover content needs to protect them from stuff they don't want to see, whether it's annoyances like spam, malicious attacks like DDoS, or extremely harmful content like CSAM. Centralized services don't do a great job of this but I think we can do better with a decentralized approach. We won't have a perfect solution overnight but we've already built important components of such a system (eg. ghost keys[1]). [1] https://freenet.org/news/introducing-ghost-keys/ https://freenet.org/news/introducing-ghost-keys/