Amazon to take Parler offline, the third tech giant to deplatform the rising social app in days

submitted by Drewski from (reclaimthenet.org)

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[–]bobbobbybob 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I think it would be better to allow more user-control

I agree. This is the crux, and we agree on it. Lack of user control of file downloads is the main weakness of zeronet and makes it unsafe to use

I only use about 6 or 7 sites

Wow. OK, this conversation is nearly over. I visit hundreds of sites a week. But then I was born long before google, when the intenet really was a lot of people's machines joined together, and we hosted out own websites, and that anarchic joy has stayed with me.

especially when you venture outside of the 4 or 5 sites that everyone else is on

We've established that your use case is wildly limited. You are the perfect consumer, so why you think you have the right to even speak on zeronet safety to anyone who actually uses the internet is beyond me

Why do you think people are safe from accidentally downloading CP on Facebook or Twitter?

Because the entirety of facebook and twitter are not downloaded to my computer regardless of whether or not I actually interact with the files. If I do not visit <profile X>, the associated files are not on my computer. Its quite a simple concept

The real question is: which sites? does anyone really know?

question not answered. Can you go back and read what you write as if you are a third person, and tell me if any of your arguments are convincing or even complete

I at least would try to do some research about it

How? that's a very nebulous response, and We both know the answer to "and how do you learn that trust?" is is "I don't know".

So IF you are on a site that allows CP

Yet again, you show that you don't understand the problem. /u/d3rr care to help on this one?

it would do a lot to at least combat the perception of that being an issue

I don't give a stuff about perception. what matters is the reality. You keep making apples vs oranges comparisons to try and make your point, but the truth is, I can visit a normal website that contains, without my knowledge, CP content posted by someone. If I do not look at the content, it is not on my computer, or, with prefetching, at the most it is in volatile cache and gone with the session. With zeronet, if i visit the same site, I become a CP distributer and continue to share it long after I've left.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

My armchair non ZN user take: Your point is fair that there's risk here, if you browse anything other than the known 7 safe sites. There is a list of starter ZN sites somewhere.

But, how risky is the risk?

With zeronet, if i visit the same site, I become a CP distributer and continue to share it long after I've left.

Can you show me where the entire ZN site that you visit is downloaded and seeded? I thought it was page by page or url by url. What if there is a 10GB of data site on there, that'd be a crazy huge download.

Good discussion guys, you are Generation Next.

[–]bobbobbybob 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Can you show me where the entire ZN site that you visit is downloaded and seeded?

https://zeronet.io/docs/faq/#what-happens-when-i-access-a-site

to quote:

Initially, a file named content.json is downloaded, which holds all other filenames, hashes and the site owner's cryptographic signature.

The downloaded content.json file is verified using the site's address and the site owner's signature from the file.

Other files (html, css, js...) are then downloaded and verified using their size and SHA512 hash from content.json.

Each visited site then becomes also served by you.

So, in order to make sure there is nothing shitty you ahve to examine content.json

With social sites that host user content, like image boards, chat rooms, etc, that content.json is dynamically updated, or contains sweeping includes.

https://zeronet.io/docs/site_development/content_json/

It really isn't designed with user security in mind, more from the angle of keeping websites up and defeating censorship.

but using the blockchain with user generated content....

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47130268

Forum Advice:

Many ZeroNet users are highly concerned about child pornography and the possibility of unknowingly hosting it on their computers, due to the way ZeroNet functions. One solution to this problem--and this is the approach that I have taken over the last six months--is to not go to zites on which individual users are allowed to post pictures or videos. If you never visit a zite, your computer will not host its content. Period. That means avoiding zites like 0Chan and ZeroMe.

lol. Just don't go to any sites that host images well, fuck me, might as well use a text browser in the first place.

I should also mention that there are various zites containing lists of malicious zites. A zite called "ZeroNet Moderated Directory" was just created this month to provide links to zites that have been screened for content. Right now, the list is small, and the owner of the zite has not made much of an effort to explain the criteria that he uses to screen zites. All he has said is, "All submissions will be checked to ensure they are operating and contain content, We WILL NOT list Sites with no content, Test sites, Hate sites, CP sites or any Cruelty to animal sites." The ZeroNet Moderated Directory can be found on ZeroNet here: http://127.0.0.1:43110/18QPAtqyoxriNcNAi4mkCHyoLENwTEbFyw/Directory.html .

so back in 2019, there were already a lot of sites you didn't want to go near.

Zero-net is an answer, but i'm not sure what the question is.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Alright, you win the debate and that's a pretty thorough demolishing of Zero-net. At the very fucking least, because this debate has been raging for over a year, they should have an option to not download media files on purpose. To skip over images in content.json. Or when you browse, don't download and re-serve that shit by default.

ZN seems to be designed for static sites, making it a bad fit for social sites and sites with user uploads from the get go.

Zero-net is an answer, but i'm not sure what the question is

All I can think of is it's a decent way to share huge archives or wikipedia type stuff in a world without DNS? I'm not sure what it's solving either. Maybe it's modernizing "offline" web pages and there's some positive lessons to be learned.

[–]tabesadff 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Wow. OK, this conversation is nearly over. I visit hundreds of sites a week. But then I was born long before google, when the intenet really was a lot of people's machines joined together, and we hosted out own websites, and that anarchic joy has stayed with me.

We've established that your use case is wildly limited. You are the perfect consumer, so why you think you have the right to even speak on zeronet safety to anyone who actually uses the internet is beyond me

Alright, good for you if you that's what you do, but you realize you are in a very small minority of Internet users out there, right? I was also somewhat exaggerating, obviously I use more websites than that, but it's not like I feel the need to go clicking on every random link that people post on the Internet since that's obviously risky, and I do at least like to check out additional information about sites before I visit them, especially if they're ones I didn't learn about from someone who I trust, and if I can't find any info about it, or I find out bad things about it, I don't visit it, and frankly, I don't feel like I'm missing out on very much by not seeing the "thoughtful" political discussions that are happening on 8chan...

Because the entirety of facebook and twitter are not downloaded to my computer regardless of whether or not I actually interact with the files. If I do not visit <profile X>, the associated files are not on my computer. Its quite a simple concept

OH MY GOD! It is like you are INTENTIONALLY ignoring everything I've said about optional files. Sites on ZeroNet which force people to download the whole thing are SHITTY SITES that aren't designed very well (even from just a performance perspective, it's a bad idea). That's a problem with THOSE SITES. It is entirely possible to design sites on ZeroNet which don't force people to download content that they don't request. Why do I keep explaining this most basic fact over and over again when you refuse to understand it? You should probably do a little bit of research on optional files before so confidently claiming that it would be impossible to create a Facebook or Twitter-like service on ZeroNet which doesn't download content that's not requested by the user!

question not answered. Can you go back and read what you write as if you are a third person, and tell me if any of your arguments are convincing or even complete

How? that's a very nebulous response, and We both know the answer to "and how do you learn that trust?" is is "I don't know".

Okay, how do YOU trust that any normal website won't have CP on it? If you go to as many websites as you claim to, then surely you must be an expert on this! There's nothing about the design of the Web itself that prevents CP from showing up on websites any more than there is for ZeroNet, so why isn't it very likely for the average web user to run into CP on a daily basis? The answer is with the websites themselves, every website I use has a TOS and engages in moderation of user generated content that violates that TOS. Is it perfect? No, there's always a risk someone could upload CP to one of those websites, but it's not something I live in constant fear over because the risk is very minimal when active moderation is taking place, something that's completely possible to also do on ZeroNet, but there are some shitty websites on there that CHOOSE NOT TO, and some of those shitty sites also CHOOSE not to make use of optional files. So AVOID those kinds of sites, which is something most people would want to avoid on the normal web too!

I don't give a stuff about perception. what matters is the reality. You keep making apples vs oranges comparisons to try and make your point, but the truth is, I can visit a normal website that contains, without my knowledge, CP content posted by someone.

Firstly, all of what you're talking about is entirely conditioned on the premises that 1) you visited a site that has CP on it and 2) the site's design was shitty enough to not make use of optional files, and in that specific situation, which I don't think is very likely for someone to encounter unless they're either seeking it out or are extremely careless about the links they click on, but sure, in that specific situation, there's an increased legal risk when compared to the normal web. Why I'm saying it's more about perception is because I think the likelihood of an average Internet user who doesn't just go around clicking on every damn link they see running into CP is pretty low, and the fear of it is pretty exaggerated. It's just like with terrorism, is it a real threat? Absolutely! Is it a really bad thing if you are a victim of it? Yes! Does going outside increase your risk of dying in a terrorist attack? Sure! Should we be living in constant fear of terrorism to the point where we're afraid to go outside? I don't think so, and I think the threat of it is extremely exaggerated.

If I do not look at the content, it is not on my computer, or, with prefetching, at the most it is in volatile cache and gone with the session.

Not exactly true, ordinary websites are also fully capable of forcing you to download images that you never see (not even talking about pre-fetching, you can make a site with images that take up zero pixels, and site visitors will still download the whole image without being aware of it, and if you think that's a terrible way to design a website, I AGREE, in fact, that's one of the major points I'm making!), and also if you're talking about things that are stored in browser caches, those are saved on disk, so it's not exactly that volatile.

With zeronet, if i visit the same site, I become a CP distributer and continue to share it long after I've left.

You're only seeding while ZeroNet is running, and you can also delete all the files ZeroNet stores on your computer, which will automatically make it so they're not seeding (you can't seed content you don't have). The files that ZeroNet stores aren't magic, unremovable files, they're just like any other file. Now, ZeroNet's GUI could be improved to make it so users have more options available about which content to seed and it should also allow users to delete non-optional files from a site on a per-file basis instead of a per-site basis, but nonetheless, there is a course grain option of deleting a whole site if you don't want to be seeding it.

[–]bobbobbybob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Why do I keep explaining this most basic fact over and over again when you refuse to understand it?

You are not listening. As a user, I want to chose what I download. I don't want to leave it to the site creators. If I cannot control it myself, then that means I have to inspect every single fucking site to make sure it is ok. That's the issue, that's the problem. You even acknowledge it is a problem. Stop pretending that it isn't. And stop with the "but everything is a risk, so this larger risk is just the same" bullshit.

ZeroNet's GUI could be improved to make it so users have more options available about which content to seed and it should also allow users to delete non-optional files from a site on a per-file basis instead of a per-site basis,

yes. this is the entirety of it. Zeronet could be improved, but it hasn't been. Until it is, it is a far greater risk than normal browsing, so it can fuck off. Just like whitewashing simps like yourself should. We agree on the core issue, you just pretend that it isn't a problem, whereas I've had a lot more experience and recognise that issues like this can become very expensive in the long run. In the corporate world you don't hand-wave away security risks, you spend money and time on fixing them

[–]tabesadff 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You are not listening. As a user, I want to chose what I download. I don't want to leave it to the site creators. If I cannot control it myself, then that means I have to inspect every single fucking site to make sure it is ok.

How do you think the normal web works? The only way you get to choose what you download from a normal website comes from the choice of which specific websites you choose to visit or not visit (unless if you're doing something like blocking ads with an adblocker, though, even in that case, that usually works by blocking certain domains, so it's still a choice of not visiting a certain URL, just a choice that gets made in the background). Once you click on a link, or type in a URL and hit enter in a browser, you're at the mercy of the site owner as to what your computer downloads. I'm sure that's not something you'd blame on the normal web though, right?

You even acknowledge it is a problem. Stop pretending that it isn't.

In a limited context that is entirely avoidable, that is my entire point. Further, you are straight up saying things that aren't even true! Seriously, look up "ZeroNet optional files".