That IPFS does NOT put data I did not explicitly requested on my storage is exactly why I feel comfortable using it compared to some other distributed storage systems where I might end up with horrific data on my system.
And encrypted data you don't have the key for is indistinguishable from random noise. 'Combined' blocks that you don't know which partner blocks are necessary for decoding are likewise useless.
You're being like a mailman handling mail - you can't look into the mail, so you can't know if you're delivering love letters, junkmail, or terrorist propaganda.
ISPs and USPS have common carrier protection, by default a home user does not.
The underlying problem here is that it’s basically impossible to distinguish between someone naively allowing strangers to use their property and someone who is trying to cover their tracks by pretending to be unaware, and the internet is full of people who will abuse any free service. If it happens once, maybe you can plead ignorance but that’s not a foundation for a robust file sharing network.
The danger is just too big, as my sibling commenter says.
If Uber Package driver delivers a package of drugs - pretty sure he won't get to jail as it will be trivial to prove he didn't put is there and had no idea.
In your mailman example, it would be like the FBI announcing exactly what the envelope looks like, uniquely identifiable, and if you encounter this letter to report it immediately or else your complicit. Or at least, that's the fear.
Yes, if it's encrypted you have no idea, but if anyone ever found out what was in it you can know who ever transmitted it. Unless everyone re-encrypts it repeatedly.. which then makes content address-ability awkward.
http and tcp, other transport systems, also do not have censorship resistance. it's the wrong place for it.
you can use ipfs to build a censorship resistant system, just like you can with tcp, but that is the purview of a higher layer.
I don't think it's possible to reasonably to maintain layering while adding privacy and censorship resistance.
This sentiment also applies to your argument, i.e. IPFS isn't fit for your purpose; and that's fine, it means IPFS isn't for you.
There are a whole bunch of censorship-resistant, plausibly-deniable systems out there (e.g. I run FreeNet from time to time)
What you're looking for is Oblivious Transfer or Mix Nets. Unfortunately, no practical solutions currently exist (except for Onion Routing).
> Remember that data can be encrypted by content hash, so there is no way to know what you're storing unless you go scouring the public internet for a key to decrypt it.
Censorship does not work this way. First, content that requires censorship resistance is usually public, otherwise one can employ a number of p2p or centralized solutions to share content directly.
Public content is easy to find, so step one: you find and identify the list of nodes that serve the content. Step two: you block the nodes on a level that's available to you (depends on the country). Step three: your users are unable to use the network effectively, because half of the nodes don't work, and revert to using Facebook.
It needs censorship-resistance added. It needs user privacy added.
Both of those could be enabled by combining data blocks semi-randomly. Ie. rather than downloading the data you're looking for, you download a block of data containing what you're looking for and some other data. Then nobody knows what it was you were looking at. Some combined blocks might contain a few bytes of data from thousands of files.
For censorship resistance, rather than users pinning individual files, the network needs to assign them blocks they must store (or be kicked off the network). Some of those blocks will be combined blocks which contain a few bytes some users may not wish to store - and that's fine, it means IPFS isn't for them.
Remember that data can be encrypted by content hash, so there is no way to know what you're storing unless you go scouring the public internet for a key to decrypt it.