Lightweight Anonymous Distributed Shitposting - Distributed forum possiblities sperg zone

I think keeping a hard limit on message size and ensuring it's text data would go a long way.

Like your client downloads a post, turns out the ascii character data is junk, your client would delete the message not repropagate that data.
 
Vecr said:
Could a coordinating server distribute encryption keys so each computer does not know what's stored on their drives unless they try to access it through the server, like everyone else?
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Wouldn't that server become the single point of failure then?
 
Not knowing what's in your own client makes it a hard pass for me. That's begging for illicit materials.
 
I wonder if the key to the whole "bad content" issue isn't good old Section 230. Null can say "I just run an internet service, I'm not responsible for what these retards do". A P2P node runner... probably not, or at the very least you don't want to be the test case for it.

One potential workaround might be a sort of rating system. You're responsible for keeping your own content online (pinned in IPFS or whatever) at first, and only content that gets a certain number of "upvotes" (whatever that may mean - could be a rating, could be a pageview or something else) is eligible for P2P distribution. Of course, that could be gamed and the system will only be as good as the participating users.
 
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Just thinking about if it's possible to not go reinventing the wheel, ended up digging around for projects that might fit the bill, anyone want to test Retroshare + Tor?

Has it's own distributed forum and file sharing system, plus chat & internal mailing, and iirc based around PGP identities.

 
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cecograph said:
Basically, I want all moderation and content management to be opt-in and decentralised. If the content is decentralised, why isn't the moderation?
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This is incredibly optimistic and the #1 consideration for any sort of solution of this type should be resistance to abuse by people with anime avatars posting CP.
 
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I wanna help out. Don't know how. But I'm supportive of this idea.
 
Bitchy Commie said:
Just thinking about if it's possible to not go reinventing the wheel, ended up digging around for projects that might fit the bill, anyone want to test Retroshare + Tor?

Has it's own distributed forum and file sharing system, plus chat & internal mailing, and iirc based around PGP identities.

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I'd be down to help set up a test site for this. This is pretty much exactly what we're talking about I think
 
TurdFondler said:
I'd be down to help set up a test site for this. This is pretty much exactly what we're talking about I think
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It's not really a website. it's more of a peer to peer, or should i say.. friend 2 friend communications client, as you're inherently trusting certificates to connect with.

What you can find depends on who you know (therefore added), and that includes the whole forum thing.


probably not too much of task to provide a bootstrap server like https://retroshare.ch/ to make getting connected easier, and designate an identity to be "owner" of the forum.
 
Bitchy Commie said:
Has it's own distributed forum and file sharing system
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I'm looking through the docs, but it's not clear this is any better when it comes to the whole poisoning problem. It looks like they came up with the same "reputation" idea as I did, but that's not ironclad.

Interface - RetroShare Docs

docs.retroshare.net docs.retroshare.net

Another area of concern:
You see forums your friends are subscribed to, and you forward subscribed forums to your friends. This automatically promotes interresting forums in the network. Forum messages get deleted after 12 months.
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This sounds like you're serving up the entire universe to your friends list (would this scale?), and there's no long-term archiving.

EDIT: also, it's not clear that there's any type of moderation function at all, other than user bans.
 
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Kosher Dill said:
I'm looking through the docs, but it's not clear this is any better when it comes to the whole poisoning problem. It looks like they came up with the same "reputation" idea as I did, but that's not ironclad.

Interface - RetroShare Docs

docs.retroshare.net docs.retroshare.net

Another area of concern:

This sounds like you're serving up the entire universe to your friends list (would this scale?), and there's no long-term archiving.
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Yeah it's not with out it's concerns.

As for the forum message availability and retention period, those are supposed to be configurable per node, according to GUI's description.


1607295988487.png


yes, i'm correct. it can be extended to be stored and syncable for an indefinite period of time.
1607296176105.png


1607296235343.png
 
Bitchy Commie said:
As for the forum message availability and retention period, those are supposed to be configurable per node, according to GUI's description.
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I think someone is going to have to do some source diving to figure out how this system really works. Like, is it going to end up with every member sharing all 8 million posts with the network if we remove the limit?

Also - if you're playing with this already, can you check out how "circles" work? Those would be the membership lists, but is there a single point of failure here? Can a circle have multiple owners/admins? Who's allowed to send invites and kick people, is that configurable or is it only the owner?
 
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Kosher Dill said:
I think someone is going to have to do some source diving to figure out how this system really works. Like, is it going to end up with every member sharing all 8 million posts with the network if we remove the limit?

Also - if you're playing with this already, can you check out how "circles" work? Those would be the membership lists, but is there a single point of failure here? Can a circle have multiple owners/admins? Who's allowed to send invites and kick people, is that configurable or is it only the owner?
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No, there can only ever be a single owner/admin for both circles, and for forums not sure if ownership of a forum or circle can be transferred to another contact in the distribution. That said, Moderators can be designated by the owner, but are limited to post editing, pinning, an deletion roles.

1607297025618.png


The visiblity of both forums and circles can be set based on a few different options.

Circles can be visible to all connected, to only those who are invited to the circle, or made visible to any other circle.

1607297333108.png


Major limitation of the forums system, is that it's not a forum in regards to a community with subforums. limited formatting of text, and by default embeds are just links.

1607297552175.png
 
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Bitchy Commie said:
No, there can only ever be a single owner/admin for both circles, and for forums not sure if ownership of a forum or circle can be transferred to another contact in the distribution.
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I think that's going to be a serious problem. If the memberlist is really just "Null's Circle" and then he runs off to marry some woman of sufficient girth, how does the forum continue? Any workable system needs multiple ownership or at least transferrable ownership.

Also: is there any notion of "thread" in this system, or is there unlimited tree-like branching off of any message?
 
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Kosher Dill said:
Any workable system needs multiple ownership or at least transferrable ownership.
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Yeah, fair point. Though I'm just about out of time to poke at it and see if ownership can be transferred.

Plus there's the security implications if people misconfigure the client to not operate over TOR, therefore exposing their IP and approximate Geolocation to the network.
 
My biggest worry is that without removing the filesharing component it's just too much of a liability. Also the "ownership" aspect is a little retarded. Not really so distributed is it then?
 
3119967d0c said:
This is incredibly optimistic and the #1 consideration for any sort of solution of this type should be resistance to abuse by people with anime avatars posting CP.
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Yes. This is my #1 consideration, which is why I wrote:

cecograph said:
I'd much prefer a model like this. I'd rather the basic network contains absolutely everything, illegal content included, and then curation and filters could be overlaid in a composable way. You'd want everyone to naturally use the "no seriously illegal shit" overlay, in the hope that this leads to such content dropping off the network forever because no peers ask for it or distribute it. A slightly weaker standard overlay might be "no blatant copyright violations; I don't want letters from Warner Bros."
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The question is how to build and distribute that base blacklist. I'd happily see that sort of thing developed out in the open with the assistance of law enforcement, and anyone else who has content-id on the evil shit out there. Bake it as a client default, a bit like the SSL certificates that come with your browser, and add heavy warnings that you're on your own if you disable it.
 
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