This is old news but it was news to me. I remember the 8chan users migrating to Zeronet in 2019 but I was not aware that so many had their IP addresses exposed.
Peer-to-peer networks expose a user’s internet address to anyone who cares to look. That’s how copyright lawyers catch people trading movies, music and software, and it’s how police and FBI agents arrest pedophiles trading child porn online.
ZeroNet works the same way, a fact that’s been much-discussed on the new site. For that reason, ZeroNet integrates tightly with Tor, an anonymity system that places layers of cut-out addresses between a user and the websites they visit. But only 41 percent of 08chan’s users’ are using Tor, based on our analysis of the peer-to-peer traffic at the site.
Users on 08chan have been complaining that the site is buggy and slow over Tor, and the site’s own administrator initially encouraged anons to just connect directly.
...
The Daily Beast captured 819 IP addresses for 08chan users connecting from 62 different countries.
Also, the users were concerned about child porn
“Say someones a f****t and uploads cp [child porn],” one Zeronet user wondered on Wednesday, as 8chan users flooded Zeronet’s discussion board. “If i happen to download it, it gets shared from my computer, right? And if i dont notice it bunch of people can download it from me? So im a distrubutor at that point, arent i?”
I think the main takeaways from this is that an ideal network for users of 8chan, Parler etc. to migrate to would be
Anonymous by default, and fast regardless.
Text only, so that no one worries about accidentally downloading and distributing child porn.
I'm aware that even a regular web browser downloads child porn when a user views a page with it. But anyone who comes across child porn is required by law to report it. That puts people in a weird legal position if they come across it by accident while using a network like zeronet. Legally and morally, the correct thing to do is to remove it from the zites you are distributing and then report it but reporting might bring more attention to yourself even if you use the anonymous report feature, especially since you were briefly a distributor.
I think using a peer to peer network is one thing they got right, because there's no individual that can be threatened, coerced, or persuaded into shutting 08chan down.
Flashback: After 8chan users migrated to Zeronet, their IP addresses were exposed by The Daily Beast
Elbmar OP wrote (edited )
This is old news but it was news to me. I remember the 8chan users migrating to Zeronet in 2019 but I was not aware that so many had their IP addresses exposed.
Also, the users were concerned about child porn
https://www.thedailybeast.com/8chan-refugees-worried-theyre-downloading-child-porn-on-peer-to-peer-site-zeronet
I think the main takeaways from this is that an ideal network for users of 8chan, Parler etc. to migrate to would be
I'm aware that even a regular web browser downloads child porn when a user views a page with it. But anyone who comes across child porn is required by law to report it. That puts people in a weird legal position if they come across it by accident while using a network like zeronet. Legally and morally, the correct thing to do is to remove it from the zites you are distributing and then report it but reporting might bring more attention to yourself even if you use the anonymous report feature, especially since you were briefly a distributor.
I think using a peer to peer network is one thing they got right, because there's no individual that can be threatened, coerced, or persuaded into shutting 08chan down.