Submitting and getting a talk about it accepted at DEF CON seems like a good way that worked here. Of course having name recognition like CDC going back to my childhood also helps :-)

Cause even in tor it eventually leaves the network.

This data could only be known that it came from your direction, but also known it wasn't you transmitting it. Anything beyond that is just a sea - it'd be like arresting a truck driver for unknowingly moving drugs buried in stuffed animals.

They'd essentially have to by hand arrest every single node that participated to the source - assuming that chain was never broken along the way - to get anything reasonable out of an arrest.

Most importantly this is all public knowledge, so after a couple essentially useless arrests attempts for unknowingly hosting encrypted data, I believe they'd have to back off

what you are missing here is that they have to be able to prove that there's illegal data going through your computer in the first place

One possibility is to allow users to join a controlled allowlist (or a blocklist, though that runs more into that problem), where some actor acts as a trust authority (which the user picks). This keeps the P2P model while still allowing for large networks since every individual doesn't have to be a "server admin". A user could also pick several trust authorities.

Essentially, the network would act as a framework for "centralized" groups, while identity remains completely its own.

The only thing keeping users in line would be the fear of losing their “brand”

This is solving a non-problem. Yeah stupid script kiddies and trolls might care but that is noise easily blocked. The actual people causing harm, committing massive crimes that flood the system with government, or causing massive DoS attacks, none of them care or even want to have something they could lose on a system like this. Its better to be anonymous and not have a brand.

Look at what happens here in the Fediverse. People take time to exclude the havens of the problematic and that resolves enough of the issue to make the services work. But that means that someone is making decisions, and that someone can be targeted to take down a site or to not defederate even when the community thinks its best. There is still a human involved that can be bought or beaten.

The only way to make a system where people follow the rules is to make a place where people dont care to break them. Rules give those who follow them justification for punishing those who don't. They don't actually stop people from breaking them.

I think if this system can be hardened against attacks and its easy to deal with spam then we all just coexist with the shit that happens in the background we don't see.

I can’t imagine a successful, open social network based on this. The entire value of social networks is the moderation (in the same way any bar or club keeps certain people out, via rules, signals, or obscurity, and allows likeminded people to relax and socialize).

I love that this project exists for other use cases. And I could see invite-only, small social networks forming. I just don’t think you’d want to build a Twitter or Reddit clone using it.

I mean, people can already use VPNs or whatever to circumvent protocol-level blocks. You prevent that with usernames or email verification or some equivalent, and there's no reason you wouldn't just keep doing that in these new apps.

True. Regardless of nationality, background, or interests, moderation will always be a "problem" in these platforms. Sadly the same tool that can target these obvious spammers can be used to silence honest minorities, and the boundary between these groups is also not set in stone.

I believe financial consequences can be very useful to make it expensive to spam or be abusive.

For example, for a user to access an app:

• The user is required to put up X amount of money as colatoral
• The user can retrieve the funds if they choose to discontinue use of the app
• If a user is reported for abuse, a small fine is deducted from their colatoral

The user Reputation and distribution of fines:

• if a user, has multiple accounts in good standing, the initial collateral to access new apps is discounted for good reputation.
• The proceeds from fines can be distributed to the app's treasury or to users with good rep.

Google I2P

I used to collect the Cult of The Dead Cow text files. Hacking, phreaking, and weird stories. Looks like someone gathered bunch of them here.