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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by mp3@lemmy.ca to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

After trying endlessly for two years to run a file sharing site with user anonymity we have been tired of handling the extreme volumes of people abusing it and the headaches it has created for us. Maybe it is hard to understand but after tens of million uploads and many petabytes later all work of handling abuse was automated through all available channels to be fast as possible. We have auto banned contents of hundreds of thousands files. Banned file names and also banned specific usage patterns connected to abusive material to the point where we did not care if we accidental delete thousands of false positive in this process. Even after all this the high volume of abuse will not stop. This is not the kind of work we imagine when acquiring it and recently our proxy provider shut us down.

This can not continue.

Domain 4sale.

domain@anonfiles.com

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[-] ShrimpsIsBugs@feddit.de 179 points 1 year ago

Classic "this is why we can't have nice things" moment

[-] dingus@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 year ago

Sometimes I wonder, considering how high the volume of the abuse, how much of the "abuse" is copyright holders purposefully flooding such services with shit like CP to force a shutdown.

Like, either there's fucking millions upon millions of pedos out there, or they have the financial backing of a giant corporation and/or government.

[-] janguv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 1 year ago

That strikes me as really out there. I think the reality is that there's a lot of people into CP sadly – as an absolute but not relative number – and you don't need many out there to have a prolific amount of content, which we know from our own special interest cases.

This is what always unnerves me about privacy tech. I always feel the pull of using high level encryption with whatever I'm doing – file storage, communication, etc – but a part of me is always saddened at the same time with how much abuse is effectively facilitated by anonymity and privacy.

But as the horrors of the dark web have shown, it's a battle that law enforcement will never win – our most effective weapon as a society against CP and related abuse is ~~Chris Hansen~~ (I shouldn't joke) ...is engaging with and changing the material causes of this phenomenon. There will always be tools for sickos; the challenge is to prevent people from becoming as sick as they are, and when sick, finding ways to prevent them from abusing others.

Sorry for slightly OT rant lol.

[-] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 year ago

Probably, it's a really obvious and effective way to attack a website. I hear any small imageboard that tries to start up has this problem too. Any shady organization with no ethics can basically use this to shut down anything that allows user content and doesn't have huge moderation resources.

[-] PirateRock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

Sadly even if 0.1 percent of the world population is a disgusting pedo that's still 9 million people, even more unfortunate is that the actual percentage is somewhere in the 1-3 percent range.

[-] neutron@thelemmy.club 26 points 1 year ago

Tragedy of the Commons.

[-] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 82 points 1 year ago

Can’t say I’m surprised that a file sharing site that advertises complete anonymity was being used to spread illegal and I’m guessing disgusting things.

I’m surprised that anyone thought it was a good idea though.

[-] lowleveldata@programming.dev 49 points 1 year ago

A file sharing site with anonymity is a good idea. The assholes who abuse it is why we can't have good things.

[-] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 13 points 1 year ago

That’s why it’s not a good idea though, because complete anonymity is of course going to be a calling card for the worst of the worst illegal content.

[-] Blxter@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 year ago

When it says abuse etc it means like actually gross more illegal than pirated content correct. I believe so but am curious.

[-] neutron@thelemmy.club 15 points 1 year ago

It's nice to have an ideal and wanting to contribute. Dealing with constant abuse and threat to your physical safety, mental health, financial and legal liability, etc., is not what everyone has in mind at start.

And this goes to Lemmy instance admins too. It's not supposed to be anonymous, but the federated nature makes spreading content with malicious intent very easy.

[-] metaltoilet@beehaw.org 45 points 1 year ago

What a shame. Stupid fucking pedos.

[-] KDE 36 points 1 year ago

That's sad A lot of stuff was hosted on it from the tor network

[-] Mixel@feddit.de 34 points 1 year ago

I really liked it I used it if I need to send some 100 mb files to friends god I will miss that site it was great

[-] mp3@lemmy.ca 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[-] Mixel@feddit.de 6 points 1 year ago

Thank you for the suggestions :D

[-] nix@merv.news 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Doesn’t that require both users to be online at the same time?

Also what’s with that name how is anyone supposed to remember how to spell rymdport…

[-] solarzones@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago

Yes! I use wormhole all the time. Even for transferring files across computers on my network.

[-] Synnr@sopuli.xyz 15 points 1 year ago

Curious if their proxy host was cloudflare or DDoS-Guard (Russian) or even a lesser known service.

[-] Cannizzaro@feddit.ch 26 points 1 year ago
[-] lemann@lemmy.one 14 points 1 year ago
[-] Cannizzaro@feddit.ch 11 points 1 year ago

Not sure if people got it but it says : "you can get no info" in name servers. also the irony that njalla is the worst when it comes to hosting and domains

[-] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

Why are they the worst? So far I have only read the opposite, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm just not up to date

[-] Cannizzaro@feddit.ch 4 points 1 year ago

Had few of my friend's running streaming sites get their domains suspended without notice and their servers too which were hosted on njalla. i have been hearing around forums that they are no longer DMCA proof and comply with companies pretty easily too.

[-] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Maybe they can't handle the amount anymore. Or maybe they have changed. Good to know this, thanks!

[-] Ejh3k@midwest.social 14 points 1 year ago

I am very proud to say that I wasn't even aware that abusive material filenames had a certain pattern. Thought never crossed my mind.

[-] totallynotfbi@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

God damn, this will definitely break a lot of DDL shares - I know that, for a couple of forums, Anonfiles was the host that the majority of uploaders used.

[-] TheObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago

Ayyy i remember that place. That's where the OG netflix ripping tool from scene was. Doesn't work anymore sadly.

[-] tk1337@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Their API was too easy to abuse, I wrote some scripts to batch upload to these hosts. Anonfiles is just one name, rapidsha.re was another one for example. You could dork for the API manual content and find more hosts that were actually anonfiles. Now all of these are gone, it was a nice host.

this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
282 points (98.3% liked)

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