I think you all have this backwards, childporn is not going to hurt safenet.
Think about it, before bitcoin and drugs what use did anyone have to use Tor? What to stalk girls on myspace or email bomb threats to ones school? None of those things warranted Tor. But around 2000 when Tor was coming out the previous generation of filesharing, emule and all that was getting attacked constantly by undercovers, pedos had no where to go, freenet existed in 2000 but it was new and had always been so much slower than emule.
Then finally Tor comes out, the government released it to get it to grow so it could hide its operatives in the field, and yet no one had any reason to use it, even the threat of filesharing lawsuits hadnt reached the public yet. But there was a very massive population of disenfrachised people who did have a use for it, and so the network grew in a massive way, once hidden services had been implemented sites hosting many thousands of hours of video and hundreds of millions of pictures sprang up and existed for years before getting scared off by other lesser sites being hacked and shut down.
Had these sites not grown tor to where it is today or not proved that hidden services worked, the likes of silkroad would have never been created, being a much bigger target than any pedosite since it involved money and appealed to the general public. Had silkroad or these pedosites never existed Tor would still be where it started.
TL;DR - New networks need positive use cases to get people to join, no normal user has any incentive to move from the clearnet, so new networks need people willing to take big risks for big rewards, however new networks may want drug sites, the operators of this are risk adverse and dont jump onto new networks, so these operators need pedos to prove the integrity of the network. Networks need users need drug sites need pedos.
Hereâs a difference no one seems to be talking about. SAFE incentivizes you to create sites on the SAFE network (PtP) and it also incentivizes you to devote resources to the network (vaults/safecoin). Tor does not. In fact with tor you still have to pay for hosting since itâs still based on centralized server architecture.
The truth of the matter is you can produce and transmit all manner of illegal content on the clearweb. Itâs been and is done. Child porn, pirated software, activist materials, the works. Youâre more likely to get caught but it can be done. And letâs please not forget that we had all these things BEFORE we had the internet. The internet is simply a new form of data transmission but it is not the only form of data transmission. What we are discussing is not a new issue. We are discussing the control of data for the sake of a subjective moral ethos. That has been debated since the middle ages ever since man has learned to put pen to paper. Quite frankly itâs an old arguement and very much an overly beaten dead horse in this case. The reason we are all gathered together supporting this project is we believe in freedom. We want privacy security and freedom. I donât think the public will be as concerned with he potentials of child porn as they will be with making safecoin or hosting web sites for free. What would appeal to the average joe about SAFE? Safecoin! Datahosting, and being able to easily create their own website quickly. Also theyâd love the rapid streaming and downloading speeds.
But these arenât the only benefits. Anonymous communication, data transfer and money transfer means private peer to peer markets can spring up. Private individuals can start developing businesses who might not have been able to have stared one before due to government restrictions or regulations, or simple financial costs. Microbusinesses could spring up and flourish. Small businesses could grow. There are all kinds of possibilities here.
The analogy between the gun and the knife is quite apt. Torâs application is quite specific and limited in scope. SAFE on the other hand is infinitely broader and has much greater implications. Would you stop using the internet because there were pedophiles and terrorists on it? No, obviously not because there ARE pedophiles and terrorists on it. Therefore the notion that people wouldnât use SAFE for the same reason seems rather ludicrious.
Iâve previously said something similar, that the presence of scum that nearly everyone would want to kill is a proof of the networkâs security, a kind of canary that might otherwise be impossible to achieve; i.e., you might never be able to be certain the network is 100% secure, all you can really know is that thereâs this group of people that the best police resources cannot capture.
When I was indigent in Amsterdam, I was able to acquire (200 euros) a sony laptop that runs 64 bit OSâs just fine. Itâs only those stupid atom things that still have b0rked 32 bit UEFI BIOSes, at least, that was a problem 3 years ago, not sure if the new ones have fixed that.
Unfortunately, you do have to have a piece of hardware to work with any network system, because you have to install software. Though this is starting to change also because of how much can be done inside a browserâs ECMAscript interpreter. Also, I heard stories while I was on skid row about dumpster diving (from an estonian) about the wealth of discarded electronics you can find if you look. Er, he was talking about Norway, specifically. I bumped into him while stuck in Budapest waiting for my passport to get replaced. On the street, yes, sleeping in the metro stations. Danged homeless people put their blankets on me one night and for months I had body lice.
Oh yes, in Budapest, I could beg for about an hour a day and get enough money to eat some food and spend several hours in an internet cafe. Maybe in some ways itâs better in poorer countries?