The way the data is stored, you will never host a complete file (illegal or not) and there is no way to know what the file is that you are hosting/storing.
All you will know is you are storing an encrypted chunk of a file. What file type, who it belongs to, and who uploaded it will not be discoverable as I understand it.
If it is a public file it means the datamap is public, so everybody can know which chunks belong to this file (since everybody can download the file, or the respective chunks). The self encryption is not really an encryption if everybody can decrypt is (as is the case for public files). So the only way to be safe from police in some jurisdictions is that nobody knows who is actually hosting the chunk, and relaying nodes don’t know what chunks they are relaying (because they have to be encrypted in ADDITION to the self encryption). Like TOR. I think that SAFE is supposed to work like TOR in this respect. But I am actually wondering what happens on an incentivised IPFS, when somebody “uploads” illegal files and pays incentives to people to host them. Probably they will only be hosted in countries where police doesn’t care…
Maidsafe is a network that was well thought out and designed it will enable everyone who wants to take advantage. Other systems have their place to though.
There’s no competition in the Freedom stakes, SAFE be the clear winner there.
Some of the alternatives might look nice and shiny, but you need to dig a little deeper.
Daniel Larimer (Founder of Bitshares) describes life on the blockchain
Those who cannot make good will be victim to “coordinated shunning” by the rest of the network – the whole of society. They will not be able to interact financially or in any other system running on the blockchain. They will be in an “economic prison”. This will extend beyond being unable to make money transfers, because the blockchain will be in control of voting, commerce and communications. Being banished from this system would make life all but impossible.
This is the system, that big business and even governments are now rooting for… scared yet?
I would just say not on “the blockchain” (Bitcoin), but on the govchain.
It’s always easy to understand what will happen when you consider whether property rights are respected. In case of the blockchain, it’s impossible that anyone be shunned or treated in any way he or she doesn’t want. Why? Because you can simply not use it and there is no one who can make you.
In case of govchain, you won’t be even asked. And you’ll have to pay for development of technology that will further enslave you.
Lol, very funny! Look, if you want to be taken seriously, share with us the results of your alleged “analysis” (or comparison or what have ya) between MaidSafe and Ethereum.
Which we already know won’t happen because you got nuthin.
Swarm won’t win, it will be one of many solutions, probably not even Tier 1. Why would I pay the Ether tax when I don’t have to?
If I need to protect data with the largest hashing power, I can use Bitcoin. If I want lower cost, I can use Safe.
First, I never said “analysis”. Second, I didn’t produce any “results” from what I’ve casually read online about the two systems. Like most humans, I just sort of drew some conclusions and sought out additional information by coming to this forum in lieu of conducting the scientific study you clearly require. Be nice dewd, it’s way easier.
To everyone else, I hope “janitor” doesn’t troll the whole forum. He is single-handedly giving MaidSafe a bad name.
You could say that @janitor is our pet troll. He keeps things grounded so we don’t get too starry eyed. He’s good at skirting the edge, only occasionally having to be reminded where the boundries are.
I recommend relishing the art of a master of the edge.
Pick yer battles. You dont need to justify your existence. You’re doin fine.
You started a great topic here. Lot’s of views and replies. Some people like to through in some sarcasm but that’s ok. Here’s a presentation about Swarm:
I second @fergish. @janitor’s motives have always defied my ability to comprehend them, so I confine myself to assessing the impact of his presence and actions here. This was an early and useful lesson he helped me learn: I can never know someone’s motives, so I must restrict myself to dealing with their behavior.
For me, @janitor adds far less helpful stuff to the forum content and discussions than he does misleading information and distractions. Others may disagree with that. No problem, it’s just a personal opinion. And I know that while I was learning, I got too caught up in my own stuff trying to figure out how to respond to his behavior - because it seemed to me that it was destructive to the project.
Where I think he does contribute, and he’s not alone in this by any means 
is in challenging me, the other mods, and forum members to consider our own responses. This gives us all the opportunity to improve how we deal with the many challenges on such a passionate forum as this, and to be better prepared for much bigger challenges to come. We ain’t seen nothing yet I believe.
As @fergish said, @janitor is masterful at flirting with the edge, and I’m genuinely grateful for having learned much better how to deal with that.
Yeah try not to take it personally. Janitor is clearly a good guy who just happens to have a bit of a sheldonesque personality. He is bright, opinionated and he will tell you exactly what he thinks with little regard to what might make you receptive to any wisdom he’s trying to share.
I doubt there are many regular posters on here who haven’t had a slightly acerbic back-and-forth with him at some point, but you quickly realise he is one of the good guys, he just doesn’t seem to much care what you think of him… an empowering characteristic, even if not an affable one 
@janitor . This talk changed me quite a lot (not that I think you need to change at all, now that I’m used to your style I have only love and respect for you), I’d LOVE for you to watch it through though and tell me what you think. I suspect you won’t get past the ridiculous song in the first 5 minutes though 
EDIT: Please don’t watch this thinking I think you are a ‘Jackal’ speaker, or that I think you need to learn something. I’m just curious what you’d think about it and how you’d react to the core ideas about feelings and needs etc.
This is awesome and much appreciated. Can’t wait to watch it after work.
That’s a good way to look at it. And honestly, I’ve got no problem with ideas being challenged. However, janitor’s remarks remain to be of little value to me. Maybe it’s a one-off occasion, I look forward to better dialogue in the future.
All in all, you guys have been very accommodating and it doesn’t go unappreciated. I’ll be making my way back through the comments and sources for all the great stuff, just got a little distracted…
LOL! May not agree with everything janitor says and does but you gotta love his honesty and sense of humor.
http://swarm-gateways.net/bzz:/swarm/
They have so called “orange papers”. Maidsafe is mentioned as well.
Swap, swear and swindle incentive system for swarm is a nice .pdf
Great to see more research and papers in this field.
Interesting. So the basic difference between SAFE and Swarm is that Swarm appears to be the following (apart from being based on a blockchain):
What is still missing from the above incentive system, is the possibility to rent out large amounts
of disk space to those willing to pay for it, irrespective of the popularity of their content; and
conversely there is also a way to deploy your interactive dynamic content to be stored in the
cloud - “upload and disappear ”.
I made reply on their Reddit explaining how SAFE works. Seems to be some confusion. What I get from their paper is that they want nodes to rent out bandwidth as well. And they have some sort of checkbook that works over the Ethereum blockchain. So you have a number of payments done to you and after some time you connect to the blockchain and cash out. But correct me if I’m wrong here. I didn’t study all the details.
It sounds interesting though. I remember opening a thread on a different economical model (Pay per Time). I understand this is a very different approach than the one Maidsafe is taking, still, I find it interesting to consider alternatively since we still don´t know whether the “pay for endless storage” will eventually work out.
It seems the two biggest differences are that Swarm is using (blockchain based) ether for rewards, and the Safe network is using (blockchain-less) safecoin, and that while Safe storage is forever, Swarm storage appearantly is not…