On Storj, can legal pressure be used to identify the owners of particular data, or the data belonging to particular users?
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From a technology standpoint, I remember investigating both Sia and Storj and coming to the conclusion that both were about 1 or 2 levels beneath maidsafe in terms of what they will be able to accomplish and what can be done with the network. I wonder if that has changed…
Each data item is uniquely encrypted, so the uploader would have to share they keys and the identifier for anyone to know what is what. As long as you don’t do that you should be fine. Even if Mr Bad Guy knew exactly what they were looking for and they held a gun to everyone in the network they are not going to have much luck without the identifier and decryption key.
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Your reply presupposes that there is no sharing of data. But that’s like writing a treatise that you then hide from everyone. No-one cares about such things.
You know that many people will want to grant read access to their data for some select group. In such cases, is it possible for legal pressure to be brought to bear to discover the owner (never mind the keys) of the data, and what other data he has on the system?
If the police know the owner of the data, they can, in some jurisdictions, threaten him with jail if he doesn’t supply the passwords.
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I’m all for supporting any decentralist project, but nothing that can be perverted by centralised control will ever remain truly decentralised, even if the mechanics of it stay ‘distributed’. It seems to me that bluebird is probably right, people will have to curb their own freedoms for fear that one day someone can/will come knocking for the keys.
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I don’t know enough about its technical aspects to draw a conclusion, which is why I’m asking.
It suspect though that their attempt to monetize this technology will create a legal pressure point where a covert but sufficiently powerful organization (e.g., any of the U.S. or U.K. intelligence services) can get whatever it wants.
The same reasoning applies to SAFEnet, of course.
EDIT: The reference to “bad guys” is characteristic. Ever notice how they never, ever depict the government as a threat? He hobnobs with Snowden but never mentions the elephant in the room? It’s always “bad guys” as though the most threat anyone has to be concerned with is some crackers in Russia. What a strange, discomfitting omission. Something’s not right.
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