Anonfiles is shutting down
Anonfiles is shutting down
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.
Classic "this is why we can't have nice things" moment
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.
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.
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.
I'm pretty sure it's both, + the backing of the catholic church
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.
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.
Tragedy of the Commons.
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.
A file sharing site with anonymity is a good idea. The assholes who abuse it is why we can't have good things.
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.
When it says abuse etc it means like actually gross more illegal than pirated content correct. I believe so but am curious.
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.
Yeah, it seems obvious that it would become a haven for CP. Not sure how that was unexpected for OP, but I guess it is sort of sad that there's no actual way to prevent it without aggressive (and probably human) moderation. Very expensive and time-consuming.
Honestly, there are thousands of mods on sites like reddit that don’t get a dime. I ran a business before and burning out with the constant attacks by competitors or straight trolls is a real problem. But it’s also a selfmade problem in a way. Running a business takes its toll and if you don’t start to trust people at some point, you get nowhere. The best idea would have been some kind of leveling system which allows regular users to become mods and so on. (A little more automation than reddit has but you get the gist).
What a shame. Stupid fucking pedos.
That's sad A lot of stuff was hosted on it from the tor network
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
May I introduce you to one of the many wormhole client?
Thank you for the suggestions :D
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…
Yes! I use wormhole all the time. Even for transferring files across computers on my network.
Curious if their proxy host was cloudflare or DDoS-Guard (Russian) or even a lesser known service.
Cloudflare (American) is a cancer in this case, cause they have an auto-ban feature, which instantly checks hashes of files in a blacklist and warns domain admins with following ban of dashboard. And this not only goes to CSAM.
Yet most of the streaming sites use it.( yes i know streaming sites don't host stuff on their own). there are only a few which can afford a paid cdn.
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.
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.
Ayyy i remember that place. That's where the OG netflix ripping tool from scene was. Doesn't work anymore sadly.
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.
And thus the true nature of humanity reveals itself, as it always does. Usually people who experience this go from liberal to conservative. Being liberal requires holding the delusion that people are naturally good.
holding the delusion that people are naturally good
Nope! Just recognizing the truth that I, within myself, can be better and that I can accept the idea of being taken advantage of by the occasional bad faith actor in exchange for being able to be part of a broader community of people who do the right thing most of the time.
Cynicism is laziness masquerading as intellectualism. It's the "step 1: give up!" of philosophies.
You should read stirner.
I think the notion that humans are evil means you must be a conservative is laughable honestly. I'm a communist and I certainly don't believe humans are naturally good or selfless in any way.
All socialist thought is innately humanist, because collectivism can not work without the assumption that people will at least choose to be good when it's the easier path, but yes, the idea that because a minority will abuse the system if you let them you must be a conservative is...
Well, not surprising from a rot-brain.
they are smart