[zelly]

> IPFS doesn't encrypt the content, or the connectivity, or hide the hosts. Solutions exist around that, but they're niche, and honestly I question the motives besides just ideology.

I question the motives of people who would be against encryption, aside from it being a lot of work and just not having been done yet. Ideally: no one should know the true IPs of their peers, and no one snooping on the connection should be able to read anything useful. Even the contents of the files should be encrypted, but I struggle to see how that could be easily implemented (maybe like Mega.NZ does where the key is part of the URL).

Otherwise it's going to be very hard to convince me to host arbitrary content from untrusted strangers. It's just pragmatic. No encryption = no plausible deniability.

[mirimir]

I totally agree, but want to emphasize one thing.

Let's say that stuff was encrypted during transmission, and also when stored by peers. But peers could see each other's true IPs. That would basically give you a modern version of Freenet. And just like with Freenet, users could be arrested, and prosecuted based on hand waving. When you get down to it at trial, "plausible deniability" depends on having a suitable expert witness, and convincing a jury that the prosecution's expert witness is full of it.

So anyway, none of that helps unless true IPs of peers are hidden.