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Consequences of P2P anonymity

 
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digital8
Second Lieutenant


Joined: 29 Sep 2005
Posts: 1002

PostPosted: Sat Oct 01, 2005 1:17 pm    Post subject: Consequences of P2P anonymity Reply with quote

Pornography trading is common on anonymous P2P networks, and some believe that the networks aid terrorism. There are several responses to these criticisms, one being that information is neutral and that it is people acting on the information that is good or evil. A second is that these current issues are examples of moral panics, and that if anonymous peer-to-peer networks had been around in the 1950s or 1960s, they might have been targeted for carrying information about civil rights or anarchism.

Other issues include:

Difficult or impossible to uphold laws that can be broken through P2P networks. This could lead to the breakdown of intellectual property. Copyright could be safely ignored (though see digital rights management)
With anonymous money, it becomes possible to arrange anonymous markets where one can buy and sell just about anything anonymously. Assassination markets would be the dark side of this. The transfer of physical goods between buyer and seller may compromise anonymity, however.
It is easy to publish any information you want without the possibility of having your physical identity revealed. This could be used to openly publish information that governments forbids, like child pornography, but also other controversial information which the government wants to keep hidden like details about corruption issues.
Anonymous money could be used to avoid tax collection. That could lead to a movement towards anarcho-capitalism. It is highly unlikely that all necessary transactions could be done anonymously, however; if nothing else, a government could still rely on property taxes.
But some friend-to-friend networks allow you to control what kind of files your friends exchange with your node, in order to stop them from exchanging files that you disapprove of.

Overall, anonymous peer to peer networks make it impossible to hinder the spread of information. Digital money inside a banking computer system could be considered to be just information.
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