Safety of node-running

Dear members,
I’m sure this issue has been addressed many times, but I haven’t seen it discussed.
If I chose to give my space to the cloud how can I be sure that it won’t be used to store/retrieve illegal information and content?
Thank you in advance.

There’s many articles and threads about it but I’m too lazy (and too much migraine) to search them right now, sorry.
But in short: You are never storing a whole file, just a small piece. Additionally all data is encrypted by the uploader, so you have no idea what you are storing and you are only storing a part of a file anyway. So you are good.

Thanks for the reply! I thought it should be something like that.
Anyway, a government might blame node runners for, say, facilitating the storage of illegal content.

If government finds illegal content, they contact STORJlabs to take that content down and STORJlabs will do so accordingly. You can’t know what content you store, therefore you can’t be held liable for it.

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Hm. I’m not particularly reassured by that statement. Just because I don’t know the contents of the data, I can’t be punished? In German there is the proverb or the rule: Ignorance does not protect from punishment. And how I learned in Latin: Ignorantia legis non excusat

Yes and I live in Germany too but you are storing a part of an encrypted user file. So as long as you don’t know its contents, you can’t do anything about it. Besides, your piece of the file is completely useless without the other pieces stored on other nodes. Nobody knows the content of the file, not even storjlabs. Unless the file is shared publicly but then it’s storjlabs responsibility to work with the governments to take the file down (they have an article about it).

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You always can use a tag https://forum.storj.io/tag/illegal-content to reach all such threads.

I would like to add that this is assuming normal use or at least use from someone who wants to conceal the data. I’m pretty sure it is in theory possible to craft files in such a way that they will end up as actually readable files on the resulting storagenodes. This would involve modifying the uplink to skip encryption and RS and just create your own pieces. It’s a lot of work without any real gains. Though this is a worry. I’d say make sure your storj data is never executable. As for illegal content being uploaded that way… it would be really stupid for someone to do that as that would have to be tied to their registered Tardigrade account. So the source of the data would be known. It’s generally a bad idea to upload illegal content in a visible way tied to your identity. So yeah, mostly theoretical.

Well, that’s exactly how file-sharing platforms work. A user loads for example a movie via uploaded. com. This is clearly linked to his accaunt. About the number of downloads then again this user earns his money. It’s been going on for 15 years. Only the uploader can become a concern, because his identity is quickly clarified.

File sharing networks usually don’t require an account. You can see the IP, but usually not more than that. I guess you could use a fake name to sign up for tardigrade though. Still if Tardigrade is notified of illegal content they will be able to remove it. Unfortunately the DMCA isn’t applicable worldwide as that provides some protection as long as you remove illegal content when notified of it.