Set default anonymous level for channel seeding/downloading/updating

[CrocodileCroco]

When i download (subscribe) a channel, there is no option to do it anonymously, same for updating channel, you always need to go to the downloads tab and make it anonymous

You should be able to seed/dl/update channels anonymously

[ichorid]

Anonymous seeding of channels is pointless, because of how channel gossip works: you gossip subscribed channels, so everyone around you know what channels you are subscribed to. An open Channels system incentivizes people to only share links to legal and quality content.

Tribler is about providing links to information (i.e. infohashes), and means of downloading it without fear of spying by 3rd parties (e.g. nosy ISPs).

So, "anonymous channels" not gonna happen in the foreseeable future.

[ichorid]

Well, the Web itself falls under that judgement, along with Google as the indexing engine 🤷

[ichorid]

Anyway, the project's primary goal is to develop methods of organizing people into a market capable of self-governance. We're not building a darknet. Instead, we're building a "lightnet", so to speak. It is up to governments to enforce people using real identities on the Web.

[philhoefer]

As much as I agree that the legislation and its interpretation by the ECJ are more or less illogical to any technically-minded person, it still is the current law. And no, what Google does is not the same.
Vexingly, even publishing a hyperlink to a page that illegally contains unlicensed content is considered illegal in EU law. According to another judgement, the point is if the person that provides the link did not know or could not reasonably have known the illegal nature of the publication of those works on that other website.
Google can reasonably state that they did not know about the illegality of a link they indexed while crawling the web. Google regularily deletes those links. A tribler user who manually subscribed to a channel that clearly has such content can't really argue that they did not know about it.

The point that I'm trying to accomplish here is that this could become a problem for a lot of Tribler users as soon as tribler gains a larger user base. As soon as it has that user base it would be trivial for immoral lawyers to get a list of subscribers to a channel and sue them en masse.
I'd wager that most Trible users are not aware this kind of legal attack is possible.

[philhoefer]

Anyway, the project's primary goal is to develop methods of organizing people into a market capable of self-governance. We're not building a darknet. Instead, we're building a "lightnet", so to speak. It is up to governments to enforce people using real identities on the Web.

If this is out of scope for Tribler (which it seems like from your reply) then I guess a warning message that subscribing to a channel also unanonymously shares that channel would be helpful to users.

[ichorid]

did not know or could not reasonably have known the illegal nature of the publication of those works on that other website.

We're going to decouple seeding the channel from subscribing to and voting for it by the end of this year. The reasons are purely technical (scalability, availability, etc.). Coincidentally, this will make it impossible to tell if the user is sharing the channel willingly. This will require a major refactoring of the Channels, though.

[Snake883]

[ichorid]

If I understand correctly, if I create my own channel, then anyone can associate my IP address with my content?

Yes, because your personal channel is signed with the private key of your Tribler instance. Though, you can always create a channel and then swap your Tribler private key for another one. In that case, it will look like you subscribed and downloaded the channel (instead of created it).

If I subscribe to a channel, anyone can relate my IP address with the content of that channel?

Yes.