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Comment by shelldweller | Hacker News Reader

Its small and I have this vps for 2 years for basically free.

On the matter of dmca: the server doesn't accept large uploads, and only accepts pictures. So what will be stolen which is soooo tiny yet so important that grants legal action on a small service?

Also I don't know what people are uploading (and have no way of knowing), so my consciousness is clear. AND people don't use a random site on the internet for such filth, they have their own networks and chat apps. I wouldn't worry about them using my site.

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> AND people don't use a random site on the internet for such filth

Actually, they do. Small, independent image hosts are great because they don't do any sort of VPN busting or user tracking, so hitting them with a few quick images to share is just as reliable, maybe even more reliable, than dedicated image hosting options.

You should double check your local legislation, and the legislation of the country you're hosting in. There's a chance you're liable for illegal imagery, regardless of whether you put it there or not. Plus, the moment someone puts something malicious on there and the indexers find out, your domain will be reported as dangerous/phishing and become inaccessible to 99% of the internet.

I used to be on a forum with only half a dozen people, someone in the group hosted it. We wanted to share images so someone wrote and hosted a pubic file sharing site...

We never shared the link to the uploader publicly, yet within a couple of weeks the URL was out there somehow and he was getting all manners of horrific stuff uploaded to it, he had to close it down just to protect himself.

You've posted this to HN.

I wouldn't take this risk.

If someone uploads child porn, you could be liable for hosting child porn. Ignorance and clear consciousness would not equate to innocence.

> don't know what people are uploading (and have no way of knowing)

Hosting CSAM is a strict liability offense in many jurisdictions.

You are being very naive, I'm afraid. You should fear the wronguns on the internet

I mean that in the nicest way possible, but you do not have the knowledge to operate such a website if that's the questions you are asking.

well it was really fun coding it (no ia btw) so I do wanna keep it up. How do you suggest I protect the service from abuse? File size limit? usage count limit? some kind of OCR that filters bad content and bans users... I dont mind extending the service...

Ask yourself the question "which of those things prevents me from going to jail for hosting CSAM" and the answer becomes pretty obvious.

I fear you are mentally modeling law enforcement as rational people who will just accept any explanation you make, and that model does not correspond to reality.

The other thing you may not realize is that the bad guys aren't just isolated guys in their basement who occasionally poke their heads out and maybe compromise a site every so often. There is a pipeline that operates with commercial efficiency, in all senses of the term, including that they are getting paid. I've seen it more directly with link forwarders; there are people actively and constantly seeking out new link forwarders and exploiting them to send spam. I've seen people put them up as a "hobby learning" project and within single-digit hours they're being used in spamming campaigns. You couldn't have escaped this pipeline's notice no matter what you did but with it being on HN you're certainly going to end up on their radar. By this time tomorrow, best case, maybe in a week, if you look at what is actually being stored on your site you better bring the eyebleach.

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