Talk:ZeroNet

Anonymous by default

First paragraph says Zeronet is anonymous by default by using the Tor network. However, you can use Zeronet without having Tor installed thus making it non-anonymous. --Vultureneck (talk) 12:21, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

@Vultureneck: Well it is using the TOR network unless changed and hence the "by default".

I have not researched all platforms but on Linux Tor is not bundled or auto-installed with Zeronet. It can hardly be said to be anonymous *by default* then can it? Tor has to be installed separately, Zeronet will use it if it is running though. --Vultureneck (talk) 13:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

The page is heavily outdated compared to current 0net developments and network events

There's no mention of sites developed on 0net over the years, discovered vulnerabilities, disputes over network future, overcoming Iran censorship and internet shutdowns, recent spam attack and little details over forks. Basically the whole page consists of initial statement and hiatus section. As a maintainer of one of the forks, i do not wish to overedit the page so hopefully some third-party would describe those events from outside PoV Caryoscelus (talk) 19:58, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

current page is useless and harmful and should be either rewritten by neutral parties or deleted

so there was some edit wars recently, which cut the most important up-to-date information on the network. linking to official zeronet site that contains potentially vulnerable binaries without marking it as outdated is outrageous

i'm not going to participate in edit wars as this is pretty futile, but can consult if anyone's willing to write a proper article Caryoscelus (talk) 16:10, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I need to point out that while a person who has a connection to a project could be unneutral (but also has the potential to be neutral, fyi), we also have to balance our information from actual experts who know what the heck they are talking about, because obviously the people who know most about the details and inner workings of a software are the very people who created it or collaborated on it in significant ways. This is why most of Wikipedia references secondary and primary sources of experts.

Additionally, deleting links because of random anonymous claims that they are scams is by-definition not neutral and preferences the anonymous people who made these claims. Considering this is a controversial network that has been censored by China and other countries, it is completely irresponsible to just willingly accept any and every claim that's being made against the project, its developers, collaborators, and its forks. This does not mean you cannot mention these claims, but the weight you put on these claims within the article, how much space you give it, and how you talk about them could be preferencing them in different ways, naturally affected by the writer's own views, which is why we can never fully attain neutrality, even if it's something that we should aspire to.

As for whether or not these forks are scams... I have no clue. What I do know is that not mentioning them is not a neutral point of view, and that all links to GitHub wouldn't have malware (considering hasly have protections against hosting malware - it's in their policy: [1]https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/acceptable-use-policies/github-active-malware-or-exploits).

Both ZeroNetX and ZeroNet-Convervancy have GitHub pages, so at the very least those should be mentioned. ZeroNet-Enhanced is another fork that has its own GitHub repo. Krixano (talk) 01:15, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

@Krixano @Caryoscelus The article should summarize what is said about ZeroNet by independent, reliable sources. Provide those sources for content that you think should be added. Schazjmd (talk) 14:41, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I have already provided what I think is acceptable to add to the Wikipedia page. Now you people need to do your job and add it. If you need, I'll provide the "reliable sources":

ZeroNetX is marked as a fork of ZeroNet by GitHub: [2]https://github.com/ZeroNetX/ZeroNet

ZeroNet-Enhanced is also marked as a fork of ZeroNet by GithuB: [3]https://github.com/zeronet-enhanced/ZeroNet

ZeroNet-Conservancy is yet another fork that is explicitly marked as such by GitHub: [4]https://github.com/zeronet-conservancy/zeronet-conservancy

If you look at each of these, January 3rd, 2023 was the last update of ZeroNet-Conservancy, ZeroNetX was last updated 3 weeks ago (Feb 24th, 2023), and ZeroNet-Enhanced was last updated November 6th, 2021. All of these forks have been updated more recently than ZeroNet's official repo.

If I need to get some things moving along here on this wiki page, then I will.

Also, Why is Beaker Browser randomly on this wiki page?! It has nothing to do with ZeroNet and there's no connection being made within the wiki article itself between Beaker Browser and ZeroNet. Krixano (talk) 20:03, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

@Krixano, good question about Beaker; I checked the source and it doesn't mention ZeroNet so there doesn't appear to be any relevance to this article, so I've removed it. Schazjmd (talk) 20:12, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Sorry if I was a bit harsh, lol. It just seemed like wiki vandalizers were having too much influence, judging by how the forks were deleted from the article to stop the edit wars from happening (the edit made by Czello on 15:27, 7 March 2023‎), and I think it's messing with the article's neutrality and depth of information. Krixano (talk) 20:24, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

As I've been name-dropped: to be clear on my edit, the links I removed were because of an accusation of scam/malicious links, and as I could not ascertain which links were legitimate I reduced it to be bare-bones as a precaution. Per my edit summary, I'm happy to be reverted if someone knows more about which links are trustworthy than me. All other links were removed by other editors afterwards. — Czello 20:34, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Right, I'm not blaming you for making the best choice you could at the time to stop edit wars from happening. I just wanted to clear up that the fork links I gave above should be re-added, and that all GitHub links should be trustworthy, as GitHub has an explicit policy against malware and scams. I do not believe any of the forks I have listed are scams. ZeroNet has had trouble with vandalizers and attackers since 2019 on its GitHub repo (e.g. during the license change), so I'm not surprised that similar things have been happening to the Wikipedia page. Unfortunately, because so many people have left ZeroNet because of all of the attacks and spamming that was going on, nobody was left to defend against such things, and that's probably what led Tamas to stop working on the project (this is just to give context to what has happened to ZeroNet - this is my own knowledge and point of view for the sole purpose of this Talk page only). Krixano (talk) 20:48, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

here's one third-party review of zeronet-conservancy changes that suggests it's not malicious (and the whole thread suggests inadequacy of the edit warrior); unlike original project and some other forks, we don't produce binary packages that can be malicious despite source code being clean. unlike some other forks, zeronet-conservancy stated from the very beginning that it's a fork and not original project and made it explicitly unconfusing. there's also third-party-maintained Nix package

oh, and also according to prominent ZeroNet developer there's security vulnerability in original ZeroNet and non-updated forks (e.g. zeronet-enhanced) which is fixed in zeronet-conservancy and ZeroNetX, so arguably linking to original site is in fact giving a malicious link

there's also lack of tor-onion-v3 support which renders original ZeroNet possibility of anonymity practically unattainable and thus not providing links to relevant forks has clear negative effect on ZeroNet as a network/protocol as many users have left/would not join exactly for this reason Caryoscelus (talk) 13:48, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

@Czello and @Schazjmd, as you can see on this GitHub issue comment, this person who is harassing and spamming on the ZeroNet repo has admitted to editing the Wikipedia page. If the Wiki page continues to be vandalized, then I suggest perhaps that the page be locked or restricted to only certain accounts (if that's possible) so that the page does not get futher vandalized, especially since the project has not been updated in a long time, at least until ZeroNet's creator were to ever come back to the project in the future. Krixano (talk) 12:15, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@Krixano, articles are only protected when there is persistent ongoing vandalism by multiple editors. This article has had few edits recently and does not qualify for protection. Schazjmd (talk) 14:09, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Note that I did specify "if the Wiki page continues to be vandalized". Krixano (talk) 20:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)