How does Hyphanet's file distribution functionality work?

Does anybody know how Hyphanet's way of distributing the files over the network works? Surely they just don't store random files from the network somewhere in your local storage, do they? When I asked somebody who supposedly should be knowledgeable on this issue as apparent by their constant free advertisements of it, they said it's okay since it's encrypted and thus deniable or something, which made me even more skeptical of it. Do I have to fear that something I really don't want stored is stored on my disk and I'll never know because it's encrypted, or did they think that situation through and implemented means to prevent this accordingly? For me it would make the most sense if I just stored the websites that I visit, is this the case though, or is it actually randomly distributed over the network and I'll just catch spam, CP, or something else illegal when using Hyphanet?

An anonymous, secure file distribution systems that exposed its contents to analysis wouldn't be very useful. But it's reasonable to assume that any such system is going to contain some really sick, bizarre, and criminal stuff. And if you're part of it, that stuff is going to be passing through your computer without your knowledge.

>>26858 But why would anybody use Hypanet at all if that's how it works? This seems like a really bad prerequisite for using this network, if you can be sure that after using it for long enough you're storing said sick, bizarre, and criminal stuff on your own hard drive. I can't believe this is how it works, because that is really retarded, frankly speaking. If I recall correctly, Zeronet only stores files locally of website you've visited and wanted to download, so it can't be technically necessary for such a network, why does Hypanet do this then? It seems to me like this Bittorrent-like way of working is better suited for such a network, as opposed to storing just random stuff from the network. I'm sure the Hypanet devs thought it through in their quarter century of developing this network, but the way it seems to me now, it's completely baffling to me how anybody would use it.

>>26859 its unlikely you have any full file of csam while using it unless you viewed it, maybe random chunks, and even then, consider how often cp pops up here

>>26859 > why does Hypanet do this then? Because that's how the anonymization of it works. Hyphanet is not just about being decentralised and dystributed, but also anonymous. You are not supposed to know who visits what and stores what and where. Nobody should know. That's the point. If you want to achieve anonymity you have to introduce some kind of confusion into the system. > Zeronet only stores files locally of website you've visited and wanted to download Yes, because ZeroNet is not anonymous.