Revamping Freenet 541
N3wsByt3 writes "Many will have heard about the anonymous P2P-system Freenet. What many probably don't know is, that a big change is at hand: the Freenet developers have decided to drop all support for the 0.5x version, to skip version 0.6 and to completely revamp the 0.7 build into some kind of poorly described, presumably scalable darknet. The main coder even threatened to quit if such a darknet would be rejected.
So, is it finally going the right way with the development of Freenet? Maybe not, since they seem reluctant to provide real data and rather rely on security through obfuscation, and then there is still the problem of their general inability in regard to pooling human resources, which, for any OSS project, is of the utmost importance." Obviously, the article submitter has his own feelings on Freenet, but notwithstanding that, what's the latest scuttlebutt from within the Freenet crowd?
How many revamps (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How many revamps (Score:3, Informative)
Having said that, right now you basically install the software, and open your web browser - and you are surfing Freenet. Its only in "outlying" cases that things are significantly more complcated than this (ie. with firewall issues), and we are working on that.
Re:How many revamps (Score:4, Insightful)
Now freenet is slightly different in that it uses encryption. From that perspective, things can change slightly in that PGP had problems with users needing to know about public/private keypair security, understanding what signing was, why it was important, concepts behind the web of trust, etc.
I don't see freenet having those issues though. Node administrators for sure, but not freenet users. Freenet users don't really have keys or even any necessary knowledge of the technical layer of encryption. They need to know how to connect to a node.
What's so fundamentally different about freenet that it's inevitably going to be more complicated? For disambiguation, specifically I'm talking about the user perspective, not the node administrator perspective (which sadly have been one in the same so far). Node administrators will deal with stuff that users don't see.
I'm not trying to beat up on freenet here, I just think that if the software is very complicated, it's probably due to a potential lack in usability design as opposed to something inherent about the software. If you buy the metaphor of freenet as some gigantic encrypted data store in the sky, using it from a user's perspective shouldn't be much more complicated than using a hard disk. Send files, get files. Sure, there's lots of sticky details, but the node should worry about that for us, shouldn't it?
Re:How many revamps (Score:3, Informative)
I don't see freenet having those issues though. Node administrators for sure, but not freenet users. Freenet users don't really have keys or even any necessary knowledge of the technical layer of encryption. They need to know how to connect to a node.
You have a misunderstanding. Every freenet user is a node administrator. The freenet node is what actually does all the work. Every user runs a node, and every node has a data store. The node has a web interface on port localhost:8888, to which a browse
Re:How many revamps (Score:3, Interesting)
Nope, no understanding. What I was trying to point out is that yes, that is the way it currently works, but not the way that it might ideally work. Freenet users and node administrators are currently one and the same, I agree.
Nodes however are built for access through FCP (freenet client protocol, or at least that's what it was a while ago) and there were
Re:How many revamps (Score:3, Interesting)
more and more people are getting routers this is hardly an outlying case.
Re:How many revamps (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How many revamps (Score:2)
Child pornography (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Child pornography (Score:4, Informative)
I don't want my node to be used to harbor child porn, offensive content or terrorism. What can I do?
The true test of someone who claims to believe in Freedom of Speech is whether they tolerate speech which they disagree with, or even find disgusting. If this is not acceptable to you, you should not run a Freenet node.
Re:Child pornography (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Child pornography (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another Analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
I would argue that using the expression "beyond the pale" is an attitude that specifically means one is *not* rational about the thing being discussed. (I myself am also not rational about child pr0n, in the same way as I infer you are.) A rational response to the concept of coerced child pr0n is not to say it is beyond the pale; it is to point out t
Re:Freedom of speech is absolute. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of speech is absolute. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh great, somebody who subscribes to Keyne's Law (the flipped version of Say's Law), a.k.a. "demand creates its own supply." [polyconomics.com]
You're looking at the problem from the demand-side, not supply-side. Low supply = unfilled demand = high price.
Analogize the problem of child porn to the problem of the drug trade. We've attacked the demand-side (users) for decade
Re:Child pornography (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem here is that anoymnity (and performance) requires a critical mass of users. From a coldly logical point of view, Freenet's association with hard-core pornography is a guarantee of failure.
Re:Child pornography (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, there's next to no way of knowing what is passing through your system, but the reply from the Freenet admins is arrogant and misguided.
Re:Child pornography (Score:5, Insightful)
* Should people be allowed to post any pornography at all? (illegal in a number of countries)
* Should people be allowed to post a glowing post of support for Falun Gong? (illegal in China)
* Should people be allowed to publish a diatribe denying that the holocaust occurred? (illegal in much of Europe)
Etc. You can claim that, "Well, allowing the posting of child pornography or terrorism-related materials offends universal sensibilities", but this obviously isn't true, or the material wouldn't be being posted in the first place (not to mention, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter). Just as a demonstration of how much people's sensibilities are different in different parts of the world, this [afghannews.net] (originally posted on msnbc.com) covers an interview with an Afghan mother who supported her daugter's execution by stoning for the crime of adultery ("My daughter is a criminal. If she hadn't been killed, I could never hold my head up again in my community.")
If the data is being created through abusive means, go after the source of the data. If the data is being used to plan violent action, use proper security at likely targets (not like it's hard for people to hatch plans in secret anyways - this is nothing new). The fact of the matter is that data wants to be free.
Re:Child pornography (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, if you are hosting child porn, you are the host of the data, under current law. Many nations are now erasing the line between being a "distributor" of this material and being in possession of it. Really, you need to know this, because you will find very few individuals in Western societies who will vigorously defend you in public or the courts. You will find out what "pariah" means.
And in the strict sense, with Freenet you are a distributor in any case - you are providing a service to obtain this material - remember under the law ignorance is not an excuse, you could find it difficult to claim you were an unwitting accomplice.
Re:Child pornography (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do you get that impression? "Child pornography" is just the red herring people always trot out when they want to censor speech.
You've heard the expression "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it," yes? Your idea of "offensive content" may differ wildly from someone else's; the question becomes "who is right?" Sure, you can refuse to run a FreeNet node because you're scared some evil recipe for "instant terror version 3.4" might get stored there or a nasty evil child pornographer might post some horrid icky pictures you don't like onto FreeNet and your node happens to harbor some of the data, but in that case you really are censoring in your own way.
The FAQ's response to this concern is dead-on right. Even with child pornography, you're trying to treat the symptoms instead of the disease when you reason like this -- "oh I'm not running that because it doesn't actively stop child pornographers!" Bad news, buddy, the internet itself doesn't "actively stop" any pornographers. Are you just going to unplug so your browser cache doesn't accidentally store a thumbnail with content that offends you?
If you want to censor what you participate in on a free speech-centric network, you don't belong there. If you believe that, ultimately, full-fledged freedom of speech is more vital to our society than taking a sad, impotent stab at a group you don't like, then run a damned node and deal with the fact that you may not like what lives on it. Remember, there's a far better chance that text a government doesn't like (but that you do like) will be stored on your node than pics of little Suzie.
Claiming FreeNet was just "designed" for child porn is like saying Slashdot was designed to attract trolls. Sure, it happened, but that wasn't the original intent; back when it started, I think they honestly wanted to encourage and support open, public debate on important topics. Heh. Whoops. :)
Re:Child pornography (Score:3, Insightful)
Nooo... *production* of child pornography is about the rights of a minor being trampled on by another person. The pornography itself is merely a record of the event.
This is different from the "shouting 'fire'" example because, in that case, the actual act of expression, the shouting itself, is what causes damage. Put another way, it's an excellent example of balance of harm: we are will
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Child pornography (Score:3, Funny)
They already have; it's called freenet, and it's slow as a dead dog, just as requested :)
You really need to define "impractical" and "large"...
Have any freenet users ever been sued? (Score:2, Interesting)
My question is, has the RIAA, MPAA, or any other such agency yet attempted any legal action against any user of Freenet? If so, can coverage links be provided?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Child pornography (Score:3, Interesting)
Most usenet servers limit posts to a relatively small size, and high ascii characters are severely restricted.
Still, today a full usenet feed is several terrabytes per day, and 99% of it are binaries
heck, IIRC there are some guys that share binaries uuencoded throught slashdot journals
I think a subset of freenet only for text files would be usefull, also because the much higher size and greater popularity of certain binaries would drown most
Re:Child pornography (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Child pornography (Score:3, Insightful)
See the excellent article by Paul Graham on this
http://paulgraham.com/say.html [paulgraham.com]
Also, it seems to me that it is inane to think you can somehow prevent evil from occurring, just by somehow preventi
Freenet is not so anonymous (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps, BUT.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Perhaps, BUT.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Perhaps, BUT.... (Score:4, Informative)
It so happens that they can do something about this specific attack, and they will. But it was never an objective and it won't stop a really determined attacker.
Response on Freenet website (Score:4, Insightful)
FYI - there is a short response [freenetproject.org] to this article on the Freenet website.
Newsbyte is a well known troll (Score:5, Informative)
Matthew has indeed indicated that he believes it is essential that we support "trusted links" in Freenet, and the other core Freenet developers, myself included, agree with him - so Newsbyte's attempt to stir that up into some kind of controversy is just another example of his trolling.
I have no idea where Newsbyte's accusation that we are relying on security through obscurity comes from, certainly the archived email he links do doesn't seem to support any such claim.
As for the blog entry he links to, it essentially boils down to whining about why we don't implement each and every one of his suggestions.
When considering the value of Newsbyte's opinions, I would urge you to look first at what he has actually contributed to the project, versus those that he seeks to criticise.
Re:Newsbyte is a well known troll (Score:2)
Gaaah...you're absolutely right, Sanity.
I think reading his blog gave me cancer.
Thanks for the heads-up on this guy.
Re:Newsbyte is a well known troll (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm really, genuinely interested in this project, and I'm all ears to hear about any forward movement or positive momentum the project has. Let us know about it.
Whether or not Newsby
Re:Newsbyte is a well known troll (Score:5, Informative)
With pleasure. Freenet has indeed had its fair share of problems, including an increasingly complex codebase that suffers from a lot of legacy code and abandoned ideas. That is why Freenet 0.7, the next major release, will be quite a significant rewrite.
Here [gmane.org] is a recent email I sent describing the plan for 0.7:
Indirect connections (Score:3, Interesting)
Cell networks don't. The goons catch one person, look at who his machine connects to, look at that one, and the next, and map out the whole network. Users don't even know they're helping out, the goons can just look at upstream router traffic.
The only way to have more or less anonymous usage without betraying your colleagues is to piggyback traffic on broadcast data -- such as irc, like the spam robots, or, better, web sit
Re:Indirect connections (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm not convinced of the feasability of transmitting useful amounts of data concealed in this manner. You might be able to get a decent amount of text in a series of image files using steganography, but normal usage patterns are of people downloading images. A steady stream of uploading images to strangers, especially if not done through email, would stand out, I think.
What I think is a wonderful idea however, is giving people a popular cause to use this. I feel that
Re:Newsbyte is a well known troll (Score:3, Insightful)
I2P is a cool project, but it is doing something rather different to Freenet. The next version of Freenet actually seeks to solve one of the core problem affecting all anonymity systems, including both the current Freenet, Tor, I2P, and others, which is that of "harvesting" nodes. If the Chinese government can, with relative ease, obtain a list of all nodes in your network - then you have pro
Re:Newsbyte is a well known troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Great idea! Now, just dump the freenet middleman, run openvpn tunnels to those 3-5 friends, route IPv4 the way it's been done for the last 20 years, and we can have a true layer3 network!
Re:Newsbyte is a well known troll (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeh. It's pretty simple, when you think about it. Of course, still restricted to 10.x.x.x, but if you outgrow that, I think you oughtta be able to figure out a solution.
no backbone routing
Yeh, the internet itself was meant to be decentralized. It sort of forgot that. I was thinking a regular geometric mesh, probably square grid, 3d +. Which leads back to your first snide comment, assigning addresses. Where you are in the mesh, gives you coordinates. So, you might get something like 10.x.y.* for your IP address. Better yet, ignore the byte boundary, and go with more dimensions, (/26s with 6bit 3d sounds nice, though maybe 3bit 6d even). Make it so no one is a backbone, and have it massively redundant, a fabric even.
distributed caching of content
Why? Find some people on the network that are distant to you, and would be willing to set up a dozen mirrors. If they disagree with you, they shouldn't have to mirror it for you.
plausible deniability on requests and inserts
Better yet, do https inside the openvpn tunnels. Even a router inside the darknet can't sniff your traffic.
and the ability to publish content without neccessarily always being online?
If you are absolutely incapable of being online 24/7, fine. Find me on such a darknet. Tell me why your content is so important. I'll be moved to mirror it for you, or even set up a proper vhost for it, complete with limited shell access.
Half the problems you bring up were solved *YEARS* ago. But no, let's re-invent the wheel, just so you can dream up convoluted crypto schemes.
Oh, and you've probably also increased the software complexity from the point of view of what the user has to deal with.
The user only needs to install OpenVPN, or for that matter, any vpn client they choose. I have used ipsec (freeswan) from time to time, and even messed around with poptop. Simpler than freenet, looks like a local area connection on windows.
I'd even go so far as to say you've reimplemented Freenet, without the crypto.
No, just gotten rid of the dorky DHT thing. OpenVPN uses SSL, and what's that quote about people thinking they can do a better job of crypto than SSL? Inside the tunnels, do it right from the beginning. Ridicule and harass those that don't use HTTPS from the beginning. Make fun of them. Use SSH only,the few times you need to remote shell around in it. Use IRC with the SSL modules, or better yet, use silc.
Re:Newsbyte is a well known troll (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I had figured you as one who has only ever used ipsec. Haha. It can literally be a bitch... openvpn is a simple install, a 6-10 line config file, and you're done. Looks like a second network adapter, acts like one. Hell, it's only a sin
speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:speed (Score:3, Interesting)
Not speed, content (Score:3, Interesting)
The web exploded when everybody and their brother started publishing web pages, not when people had browsers or connections to the internet.
It's about content. For freenet though, that means a very different type of content that you wouldn't want on the web. The social problems that they'll face if the network does grow into something substantial are surely going to be something to behold.
Please ignore flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest that people who want to know the whole story check out the mailing lists going back a month or so.
Who is the Troll? (Score:3, Insightful)
"(Newsbyte) is a known troll who doesn't actually contribute to the project."
Really, and attacking his character instead of his statements makes you...what then?
I really hate to get into a debate about character, since I prefer to judge a statement on its own terms since it seems to be a statement's truth is independent of the speaker, but Newsbyte runs the freenethelp.org [freenethelp.org] webpage. He's not some loner retard coming out of left field, he seems to have large issues with the (lack of) progress Freenet has t
Less talk, more code (Score:5, Insightful)
You are Totally off there (Score:3, Insightful)
Java bloat? No worse then other languages that try to be *universal*. Besides, don't like java? Then recode it in something else and quit bitching.
Slow? Depends on what you are doing. Are you trying to download files? Well it really wasn't designed for that. And there will be a tradeoff on speed/anonymity.
Searches? Umm there are several search engines available if you look.
Re:You are Totally off there (Score:2)
When you have a single program that is supposed to be in the background eating all your ram and half your cpu you kill the process.
> Besides, don't like java? Then recode it in something else and quit bitching.
Or you can simply review the product and give it a bad review. Then suggest something else instead of acting all smug.
> Slow? Depends on what you are doing.
Everything is slow on freenet small websites, pictures,every
Re:You are Totally off there (Score:3, Interesting)
Speed is a design issue, and there are numerous pros/cons anonymity-wise with changing it. GNUnet is a different approach - it has its own pros/cons.
I do take issue with the java design. It doesn't even run on amd64 (since there is no stable VM on this arch) unless you run it 32-bit (using an x86 VM). It typically uses around 150MB of RAM when it is running - that is quite a bit for a single application. It also needs a several GB datastore, but
Re:You are Totally off there (Score:3, Interesting)
When I last tried freenet, the required disk space wasn't a problem for me, CPU time was marginally so (every now and then it ate 30% of my CPU time for a period, and my CPU is in the P4 family). The memory requirements were just absurd. With a load of obscure switches to Sun JVM from an obscure wiki I could make it settle with time to slightly more than 256 MiB instead of the original 900 MiB (I'm not sure if it was still growing because I killed it then, but I guess it w
Re:Less talk, more code (Score:2, Informative)
bait (Score:5, Interesting)
5. Slashdot effect doesn't write off the network for a month after release; if we grow by invitation, it will take longer to grow, but we will end up with a better network, and we won't generally have the collapse we have seen every time we've done a release.
this might just be an attempt to bait the slashdot crowd into trying out freenet so that freenet's userbase grows and the speed become reasonable.
Re:bait (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm (Score:2)
Nothing wrong with obfuscation (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of people seem to be confused about obfuscation / obscurity.
Obscurity or hiding things is a perfectly valid security technique, and can be used as a component of a defense in depth strategy. One of the main reasons people love NAT boxes is because they provide this property automatically. (I don't like them for other properties they have, and a firewall combinded with public address space will be just as effective at providing this specific property).
People are stretching the meaning of Kirchoff's theorm. Krichoff was refering to crytographic algorithms when he said that there is no security in obscurity - the security of a crytographic algorithm should only rely on the secrecy of key. You should assume that the functioning of the algorithm will eventually be discovered by your adversaries, and therefore shouldn't make the security of the system depend on the functioning of the algorithm being kept secret. That being said, restricting knowledge of what algorithm you're using will make a contribution of the system being secured, as it can add to the depth an adversary has to penetrate.
Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time there's a freenet article on
Personally, I see Freenet as an experiment in what's possible. There's an abstract problem statement: how do you share data anonymously? And Freenet attempts to provide a solution to that problem. There are many valid uses for a solution to that particular problem. The canonical example is "dissidents in ". But it goes beyond that. Everything from corporate and government whistleblowers even in relatively free countries, to those who want to expose sensitive information they might be privy to without giving themselves away.
The problem is that such a system, by design, is necessarily going to be useful for people that organize activities and spread information that has little redeeming value. If dissidents and whistleblowers can obtain anonymity when sharing information, then so can child pornographers and terrorists and gangsters and whoever else.
This dilemma occurs with many systems based on an ideology of freedom and opposition to censorship. The US constitution's first amendment guarantees the right of NAMBLA to express their views on a public webpage.
The point is, freedom to any extent in the public commons will, necessarily, support both good and bad uses of that freedom. The question people have to ask themselves is wether their belief in the ideology behind that freedom is worth the tradeoff or not.
If you believe that the "bad guys" should be kept off of Freenet, then you don't believe in Freenet, or any other truly censorship-free information sharing system.
-Laxitive
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally I see Freenet as an experiment in hubris gone badly wrong. Leaving the morality of porn aside, the design of the network is so attrocious from the point of view of its supposed target audience and so obviously inadequate to what is supposedly its main task, that anyone looking at it in depth can only conclude that it was designed for kiddie porn. Any lingering doubts have been removed when the project leaders decided to take this tur
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:3, Interesting)
I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. - Voltaire
God, how I love quotes.
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of view of most of the developers (and myself), however, is that you can be either for or against absolute, anonymous free speech. You clearly fall into the "against" camp. Most of those working on the network, however, believe that the benefits of having uncensored speech outweigh the cost. That the gains in human rights from publishing police brutality videos outweigh the losses from making terrorist discussion easy. That the gains from making DeCSS available outweigh the costs of copyright infringement. That the gains from proof of election fraud outweigh the losses from child porn. You're more than welcome to disagree with that point; I understand your position. However, there is another side, and it's more complex than "I want my child porn."
Me, I think I'll support Freenet and all that it entails, even if the results aren't perfect.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't have a child, do you.
I do, and if you think my support of FreeNet means that you're free to move in on my kid you're liable to become a candidate for a Darwin Award. In a couple of different ways, should you be male. If you get my drift. Or even if you don't.
I protect my kid, and although I'm glad to have the help and support of my society and its police (many and perhaps most of whom are among the fine
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
Odd, I don't remember saying that you didn't have the right to express your viewpoints. In fact, I kind of took your right to express your viewpoints for granted. Get off your goddamn persecution complex.
I have the right to express that everytime freenet comes up. I have the right to let as many people I know understand that if they run a freenet node, they ARE aiding in the spread of child porn, that they are helping the worlds worst monsters commit their crimes. Most sensible people understand that.
In the same way that if they live in and support a society that has free speech, they're aiding in NAMBLA's ability to claim that it's ok to have sex with little boys.
It's why bittorrent is huge and fast, and freenet is slow. With BT, I can decide that I have no moral objection to spreading last nights episode of the Simpsons, with FreeNet (and others like it), I don't get the same choice.
If you have a moral objection to a truly censorship-free network, then you have the option of not running that network. And it seems you've taken this option, so what are you complaining bout?
I have the right to mention that videos and still images of real children being raped is NOT FREE SPEECH.
Yes, you indeed have a right to make complete non-sequiturs. I don't think CP falls under the purview of free speech either. Just like slander, libel, and blackmail don't fall under the purview of free speech. But a system that's designed to offer an environment free of censorship using anonymity as a tool will NECESSARILY support such activities. There is no way to get around it.
NAMBLA expresses their "viewpoints" on the regular internet.
If you choose to support Freenet, and it's userbase, it represents a tacit approval of the material it's used to dissiminate.
Just like if you support free speech, and those who are allowed to exercise it, it represents a tacit approval for all the messages and viewpoints they express using it?
Or does it represent your commitment to a higher-level principle, and your conscious decision that the value of that higher-level principle outweighs the ill-effects of those who use it to acheive questionable and despicable ends.
And I can say that all I want, and encourage anyone who feels the same to absolutely bury any discussion of Freenet with similar posts.
I'm just asking you to be honest about it. I'm asking you to say: "I don't beleive in a censorship-free medium" if you want to oppose Freenet on the grounds that it allows CP.
And Zonk can go right ahead and ban me again.
Who the fuck is Zonk?
hate assholes like you who basically tell everyone to "shut up" because of someone elses "freedom of speech". It works both ways.
I am perfectly capable of understanding that it works both ways. In fact, I've reconciled the idea of allowing people to disseminate information that disgusts me to the core. That's a hell of a lot more difficult to do than reconciling a few misrepresented arguments on slashdot.
No, I don't believe in freenet, and I don't believe in your "truly censorship-free" information system.
See, that wasn't so hard, was it? All I'm asking is for people to be honest with their assessment of why they don't like Freenet. If you think the ill effects of dissemination of CP on Freenet outweighs the benefits of a complete lack of censorship, that's fine. I can disagree, but it's a position I can respect. Thing is, people here seem to like the idea of 'no censorship', and will try to avoid speaking out against it.. but still speak against Freenet because of the CP hotbutton issue.
A little intellectual honesty is all I'm asking for.
-Laxitive
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
No offence but this has gotta be a troll. I I'm wrong, I do apologize.
First of all, like other children of the parent say, in most cases the benefits of a free (beer+speech), distributed, anonymous network outweigh the costs.
I have the right to let as many people I know understand that if they run a freenet node, they ARE aiding in the spread of child porn, that they are helping the worlds worst monsters commit their crimes. NO -- that is not a certainty. It is a possibility, maybe even a high or low probability, but it is NOT a certainty. Running a Freenet node does NOT entail that you are nessesarily aiding CP.
If you choose to support Freenet, and it's userbase, it represents a tacit approval of the material it's used to dissiminate. NO IT DOESNT. What it DOES represent is tacit approval of free speech (as you say, and I strongly agree with you, CP does not fall under this category). It does NOT represent tacit approval of CP.
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
After careful consideration of your point, I realize the error of my ways.
Specifically, I realize that by running a Freenet node, I would be allowing others to use it the way you've said. I would be providing support to a system that, as a whole, exploits children.
I have since determined that telephones and video cameras are used in the production of CP. I can no longer supply the phone company or video empires with the money I pay for their products, since their products are used for bad things, as well as good.
I think we should do the same to the gun manufacturers, since we all know how guns are used.
Seriously though, the technology (Freenet) does not exploit children. People exploit children. Don't ban technology because it is effective. Freenet has NEVER exploited a single child any more or less than a telephone, the US Postal Service, and the entire line of Sony Handicam(TM)'s.
You do realize that by the time the video hits whatever distribution system that it's already too late, right? If you want to protect the children...why not actually protect the children. Don't use abused children further as an excuse because you're uncomfortable with other people expressing their rights outside of some sort of central control--because that's the object of Freenet--for better (political reform) OR worse (abuse of children for profit).
Finally, realize that the First Amendment is not what it used to be. There was a time that speech and thought could not be ultimately suppressed. Given the current state of technology, I'm not sure that will be sustained. Disturbing as it may be, someday the First Amendment may not be a nod to an unsupressable reality, but it will be that last bastion between an unscrupulous bureacratic machine and individual freedoms.
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:3, Insightful)
Take America for instance. How many children are killed by guns each year? How many children are abused in CP each year?
The guns are just as guilty of killing children as Freenet is of creating CP.
Bottom line:
http://www.ichv.org/Statistics.htm [ichv.org]
Over 30000 gun deaths in a year.
http://www.nch.org.uk/information/index.php?i=77&r =326 [nch.org.uk]
2234 Child Pornography busts in the same year.
Children abuse in real life, recordings trafficked on the Internet. Apparently that means we s
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:3, Insightful)
You sure do, and I'd advise you not to run Freenet in your case. The fact of the matter is that Freenet's security relies on everyone knowing as little as possible so as to minimize the ability of attackers to compromise anonymity. It's not the complete anonymity model, but it does simplify the equation greatly.
"I have the right to express that everytime freenet comes up. I have th
Re:Great, here come the CP trolls (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.i2p.net/ (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: http://www.i2p.net/ ? (Score:3, Interesting)
It is good you are asking although it is best to ask people who know what they are talking about. Although many (most?) of the Slashdot people here are intelligent (in comparison to other chat/blog sites) you should still ask people you know to be competent...
That being said, here is my answer
Same old, same old (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, for Freenet to have any future, I think the developers need to get used to the idea of _not breaking it_ every six months. Otherwise the few people with the enthusiasm required to keep it operating are going to find better things to do with their time.
You can either have a research network or a viable, usable system, you can't have both. If it ever gets to a viable, usable network, I might give it a try again, but it's pointless when you can't insert anything and can barely retrieve anything.
Speed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Like maybe making the thing fast enough to be usable, maybe?
You always hear the Freenet detractors talking about all the questionable content making its way to Freenet, but my question is "How the hell could you stand using Freenet long enough to view anything in the 1st place?". The thing's dead-dog slow, and I'm on a very fast broadband connection!
I love the concept, but unless this new revision brings speed to Freenet, it's a waste of time and effort to me. Secure and anonymous internet browsing is an important thing, but usability's should be just as important if they ever hope to bring this to fruition.
Networks with similar goals -- (Score:3, Informative)
Tor is simply an anonymous p2p proxy:
http://tor.eff.org/ [eff.org]
i2p is a fork from freenet. Similar to Tor but you can host your own site off it.
Both are not nearly as freenet. I'm loving i2p though because it's much more practical.
For a lowdown from the i2p people on these and more similar technologies see here:
http://www.i2p.net/how_networkcomparisons [i2p.net]
Need market changes, not subterfuge (Score:4, Insightful)
Just trying to hide it will only invite further problems and frankly, the idea of being unable to avoid contributing to the spreading of child pornography bothers me a lot more than the MPAA and RIAA going after people illegally trading copyrighted material.
What we need is for the RIAA, MPAA, or some organization(s) that will eventually supplant them to find a financially viable market in open, distributed file sharing. A solution that makes everyone happy and doesn't contribute to child pornography.
I am convinced that this is possible. If the MPAA and RIAA can't figure out a way to make money doing it, someone else will and the MPAA and RIAA will eventually die off. Evolution: Adapt or die off. Wasn't there an article on that over the weekend as well?
My opinions about Freenet (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I don't care either way, as long as people give valid arguments for why my claims in my post are untrue. Alas, few who refute what I say by claiming I'm a troll even try. But, of course, even if I *was* a troll, then still it says nothing about the arguments I made. The tactic of depicting the speaker as an idiot, troll, etc, and thus what he says as being untrue neither, is a well known falacy.
I find it humorous that Ian, in this slasdot thread, says I'm a troll because 'look; he's never provided one line of code to Freenet'...which proves to me he didn't even do the trouble of reading my blog, because that's exactly what I point out in my blog: if you aren't a coder, and don't contribute code, one isn't worth much in the eyes of Ian, whatever one may have done in support as a non-coder.
So, I'm a troll because I've never provided code and I dare to criticise? Wow. Even now, he doesn't see where the problem lies, instead he portrays exactly the attitude that I describe. But still, while I have troubles with the way he manages Freenet, I still think he has had (and still has) some good ideas - something which is important too. I could call him a 'troll' as well, and thus shrug off everything he says, but I'd rather see arguments, especially about the topics that I've raised. But, chances are, I'll be waiting for a very long time; it's much easier to call me a troll, after all.
That said, my opinion of Freenet, as a concept, is still high. People should not make a mistake about that; being all for free speech, I can't else then see any way of making it possible for all people to speak their mind unafraid as something unbelievable valuable. So, it's not Freenet itself that I have a problem with, it's the current way in which it is managed and developed - and I don't say that just out of the blue; I argument it and give examples of it on my blog.
As yet, 'troll' is the most advanced reply I received from the founder. I don't know: maybe I was the wrong person to tell this. Clearly, his bias towards me prevents him from arguing rationally about the points I brought up.
It's true, that sometimes, my blog is a bit harsh, but then again, after seeing and experiencing several years of people being ignored because they are no coders, one gets a bit annoyed by it.
Anyway, maybe Freenet WILL go in the right direction, perhaps... or maybe it will be surpassed by systems like I2P. But, I can bet one thing: its succes or failure won't be determined just by the code.
Trust? on what basis? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, not a troll (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Unfortunately, not a troll (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought that was one of the points, that noone can reasonably find out what is on his node?
Re:Unfortunately, not a troll (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Unfortunately, not a troll (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Unfortunately, not a troll (Score:3, Informative)
By the article, you can't actually see what's been downloaded, but if your local fascist government wants to determine if you downloaded file XX, they could try downloading that file from your node. If the performance is very good, then there's a good probability that the encrypted chunks are cached locally and in neighbour nodes, thus they can determine that you did download it.
Re:Unfortunately, not a troll (Score:3, Informative)
When you retrieve a file from Freenet (at least the current "stable" implementation), your request is bounced through several other random nodes on the network; and relaying a request for another node looks exactly the same, protocol-wise, as initiating one. They call it "plausible deniability;" if a person's node contains stuff considered "bad," or illegal, then there's absolutely no wa
Re:FreeNet Is Lost (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FreeNet Is Lost (Score:2)
Re:FreeNet Is Lost (Score:5, Informative)
However, it is relatively easy to see what is on freenet at large. There are several spiders that roam freenet and index freesites they come across. It's sort of like what Google does. So all one has to do is load up these indexes and see how many of the sites are child porn related. Another way to tell is load up Frost and see how many of the boards of child porn related.
There's a very large number of them.
Re:FreeNet Is Lost (Score:2)
Of course nobody actually knows who downloads what and how much, but there are big lists of websites and such. Although you can hardly call them accurate, since nobody forces anybody to submit their site to the existent indexes.
It's been ages since I last tried Freenet though. The Java server is incredibly annoying, eats tons of RAM and uses a lot of CPU time, and the rest is
Re:FreeNet Is Lost (Score:2)
That damned programs runs like a overgrown elephant in a cold tar pit (it doesnt).
I had it for 2 days and really gave it a chance. Didnt do jack-shit for me and it ended up going to a file called
Re:FreeNet Is Lost (Score:2)
But it's not difficult to see how some would think that's what freenet is about.
Now, if there is anyone out there that lives outside the US, and would like to help me experiment with a different method of anonymous networking, send an email.
Re:FreeNet Is Lost (Score:3, Insightful)
Hard to tell exactly what's circulating on the network, yes, but I saw signs of it since it was the first thing I was greeted with after finally finding out the address of a large "a little bit of everything" Freenet portal. Maybe the conclusions were drawn prematurely, but it sure didn't look so with links like "The Blog of a Paedophile", "Illegal child porn", and on and on... Think of a kiddie porn-oriente
Re:FreeNet Is Lost (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems like it's bad enough that (for example) this FreeNet index [bishopston.net] has felt obligated to include a short essay and an "Enter Here at Your Own Risk" warning on their front page.
Looking at the actual index for a moment (somewhat, the idiot webmaster decided to put in a username/password prompt that keeps coming back endlessly), I notice 3 or 4 immediate child porn/pedophile-related links right on the front page, several links to regular
Re:FreeNet Is Lost (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That is what happens... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Is Freenet doomed to failure by design? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is Freenet doomed to failure by design? (Score:3, Insightful)
Particularly as PGP is vastly more useful to 'terrorists' than Freenet. Why take the risk of using Freenet to distribute messages when you can just PGP-encrypt them and stick them on a floppy disk for hand delivery?
No sane 'terrorist' is going to use Freenet to communicate... they don't need to.
Re:Is Freenet doomed to failure by design? (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on the goals of the terrorist.
A Terrorist who is meeting another in person (this includes walking by an secretly exchanging floppies when the 'accidentally' bump into each other) will use pgp because it is the best solution. They already know the keys to use, so encryption is just a way to save themselves from dropping the disk.
A terrorist looking to recruit someone in the target country needs some way to tell everyone the message without getting caught. (of course they still need a message t
Re:Is Freenet doomed to failure by design? (Score:3, Insightful)
And it's for that reason that I don't use Freenet. I want completely private communication, but I don't want to be lumped in with vicious creeps, either. How can Freenet or any network provide me with that? I have doubts that it's possible at all.
This is completely ridiculous reasoning. I
Fork oh yes... (Score:3, Informative)
"you can always fork. If you do not agree with the current developers' direction, fork. "
People tried to fork Freenet a couple of years [slashdot.org] ago (October 2003) when it started going down the shitter (in April 2003). The forkers tried to be as nice as can be about such an issue, but the current Freenet developers told them in effect to 'Get the fuck out of here' and they did not bother.
What one of the would be forkers (jrandom) did do though which is a nice kind of tasty ironic desert is mak