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FreeNet's Ian Clarke Answers Privacy Questions
Who is liable?
(Score:5, Interesting)
by tcd004
You said that this: "allows information to be published and read without fear of censorship because individual documents cannot be traced to their source..."
I'm all for an open forum for free speech, but this seems almost reckless. In most venues of speech, accountability for someone's words is fundamental. The Internet has opened up the possiblity of free speech without accountability to a small degree, and look at what has happened. Do you fear any legal repercussions to your group for creating this forum based on this fact?
Ian:
Thanks for your question tcd004. The problem is that it is sometimes impossible to have free speech unless it can be delivered anonymously, since the threat of retribution can be a very effective deterrent against people stating their opinions. I would even go so far as to say that a forum which forced people to identify themselves was not permitting true free speech (This is why Slashdot allows "Anonymous Cowards" to have their say). I should further point out that there is no reason that people cannot digitally sign information they place in Freenet to indicate that they are the authors of a piece of information, but we don't force people to do that. Someone could even build up an anonymous reputation by signing all of their work with the same private key.
My personal feeling is that liable, and liable law, assumes that people will believe everything they read. This might, to an extent, be true in this time of centralized media, but my hope is that systems like Freenet (and indeed SlashDot) will encourage people to make judgments about the reliability of information themselves rather than relying on a corruptible centralized source.
Why the name FreeNet?
(Score:4, Insightful)
by K8Fan
Maybe I'm just showing my age, but to me a "FreeNet" is a local free Picospan/shell account. Maybe it's a bad idea to take the name of an existing and quite venerable free service?
Here is part of the Detroit Freenet FAQ:
* What is a Free-Net? A Free-Net is a free, public-access community computer system. Free-Nets can serve populations of any size, from large metropolitan areas to small cities and towns. They offer a wide spectrum of on-line information services to the public, including community and government databases and worldwide electronic messaging. They don't charge for their services, so everything on them is free. Free-Nets also have an interactive aspect, in that users can dialogue with information providers. While there are many Free-Nets around the world, each Free-Net is tailored to meet the needs of the local community, so no two Free-Nets are identical.
Seems like the existing Freenet is already a very good and useful thing, and it really doesn't need the confusion.
Ian:
Basically our experience is that while other systems and projects have used the term "Freenet" in the past, for the most part it had fallen out of common usage (if you don't believe me just take a look at the current contents of alt.freenet - which is primarily spam). We believe that since we are developing a "Free Network", the abbreviation of "Freenet" is too good not to use, and since it isn't really in common-usage anywhere else right now, we have resurrected it.
Poisoning the waters
(Score:5, Interesting)
by Mike Schiraldi
What protection is there against someone poisoning the system with malicious data? For example, let's say MPAASoftRIAAOL Corp. sets up a system of computers all over the place with wildly different IPs, and they feed either random or specially crafted bogus data into the system.
This is sort of analogous to renaming Barry_Manilow.mp3 to DaveMatthewsBand.mp3 and putting it on Napster. How do we prevent it? Some sort of decentralized, everyone-is-created-equal moderation system?
Ian:
You raise an interesting point, and one which has created much discussion on the mailing list since these "cancer" attacks are probably the most difficult to defend against in any system, particularly if it is decentralized like Freenet. Right now, the way Freenet works limits the damage that can be done with such a node, but in the future we plan to implement mechanisms which will make such an attack even less effective. Basically Freenet avoids becoming dependent on any particular node since requests will be spread almost equally among all Freenet nodes (by the nature of the dynamic caching and mirroring). This means that even if 0.1% of the total number of Freenet nodes are corrupted, at most about 0.1-0.4% of requests will be affected by it. Right now whenever someone requests some data in Freenet, in a sense they are voting for it, and all of the nodes which were involved in retrieving it. This is less than ideal since you don't actually know what you will get until it is too late (much like voting in the real world!). We plan to implement a mechanism to address this, where you can "undo" your vote if you aren't happy with the result, and thus Freenet gets a much more accurate idea of the quality of different types of information, and the quality of the nodes used to retrieve it. This will mean that a malicious node of the type you describe will eventually be ignored by the rest of Freenet, so hopefully the threat you describe won't be an issue when we release Freenet 1.0.
Bandwidth and Piracy
(Score:5, Insightful)
by Valdrax
In your own FAQ, you pretty much sidestep the entire issue that FreeNet would become a humongous "warez" distribution system by saying that it's merely a more efficient means of doing what others have been doing before. Ignoring the seeming subtle endorsement of piracy through the system, I'll raise an important question for adminstrators of FreeNet nodes.
In your FAQ, you say that it is very hard for FreeNet node admins to know what is on their site. With the inevitable proliferation of "warez" on the site, how will the system avoid getting bogged down with hundreds of illegal copies of popular pieces of software?
For example, when Diablo 2 finally comes out in the stores, what would prevent servers from being overloaded with:
/software/games/Diablo2.iso
/software/games/RPGs/Diablo2.iso
/software/games/rpg/Diablo2.iso
/warez/l337gam3z/Diablo2.iso
/fr33gam3z/war3z/rpg/diabloII.crack.iso
/mywarez/ObfuscatedDistributionKey/Diablo2.image
...etc.?
You could literally have hundreds of 650 Mb images of games floating around jamming up everyone's nodes. With the lack of searchability, no one would know what keys hook into what files. Without this knowledge, warez people might keep uploading copies to different keys, thus flooding the system. In essence, does not the lack of protection against piracy and the seemingly intentional goal of keeping admins from controlling their system threaten to bring down the entire network under the burden of warez and junk?
Ian:
The simple answer is that copyright is economic censorship (ie. restricting the free distribution of information for economic reasons), and thus Freenet will make it difficult or impossible to enforce copyright. As for whether Freenet will be "overloaded" with Warez junk, well current methods of distributing Warez work fine already, but as for Freenet - the system will contain whatever information people request. If people request Warez, then there will be Warez on Freenet, if they request pornography, then there will be pornography on Freenet, and if they request political documents then there will be political documents on Freenet. Freenet makes no distinction, and if it did it could not claim to permit true freedom of information. If you want to know more about why we just might be able to live without copyright take a look at our philosophy page.
Regarding your comment about large files clogging up Freenet, right now, inserting a huge file into Freenet probably won't work, since a node won't store a file which exceeds its disk-cache limit. We also plan to make large files need to justify themselves in-terms of the number of hits they receive, so that they don't displace loads of smaller files.
Why such bad press, what is being done to fix it?
(Score:5,
Insightful)
by griffjon
It's pretty scary when Wired slams you with the headline, "Alternative Net Protects Pirates", which contained in the story gems such as:
"Eric Scheirer, a music technology researcher at MIT's Media Lab, said Freenet is an interesting experiment, but said it would likely be used only by a small community of pirates and "privacy nuts."
And, failing Monday's piece in the Nando Times , that's actually been the best article so far. The New Scientist is running "out of control: The Internet is about to get even harder to police" in their current issue, and ABCNews.com did a one-paragraph style summary of this article, with the lead of "An Internet system designed to guarantee anonymous free speech on the Web could be used by child pornographers and terrorists, according to New Scientist magazine," which then proceeds to all but call you and the other programmers pedophiles in a grammatical burp.
My question is, if this is to be successful (which I for one am all in favor of, I'm in close contact with Brandon and Steven, two of the FreeNet programmers, and am very much in support of the existence of this), FreeNet can't come off as a tool for criminals and miscreants, lest you attract more attention than you'd like from the Fed-types. Now, you may say that because it's open-source and already available, etc., that the Feds can't put it down, but if it is branded as an evil tool for child pornographers (like it is currently), it will never gain the popularity and user-base needed to make it sufficiently robust against machine removals.
To get something called a tool for privacy nuts by Wired is pretty bad--and the rest of the press has been worse; is there any plan to get this project out of the gutter?
Ian:
Well, we actually have had more good press than you suggest, the recent Wall Street Journal article was very positive, as was an early Brave GNU World article (see our publicity page for links). As for the bad press, well I think whenever you do something really new you are always going to encounter resistance. I think most of these journalists were trying to stir up some controversy, which is what journalists do. Interestingly many of these journalists have explained that they are often given a brief by their editors before they have even spoken to me on what tone the article will have. You rapidly develop a thick skin when you are involved in this kind of project, although for the most part I have been reasonably happy with the press coverage we have received.
Re: Why such bad press, what is being done to
fix it
(Score:5, Interesting)
by Eric_Scheirer
"Eric Scheirer, a music technology researcher at MIT's Media Lab, said Freenet is an interesting experiment, but said it would likely be used only by a small community of pirates and 'privacy nuts.'"
I stand by my quote in that article, although naturally it's a little short on context. Let me make clear that I am in favor of privacy, security, and anonymity when appropriate, and I despise the current attempts to make the WWW more corporate-controlled via both code and law. I don't think there's anything wrong with Freenet, I just don't think it will ever take off in the mainstream.
The fact is that most of the things that most people like to use the WWW for--such as e-commerce and Slashdot--cannot be built on Freenet, since it has no cookies and no memory. Given this, I can't see anything happening with Freenet except that it becomes a huge storehouse for illegal porn, pirated MP3s and 3l33t w8r3z.
It's a shame, because the potential political benefits that it raises, by allowing dissident speech in repressive countries, is great.
I guess my question for the Freenet developers would be: I am not a pirate, a privacy nut, a political dissident, or someone trying to spread illegal trade secrets. What does Freenet offer me? And are these benefits broad enough to a broad enough segment of the world population to create the momentum needed for Freenet to work sociologically as well as technically?
-- Eric Scheirer
MIT Media Laboratory
Ian:
Brandon (one of the other core Freenet developers) did e-mail you twice to answer the comments you made in Wired, he still awaits your response on the matter. Ok, what does Freenet offer someone who doesn't care about anonymity? One point that many people miss is that it is actually a very efficient way to distribute information due to its dynamic caching and dynamic mirroring. Freenet will move information to where it is in-demand, and will duplicate popular information automatically so that you should never encounter "The SlashDot Effect" with Freenet. In other words, your ability to publish information is no longer limited to the Bandwidth you can pay for. Because of this it should actually be a better way to distribute information than, say, the WWW or Usenet, even ignoring the fact that the information can't be censored. TheCarp mentions this below.
Wireless Freenet
(Score:4,
Interesting)
by john187
I think Freenet would dovetail nicely with wireless network technology. I system of Freenet servers 1-2 km apart could blanket metropolitan areas and eliminate dependency on ISP's for network service.
What are your thoughts on this? Are any hardware people interested in looking at this problem? Building some prototypes?
Ian:
I agree completely, we have actually kept the protocol packet-based for just this sort of reason. I think Freenet would be perfect for a distribute decentralized radio network, and it would be a very exciting project.
Reversed priorities?
(Score:5, Insightful)
by
mattr
If files live longer the more they are thrashed, will this not just breed thrasher bots and crowd out data from clients with less connectivity? How about a voting system for one or more directories which does not add files easily but they are there for good. If it is that good a resource it deserves a champion to protect it.
Also, I take it you are comfortable with already having divulged the identities of the entire first wave of sysadmins of FreeNet nodes? Seems like your most vulnerable time is now.
I've long considered the value of a peer to peer system for countries underdeveloped in the areas of infrastructure and rights. Unfortunately it seems that social engineering is steadily on the side of repression. Wouldn't the best way to get FreeNet into such environments be to make it a source of economic strength? In other words, your growth metric might look much better if you include authorship, copyright, and microcashpayment management. I can't see the Declaration of Independence sticking in the current system for long.. but it is in both a good library and a good bookstore.
Basically you have built a distribution system which in its optimal configuration has no delivery time since you already have the commodity on your hard drive... make it work for business as well and it may reduce prices and take on a life of its own.
Ian:
Well there is certainly more than one question here!
Firstly, the issue of "thrashing" or flooding Freenet is covered in the FAQ - I refer you to section 4.2. To summarize, the dynamic caching mechanism makes it very difficult to artificially make data more popular (since Freenet will just cache it on a node right beside you, and all of your requests will be soaked up by it).
As for divulging the addresses of the first few people to set-up Freenet nodes (I assume you refer to our "Inform.php" mechanism) that is merely a mechanism to "boot-strap" Freenet for testing purposes. Once Freenet is up and running properly we will have no need for such a mechanism, but it is useful in the early stages (and people have the option to switch it off in the config file if they really care that much). I should make it clear that Freenet now is still at an early stage of development. The project is lucky to have some very talented and hard-working developers, particularly Brandon Wiley and Oskar Sandberg who have really helped turned this from a dream into a reality, but we still have much work to do. Data modification, Content Hashed Keys, local data encryption, the list of ideas which we want to implement before a 1.0 release is long - but this is indicative of the cutting-edge nature of the project.
In terms of making it possible to sell information using Freenet, or a Freenet-like system, I suspect that might be missing the point we are making! Never say never though...
Kiddy porn, rape movies, snuff films.
(Score:5, Interesting)
by Jinker
No matter what zealots tell you, no freedom is absolute. Your freedoms end when they infringe on the rights of others. This includes your freedom of speech.
My thoughts when I first heard about this project were extremely positive for the first five seconds or so. I was going to set up a server, and suggest all my other bandwidth-rich friends do the same. Then I thought about what would be going to and from my server.
Anonymity has its place from time to time, but usually in the cases of an abuse by a higher power against an individual. But in the general case, I feel that freedom of speech entails the responsability of accountability.
If I'm going to say that I hate Virgos, and all Virgos should be locked up and treated as the inhuman beasts that they are, I should have the conviction to do so without a pointy hood over my head.
If I'm going to be distributing porn, I should be able to do it with a clean conscience. If I wanted to post naked pictures on a Web site, I'd be in some way traceable. And if I wasn't identifiable, there at least would be a mechanism in place (an e-mail to my upstream provider) to curb my freedom of speech if I was posting vile material.
The ideal of individual freedom falls apart in the environment of actual individuals who abuse it.
I'm not saying in any way that this should be a legal matter, or that the product should be banned, just that in the case that it turns out like I expect it to (the majority of traffic for illicit files, both violating copyright and basic human decency) I will have no respect, even a measure of contempt for the people that do run the servers. THEY will be the ones I will hold accountable for the 'free speech' being exercised on the network. And if they were to be sued off the net by the RIAA, Church of Scientology and MPAA, I can't say I'll be surprised, or all that upset.
What arguments can you make FOR free, anonymous access to kiddie porn, snuff films and rape/torture erotica? Why should *I*, a server operator, nurture these sorts of activities in an ideal environment?
Ian:
You cannot have free speech without tolerating speech that you personally don't agree with. If you don't want to risk aiding the distribution of "kiddie porn" (which is *already* freely distributed on the Internet anyway), then steer clear of Freenet - it's not for you. On the other hand, if you want to help build a system which will help humanity share information, even though some of that information will be distasteful to you personally, then set up a Freenet node. See our philosophy page for more information on this.
some technical questions.
. (Score:4,
Interesting)
by Cuthalion
Once something is put on freenet it cannot be removed. What does this mean? No censorship, but also misinformation stays in the system just as long as correct information, so long as it can 'trick' people into requesting it (by seeming to be relevant, for instance). This can be exploited intentionally to censor (some things are nearly unfindable on search engines because of 'key' collisions - the band 'Reload', for instance), or unintentionally - I write something, post it, and five minutes later learn that I was mistaken. Oh well! People will just have to decide for themselves what is truth. Even if I DO post a retraction, there is no way to verify that a trusted entity (such as the original author) retracted it.
As a medium for sharing artistic works (e.g., music, essays, images) this is not as important, but to carry actual facts, (e.g., hardware specs, controvertial news items, etc.) this seems a major shortcoming. Is there any solution to this problem in place or in progress? I ask because I feel that this is not adequately discussed in the FAQ.
Ian:
As I mention above we are working on improving the way that people can "vote" for the validity of information - I hope that this will address some of the concerns you raise. Having said that, you can't really drownout information on Freenet in the manner you suggest. If you have the key, you can get the data unless it has died out due to never being requested.
The whole area of choosing appropriate keys for the data you wish to insert is a huge, and ripe for further research. For some things, like MP3s, or poems, choosing an appropriate key is pretty easy ("music/mp3/artist/album/track" or "poem/poet/title" for example). It merely requires a standard way to refer to these things - and since it is in everybody's interest to use the same standard, hopefully good standards will emerge quite quickly. Other things are less easy. When people created the Internet, they probably never thought it might be used the way we are using it now - and they didn't need to. Similarly, Freenet is a platform upon which we hope others will build.
Re: Why compete?
(Score:4, Interesting)
by TheCarp
Actually....the Freenet Has a huge technical advantage over http protocols. The thing is... it's not just hard to track down who wrote it (unless they sign their name...it's only anonymous if you want it to be) and where it's stored...
It has cacheing built in. When you request something, it propagates. This means more copies exist. So if a document is REALLY popular, then no one server is bogged down with distributing it.
Imagine some really popular band that believes in mp3 distribution puts out a new mp3. Now everyone 80% of college students go to download it.
WHat happens? After the first few downloads at each college...the local university freenet server will have a copy of the mp3 and will be serving it to that university.
None of the requests for it will be going outside the local university network. Its the basic equivalent of everyone in the world being behind multiple layers of http cacheing proxy, except somewhat better (its built into the protocol)
Ian:
What can I say? Cool - you get it! Just to reiterate though, Freenet is an experiment. It is quite different from projects like Linux and Mozilla, which are essentially open source re-implementations of technology which has already been proven (and, incidentally, I am a big supporter of both of these projects). There aren't really any precedents which we could follow in designing Freenet, certainly nothing that came close to what we wanted to achieve. The difficulty with Freenet is that we can only *really* test it by encouraging people to use it on a reasonably wide scale. There is much further work to be done on Freenet, it is really only at the beginning of its testing phase right now - so please don't expect it to change the world just yet - but please do try it out!
--------------------------
You may also be interested to note that we have released Freenet 0.1beta.
All the best,
- Ian
FreeNet is about more than freedom of speech. It's about freedom of information transfer and storage too. The Public doesn't want and will not tolerate the existance of such freedom when (not if) it is used for purposes in conflict with their comfort. FreeNet will be shut down as soon as it has been found to be useful.
These people are wasting their time.
I think the only feasible systems have accountability and optional psuedo-anonymity built it, but the identifying information must be obtainable only with a court order and that restriction much be gauranteed by technological methods and law which will send violators of that restriction to jail.
However, I am also a keen amatuer scholar of the US Constitution, and I wonder about the implications of this technology. If misapplied, it could end up with non-US citizens being able to say whatever they liked, with no fear of retribution. This could include opinions that no democrat could countenance. (I am thinking here primarily of Communism and Atheism, but this 'anonymous posting' technology could be used to promote almost any anti-us agenda).
Not entirely sure if you are just trolling or if this is serious... but lets take it serious...
The word democrat was invented in Greece and not in your USA. The first constitution in Europe predates the USA one by a few hundred years, and besides... having lived in both the USA and Europe I can only come to the conclusion that where you have freedom of speech in your constitution, most of western europe has it in practise not just on paper.
Also. freedom of speech comes with the nice freedom to refrain from reading what you don't like
And... last but not least, this world is 'a bit' bigger then your USA. If you would actually understand anything about that country you live in, and its constitution and history, you would understand that the USA has tried to convince others to get the same political system as them, or at most a slight variation on it. This is all nice since that system happens to work reasonably well, but it doesn't make you any different from those communists and atheists that you seem so afraid off.
Maybe you are just afraid of yourself, of your beliefs being so weakly founded that things which should be easily recognisable as propaganda might convince you? well.. in that case just don't read... but don't determine for other people if they are strong enough.
The problem with this technology is that while Americans are used to freedom of speech, and for the most part use it responsibly (see this very forum for examples) the less developed parts of the world (and I am thinking mainly of Europe here) do not have the tradition of free speech that we Americans do, and so may abuse the privelege this technology has bestowed upon them.
I could comment on this, but actually its so obviously wrong that I don't think I have to explain this.
This is absolutely true. True control of information has been impossible since the development of reasonably easy to use cryptography. It doesn't really matter if the information is traceable if it is practically unreadable. The CDA was more or less a joke for that reason. If people want to exchange information which others don't want them to exchange, it's pretty trivial to take the traffic underground. No legislator is going to change that practical reality without seriously draconian efforts.
Speaking of standard protocols and getting mainstream apps to support free-net (which I'm still thinking about whether I support in general or not), is anyone working on defining URI's for documents on free-net and maybe even adding support for these to Mozilla?
If this really is a more efficient distribution medium people might consider simultaneously releasing a document on the web and on free-net in HTML and link from each to the other.
In fact, you could deliberately copy entire sub-webs from the HTTP-based web to a free-net based equivalent. It would be easy to script this and convert all links. You now have an instant user-base, the system is made much more legitimate and the added number of users and servers makes it more robust, both technically and against themakers, users and abusers of the law.
Logi - I can do anything, but not everything.
It seems that no one is concerned about the very probable fact that illegal pornography will end up on your computer! Does no one have any problems with that? What happens, if for some reason, your computer is confiscated, and they find child porn. Try to explain that.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
And how will this freenet help those oppressed people. What's to stop those evil governments or corporations or whatever from making managing any freenet node illegal?
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
You might be an atheist, but you believed a troll.
That'll be 20 ave marias and 30 paters for you.
Doesn't that mean that a DOS attack that included both bogus insertion and bogus requests (possibly using something like the distributed DOS attacks seen recently) could make it impossible to find the attacked information?
---- "First came stats, pulling habits out of rats
Who was the humorless twirp that moderated this brilliant satire down as a troll just because of the humorless twirps who responded as though it were?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I have to concede the fact that action != speech. However, I remind you that Ian said:
Semantics and logical hair-splitting aside, Freenet can allow and even facilitate the distribution of illegal material in a manner that makes it exceedingly difficult to defend against, under the auspices of "free speech". Noble words and intentions, to be sure, and a worthwhile endeavor. I think it's incomplete, and dangerously so.
Python is right -- action and speech are separate entities that cannot be equated. Ian seemed to equate them, so I commented on his answer. Assuming (as I do), that Ian doesn't really equate kiddie porn to free speech, he at least seems to be saying that on Freenet, you can only support free speech by simultaneously allowing a method by which the distribution of kiddie porn is *greatly* facilitated. I say "greatly" because there is the opportunity for a Freenet adminitrator's node to be used in a way the administrator may not like, and cannot defend against.
I'm not trying to make an ass of Ian: to the contrary, I wish the project much success. However, their decision to not allow node-administrator control -- indeed, no control whatsoever -- places their project in a dangerous position by which it can and will be used for such things as kiddie porn, and the good intentions of the project gets swept aside.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
It's not a misparaphrase, it's an exact quote, copy-and-pasted from Ian's answer.
Ian does not seem to be implying the opposite: he seems to be equating free speech (specifically, speech that you personally do not agree with) with distribution of "kiddie porn". I went to the extreme, granted, by taking into the "action" part of creating kiddie porn, but it is a valid extension of the argument. Hair-splitting aside, kiddie porn (at any stage, whether creating, distributing, or possesion) is illegal now. Whether you're streaming bits, or actually sodomizing a 10 year old boy, if it's kiddie porn, it's illegal.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Okay, in order: I'm not saying Freenet should be illegal (as you seem to be saying -- if I've miscontrued your argument, I apologize and retract my following statement). I'm saying that it is a weakness of Freenet to not allow some level of control so that such activity does not take place. At any point in the process of "kiddie porn" -- creation, distribution, possesion -- the product and/or action is illegal. Hmm... I guess I AM saying it's illegal... your point.
I disagree that allowing free speech means tolerating legally and morally (oooh.. the "M" word) repugnant activities. It is the grossest of mistakes (or some kind of utopian happytalk) to say you cannot have one without the other. The world is not like a computer: there are many shades of gray in addition to the black and white binary world.
Tough one -- I don't say that you will be sodomizing 10 year olds on Freenet. I say that Freenet provides no provision to defend against questionable material, and as such facilitates the distribution. Returning to your above statement, you can't have one without the other, whereas I say "Yes you can". Eliminating the control of one's own node may not attract the legions of free-thinking people the project hopes for. Rather, it may attract only the bottom-feeders of society, since it gives them untraceable conduits to pass their material around. I think the balance struck is the wrong balance -- some control needs to be there.
Ian talks about routing around "cancerous" nodes when Evil Corporate Geniuses will pollute the Pure Freenet Stream with corporate doubletalk. Yet, he simply says, "don't run Freenet if you don't want the possibility of hosting kiddie porn on your node". This seems to be a wildly dis-proportionate view. Corpoations may be dumb and witless, but evil? Not really.
Finally, I may or may not "stay away from Freenet." I like the idea, I like the ideology. I'm not thrilled about the seeming decision to give up on blatently illegal activities. It's a tough choice, and I don't envy the Freenet's team job ahead of them in defending what (in a more perfect world) would be an indispensible entity. Good luck and best wishes to them.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
While I like the Freenet's technical capabilities (dynamic caching and mirroring), I dislike their philosophical stance on "free speech", to wit:
This is ridiculous. Copyrights are not economic censorship, unless the copyright holder chooses to use it as such. For example, Philip Greenspun lets web admins use his photos, generally for free, as long as they attribute him. He maintains the copyright. This is economic censorship? No, it's a legally enforceable method of control of somebody's intellectual property. (I know, IP is a dirty word...) Philip might spend hours setting up and taking a shot -- if he wants to retain control of his interpretation of an idea, that's his legal right.
So, in other words, "kiddie porn" is free speech. Really? I didn't know that. Guess ritual rape and mutilation is free speech too, and if done in a pointy hat with candles, it's a religious observance, too.
While I agree with the point that supporting free speech means supporting ideas and thoughts that you may not agree with, not every form of expression falls into free speech. Throwing a punch at someone, even if it's a cracker-ass Grand Wizard of the KKK, is not "expression". It's assault, and your butt will rightly be hauled into jail. Ass-fucking a 10 year old boy is not "expression". It's ass-fucking a 10 year old boy -- a minor, and protected (rightly) by law.
Developing a system whereby administrators (you can't even rightly call them that, since they "administer" nothing) have no control over content, you make a technically competent and interesting system that is *really* uninviting to operate, since your box can be the source of something nefarious (or something you disagree with, and do not wish to support). You are welcome to your ideas, but do *NOT* push them onto me.
A side issue is about the "voting" or "rating" system built into Freenet. I like the idea, but I think it overlooks something. What about tiny, insignificant, but really important things that don't get used much. For example, a HOW-TO on setting up an Amiga 2000 to run NetBSD. Not many A2000s out there, nobody runs NetBSD anyway... what's this node about Windows 2001? Looks neeto...
If unpopular nodes get pushed out, doesn't that run contrary to the "free speech" dictum? Unpopular now means "kill the niggers", but 40 years ago, unpopular meant "I have a dream...". Popularity is a poor substitute for personal decision.
Freenet is a great concept, but it's missing a few important concepts and components. I personally think that an philosophical ideal and a technical solution don't neccessarily mix very well. GNU software might be the rule-proving exception or the theory-smashing evidence. Freenet, however, is mostly concerned with ideology, and is developing a technical solution to promote that ideology at the expense of that self-same ideology.
At least, that's what I think. I'm also a well-known idiot
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
hehehe i like the bullseye line :)
:) but my point is, i dont thing they should be held liable for it...
:)
you make a good argument, he shouldnt of said whast he said, but my point is, he isnt the one that is actually doing the illegal activities...
Napster, for example, is out right admitting 'we solicit music piracy'... (well, mabey they dont say it that way
the Gnutella software is awesome, the ultimate free tool for warez trading, w/o the need for centralized servers... thats a bigger threat than anything else mentioned in this thread
Cybie! aka Ralph Bonnell
hmmm i dont agree...
;)
so if someone cracks the NT sam file for a bank using l0phtcrack, the fbi is going to go after l0pht, since they wrote the software? i dont think he should be accountable for anything... why not go after the internet's founders, heck they pioneered the internet which is used for distribution of 'kiddie porn' right?
Keep information free!
Cybie! aka Ralph Bonnell
I think I must be responding to a troll here.
I am astounded at the arrogance and ignorance displayed by DumbMarketingGuy in his post! Some main points:
- Europeans are used to a certain degree of freedom of speech. The UK has strong libel laws, but if you can't be proven a liar then you can say pretty much what you like. The press has a lot of freedom, public rally's (rallies?) are legal, etc.
- How exactly can you abuse freedom of speech? Making statements of hate? Personal abuse? Please, provide an example, and make damn sure I can't show you American examples of it (hey, I'm not ragging on Americans, I am merely asking him to prove free speech can be abused, and that Americans are not involved in that particular abuse)
- less developed in Europe? I'm flabbergasted.
- this 'anonymous posting' technology could be used to promote almost any anti-us agenda So it could. It could be used to promote any agenda. What's your point? Why should a technology be pro-American. Why shouldn't a technology be available that is 'Anti-oppressive regime' - think how such a tool would benefit people in totalitarian states. (No, I'm not saying America is an oppressive regime. Don't make that insinuation.)
In short, your sheltered naive view of the world bemuses me.
~Cederic (using the freedom of speech he seems to have forgotten to abuse, even though he's had it all along and yet - amazingly - isn't American)
At post number 35, I don't think that you've got a reasonable census for making such a statement. You should have waited another half hour or two before posting what you'd already decided to say.
Work is for people who lack the imagination to play.
Why?
Get the picture?
> (1) Plain-vanilla: rapidly dump (and continue dumping) a lot of random-noise content
/us/politics/ClintonBlowsGoats (which I find likely... the accessing that is), then it will accumulate votes. So if J. Random Jerk inserts a bunch of dummy files with the same name, they would come up later in the search than the established copy that already has all the positive votes.
> into Freenet from multiple launch points (DDOS). Soon enough the random noise will crowd
> out the real information.
If I understand his description of the protocol correctly, then no. Who is going to search for random noise? It's about as likely as typing "nonrelativistic quantum mechanics" into google.com and coming up with some a website that posts random numbers.
> (2) Targeted: let's say there is a Freenet file, e.g. '/us/politics/ClintonBlowsGoats'
> that you want to suppress. Just make your own file with the same net and inject it
> into Freenet. Again, use multiple launch points and repeat injection at will.
> Again, the bogus file will crowd out the "real" file very quickly.
Again, if I understand his description of the protocol correctly, no. If people have been accessing the real
All in all, it sounds like a very well thought-out protocol to me, which is impressive for a product so early in its developmental stage. Even napster hasn't quite gotten to this point, we still can't access unknown artists very effectively on napster, which is something I would love to do if I could.
Ascertain the topology of the network.<BR>
Deduce the IP address of any node.<BR>
Determine the contents of any node.<BR
</i><P>
Interesting notion, and well worded, but can you prove it? <P>
http://barrapunto.com/ - News for nerds, en español
The problem that the existence (now) of Freenet adresses most accutely is that there is now information with no known sender.
:) it can make the message more plausible, by getting its name (Microsoft anyone) 'known' and all over the place so it must be trustworthy.
This is nothing new of course. Prank calls before the CLI, anonymous remailers etc.
But, for normal day use, you are likely to first identify the (presumed) source of the message before judging its contents.
Freenet is different from the above examples in that it is not a derived use that allows anonimity in certain cases, but that is is *designed* to be anonymous by default.
Main point: this poses us as information users with a question: how do you judge information if you only have the information (and no context) ?????
As mentioned in earlier posts, it is difficult to seperate carefully designed falsness from the
"truth".
These quotes mean trouble.
Looking at how the basic problem of judging information, and the natural tendency to identify a source, there will arise a *need* to be known (not anonymous)
Groups discussing scientific matter could be seriously harmed if false information "leeks in". Haha. As if that doesn't happen right now.
Only thing is, now the person (scientist) is corrected and referenced to in a later work (by some other scientist).
In the Freenet world, you don't have a name of a person to address, so you comment on the document itself.
I think that documents (content without the context) are going to be the main "players".
If a company wants to 'sell' you his information, (like 'our OS is really cool, look!'
The decoupling of names and messages/information is a real problem for everyone, be it person, company, the feds, whatever.
-- my 7XL is not yet invented
Pissing people off is not a goal within itself. The fact is that those people who would be pissed off by Freenet are those who do not want any Freedom in Cyberspace - and that are already threatening it on the web.
I understand that. I highly doubt that the reason for Freenet is being able to publish the length of somebody's dick and then go "Na-na, nana na". I like the idea of Freenet. But consider real-life consequences.
What kind of information will find itself gravitating towards Freenet? If I want to publicize my collection of rubber chicken, I can get myself a page at Geocities or something like it. If I am serious about it, I'll spend $9.95 and get myself a "real" site with domain name, etc. But if my information is dangerous, illegal, likely to lead to me finding a horse's head in my bedroom -- why, I'll put it on Freenet.
I understand that Freenet doesn't specifically aim to piss people off. However, its existence and its information will piss off people, and, more important, corporations and governments. That's certainly not a good reason to stop developing Freenet. But it is a good reason not to be surprised when somebody decided to take active measures against Freenet.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I guarantee you that, given the sort of statement I quoted, law enforcement officials will NOT be amused.
I am fairly sure that Ian Clarke does not have "amuse law enforcement officers" in his to-do lists. I am also fairly sure that not many people around here are concerned with the degree of amusement of cops.
It will be apparent (to them) that this system was created for the express purpose of distributing illegal materials.
Yes, maybe, and? So what's the charge going to be?
You might also want to consider two other things: (1) what's illegal depends on where you live. Nazi propaganda happens to be illegal in Germany, but legal in the USA; (2) it's perfectly legal, for example, to sell bongs (marijuana pipes) in the US, although it is apparent to everyone what they are intended and used for.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Could you name me one way in which a person could totally shut down the concept of freenet. Assuming it gets off the ground to the extent you describe how would you be able to actually shut it down.
Easy as pie: "Shutting Down Freenet for Dummies"
Step 1: Make lotsa noise about terrorists, porn, threats to the existence of humanity, and protection of children.
Step 2: US Congress passes a law making it illegal to operate and/or use a Freenet server.
Step 3: FBI sets up some sting Freenet servers and stages several very public hangings of guilty parties.
Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all Western Countries and Japan (making an international treaty might help here)
End result: some Freenet nodes survive in places like Zaire and Bangladesh, but (a) the bandwidth to them is limited; (b) nobody knows about them anyway. Using Freenet becomes like trying to buy a grenade launcher: certainly doable, in some parts of the world much easier than in others, especially if you know the right people, but waaaaay beyond the capabilities of an average person/geek/whatever.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
If your attacker has a total capacity greater than the entire network and is persistant in his attack, then any network can be taken down.
I think there is a bit of misunderstanding here. When I say "DOS attacks" I do not mean classic net attacks of the smurf kind. With regard to those, Freenet is just a subset of the 'net and is no more and no less vulnerable to them. What I mean by denial-of-service attacks is basically pushing bogus/malicious information into Freenet. Note that for this attack you do not have to saturate the bandwidth: all you need to do is to overwhelm the legitimate traffic. Maybe the "denial-of-service" term was misleading: by it I don't mean cutting off Freenet nodes from the 'net -- I mean, in a sense, data poisoning.
a search engine is no more reliable then a descriptive Freenet key.
No, that's not true. Nobody mounts attacks against search engines (although you may remember a brief period when putting multiple instances of a single word in meta tags would push you to the top of the search engine's listing). Freenet must expect attacks to be mounted against it. Besides attacking search engines will get you sued (and/or prosecuted) while I have a deep suspicion that law enforcement will not overexert itself to stop attacks on Freenet.
Plus, again, it's a matter of scale. This is one of the cases where size matters.
somebody told you about Slashdot, or you got saw a hypertext link from somewhere - both of which are equally possible on Freenet.
That's not a good metaphor. URLs point to a single place (we'll ignore load-balancing stuff like Akamai for the time being). Freenet keys do not "point" anywhere -- they are keys to retrieve a chunk of information from, basically, a distributed database. Unless you maintain global uniqueness of keys (hard to guarantee) a single key may pull in different chunks of data depending upon your point of entry into the Freenet system. There are both "poisoned data" and "cancer node" problems.
I wish you success, guys, it's just that I am naturally pessimistic and can see how, given the resources of, say, AOL, to effectively shut down Freenet. If I am proven wrong -- so much the better.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
But look at where things are headed.
:-)
Yeah, I can see the writing on the wall just as well as you do.
Maybe none of this concerns you now, but how long until it does?
Oh yes, it does. My only difference with you is that I am much more sensitive to governmental power and tend not to take corporate power too seriously. A government (1) is much more interested in direct (as opposed to economic) power, compared to a corporation; and (2) can do much more nasty things to you.
If these people have the power and will to destroy all of Freenet (like you believe), then they definitely have the power and will to destroy freedom on the Web completely.
Well, no. Freenet is likely to end up a flashpoint, and may turn out to be a subject of a show trial/raid/execution -- you know, public hangings of ringleaders do wonders to make citizenry law-abiding
I think it's hopeless to try to suppress freedom on the 'net. Even full-scale assault will just lead to more semi-underground sites, IRC channels, VPN-ed mini-networks, probable resurgency of BBSes, etc. etc. The 'net and the world is too damn large (see? I am not always pessimistic).
With Freenet it's mostly a matter of size. If it manages to establish a robust network of 1000s of nodes across North America, Europe, Japan, and the Third World then it will be very hard to kill. On the other hand, there could be smart people who'll try to kill you before you get large...
And my point wasn't that it is all hopeless. My point is that Freenet should be build to withstand active attacks by a major power. As a first-order approximation, imagine a situation that the government of China decides to shut you down. What is the worst that it can do to you?
Keep in mind also that everything has a price. As you can see from my email, I have an account at freedom.net. I used to browse the web anonymously, but now do it only rarely. Why? Because there is a big speed and latency price. Freenet will also have a speed-of-access price and that means that it will tend to collect mostly illegal stuff. That by itself is not a problem (at least for me, although there are a bunch of mealy-mouthed hypocrites at Slashdot who are worried by this), but it is going to limit your growth rate. And the bigger Freenet is, the harder it will be to suppress it.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Oh no not "untrusted sources". Bad not getting all that authentication.
/us/politics/ClintonSucks, /us/politics/ClintonSucksBowlingBalls, etc. etc. And all of them are press releases from the White House!
Ahem. And the meaning of this is?
Eventually that [random-noise] information will not exist because it will not be avaible because no one in their right mind would requst random noise.
Eventually (aka "in the long term") is not important here. Freenet is designed on a FIFO overflow principle. If a node can hold 10Gb of data and I pump 10Gb of garbage into it, the node will contain only garbage. The useful information in that node is gone -- to reappear in this node it has to be reinjected or it has to propagate itself from the rest of the network. Repeat daily (hourly), attack multiple nodes simultaneously -- there IS a problem.
A read over the mailing list freenet-dev will show you that in fact these things are being addressed.
Ah, you see, sport, this is the problem. I don't believe these kinds of problems can be solved within the framework of Freenet. The point of Freenet is that it accepts information from all comers, without either trying to check who they are, or checking what do they post. Given this, the vulnerability is built-in at the ground level.
And, BTW, I usually read "is being addressed" as "we know about the problem, but we don't have a clue as what to do about it. When we think of something, we'll let you know".
There is no historic prcedent for information dumping and the like (I may be wrong). References?
Historic precedent? HISTORIC PRECEDENT? [boggles again, then collapses to the floor laughing] Since when to do thing on the 'net you need historic precedent? Besides, Freenet itself is what, version 0.1beta?
The server is supposed to prevent you injecting something with the same key.
But that just makes the matter worse. This means you can tie up keys that can be used against you. Let's say I want to find out how many bowling balls can Clinton suck through a garden hose. I go to Freenet and find keys
(you want a historic precedent? Didn't Bush buy domains like "bushsucks.com"?)
This will eventually be addressed in it's full form.
That sounds pathetic. In any case, I still believe the vulnerability is in the concept itself.
What I think is that despite the possibility for random information good information will always win in the end.
No, no. Not random. I am talking active hostile information warfare. The point of Freenet is to publish information that makes certain people, corporations and government very, very unhappy. Put 2 and 2 together yourself.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
[flooding attacks] I do believe that we are better off in this department then any other equivalent system.
/us/politics/ClintonSucks, ../ClintonSucksBowlingBalls, etc. are press releases from White House, how do I get my information?
Two observations. First, you are more vulnerable because you are committed to accepting information from anybody. For point-of-existence reasons you cannot authenticate.
Second, consider your threat model. A lot of people are saying "well, that's not worse than the 'net in general". I don't think that's going to be good enough. There are two cruicial differences. The first one is scale. If Freenet becomes huge, a lot of its DOS problems will become easier. On the other hand, if it remains (relatively) small, DOSing it will not be hard. The second difference (as I pointed out in another post) is that Freenet is designed to make some people, corporations and government very unhappy. In a sense, one measure of success will be something like AOL trying to shut Freenet down.
There is nobody (apart from some script kiddies, but I already said 'nobody') who is really interested in shutting down large parts of the 'net. There are going to be powerful entities who will be really interested in shutting down or degrading Freenet.
Regarding the non-uniqueness of keys, that can be solved, at the loss of some convenience.
It ain't that easy. Making unique tags for each chunk of info is simple. But consider a different problem: how do I find the information I need? Crypto hashes of contents do not help at all. Again, to repeat another post, if I want to find out how many bowling balls can Clinton suck through a garden hose, and all keys like
But nothing I have seen so far has convinced me, as pessimistic as I am, that it _won't_ work,
Oh, it'll work -- for some time. The real question is robustness. Consider that you are likely to find yourself on the front lines of active information warfare. In this case the relevant question is not "does it work?", but rather "how quickly/easily can it be killed?".
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Freenet is more robust than most systems since it doesn't make much difference if you bring down a small number of Freenet nodes
I am not talking about "standard" 'net DOS (e.g. smurf attacks). I am talking denial-of-service through flooding Freenet with bogus/malicious information.
Random data will only displace other data in Freenet if people actually request it
First, if I give my garbage data attactive keys, people will request it.
Second, I was under the impression that newer data will push out older data (on a FIFO overflow basis). In this case garbage data will actually displace good data just because it's newer (and, trust me, I can genearate a great deal of new garbage)
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Oh, this certainly scares me.
Am I to belive that dumbmarketingguy thinks that the us constitution has some sort of exclusive license to free speech -- that other countries couldn't possibly have simmilar rights guaranteed in completely unrelated documents?
Am I to also believe that he thinks anti-us sentiment is wrong?
I certainly hope that this is a joke.
In case it's not a joke, I'd encourage people in countries other than the us to post links to documents which guarantee them their freedom of speech, in order to illustrate that they've got it. (being an american myself, I have no idea what these documents might be called, or where to find them, sorry. I'm sure they can't guarantee any less freedom than the documents we've got in the us, though.)
I'd encourage every patriotic moron who's reading this to consider the evidence. The united states is not the only country which has laws to protect free speech. (It's also not the only country that ignores its own laws generally.. but that's another story.) The united states isn't half as "free" as it should be, and it's not even "the best option" as several people seem to think.
The very sad truth is that until more people realize this, it will just keep getting worse.
You go, son.
-zack
FreeNet nodes aren't just pipes. They actually store data. That's a little different.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
My second two scenarios aren't framing anyone.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Just use the java native interface to do
unixy daemony things. Not ideal, but not a big
enough reason to re-write it.
> Once enough John Q. Public's get outraged by the stuff flying around Freenet, our beloved saviors in > Congress will rally to the cause and take action.
And they'll huff and puff and blow away all the servers. Then everyone outside our country will laugh at the silly americans and maybe remind us that we can still use the client to access their servers.
My one saving thought is that no matter how stupid my country becomes, there will always be someplace 10 miles offshore where I can go and think freely.
How untracable do you think the internet really is? You do understand how packet routing works, right?
Very observant. You must have been very astute when you studied the constitution.
We MUST keep non-US citizens from voicing their vile opinions. Freedom of speech is one of the best developments of not-so-recent history and we must protect it from non-US citizens and anti-american ideas. If we allow these undesirables to promote thier own religions and ideas, then my own speech will be drowned out and no one will be able to hear me rehash the ideas we have been forcing on the world for the past 100 years.
I shudder to mention the worst case senario, but we could end up with a population that had access to a wide range of ideas and was able to make thier own decisions on the validity of all of them.
no no no. the point is being made VERY clearly. Its an attempt to show that freenet can be flooded with crap information using a DDos model of attack. unfortunately it seems to be failing gradually as the moderators "vote" and destroy the trolling posters. this is *exactly* the model freenet needs to survive on.
I agree, what else could I say?
:)
However much people dislike the idea, it has been now (at least partially) implemented, and nothing can take it back anymore. Thats, by the way, one of the key points of OS software. Whether it will suceed or not, is another matter. Being free to all doesnt guarantee going to the masses.
An extra cool feature of Freenet is that it gives me the same kind of feeling as W.Gibsons books
L.
There's actually one very good reason why FreeNet is needed, and that has nothing to do with trivial personal reasons. When molecular nanotechnology builds up steam, the big industries of this world (energy, monoagriculture, pharmaceuticals, etc.) are going to see it as an enormous threat to their oligopolies, because it threatens to bring about the decentralization of production (If I have a magic box which produces my basic needs, why should I do this shitty job in a telesales center?). They will try extremely hard to control MNT absolutely, with horrifying consequences if they succeed. They will use fearsome propaganda technologies, even mind control where they can get away with it, and free channels of information will be essential to fight back...
But anyway, that's getting offtopic.
Female Prison Rape in NY
Female Prison Rape in NY
Perhaps I'm just being shortsighted. I think most people on this thread are. If they even bothered to read the article and the FAQ.
Female Prison Rape in NY
Female Prison Rape in NY
1.Well for starters I really don't know a whit of Java
Fair enough.
2. Using java makes the whole thing much less cross platform
Less than what? Evidence?
3. The size of the java compiler and "runtime environment" limits access. g++ can fit quite well on my small hd. Java could not.
Just how tiny is your HDD?? Data will present space problems, not code.
4. Concept of having information residing on a changing number of systems prevents total 100% access of that data.
Oh boo hoo. Sometimes data is inaccessible. Live with it.
5. Specialized clients are also a pain. Intelgration with standard protocols would be a nice thing. I can hardly see this getting popular unless popular browsers support it.
There are no standard protocols! This is not a standard idea! You're asking for the impossible!
They're doing the next best thing - all open source and thus open standards. People can patch Mozilla to use it. If it gets popular, browser support will be no impediment.
6. Evil powers that be might just try to take it. (I get daily CVS snapshots from their page just in case).
You're absolutely right about that. But I don't think anyone will be able to erase all copies of it. :-)
Female Prison Rape in NY
And anyway, hip silicon valley types are always turning nouns into verbs these days. Like, to IPO.
Female Prison Rape in NY
Female Prison Rape in NY
If people want to distribute warez and kiddie porn, they already have the perfect tools to do so, it's gnuTELLA. Freenet is mostly about distributing information. It for the people who want to publish their dissent for their government, but were not allowed to do so. It for people who was injusticed by forces, that if they expressed their opinions freely, whould certainly place their lives in danger. Remember anon.penet.fi? It can be used for illegal purposes, but mostly it was used for discussions that individuals required anonymity. People used it for all sorts of purposes, including but seeking psychological guidance and support. However, it only took one bad apple to ruin everything. Now if we only had a system that would allow this flow of information without having the limitation of having a centralized location, then...
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
While it's nice to say stuff like "information wants / deserves to be free", when this stuff starts affecting you personally, you may rethink these claims.
What happens when your personal, private information becomes easily accessible? Your medical records, financial statements, legal documents, prior history, your secret stash of your toejam fetish, your diary or whatever is put for everyone to see without anyone being accountable. It doesn't matter if this information was obtained or distributed illegally. Or, even if its true for that matter. Hurray for free information?
Will you cheer when your company secrets or sensitive e-mails are publicly available, causing you to lose countless dollars in revenue even if gained through corporate espionage, disgruntled employees or even just bribed employees? And hey, once it's out there, there's no getting it back, and no one is accountable?
Or even more heinous - let's say some bastards rape your nine-year daughter, and publish their sick home video online, adding insult to injury. I need to tolerate this for free speech? Clarke's answer of "if you don't like it, don't use it" is hardly sufficient as it can still easily affect me.
And what of these political uses? How am I supposed to know which is propaganda? Which is misinformation from the enemy? What's from conspiracy theorists or from dissenting groups? From sources I can't trust, distributed through a channel I can't trust? Can I even trust this voting system? Freenet says I should make my own decision on what to believe, but I don't really see a lot of untrustworthy information helping me make more informed decisions.
http://www.talknerdy.org
Very, very interesting question. Essentially, we've got a situation where two different precedents exist: 1) Corporations can claim that the volume of the data passing through their services is such that tracking and maintaining its proper existence would place undue hardship upon them. They get cited as 'common carriers' in this case. 2) Individuals are -always- responsible for what their software sends out, and the 'common carrier' rule doesn't apply. (side note: I'm not sure what happens if a virus sends out pornography, who's responsible for it.) Hypothetically, it might be a good idea for the Freenet project to register as a corporation (non-profit would be better), and then make server operators 'members' of the organization. This would indemnify individual operators from the actions of the software that is required for membership. But, I don't know what the effect on the project itself would be. -Winged
Bull. The same problem exists with current warez distribution channels and in theory it is also vulnerable to the "exploit" of yours. I bet those MegaCorps would have done it many times if it worked but they obviously failed.
There is no way for someone to determine who originally posted the data file. Knowing topology, node IP addresses, and node contents will not help you determine who made the post originally. (The amazing thing is that someone actually marked this post "Interesting")
That's the whole key to the system... if noone wants "DataX", "DataX" will not be copied to other machines. Junk data will just wither and die and only tend to take down YOUR FreeNet node...noone elses.
As far as bogus files, Ian said (you READ the interview, didn't you?) that they are working on a system for tagging bogus information as such.
I am NOT convinced of this at all. Bogus and misleading information is not going to saturate the network because noone wants bogus/misleading information--and the system is specifically designed to only propigate information that IS wanted. Therefore, bogus/misleading information will ultimately wither and die.
I think FreeNet is an exciting project and I hope that Ian's vision comes to fruition.
When you run a freenet server, you don't have access to the information that is stored on your computer (it's encrypted). Just because it *might* house illegal (in the eyes of the government) information doesn't mean you *are* holding illegal information.
In the final scheme of things, the internet as a whole is uncensorable (short of bringing the whole thing down). As long as I can send and receive information on the net freely censorship is impossible.
Anonymous communications is already possible via the postal service. Just write up a letter and drop it off at any post office mailbox.
And you are right... there is nothing anyone can do to stop it at this point. Other than bringing the whole net down or imposing insane restrictions, there is nothing anyone can do to stop the free-flow of information.
Hrm.
ISPs that carry NNTP feeds are normally held not to be responsible for the contents of those newsgroups, since they don't apply any editorial control.
I imagine that a freenet node would be the same thing.
On that topic, how exactly is freenet different from a pull version of NNTP?
And in whose face, other than a pirate (i.e. someone trying to get something for free), would such a boobietrap blow up? I doubt existing warez conduits are much safer.
I myself don't generally deal with warez, largely because there is free software to do almost everything I want to. I wouldn't have any problem with the boobietrap you suggest, since it wouldn't ensnare me or any other 'honest' users of the system.
. . . you just said they both made you useless. You did not assert that your continued usefulness was "good", and I see no evidence that you being useless is "evil". And if not being schooled in a language renders you useless, then I would put to point that said uselessness is not evil at all, but rather good, as that it effectively terminates hours and hours of singletracked narrowminded programming time ;-)
:-}
Oh yeah, and there is no god. I heard it on FreeNet, where I buy my guns.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
dialogue or dialog (d-lôg, -lg)
n. Abbr.
n. means noun.
Here's the voib
v. dialogued or dialoged, dialoguing or dialoging, dialogues or dialogs.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
Thank you very much for giving time to my questions, though sorry to say I am very disappointed with your response.
Since you did not answer them directly I would like to clarify. Personally I am excited by the possibilities of Freenet, and maybe it is all a race against time after all. But your responses seemed too easy.. and oblique. In other words, you are not a superstar.. yet.
By thrasher bots I meant to suggest a distributed attack by bots living on servers around the world, close to major network centers, or perhaps virtual hosted/hacked into otherwise high traffic Freenet servers. Obviously I read your FAQ before posting.. doh. Can we be a little more patronizing please?
The question was, how about dividing Freenet resources between volatile 100% FR33 files and nonvolatile files which are not subject to the popularity requirement (their disk space might be managed by a group of civil liberty proponents, or publicly). The closest post to this question is the one about pro-life advocates committing murder through the Freenet.
About divulging the names of the first wave of sysadmins, this had to do with the People and Mailing Lists sections on your site, not with inform.php. Email addresses are visible in many documents. You act as if you are operating in a safe environment. I realized you may want to stay in the open, and without talent this project would die. Maybe cyperpunks could use remailers.. but current developers' full names and email addresses are listed there and the FBI or NSA probably knows their street addresses by now. Mr Freeh (if he still is in office) could wait a little while until some user (or agent perhaps) posted a bunch of copyrighted software on Freenet and then start threatening people. Developers would already know about the possibility of misuse and might be held responsible or threatened, based on the personal identity information skimmed from your site. I'm suggesting that in time you could wish you had spent more time on security in the beginning. If you do have some security you should tell people about it, for now it seems to be glossed over. Open Source is not the place to try being safe through obscurity.
As for selling on the Freenet I don't think this necessitates "missing the point [you] are making". If a repressive government discovered Freenet they could make a death penalty for hosting a server (just call the sysadmin a hacker and have him be Chinese). This would not happen if the "New Economy" became in part dependent on Freenet. Bootleg software is not welcomed by software companies so this is not a good product. For example, the only obvious reasons why China is listening to the U.S. about rights at all are economic (WTO, Taiwan, U.S. barriers, etc.). Economics (and also building up the ego) is a point of leverage with these regimes. And who knows? You could say Freenet is the Communist dream, and get funding from the Chinese government! You seem to think this will automatically seep everywhere it is needed and that you will not be fighting a battle and this will be a problem.
Take a look at NTT (Japan's historical telephone monopoly). They tried to kill the Internet for decades in Japan (I know, I started one of the first few providers in 1994 riding on AT&T's liscense). Now they have been broken up and as of May 2000, they are being forced to cut prices in half with the champion of that being Sony's President Idei. Meanwhile Sony has announced they are starting an online bank. This is possible because of the billions made by Softbank off Yahoo recently in the middle of an otherwise dismal Japanese economy.. NTT has been holding back not only the Internet but also the economy.
About your coming trials.. I built www.northkorea.org for a Newsweek bureau chief (Bernie Krisher), a volunteer site dedicated to buying food and medicine with money donated through the Internet. We attracted a quarter million dollars, mainly due I think to this man's heroism (he suffered a stroke and heart trouble, once hospitalized in North Korea actually) and the many newspaper and TV runs we were able to engineer. While in the end the project got positive recognition by the U.S. government, the U.S. bank account was frozen and several times Bernie's political expertise was needed to navigate the waters. At one point he consulted a top legal mind at the U.N. he knew about potential liability but his "Damn the torpedos" stubborness succeeded. Mind you, Bernie is a world famous journalist in his 70s, had a humanitarian project, and had information from colleagues and the World Food Program that things were much worse than the North Koreans were letting on.
If Freenet became a conduit for sensitive technologies to Iraq for example, freezing your bank account will be the least of your worries.
You may want to bring some of the freedom felt on the old Internet, but you cannot roll back the clock. The world has changed and you ignore this at your peril. Or are you ignoring Hotline in an attempt to be able to claim innocence later on? Heck do you even have a lawyer on this? Is it legal to work on this project in America? Considering the mishmash of changing laws you could easily be leading a lot of people into trouble. I would be surprised if you do not get a lawsuit from someone soon.
These dangers could be alleviated by attention to working within current notions of copyright, be it transcopyright or some other animal. We don't live in a post-copyright world, sorry that is your own meaningless wordplay and it makes you look dumb while being irrelevant to your stated goals. Propose a better way for people to ensure attribution and recompensation for labor in the digital world yourself if you feel up to it.
Perhaps Freenet could become a substrate for other ecommerce efforts, maybe Xanadu+microcash or something else. Maybe if you just want to do programming you can try to leave the coming fight to someone else. But free information is both anathema to all governments as well as an ideal for which some strive. Considering growth and security strategies (for Freenet and for the developer team) based on how the world works today might be important enough to think about sooner than later. I'm not saying you can handle it alone. Why not talk to the EFF and get some more brainpower and experience on these problems.
IMNSHO if you are honest about preserving freedom in repressed societies you should become a virus writer, climb into a hole somewhere, and build your own freenet with heavy encryption and bandwidth limits (easier to stash and warez-unfriendly), and without all this bullshit. It'll take you a lot farther and keep you safe, ignorant, and dangerous (in an infectious sense), which is what you want, right?
P.S. I think Islands in the Net is a great book too. Read it. It talks not about a null future but one in which enlightened individuals rise to positions in enlightened organizations where they can leverage resources against the bad guys and that includes money. More realistic than your own novel.. though the fragility of personal security jibes well.
I have to ask, is everyone's stance on KiddiePorn etc. gonna stay the same when the porn in question is entirely artificial? You can surely see the day coming where both still and motion pictures can be created out of thin air?
I'm not advocating this, but in a lot of ways, a digital bitstream is just a dgital bitstream. When will we start embedding crypto text in private digital pictures? Using MP3 streams as crypto keys? Things like this will endlessly blur the lines of content -- leaving those pushing content control out in the dark.
-- "Vote Democrat. Because the current crop of conservatives are just bugnut crazy."
"This could include opinions that no democrat could countenance."
Please. Could you make a more elitist bullshit comment?
There are no ideas which can't stand the light of day.
-- "Vote Democrat. Because the current crop of conservatives are just bugnut crazy."
This grand experiement has all the elements required for the wide-implementation of a digital cash infrastructure. It's a novel way to real world test the underlying theory of distributed cash protocol.
Since it relys upon a voting protocol, the results of this experiment could someday yield a robust infrastucture to support realtime digital transactions. Digital transactions are a voting protocol reimplemented in a different form.
Great grassroots way to test an otherwise $30million+ distributed node implementation in the real world.
This is about the *only* way the Internet will ever see digital cash transactions that will not require unsurmountable sums of cash and political will to change traditional currency systems.
The implications of Freenet inure to a wider benefit than free speech... though that may not be the stated goal.
Freenet is a good experiment for that reason alone.
-r
P.S. Censorship is sometimes a good thing.
Never! Using force to silence someone - anyone - is an evil act, pure and simple.
You are confusing two completely different entities... Censorship usually has to do with speech, ideas, points of view, etc. What we're referring to above is sensitive information, which are more like facts, specifications, and trade secrets.
I should know a litte about this because I work with it every day. I repair aircraft avionics systems in the US Air Force. Every one of the tech manuals that I use daily have a phrase at the bottom of every page that says "For Official Use Only." Imagine, if you will, that some goon managed to steal one of these manuals from me and sold the contents to an enemy country. More than likely, the content would be useless as most of the information is decades old and already known to every intelligence agency on the planet. But there's the slim chance that the enemy might notice some new change or modification in a system that they could exploit to decieve or hide from a US aircraft. Now, that aircraft and whatever it was protecting has been comprimised.
So, based on your definition of "censorship," protecting our military secrets in the interest of keeping American citizens alive is "an evil act, pure and simple." Our military force is not as big as most people believe, and superior technology is the only reason we are the Number 1 force in the world. And if you don't believe that there are other nations that would GLADLY smash us into little tiny bits merely for being demi-free Americans, you are very sadly mistaken.
The point of this whole rant was to try and show you the line between censorship and sensitive information. Yes, there is a line, and it's not so blurry as you may think.
More like a freudian slip.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
He'd better be quick about it I haven't all day.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
"How untracable do you think the internet really is? You do understand how packet routing works, right?"
Actually yes. But consider all of the "public" systems out there. All they are able to do is to track you to a public site and everything is lost. Just like tracing you to a pay phone in the middle of Montana; it dosn't matter unless you can guarantee that you are going to be equating a person on the other end.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
""what are you as a marketing person doing reading 'news for nerds' ?""
"I am a marketing nerd. I target the geek community. I cannot really say much more on the subject, but Andover and Slashdot have been working on ways of improving clickthrough rates. Check these sids out: sid=slashdotmarketing
and sid=howto This should give you some idea why I am here...
"
Unfortunately years of watching commercials, seeing banner ads, billboards and the like has desensitized me to marketing in most forms. What then?
I have never clicked on any banner ads in the last 6 months anyway.
just a thought
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
"This reply neatly avoided one question I have - how do you ensure integrity of the files this thing distributes? It's all fine and dandy that you *can* put files out there, but if somebody poisons the thing, there's no way to distinguish
slashdot-0.9.tar.gz 490381 bytes from slashdot-0.9.tar.gz 490381 bytes (which happens to have a root compromise in install.sh). "
Perhaps the same way we address security in a nontrusted networked environment get a signed package with md5 or pgp/gpg for the package.
"There are just a *ton* of tech issues to resolve to get this thing off the ground.. only some of them have been addressed. The harder ones are on the human interfacing... you're putting data on a network with no way to ensure
integrity. Then again, in an anonymous net what would be the point? Hrrrmmm... "
I see just getting the thing to work and have content to be the biggest issue. I am currently puzzling about exactly how to make this work and what content I can get off it.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
"You want proof ? Follow this sid to Slashdot's infamous warez trading sid"
I mean that you can say upload the files to slashdot's server and have slashdot officially (Say Rob putting a link to the stuff on the main page). That's almost like putting up grafitti on a wall of Bill Gates house and claiming that he supports your statement.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
"There are certainly a zillion good things that could be done on Freenet - I don't argue with that. My point is that turning a blind eye to what this tool will be used for is reckless."
How can you actually hope to stop it now anyway?
I can still do almost anything I want on the internet anyway. I just have to be sneaky about it. I could always setup a page for everything illegal prebuilt at geoshitties every day, again and again, and again and just batch e-mail people through a hotmail account to alert them to the change of URL.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
"Please start the Java vs. Perl flamewar now. Extra credit for dragging in Python, C/C++, Lisp, Scheme, Tcl/Tk, assembler, the existence of God, and/or gun control. "
I wasn't saying that perl was evil and java was good I said that they were both evil.
There is a big difference.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
""2. Using java makes the whole thing much less cross platform""
"Less than what? Evidence?"
Less than comperable standards that have gnu utilities for them. Say C/C++/pascal/fortran/hell even chill. Support for java under gnu type utilities is rather bad.
Try getting Java compile under something like Minix, Hurd, Qnx, or other old/unsupported platforms that Sun dosn't like.
"Just how tiny is your HDD?? Data will present space problems, not code.
"
340Mb for the whole thing. My one (and only linux partition is 240Mb in size that's beacause linux will not autodetect my cdrom drive at all and because I have a swap partition). I really don't like the idea of something like perl but much, more bloated and probably slow to compile/run. The reason I can guess this is because even relatively simple 1 file c++ programs take at least one solid minute to compile. It's almost painful and that's just with errors and the like. Compiling a large project (one of the many ones that require a lot of code off of freshmeat) require more.
Most of the time this is a debate about not what should I put on my computer today. It's what I should delete/not delete today. Having cdroms at least accessible from dos with drivers helps a lot.
"Oh boo hoo. Sometimes data is inaccessible. Live with it."
Seemingly I tried using this reasoning with the DDoS issue when it came out and got flammed about people needing to have data at all times. Hmm.. Well on principal I usually can wait for my data. But then you end up having to go without something because the data disapears. I will not be able to find say maybe ancient Summarian texts or perhaps a special report on the condition of bore beetles in Indonesia. Popularity should not change the fact that I can access something.
"There are no standard protocols! This is not a standard idea! You're asking for the impossible!"
Standards as drafted by ANSI, IEEE, and ISO are what I consider standards. That's what allows you to connect to http://www.microsoft.com with any browser you wish. Standards help everyone.
"They're doing the next best thing - all open source and thus open standards. People can patch Mozilla to use it. If it gets popular, browser support will be no impediment."
I couldn't patch Mozilla. I am familar with basic programming and I can't. I also most likely (assuming I knew what I needed to do and how to do it) wouldn't have the time to do it. What then?
I think that sometimes making everything wizbang is a bad idea.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
""The problem with this technology is that while Americans are used to freedom of speech, and for the most part use it responsibly (see this very forum for examples) the less developed parts of the world (and I am thinking mainly of
Europe here) do not have the tradition of free speech that we Americans do, and so may abuse the privelege this technology has bestowed upon them ""
"Look, fuck you. I'm from the UK, and I know that I have *more* rights than you idiot yanks (and where do you think that nickname came from?). We don't need some flimsy piece of paper to tell us what we can and cannot do: our
legal system is firmly based on the tried and tested traditional Common Law system. "
I would think that there is some problem with the English system in that rights are not explicitely guaranteed but followed by "tradition". And anyone who watched Fiddler on the Roof knows what happens when tranditions change.
"Since you're a bloddy ignorant Amerikkkan, I can only assume that you lack the legal knoweldge to know what it is I'm talking about. Let me spell it out for you: Here in England, we have these people, see. And their ancestors 1000
years ago were rich. So we think that's cool and gave them fancy wigs and their own little room in a little building on the Thames (that's 'Temmz') where they make our laws for us. For example, his Excelency Lord Sir Rev Dr.
Winfred Snafflpoose, Twentieth Earl of Glastonbury-upon-Googlmush, OBE recently encacted a new law in his domain requiring all peasants (that's us now) to increase grain production from 20 bushels per annum to 30. Obviously,
this will strain us a bit, but we need to count on his protection should the Black Prince William attempt to conquer our territory again and confiscate our Robbie Williams CDs. "
This must be sarcasm. Well I know that England is more democratic than that.
"Obviously, England is superior in every way. "
I would logically doubt that.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
The point is that 1) whether or not Free Speech SHOULD include pix of toddlers diddling bison, in just about every country in the world, it doesn't. 2)When (not if) someone gets a bee in his/her bonnet about the kiddie porn, then the Feds squeeze anyone they can. Hard. Note that this is not necessarily ethical, but ask a NRA member what he/she thinks about "Jenny's Bill" (or whatever that monster's called).
...but, then again, IANAL.
-- You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
> are burying their heads in the sand
Yes!
But it's not libel/slander, copyright, or porn that I'm worried about.
Libel/slander can be overcome by the things mentioned by the other replies to your post.
Copyright, well, it's been abused a bit too much by certain groups, and I like to think that this will force society to develop morally, or suffer less choice/product... of course with distribution being 'free', there might be too much competition globally for the current plethora of copyrightable products even without this... (I'm still not completely happy with my thoughts on being able to violate *all* copyrights. Sure the music/etc communities have abused us a bit, as well as the software communities, but I'm not so sure about others...)
And porn? Hell, that's 100% natural 'Mother-Nature' Made-by-God. Anyone with a problem with it, well, that's their problem.
But, the thing that people are sticking their heads in the sand about, and as you rightly pointed out - utterly ignoring - are the *really* nefarious things.
kiddy/rape/snuff/torture.
I do not like the idea of providing an untraceable channel for that stuff. Not at all.
The only thing the proponents are left with is quoting 'philosophy' and 'dogma'. Now the thing is I understand and feel for these philosophical urges, they are beautiful intellectual concepts, straight out of some Utopia, but only if one utterly ignores the real world, the darkest side. As Adam Lillith pointed out, "trying to deny that some of us are good, evil, or indifferent is insufferable." Technology may be inherently neutral, but that does NOT mean that there is an inherent reason to allow unfettered use of all forms of technology with no recourse.
So what am I left with? I am left with trying to evaluate the pro and cons from the view of a Realist.
Cars kill, what, 50,000 people per year in North America? Guns another 10,000. Just two of the most obvious examples.
How many people would be hurt (and how badly) by the existence of the darkest side? How does that weigh against the benefits over what we have now?
Remember, we're being realists. I want quantified answers.
There you have it. We're damned if we do, damned if we don't.
The one thing that screws up even myself when trying to think realistically, and what probably causes so much of the negative in others, is that when one tries to consider *any* kiddy/rape/snuff/torture content... well, it seems to outweigh things enourmously. Even the possibility of it is a big burden to consider...
TopShelf is a hockey term - a shot that scores up high over the goalie's shoulder. Writing about hockey is a hobby of mine, hence the nick...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
There are certainly a zillion good things that could be done on Freenet - I don't argue with that. My point is that turning a blind eye to what this tool will be used for is reckless.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
But, there are legal limits to freedom of speech. If I posted something blatantly libelous, and claiming to be truth when it provably isn't, I should get sued. If I post it through FreeNet, they'll never find me. This is an invitation to abuse.
I think FreeNet will allow blatant violations of libel/slander laws, and they apparently know it, and are burying their heads in the sand. This is a good start, but needs some better thinking through.
The most popular data is not necessarily the only important data. The First Amendment is all about the rights of the minority, and deleting little-used data is violating the spirit of free speech
I don't agree with this. The first ammendment says that you have the right to express yourself, not that anyone has to listen to what you have to say!
Crime is everywhere, yet we don't have ID and papers check points on every street to stop criminal activities. But on the net there are tons of virtual id checkpoints and some people won't stand for it.
Yes but in the real world we have faces. On the internet we do not. In order to have a comparable level of security the internet may have to have these checkpoints because it lacks fundamental identification methods like facial recognition.
P.S. Censorship is sometimes a good thing. Read any history book on WWII and find out how control of important information saved hundreds and thousands of lives.
P.P.S. Copyright law is currently protecting a lot of free software so its occasionally useful too.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
Yes, that would work very well. What's truly amazing to me is that MPAA, RIAA and the similar companies are flailing at MP3 and Napster in court, in a way that will ultimately be ineffective whatever the legal result, when a few quietly and strategically Napster-proliferated contaminated pop song tracks would probably have more effect. Well, maybe it's not possible to put a virus in an MP3, but perhaps they could be sabotaged in other ways. Like a track at low volume prompting user to turn up knob, followed by speaker-blowing audio burst. Of course, the perpetrating company has to not get caught, or the credibility-destroying effect would rebound against them. (maybe it's not so amazing that it's not been tried on Napster, after all.)
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
"... Concerned readers of all political persuasions attempt to correct the info, but all of that sort of info is "moderated down" and a number of teenagers in desperate situations try it. Some are hospitalized, one dies. "
It would be a tragedy, and if we could find the terrorists responsible, they should be punished as harshly as possible. Freenet would be completely innocent. People could use US mail to send bad messages, or UPS, Fed-Ex, the Web, the telephone, email, anonymous email, anonymous web pages, anything.
I would also join the multitude of alarmed teenagers warning everyone about those people, the instant I found out about it.
Cars can be used for transportation, or murder. Guns can be used for self defense, or hunting, or murder. Kitchen knives can be used to stab battered wives, lock picks can be used in a burglery. It's the same thing. It's the user's fault, not the tool or the toolmaker's.
I agree with Ian, personally.
"There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine."
No, more like, "Everything that exists I have a right to look at, listen to, or watch."
"I can think of dozens of legitimate uses for freenet but it's creators should also honestly address its liabilities. If their goal is to create an tool for illegally distributing copyrighted material then acknowledge that and move on, if not then work to address it."
Their goal is to allow free, anonymous speech. Copyright is irrelavent. Freenet, iirc, doesn't exist to destroy copyright, but it won't protect it, either. Yes, it will facilitate copyright violation, but that isn't the purpose of Freenet. Making copyright violation easier is just a side effect.
Guns have two purposes, near as I can tell. To kill, and to threaten to kill. Both have valid uses. Killing in self defense, or defending someone you love, (protecting my wife from a burgler) protecting someone you have a duty to protect, (the police) or in fighting a Hitler. (the army) Threatening to kill can scare off muggers. I'm a vegetarian, but I grew up around hunters. Can't say I have a problem with it. If you do, good for you, we need people like you, too.
> Anyway, bad example in this case..
Iyho. Thank you, but I stand by my comment.
> A tool can be invented for a certain purpose. Guns are invented for killing, and as such the tool itself is at fault. Sometimes the user can however make good use of a gun and in such cases there is nothing wrong eventho the tool itself should not have existed.
Guns are made for killing, yes. However, killing is not always wrong, and guns aren't, either.
Btw, I'm a vegetarian, never shot a gun, never owned a gun, think they are horrid, brutish things. But gun control is far more terrifying.
Perfectly valid, in theory, if we ignore the restrictions on entrapment. But, in practice? The manpower costs, alone, would be tremendous.. Varying national legal systems, rapidly shifting nodes, and public hue and cry would make cracking down on FreeNet sits an expensive proposition.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
Ok, I suggest you actually try reading the interview. The interviewee even says explicitly that they're working on a way to vote for information, which to me sounded similar to Slashdot's moderator system. And, IMHO, Slashdot's moderator system works quite well. Nothing's ever deleted, but you can set your threshold higher to filter out lower-rated stuff.
-RickHunter
That is, I believe, exactly what the creator of FreeNet is trying to prevent. And I don't think the FBi would hunt him down for this. Are they hunting down the people who designed the HTTP protocols because those protocols are being used to exchange terrorist information? I bet they'd love to, but they aren't.
-RickHunter
People ignore junk. They only HATE stuff that is relevant to them. Thus, stuff that arouses strong negative opinions will get the most "votes against". If something is bland, people will shrug and ignore it. If something makes an impact on people, a significant proportion of those people will try to make an impact back on it.
Once you have a system that allows voting on article content, you get the situation where the Starr Report gets 15% of readers pressing the "that's garbage" button. On the next article, say commentary on the Spice Girls breakup, everyone shrugs and punches "next!".
If you have voting, most voting will be voting against stuff with real impact. Large-network-TV primetime is driven by votes-against. You see where that ended up. What is to prevent system that is driven by votes-against from turning into TV sitcoms?
I haven't read alt.religion.scientology for a couple of years now, but at one point, they were using the multi-point flood attempted DDoS in that environment. People who believe in flooding dissent can be persistent over a span of decades. That argument doesn't fly.
(You make other arguments that make a better response to this criticism. I'll let other people address those points.)
Aren't the keys hashed from the actual data in the file? It was my understanding that keys are unique,
My impression from this discussion is that the current key is a simple heirarchical title. That the hash-code version is a future enhancement to the protocol. (As will be the ability to vote against spam.)
I'm going to end this whole business right now by summoning Godwin's Law:
I heard Ian is a Nazi.
There, I said it. No go back to your homes. Nothing to see here.
--
I like to watch.
Lots of Will It/Won't It, Is it Good/Is it Bad posts. This is an interesting project, whether it is good or bad. But Ian, show us the money. Put _just_ a client onto the Internet, but all the sourcecode/servers/etc onto FreeNet. Then we'll see how much _YOU_ agree with your own philosophies.
I think he (the author) is saying that copyright is *functionally* censorship. Which it is. The only clue to the author's *philisophical* intent is in the choice of the word "censorship", which is widely believed to have a negative connotation. I must assume it is on this basis that you chose to make the brilliant leap to FN=CL^2. Fucking Genius.
I can't believe I'm quibbling about semantics with blatant flamebait like this.
Actually, from my experience, being a narrow-minded bigot is a popular US tradition. Sure, people would like to make it anti-US, but... well, that's not going to happen anytime soon.
I'm going to ignore the rant at the start of your post.
This would not work. The dynamic caching system that Freenet implements (and the voting system it will eventually implement) would not let such a centralized organization corrupt much of the network. A server holding the company's trojan/unstable version would simply get fewer votes and the information would be requested less often. A server holding the real functional version would get more hits/votes and thus would be more widely distributed. Even if the company had it's employees or other such agents try to skew the cacheing information, they could at worst corrupt the cache's of the servers closest to them in the network.
The system is designed to make this as hard as possible. It remains to be seen how much of an effect a corperation or a government could have on it.
Steve
freedom of religion. one reason this country was even created in the first place was so people could stop being annoyed over religious beliefs, and instead just believe whatever they want. and if someone wants to not believe at all, would that make any difference? i really don't think so (belief == NULL is just as valid as belief == blah, in my way of thought), but if you want to believe differently, go right ahead. im not going to force you one way or another, unlike what you are suggesting...
if that isn't enough, does "seperation of church and state" help any?
---- Sig? What sig? Who needs one, anyway?
This model doesn't require that every FreeNet middleware plug-in be a server. If only 1 in 100 were, it would probably be more than sufficient to ensure that FreeNet has enough nodes to be useful.
Plus, I think I like the idea of limiting the file size in the server to reduce the amount of material that I would not like to propagate.
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.
My last assignment was as a defensive information warfare engineer for "the other side". I designed and implemented the network defenses for a large desert area :)
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.
WRONG
The implementation of something like FreeNet creates an enclave for the "hackers." THEM (The gov't, big corps, etc.) are now the hackers. They have the advantage, as they are the attackers. Remember that.
As to hearing of "wireless", sure I have. Wireless is wonderful. Easy to tap untraceably, it'll simplify traffic analysis to no end. Plus, EW is much more mature than IW. Jamming is pretty trivial, as is insertion (sure, you've got encryption. But if it gets broken (through something easy like keytheft), I can take you off the net and spoof your address).
The point to note is that defenders have the disadvantage - you can do your best to guess what the "bad guys" will do, but ultimately you have to be reacting to them. Are you really that sure you can outpredict my attacks?
I like the "black-hole reset" idea (Although it sounds like nice buzzword-bingo). How are you going to keep me from remapping my servers to a new IP-space and joining again? Every time you reset, you massively inconvenience your customers (and what if you block out a non-malicious person - oh wait, are we censoring someone we don't like?). Me, I have the resources of a nation-state and the will to keep eiting you.
Have a Nice Day.
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.
The content Freenet will reflect the desires of its populace... If that populace accepts kiddie porn, so be it. If implemented on a large scale, it would serve to corrupt our existing morals (information-wise), and replace them with ones that more accurately reflect our overall desires.
:)
Right now, many people guiltilly think/read/watch things that "they know is wrong", but do so anyway because that's what they want. They just don't come out and say it because society would shun them. However, what about cases where most people do desire this (or at least don't mind it) but no one has yet taken a stand? In the current system, someone has to boldly declare his contrary opinions and gradually win people over to his view of thinking, "opening their eyes" to a new moral belief. This has happened continuously -- but usually quite grudgingly, at great costs -- throughout history.
With Freenet, in many cases, it would quickly become obvious (given a great availability of such info) when people really believe that something's OK. This, coupled with the anonymity of both accessing and distributing the data, should help speed up the process -- especially when most people REALLY DO want a change but they're too backwards/afraid to promote (or even accept) it.
However, in other cases, where there is no clear "better" opinion, the ideological battle will continue -- the plus will be that everyone can be honest in acting (ie. vote-caching, writing) on his opinions. The drawback will be the fact that in many cases, it takes a martyr to motivate a movement, and Freenet will eliminate "accidental" martyrs. That said, people who really believe in their cause can write their names, embrace the consequences, and still be a martyr if they want
Take the copyright example: many people here have said that the Freenet will destroy copyright. If this happens (personally, I think its happening without Freenet), then it is the will of the people to abandon the idea of copyright... For warez to proliferate on Freenet it takes a) people to crack & upload it, and, more importantly, b) lots of people to download it. If lots of people d/l it, then lots of people believe its OK.
We need to accept these differing beliefs -- and if we refuse to accept them, then the only way to stop them is to argue against them. You can no longer simply state that what they're doing is "wrong" (even if it seems like common sense), make a law, and lock 'em up. You must appeal to those who act contrary to your morals -- tell them why you think what they do is wrong. Might (of numbers) cannot claim its rightness. It's an eternal ideological free-for-all: Sure, lots of people might agree and form their own nations of belief systems, but in the end everyone's fighting on his own by choosing what to read and writing what he thinks.
Let the Idea Wars begin.
Actually, what with information being a virtually limitless quantity, popularity should be exactly what determines how accessible certain things are. There's no point in trying to provide equal access to all things if nobody cares. Don't get me wrong; the idea is a beautiful one. Practically speaking, though, there's no reason to keep treatises on the the use of bullrushes in ancient Syria for one guy who thinks it's interesting if the space they take up could be better used to serve the thousands of people clamouring for the newest goat porn (or whatever).
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It's not the rambling I object to, so much as the mumbled incoherancies...
unfortunately it seems to be failing gradually as the moderators "vote" and destroy the trolling posters
Of course, this implies that their speech is not actually free. Moderated speech is restricted speech. In the freenet paradigm it would be as easy (perhaps easier) for a government with a few (hundred) thousand computers to moderate any inflamatory documents out of existence.
In many ways, I imagine a moderated freenet would have even less freedom than the current 'net. Now, at least in many places, one can serve just about anything. Under a moderated system, the "majority" could quickly dispense of any unpleasant content.
err, one of the responses in the article explicitly condemmed copyright as against free speech. Looks like a libetarian playground. No rights for the producers, no standards, and no attempt to audit accurancy of data. be an interesting social expereiment if nothing else.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
The forefathers of the American people would be stricken should they have had to witness the extroadinary rejection from their descendants to a system which embodies every single ideal they fought so willingly to forge into a constitution of common values inherent to the freedom of the human race.
"But it will support kiddie porn!" you cry. Inconsequential! Technology is inherently neutral; human will is what shapes and molds technology to fit its final form. Finally we have a chance to escape the mistake that was the atomic age and enter the information era... and what should defeat us but fear -- fear and self righteous bigotry.
How dare we as a "free thinking" race of sentient beings hold so insanely to the earth -- limiting ourselves to the confines of physical boundries merely because we refuse as a species to share equally. So be it then. But now we have a chance to take the original purpose of a war of revolution and evolve it to fit a new purpose...
America was the inception of what the late 18th century philosphers and dreamers could consider to be the ideal democratic forum. We now find this ceoncept outdated -- originally planned to be an isolationalist country we now find the United States of America the world's only first world nation.
This is unacceptable, and yet we've found a way to expand this freedom to the whole of the world itself, and the few fools who have had freedom from birth are incapable of sharing, for simple fear that the technology will be misused.
Of course it will. Such is the nature of the human race; and in fact, the FreeNet itself will no doubt evolve into a microcosm which mirrors humanity itself -- trying to deny that some of us are good, evil, or indifferent is insufferable arrogance.
The eventual evolution of the human race demands we be able to share information from every mind, thus linking together the most powerful conscious we know to exist beyond what created us.
And since I actually bothered to read the original posting, and some comments, I know that freenet is going to have a "voting" system very similar to slashdot moderation. You view some information, and if it's garbage, you vote it down. Sound familiar?
Of course, "/hot_grits/pouring_down_pants/howto" probably won't get too many requests in the first place.
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
It seems to me that Freenet would not be the best place to pick up distributed apps. When I get a new Linux kernal, I don't go to Jimmy-Joe-Bobos-Linux-house-of fun-and-warez.com. I like the Idea Of freenet for distribution of ideas, But it would be pretty foolhardy place to pick-up digital products. User beware.
In order for freenet to be succesfull, it's user must mistrust any content that does not come from a trusted digitally signed source.
It would also be used as a widely used tool for espionage, but thats another point...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
FreeNet gives us a place to hide and post opinions anonymously. The fact that we feel the need to do that means the right to free speech is being dissolved. It seems to me that the right to free speech is being able to say your opinion, everybody knows who you are, and being able to continue your life without being harassed for those opinions.
I know this is difficult to do, but it's something that needs to be protected every day. When you work with some that disagrees with you, or has an opinion different from you, don't let that effect the way you treat that person. Be self-aware of how you treat those people. Are you writing a review for someone who think Open source is a waste of time, but is a good employee, review them based on there work.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You really are putting some work into this troll.
But doesn't the internet as it is provide this already? If an aspiring musician/film maker/whatever wants to distribute his/her work for free, they can already set up a web site or ftp server and let people come and get it. They don't need freenet to be able to do it...
I am probably being trolled here, but just in case you are simply stupid, I will reply. The entire point of the first amendment which you claim to have such an interest in is precisely to protect the type of speech you are talking about here. The people who wonder about pedophiles using this service have a possible legit gripe. The people who worry about copyright laws being violated at least have a legal gripe. Your gripe is against political and religious speech, exactly the things that first amendment was intended to protect. Most people who value the rights granted them in the constitution would be thrilled to see those rights extended to areas of the world that do not currently posses them (Western Europe? Huh? most of Western Europe has roughly the same speech rights we do. China needs free speech, Cuba needs free speech, as do many Middle Eastern countries. What world do you live in?) The bill of rights exists because someone though that EVERYONE, not just those people you agree with, has the right to say their piece. Even those, like you, who believe that free speech should be curtailed get to have their say, even though we don't agree with them.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
If thats what you think about it, then perform concerts or stuff like that and make money that way. Of course never mind the ethics of the plantation masters who thought that slaves were their property because they put THOUSANDS of DOLLARS into buying them, and YEARS of effort into training them. Of course, anybody with half a brain knew that slavery wasn't about incentive, or property, but about controll on other peoples behavior. (hint)
Even without FreeNet - I could post a slanderous unsigned note on a tree and it would likely be incredibly difficult to trace back to me. Now, why should public institutions undo that kind of privacy just because the internet is different. In terms of the way we're expected to treat others - nothing's changed, just the technology we do it with.
- For copyright to be economic censorship it would have to be the author or content creator performing the censorship, denying other access to the author's own work.
Look, economics is about the study of supply and demand. Unlike physical property, information has no natural limits on supply or demand - I can copy all I want and it will not deprive you of the original work. Copyrights are an artifical limitor, created by the government. You should be very carefull of this lest you start to believe that slave ownership was a property right just because the government said it was.- There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine.
It is to the extent that it does not deprive others of the same resource. How about a 5 yearolds sense of what rights they wish the had, may even think they have, but really dont.FreeNet is its own protocool, but does not have a standard TCP/IP port (I don't know to what extent this has been implemented yet). This makes censorship an order of magnitude more difficult because it would half to monitor the actual content of each packet passed.
Who will run these servers? Who will actually do it? How can a small group of even dedicated people run a service comperable to the internet?
Anyone with any extra bandwidth could atcually run one. And with his comments on setting the cache size I could see many people just allocating 50 MB or so so they could serve their local area with information in high demand. Also, using a small size would effectively disable much of the "unwanted" content that the media always cries about.
Your other comment about how could it be comparable to the internet shows, not to flame you, but a lack of understanding about what the Internet is. The Internet is not the "web" that is just the http protocol just as Freenet has a protocol of its own. The Freenet would be just one small PART of the Internet.
Ah. But the system will just as readily sustain freedom of religious expression. If somebody doesn't like what I understand the Bible to teach, with freenet that's too bad. I can still present it and if someone wishes to weigh the matter for themselves, they can. For this reason I find Freenet to be a philosophically stimulating development. Akook may use data from Freenet to build a bomb or indulge in self-destructive sexual behaviors. But they may just as readily, even in a potentially controlled information setting, bypass such control and have free access to religious ideas. We may one day conclude that Freenet was one of the best friends of the constitution that ever came along. We do live in a post-copyright world, and I am glad about that. Some just haven't figured it out yet.
-|- God is serious about ending suffering on this planet. Are you? -|-
Freenet's philosophy page states: "Look at the music industry. Who is the primary beneficiary from enforcement of copyright law? Clearly it is those who distribute the music, not those who create it. In fact, it is fantastically difficult for artists to succeed in the music industry, and the quality of their output has little bearing on their chances of success (anyone who is familiar with the music charts can only agree with me on this!). Copyright law has failed to encourage creativity in the music industry." Clearly this was written by someone who did NOT sit alone in a room for thousands of hours listening to, and praticing, learning, reading, studying, and writing music. Someone who spent THOUSANDS of hours recording and practicing, thousands of DOLLARS on instruments, YEARS of time and hard work and sweat would never say this. People become musicians for many reasons, but MONEY is sure a big one, and for the lucky few that do achieve some level of success deserve some sort of payback for the incridible time they put in. They went into this with the hope of big paybacks in some way. The music industry is not open source. Who cares is the beatles or michael jackson misses a few bucks from a ripped off mp3 file. But smaller bands (Thousands of them) that just got signed, and depend on sales of CD's not just for money, but to retain a contract need every single sale, They are the ones being hurt. Spend th3e next 5 years trying to make it and you'll change your tune.
Well I see this as a system for true democracy. If enough people want a document, photo or song, they will have it. If many people think certain material is disgusting, it will not stay present in the system.
Is this not ideal democracy? Instead of pieces published for monetary or political reasons, it will be dictated by the will of the people.
yes, it is:
d ialogue
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=
you're scary... finally someone who thinks like me. The thing is, too many people underestimate the abilities of "the other side." Quite an interesting post, though -- and it makes me wonder what your background is... ;)
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
I'm afraid you miss the finer points here. Europeans can buy in US markets if the FCC starts filtering. People here won't be able to buy things from over there. This would quickly cause the e-buisnesses outside the US to demand that their ISP get FCC compliant. This would start closing off servers to FreeNet, and more.
I personally do not underestimate the economic importance of the rest of the world out there. I also do not underestimate how big a bully my government can be once it feels it has the moral ground.
And the Geek shall inherit the Earth
To summarize, this is a key vulnerability of Freenet -- it can be saturated with bogus/misleading information quickly and easily.
So in other words, it's a lot like the present day Internet? The same problems exist now. Nobody's mentioned it here though, they're all too busy saying "it can't be done! IT CAN'T BE DONE!"
No sig is worth reading.
I think the article can be summed up as such: FreeNet will be a microcosm of the world as a whole. There are pirates. There are pornographers. There are terrorists. There are piracy nuts. But there are also mild-mannered individuals interested in freely exchanging information (anonymously or not). All of these things exist in the world, and will eventually seep into any medium that can support it. FreeNet will be no different. It's only a mirror of the population.
So, in other words, "kiddie porn" is free speech. Really? I didn't know that. Guess ritual rape and mutilation is free speech too, and if done in a pointy hat with candles, it's a religious observance, too.
I really find it interesting how people who are otherwise all for the free distribution of data balk at kiddie porn. This one issue seems to do more damage to the idea of anonimity then any other.
The problem with kiddie porn is that once you admit it is acceptable to ban distribution of material merely because "that is so sick" you have past the threshold and it is easy to start banning other things. If we accept this argument how easy is it to ban fecal matter porn or dog fucking etc.. etc.. Once again there will only be a small minority of people (none of them willing to come out in the open) who really want to watch this stuff so their should be no real political opposition...besides they are sickos anyways.
THIS is how censorship starts.
But kiddie porn is always a video tape of a crime. No! There was a wonderful salon article a couple weeks ago (sorry forgot the link) which talked about various mothers getting in trouble for taking nude pictures of their sons/daughters for their photo album. What if someone downloaded these for his sexual gratification...who would he have hurt (yet he could be thrown in jail for many years).
Did you know it is illegal to posses images that look like kiddie porn. That with a picture from a major newspaper I can commit a felony in photoshop?
Now from a reasonable perspective we should ban speech if the danger of that speech generating immediate harm is large (shouting fire..ordering a hit etc..) now where does kiddie porn fall? Is their ANY evidence that the presence of kiddie porn increases sexual abuse...no. In fact it is not unreasonable to think it actually reduces sexual abuse as the would be sexual predators get their gratification from porn rather than real children.
Would legalization increase the number of children hurt? Well possibly if we allowed it to be a commercial enterprise but It seems reasonable as a matter of commercial regulation to make it illegal to sell for profit.
Who gets prosecuted under these laws? People who are molesting children...not often (if they are publishing pictures you can convict them on molestation and use them as evidence) as they are clearly getting their kicks somewhere other than porn. The people who get hurt seem to be men who aren't hurting anyone. Which in turn hurts the FBI's ability to find the true molesters as those who might turn informant realize doing so could mean a long prison term.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Please start the Java vs. Perl flamewar now. Extra credit for dragging in Python, C/C++, Lisp, Scheme, Tcl/Tk, assembler, the existence of God, and/or gun control.
Thank you.
Someone asked in a question
and the web page says that infrequently-requested data will eventually expire and be deleted.I think that the "champion" idea for keeping data is a good idea. Suppose the freenet server allowed the admin to define a separate, node admin-controlled area. In that area would reside data that the admin wants to be permanently available. Under normal operation, the data would be distributed across all of FreeNet, but if it all expired and someone then asked for it again, the request would make its way back to the permanent repository and get the data from there. This does negate some of the advantages of FreeNet, namely that the admin will know what's on his server and could be contstrued to be liable for it, but it allows a guarantee of permanence for the data. Does this sound reasonable?
--Phil (I'll probably be setting up my FreeNet node when I get my cable modem.)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
And the fact that its hard as it is for peoples in those countries to speak freely now is all the more reason for things like Freenet - and all the more reason why we have to make it better and more foolproof so that no can censor content thru it.
--
Python
Python
In addition to this, we are working on ways to give Freenet a more accurate impression of the quality of data stored in it (as determined purely by popularity).
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But the idea does need a bit more work. A few things that would make it even more valuable.
The only way this is going to work well, however, is if they get real integration with encryption. Enough that you can basically sign something with one click (and whatever passwords are needed, of course). That's one of the main reasons encryption isn't as ubiquitous as it should be; it's unnecessarily difficult to use. I'm hoping this will start to change once the RSA patent expires, so that more people can start building encryption functions into their software (OpenPGP standard, anyone?)
What I would suggest is that the Java client become the "reference release" of Freenet. Since it's Open-Source, other clients can then be brought up to date with the Java client without too much trouble. The choice then becomes down to using the Java client to stay bleeding-edge, or OS-native for the performance gains.
The idea of Freenet is a great one. As it is, it needs a bit of work, but that's to be expected of a first release. As it is even now, though, it shows a great deal of promise.
Oh, a quick bit about the "concerns" some Slashdotters seem to have about this.
A third factor needs to be considered here: the "re-inventing the wheel" phenomenon. Kiddie porn is comparatively easy to get, but rape/snuff films are, understandably, exceedingly difficult to find. Usually they have to be custom-made for one person, since they're obviously hard to sell (think about it: would you sell tapes of yourself committing various felonies?) There is always the chance that, because some sicko got his fix from something off the Freenet, he won't commission a film and one less person will suffer. Is that not worth it?
Will Freenet be misused? Certainly; anything that can be misused inevitably is. Does that mean it shouldn't be allowed to exist? Certainly not. Even in the most hideous abuses of this, there is potential for some good to come of it. And the potential for good from proper uses of this is staggering.
One final note, and an interesting possibility: might it eventually be possible, via a browser plugin (to give one example) to integrate a Freenet client into a Web browser? Putting a Web interface on top of Freenet would certainly make it much easier to use, and could speed its adoption greatly. Who knows; there may be a time when a "Freeweb" comes into being, where entire sites (rather than files) are sent through the network. Some of the underlying principles of Freenet (particularly the moving of data to where it is most needed) would benefit the Web greatly. Any thoughts on something like that?
Finally, true freedom of speech. What I find interesting is all the people that "supposedly" like freedom of speech until they begin thinking that anything can be said and then they become very Politically Correct about what should be free and what shouldn't be. Interestingly, this is mirroring American Politics and the attempts of Federal, State, and City goverments trying to limit this type of speech or that type of speech. Everyone is becoming a victim of someone else's freedom of speech.
What's funny is here is America Free Speech is a RIGHT!!! Whether that speech is hateful towards a group or is critical of the/a goverment at least our forefathers knew that and they accepted it because they felt that all speech has to be free in order for a society is to consider itself free. People have arguements whether that is correct or not but the reality is that free speech has been under attack for over a century in one form or another.
FreeNet is to give complete freedom over what you say. Whether you own it or are anonymous with it you still have the complete freedom to say it without retribution. That is what Freedom of Speech is all about. And is also one of the primary reasons that not even the Supreme Court wants to limit that kind of freedom on the internet. Anyone can say anything and no one institution has control over it. But does it stop the goverment from trying to limit it, even with two dead CDA bills, no, they now are trying to force issues with the ISP. The FBI is trying to get more generalized, rather then specific, rights to commandiere any computer with information that they suspect might be on a computer because of, oh my, terrorists or child pornographers.
When did American's want the goverment to keep a close eye on them? For over two hundred years people have flocked to America because thought control, and other basic freedoms, were considered of paramount importance. Now when technology begins to aid in securing those rights to freedom people begin to worry about the "criminals" and this is wrong because I don't like this speech it hurts me - because I'm a victim.
Is that the biggest conspiracy the goverment has created. Without creating it. Proproganda is still proproganda and anyone who believes that a goverment cares about freedom of speech but within reason, is a person blind to censorship.
Of course the really superb thing about FreeNet is that it is completly non-American and is truly about complete freedom!!
Long live FreeNet - finally true Freedom can exist!
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
the peaceful anarchists and libertarians
My, what an embaressing mistake. The proper URL is http://www.infoshop.org/faq/.
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
This guy is clueless. Typical liberal leanings, willing to tolerate warez, rape/kiddie/snuff/torture porn and God knows what else just so satisfy his need for "free information". Bah.
What will probably happen, and would seem to be the best idea, is if MegaCorp A wants to keep it's brand new copy of OfficeSuite 3000 from showing up everywhere, just coordinate a upload/request barrage of something that looks like the OS3000 but is a worm/virus/trojan whatnot, then blame it on "pirates" or "hackers", pointing out that you can only "trust a copy we put out."
Discredit it quickly, and make it unuseable. That's the key.
There are just a *ton* of tech issues to resolve to get this thing off the ground.. only some of them have been addressed. The harder ones are on the human interfacing... you're putting data on a network with no way to ensure integrity. Then again, in an anonymous net what would be the point? Hrrrmmm...
Here's one I call 'The Info Blockade' that is along the lines you describe, but uses specific Freenet features to defeat FreeNet:
1) Imagine a file that a government wishes to block within its borders (a manifesto, plans for a strike, documents proving massive corruption, etc. Historical example: Daniel Ellsberg's The Pentagon Papers from the 70's)
2) The government creates a false file (it might even be able to forge authentication, if it's the right government, and determined enough)
3) The government massively releases the false file via it's own FreeNet servers (while possibly also pursuing the usual stamp-out tactics). This information would
a) likely be the closest server to a domestic requester of the information
b) would slowly 'diffuse' onto the larger FreeNet
4) Within hours, the Government makes large numbers of requests for the false file at the communication bottlenecks into the country. This will fill the caches of the foreign (uncontrolled) Freenet sites with the false file (both from copies that 'diffused out of national boundaries in step 3, or copies from Government sites that happened to be the 'nearest' freeNet node with a copy of the file.
5) Eventually, this false data would be largely 'fixed' into a blockade around the communications bottle necks (the virtual border) of the nation. The World at large may see the genuine document, but the high-bandwidth tactics of the gov't would mean that, internally, the nearest available FreeNet copy would be 'false'.
6) The manigfesto's author could e discredited by the forged file, the strike could fail, organizers could even be made to give themselves away through false 'planted' info.
This is not a criticism of FreeNet. it is simply fodder for the 'debugging' of FreeNet I am far more interested in the free speech aspects than the warez/prOn use, and I hope FreeNet will someday stand against a determined opponent with great resources, likie a gov't or multinational
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
Or that the new scientific theory/application (which the gov't intends to seize and classify, since as a citizen, you and your works are its property - strained, yes, but that's how it works)
isn't flawed [Science see a lot more 'incorrect' breakthroughs than correct ones, every year]
Or that the file you downloaded has a 6-mo timebomb?
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
someone cracks the NT sam file for a bank using l0phtcrack, the fbi is going to go after l0pht, since they wrote the software
I think the FBI would have cause to go after l0pht if they said things like "Our software can be used to crack NT security for banks, so if cracking the security for banks makes you nervous, then you probably shouldn't have anything to do with our project."
Selling a notched strip of spring steel is not illegal. Selling it as a tool to open your car when you lose your keys is not illegal. Selling it as a tool to break into someone else's car is illegal. It's a fine line between saying "This tool I'm selling can be used for illegal things" and saying "Buy this tool I'm selling so you can do illegal things." I think an ambitious federal prosecutor could severely blur the difference between the two.
I'm not saying that this is right; I'm merely saying that I think that Ian has walked into the kill zone of an ambush with a bullseye painted on his torso.
Call this flamebait, if you like, but I cannot BELIEVE the naivete of this guy. He has acknowledged, in the worst possible way, that this system can be used for Bad Things. Read this quote:
If you don't want to risk aiding the distribution of "kiddie porn" (which is *already* freely distributed on the Internet anyway), then steer clear of Freenet - it's not for you.
After this thing gets up and running, the FBI will doubtless be all over it. While they may not be able to identify the people who post child pornography, or the people who run the servers, they will certainly be able to identify the guy who helped architect the system. They will find quotes of his like the one above. They will charge him, try him, and convict him, and fry him.
Try IBM's jdk (looks and feel just like Sun's). The JIT (built into jre/java) is faster than you may believe...
Except by my reading of the interview this won't nessecarily be true. Because the random noise would get voted out. Not true for current version, but the plan is that voting will occur post viewing of material. So if I get a chunk that's garbage, I vote it down. So do others. Eventually it is voted out of existence. Companies could concievably overwhelm the system if they could get all of their workers to believe the same idea.
So for example let's just take company XYZ (no not the zipper company). Bob posts a nasty note about XYZ and people read it. It gets moderated up to a +3 (or however this works). Then XYZ finds it and wants to squash it. Now XYZ is a world-wide company. They insert a counter random noise note. These random notes won't show up cuz nobody moderated them up. They send all of their employees (or maybe just a few trusted at each site) a memo to moderate up this bogus note they just posted. Eventually the employees at XYZ won't see Bob's note anymore. However if they go home, and their ISP is running a Freenet server they will see the note, and know that their work tried to crushed the note and succeded in preventing its viewing from work.
The real problem I would forsee is with AOL/Time-Warner. If they were company XYZ there would be an immense decrease in Bob's note being seen.
This is merely my interpretation of the interview and FAQ. Not entirely sure if its true.
Who's going to maintain the access points to keep flooding Freenet day-in and day-out? Who's going to go to all the trouble to find all the Freenet nodes and keep dinging them with bogus requests?
Exhibit A: The government of the People's Republic of China
Exhibit B: AOL/Time-Warner/whatever-else-got-gobbled-up
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
For copyright to be economic censorship it would have to be the author or content creator performing the censorship, denying other access to the author's own work.
There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine.
Authors create works for a many reasons, they may use copyright to ensure that their work is distributed as they intended. freenet itself contains a 6 page long copyright notice specifying what can and can not be done with freenet. Are we to believe that it does not apply and was accidentally included as one of the six files in the installation kit? Perhaps we are free to ignore it?
I can think of dozens of legitimate uses for freenet but it's creators should also honestly address its liabilities. If their goal is to create an tool for illegally distributing copyrighted material then acknowledge that and move on, if not then work to address it.
>1.Well for starters I really don't know a whit of Java so that renders me almost useless same for perl because I
haven't been formally taught either.
I do have a c client in development, but currently it's been kept pretty low profile.
if you want to take a look: http://lar2.dyndns.org/~larry/freeclient
doesn't work as of now.
How do you know the contents of the data before you request it?
IMHO, this guy needs to get his head out of the clouds and consider the consequences of this tool with crimes other than libel and kiddie porn.
I agree 100% that bad *political* speech should not be censored. Let the damn KKK march in a Jewish neighborhood, let Phelps continue to protest outside of funerals. The cost of permitting them to deliberately offend people is far less than the ultimate cost of allowing the government to "protect" us from offensive political speech and acts.
But not all speech is protected. Most of us would have serious moral qualms about helping in a kidnapping/murder, or in passing notes between a hitman and his client. Yet that's part of the payload that Freenet will carry, by allowing anonymous communications between hitman and client, or kidnapper and victim's family.
It's possible that the moral good in providing a safe haven for whistleblowers and oppressed peoples will outweight the blood from murder victims. This is the type of moral dilemma that keeps people up at night. Pretending that this type of crime won't occur doesn't help answer this question, and in fact it casts doubt on all anonymous schemes because it makes the proponents come across as shallow eggheads who don't fully comprehend the consequences of their actions.
(Why do I feel the urge to quote Oppenheimer quoting Shiva after the first nuclear detonation?)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Even if not, every ISP acceptable use policy I have
seen, has some clause in it to that effect.
Mainly for Public Image(tm) and legal liability, both issues which would be moot under the Freenet system, mainly because:
I understand Freenet data is encrypted, supposedly to free the sysop from "knowingly" making
transmissions.
No quotation marks or playing dumb will be required. If you'd have read the FAQ, you would have read that:
One of the design goals was to make it impossible to locate the exact place where any
piece of information is stored. Even a server operator cannot determine what is stored at his own node.
That's right, there's no way to know what you're serving to the world. And that's why you can't (or shouldn't, IANAL) be held liable. Even if the cops bust in and seize your server, they have nothing on you, because they have no way of knowing what's on it.
If all the technology works as planned, of course...
It takes little more than one person to flood out a Usenet channel. The force necessary to take a document off Freenet would be more like if they had attempted to flood the whole Usenet out of existance to stop that one group, and even so Freenet is better (data on Usenet is sent everywhere, Data on Freenet is sorted to only a small nodes unless their is wide, distributed, demand for it).
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Second, consider your threat model. A lot of people are saying "well, that's not worse than the 'net in general". I don't think that's going to be good enough. There are two cruicial differences. The first one is scale. If Freenet becomes huge, a lot of its DOS problems will become easier. On the other hand, if it remains (relatively) small, DOSing it will not be hard. The second difference (as I pointed out in another post) is that Freenet is designed to make some people, corporations and government very unhappy. In a sense, one measure of success will be something like AOL trying to shut Freenet down.
/us/politics/ClintonSucks, ../ClintonSucksBowlingBalls, etc. are press releases from White House, how do I get my information?
If your attacker has a total capacity greater than the entire network and is persistant in his attack, then any network can be taken down. It is true that much of our resistance rests on the hope that we can reach a critical size, but this is true for more then just floods (a Freenet of only a 3 Nodes won't do much anonymity either). And (which is suppose is your point) with that kind of force one could take down any public network.
In this sense, I think that Eric Scheirers question about ordinary people would use Freenet for has more merit then Ian does. I do believe we will need a killer app (though, in some sense it is beginning to look like the freedom of speech on web will soon be so impeeded that it will be enough to drive everybody to Freenet - I certainly hope not however). But I also believe that seperating Cyberspace from meatspace by another layer is the natural next step of the information age - so I think the killer app will come.
The other option is a network that attempts to hide, using limited points of entry, uses cryptographic authenication for all node-node communication, and PGP type web-of-trust systems for allowing new nodes onto the network. This has been discussed as well, and Freenet's heart, the routing, could still be used on such a network, so even if this is what it has to come to, our current work would not be without value. I guess this is what you believe a network which allows the Freedom of speech has to look like - so I would be most interested in seeing the code you have written on it.
It ain't that easy. Making unique tags for each chunk of info is simple. But consider a different problem: how do I find the information I need? Crypto hashes of contents do not help at all. Again, to repeat another post, if I want to find out how many bowling balls can Clinton suck through a garden hose, and all keys like
How do you find information on the Web? You certainly didn't come to Slashdot looking for slashes and dots. You could have used a search engine, but a search engine is no more reliable then a descriptive Freenet key. Most probably, somebody told you about Slashdot, or you got saw a hypertext link from somewhere - both of which are equally possible on Freenet.
Oh, it'll work -- for some time. The real question is robustness. Consider that you are likely to find yourself on the front lines of active information warfare. In this case the relevant question is not "does it work?", but rather "how quickly/easily can it be killed?".
To me the same questions are one and the same (something like boolean question1(){return question2() == never}).
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
I wrote a more detailed reply, but Netscape crashed before posting...so I'll keep this short.
The post to which I replied - and I even quoted this, and you quoted my quote - said "Censorship is sometimes a good thing." It said nothing about "protecting sensitive information" being a good thing.Censorship is forcefully preventing speech or expression. Labeling the material under discussion "sensitive" doesn't change that.
It's highly questionable as to how much of what's kept secret protects anyone. Anyway, not telling me something isn't censorship (except in a very loose metaphorical sense), it's keeping a secret. (Although the results can be just as bad. Check out this year's results from Project Censored.)I addressed this in the post you replied to: "Got military secrets? Fine, make sure you only tell people you trust. Don't dare try to silence me if I find out about them." Using force to silence me if I find out something you don't want me to know is censorship, and it is evil. Using force to restrict people's freedom so they don't find out certain information is censorship, and it is evil.
If we had a less paranoid attitude we might treat those other nations better, rather than propping up right-wing dictators, or making excuses to go to war in oil- or mineral-rich nations; and those other nations might be more kindly disposed towards us.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Without censorship, how could Hitler have come to power? How could have other nations failed to act during the early years of the Holocaust? Things would have been quote different had German Jews, or the victims of the rape of Nanking, been able to communicate freely with the citizens of the nations attacking them, and with rest of the world.
WWII might not have happened at all without censorship.
"National security" is no excuse for censorship. The "security" involved is almost always the job security of some politician. If the nation is so insecure that my speech can destroy it, then it needs to fall and be replaced by something better.
Got military secrets? Fine, make sure you only tell people you trust. Don't dare try to silence me if I find out about them.
Protecting it from what? From being censored, it would seem.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Does anyone else here see a connection? I am having difficulty putting my thoughts into words, so I'll let ya'll take over from here, if it seems relevant. have fun dongoodman
Oh course the point is 'tragically' missed here, because your metaphor doesn't work. Slashdot IS moderated, unlike freenet. Goto http://slashdot.org/faq.shtml for more info.
The only one to get screwed would be you for framing someone else.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
1.Well for starters I really don't know a whit of Java so that renders me almost useless same for perl because I haven't been formally taught either.
2. Using java makes the whole thing much less cross platform ( I guess that's where the perl client comes in).
3. The size of the java compiler and "runtime environment" limits access. g++ can fit quite well on my small hd. Java could not.
4. Concept of having information residing on a changing number of systems prevents total 100% access of that data.
5. Specialized clients are also a pain. Intelgration with standard protocols would be a nice thing. I can hardly see this getting popular unless popular browsers support it.
6. Evil powers that be might just try to take it. (I get daily CVS snapshots from their page just in case).
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
"I love it! I can trade mp3s, warez, pr0n, almost anything with anyone around the world! "
Anyone who chooses to run the client.
"Fortunately, this is not only a post-Microsoft, but a post-Copyright world. Copyrights are meaningless unless you have the ability to protect it. Sure, there are laws, but they don't mean anything to me. It's sort of like the Vice
President: a nice sounding title, but basically worthless. Ok, your sound recording is copyrighted. Big deal. Try and stop me from sending to all my friends or making it available on FreeNet, Gnutella, or Napster. Heh. "
I don't believe you. Unfounded calls of revolution and such. Sounds like a really crappy version of the French revolution.
Speaking of the Vice President he actually does have power. He also has reputation. Plus he now is going to be featured in, many, many books when he is long dead. How's that for power. I doubt you could say the same.
"Same with software. While Slashdot has it's own trading boards, FreeNet makes it much easier to get the latest cracks for apps (like Corel Office 2000 for Linux!) or games (any Loki game: your choice (I like Civ:CTP, myself. Got it
off FreeNet a while back)). This is what FreeNet really excels at. "
Slashdot does not sposor these "boards" and they don't actually store files. I doubt that you could trade files in this manner easily. I would like some actual proof.
Also you forgot to actually read the README file in the distribution. You don't have any anonyminity at all. Oops. I suggest you escape while the getting's good.
"Keep up the good work! Looks like "copys" ain't so "right", after all! "
The use of freenet is not to facilitiate copyright infringment but to facilitiate free speech. Your supposed ability to circumvent copyright is not a goal but a side affect.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
When has "true freedom" ever really existed? The fact is, there isn't a good-old-days that Freenet is taking us all back to.
Again, idealism is getting in the way of common sense. There is much more freedom of the press on the internet than there is in the conventional media, and Freenet's philosophy of turning a blind eye to specious content is not just irresponsible, but potentially dangerous to the whole issue of internet privacy. Once enough John Q. Public's get outraged by the stuff flying around Freenet, our beloved saviors in Congress will rally to the cause and take action. We've already seen several attempts like this regarding the internet in general, but if Freenet indeed makes this information flow that much more pervasive, then the chorus calling for restrictions will get only louder.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Am I the only one bothered by the fact that we all have accepted that the FBI would try to stop the distribution of a document that US citizens have made "very popular." If its something we all want then we should have it.
2 points:
1:ever heard of the word "wireless" before? as soon as we can...
2:a much more likely reaction would be a reset of the infrastructure, with a black-hole list of nodes which are no longer trusted. remeber the hacker's manefesto? You can stop one (whether a node or a whole net), but not all.
---- Sig? What sig? Who needs one, anyway?
As searches and data replys move through the network nodes may randomly rewrite the source to hide the original data source from the node that made the request.
As I recall, FreeNet is being implemented as its own protocol. While I, as a broadband customer, may want to implement a FreeNet node, my provider may be blocking that protocol at an upstream point.
So we fix that by encapsulating FreeNet traffic inside a VPN (IP Type 50, for example), to prevent this sort of attack (and raising the bar perhaps a bit more for people to create FreeNet nodes.
BEGIN HYPOTHETICAL SUPPOSITION Now let's say that I, as the member of the armed services of one of the world's largest nation-states am tasked with reducing FreeNet's effectiveness. What do I do?
* What to put in those trojans:
This model has several strengths. First, it reduces the effectiveness of FreeNet to distribute illicit wares by inserting a significant amount of chaff into the environment. Second, it enables me to learn the locations of a large number of users of FreeNet, especially those engaged in illicit downloads. This will let (Censored - No Such Agency) have a good starting point on performing traffic analysis to determine the locations of the encrypted FreeNet nodes.
And once I have the locations of a significant percentage of FreeNet nodes, really, the system goes down. DDoS works nicely.
I left out many of the more useful things that I could do with the trojans, for obvious reasons.
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.
So lets see....
Freenet becomes a large scale phenonenom. In addition to the predicted users, it has a fair amount of information on safe sex and abortion focused on teenagers. Prolifers attmpt to fight this by marking any information about abortion "untrustworthy", but the information still propogates.
An herbalist and naturapathic midwife posts information on how a healthy woman can safely induce abortion in the first trimester with certain herbal products taken internally and other solution used as a douche. Another naturapath who has contributed to Our Bodies Ourselves backs up the info.
Problem is, the natuarpaths don't exist. They are a single anti-abortion terrorist who figures that anyone planning on killing her baby should be hurt for it as much as possible. If you can't save the baby, give it it's revenge.
Concerned readers of all political persuasions attempt to correct the info, but all of that sort of info is "moderated down" and a number of teenagers in desperate situations try it. Some are hospitalized, one dies.
That's the hypothetical. My questions to all supporters of freenet are :
1) Technologically, what could be done in that situation?
2) Philosophically, what should be done in such a situation?
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
One thing that some of these people who say that FreeNet will be a huge child porn, warez, mp3, etc repository seem to forget that even within the existing internet, popularity *usually* governs the viewership of material. With the voting system of freenet that is even more true. It seems that FreeNet will be most accurately represented by its users. If it's filled with child pornagraphers, it will most likely be filled with such. If it isn't, then the occasional bit of objectionable material will eventually expire. The same goes for anything else. The same goes for warez and mp3's. The Internet began (not really at the beginning, but it blossomed) through community effort and opinion. Maybe freenet will bring back some of what the internet used to be.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
Duh. It's found as Senate bill 486, the House Companion is moving as HR 2987
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Who is liable?
by tcd004
You said that this: "allows information to be published and read without fear of censorship because individual documents cannot be traced to their source..."
I'm all for an open forum for free speech, but this seems almost reckless. In most venues of speech, accountability for someone's words is fundamental. The Internet has opened up the possiblity of free speech without accountability to a small degree, and look at what has happened.
From a historical perspective, anonymity has played a vital roll in the creation of this country! All of the talk about porn and warez seems to be very US/UK biased. Think for a moment that maybe the benefits of FreeNet aren't for the democratic 1st world countries, but for every other country on this planet. Yes, kidde porn will be on it. Yes, warez will be distributed on it. But the social and political exchanges that would become possible far outweigh the porn/warez factor. Think outside the US circle. A while ago Slashdot posted a great article by Jonathan D Wallace, Nameless in Cyberspace: Anonymity on the Internet. It's a great piece on the historical importance of anonymity. Here's the intro:
Proposals to limit anonymous communications on the Internet would violate free speech rights long recognized by the Supreme Court. Anonymous and pseudonymous speech played a vital role in the founding of this country. Thomas Paine's Common Sense was first released signed, "An Englishman." Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Samuel Adams, and others carried out the debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists using pseudonyms. Today, human rights workers in China and many other countries have reforged the link between anonymity and free speech.
If you're always worried about kiddy porn and warez, you're missing the bigger picture.
Do the Evolution
What I see is the bigger question, can common people enjoy the same type of immunity that the big telecom companies enjoy? Obviously, ISPs are never held accountable for forwarding warez, et.al. via usenet. My call on that is those with the deep pockets win.
Sorry I didn't have the opportunity to raise this issue at the appropriate time.
cat
There's just one teeny-weeny snag with this grand scheme for a censorproof network...
... it doesn't work.
The freenet search algorithm leaks information so badly that *any single node* can: Ascertain the topology of the network.Deduce the IP address of any node.
Determine the contents of any node.
In short, you really don't want to trust your future to Freenet. You would have a better chance at avoiding prosecution if you just wrote your name and address on the data and posted it to the police.
--
--
Cars, computers, medicine, software, music, art. I was under the impression that *people* made these things, not corporations. A corporation is only a piece of paper (a charter). Open source shows that it's more than possible to exist without huge monolithic corporations.
No money? Definitely possible, western culture seems to be the only one that can't imagine society without a centrally controlled monetary system. On the other hand, who said that corporations are synonymous with money? You can get rid of corporations and still have an economy. You could even do vice-versa if you're ambitious.
Really think about what you're saying before you say it.
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
I completely agree. The most popular data is not necessarily the only important data. The First Amendment is all about the rights of the minority, and deleting little-used data is violating the spirit of free speech. I think that is an important issue.
"Freenet could be used by pedophiles and terrorists." Okay, this is kind of ridiculous. In a way, saying this makes it seem as though there are is a large army of child pornographers just waiting for an anonymous network.
Just like they were waiting for pencils, paper, cars, etc. Freenet is a tool and if people always focused on the horrible things a tool could be used for, we'de have a lot less tools, no?
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
1) Freenet adjusts availability of data based on use. If the vast majority of people using it want kiddie porn, then the kiddy porn will persist. If they don't, it will vanish.
Is the world crying out for a way to anonymously share information via the internet? YES! Many just don't know it. Far too many people won't feel their rights have been violated until it's far too late.
Copyright violations? Breaking copyright is still illegal. If your business is using illicit software, it's STILL illegal. If you are in posession of banned material, it's STILL illegal. Leave that up to the community. FreeNET is simply a medium that is free of censorship as of NOW.
No, no. Not random. I am talking active hostile information warfare. The point of Freenet is to publish information that makes certain people, corporations and government very, very unhappy. Put 2 and 2 together yourself.
Actually, Freenet's goals go far beyond this. Freenet is a further refinement of cyberspace, another step towards the further seperation of it and the world of physical reality. The most obvious consquence is that one of the basic laws of cyberspace, "Information wants to be free", is a lot stronger on Freenet then it is on the Internet (as it is stronger on the Internet then it when information was carried in books and minds only), but it is far from the only consequence.
Pissing people off is not a goal within itself. The fact is that those people who would be pissed off by Freenet are those who do not want any Freedom in Cyberspace - and that are already threatening it on the web.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
IANAL.
:-( . But this protects the data stored on a node from being outright sifted.
In the US at least, one needs a targeted search warrant - the police cannot just invade your (virtual) house and look around for anything that might be illegal. Even aquiring a search warrant for kiddy porn and then booking you for warez is not legal.
In Canada, that is not the case
Of course, the courts might decide that since the material is publicly available, this is equivalent to putting up pictures of kiddie porn on your front lawn.
Hoewver, due to the cacheing nature of the system, I can't see how you could be held liable for the contents of a filing cabinet you put on your front lawn, and then someone else starts putting illegal things into it.
In the end, I suspect that someone, somewhere will legislate against this sort of thing, but for now it will probably be legal.
Cyano
Don't like my sig? I don't either.
The ideal here isn't about providing criminal content to whomever wishes it, but to allow a group of people who WANT to transfer info anonymously to do so.
Crime is everywhere, yet we don't have ID and papers check points on every street to stop criminal activities. But on the net there are tons of virtual id checkpoints and some people won't stand for it.
The world certainly isn't 'crying out for a means to anonymously share information,' as you put it, because they're happy with yahoo.com, shop.com, and cnn.com. There are people who have a great need and desire to exchange info anonymously, just because Joe "lowest common-denominator" Public doesn't want it doesn't make the project useless.
There are also bigger issues that this project serves, that anonminity doesn't equal criminality and illegal/legal doesn't equal wrong/right.
"I have my doubts about the viability of Freenet and the like projects because of the ease of denial-of-service attacks against them. "
I then ask you has that stopped the internet in the least?
"Freenet by definition has to accept information from untrusted sources. As the goal is anonymity, it cannot authenticate posters. Thus, at least two DOS attacks: "
Oh no not "untrusted sources". Bad not getting all that authentication.
"(1) Plain-vanilla: rapidly dump (and continue dumping) a lot of random-noise content into Freenet from multiple launch points (DDOS). Soon enough the random noise will crowd out the real information. "
Eventually that information will not exist because it will not be avaible because no one in their right mind would requst random noise.
"(2) Targeted: let's say there is a Freenet file, e.g. '/us/politics/ClintonBlowsGoats' that you want to suppress. Just make your own file with the same net and inject it into Freenet. Again, use multiple launch points and repeat injection
at will. Again, the bogus file will crowd out the "real" file very quickly. "
A read over the mailing list freenet-dev will show you that in fact these things are being addressed. If you feel the need to discuss these things with people who know sign up.
I think this is one of the first things that is being addressed.
"Note that the threat model for Freenet must assume that large corporations and governments will be trying to suppress info. It's clearly within reason for them to be able to inject false/misleading/random information into Freenet from
100s and 1000s of geographically distributed machines. "
There is no historic prcedent for information dumping and the like (I may be wrong). References?
"An accompanying problem is non-uniqueness of keys. There could be dozens of different info chunks floating around Freenet, each tagged with a '/foo/bar/qux' key. Which one you'll get depends on the node through which you access
the Freenet -- not a very desirable dependency. Try to get the same thing a day later and you may well get a different info chunk for the same key. "
The server is supposed to prevent you injecting something with the same key. It is true that you will go along a different route to request the same data but the node may actually remain the same for a while.
"To summarize, this is a key vulnerability of Freenet -- it can be saturated with bogus/misleading information quickly and easily. "
This will eventually be addressed in it's full form. What I think is that despite the possibility for random information good information will always win in the end.
You might be able to say block information from someone you suspect to be an evil source of said information. Or you could filter information from requests on your node. That is entirely possible. Eventually the data will dissapear.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
"The fact that Freenet will not just tolerate, but actually provide an easier means to anonymously distribute illicit material (copyright violations, kiddie porn, etc.) will be the doom of this project.
"
I very, very, seriously doubt this in any way. The people who are doing the work are in disperate locations, and because of this access is difficult to curtail. Not to mention that even people like me are probably mirroring the data for no apparent reason. Doom censoring at all.
"Idealism can be a nice thing, but there is such a thing as focusing so strongly on a central idea that all perspective is lost. Is the world crying out for a means to anonymously share information via the internet? No, not really. "
Maybe not now but what about tomorrow? Ian Clark is quoted on http://freenet.sourceforge.net as saying that he fears that his child may ask what happened to the freedom of the press on the internet. True freedom may have already been distroyed. Freenet is trying to get it back.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Idealism can be a nice thing, but there is such a thing as focusing so strongly on a central idea that all perspective is lost. Is the world crying out for a means to anonymously share information via the internet? No, not really.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Should the Methamphetamine Antiproliferation Act, as passed by the Senate, become law, it would exempt Freenet operators from Felony provisions of the Act, only until they had recieved written notices alledging violations of the statute's fuzzy definitions of online drug paraphernalia and manufacturing information.
t emp/~c106ly7wUr::
b =Censorship&head=LEGAL+ISSUES
The exemption, added just before the Senate closed for 1999, protects ISP and hosts, by turning them into forced agents of government censorship.
The House Judiciary is overdue on their touted hearings on this bill. I suspect its backers, including the Clinton admin, know it was in trouble, and are quitly reworking it.
Bill text:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c106:3:./
Cannabis Culture: http://cannabisculture.com/library/artlist.cgi?su
My notes http://weedstock.com/ben.htm
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Sure, this works, but only to the extent that people are willing to continue doing it indefinitely. Who's going to maintain the access points to keep flooding Freenet day-in and day-out? Who's going to go to all the trouble to find all the Freenet nodes and keep dinging them with bogus requests?
Freenet needs some sort of mechanism for blocking requests from hosts (and perhaps even entire domains) that keep pulling the same keys over and over. I believe they're working on that.
(2) Targeted: let's say there is a Freenet file, e.g. '/us/politics/ClintonBlowsGoats' that you want to suppress. Just make your own file with the same net
Aren't the keys hashed from the actual data in the file? It was my understanding that keys are unique, and so simple name substitution won't be an effective attack.
The Freenet site expresses some doubts about whether it's desirable (or even technically feasible) for Freenet to be easily searchable by document title or keyword. That's just not how it works.
The keys will be distributed through non-Freenet channels, in much the same way as people distribute PGP keys now: as e-mail and news .sigs, on WWW sites, etc. No one will request the bogus "ClintonBlowsGoats" file, because they'll be looking for it based on a key passed to them by a trusted source.
-- He's fantastic, made of plastic....
I have my doubts about the viability of Freenet and the like projects because of the ease of denial-of-service attacks against them.
Freenet by definition has to accept information from untrusted sources. As the goal is anonymity, it cannot authenticate posters. Thus, at least two DOS attacks:
(1) Plain-vanilla: rapidly dump (and continue dumping) a lot of random-noise content into Freenet from multiple launch points (DDOS). Soon enough the random noise will crowd out the real information.
(2) Targeted: let's say there is a Freenet file, e.g. '/us/politics/ClintonBlowsGoats' that you want to suppress. Just make your own file with the same net and inject it into Freenet. Again, use multiple launch points and repeat injection at will. Again, the bogus file will crowd out the "real" file very quickly.
Note that the threat model for Freenet must assume that large corporations and governments will be trying to suppress info. It's clearly within reason for them to be able to inject false/misleading/random information into Freenet from 100s and 1000s of geographically distributed machines.
An accompanying problem is non-uniqueness of keys. There could be dozens of different info chunks floating around Freenet, each tagged with a '/foo/bar/qux' key. Which one you'll get depends on the node through which you access the Freenet -- not a very desirable dependency. Try to get the same thing a day later and you may well get a different info chunk for the same key.
To summarize, this is a key vulnerability of Freenet -- it can be saturated with bogus/misleading information quickly and easily.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
umm..no. the data is encrypted and they'd have to get the keys to decrypt it which the owner of the site doesnt have. the keys are dynamically generated and change fairly rapidly.
No kidding, we don't those ciminals with their sommelier's spoons, white towels, and silver crumbers corrupting the Internet!
Well, this is a thread about FreeNet, a system with no moderation, free from any sort of control over content, with total anonymity.
And this thread is absolutely swamped with useless, moronic, offensive posts, drowning out all useful discussion, and wasting everybody's bandwidth.
Somehow, I get the feeling that a point is being tragically missed here.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I have to say, I am very impressed with the level of dedication to freedom that the authors of Freenet have expressed. Let me address a few points that people have been making, though.
"Freenet could be used by pedophiles and terrorists." Okay, this is kind of ridiculous. In a way, saying this makes it seem as though there are is a large army of child pornographers just waiting for an anonymous network. Whether Freenet existed at all, pedophiles would still exist, and they aren't decreasing or increasing due to the internet. Pedophilia is a social and/or mental illness, and until you address that illness, FreeNet or not, pedophiles will still exist.
As for terrorists, who is a terrorist? Was Martin Luther King? The FBI thought so. What about Abbie Hoffman, or Gloria Steinem? Despite what people believe, our government is not terribly worried about the bomb-setting religious fanatics that they portray in the movies, they're worried about the peaceful anarchists and libertarians who feel that the real criminals reside in the oval office and/or attend stockholder meetings. Right-wing militia and hate groups are hardly ever bothered by the authorities until they commit a murder or assault. On the other hand, peaceful groups like Earth First! or Food Not Bombs are constantly hassled by police and the FBI, for "terrorist" behaviour such as blocking a bulldozer or giving away free food to the homeless.
I support FreeNet because hoping for a better future is a dangerous idea. I feel that it is necessary to have a medium where this dangerous idea can be spread without fear of incrimination.
"What about all the warez and mp3's?" What about them? More importantly, what about all the independant game developers and musicians and film makers that will now have a fantastic medium for spreading their work?
People need to do away with the idea that corporations are worth saving and protecting. We can do without them, especially the ones that are focused on making money off of the art and music of others. If the major labels all fail miserably because of MP3's, would it be a major loss? Honestly? What if in it's wake, a couple thousand indie labels started up? I not only do not fear that outcome, I anxiously await it.
I would like to help out any way that I can (I know perl, but not Java). I'll see how I can get involved.
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
I like the idea of FreeNet. Although porn in general doesn't interest me, it is all over the net. If I had the desire I could fill up my hard drive with the crap. I don't. But I don't curse the internet for having porn on it. The internet has good and bad things on it. I'm sure I can find many sites detailing how to create explosives. I haven't created any bombs in my basement.
The whole point I'm trying to make is that FreeNet is not giving us anything which isn't already on the net. But what it will give us is a way of keeping corporations from suppressing ideas. You can trust big brother AOL to properly filter your internet access, show you just what it wants you to see. If you wish to flame FreeNet for its disregard of copyright and its unconcern for the types of material it will pass, you must also treat the internet the same way. In essence they are the same thing in concept, just differ in distribution.
You may dissagree with me, but just point your browser to your favorite search engine and search for porn...or explosives...or warez. Its all out there. I personally am tiered of watching big companies try and tell me that they are doing all these things to protect thier interests. Why should my life be more complex because they need to add 3 more layers of bullshit to their product so its harder to pirate, but only slows me down.
There is good and bad to FreeNet, some will use it properly, some will not. If this disturbs you so bad then why are you on the internet? It holds the same nasty things you are complaining about. As for being annonymous...Any "free" web site is pretty annonymous. They will even give you a free email address.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
"...(since Freenet will just cache it on a node right beside you, and all of your requests will be soaked up by it). "
But doesn't this then serve to identify the FreeNet node location?
Let's say there was a law passed against a certains kind of document (porn, political manifestos, whatever). Let's call such a document D. I'm the FBI looking for D. I have a suspect list already, so here's my procedure:
1) Identify the ISP of suspect S
2) Get an account with that same ISP
3) Fire up a FreeNet search for D
4) Repeat step 3 until I'm certain that D is cached on a FreeNet node nearby to me.
5) Beat down the door of S and search his hard drive for D.
6) Prosecute and repeat.
(this procedure might have to be changed depending on the definition of "nearby", but you get the idea)
Furthermore, there's another similar, potentially worse problem. Let's say D is very popular (like the Starr Report, for example). A LOT of people will be requesting it from FreeNet, so it will likely be cached on EVERY node. So the FBI doesn't even need a procedure: just port-scan at random and arrest anyone running FreeNet--if they run FreeNet they surely have the popular D.
Which leads to an EVEN WORSE situation: It doesn't really matter if there is a single popular D out there. There are many many D's. Surely one of them is illegal. Just bust every FreeNet node owner a priori--don't worry, you'll find something illegal once you do the (ex post facto) search. Can't happen?
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Get with it, people. Freenet is where the internet has been headed from the start. The technical issues (moderation, crypto) will be sorted out in time, and then we'll get to see what the future looks like because we'll have participated in it's creation.
If you can't handle it, pick up a shovel and cut your DSL line: this technological development has always been latent since the beginning of public key cryptography, and now it's here.
Vinay
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,