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Freenet 0.3 Released
A few folks noted that Freenet 0.3 has been released. You can read more at the project homepage. The software's description: "
Freenet is a peer-to-peer network designed to allow the distribution of information over the Internet in an efficient manner, without fear of censorship. It is completely decentralized (there is no person or computer essential to its operation), meaning that Freenet cannot be attacked like centralized peer-to-peer systems such as Napster. Freenet also employs intelligent routing and caching to learn to route requests more efficiently, automatically mirror popular data, make network flooding almost impossible, and move data to where it is in greatest demand.
Changes: This release includes dramatic architectural improvements, addition of internode and data encrpytion, subspaces, along with improved performance in a variety of other areas."
...if it wasn't written in Java.
FreeNet has two basic needs:
1) Programmers: Everyone knows C, many people know C++. Nobody I know personally knows Java. Clearly there ARE people who know Java--but how do the numbers compare? Why not write the core in C (which is, face it, just as portable as Java if done correctly) and then a UI in Java?
2) Testers: I run a home network. In order for people on the Internet to see my FreeNet node, I'd have to run it on the public side of my firewall. But there is no way in hell I'm taking the time and security risks to install Java on my server.
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Wow, doesn't that comment fulfill all the requirements for karma whorage? Stick together...linux rules...'kindle the same passion for a secure and safe internet'...OSS is incredibly efficient and all around awesome. Not to mention his comment! I know I trust ESR with my life...
Another free observation
Checkout taccom my worl war II simulator
Stop imagining that you're the Great Altruist, providing access to your Great and Bountiful Resources, for the Greater Good, with no personal gain involved.
It's a Co-op, dummy. It only works if you 'pay' for what you get out of it. You're no more special than every other member of the group. You want to be able to pull files from Freenet at a reasonable clip? Then you put up a Freenet node, and join the co-op. You want to upload files implicating a former employee with a modicum of anonymity? Then you put up a Freenet node, and join the co-op.
If you don't, don't. The world won't end without you. It'll be okay.
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Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
Most of the Clients *will* work through a firewall, depending on how your sysadmin sets it up. So you should be able to access Freenet data OK.
There is a Perl client available so people can setup Freenet access on their web pages, see FCRC, so you should see web based access soon.
For Windows Active State has ActivePerl, a FREE Perl interpreter, easy install. All you do is type the name of the perl program at a DOS window. Perl programs are easy to change, and docs come with the download.
Other Clients are being developed and are available HERE.
Yuppers Pub- Freenet, Gnutella talk!
That's the reason for splitting the data, as is done by my Random Pads proposal or, better even, the Publius system.
See here for an implementation of a secret-sharing mechanism.
Until there is a reasonable prototype, this has ALWAYS been the better approach. You have a small team that had the initial idea run things out for a while -- keep refining things as far as they can go. That will produce quicker progress for the immediate short term (i.e. getting them started). It is only later that the open source approach tends to become useful -- when useful ideas relating to the project, and bugs in implementation, get more obscure, thus requiring more eyes.
It was always said in the open-source whitepapers that successful open source projects always had reasonable code at the outset, not just a pretty idea.
John
John_Chalisque
If the flyers are mailed, and volunteers from the ACLU work for the US postal service, then actively helping is what they are doing! But I don't see them quitting (if there are any)! Deliberately actively helping, and 'actively' helping without knowing that you are are two different things.
John
John_Chalisque
Speare makes an excellent point, and the implementation may not be as difficult as it appears. Indeed, it may already be there in FreeNet 0.3!
First the point. Why not let the nodes "vote" on what content to serve? This is not the same as having the government or a monopoly (USPS) decide what can be carried. With a large network, there will always be some way to find and distribute "bad" (unpopular) content. It will just be more difficult to do so.
The current situation vis-a-vis real warez and kiddie porn is a simple example. Anyone who thinks its just as easy to download these things today as it is to buy a book online is either testifying at a Senate hearing or smoking crack rock.
Moving on to implementation. Some of the FreeNet routing "magic" includes choosing where to store data based on proximity to its users. Presumably, if you use a site all the time, a lot of it's data will simply be stored on your local node (your hard drive). Therefore, if you don't read bad content, it is unlikely to be stored near your machine.
This argument applies if your neighboring users are also servers. If that assumption holds then content you avoid but your neighbors don't is likely to be stored on their machines, not yours. This leads me to the conclusion that "network content approval" can be achieved in an anonymous, equitable, and emergent fashion by requiring that every user must be a server. For all I know about FreeNet (not much), this feature/bug is already built-in.
Of course, such a system is not perfect. If you run a large server and your naughty neighbor runs a small pc, you are likely to store much of her "offensive" content. But hey, you probably already do.
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Dr. Hodad
Black's Beach Tanning Supply
La Jolla, California
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Dr. Hodad
Black's Beach Tanning Supply
La Jolla, California
You have misunderstood what Freenet keys are. Internally they are cryptologically derived arrays of bytes - nothing that can be described via URNs, URIs or whatever.
We have sketched up a standard for describing keys of the different types as URIs. If somebody wants to make one for describing them as URNs, go ahead - it does not effect the network, only the clients that need to turn them into keys.
I have not spent much time in corporate environments, but enough that the concept for a "working group" sends chills down my spine. No beuracracy here please....
We will of course write an RFC, but we need to to know how we want the protocol to work ourselves before that - and we are still far from that.
WhiteRose, is written in C++, see This Page.
This is only the start of Freenet, you know these guys are going to tie it into Gnutella, Mojo and other systems so it's harder to stop. There's a Perl client available so people can setup Freenet access on their web pages, see FCRC so you should see web based access soon.
I see a Perl server coming someday soon.
For Windows Active State has ActivePerl, a FREE Perl interpreter, easy install. All you do is type the name of the perl program at a DOS window. Perl programs are easy to change, and docs come with the download.
Yuppers Pub- Freenet, Gnutella talk!
I've read the specs. I'm well aware that the user downloads [pulls] the content. But core to its internal workings is a push architecture. The problem with arbitrary names, encoding, sources, and files is that they lend themselves poorly to this architecture, where napster can reasonably get away with it. Napster doesn't have to archive any songs. They just provide you with a link to a file server, so long as the query matches correctly, and napster's central servers can handle the query volume, there are no significant problems with this. That being said, naming, as I indicated earlier, is just one half the problem. The size of all popular music alone, completely ignoring redundancy, makes it highly improbable that Freenet will succeed at that objective.
Well put. That is the crux of the issue, for those with moral compunctions about running a Freenet node. There is a very important (and, thanks to the design of Freenet, technically distinct) difference between supporting everyone's right to disseminate information anonymously (by running a Freenet node) and supporting any specific piece of information (by requesting such data).
The simple answer is that we have written Freenet for people whose ethics include the freedom of speech - even that speech which they do not like.
Since yours obviously do not, the way you can assert your ethics is simply not to run a Freenet node, and maybe by sending some money to one of the organisations who are on your side (MPAA, AFA, the Chinese communist government, etc).
Should you contribute some part of your costly hard disk and some bandwidth to running a freenet node? Without knowning what is actually being stored on your diskspace.
:-)
Freenet stores everything that is poppular, and if you dislike kiddie porn and are worried about your hardware being used to distribute that, then all the more reason to use freenet.
Why? Because you are one more user who does not use freenet for kiddie porn. There by bringing the average popularity away from kiddie porn. Which results in kiddie porn dissapearing faster from freenet.
Its all about popularity, the way ellections should be
It's not talking about your freedom to control the content that passes through your computer. It's talking about the freedom of everyone to publish what they want. This means that in order to ensure your own freedom, you must help to ensure the freedom of others. If you don't think that's fair, then Freenet is not for you.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You still seem to be under the impression that paedophiles go around trying to pick up children. For a few, this is the case (though they wouldn't be "paedophiles", but I don't want to get in arguments over terminology). The vast majority, though, have more or less no contact with children (beyond what one would normally find in the general public). Whether they're impressionable or not isn't relevant because there's no sexual contact involved. Paedophilia is not about actions. It's not about going out and having sex with minors.
Why don't you find some paedophiles and find out: (a) how many have had sex with a minor; (b) how many have had any sexual relations with a minor; (c) how many have had a romantic relationship with a minor (e.g. holding hands, talking); (d) how many have even approached a minor in the hopes of starting a romantic relationship. Most have a clear sense of what will do harm to the child on what won't, and will be able to draw the line. The problem is that the *only* paedophiles you hear about are the rapists, which is a very small part of the paedophile population.
And, off on a tangent here, one of the best thing about children is that they *can* have a meaningful conversation. They don't talk about the weather; they don't talk about politics; they don't talk about getting drunk; they don't talk about work; they don't talk about money. They generally only talk about things which are *shudder* interesting. If something's on their mind, they tell you what they're thinking, and then they stop. If you actually try listening to what children say, I think you'll find them quite intelligent. I fail to see why anyone would *want* to talk about something like world current events when they can talk about a nice picture instead.
Who the fsck said it was made for illegal material?
YOU said it.
That statement's wrong.
Freenet was designed with security as a goal, yes. Efficiency was another goal. Should SSL be illegal? If you're presuming anything that permits secure movement of information is also meant for movement of illegal information, sure sounds like it.
Freenet, in addition to material which is in some areas legally questionable, has hosted the Federalist papers, the Communist manifesto and other political documents. It has hosted many of the papers which the "Church" of Scientology has fought to keep secret (and while these may be under enforceable copyright in the US, it ain't the same everywhere). Freenet has valid uses. It was created with them in mind.
Well, as I understand it, the files that get the most attention (i.e. downloads) will be the most widely distributed. Everything people publish will still be there, it's just that the most popular stuff gets distributed more. That means that there will probably be a lot of pr0n, since it is extremely popular, but everything else should still be accessible.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
No, it isn't. And that's quite intentional. The reason: who decides what's appropriate? If we're deleting the kiddie p0rn, why wouldn't we delete the pirated copies of Windows? One could argue that it makes freenet look like a piracy tool if we don't. But, if we delete the pirated copies of Windows, why wouldn't we delete the copies of the MS Kerberos spec? and on and on....It's a slippery slope that no one wants to go down.
...doesn't a system like this already exist in the form of Gnutella? What's the difference between Freenet and Gnutella, and why do we need both?
It's good to see that there are people working on systems like Gnutella and Freenet, and it would be nice to see some functional results. Unfortunately most of the Gnutella clients I have tried were pretty much in the very early stage of development. Some didn't even include basic sharing functionality (but hey, at least they were THEMABLE!!!). How complete is Freenet's functionality? Is there no motivation to get a single solution out that works well?
Call me flamebate, but it looks to me like a case of "too many chefs in the kitchen".
Also, it seems to me that any network in which a specific document can eventually be tracked to a single IP address is insecure. While it can never be shut down, per se, anyone who is doing anything that make *make* someone want to shut it down can still be found (at least until the mibs knock at their door).
Got Rhinos?
never broadcasting search queries (thank god).
Intelligently mirroring any and all data to a subset of the nodes that route the file to you
finding a file in the network is done in a chain, with the first node that knows where the data is directing the file request straight to that node
What this means is that, sure, in theory you could have to go through a hundred hops before you find your file. But next time you want that file, it'll be right next door (e.g. one hop away).
That, in my opinion, is leaps and bounds and orgasmically better than what Gnutella can do. Don't you think?
-=20
-=20
me doesn't live for do [DEPRECATED]
Please feel free to post any ways to "Squash" Freenet at the Pub, it's great to have lots of minds involved in the development of Freenet. Many ways have been discussed and the current software reflects this. There are archives of the discussions, see the links on the site.
Yuppers Pub- Freenet, Gnutella talk!
Call it whatever you will, I frankly don't care. The point is that Freenet depends on this caching/pushing/pulling/whatever for its success--that is how it is presumably going to be able to outscale GNUtella. Its efficiency is inversely proportional to the distance it must go to retrieve the requested file. The more diverse the requested files are, the less able Freenet is to properly mirror them. Likewise, the larger the files are, the less capable Freenet is of mirroring them. To the extent that Freenet is incapable of providing an adequate mirror, the more it reverts to a GNUtella style network--only worse in many ways because it does not travel directly.
The mp3 naming convention comes into play with the diversity. Though Freenet may protect against identical INPUTs of files on the same node, it does nothing to protect against the same song simply being named differently, recorded at a different bit rate, input errors, etc. from different uploaders. If Freenet's users prove incapable of deciding on a standard file per song, that WILL increase the burden.
Where Freenet may work well at distributing a few suddenly popular texts (i.e., DeCSS) [maybe even better than some of these ftp mirrors], I believe it'll fail at the task of distributing mp3s in the manner that napster users expect to be able to use it [even ignoring the lack of search capablities and the like].
Since when does supporting freedom of speech mean supporting what people say with it?
If I see a skinhead standing on a street corner handing out NAZI propaganda, because I support his right to speak, I will not do anything to silence him. But I am not going to stand there alongside him handing out flyers as well and support his message .
When you look at the growth trends for computer system speed and fiberoptic networks(Moore's law for fiber optics), optics growth is almost ten times that of CPU speed(IRC). So you can easily project that the network capacity will surpass the CPU's capability to deliver that much information.
And about the rest of the network scaling up, I'm not so sure. Alot of servers are still running on T1's despite the acceptance of cable, DSL and satellite high speed connections.
Anyhow, we'll just have to see.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Some of those things are available through the civic library system, either as raw materials (SUV maintenance manuals, information on clinics) or as the actual documents that worry you (perhaps the librarian would limit access to some, but the library system as a whole archives much of what is published regardless of value).
So are you going to withhold your taxes on the grounds that an immoral user might misuse those archives, that YOU paid to maintain ?
"They say they're working on it, so when they do get that done, then I'll be more likely to go and play. "
No we aren't. We are working on updates, but the updates will be non-destructive, ie the act of uploading a new version will not make the old version go away. Self censorship will not be allowed.
the big deal is that macs suck
Unfortunately, you are probably right. The courts work for whoever has the deeper pockets and better luck. If they went by true justice, well, there would be no need for lawyers and it would be free. How could someone be sued for having information unknowingly passed through their system? This forces monitoring & censorship or nothing at all. Of course, the companies (or government - any difference?) who would do the suing would only be doing it because that is the only way they could stop it. This is absurd, but kindness and understanding is one thing that greedy companies won't allow if there's $$$ to be made! Let's make some laws to protect us from ourselves! Make laws to protect COMMON SENSE!!!
Yeah, the Chinese communist government, plus, oh, I don't know, the government of every single industrialised nation on Earth!
This is incredible. Someone says that he doesn't want his computer distributing information that "could kill someone, or could exploit someone against their will". (As well as being morally very questionable, this is almost certainly illegal in most countries.) The response? Scream COMMIE !
Remember that, people. Don't want to aid and abet criminals, eh? Don't want to distribute things which go against every moral you have, huh? Well, ya know, there's a Mr. Mao out there who has a country for Red traitors like you!
Forgive me if I don't share your enthusiasm for this approach.
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Let's see the MPAA get DeCSS off of FreeNet!
Things like instructions for making drugs, race hate literature and pornography are not "speech", and should not benefit from the protections built into Freenet.
Oh, yes, it is. All speech is speech. Even if you don't like it. I don't like the stuff you mentioned either, but I acknowledge its fundamental right to exist. Freenet is not a tool for bookburners.
So what I want to know is - is it possible to track this kind of rubbish and remove it, along with users who upload/download it?
No. You cannot track the users; that's a very large part of the whole point of Freenet. However, remember the old "ignore it and it'll go away" bit? Because of Freenet's architecture, this is actually true. If no one downloads it, it will eventually be deleted to make room for things people do want to see.
Keeping it free of this crap will mean that Freenet will be a much cleaner place than the web, and it will also attract less attention from governments looking for their next target.
Define "clean." Free of things you don't want to see? Who gave you, or anyone else, the authority to determine what a person may see (parents excepted solely in the case of their own children), except for that person him/herself? No one did, because you have no right to do that. Freenet, it seems to me, is not about giving people the right to see what they wish; it's about taking away the ability to censor.
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ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
The guys over at L0pht (which I didn't see at the MIT Flea yesterday...) were working on such a system. I wonder if it's mothballed due to their newfound partnership with @Stake. Hm.
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My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
With todays climate of censorship, spying, and IP based lawsuits, we should all be very happy that projects such as Freenet exist. If it wasn't for these networks, we would all be living under a corporate thumb of opresion and consumerism.
Some may say that this day has already come, and projects such as Freenet are a last ditch attempt to save the few scraps of Freedom that we still have. I say that projects such as Freenet are a pre-emptive strick against the greedy corporations. We can fight back by hitting them where it hurts: in their pockets!
Sure, some people may be using Freenet to distrobute such things as child porn, or terrorist bomb making blueprints, but personally i think that is a small price to pay for the defence of our Freedom. Provided Freenet does not get detected and closed down by the corporate Police, we can continue to fight back against them by trading their "valuable" items, such as MP3's, DVD's, and applications. If enough of the worlds users can do this, we can really show the greedy corporations who's boss!
So i say Yay! for Freedom, even if it does have a small cost.
You're *badly* missing the point here. The whole point of Freenet is that it won't make any of your distinctions as to things that "shouldn't be kept alive" or "are not 'speech'". It moves information around with *no* value judgements whatsoever.
There's an alarming tendancy for people to jump and say "yeah, free speech!", when they really mean that they want the right to post DeCSS, speak out against The Man, or whatever else *they* feel is important. Defending someone else's right to say things which you personally find distasteful (to whatever degree) is a far more difficult thing as a person to do.
Trying to make Freenet a "much cleaner place than the web" is so far off the mark it's frightening.
Personally, I'm undecided on Freenet. I believe people should have the right to say things I don't like, but I'm not entirely convinced that they should be able to use my personal resources in order to be able to say them. I wouldn't try and use it to say the things I want to without taking the shit in return though...
Regards,
Tim.
Oh, yes, it is. All speech is speech. Even if you don't like it. I don't like the stuff you mentioned either, but I acknowledge its fundamental right to exist. Freenet is not a tool for bookburners.
Well technically you could define anything as speech since anything can be represented by information, but adopting this as a definition is meaningless. Speech is nothing more than what the public desires it to be, and I think most people would agree that child pornography has no right to be classed in the same league as the works of Mozart, Van Gogh or Shakespeare. And if the public doesn't want it, then they have a right to not have it.
To me, censorship is evil. End of story. Hmm, thinking about my comment about the bibles, if my kids wanted to read them, I wouldn't stop them, so maybe I'm not being such a hypocrit.
:)
Frankly, I agree about censorship being evil, by and large. But I do recognize the fact that there is some material out there that some kids, even many kids in some cases, aren't mature enough to handle. It then becomes a parent's duty to ward off things like that until the kid is mature enough to handle it reasonably.
Parents don't necessarily have a duty to control what their kids see, only a right. It only becomes a duty when the kid genuinely couldn't handle the information in question.
This does put a duty on a parent to watch the kid and try to determine what sorts of information the kid could or could not handle; you seem to have done this. You don't think your kids are mature enough to handle the Bible, so you hide it from them. Probably for the best, actually; your viewpoints on Christianity aside that's not a children's book (take a spin through the books of Judges, Leviticus, Song of Solomon... heck, most of the Old Testament... and you'll see what I mean). Even the famous stories told to children are watered-down versions. It does lead me to an honest question: have you read it yourself? Seems to me as though someone who's anti-Christian ought to at least know about the religion they don't like, and no better way than by looking into what's generally considered the definitive book on the subject
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Moral relativism? Me? Sorry if I find that completely hilarious; you've lost a degree of your anonymity by proving quite conclusively that you're nobody I know. No one who knows me would ever call me a moral relativist.
Then again, you should have been able to see that from what I wrote. Note that I said "all ideas have a fundamental right to exist." How do you get less relative than "all"? Even the opposite, "no," only ties it for non-relativism.
By the way, notice I only said "to exist." You don't have to agree with them, or even like them. Hell, you can hate ideas if you want to; there's ideas I could be said to hate. What you can't do is attempt to destroy them or silence them. There's a very good reason for that; as soon as you silence even one single voice, you put every voice in jeopardy. Including your own. Think about that for a moment; what if someone were to say moral absolutism should be banned? I doubt you'd be pleased. What, then, makes you think the banning of moral relativism would be any different?
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Yes, that's true. Largely, the problem with sex with children is that the culture doesn't support it. I don't think anyone's recommending huge cultural changes just so people can have sex with children, though :)
Thank you. As a pedophile, I've never been in a sexual relationship with a child or attempted to. (though I have no problem with consensual intergenerational relationships)
:) I actually pay attention to them and they notice. Children actually like that.
I'm not even around children much, but when I am, they really like me.
Why do some people assume that sexual attraction of children = desire to rape them? I have *no* desire to rape or molest a child!!! I enjoy making young girls happy, not hurting them. Most children who are molested are molested by rapists who are opportunists, not people with a preference towards children.
The way I understand Freenet and the Law, this can't happen. You see, it isn't possible to prove that your computer had or ever transmitted the DeCSS code before the official connected. If the official asks your computer for the DeCSS code, your computer will give it to him if it is stored in your freenet space, or start asking other nodes for it if it doesn't have it. After it has been requested, it will be stored on your machine, and all nodes in the path it found between the official's node and the one that had the code. But there's no way for the official's node to tell if it was originally on your machine or not. And I don't know the legal term for this, but I believe you can't be prosecuted for something that wouldn't have happened had it not been for the act of investigating. Example that was given to me: A cop works undercover posing as a prostitute, and arrests someone for soliciting her services. This person argues that they weren't planning on committing a crime until the cop was there tempting them, and they get off. Correct me if I'm wrong about the legal stuff here, but it would seem to apply even more strongly when it was the act of investigation that caused the "illegal" act and it occured with out my knowledge.
Looks like Fascdot is offering a try-before-you-buy deal to the trolls interested in buying his nick on ebay! :?)
Perhaps there would be a way to specify the type of information your node will handle (similar to the geek code). If the information has flags that explicitly don't match yours (or doesn't have flags at all) then that information is denied storage -- flags you don't specify are OK by default. This is policy, of course, and should be built on top of the underlying system, not into it.
"The issue at hand is that this user was flammed as a communist for simply wanting to control what information he personally disseminates. "
And this is where you are wrong. He wants to control what comes across his node of the network, but it's not information that he is 'personally' disseminating. It is just information that is flowing across a PUBLIC MEDIUM of which his system is now a part.
If he is able to censor that, what is the difference of say, a telelvision mogul wanting to keep mentions of the GPL off of TV? Or perhaps the government deciding that such and such books shouldn't be in libraries?
In each case there are resources that are owned and controled by an entity, and then put to public use. The idea behind free speech is that people shouldn't be limmited in what they say or think in any kind of public medium. Just like if you become a member of the Freenet you are giving your system up for public use. People are going to be able to say things that you don't like, but you have to deal with that, if you can't, then get out.
Free speech isn't something the government lets you have, it's something that a society should live by. Consider that this is a government of the people, and hardly anybody really seems to be able to deal with free speech on a personal level. This persons statement is just one more example of that. When I stop and think that most people think this way, It's really no wonder our rights are constantly getting trampled.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Since when does supporting freedom of speech mean supporting what people say with it?
You don't need to support it. You don't necessarily SUPPORT it by hosting it, you're making their speech POSSIBLE.
If I see a skinhead standing on a street corner handing out NAZI propaganda, because I support his right to speak, I will not do anything to silence him. But I am not going to stand there alongside him handing out flyers as well and support his message .
Its not comparable. What's comparable is as follows. You own a "public plaza" where people walk. Would you let the nazi stand there and hand out his propaganda? If not, would you let OTHERS stand there and hand out THEIR propaganda?
I would definitively let him hand out his propaganda on my plaza if I would let others do it. He should have the same right to distribute his information, as others should have. I would on the other hand strongly oppose his stance, and I would even go so far as print out my own brochures and stand alongside him handing out information that rebuffed his.
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"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
* Using thermal noise, it is theoreticly possible to determine the temperature of the noise source, thus the noise is information, not noise :).
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
BTW for those that are wondering, yes, I am anti-christian (and religion in general), but only on a personal level, I will never tell anybody else not to be one, except possibly my kids, and really, if they are going to be religious, I want them to make that decision with thought, not blindly.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Yes, perhaps the biggest difference between Freenet and Gnutella is the amount of thought that went into each :). Really, though, Freenet is all
(well, mostly) about anonymity, and that's impossible to keep with a
centralised server, no matter how good its intentions (because the FBI can
get silly things like warrants).
Seriously, the poster mentioned drug-making material - if you think it should be possible to remove drug-making information, then how would you stop the Islamic nations from removing any tobacco growing or brewery related information from freenet?
Actually, for Freenet to work well, it needs a lot of *permanent* nodes. I suppose dial-up/cable nodes are better than nothing, though.
Things like instructions for making drugs, race hate literature and pornography are not "speech", and should not benefit from the protections built into Freenet.
I do not know what country you are from, but in the US these things definately are considered speech, and therefore are protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment was set up specifically to protect politically unpopular speech, such as those listed. The Supreme Court has consistently held that First Amendment protections do cover these areas. There are limitations to the 1A, however, such as libel, issues of "national security", and such. But it is more than likely that anything that will be posted to Freenet is protected by the Constitution.
I know this annoys some people. This annoyance makes me happy.
- Rev.I won't get into your bit about implying that the current laws dictate morality (unless I inferred wrongly).
Moderate this parent UP please. It's the essence of the philosophy surrounding Freenet.
Think of the Freenet-network as a "virtual airspace". Why should someone ban some kinds of speech in certain areas? That's not free speech, that's monitoring and censorship.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
you own a public plaza? dude. you cannot own a public plaza. think. skinhead should be able to use truly public plaza. if anyone hassles him, i defend skinhead. skinhead tries to use my private driveway, i hassle skinhead. why should my private driveway (or backyard) be required to be available to skinhead? and by not letting skinhead use my driveway, i'm the fascist? um...no.
Since yours obviously do not, the way you can assert your ethics is simply not to run a Freenet node, and maybe by sending some money to one of the organisations who are on your side (MPAA, AFA, the Chinese communist government, etc).
Ok, don't you think you are a little out of line here? Making a personal choice about what information you personally want to help distribute does not equate to a communist mentality. Like the poster said, they do NOT think content they personally object to should be banned from the system, they just don't want to help spread it. Just because a certain behavior is within a person's rights does not mean that I have to condone (and facilitate) that behavior.
Well now.. who is exploiting who?
It would seem to me that an integral part of the freedom of speech is trusting your citizens (users) with the ability to determine for themselves what is worth participating in (listening to, reading, viewing, etc.). I'm not talking about removing content from the entire network, just my box. If you do not even give the users the right to determine what they want to traffic on their own servers, where is the freedom in that?
Speak truth to power.
Duuh.. Just don't install Freenet on your computer. Either you're for free speech, in all forms, or you're against it ;-)
Suppressing ideas with potential bad influence have never worked well. You can imprison, torture and execute the people but the ideas always remains in some form. Later they return to haunt the living.
Free speech allows people to communicate so they can understand and teach each other better. Not all free speech is what you can call constructive, but always has the potential to resolve conflicts.
This extends to all endeavours in life, be it both abusal- and healthy relationships.
Making speech free may have some bad short-term effects, but that's just because free speech have been suppressed for so long. This happened when Internet became publicly accessible, and it will happen with FreeNet. However, FreeNet is more capable than TPC/IP and NNTP for keeping people's freedom.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Listen, no matter what you want to call it, its function is the same. Freenet's viability DEPENDS on data being sent to hosts that don't even request it. If people want to act as if it's a magic bullet for solving GNUtella's recursive query problems, then they must not ignore its critical nature--they can't have their cake and eat it too. Merely saying it is "caching" does not solve your problems. To put it in Freenet's founder's own words: "Just as systems such as distributed.net enable ordinary users to share unused CPU cycles on their machines, Freenet enables users to share unused disk space." In other words, sharing free HD space/mirroring/caching/pushing is key.
It may perform a few other minor tricks, but that system is what sets it apart from GNUtella. As for "clues", we'll see what you say when it fails to support a viable mp3 community.
Freenet is meant to be international. There isn't any international agreement on what is "rubbish". In the US the things you mention are constitutionally protected. In Holland not only is cannabis growing information legal, but so is growing the cannabis and smoking it. In England (and, I would have thought, most countries) a lot of pornography is legal, and is used by happy consenting adults to enhance beautiful relationships. In some countries pictures of women's legs are immoral.
The usual way of handling your personal values is that if you are homophobic, you avoid gay bars, if you don't like pornography, don't buy any, and if you don't want your children making drugs, teach them about why you think it is bad. You do not have to impose your values on everyone else on the entire planet, with a multitude of diverse cultures and value systems, most of which are unlikely to be anything like yours. I wouldn't suggest that the whole world bans sprouts, just because I don't like them.
Those interested can head over to http://www.spiritweb.org. This is a fairly extensive center of many religions and beliefs. If you think religion is all about Mary, Jesus and lambs, you're sadly mistaken. There are many sound religions out there, but also many crackpots or confused people.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
It's a distributed caching architecture. All copies are created as a reaction to user-driven interaction with the network. Joe clicks a button, sending a request to Cache1, which sends a request to Cache4, which sends a request to Cache314, which sends a request to Cache1425, which has the actual document, creating up to three new copies of the file as it travels to Joe.
This is the essence of Freenet, and it's a pull architecture, bucko.
The only exceptions to this would be initial insertion (which would be a tiny fraction of all requests), and any potential future optimisations to the system, which would assuredly take into account scalability concerns.
-
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
you've defended someone's right to say something you morally oppose.
Until then, it's just posturing.
I think he's entirely in line. It is you who isn't.
If you don't want people to be able to say what they want to, then don't run a Freenet node. It's that simple.
(oh, and also, please don't run for public office. We've got enough of your sort already)
-
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
I think you have a false idea of what a "working group" is. It is nothing like bureaucracy. The IETF has always been very open and very efficient in its structure. It's more about radically dissociating the implementation from the protocol, which is an essential step in producing a "standard" that is not a mere description of what a program does (in the same idea, for an RFC to become a Draft Standard it must have two independently developped implementations). It's about thinking before you act, and letting some well-known Internet experts give you advice.
You (and others) react as though I had attacked the idea of Freenet. I haven't. I think it's great. But I fear there's too much emphasis on the "let's implement it" rather than on the careful definition of a well-thought protocol. The implementation is nothing: the only important thing is the protocol. Of course we must fear the reverse pitfall, where the standard (like many W3 standards) never gets implemented because it was devised without any thought as to implementation. But the Internet is also too full of protocols that were engineered toward one single implementation.
And an IETF working group is the natural framework for developing a protocol. Remember: you don't need to be member of anything to do this (the IETF has no permanent members). It will bring the attention of experts who are able to address the problem of integrating the protocol defined in the mass of other existing standards. And it will bring recognition, quite simply.
Ben Franklin actually said: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
My initial interest was to see what kind of content was available right now. Specifically, whether the content that could get mirrored at my machine if I ran the server was likely to be a worthwhile use of resources, or indeed likely to get me put in jail. Looking at the public key listings (indexes of content) on the project big-wigs' web pages, I was struck by the fact that the guy with the most content was mainly hosting MP3s, porn and copies of current best-selling books. I didn't see any warez on the list, but going by what is there already, how long is it likely to be before it floods with 0-day? Is this really what 'the community' should be getting behind? Maybe I misunderstood which community the parent comment was refering to? I was thinking of the Internet community, but maybe they meant the piracy community?
It could be that one day typing in http:// will be just as arcane as typing in gopher://, who knows at this point. It is my hope, and I'm sure that many others share it, that this will remain a rather underground and less industrialized effort. The commercialization of the internet and WWW has done very little overall good. True, good has come of it, but I believe more trouble has been brought down on us by it than anything good.
V
I don't like the idea of totally untrackable access. Freenet gives the perfect tool for spreading copyrighted software and music. While many think that it serves them right, it is illegal no matter how much that software or music costs.
But I'm even more concerned about child pornography and other dark sides of man. If those sickos can't be tracked, we've just created the perfect tool for child abusers. And frankly, I can't believe that this kind of freedom or anonymity is more important than human rights of the victims of these criminals.
Personal feelings aside, Freenet is also dangerous to the internet. As much as some people would love it, the society can never be free. If you want a safe society, you have to compromise a bit with your own privacy. The politicians and authorities know this and want to keep it this way. So if Internet suddenly becomes totally anonymous, there will be legislation and international agreements to bad all anonymous internet traffic. It will be severly restricted and all rogue countries will be banned. Just look at the land mines to get an idea.
At this point, it could really just use any nodes. For the long term, I agree, but until we get a few more point versions, it really needs the stress test.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
"Those who would sacrafice freedom for security deserve neither." - Ben Franklin
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The Freenet guys are ultimately hoping to have a "subversion-mode" dist of Freenet which will be completely hardened to identification as Freenet traffic, and that sounds fuckin cool :-)
-=20
-=20
me doesn't live for do [DEPRECATED]
Freenet, if it even works, is designed in such a way that'll never be able to fulfill the current purpose of either Napster or GNutella. To boil the concept down to its essentials, Freenet works on a philosophy of PUSHING highly requested data around to its servers and can only be requested by a unique identifier; whereas GNUtella essentially works on a query and pull concept. It may work well for relatively small, yet infamous, text files and the like (i.e., DeCSS). But it'll simply never be able to rise the occassion of distributing gigabytes upon gigabytes of data. For one, even without redundancy, all the the popular music is still at least 800 gigabytes. Secondly, since there is no standard naming or provider of these files, there is a high degree of redundancy. i.e., hundreds of people will encode differently and give it a different file name. So we're really talking about terabytes of data to get it all. The problem is that, given the ad hoc strucure of mp3 suppliers/servers and listeners, all of this data must be pushed around (i.e., transfered) and stored. It simply can't work.
The long version: Most likely the corporations will sue/prosecute the creators and major hosts of FreeNet. They'll also try to buy new laws/force big nodes into installing mandatory censoring firewalls at major routers (even funding this effort, or simply make'em outsource it on behalf of the "free market"-slogan). Expect draconian monitoring and punishments for breaking copyright, DMCA, UCITA, shrinkwrap-licenses and badly configured firewalls. On-line schemes where people can rat on each other will pop-up as "free services to strengthen the community moral". The bought-out media will tout propaganda explaining all of this necessary to protect "consumer rights" -- That FreeNet is full of phedophile hacking-freeriders conspiring to cast society back into primitive stoneage.
The short version: The beast of capitalism will reveal itself. d;-)
- Steeltoe
Human -> Citizen -> Customer -> Consumer. The power of the word says all about trends in power.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
...but when will we get a Free Beer version of Freenet? I'll gladly donate my empty beer bottles so people can store their beer in them. As long as it's Free Beer, I don't care what kind of beer it is. Kiddy Beer? Nazi Propaganda Beer? Gimme!
Java comes along. Java is C++ with all of the powerful innards stripped out, so now you can't do things as quickly or efficiently. To compensate for this loss of speed, Java is interpreted.
:)
powerful innards? - oh you mean Multiple Inheritance , Operator Overloading, and Dangling Pointers
That garbage was taken out because of the unmaintable code that it helped to create.
If you need the speed of c for writing something like a 3D shooter then use it!
The issues that freenet has are not related to application speed but bandwith, and that is definetly a language independant problem.
But if you still need some of those "power innards" write JNI code for your java to use.
BTW, have you taken a look at IBM's JDK1.3 for linux? It might not be the language to write something like OpenGL in yet, but it's JIT compilier breaks the bytecode down fast as hell.
Ridiculous, simplistic argument. Classic slashdot.
Don't fight it son. Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardise your credit rating.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Who mentioned closed doors? IETF working groups are as open as you can get. Internet working drafts and RFCs are public documents. They get ample public scrutiny. Much more than Yet Another open source project on sourceforge in which the protocol and the implementation are hopelessly tangled.
What I am saying is that the implementation is far less important than the definition of the protocol. It should serve as a Proof of Concept, but it should not lead the way. The two should be kept separate enough.
Here, here! One of the first reasonable things I've read on the topic. Remember: if all pedophiles are molesters then all humans are rapists.
(Regular Slashdotter submitting anonymously for obvious reasons.)
I may not be a "techie", but i dont dl porn all day on my shiny new mac from the newest "wicked cool" hotline server. but then, I guess that makes me not l33t like your self. *sign*, back to my console.
(macs dont really suck, didnt think anyone would actually reply to my bait, sorry)
Moderators, what are you doing! This post is not 'interesting', it's 'flamebait' at best!
Or maybe you could consider it funny, if you like satire, but certainly not 'interesting'.
It basically states that, if someone does not want to participate in Freenet, he must be a supporter of the Chinese communist government, etc.
Since this is so obviously bullshit I don't even feel like explaing it, I don't understand why it is at +3.
(If you don't agree that it is bullshit, ask me and I will explain into great detail why I think it is).
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
Hehe, yeah, but why pick on something so easily attackable?
;-P
Oh yeah, forgot some people are bullies
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
You can't, whether you run a Freenet node or not.
If your machine is connected to the internet, it's probably forwarding packets full of kiddie porn, white supremacist bullshit and a thousand other flavours of poison all the time. If your machine uses a dialup connection, you're just paying someone else to forward those packets. The only change when you start running a Freenet node is how long you sit on the data.
It's important that Freenet node operators can't (easily) filter the contents of the datastore, because if they could, a node operator could be held responsible for the contents of the datastore if he didn't filter it. Would you want to be held accountable for the contents of every packet passing through your machine (or your ISP's machine)?
Warez happens, freenet won't change that either by it's existence or lack of existence. What freenet *does* provide is a way to make it impossible to censor. Frankly, I could give a damn about the warez angle, so long as I can guarantee that important information won't be suppressed.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Yeah, really I am wondering if there are any math-geeks who are trying to figure out if freenet is actually even feasible...or will it just turn into p0rn-net and be overflooded with garbage.
;)
The parent post gets me thinking...sure we open source people hate paying for stuff right? (well, no not exactly, but stay with me here)...but think for a second...what *if* we all decided to pay some pocket change every month to participate in a "new" internet like mojonation (or whatever). If Slashdot, and the other sites people usually peruse, were on mojonation, would anybody care about that other internet anyway? If this second sub or super net starts gaining critical mass, wouldn't, by necessity, everybody else have to flock towards it? Maybe we can change things. Or maybe I'm just having pipe dreams
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Freenet is good, it came up with some pretty neat ideas, but it would be better if it had been developped and thought out in advance in the context of an IETF working group, if the specifications had been released as a Request For Comments, and, in other words, if it had paid a little more attention to existing Internet standards instead of being Yet Another anti-censorship system.
For example, why did Freenet have to come up with their own key scheme instead of using the official standard of Uniform Resource Names (URNs) defined by RFC2141 (the previous link was an example of a URN)?
I have this dream of a true world-wide distributed database founded on recognized Internet standards. It would use URNs as keys. (In particular, it would allow arbitrary Unicode character data.) It would use the ubiquitous RDF format as "semantic sugar" (pardon the expression) of its communications. It would borrow ideas from HTTP (the best Internet communications protocol we have so far) for the protocol, and Usenet and Freenet for the distribution mechanisms, as well as the public key distribution system and trust web, and the everything system. It would use public-key cryptography as the basis for its trust graph, so as to make data authentification possible and tampering impossible. Certificates and signatures would be distributed along the network itself. It would employ secret sharing mechanisms to split the risks of carrying certain data. It would be impossible to tamper with, impossible to censor, and extremely difficult to break. It would replace the lousy and obsolete DNS system (and also alleviate somewhat the power of "root registrars" in the DNS), and possibly The Web itself. And, to make my dream even more of a dream, it would be simple to implement.
Hmmm.... Nice project, for the year 2100 or so. Anyone care to start an IETF working group?
Maybe we should neuter everyone in case someone decides to rape someone else. Maybe we should ban guns in case someone decides to go on a shooting spree. The point is that in both cases, there are dangers. But that doesn't mean that you should make them illegal. In fact, it's ludicrous. Yes! Let's ban free speech in case someone decides to pirate warez.
no sig
These days I can run DSL connections hither and yon and it looks like they act like frame relay (At least from what I could tell from when I had my first DSL line installed.) We could very conceivably wire up an entire private network outside the Internet.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
reminds me a lot of the general public impression of the Internet a few years back, as a place where only geeks, bomb-makers, or kiddie porn people hung out
While I mirror the sentiments of the other posters to this thread, I would like to point out that freenet is not a *storage* system, it's a *distribution* system. Documents are stored in a cache and flushed when they are no longer requested.
If there truly is "rubbish" on freenet, it will never be requested, and thus it will fall off the cache relatively quickly, leaving freenet nicely uncluttered.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Whenever I think of Freenet, I always come to the conclusion that it's distributed content nature is very good for the growth of bandwidth. Who here on Slashdot wouldn't love a fiber line feeding right into his/her home? I sure wouldn't mind... :-)
But has anyone ever considered the consequences if everyone had fiber to the home? If you thought the internet was bogged down now, imagine the servers trying to serve all that extra content. Imagine trying to saturate all the connections of a /.ed site. (shudder)
The present problems stem from centralized content delivery. One connection to the net and a set of servers delvering content over that line. Well with Freenet, content is distributed, so one site will never be bogged down and /.ing will be a thing of the past. The closest node will deliver content, so line saturation(and full use of that fiber) comes naturally.
But I see a big potential problem with this kind of distributed system. Intellectual Property and Copyright. We've all seen companies going after domain names because of trademarks, and the same would apply to their coporate websites.
If content was distributed ala Freenet, corporations would no longer have control of that content; the Freenet architecture would. Freenet would decide how the information was to be distributed. Because of the caching inherent in the Freenet architecture(which solves the bandwidth problems), copies of the website would be distributed to millions of computers all over the world instead of being in one mangageable place(ie. their own server). I don't think any corporation would like that very much. The lack of control is especially frightening to them.
Of course, I could be wrong about any of the things I have just said, so please correct me if I am.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
meaning that Freenet cannot be attacked like centralized peer-to-peer systems such as Napster
This is all very good in theory - but I've found that Gnutella (another non-centralized peer-to-peer system, albeit without the encryption layers) suffers as a result of this - with no central servers your packets may be routed through potentially hundreds of systems.
FreeNet must overcome this (although I am glad to see that intelligent routing is being worked on and improved!) if it is going to be viable.
-Tom
Looks like the moderators have their work cut out for them... And, in an attempt to stay on-topic... is there going any attempt to benchmark the different kinds of peer-to-peer networks (Gnutella, Freenet, etc..) to see which one is "best" as far as how bandwidth it uses (for a particular sub-network), how long it takes to search and retrieve a file, etc... as time goes by, it might interesting to rebenchmark the services again, to see if there's any change in the way it uses bandwidth. One good reason for this is that there's been a lot of complaints about how these "decentralized" networks sucks up a lot of bandwidth.
People keep on touting the anonymous aspect of freenet and gnutella. The problem is, is that it doesn't really matter where the data originates or where it ends up. Now, encryption makes it very difficult to peek at data being transmitted between nodes, but the last node on the chain gets decrypted data, and can finger the machine that it was received from. No, I'm not talking about the originator of the data, rather, the last system that packets physically came from.
You see, it's against the law to transmit some types of data, be it child porn, warez, or whatever. If that type of data is coming from your system, too bad, you are breaking the law. This was almost the case with ISPs until laws were passed protecting them from their customer's use of their networks, but guess what? There are no laws protecting you from yourself! If an official connects to your node and downloads the DeCSS code, they can come take your system(s) and charges can be filed. Why? Because the decrypted, "illegal" data, was received from your system, and that's all that matters. If you feel that running freenet relieves you from your responsiblity for data transmissions from your systems, according to the law, you would be wrong, unless, of course, you are an ISP.
Basically, if you run freenet, you assume the risk, just like if you setup an anonymous ftp server allowing uploads, you assume the risk.
Somebody please correct me if I am mistaken, but with the laws that we have in place, that's how I see things.
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.
The sheer amount of effort going into this project just leaves me thinking "wow"...
After all, this goes back to the original ethic of the Internet, the ability to share things freely, post things around, and generally be pretty laid back about things.
The sad thing about it is that it's become as necessary as it has.. What with the legal vultures leaping onto everything in an attempt to make it theirs, and stopping people doing anything they either don't understand, or don't agree with.
Malk.
I like to think I know howto run software...but for some reason no matter what I do I can't get freenet to run at all....and gnutella...well I figure I should get at least a few results from somthing like mp3.
Oops....you'll know what I'm talkin about in a bit.
For freenet to really take off, it's going to need the support of the community. We need to all install freenet nodes where we can to ensure the growth and acceptance. The more people that get on the freenet, the more the network itself can be tested and stressed.
:)
If we all talk about it, it will never happen. But we have the power to make it as important and standard as anyone. Look at our plans of world domination with Linux!
If we can kindle the same passion for a secure and safe internet, I am sure that the freenet idea can be driven to a high standard of acceptance. I am sure the last thing any control-seeking organization wants to have happen is the mass acceptance of a decentralized encrypted network.
it's very easy to download and install.
It doesn't chew up much bandwidth to run a node.
I doubt it will be long before someone hacks in a Freenet client into Mozilla, or another open source browser such as Conqu or Galeon.
I really believe that it's quite important for the community to rally behind this effort... if we don't accept it, nobody will.
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Freenet does not push data around. Data moves around the network in response to requests, ie it is pulled, and in a much more efficient manner than Gnutella (no broadcasting).
You will not find dozens of identical versions of a file on Freenet, because when a document is inserted into Freenet its key is generated by hashing the data. That means that two identical copies of a document will have identical keys, and thus they will never be stored redundantly on the same node.
The amount of data stored is, as far as I can see, irrelevant. I don't understand where your hundreds of gigabytes/terabytes argument is coming from at all. Unlike Gnutella, Freenet should be able to scale to thousands or millions of nodes without breaking up into isolated islands. Maybe your concern about the size of "all the popular music" is based on the idea that Freenet is meant to be a Napster replacement? It's not. But if people want to use Freenet to trade MP3s, and they're willing to provide the disk space, it's certainly up to the task.
I wish that were possible. I hate it when my own tax money is used against me.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
But really, what is this technology going to be used for primarily? Probably something illegal.
Since when is it wrong to do things that are illegal?
people are going to view this as is a system that will be able to thwart Big Brother, aka the government and big business.
Well, that is one of the things that it can do. "It's a feature, not a bug!"
Ofcourse we need to protect the freedom of speech, especially in a medium like the Internet. I just hope it's done legally.
This is an oxymoron. When laws are created that constrain individual freedom, and when court decisions prohibit people even from talking about these issues, it's not possible for individuals to "protect freedom of speech... legally". We must break the law, or live as sheep.
is it possible to track this kind of rubbish and remove it, along with users who upload/download it? Keeping it free of this crap will mean that Freenet will be a much cleaner place than the web
Attention FlatPack: The FreeNet is being built because people like you exist. "Lets censor FreeNet" is what you are saying. Fucking Wake up! All censorship for -any- reason is A Bad Thing(tm). Information should never become chattel - it draws a very close line to speech and thought. Ever hear of DeCSS(2600 & the coders)? What about mp3.com? These people are being crucified because corporatists dont agree with giving them the ability to see/discuss/link/read(view) 'IP' they believe they alone have rights to. What they have done is moral, they have not committed a crime. The only thing they have done wrong is jeopardize the 'profit scheme' devised by some Corporatists. When did profit become more 'right and just' than the free will of citizens? Do you want 'thought control'? With advocating the FreeNet you must.
Flatpack: Surely you dont want GovCorp to control all speech and thought? This is where we are headed... unfortunately I think relying on FreeNet to defend ourselves is much to passive a position. Its time to starting thinking about rebuilding a fair and just democracy for citizens - and NOT corporations.
I have tried Blocks which is a similar program to Freenet except it also has search facilities.
Any one else heard of Blocks? What I am curious about is whether Blocks is as secure as Freenet because Blocks certainly seems more functional at this moment in time although there are only a few nodes on the network at present. Having a search facility is a big +.
I would like to use a system I can feel safe uploading stuff onto. I'm sure allot of others would too.
Noise
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
"If a man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately, he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case are superfluous."
-- UnknownPrevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
As for redundant data, only time will tell, but I think it will work nicely. If for no other reason, redundancy will be minimized with the use of identifying metadata (ie "Artist", "Title"), and when searching is implemented in Freenet, I can see it working as well as other systems in those aspects, and better in all the others. (See? I'm optimistic.)
-=20
-=20
me doesn't live for do [DEPRECATED]
Check out infoAnarchy, a site that has regular news and links to all file sharing systems.
The idea of a more "free" network built on top of the current one is something I thing we're going to need more and more in the current climate of censorship and oppressive legislation, but I'd like to know if it is possible for Freenet users to be indentified, either through the content they upload or their behaviour whilst online.
Whilst there is a lot of information which certain national governments would rather have suppressed that deserves to kept alive, there is also a lot of stuff on the internet which shouldn't be kept alive, but which will quite likely attempt to preserve itself through services like Freenet. Things like instructions for making drugs, race hate literature and pornography are not "speech", and should not benefit from the protections built into Freenet.
So what I want to know is - is it possible to track this kind of rubbish and remove it, along with users who upload/download it? Keeping it free of this crap will mean that Freenet will be a much cleaner place than the web, and it will also attract less attention from governments looking for their next target.
I'm not sure that we have all this information that needs to be distributed right now and can't be. Sure, make the argument of DeCSS being illegal. Who DOESN'T have a copy that wants one? Napster, which will probably be declared illegal and shut down, is still running.
Ofcourse we need to protect the freedom of speech, especially in a medium like the Internet. I just hope it's done legally. Establish precedents and prove why information should be shared.
--trb
http://www.mojonation.com for users and
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http://www.mojohackers.org for developers
Decentralization, file encyption and micro payments. True, the whole Mojo economy is still in a beta state (right now there is an abundance of available space and not a whole lot of content...this tends to cheapen the value of free space and mess with the economy) but in only two months it's gone from something that wouldn't even run on my WinNT system to something that I have been able to publish many files and have my friends those files by just sending them a nice little URL.
Check it out. Right now we need some good open content to fill up all the available blocks and start putting the system through its paces.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Why is this such a big deal? Hasn't anyone ever tried Hotline or Carracho? These applications aren't exactly peer to peer, but anyone interested in serving out any kind of software can run a server and have it listed on a 3rd party tracker.. and anyone interested in downloading anything can use the client, hook up to a tracker and browse a list of a few hundred servers. People have been able to download MP3's off of Hotline a lot longer than with Napster, but because Hotline doesn't have servers with copyrighted material on their personal tracker, no legal action can be taken against them. Doesn't look as easy as Freenet, but come on...
The question that pops into my head when I consider the ramifications of FreeNet:
How can I ensure that my machine is not involved in the trafficking of content that I don't support?
I think a lot of people who find FreeNet interesting immediately imagine all the victimless pilfering that can go on. "RIAA can't shut us down!" I'm not talking about free movies. I'm not talking about cracked Win2K warez. I'm not talking about the source code and inflammatory emails that were leaked from MegaCorp's development department the day before the stock price plunged.
Once you are a node, it seems you give up your right to have any control of what's hosted on your own computer. You become a member of the collective. You are a cog in a machine, without any ability to have any context.
John Doe may like kiddie porn, GHB date rape drug recipes, tips on how to spot vulnerable SUVs for car-jacking, Aryan Nation websites, and abortion clinic hit-lists. I don't. Look for it elsewhere.
If you want that sort of information, I don't want to be a party to it. I'm not talking about legalities. I'm not talking about censoring all of FreeNet from that information. I'm talking about my own ethic.
I don't want to have the feeling, that information resides somewhere on the server I've installed with my own time, money and energy, that could kill someone, or exploit someone against their will.
This isn't "cover my ass", this is "sleep well at night."
[
Childeren are impressionable. They do not have the mental ability to decide if something like sex is right or wrong. Try engaging in an in depth conversation with your rape victims sometime. ask them about current events and youre going to ehar about the picture they drew or what they did in school today. You aren't going to hear the child rant about the current presidential election or have them express a concern for world hunger.
let me ask you this.. how do you pick up you victims? do you call thier parents and ask them if it's ok if they come over for some "erotic training"? or do you just lure them with time honored traditions of offering them candy or toys or WHATEVER? If you're so sure that your in the right, give the parents of the childer you rape a call and ask them how they feel about it.
i think you seriously need to be repeatedly gang raped i prison before you'll understand this.
I just didn't want to trip on the cord as I was bringing the set out to the trash. I have a half eaten squash and a pair of canvas shoes that my cat pissed on going out to the trash this week. Keep your eyes open!
damn i wish i hadn't just used up all my moderation points...
lf.o
Again, read the specs.
It's still a pull architecture at heart, so your assertion that it won't scale because it's a push architecture is erroneous at best.
Secondly, there is no standard for naming files, period, regardless of the distribution mechanism. Gnutella and Napster suffer the same problem.
You can't force me to name Tori Amos's 'Sugar' anything in particular. If I feel like naming it Don Quixote, the Remix, then that's my business, and you can kindly bugger off.
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Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
I seriously doubt that.
Most people are running Windows and haven't a clue how to use their PC as a router.
but I'll be proven correct. ;)
Let's hope that Lars doesn't ruin it for all of us. Seriously, stop buying their new albums; they oppose network development in all its forms unless we pay up the Metallica tariff.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Freenet, it seems to me, is not about giving people the right to see what they wish; it's about taking away the ability to censor.
And there lies the rub. If you're a FreeNet host, you have lost the right to control your own computer. You will be forced to traffic information you do not agree with. You will be complicitous against your will.
Doesn't sound so free to me.
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Got Rhinos?
well, the MPAA and/or the RIAA have sued every other peer-to-peer network that's come up, which one's going to get this one? And who do you think they'll sue? the owners of the web site? the "piratical developers"?