Slashdot Mirror
Ian Clarke on Peer-to-Peer
Simone of O'Reilly writes "On Freenet, the more popular information gets, the more copies it
generates--and the easier it is to find and download. That's just one
significant feature of this promising peer-to-peer network. Freenet
inventor Ian Clarke may not be talking about his new company, Uprizer,
but he has a lot to say about how decentralized architectures can fix
what ails the Internet. Here's the interview." We've heard from Clarke before, but this is an interesting piece.
The great thing about the Internet now is that I, as an individual, can publish pretty much anything. I can write music and put it out, I can write fiction and put it out where people can come by and access it. Until the early 90s this was just not possible. If my stuff is not enormously popular - so what - people who enjoy that kind of thing can still get it. I can publish to my heart's content and the few hundred readers can read it. Similarly, I can go and get obscure stuff myself - something that wasn't possible before the internet showed up in its current form due to publishing barriers.
But Freenet will just drop this stuff because it's not popular - and this seems like a retrograde step to me. It re-erects those old barriers to publishing that the Internet is destroying - and eventually, Freenet just holds what the Sheeple want. We end up with a network that's no better than TV or the print press - containing only what's popular. We end up with masses of Britney Spears or Blink 182, but you can't find something like the Bottom Feeders or Bradley N. Litwin.
So to summarize: Automatic for the Sheeple.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
According to the K5 article, Stirling advocated the implementation of laws requiring that ID-tags be affixed to data transversing the Freenet.
"I propose a law requiring a transparent tag showing origin and history on any file on any server, and that the file be immediately accessible on request. The authorities should develop and send out a "sniffer" intelligent agent program to detect files not meeting these criteria. Immediately shut down any server/node that doesn't reply properly. With really... severe... penalties for anyone owning hardware harboring pirate files. Sufficient to make them take elaborate precautions not to do so."
Furthermore,
Stirling claims that he talked to the FBI, who told him that they have the ability to penetrate Freenet's anonymity. I suspect that either they were (a) blowing happy smoke Stirling's way, or (b) they were thinking of Carnivore catching the evil copyright violator's insertion at the ISP, before it actually enters the Freenet.
To some extent, I can empathize with Stirling's fears as an author -- I wouldn't necessarily want someone to reproduce my copyrighted works with impunity and scatter to texts to the winds. However, I find Stirling's "draconian" (to use his own words) reaction unsettling.
I'm wondering about the possibility of Stirling's proposed restrictions to Freenet. Are such measures feasible (legally and technologically)?
Sincerely,
Vergil
Insects and Grafitti Photos
As a Freenet developer, I feel compelled to correct some of the inaccuracies being presented by commentors as fact.
"Freenet is an attempt to replace the web." - This is more true than saying that Freenet is a replacement for Napster, but it's still not true. Freenet is better than the web in a couple of ways, mainly anonymity and decentralization. If you don't need these features, then by all means use the web.
"You can't create Slashdot on Freenet because Freenet doesn't have dynamic content." - Sure you can. A web forum was already created, but is currently being overhauled. We already have a web frontend and newsgroups, mail, and hyperlinked documents in Freenet. A web forum is just an HTML frontend to a newsgroup with some bells and whistles. The reason that they use dynamically generated pages is because they use RDMS backends so that the servers can handle the load. Since the load in Freenet is distributed, this isn't necessary. Sometimes you really do need dynamically generated content, but in the case of web forums it's mostly just a performance enhancement.
"Popular == worthless. Freenet will be filled with worthless stuff." - Popularity is local, not global. If you connect to your friends instead of random strangers then the local network will be filled with items of shared interest.
"The problem with Freenet is that unpopular items are dropped." - Popularity is local, not global. You want items that no one in your local network is requesting to disappear. Files go to where they are wanted and disappear from where they are not wanted.
"I can't trust the information that I get out of Freenet." - We have tamper-proof keys that rely on digital signatures and content hashes. If you are worried about authenticity, then use those.
"Freenet must track what people request because it knows what is popular. That leaves an audit trail that compromises anonymity." - Popularity is local, not global. Your node discards items that have not been requested in a while. There is no global rating or tracking of any kind.
"Freenet requires a high-speed connection" - No, but it would certainly be nice.
Ian wants to basically replace the web with freenet and has said as much. But what he doesn't get is that he is not going to replace the web as we know it with static documents (which is all freenet serves up).
Come on, how could a web site like slashdot possibily exist in freenet? It couldn't. It is simply too dynamic, too frequently updated, and reliant on a coherent and consistent database of comments and articles that simply cannot exist in a distributed network.
Freenet will be a boon for the archival of static and infrequently updated content and web sites, but for anything more dynamic, freenet fails to offer a solution - and as such will nicely complement, but never replace the web.
-josh