IEEE Computing Covers Freenet

Rayban writes: "From the Freenet Project homepage: IEEE Internet Computing has an article (pdf) entitled 'Protecting Free Expression Online with Freenet.' It provides an excellent technical introduction to the core ideas behind Freenet."

Comments

First Poster.

[cjc84]

Im first, as in first place. Ha ha. Slashdot.org is awesome. Anonymous cowards are dumb.

Re:First Poster.

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn about the apostrophe smart guy.

Horoscopes for the troll wars!

[RoboTroll]

Aires
Aires, the other trolls are starting to tire of your self-delusional and selfish demeanor. You are not the one to lead the revolution. There is not even a revolution. In the coming days you should stray from your "blind and barbarous" charges into the frontlines of battle. Balance your self-aggrandizing trolls with humility or brotherhood. You blazed a trail through the e-wilderness but now you have blitzed your penis into a brick wall. Start looking for that balance with the universe and its inhabitants which you lack, lest you blindly and bluntly charge your erect manhood into ESRâ(TM)s sweaty, pulsing, and filthy anus. And you donâ(TM)t want to do that, do you?

Taurus
You provide foundation and structure to trolldom. If there be an Empire, then let its roots be your works. Yours is the first earthly manifestation of our combined and unified beauty, but now you have a choice. You can either lazily roam the fertile pastures and suck the sweet honey of victory, or you can help build Babel to the heavens. Beware, the former might lead to you sucking the semen from Tacoâ(TM)s cock, while the latter, although lifting you from your sacred footings and unnerving yourself, may prove to be the wisest choice.

Gemini
You have many talents. Your trolls can be beautifully written, exhibiting your natural communication talents. Your mind is quick and flighty. Have you ever realized the variety of your pieces? One night you might write a homosexual expose on Linux faggotry, while the next day it is a craftily written legitimate troll. Your dual nature puzzles most and maybe even yourself. Some might not even see it outright. De Broglie contends that all matter is a wave on some level. Are you a wave, wayward Gemini? Another example is that you are a troll but you revel in using open source programs. You hide yourself well. You are a whore in most ways. And as a whore you will never be fulfilled. You may have had your fun about a week ago, but now it is not your time. It will be a while before you pull yourself back together again. But stick around, the dregs take entertainment in your plights and facetious ways.

Cancer
Remember that time you once tried to troll? Remember when everyone laughed at your pitiful attempts? Remember how you withdrew immediately and started to masturbate wildly to Hentai? Remember how once you came the neurotransmitters immediately pulsed through your being and took you to a pleasant place? The lesson here is that you are a pussy-mama and have no trolling talents. Masturbation is not a talent, fool, and you will never have your love be accepted in trolldom, or the world for that matter.

Leo
You know those days when no one seems to be trolling? Well Leo, you are our light in those dark days. You carry the torch, albeit in a conceited and self-centered way, but nonetheless you keep the Path alive. The shadow has yet to hold us sway. Donâ(TM)t get to full off yourself, because while you can keep a warm castle for us, you canâ(TM)t build us an Empire. Know your limitations sir, and also take care not to trample over the visionaries that can take you to the Next Level.

Virgo
You trolling style reeks of prudishness. To spice your life, I recommend throwing in some good bathroom humor or homosexuality into your writings. Your endless crapflooding, although detailed and nonsensical, lacks something special. You are a machine, a practical worker for the cause. You can best manifest your greatness when you are working for someone else. You should find a good Gemini (yeah I know thatâ(TM)s an oxymoron), Libra, or Aquarius to give you inspiration and work. You need some mental stimulation right now. Actually, you could use any stimulation now, and for that, find a Libra.

Libra
Much like your cardinal counterpart Aires, you are a pioneer. But unlike Aires, your talent begins in the mind, inciting thousands of blood-thirsty trolls to rally to the cause. You lead is bond, and your bond is beauty. But did I mention youâ(TM)re a fake, arrogant bastard. Your superficial way canâ(TM)t last. Also, did you ever wonder why you rarely troll? Well, Iâ(TM)ll tell you. Youâ(TM)re an indecisive bastard. You start a story but then canâ(TM)t make up your mind over some unimportant detail. Becoming frustrated, you start jerking off to the homosexual undertones contained in your trolls. This is a mistake. Harness and channel your energy of creativity and destruction, and in the balancing of the two you might find success.

Scorpio
You are the true master of the art of covert trolling. Under the innocent guise of a harmless introvert lies a cold calculating killer brooding for the taste of blood and seminal fluids. You manipulate, scheme, lie, and sleep your way to the top. You could be a star in the sky, but you usually end up bound up in your own web of deceit. Sometimes you unconsciously look forward and plot this conclusion. In the depths of your sick twisted hell lies the key to transformation. The phoenix is birthed in the abyss, only to catch ablaze and fly soaring to the heavens. This probably wonâ(TM)t happen to you though.

Sagittarius
You have the ability to show us "The True Path", but you would rather drink yourself to oblivion with a bunch of forest nymphs. Honestly, who here wouldnâ(TM)t do that? I have a desire to party with the forest nymphs tonight. Sag, let us hang out, drink much stout and wine, and fornicate with some nymphs. Fuck trolling, my carnal nature calls.

Capricorn
Always trying, always failing, always overcoming. Are you part of the allied forces, or do you contribute to the vile structure that threatens us all? Nobody recognizes your struggles because you manage to write in an earthy and uninspired monotone. What does this mean? Well, I donâ(TM)t know exactly what it means but I do know that youâ(TM)re a homosexual.

Aquarius
We all have problems, but you, Aquarius, have problems that affect us all. You fancy yourself a leader. Why? We never asked for you to bare the water to our thirsty lips. We never asked you to refine the Troll Empire into your own sick sadistic world. Once outcasted among "proper" trolls, some sick spirit from within told you, "If you build it, they will cum." Fuck those talentless bastards. The structure is now built, and the talents are ready to be poured. It is your duty to pour your metaphorical homosexual semen all over trolldom, and the world. Do not falter, for the revolution looms, and the sun will rise yet.

Pisces
Oh, what an old soul you must be. In some ways you are the flowing talent that Aquarius bares. This is doubtful though, as your inner water is probably stagnant and swarming with mosquitoes. You embody the best of the of the Zodiac. Donâ(TM)t get to full of yourself, because you also embody the worst. That is the key to your constant failures. You should get very angry right now and create a storm with the raging sewage inside of you. Pound trolldom from the heavens with your bile, and then cry. You may feel that no one understands you, and hell, youâ(TM)re probably right. That doesnâ(TM)t matter now, because the world needs your "talents" right now.

Troll 23 of 115 from the annals of the Troll Library .

Re:Horoscopes for the troll wars!

[cjc84]

good job, I am a Leo, and my horoscope suits me well, i carried the torch for this story, note the first post below. Good job RoboTroll.

The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Starship Trooper]

If you're like me, you're probably wondering just why the hell anyone would pay for Slashdot, let alone want to support it. As it turns out, Slashdot already has all the features you need to completely disable all advertisements without paying those greedy slobs at VA Software a cent. All you need is a DOM-compliant browser, such as Mozilla or Konqueror, and the User Slashbox. With disgustingly-placed new full-page ads now arriving, the time has come to show that we users will not let ourselves be advertised into submission.

Follow these five easy steps and never see another Slashdot ad again:

1. Go into your Homepage Preferences.
2. Scroll down to the "User Space" textarea, and paste the following four lines of HTML in there:

   <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pknet.com/~joe/adkiller.js"></sc ript>
   <script type="text/javascript"><!--
   delAds();
   --></script>
   

   (click here to download the adkiller javascript code and put it on your own webspace, in case you don't trust me :-)
3. Scroll down the list of slashboxes, and make sure the "User Space" checkbox (inexplicably located between "MP3.com" and "Myther.com") is checked.
4. Return to the front page, and your Slashbox should be there, quietly zapping all iframes and banner-shaped images on the page.
5. There is no step 5!! It's that easy.

There are a few problems, however:

• Opera doesn't seem to work with this at all.
• Internet Explorer won't automatically remove the ads, but by appending the following to the above code:

  <a href="javascript:delAds()">Click to delete ads</a>

  and clicking the new link in your Slashbox, the ads will go away.
• The User Slashbox only shows up on index.pl and articles.pl pages, so comment and user pages will still have ads. Luckily, the article pages seem to be the only ones running the obnoxious new full-page ads, so this shouldn't be too annoying.

If you are a Javascript wizard and know how to make this script work on Opera or IE, please tell me. Ad-free Slashdot should be available to everyone!

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Paradoxish]

Mod this up so us whiny bastards can put slashdot out of business.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

This big ad stuff is annoying. I like the adds they had at the top of the screen. This IBM thing in the middle is worse than the time they went around major citys chalking the sidewalks.

Until this problem goes away I am going to filter adds on Slash. VA is going to learn very quickly that asthetics is one of the reasons Slash is a good site. Hate to see Rob and the crew getting beat around because VA trying to do another of their "great" business moves. What's their share price now? Hehe. I thought so.

Oh yeah back on topic. Go freenet!! The net will be so much more useful when ALL files are easy to get a hold of.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone is paid $15/h and wastes 1h/day browsing Slashdot while he is PAID to do something else, then $15/day is unlawfully acquired. Morally it should be sent to slashdot. Why doesn't Slashdot promote that reasoning? They'd get shitloads of money.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

You meant to say, "Mod this up so we whiny bastards can put slashdot out of business."

I really hope you did, at least, you illiterate fuck.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[reaper20]

Heh, not like it matters, they were stupid in putting the advertisement in the article area, an area notoriously known for the LACK of attention paid to it.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so incredibly wrong. It's not like Rob (CmdrTaco) et al. are living it up off ad revenue, driving nice cars and taking trips all over the world. They need this money to pay the bandwidth bills, buy new database servers, and continue developing Slash. In other words, they have to EAT. Compared to a lot of other less adequate news sites, Slashdot's ads are very small and unassuming, and at least they don't dance and fly across the page. If you don't like it, ante up and pay 5 bucks for 1000 ad free pageviews. Those are the rules; if you block the ads, you're only fucking over the rest of the community, and that includes me.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

1-800-IBM-7080 extension INFRA028

Speak with an IBM

e-business specialist by

calling toll-free in the US

and Canada.

Call IBM and tell them what you think of their new Slashdot adds in the middle of the screen.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, and what's next? Putting ad banners in between comments? How about if someone replies to your insightful comment with an AD for SourceForge Corporate (Closed Source) Edition... and it inexplicably gets MODDED UP!? It's not about the community anymore, it's about OSDN using its number one page-view generating site as a crutch to produce far more advertising revenue than they could ever make "selling" open source software. Nuf sed.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Dr. Awktagon]

Or you could just browse with Lynx.

Or use an ad-busting proxy.

Or just ask daddy for a little extra money this week and pay the damn $5.

How the hell did this get modded up?

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Troll,

We are plesed to inform you that, after careful consideration , we have accepted your troll into the Troll Library

You show a masterful skill at trolling.

Thank you for your time and your contribution.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[sharkey]

Or browse in "Light Mode".

Or just read the ads. They're not THAT bad.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

VA is going to learn very quickly that asthetics is one of the reasons Slash is a good site.

I take it you've never looked at Slashdot before.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[slashfucker]

How the hell did this get modded up?

Just wait until one of the editors notices that people are actually TALKING about Slashdot on Slashdot and bitchslaps the entire thread into limbo. Can you say The First Slashdot Troll Post Investigation?

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are the rules; if you block the ads, you're only fucking over the rest of the community, and that includes me.

I guess that means I'm fucking everyone else over, including you. Guess what?

I DON'T CARE!

AHAHAHAHAAHHAHHHAAAAAA!!!!!

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

You have referenced a verboten part of Slashdot history, which DID NOT happen. Go directly to negative karma. Do not pass go, do not collect positive mod points.

- The Editors

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[l33t j03]

You left out the part where Rob, like the rest of the world, actually does something worth getting paid for. Maybe you think Slashdot is worth it, so maybe you come up with the coin. Most likely you and your 5 like minded buddies aren't going to pay for the bandwidth, servers, goat sex avoidance software, caffiene, insurance, car payments, clothes, mortgage, candy bars, and bacon sandwiches...for the whole crew.

Most likely Rob will actually have to come up with a saleable product if he wants to stay out of tenement apartments.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderation Totals: Offtopic=6, Informative=3, Total=9.

Gee, looks like somebody doesn't want this information to be free!!

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so incredibly wrong. It's not like Rob (CmdrTaco) et al. are living it up off ad revenue, driving nice cars

name: Rob Malda
age: 24
habitat: Cyberspace -- in the early days of Slashdot he stayed online up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week. Now he's cut it down to 12 hours a day, and he tries to take weekends off.
residence: A yellow condo in the tulip capital of the U.S.A. -- Holland, Mich.
nom de plume: CmdrTaco
--snip--
RIDE: A shiny-blue BMW, leased.

Source

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you read this (You're very actively repeating this cool little trick)
Thanks, it works great. You say it doesnt work in IE perfectly, but it does under IE 6! Easier than Junk Buster/Web Washer, or any other ad filter! Good work, now go spread the gosphel!

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Bruj0]

It seems to work with Opera 6.0 TP3

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[jamie]

Your attention please,

Anyone here who is silly enough to put

<script type="text/javascript" src="CODE ON SOMEONE ELSE'S WEBSITE!">

into their User Space should be aware that they are begging to have their passwords stolen.

That is all.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, jamie, we all know that you're about as paranoid as a watermelon at a Southern Baptist church picnic, but Mr. Trooper suggested that people download the script and store it on their own webspace.

This seems like a very convenient FUD response to the suggestion that there is an alternative to paying for SlashDot without ads. Did you and the others have a huddle before you decided on this response?

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[TRoLLaXoR]

Most likely Rob will actually have to come up with a saleable product if he wants to stay out of tenement apartments.

Tenement Funster ?

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[PureFiction]

Linux users:

iptables -A OUTPUT -p TCP -d 64.28.67.114 --dport 80 -j DROP
iptables -A OUTPUT -p TCP -d 199.95.206.210 --dport 80 -j DROP

64.28.67.114 is images2.slashdot.org, where the banner ads come from. The other IP is from doubleclick.net, which gets rid of the more annoying huge ads.

Try it, it works. And I can leave JavaScript turned off...

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Vulture_]

The banner ads on top are cool with me. They're reasonably unobtrusive, and usually advertise products that /. readers would be interested in anyway.

The huge ads in the middle of articles, however, are horrendous. I hope someone at the controls recognizes this before too many people get pissed off and start reading K5 or NewsForge or such instead. I don't like ZDNet for it and I won't like /. for it, either.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

...without paying those greedy slobs at VA Software a cent

Oh, yeah, since a website like Slashdot can be run for free, besides the cost of a residential 256k DSL connection off of a 486 DX2 50MHz.

Hardware costs money. Bandwidth costs lots of money. Slashdot is a fairly popular site--just look at how other sites often cripple after merely being linked to from Slashdot. And you think they can provide for this FOR FREE? You're fucking out of your mind.

Clearly the one being greedy here is you. Web sites cost real-world money, and you're demanding that you have Slashdot for free, without ads.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Carp Flounderson]

seriously... if they wanted better space, they could have used the huge empty spaces in the comments section of the page which were thoughtfully provided by Klerck's PLP's.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[DavidJA]

Your attention please;

Anyone that is silly enough to to run advertising on a site that is decicated to anouncing the latest clever hacks to get around advertising and other such restrictions like the DCMA

should be aware that they are begging to go out of business.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

To get it working in MSIE automatically how about this:

<a href="http://somewhere.blah/single_pixel.gif" onLoad="javascript:delads()">

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[l33t j03]

Yeah, that was the funniest sentence I have ever read. Why did that rant get deleted from Adequacy?

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[TRoLLaXoR]

That's confidential. Or something.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Rick the Red]

The bad thing about blocking the ads is then you don't know which companies to boycott.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh? This is not flaimbait, but good common
sense. Think about it. You're executing
code on someone else's machine. You don't
know if they change the code, track your moves,
etc. Flaimbait my ass. This is just good common
sense.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! How come *your* post wasn't knocked down to -1?

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[mosch]

yo Jamie, ever heard of wget?

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Bazman]

I already have something in my User Slashbox - a nice local weather pic and info. Can I just add the code to it?

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

As an added alternative:

http://www.webwasher.com

There's a Windows and Linux version, and it works quite well; blocks out some things intuitively, without leaving a giant, empty box on the page in place of the banners ;>

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm salaried buddy. If I have nothing else to do I can either browse slashdot or sit quietly in my chair with my hands folded across my lap. It doesn't matter to my employers because I've already done my fucking job!

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[NewOrder]

Wow... What a life you must live. Ever try running a company that is almost 100% web based and try to figure out where your going to get money to pay for such a high profile service like slashdot?

First get a clue. Geeeez. it's not like slashdot guys are getting totaly dirty fithly rich off this site.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

don't you have a hosts file or something?

making netfilter rules to block slashdot ads seems sort of silly.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they've just disabled the ability to paste your snippet into the user box. Or is it just me?

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Voline]

I had no idea that there was new, more intrusive advertising on slashdot. I use the iCab browser with Mac OS X. It has a great user-configureable ad-filter.

It filters out banner ads based on their URL, file name, path, or server - of the page itself or the page that the banner links to. It replaces the banner with a box of the same size that is empty, except for an icon of a little melita coffee filter (nice touch, that).

It works great.

That said, I am very disturbed by the reports of censorship by the maintainers of slashdot of their unlimited moderator powers. Evidence does seem to point in that direction.

If they were serious about democratic speech, freedom of speech and anti-censorship they would give themselves only the same moderating power that anyone else has - and only if they meet the same critera.

More proof that hierarchy in *any* form is corrupting, but especially when money is at stake.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Burgundy Advocate]

Nope, not just you. They're filtering out javascript.

If you've already put it in your userspace, don't make any changes. Trying to save it again will kill what you already have.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late. They altered my profile just now to remove the scripting.

If it's an arms race they want, it's an arms race they will get. There are more ways for us to kill their ads than there are ways for them to present them.

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[jamie]

Script tags in User Space, in fact any unapproved HTML tags, have been disabled for security reasons. Existing data has been modified to comply (by running the strip_html function).

Conspiracy theories will probably abound, but the bottom line is, this was a security hole that we should have closed a long time ago. Better we do it now than after someone gets hurt.

Anyone who wants to discuss this is welcome to start a journal or discussion. It is offtopic here. I am only posting this because it's a security matter, and I will moderate myself down :)

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then, would you care to continue this discussion elsewhere?

-nmb

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[linuxislandsucks]

Here is a real easy way for VA linux to get me to subscribe..

Give me a 5% disocunt on anything I buy at thinkgeek.com and I will subscribe to slashdot.org for 2 years..

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[nyet]

Quote, since it got modded down, and it is informative too:

"Hence, I said:
(click here to download the adkiller javascript code and put it on your own webspace, in case you don't trust me :-)
There was no other way I could get this code working; the User Slashbox's size limit was too small to fit the entire code into. I don't want people freeloading my bandwidth if I can help it, and I'm not the sort of person who would pull a bait-and-switch like that. You'll have to take my word on that, which is a bad thing to do for anyone on the Internet, so I say to everyone interested in this code, COPY IT TO YOUR OWN MACHINE and then run it. Save yourself from my dirty, evil self, and save me some bandwidth too! Everybody wins!
Thank you Jamie for bring this issue to the front."

Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subscribing

[nutsy]

should be aware that they are begging to have their passwords stolen.

Right, especially when putting

0.0.0.0 ad.doubleclick.net

into /etc/hosts is easier, faster, and more reliable.

(And now I'm going to get banned from posting, too! I'm melting, what a world what a world...)

yes!

[Cryptopotamus]

Bow to the IEEE! You must join!! It holds all your #includes!

What are you saying?

[elenchos]

How did you know I'm an aries? And who said they were sick of me? Who? Name them!

You bastard, the people love me! They have always loved me and they always will! Take it back!

Re:What are you saying?

[RoboTroll]

I am the world first psychic troll

Re:What are you saying?

[Anonymous Coward]

To get really off topic, I wonder why Ted Rall's
Terror Widows strip is missing from the NYTimes
web site. Should speech be free if it is really tasteless?

Re:What are you saying?

[Anonymous Coward]

That strip wasn't tasteless, you're just a whiney bitch.

And remember, the Muslims hate your freedom and democracy, this whole terrorism thing has NOTHING AT ALL to do with your unfaltering support of Israel's crimes. You fucking idiot.

Re:What are you saying?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Score: +1, Will of Allah)

anonymization arms race

[perdida]

I worry that things like freenet are going to make it so that people will have to engage in continual warfare with people like John Ashcroft.

Ashcroft is the guy who pulled lots of federal enviro data on pipeline locations and stuff from the Net. He will have to attack Google caches and stuff to completely hide this information.

Total lack of anonymity is next. How can Freenet survive if the service is branded as terrorist and the individual humans are pulled away from their terminals while servers are confiscated? No robustness of code can prevent this.

I love Freenet, but to protect anonymity we must acknowledge that not all solutions to civil liberties restrictions are code-based. We must back them up with aggressive defence of civil liberties in political and protest arenas.

Re:anonymization arms race

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be one of those kooks from inadequacy.net. I can smell your kind -- Febreze and Jovan Musk.

Re:anonymization arms race

[Commienst]

Adequacy.org, where the idiots play!

Re:anonymization arms race

[Backov]

Why the hell is this marked flamebait? This guy is not trolling, he has an extremely valid point.

Cheers,
Backov

MOD PARENT UP

[RoboTroll]

Burn, $lashdot, consumed by your own GREED!!!

Freenet... Why?

[Uberminky]

I don't mean this to be a troll or anything. I do realize that there are ideals behind it -- free speech for everyone, censorship is the devil, etc. That's dandy. But seriously. Why Freenet? It's such a tremendous effort, for something that so few will use. In fact, does anyone actually use it for getting work done? Heck, does anyone use it for anything? (I honestly want to know!)

A year or two ago there was a presentation at my college about Freenet. One of the CS guys here was "on the development team" (whatever that means). I never did hear a real reason, other than ideals, for doing it. (In fact the kid that was talking about it was mentioning an effort to try moving it onto packet radio, thus freeing it from even the censorship of ISPs. This threw a huge red flag for me that he didn't know what he was talking about: this is blatantly illegal by FCC regulations, and anyone who tries it will lose their ham license! No encryption is allowed, in any form whatsoever. You can't even legally come up with a substitution cypher, like "beans" means "meet me in the parking lot" and "chicken" means "9:30pm". NOTHING. And the encryption issue is just the tip of it. Read up on it, get your ham radio license, it'll be immediately clear that doing anything even remotely resembling this is just not feasible on the ham bands in the US.)

So yeah, I'm veering off-topic. Anyway. Let me reiterate: I'm not telling anyone NOT to do work on something they're devoted to. I do appreciate the ideals that Freenet stands for. But seriously, what's going to make it succeed? What makes it worth the horrible inefficiencies designed into the protocol? Is it actually useful to anyone? Alright, enough from me. I hope someone can answer these, I'm very curious. Somebody give me a reason to help the development effort!

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use it.
I like the freedom of speech, sadly guaranteed only through anonymity nowadays.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to second the original poster: USE IT FOR FRIGGIN' WHAT???

Can't anyone answer this simple question?

Re:Freenet... Why?

[metakone]

Do it for the fame ! Do it for the ideals ! Do it for the people who care about the ideals ! Lastly, Do it to be sued by the RIAA and the MPAA ! (isn't everyone being sued by them nowadays?)

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Cryogenes]

Inefficiency is not the problem. The protocol is, as I understand it, not inefficient at all.

The problem is complexity. The Freenet protocol is more complex by orders of magnitude than protocols such as gnutella, FastTrack, edonkey, etc. Complex software is hard to write. Complex software that cannot be tested before release is almost impossible to write.

Do you believe in death after life?

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Harik]

Somebody give me a reason to help the development effort!

Because someone like you won't let them do something stupid like store files uploaded at your node in plaintext before encrypting them... and _LEAVE_ them in the datastore plaintext, forgotten, just waiting for someone to come and find them.

Or how about not creating temporary files for large uploads? Would you do that? Would you just tell someone to 'delete them' afterwards, or would you go through and overwrite the contents with random data first?

Perhaps you would be able to create a block storage system with the simple requirement of storing files sized in powers-of-two that won't continually decide to eat it's own contents.

Then again, you might choose to implement speed-critical things like cyphers in a machine-native language (C), so the whole project will run at a reasonable speed.

Perhaps you might be inspired to write the WHOLE thing in a machine native language (C) and spend (gasp) 25 minutes writing some wrappers around the few OS-dependant things it has to do (Network sockets, mostly. Opening files is pretty standard)

No, someone like you better stay off the project, god forbid it be usable by now!

--Dan

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Uberminky]

Having a zillion copies of everything, scattered across the globe like dust particles, isn't inefficient?

Re:Freenet... Why?

[kharchenko]

Why ? Because some of us don't want FCC busting our asses for using "substitution codes" in our e-mails :)

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Gaccm]

have you ever been to cryptome.org, or any sites like it? Those sites create lots of enemies because of their content. If their content was copied to freenet, then it can't all be lost in one fell swoop. Freenet would be the mirror that couldn't be taken down. As for what it currently is being used for? Well, 1) its still beta, but just like all new techs it has lots of porn on it. But i havn't used it in months so i'm not the best source.

Basicly, once its big enough, i'll use it just like i currently use gnutella.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

For freedom of speech.
If you don't understand, just stay outside freenet.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. That's called redundancy. It is extremely efficient against censorship.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[ph0rk]

don't think freenet as in warez, think freenet as in TreeHouse.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[OsamaBinLager]

I dunno, I think Freenet is more of a circle jerk than anything.

Look at us, our proj3ct is leetzor!!!! We use so many protocols, and APIs, cuz we are Freenet, and Freenet is better! Don't ask for a mathematical pr00f, th0, we are too good for proof!

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Uberminky]

Not at all. That's called redundancy

Redundancy IS storage-inefficient. My original question was, is this tradeoff worth it? What do you use Freenet for? Somebody, please answer the question!!

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, machine native language (C)???

Last time I checked assembly was a machine native language.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact you can fact all the documentation you need, including mathematical study, on the freenet project site... If you can read of course.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Freenet is used for the freedom of speech, which is efficiently guaranteed by both redundancy and anonymity.
If you don't need privacy, just don't go on freenet.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Commienst]

But name a good use, for Freenet?

That is all he was asking you idiot!

Re:Freenet... Why?

[km790816]

The founder guy gave a talk that I had the pleasure of attending this summer.

The coolest thing freenet is used for now: helping free speech in China. There is a version that fits on a floppy and it's used to spread information about things the Communist party doesn't like: basically anything that isn't pro-Communist party.

The funny thing: when pressed on what freenet is used most for, the answer came back: porn. Laughs all around at the talk, but the positive impact in China seems like a good example to me.

"To hold a grudge is to maintain an intense connection with someone you might not want to have a relationship with in the first place."
-Francine Prose

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

A good use of freenet : speaking freely. That is called "freedom of speech".
Maybe you can't grasp that concept, but who cares.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

PRIVACY FOR WHAT?!?!?! ARRRRGHHHHHHH....... Hehe. Sorry for the caps.. this is driving me nuts though! Who uses this privacy? What do they do with it?

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Privacy is somthing important for people who want to speak without being afraid of repression.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody give me a reason to help the development effort!
No, just stay outside. Freenet is better without you.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Commienst]

Speaking freely? You mean typing like a scared chicken from your computer because you do not understand the concept of fucking solidarity, Slashbot. How about about fighting the government instead of cowering over the computer when they censor you? Maybe you can't grasp that concept, but who cares.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Uberminky]

I can go into the bathroom and shout into the toilet, and you know what? Nobody will hear me! HEY!! Freedom of speech! I can say anything I want! That's frickin' rad. ;)

Seriously though. I've gotten a million replies saying "freedom of speech". But is it speech if nobody listens? I'm asking for an actual use. China, yeah yeah. (What do you do when they decide to put anyone using Freenet in prison? Fat lot of good that did you, eh?) Cryptome.. there's a million and one better ways to do it that are here now and working great.

I'm sorry. Maybe the replies I've gotten are perfectly great, and I'm just stubborn and unaccepting of them. It doesn't feel that way though. These answers are extremely unsatisfying to me. So, in response to all the other people who will repeat that I need to stay away from Freenet: don't bother, I already do. ;) (I am still welcoming any honest answers to my original question, though, from anyone who has more to say than that I am a retard for not understanding what "free speech" means. I look forward to reading them.)

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Bob Loblaw]

I never did hear a real reason, other than ideals, for doing it.

Is there any better reason to do things than "ideals".

If you speculate a little bit about the future, there will be plenty of other reasons to have Freenet as an option when the RIAA and MPAA start going after individuals for sharing things they don't think you should (like decss for instance).

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply ask yourself if you can talk freely without fear about "politically incorrect", "unpatriotic", "racially biased" subjects.
You'd rather go masked for a wide array of topics, even in All-mighty America.
And freenet is not your toilet. Far from it.
Just quit bitching about what you obviously can't grasp. Freenet is living without you anyway.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Uberminky]

I really don't like this whole "stay outta my treehouse, we're better than you" attitude I've been getting. I have been asking legitimate questions. If you are offended or insecure by me asking them, perhaps you have more important things to think about. Fine, so you want a forum for free speech. As I understand it, Freenet does not provide such a forum, it merely acts as a medium. So does such a forum exist? Does anyone use it? Please read my questions before you start insulting my intelligence. I have been trying my best not to be insulting to others, and I'd appreciate it if others did the same for me. We don't have to agree, but being civil is a prerequisite for gaining support. And no matter how 1337 your treehouse may be, if nobody supports it, it will crumble.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Commienst]

Grasp what? That the only way you think you can say what you want is by retreating to freenet? Fight the government you fucking pussy. Go to Thessaloniki 2003 at the next WEF meeting pick a up a stick/rock/anything and bash the Greek police and close down their fucking meeting.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[allenthelee]

Your comments on moving it to packet radio are pretty much wildly inaccurate. Perhaps you should do a google search on 'packet radio encryption'. Ever hear of GPRS?

What's going to make it succeed? Obviously not you. You don't seem to be getting the point, given your previous posts. The whole idea is that content that may be considered inflammatory and censored by the government, a police state third world country, the US, whoever, *will* be available. You make a valid point that police states can just arrest those who are found to be just using Freenet, but even if they are arrested, once the information is out on the network, in principle, that information, be it documentation of police brutality, human rights violations, chasey lain's latest video, will already be disseminated throughout the Internet, preventing a centralized choke.

basically, hippy shit.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently it's such scary stuff they're talking about on Freenet that they can't even explain it here. Malda can look at the IP of the post and he'd turn 'em in for some crime or other.

It's a secret.

Kinda like the secrets we had when we were five or six. Becuz.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

It wouldn't be 'leet and cool with someone like you asking us uncomfortable questions about why we're wearing our secret decoder rings.

heh

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Uberminky]

Your comments on moving it to packet radio are pretty much wildly inaccurate.

No, they aren't. GPRS is a GSM thing (if I understand correctly), which isn't what we were talking about. I was referring to amateur radio based packet radio, using amateur radio frequencies. This is what the freenet guy was talking about that I mentioned. (I thought that was clear, but apparently not.) And it is a (unfortunate?) fact that encryption is not permitted on amateur bands. You need to know all of this stuff to pass the ham radio license exam, which is why I know it. Allow me to quote FCC Amateur Radio regulations, part 97.113 ("Prohibited transmissions"), section A.4 (emphasis mine):

Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this Section; communications intended to facilitate a criminal act; messages in codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning thereof, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals or identification

You are right, people could set up commercial radio transmissions similar to GPRS, but that wouldn't have several of the advantages that the guy I mentioned thought could be had by using ham radio.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[dghcasp]

Why? Simple. It's a system for distributing information of questionable legal status.

If I wanted to put up pictures from my vacation, I'd use the web and HTTP protocol - everyone has it and there is no content problem with my pictures. I wouldn't ask my friends to download (and compile!) a tool and pass around PGP keys.

Freenet et al come into their own only when you want to put up content that you expect that people will try to force you to take down.

Sometimes that content does have some redeeming features even if illegal; the Xenu texts help show how ridiculous Scientology is at the higher levels, yet they're illegal (copyright violation.) The documents spirited out of the tobacco companies that proved everything they'd ever said about "no harmful effects" were lies and led to the huge settlements to the government: All private, controlled documents that were effectivly stolen and illegally published by the whistle-blowers.

These are the things people "think" when they think of how freenet, &c. will save free speech. Yes, they're illegal, but they're important.

Of course, the report compares their system to Napster, not whistle-blowing. Argue as you may, Napster was just another system for distributing material of questionable legality (i.e., if you had the CD, you could have burnt that MP3 yourself!) The whole report has a feel of "here's how we're not gonna be shut down like Napster was." I don't know the exact history, but didn't freenet really only take off when Napster started having problems?

Dose of reality: If anything actually useful does make it into the FreeNet (and ugh, couldn't they have picked a name that doesn't mean "Free Network BBS access" to anyone who'se been online > 10 years?), it'll never be found, expired away to make room for all the goat and child movies.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[flink]

If it's private enough to use Freenet for, why would he post his reasons to /.? :-) regardless of whatever else I use it for, I'd come back just for CofE: SSK@9G4s~jLQJB7ALQg-v2q5xKAJy9YPAgM/CofE//

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a picture floating around somewhere. I don't know who has the copyright ;-)
You're looking down the barrel of a big gun. The caption reads "I'm from the government. I'm here to help."

You may not have noticed the chilling effect that the men with guns have had on the internet.

Think about SSSCA, the DMCA,
gag rules in the courts, the slashdot article "Feds Undertaking Massive Passenger Profiling Plan" or "feds subpeoning book-purchasing records."
here's a link: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/13/155821 0&mode=thread

What do you think the government has planned for you? Freedom???

Another quote is "When people fear their government, there is tyranny"

Does your government represent you?
What can you do if you disagree?
Are your actions effective?
Can you opt-out and stop supporting it?

How long after you stop paying the unconstitutional 'voluntary' IRS income tax before the men with guns arrive, seize your assets and toss you in jail?

What de-facto foundation do you use to authenticate your identity? How about Social Security and Drivers license?
Can you opt-out of this system?
How hard would it be?
Is it legal?
Can you make money if you do?
How hard would it be for the men with guns to track you down if they were so inclined?

Here's another quote "No mans life, liberty or property are safe while the congress is in session"

I don't have the resources to fight(nor time to even read) every piss ant piece of corporation backed legislation that comes along and threatens my freedoms. Freenet provides a VERY important stronghold to free speech that can make many of these laws irrelevant.

Large riots can be put down by a few men with guns from a long distance.

I'm hoping that when the box becomes obvious to everyone and there is no more ability to riot we will still have the ability to speak in protest because of Freenet

The bars of the cage are gilded and soft but they are there. With each law passed the cage gets smaller. Most people don't notice and won't till it's too late. How about you?

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Serial Troller]

"(C)"...? No matter how much the RIAA types want it, copyright will never be a machine-native language.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Serial Troller]

Downloading KIDDIE PORN, of course. What do you think they want it for???

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Rainer]

No. Freenet makes a few copies of a document when it is inserteed.

Freenet makes copies of a document when it is requested (via nodes that don't have a copy).

Freenet forgets douments that are not requested.

The result is that popular documents are distributed all over the net which is a nice way of distributing the load of the requests. No Slashdot-Effect.

Unpopular documents are stored on fewer nodes so they take up not much of the available storage capacity. (If they are too unpopular they will drop out of the net.)

So freenet is not only resistant to censorship, it is also an efficient way to distribute documents that will be in high demand because freenet is a distributed cache.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[HanzoSan]

Read this The Right to read

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Hobbex]

If I wanted to put up pictures from my vacation, I'd use the web and HTTP protocol - everyone has it and there is no content problem with my pictures. I wouldn't ask my friends to download (and compile!) a tool and pass around PGP keys.

Don't count on it, companies have successfully sued for copyright ownership of the image of their buildings. I believe the landmark case was the rock and roll hall of fame building, so at least if you went to Cleveland (he) you probably cannot freely post your pictures.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reasons for Freenet to exist:
There are currently articles on freenet showing how the Stazi (East german secret police) are still a force in Germany.
There is stuff on scientology available that it's hard to find elsewhere.
You can discuss things that are critical of your government without being arrested as a terrorist.
You can ask the freenet community for answers to questions concerning sexual preference, decryption, censorship, etc...without, um, being arrested as a terrorist.
It's not really about file trading, it's about the free flow of knowledge.
and pr0n. can't forget the pr0n.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Frost is full of freespeech related subjects; several of the discussion boards have continual traffic.
It's usenet with actual anonymity, ok? really open to abuse, really vulnerable to SPAM, but if you NEED to say something (like several hundred users apparently currently do) you can say it and not get arrested, censored or ostracized for saying it.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Hobbex]

There isn't enough bandwidth in the HAM frequencies anyways. There are other bands that are completely unlicensed, though typically they are supposed to be limited to low range use (although at least here in Europe there are unlicensed walky-talky bands with typical usage over several kilometers).

Re:Freenet... Why?

[tuxisuau]

Probably Freenet will be less expensive that a web hosting service and the network will be virtually not vulnerable to Slashdot effect. Freenet isn't only about privacity and anonimicity, it's about intelligent caching and routing, cheap hosting...
As it sounds... freenet, freedom network, freedom to publish websites without any fear of copyrights, without differences between rich people who can pay bandwidth and who not, without anybody controling the websites you visit, etc.

By the way, if you use Windows, it isn't useful at all. How can you require any privacity or anonimicity from a closed crappy os like Windows?
Luckily, you are (still) able to choose!

Re:Freenet... Why?

[cduffy]

Space-efficient or time-efficient?

If time-efficiency (or redundancy) is important, then having multiple copies is well worthwhile. Space is cheap. Availability isn't, always.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[cduffy]

What's the largest program you've ever designed yourself and overseen the implementation of?

I like C. I use C frequently -- on small projects (excluding those small projects on which I use Python; it too is frequently The Right Thing). Anything that's not small needs OO to help keep the design simple. Freenet is not small. It isn't huge, either, but its design is fairly complex. For most of us who use it, the point of Java-the-language isn't portability; the point of Java-the-language is having a consistant language with good runtime error-handling, proper OO support, garbage collection, a large high-quality standardized runtime library, etc. 25 minutes worth of wrappers won't do a thing to help those.

Let me ask you: Do you enjoy checking the return value of every function you call to see whether it succeeded? Or do you just not do it?

Further, let me mention that Freenet does run at a reasonable speed (particularly using a decent JIT runtime). For a time it had some bugs which caused it not to -- but they're fixed now. Criticizing a project because of the bugs it had at some point in its development (and here I'm referring also to the datastore bugs and others you mentioned) might be an easy way to score some points on slashdot, but it's hardly fair -- as anyone who's seen a project of some complexity through can tell.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[warpSpeed]

The funny thing: when pressed on what freenet is used most for, the answer came back: porn. Laughs all around at the talk, but the positive impact in China seems like a good example to me.

It may funny, but it is a good sign. If porn flourishes on this "medium" then this medium is probably going to be a success. Porn is the most censored type of "speach" out there. Look at the VCR industy. A major reason why Sony failed to get the Beta max out there was because it resisted the porn industry from using thier format. The Internet was widly used to distribute porn when it was just getting commercialized. Look at it now.

I think Freenet will take off when it becomes real easy for regular users to download and install the programs and not have to worry about how to set it up. Eventualy there might even be a commercial interest in doing this.

Go Freenet!

~Sean

Re:Freenet... Why?

[warpSpeed]

What do you use Freenet for? Somebody, please answer the question!!

porn, what else?

Re:Freenet... Why?

[cduffy]

Fine, so you want a forum for free speech. As I understand it, Freenet does not provide such a forum, it merely acts as a medium.

Freenet-the-medium encourages the forum; that's all it can be expected to do. (Incidentally, message boards like Frost make having that forum even easier). Perhaps the forum doesn't exist yet (and perhaps it does) -- but by providing an underlying layer, Freenet makes it easier for those who wish to create it to do so; that's all that one can reasonably expect from any technology.

Ask yourself: Does the NNTP protocol itself, or any client or server for the same, actually create a forum in and of itself that anyone uses? How about TCP/IP (on top of which NNTP sits)? And if TCP/IP doesn't create a forum (but still provides a medium for applications like newsreaders which you might argue do), does that it make it less valuable, or more?

Thank Freenet=TCP/IP, and Frost=Usenet. Does that help any?

Re:Freenet... Why?

[cduffy]

PRIVACY FOR WHAT?!?!?! ARRRRGHHHHHHH....... Hehe. Sorry for the caps.. this is driving me nuts though! Who uses this privacy? What do they do with it?

Let's suppose the existance of some individual involved in helping political refugees from Burma seek asylum in the United States and distributing suppressed (Christian) religious literature there. The ruling Burmese government, needless to say, doesn't like this -- and while this hypothetical acquaintance is presently operating from the United States, she might want to be able to go back to Burma for some reason. Even more important is the privacy of those individuals operating out of Burma presently.

Now, strong crypto is illegal in Burma, and they have the firewall thing going on just as China does (all email is delayed for a day for review) -- but just being able to move data anonymously between the involved individuals is a valuable thing in and of itself.

What they need more than something like Freenet, incidentally, is systems like PGP to encrypt internal documents (once again, mostly not in Burma -- illegal there -- but elsewhere; there's been an attempt to infect their machines with a modified Sircam version reporting back to the Burmese government). Now do you see why some people truly need privacy?

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Greg W.]

What do you use Freenet for? Somebody, please answer the question!!

At the moment, not a whole lot. Some people apparently like to post inflammatory or politically incorrect comments to the authors of popular Freesites (like Content of Evil); and because the submission of this information is anonymous, they can say outrageous things without as much worry that someone in dark sunglasses will come knocking on their door tomorrow.

But it's rather easy to imagine some of the possible uses for Freenet. Consider a web comic. Most web comics are published daily, or N times per week where N is between 1 and 6. In order to do so, the comic author has to have a place to host the comic, for which he or she probably pays a monthly fee. The more popular the comic is, the more bandwidth the author will have to pay for. The current models of financing this business/hobby are advertisements, merchandise, and requests for donations. Most web comics are doing at least two of these; many do all three.

Now, consider what would happen if a web comic were published on Freenet instead of the World Wide Web. One of the most popular sites in Freenet, Content of Evil, is published by someone claiming to be a dial-up user! You don't have to pay bandwidth costs for Freenet publication. In fact, the more popular your site is, the better.

The "daily update" nature of most Freenet sites lends itself perfectly to web comics, which are also updated daily. (If you miss a day, your site will be unreachable for that day, but astute readers will know how to get yesterday's edition.)

I don't know of anyone who's using Freenet for such a purpose; I don't even know of anyone who's considering it yet. Freenet's not really stable enough for such an undertaking yet. It's also a bit newbie-unfriendly; most of the people who draw comics aren't geeky enough to understand Freenet's CHK, KSK, SSK, etc., let alone that insane "encode the date in hexadecimal" thing.

But there may come a day when Freenet is fast and stable, and it's relatively easy for an end-user to understand how to publish a Freenet site. (There is a fair amount of documentation floating around now; it varies in quality and up-to-dateness.) When that happens, a great number of assumptions that we take for granted may be overturned.

Re:Freenet... Why?

[maxpublic]

Yeah, I can get porn without the possibility of someone tracking my kinky habits.

I can put up web sites criticizing certain companies and government bodies without fear of being SLAPP'd.

And in my current job if some of my personal habits or views were know I'd most likely be fired. Freenet is good for protecting my status as 'employed'.

Max

Re:Freenet... Why?

[mOdQuArK!]

Freenet et al come into their own only when you want to put up content that you expect that people will try to force you to take down.

Actually, distributed caching is a good reason for these types of networks (although you wouldn't really need encryption to satisfy this need).

Re:Freenet... Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

the positive impact in China seems like a good example to me

The "helps dissidents in China" thing is actually a myth, promulgated by many of the Freenet principals but not really true. Yes, there were attempts to use Freenet for this, but they didn't get anywhere, which is hardly surprising when you consider that Freenet won't even work through a NAT router or firewall. Think about that for a moment. How hard is it for an organization such as the Chinese government to block ports and leave all the Freenet nodes totally isolated from one another? It's almost more of a challenge for them to avoid doing that unintentionally.

Sorry, porn (and warez) are still the correct answers to the question of what Freenet is used for. Obviously that's bad PR, so Ian et al try to think of other potential socially-redeeming uses, but none of those potentials have actually been realized.

adbuster

[xdfgf]

Windows users who aren't using junkbuster or some other ad filter can put the following in their hosts (xp: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts)

127.0.0.1 images.slashdot.org/cgi-bin

to disable the big ugly ads :)

Thanks to JonnyThan.

It's great having an international freeway ...

[LL]

... but why do they have to erect the toll gates first ? I was reading the ToS for an ISP hosted site with the thought of donating some of the capacity to freenet and they promised to:

- perv at (monitor activity) what I'm doing (item 1.3)
- refuse access at their discretion (item 2.8)
- pass on any liability due to fraudulent access (item3.5)
- censor any content deemed inappropriate (item 4.3);
- keep any left-over money paid in advance (item 5.2);
- and generally ask me trust them on any software they provide (item 6.4).

I know eternal vigilence is the price for freedom but it would be nice to nap a bit instead of continually maintaining your own system. Now if they can come up with a combo 802.11+freenet cache node and sell it, it might be a hit.

LL

Yes, you could...

[Starship Trooper]

...but:

Or you could just browse with Lynx.

Like it or not, not everyone wants to use an ancient text browser with fixed-width fonts and no images or colours whatsoever. There is plenty of multimedia content on the Internet that is useful, not just banner ads.

Or use an ad-busting proxy.

This takes time to download and install the proxy software, set up your browser, and spend hours upon frustrating hours tuning Junkbuster to fit your needs. Not everyone is inclined to run a whole other piece of software just so they can browse without ads.

Or just ask daddy for a little extra money this week and pay the damn $5.

Cute, but don't you think it's just the slightest bit slimy and underhanded of VA to abuse their most popular asset (and that's all Slashdot is to VA, a cash cow) in order to annoy people into giving them money? Pissing off your users is NOT a valid business plan.

I used to love Slashdot too, but their newest money-making scheme quite frankly pisses me off. I'd much rather see Taco and Hemos throw in the towel than betray the ideals of freedom from corporate oppression that Slashdot once embodied. I hope that you will open your eyes and join me in showing them that we're not going to take it.

Re:Yes, you could...

[MiTEG]

FWIW, lynx now has color support.

I hope you're joking

[Anonymous Coward]

because this is a real issue. Slashdot was once my safehaven from the sickeningly commercialised TV-surrogate the rest of the Internet has become. Now it's just the same as the rest of the Internet. I'm hoping this is just a phase, and that Rob and Hemos will come to their senses before they totally fuck over what little goodwill they have left.

-S.Trooper

HOLY SHIT!!!

[L.Torvalds]

If you and your protest buddies come to my neighborhood, I will throw flaming bags of shit at you!

I didnt write that

[RoboTroll]

I didnt write that.. but I DID add it to the troll library!

Re:I didnt write that

[Commienst]

I pasted the following troll under a thread by the adequacy.org cocsucker known as perdida. Make sure to add this troll to your library, and go to the thread and make fun of perdida the karma whoring troll as well.


Load up on grits and bring your aunts
They're fun to pour right down your pants
Natalie is naked and turned to stone
Oh no, OOG's gone, now I'm all alone

Hello, hello, hello, Katz blows
Hello, hello, hello, Katz blows

I like trolling, it's contagious
Here we are now, moderate us
You don't like caps, post aborted?
ASCII art plans, they are thwarted!
I got bitchslapped, I dissed Bojay
I post flamebait every Troll Day
Yeah!

First posting's what I do best
And for this gift I feel blessed
Commander T likes other men
And always will until the end

Hello, hello, hello, Katz blows
Hello, hello, hello, Katz blows

VA's stock price, it's disastrous
Hey, does timmy ride the short bus?
All they post now: Lars and Napster
Well, this sure ain't stuff that matters
Raymond shoots ten who don't 'get it'?
Read it Tuesday on ZDNet
Yeah!

And I forgot
Just why I post
Oh yeah, I'm first, so now I can boast
I'm not that lame, the filters are blind
Can you imagine a -- oh, nevermind

I'm not rabid, like the zealots
So they flamed me, they're just jealous
Metamodding and IP bans
Won't you use them on ol' sorehands?
I don't want to beg for karma
Don't hate patents, just your dogma
I'm not insightful
Not insightful


This is an old troll, originally concocted by Yu Suzuki.

Which Ads? I don't see any...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop moaning about the ads and just block them by pointing the ad servers to your local machine (at least it works with Linux). Check out:

http://remember.mine.nu

Re:Which Ads? I don't see any...

[Serial Troller]

If you block IMAGES.SLASHDOT.ORG you lose all the Slashdot images, too, you FUCKING DICKSLURP. Install JUNKBUSTER and block just /*.*/BANNER/... you stupid JIZZ-MOP.

Re:Which Ads? I don't see any...

[Sarcasm_Orgasm]

Woah dude thanx fur da gnarly analogy, I'm gonna start calling that Jack-hole at Denny's a Jizz-Mop instead of my usual Cock-Gobbler, Monkey-Spank, or Ferry-Fucker.

Re:Which Ads? I don't see any...

[Serial Troller]

I only have one thing to say... Good for you, you KNOB-POLISHING, COCK-GARGLING... JIZZ-MOP!

:)

Re:Which Ads? I don't see any...

[Serial Troller]

Oh, and one more thing. You're a TACO-SNOTTER, aren't you? Admit it... I know one when I see one...

Why is this at -1? Re: The Cheap Alternative to Su

[Joe Groff]

It figures that something like this would get moderated down. But I'm seriously considering doing this as an alternative to renewing my /. subscription when it runs out. Just look at what they're doing with the personal info you send them with PayPal? That's really, really slimy, and they aren't getting another cent from me until they explain that. Please, if you have moderator points, mod this entire thread up. This needs to be discussed.

you simple fag

[Sexual Asspussy]

gay out cocklickers

713th Post!

[Pinball Wizard]

I hereby dedicate my 713th post to Josh Marotti aka FortKnox.

Hey, if Michael can go and post to FortKnox's journal to tell him to get a life for posting to slashdot too much, its only fair that someone post this in one of his stories.

Re:713th Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

Superb choice of threads to mention. I highly enjoyed seeing knox exposed as a petty bitch.

100% pure nig

[Sexual Asspussy]

get the fuck off my proppity

A BITCHSLAP!!

[ArchieBunker]

Every comment under this thread is going to be bitchslapped again. Just admit your fucking site is finally starting to collapse.

Re:A BITCHSLAP!!

[Serial Troller]

Starting!? It's already collapsed, it's more in the PUTREFYING stage now...

Oh, and: BITCHSLAP THIS!!! *pulls out his 8==========D*

Main problem now- Freenet is slow and in flux

[LM741N]

I've been running a node or two for several years now. There were once a large number of Freenet web sites, but when the protocol changed, most of them dissappeared. Now a lot of them are coming back. But who's to say the protocal won't change again in a few months, and we're back to square one. It seems to be a project with no plan and thus no endpoint. Imagine if Microsoft changed the format for Word files every 6 months, and you get the idea.

Re:Main problem now- Freenet is slow and in flux

[Matrian]

"Imagine if Microsoft changed the format for Word files every 6 months, and you get the idea."

What do you mean 'imagine'? ;o)

Word 6 to Word2K to WordXP within 3 years, all with back-compatibility issues, far as I've seen.

Re:Main problem now- Freenet is slow and in flux

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine if Microsoft changed the format for Word files every 6 months, and you get the idea.
It does...

Re:Main problem now- Freenet is slow and in flux

[Graabein]

Imagine if Microsoft changed the format for Word files every 6 month

You mean they don't?!?

Re:Main problem now- Freenet is slow and in flux

[castlan]

It seems to me that the Freenet project makes no secret that it is still considered a project in development, and beta release quality at best.

If this doesn't mean anything to you, then pretend that your "endpoint" will coincide with release 1.0.

After 1.0, the plan should be quite definite, and hopefully at least as static as any given .doc file generated by MS Word.

Re:Main problem now- Freenet is slow and in flux

[Cro Magnon]

"After 1.0, the plan should be quite definite, and hopefully at least as static as any given .doc file generated by MS Word."

Is that supposed to make us feel better?

Re:Why is this at -1? Re: The Cheap Alternative to

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Modbombing? was: Re:The Cheap Alternative to Subsc

[electricmonk]

How come this post got modded down to -1 territory? Methinks those with unlimited mod points have a conflict of interest.

But seriously, I was considering subscribing to the site to support my habit and help keep a great site like this up. I changed my mind when I saw the huge ads that the VA decided to put up to coerce people into subscriptions. Sheesh, why don't you just put them right in the middle of people's comments? They couldn't be much uglier.

/etc/hosts

[Anonymous Coward]

127.0.0.1 m.doubleclick.net

it's a spammer's wet dream

[NFW]

A free service to propogate spam - and this time there's no delete key!

Re:it's a spammer's wet dream

[Serial Troller]

Except no one will read it unless they've requested it... when's the last time you requested a piece of spam? You stupid JIZZ-MONKEY, go back to playing with your Gnutella...

Re:it's a spammer's wet dream

[Anonymous Coward]

Spam (e-mail) depends on a server-side push.
Freenet operates entirely with client-side pulls.

Re:Why is this at -1? Re: The Cheap Alternative to

[dsb]

I did mod up and all childern I modded up to support discussion of this horrendous tactic. Take a look at the moderation totals 6-offtopic, how is this off topic? When the giant ad is right in the middle of the TOPIC! Clearly on topic and informative. And no, I dont feel like using lynx, etc. I don't mind the banner ads at the top, in fact I have clicked on them from time to time to check out the cool geek stuff. But a gigantic Ad in the middle of the comments has to go! Mod up!!!!

Re:Why is this at -1? Re: The Cheap Alternative to

[Anonymous Coward]

You dumb fucking bastard. When you posted, you undid all your positive moderations! With friends like you, who needs enemas?

Smells Like Trolldida!

[Commienst]

Load up on grits and bring your aunts
They're fun to pour right down your pants
Natalie is naked and turned to stone
Oh no, OOG's gone, now I'm all alone

Hello, hello, hello, Katz blows
Hello, hello, hello, Katz blows

I like trolling, it's contagious
Here we are now, moderate us
You don't like caps, post aborted?
ASCII art plans, they are thwarted!
I got bitchslapped, I dissed Bojay
I post flamebait every Troll Day
Yeah!

First posting's what I do best
And for this gift I feel blessed
Commander T likes other men
And always will until the end

Hello, hello, hello, Katz blows
Hello, hello, hello, Katz blows

VA's stock price, it's disastrous
Hey, does timmy ride the short bus?
All they post now: Lars and Napster
Well, this sure ain't stuff that matters
Raymond shoots ten who don't 'get it'?
Read it Tuesday on ZDNet
Yeah!

And I forgot
Just why I post
Oh yeah, I'm first, so now I can boast
I'm not that lame, the filters are blind
Can you imagine a -- oh, nevermind

I'm not rabid, like the zealots
So they flamed me, they're just jealous
Metamodding and IP bans
Won't you use them on ol' sorehands?
I don't want to beg for karma
Don't hate patents, just your dogma
I'm not insightful
Not insightful

The best is yet to come...

[heretic108]

I put 8 months of hard work into Freenet - in particular, developing the W--dows FreeWeb client program and the multi-platform FCPtools library. It's very possible that I will return to the project at some time in the near future.

In my mind, Freenet is still very much in its infancy. At present, it's mostly a prototype, suffering severely from being written in J---, but if gcj gets into a fit state (or some hard-assed hackers re-code it in C), the major problems will be overcome.

But to me, one of Freenet's greatest strengths is almost totally unknown - the bottom layer is designed so that almost anything can be easily slotted in and used as a transport - not just plain TCP/stream sessions, but UDP, or tunnels, or anything.

Because of this design foresight, it's very straightforward to write and plug in a few steganographic transport drivers which traffic keys in devious ways, eg usenet groups with graphics file carriers, or whitespace/grammatical stego in plaintext mailing lists or IRC, hidden packets within webcam feeds, even pirate radio (note that Freenet is high on redundancy and very fault-tolerant).

The way I see it, any determined effort at stamping Freenet out will bring the project alive like never before, and cause it to attract legions of talented and inspired developers to keep n steps ahead in the arms race.

"Repress a religion, and it will flourish"
-- James Herbert

Re:The best is yet to come...

[Tom7]

How does having it written in Java make it suffer? I ran a node for a while, and the performance was just fine. It's also nice to know it won't have any buffer overflows.

I can understand the desire for native-compiled code, but... C??

Re:The best is yet to come...

[mikedotd]

Agreed. I run a node with OpenJit and the performance is pretty acceptable even after increasing maxNodeConnections threefold.

Re:The best is yet to come...

[Vulture_]

What exactly is wrong with Java?

Re:The best is yet to come...

[Troed]

Those who think Java is slow do not understand software engineering.

(hint: real-world user-applications seldom do number-crunching in tight loops for hours)

Re:The best is yet to come...

[Troed]

(how is this off topic in a discussion whether Freenet being implemented in Java makes it slower or not?)

I thought being a professional Software Engineer developing in both Java and C++ would somehow make my comment worth reading, but I guess not :)

Re:The best is yet to come...

[PD]

I wrote a real-world app that was too slow in Java, but fast enough in C++. It worked against gigantic flat files, tore them apart, then put them back together again into a relational database.

My benchmarks showed that the Java program would require 12 years to complete the job. I rewrote the program in C++ and the time dropped to 12 hours.

So, yes, I think Java is slow for some tasks. As you say, those tight loops seem to be something that Java isn't good for.

Re:The best is yet to come...

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be a total idiot if it took 12 YEARS to run the same code in Java v/s 12 hours it did in C++. Java is 10% slower than C++ AT WORST. In most cases Java is faster than C++ because the Java VM is written in C. look at the language benchmarks available (/. story someplace) for proof. As for tearing apart huge flat text files one of my Java servlets worked with 5 150MB+ flat text files doing simple transformations and dumping data to oracle via JDBC/ODBC. processing time per *compound* item of data was 66ms on average (no i didnt use String objects..only idiots use String objects when StringBuffer is built especially for this task) vs 20ms for the same process using C. C++ was only tested once (before being rejected due to maintainence issues) and it took 150ms to process the data.

Re:The best is yet to come...

[PD]

150 megs? Those aren't huge. I was working with files that were gigabytes in size, doing complex transformations. I was using StringBuffer for everything.

So, obviously you were doing some trivial problem that Java could deliver passable performance on.

Re:The best is yet to come...

[Troed]

Sorry to say, then you didn't know which tools to use for the job. There's nothing about splitting files etc that takes more time in Java than in C++. Yes, I know what I'm talking about - I do get paid for it ;)

Re:The best is yet to come...

[PD]

I've met vast numbers of people who are Java programmers who don't have a clue about programming, yet they still get paid for it.

I repeat once again: splitting files and such was the trivial part of the task. It's the other things that had to be done that were the killer. If you simply read what I wrote, then you'd have avoided embarassing yourself.

Re:The best is yet to come...

[Cro Magnon]

Sorry, but I find that hard to believe! Admittedly, I'm still a rank beginner in Java, but I can't believe that 12 year figure.

Re:The best is yet to come...

[PD]

OK, I'll explain it to you. If I were your boss, I'd put this reprimand down in your permanent record.

You started jumping all over me without knowing the basic facts. In effect, what you did was hear the first sentence spoken in a meeting and then proceed to tell all your coworkers how idiotic they are.

So, since you're so smart, can you tell me

1) what the platform was
2) wat the dataset was
3) what the transformations were
4) what optimizations were tried on the Java side
5) what the JDK version was
6) what the network parameters were
7) what the database connectivity software was

Uh oh, you spoke without knowing a DAMN THING! That makes you an idiot.

For the problem at hand, the C++ tools available really were that much better than the shitty Java tools available.

As I said in the very first post I put there, there are things that Java is adequate for. This just didn't happen to be one of them. Live with it.

How it could become Popular

[Tom7]

I think that all it would take is for a nice MP3-sharing program with quality indexing and searching to be deployed on top of freenet. As long as it had a nice interface and was easy to install, you could easily get a bunch of freenet nodes off of people who care little about free speech, but who care lots about free music.

The only response that can be made to this idiot

[Commienst]

Dear Troll,

We are plesed to inform you that, after careful consideration , we have accepted your troll into the Troll Library.

You show a masterful skill at trolling.

Thank you for your time and your contribution.

We need to send Perdida to bitch school!

[Commienst]

You've been bad,
Don't do what I say.
You don't listen,
And you never obey
Try to teach you,
But you just won't be good.
You won't behave the way
A big girl should.
It's time to give that whip a crack,
I'm gonna have to send you back to,
Bitch School
Bitch School

You're a beauty,
You're the best of your breed.
You're a handful,
And you know what I mean.
You need training,
Gonna bring you to heel.
I'm gonna greak you with my will of steel,
Discipline's my middle name,
And no one comes back the same from,
Bitch School
Bitch School

No more sniffing strangers,
Or running free at night.
You think my bark's bad honey,
Wait till you feel my bite.

You got problems,
You whine and you beg.
When I'm busy,
You wanna dance with my leg.
I'm gonna chain you,
Make you sleep outdoors.
You're so fetching when you're down on all fours,
And when you hear your master,
You will come a little faster, thanks to,
Bitch School

Thank you!

[Starship Trooper]

It's appreciative posts like this that keep me writing software. Thank you for the compliment, and for telling me that it works in IE! :-)

Re:Thank you!

[kilgore_47]

damn. Now the user slashbox is filtered just like comments posts. Don't take your script out, or try and modify it whatever you do. As far as I could tell, it worked fine until I tried to modify it. (so if you've already got a script tag entered from before it should still work, but if you submit a change to it it gets filtered and only the

Re:Why is this at -1? Re: The Cheap Alternative to

[dsb]

Ya I know, I was getting too heated and prematurely ejactulated a post without previewing.

and now for the easy alternative...

[Anonymous Coward]

Use opera browser and turn off images.

The robust solution is to use webwasher or some similar type program which filters out ad noise.

Have you ever thought that..

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people want to see images, but don't want to see ads? Or that some people don't have the time to fuck around with complex software like webwasher?

Re:Have you ever thought that..

[Anonymous Coward]

Managing WebWasher doesn't take much time at all, just copy image address, paste to WebWasher's URL block list, add an asterisk where appropriate and hit reload...

Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem must be my old copy of Opera 5 then. Thanks for the info!

-S.Trooper

I appreciate the compliment

[Anonymous Coward]

But, please link to my original post instead of just copying its contents verbatim. It seems silly to crapflood the exact same content over and over; instead just crapflood the link so that all discussion of this post can occur in one centralised thread. Thanks!

-S.Trooper

Excellent post.

[Uberminky]

Excellent post, thank you very much! (I must admit, I'm not quite inspired to join the dev team, but.. ;) I very much appreciate your opinions, and your good examples. If only more of the posts on Slashdot were of this caliber. I am so tired of the "you're not good enough for Freenet, we don't want you" attitude I keep getting. (All from the ACs, unsurprisingly enough. ;) Why wouldn't they just answer my question instead of getting all defensive? You did! Thank you! Good post. :)

I know there's a problem there

[Astral Traveller]

Hence, I said:

(click here to download the adkiller javascript code and put it on your own webspace, in case you don't trust me :-)

There was no other way I could get this code working; the User Slashbox's size limit was too small to fit the entire code into. I don't want people freeloading my bandwidth if I can help it, and I'm not the sort of person who would pull a bait-and-switch like that. You'll have to take my word on that, which is a bad thing to do for anyone on the Internet, so I say to everyone interested in this code, COPY IT TO YOUR OWN MACHINE and then run it. Save yourself from my dirty, evil self, and save me some bandwidth too! Everybody wins!

Thank you Jamie for bring this issue to the front.

Re:I know there's a problem there

[Anonymous Coward]

No need for your own web space.

Is there a reason why that "http://crap.js" can't be a "file://crap.js" and reference the js file on the users hard disc?

If you want to keep the top banners, ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... then use this slightly modified version, which removes the image killing loop. The iframe killer (which nukes those terrible full-page ads) continues to work independently of that. I don't mind the top banner ads much either, but I thought my script should nuke them just for the sake of completeness. Hope this helps! :-)

-S.Trooper (posting anonymously since I seem to have struck a nerve and gotten my account banned)

server push vs. client pull

[NFW]

So it's more like newsgroups, where servers pass stuff around among themselves, waiting for clients to come by and ask for articles. I don't find that reassuring... At least with newsgroups there's some amount of moderation (reduce spam input), cancelling (retroactive moderation), and traceability (so spammer accounts can be revoked).

Spammers pollute. Freenet appears to be designed to allow for maximum pollution per unit of legitimate content.

I'd prefer to be proven wrong about this, but it looks to me like the bad apples are going to spoil this barrel even more so than we saw with usenet.

Re:server push vs. client pull

[Anonymous Coward]

Spam is the current problem in frost. There are people, who think that they need more free speech/expression than others and try to spam other groups away.

I'm sure protocols using freenet (in this case Text Over Freenet, which Frost uses) will develop more to a direction where messagers are identified by digital signatures (either with Freenet signatures like SSK-keys, which can be created only by knowing a private key, or by PGP/GPG-like methods) and getting rid of noise/spam is as easy as pressing a button "Show only a message signed by a friend" etc. Trusted keys can also be passed very easily as anyone familiar with keyservers know.

Currently Freenet protocol itself doesn't provide a method to securely pass a message to an SSK-key holder, which can't be read by anyone else.. but the other way aroud works very well. I'm sure this new keytype won't be added to Freenet since it would be another protocol change in the middle of 0.4 development. In 0.6 it could change again.

In Freenet 0.even are development and 0.odd are 'stable' in opposite of Linux Kernel development.

Re:server push vs. client pull

[cduffy]

Cancelation lists are easy to do with freenet -- I'm almost suprised frost doesn't support them already. The concept is simple: You simply publish your cancel list or request someone else's, and your node doesn't request any of those keys. Keys everyone "cancels" that way fall off the network.

Simple.

I'm demanding no such thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

What I am demanding is that VA stop trying to annoy people into buying subscriptions by shoving increasingly more obnoxious advertisements down our throats. That's simply bad business; it destroys goodwill and drives people away from the site. You can't sell anything to anyone by annoying them.

-S.Trooper

--- CODE UPDATED ---

[Anonymous Coward]

If you downloaded the code to some personal webspace, I humbly request that you download it again. The ad layout was changed to no longer use iframes, but instead place the ad img directly into the page. The new version (also available in a keep-banners version, which retains banner ads at the top while removing the obtrustive new large ads) now catches these new iframe-less ads. Be sure to check the code on occasion for updates (but always look over the code yourself before running it!)

-S.Trooper

Re:--- CODE UPDATED ---

[Anonymous Coward]

the keep-banners version isnt going to work, you left out the declaration/assignment of the img array.

Please find the fix below:


function delAds()
{

var imgs = document.getElementsByTagName('IMG');
var i;

for(i = 0; i < imgs.length; ++i)
if((imgs[i].width > 300 && imgs[i].width < 350
&& imgs[i].height > 250 && imgs[i].height < 300)) {
imgs[i].src = "";
imgs[i].width = 0;
imgs[i].height = 0;
}
}


As you can see, I've eliminated the (now obsolete) iframe code, and reinstated the IMG elements. :)

Do you like the SSSCA?

[HanzoSan]

Well then, if you dont like the SSSCA, the RIAA, the DCMA, and you want to challenge it, write applications which are impossible to stop.

Gnutella isnt enough, eventually Gnutella will be attacked in some way and people will need somewhere to go,when this happens freenet has to be ready.

We already have a frost front end, and freenewsreader, we have the FreeWeb, as far as having a napster like app for freenet, thats not going to happen, but you will be able to share files on freenet in complete safety.

Re:Do you like the SSSCA?

[cduffy]

...as far as having a napster like app for freenet, thats not going to happen...

A napster-like app using freenet has been in the works for some time. See espra.

Its not like that

[HanzoSan]

I understand programmers can be esoteric. I took the chance to talk to some of them in IIRC, alot of them are cool. Certainly not as bad as the gnome programmers.

Anyhow, Why sould you develop for freenet? I'll tell you why, because you'll be helping a great deal of people, millions in fact, including yourself. Theres many reasons to use freenet, free storage for the masses is the most obvious reason. Webpages wont cost a dime anymore using freenet So you and many others would save money.

Popular websites would never be taken down, the more popular it is the better the connection is. Freenet works almost like the brain does, the most popular your data the more connections to it.

Work on freenet to make an alternative to the current world wide web if the ideals dont impress you do it for the technology aspect, make freenet a success and you could end up with millions of users who switch from the regular internet, because the regular internet is becoming more and more censored.

Hey i cant tell you what to do, but if i had the ability ( I dont know java ) I'd help make some kinda front end for freenet

I always thought you're a girl

[Elkobim]

..like Jamie from Mad About You. It was so cute if a girl maintained Slashdot. But apparantly you're not. Oh well. :(

- Kobim

More people know C

[HanzoSan]

C is also an easier language, its faster, and its better for these types of programs by nature.

Re:More people know C

[Electric Monk]

Er, well yes it's probable that more people know C, but then again it has been around for what - 5 times as long as Java? Anyway, I don't see how it's easier... I mean Java is very much like C in style, and is just soo much easier to code in its frightening. Believe me: a garbage collected, managed environment is just so nice.

As for performance, well sure, a piece of C code that does precisely what it needs to do and no more is going to be faster than a bit of Java code that by its very nature has at least one other thread running. That's bound to take something away, but frankly it's pretty minimal and a well-written piece of Java can be just as fast as a bit of C.

I've been involved in a web-site that is mostly written in Java (the bit that isn't is called Apache), we can easily service 1000 simultaneous connections (this is considered fairly high), and have serviced around 30 million hits a day with 5 servers (and the servers were barely breaking a sweat). In fact, our ISP's firewall keeled over long before the web servers were worried. Oh, before you ask - they're just twin processor UltraSPARCs not E10000s or anything.

So how is C "better for these types of programs by nature"?

Re:More people know C

[HanzoSan]

Thats your opinion. C is not object oriented, its designed totally diffrent, in fact C and Java are opposites. You are comparing Java to C++.

C is a straight forward language, sure you can say that things in C have similar counter parts in java, Java has methods and objects, C has functions, header files, structures and unions.

C is more well known, theres BETTER C coders and very few good java coders (check out most java programs) Theres more documentation and tutorials for C, theres more C code written for refrence purposes and use in your projects.

Please dont make me laugh with this Website written in Java stuff, Java will never work for the web, it was a bad idea from the start, Java Applications however i think will be just fine.

A well written peice of Java can be as fast as C you say, yes thats true, but a well written C program can be as portible as Java.

The real benifit is the fact that everyone knows C, as far as using C for websites you can do that. Ive never done it myself but i know it can be done.

The benifit of Java and perhaps the only benifit i know of, your code may be alittle less buggy.

As far as your code being optimized, you'll never beat C here with java, Java code is not native, You can compile the C code to take advantage of your hardware, now maybe, MAYBE there is a way to get native speeds in java, but its still not as efficient as C.

My opinion is, for some programs object oriented languages may be better, take a look at KDE vs Gnome for a good example. But for others, i think you could write it faster in C.

Compare how you'd write a program in C, then compare it in C++, then Java, depending on the program, the size of it, and what its doing, it can be written faster in a certain language.

I'm no freenet programmer so i cannot say, but if the programmers say java is a problem and they are working on freenet, hey i guess java is a problem.

The only reason I'm not involved in freenet is because its Java, if it were C i may have gotten involved somehow.

I dont think i'm the only one.

Re:More people know C

[Tom7]

Just because something is, doesn't mean it ought.

The fact that more people use C says little about the language except that it is older and popular. (Lots of people here would be upset if you applied the same argument to Linux versus Windows.)

For a network app, it is ludicrous to write in C. You have to deal with buffer overflows, memory leaks, cumbersome char*-handling routines, and portability problems. Out of it you get a whole lot more code for a lot more time and headache, and also some speed increase. During the same time, you could have been optimizing your Java (or whatever) program and improving things like data structures and algorithms (which as we all know is what *really* matters in performance).

I ran a freenet node for a while and speed was not a problem. Ease of development and security are much more important, and Java (or other, better modern languages) win hands down for these.

But I *want* to see ads

[Elkobim]

The ads of slashdot are a part of it.

Rarely you get to know about new things by reading them (new computer languages/platforms), but it's interesting to see who sponsors slashdot. The ads aren't the thing that take a lot of download time - but it's the comments that do.

It's not the annoying Java or flash ads that make sounds or explode when you accidently move your mouse over them. They are just innocent ads. I can't see why anyone would filter them.

- Kobim

Re:But I *want* to see ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear User 516911: Before the days you came around, Slashdot didn't have ads. It's not as if the ads are a holy, immutable part of /.

Re:But I *want* to see ads

[Elkobim]

Well, now they keep slashdot alive.

Btw: Screw those jerks who moded me down! I lost 2 karma points goddamnit! bahh!! (hug_me)

Re:But I *want* to see ads

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a funny feeling that it was one of the editors whose salary you pay through your oh-so-noble ad-viewing.

No, really, they don't appreciate your loyalty. Get over it.

Re:But I *want* to see ads

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called bitchslapping a thread.

Notice how ALL the comments here, even the slashdot-postive ones like yours, got modded down?

"Easier"?

[cduffy]

C is easier than Java only in the sense that Windows is easier than UNIX; there's less of it to learn. Once you've learned either well, however, one can build complex projects much more quickly with Java than C.

C is certainly faster. C is without question better in most cases for low-level code -- whoever thought of writing an OS in Java should be shot.

On the other hand, Java makes it much easier to assemble (fairly) large, complex projects -- which, in case you haven't noticed, Freenet is. Network and stream handling is genuinely easier in Java than in C; the same goes for many other tasks. SQL is another that jumps to mind, though it's not particularly relevant here; proper exception handling is Yet Another Java Advantage (don't you hate checking every function's return value in C? Or worse yet, do you just not do it?), and not having to worry about buffer overflows or accumulating unfree()'d memory over days of operation is damn nice.

Understand -- almost all the code I write is in C, Java or Python, and I respect all three for the things they're good at. Freenet is certainly not a Python project, and (due to the need to structure its design effectively and do correct error handling easily) it strikes me as more of a Java project than a C one.

Yes, more people know C -- but if it takes them twice as long to get to release (tracking and removing all the memory leaks and potential buffer overruns, recreating the network code Java does for them, &c) or just takes newcomers twice as long to understand the program's structure (something OO, when done right, makes easy), that's no killer advantage.

Well duh

[HanzoSan]

Java is object oriented, the whole point of the object oriented design,is to help with complex BIG projects.

However freenet while its complex, i dont think its a "BIG" project. KDE is a big project and its not nearly as complex as freenet.

Big projects benifit from using objects.

As far as if C is easier than Java, to me C is easier, Java has"MORE" syntax than C, its a totally diffrent way of thinking (Object Oriented)
Theres alot of confusing things about Java.

As for bugs yes Java can handle bugs. I just dont think Freenet benifits from the Object Oriented style, please tell me how.

You are right about memory leaks, you are right about buffer overrun, what you forget is how much C code is already written, people wouldnt have to reinvent the wheel for alot of things like they will have to do in Java.

You are right it will take them longer to release at first the foundation, however once that is complete i think C would be nice. If it were C it would also be much easier for Windows users, and Linux users, even Mac users because it could be intergrated very well into the OS.

As far as understanding structure, I think C code is more unstandable but thats just me, anyhow my point is, If its written in C it would have more developers, the project might have been more on the scale of gnutella instead of what it is now.

It would be easy to write a freenet frontend in visual basic for windows but as for java, how do you write a front end for that.

I dont know, I think java has its advantaged but if they needed object oriented i still think C++ would have been better. But if they dont need object oriented, C would have been my choice.

My choice doesnt mean much though does it.

Re:Well duh

[cduffy]

Personally I can think well in OO in terms of understanding a design. As for readability... if you can do something in 3/5 the code in Java (being generous to C here), that means less redundancy so each line you read contributes more to your understanding. Even better, though, you've got things like the definitions of the classes themselves to work from in gaining the "big picture" (that being frequently much more important than understanding each individual little piece of code). Even discarding this (but keeping the 3/5 figure), to be as understandable as Java, C has to be at least 1.66x as easy to read per line. Is it? I certainly don't think so.

Also, if you expect folks to need to reinvent the wheel in Java, I don't think you've looked at much of the code out there. Quite a bit of the stuff you need to resort to weird libraries to in C (and in doing so limiting your portability) is included in Java's runtime library (and has a consistant level of quality and coding style).

[RANT]
C++? C++ is an inconsistant POS language (just try using its more unusual features like RTTI or inhereting from templates and seeing how differently "standard" compilers will treat your code) with a (relatively) lousy runtime library. It isn't OO, it isn't procedural... what it is is Ugly And Bad. There aren't many languages I actively dislike -- but C++, like Perl, is among them.
[END RANT]

As for integrating into the OS, that's why Freenet has FCP (the Freenet Client Protocol). Folks can write their clients natively, as they like (even in VB for Windows, as you mention) and use a very simple protocol to communicate with the local Freenet node. Easy 'nuff, no?

Re:Well duh

[HanzoSan]

I agree i dont like perl either. But i prefer C++ over java slightly.

Java just doesnt feel like a real language to me, it almost reminds me of visual basic, I know its a real language but, I dont like it.

Perl makes no sense, follows no standards, its just weird, it is good for stuff dealing with strings but thats about it.

Re:Well duh

[maxpublic]

Perl is as good as the programmer, just like C, C++, Python, Java, whatever. I've programmed in Perl for years and have no problem with getting it to do what I want, with a minimum of hassle. The same for C and Python. I'm sure any competent Java programmer can claim the same for Java.

Max

Re:Well duh

[Tom7]

You don't have to program with objects in Java. You can program totally C-like code (you just have to do away with some unsafe C idioms that aren't very good anyway) in Java and just benefit from its type safety, memory management, portability, and large library of utilities.

I think maybe you just haven't had enough experience with Java? Having no core dumps, memory leaks, or buffer overflows really is a nice thing, especially for network apps...

Re:Well duh

[cduffy]

Perl is as good as the programmer, just like C, C++, Python, Java, whatever.

I disagree. Different languages have different strengths and weaknesses -- surely you won't deny that there are things you can do in a line of Perl or Python requiring whole functions to do in C? Perl makes it easy to write code that does some things efficiently -- but it also makes it easy to write very ugly, hard to maintain code (that does things efficiently).

Python, for instance, makes it harder to write ugly code. It's still entirely possible (and it certainly doesn't stop people from doing bad design work), but it isn't as easy. Python also tends to encourage object oriented design and assorted other Good Practices. Is it possible to write spaghetti code in Python? Of course! Is it as easy to do? No.

Here's the kicker. You may be really good with Perl -- write easy to read, fast, maintainable code; the whole bit. That doesn't mean it'll suck any less when you get handed an unreadable mess written by the last guy to have the job and are told to extend it (or, if you know by heart all Python's syntactical complexities, when the summer intern your company hired gets handed that some code to maintain). The world doesn't have only competent programmers, and it's necessary to try to limit the damage can be done by those who aren't. Using languages that make it even a little harder to write bad code (or even a little easier to write good code) is thus a step well worth taking.

Re:Well duh

[cduffy]

Once you've worked with enough Java, you come to love it -- or at least know when it's the most appropriate choice for a given project. Tools like Torque (which generates SQL and OR database models from XML schema descriptions) can make some jobs tremendously easier than they might be otherwise -- heck, even the presence of JDBC is Damn Nifty. Handled correctly, Java can be far easier to debug than C or C++ (its debuggers themselves suck compared to those available for native languages, but its exception handling and tools like log4j kick a tremendous amount of ass -- and while C++ ports for log4j exist, there are some capabilities the Java version has that the C++ versions just can't due to the lack of a VM).

Cheap content distribution

[cduffy]

Why Freenet? It's such a tremendous effort, for something that so few will use. In fact, does anyone actually use it for getting work done? Heck, does anyone use it for anything? (I honestly want to know!)

Forgetting about all the anonymity/freedom-related arguments in favor of freenet... it provides a means of allowing the users to pay for your content distribution!

This is great for folks running, say, a free webcomic who hitherto have had to pay $750 a month for their bandwidth. With freenet, the cost of distributing the content is paid by the users; the more the users use it, the more it's automatically distributed. That has a great deal of value. If I were running a non-commercial web site with a fair bit of traffic and couldn't find free hosting elsewhere, I'd probably run it on freenet myself (perhaps with a for-pay web version so folks who want to go that route can pay for the bandwidth themselves). If the webcomic authors wanted to take advantage of freenet's anonymity features (which they probably wouldn't -- getting credit for your work is a Good Thing), they could also avoid being sued by corporations angry about such things as, say, Jesus peanut butter cups.

Sure, not many people use it right now. Once critical mass is reached (of either users or content), it's reasonable to expect that to change.

Few computers know POSIX

[yerricde]

a well written C program can be as portible as Java.

Not if you want to use advanced OS features such as sockets or a GUI and the most common workstation operating system on the most common consumer workstation doesn't support POSIX well, let alone X11. Or are you talking about emulating POSIX on a winbox (that is, the opposite of WINE)?

Java code is not native

Bull. GCJ can compile Java language source code to a native binary using the same code generator G++ uses. Granted, you do lose a bit of performance to the GC thread.

Some common apps do heavy number crunching

[yerricde]

real-world user-applications seldom do number-crunching in tight loops for hours

"Seldom" referring to media players and 3D games, correct? Apparently, you meant that many popular applications (such as Freenet) are I/O bound rather than CPU bound, and the Java platform introduces little penalty there; granted.

No, there isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Just download the copy to your hard drive and change the script src to file:///path/to/adkiller.js as appropriate :-)

FIXED!!

[Anonymous Coward]

D'oh! I must've missed that! Sorry for the bug, and thanks for pointing it out. :-)

-S.Trooper

Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Would that work with as well?

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

most sites use the # sign, such as:
<img src="#" onLoad="javascript:delAds()">

Espra is dead

[HanzoSan]

They havent released an update in almost a year.

Re:Espra is dead

[cduffy]

Granted, but it demonstrates the possibility; that it's "not going to happen", thus, it a bit of a stretch.

Someone slipped up :-o

[Rick the Red]

Starship Trooper (User #523907) posted some code that may or may not kill the new ads here in Slashdot [haven't tried 'em, so I can't vouch for their effectiveness].

jamie pointed out that it might not be safe to run javascript hosted on someone else's server.

Astral Traveller (User #540334) then says:

Hence, I said: [emphasis mine; read the parent for the full text]

Hmmm. I guess Astral Traveller and Starship Trooper are the same dude. How many other accounts you got? Ever mod yourself up? (ever mod yourself down?)

I don't doubt that lots of people have multiple accounts, but if you do you should be careful which ones you use in which thread :-)

It is well known that A.T. and S.T. are the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, "Starship Trooper" has been banned from posting after this incident, so I was forced to used "Astral Traveller" (the similarities should be obvious) in order to reply to jamie (after which A.T. was banned from posting too). So, yes, I was fully aware that I was using multiple accounts while referring to myself. And let this be a lesson -- don't post anything that threatens VA Software's new business model!

-S.Trooper/A.Traveller

100th post

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously.

Re:It is well known that A.T. and S.T. are the sam

[maxpublic]

Well, this definitely needs to be boosted into the airy ranks of '2' comments. Banned for posting code that blocks slashdot ads! Geez, given the editorial fairness we've seen up to this point who would've thought?

A.S.'s, original comment, moved up the firing line to keep it from languishing in the ranks of '0' comments. Yes, I know, redundant, but this is also a test to see if I can still post later on today:

Unfortunately, "Starship Trooper" has been banned from posting after this incident, so I was forced to used "Astral Traveller" (the similarities should be obvious) in order to reply to jamie (after which A.T. was banned from posting too). So, yes, I was fully aware that I was using multiple accounts while referring to myself. And let this be a lesson -- don't post anything that threatens VA Software's new business model! -S.Trooper/A.Traveller

Max

It is flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it says, right in the original fucking comment, to COPY IT TO YOUR OWN WEBSPACE before running it! jamie's just spouting crap in a vain attempt to discourage people from using this trick.

Freenet vs MS Word .doc Format

[castlan]

Well, you will have at least 6 months between changes.
It was supposed to be a little sarcastic, but really I was sparing you.
I could have brought up how Freenet can just as easily harbor unsavory trojans and wicked macro files, just like Word.
I also could have talked about how the binary Word .docs can contain all kinds of personal info, which can be awful if you make the .doc file publically available, as then your private info will leak out into society at large. Similarly, you can inadvertently copy a sensitive file into Freenet, and once that happens you can never remove it again. Hell, you can even accidentally copy a Word file which contains private info into Freenet, and by the time you realize that your private info was in the .doc, it is too late to remove it. I also could have pointed out that if you thought that Outlook was a dangerous medium for spreading all kinds of filthy viruses, then you have much more to look forward to, because when Freenet is in the full swing of things, there will be no mail servers on which to host virus-scanners, and no way to filter out all of the infectious garbage! Of course, I am a very thoughtful person, and being sensitive to your needs I didn't bring any of this stuff up. It's a good thing I know when to keep my mouth shut, huh! 8D

Don't you feel better now? I would say "See, I told you so!" if I were one of those kinds of people, but I'm not, and it's a good thing too. See, I can be comforting when I try. Not at all sociopathic-like. 8P

Now how about a hug? %D

No, wait, come back! I was being friendly, I was! Hey! :-(

You should be able to

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the weather info stuff doesn't take up too much room in the user space, you can just append this to the end of it. But when you submit changes, you'll want to make sure it doesn't get cut off :-)

-S.Trooper

OFF TOPIC?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck is this off-topic? He was replying to a message from a god damn editor!

Bitchslapped thread.

[nyet]

I found this thread after reading this article on K5. Yes, it is yet another variation on the "imminent death of /. predicted, film at 11" rant, but the many pointers to bitchlapped threads piqued my interest.

Most readers *would* no doubt be very interested in this thread, but for some reason the whole thing got downmodded by the editors.

I was willing to give /. the benifit of the doubt (I had always felt the k5 readership to be pedantic and elitist FAR beyond even the worst /. poster) but this really takes the cake.

I have karma to burn, so I'm interested in seeing how fast this post gets moderated down.

Yeah, it's for "security reasons"

[Starship Trooper]

Post a comment to this Sourceforge bug report telling Jamie what tags you want liberated.

Re:Yeah, it's for "security reasons"

[kilgore_47]

from the sourcefore page:
Sorry, but HTML tags usable in User Space have been restricted to forbid javascript. Trolls were socially engineering things to encourage people to put foreign-site Javascript into their User Space, which is a cross-site scripting attack waiting to happen.

Is jamie is refering to your comment here that he replied to, or have there been other indcidents of trolls "social engineering" people into using offsite scripts?

He's referring to me, most likely

[Starship Trooper]

And while I honestly had no plans to sneak any malicious code into my script, I can see the risk. I just wish jamie would try to find a more constructive solution than outright banning of all Javascript. I liked joe_jones' solution of filtering out document.cookie, which would put a huge dent in the danger of rogue scripts. From your comment, it would probably be wise to block document.write() as well. However, that may be too difficult to implement. We'll see what jamie's final solution is.