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Freenet 0.5.1 Released, P2P Network Stabilizing
mids writes "With version 0.5.1, Freenet isn't only the most secure & anonymous P2P network, but also getting pretty fast!
Reliable downloading of files as large as 700MB from Freenet at average download rates as high as 100k/sec on a broadband internet connection are sighted (which compares quite favorably to more conventional P2P applications)."
Distruibuted Mirror Project
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Freenets model is that data is transient. If some data is not used frequently, or used widely, it gets dropped eventualy. To insure avaiablilty you would need to constantly reinsert the data. Running a freenet node and inserting large quantities of data are two different things.
I run a node, because I can, and there is little effort involved in keeping it up and running. The quality of the software has improved dramaticaly. For a while it was a pain to run due to the java VMs sucking up all avaiable ram and frequent crashes. Now I check that is is running once every few days or so.
If more people start to setup nodes, and the software is idiot proof, this thing could take off.
You can jump straight to the fast SourceForge download site here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=978&release_id=147101
Orange
Plus, it's not a sharing model, it's a publish model. You have to upload files to the network, a process that used to be a total PITA anyway, if you wanted it to propogate enough to be useful.
So FreeNet isn't useful for pirates. Which is cool. What it is useful for is things like load balancing - if you've ever been slashdotted, or ever found it hard to pay the bandwidth bills, freenet offers a way out. They were even playing with streaming radio over it a while ago, though I think really IPv6 multicast is a better solution there.
So freenet is about freedom of speech, load balancing, cool P2P experiments, lots of things - but not MP3 swapping.
What it is about is the ability to store anything, particularly items that may give the holder problems, like the film of a cop selling drugs to kids.
It isn't eDonkey, it isnt Kazzaa. With both of these systems you know what you are sharing, with Freenet you don't. With traditional P2P, MPAA can go round logging who is sharing LOTR and send them DMCA cease and desist notices. If you are living in Farkistan, you can publish your videos of police executions without fear that the police can track you down. Once you have loaded a file on the net with freenet, you don't know where it is, and neither does anyone else until they are given a hash key.
You just have some file storage assigned to the network which is browsable by a hash key through your local web browser. Freenet appears as localhost:8888 to your browser so you can access with a locked-down Mozilla or even IE (less wise because of the holes). People can know that you are running Freenet, but that is all (assuming you clear browser caches and so on).
The downside is because you can share anything anonymously, people do. However, unless someone is prepared to publish a reference to young Britney and her dog, nobody is going to find it.
The curious thing is that if you have a fairly static IP and are contributing space to the net, you have no idea what is stored on your machine. It could be human rights info, it could be copyright material, it could be very illegal pornography. You just don't know.
Also it seems to take a long time to get into the network. It is painfully slow to start and until it starts caching information locally, a letter may be faster.
You have to run a Freenet node for some time before the speed starts to pick up. The longer you run your node, then better it gets integrated into the network.
I've been using Freenet for a month now, and the performance has been growing steadily. Try downloading Freenet from my server to get a different set of seed-nodes than the ones distributed from SourceForge.
Martin Geisler --- Visit http://www.gimpster.com/
If kiddie-porn exchange does not result in violence
That is a big IF. Most would argue that the act if kiddie porn is in itslef an act of violence on the child in question and each transfer of that file furthers this.
g
called GNUnet
Also be sure to check out Freenet Insertion Wizard, FIW.
a ge =Applications
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/tiki-index.php?p
They can't find out who initially contributed what, but it's quite easy to find out who is hosting what. Just look at the IP address of whoever is connecting to you.
Not true. For any particular freenet request you cannot be sure if the node contacting you is requesting the file, or is just passing along a request from a previous node.
The reverse is also true. For any particular file you're requesting, you can't tell if the file you're getting is from the node you're contacting or if it's passing on your request to another node.
It's a double blind. You MAY be getting the files from that node, then again by the very nature of freenet, and the large amount of information in it it is extremely unlikely that the information you recieved was actually on the node you requested it from.
Further, if the goverment finds something unsavory, and manages to somehow prove (don't ask me how) it was on your computer the caching nature of Freenet allows you to say "There's a damn good chance that file wasn't on my computer until the government requested it". At that point you have the dual defenses of reasonable doubt and entrapment.
"...rates as high as 100k/sec on a broadband internet connection are sighted..."
Cited, not sighted. Think "Works Cited" versus "we sighted a boat off our stern".
Want to talk? ashaver AT pdx DOT edu
good lawyer could probably successfully argue you have no way of knowing what's being stored on your computer as it is part of an anonymous network.
Actually, you can be held liable for it regardless of whether you "know" it is there or not. For instance, if you are driving a car, and your passenger puts their crack cocaine under the seat, you can be held liable for it even if you had no idea since you are in control of the car. Ignorance is not an excuse to allowing others to use your property to commit a crime.
It would be like a bank being held liable for criminals stashing money from the drug trade in it.
This is precisely why there are long and complex laws pertaining to money laundering. All financial institutions are required to implement strong procedural safeguards to prevent abuse. Failure to do so can result in prosecution of the bank for culpability in the depositor's crime. Another area this is becoming "hot" is in the market for expensive consumer and industrial goods. The latest scheme used by narcotics traffikers is to take their drug money in South America, and use it to purchase expensive goods (like appliences) from compaines like GE. GE recently sponsored a DOJ initiative to combat this, and many of the computer manufacturers (like Dell) were included. The anonymous nature of web commerce makes this method possible.
In short, you are lible for what's on your computer, so make sure you know what people are sticking in there!
I'm a lawyer with excellent karma. Something's gotta be wrong.
Slashdotting? Not quite. But something similar, perhaps.
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
Dude, **ITS KIDDIE PORN**. It's **ILLEGAL**. Poeple are routinely tracked down and prosecuted for posessing it. You're required by Federal law to report it if you find it on any system you administer.
That means if I host a freenet node that contains said content and don't report it because it's freedom of speech, **I GO TO JAIL**. I'm all for free speech until speech that isn't mine lands me in the Federal penitentiary and gets me labeled forever as a pedophile.
I can totally see how mw going to jail will help stop it getting out there and cease being a financially viable venture.
"Want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first." - My Dad
That was a clueless answer, I sincerely hope you're only pretending to be a lawyer. I dont know what the full position is under the medieval criminal laws of the US but under most other common law jurisdiction mens rea remains pivotal, mercifully.
The reason for criminal intent being introduced in criminal jurisprudence is precisely to avoid the horrifying consequences people have mentioned in this thread. At one time men rea was not a legal requirement - in the middle ages appropriately. It was introduced when people started getting hung for eating venison they had unwittingly bought from others who had poached it from the king. It was said there needed to be a moral failure also: a guilty intention as well as a guilty act (the actus reus).
Because it makes criminal convictions harder to obtain it is a principle that is the subject of erosion where there are countervailing issues of moral panic such as, well, KP drugs (and soon terrorism no doubt). At the other extreme where the consequences of a conviction are not serious - such as safe food handling in restaurants - there is also a trend to reduce the need for mens reas and create so called strict liability offences since these become easier to prosecute without making convictions offensive.
In most parts of the World, including the US I suspect, you would need to demonstrate a knowing sharing of KP . Unwitting participation in sharing KP merely by running a freenet node not would not make one guilty.
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
There are some tribes in New Zealand...
/. and it's just idiocy.
Look,
I know this isn't central to your argument, but I feel the need to point out that you don't know what you're talking about. New Zealand is a developed, western nation with a top-20 spot on the OECD and quite clear laws regarding public nudity.
The "tribes" you refer to are known here as "iwi", and are also technologically advanced and largely western in lifestyle. The Maori (native New Zealand) people do not live in mud huts and run around in grass skirts - they live in brick-and-tile townhouses, and run around in jeans and t-shirt (or a 3-piece suit, depending who you meet).
It might be a small point, but I see these cultural stereotypes all the time on