Fracturing P2P Networks

A reader writes: "If you run Freenet and have noticed that you practically can't access anything on the network, you are not alone; a group of Freenet users has organized a Freenet Revolt by forming a separate network running an old, proven build of Freenet, and things have been heating up on the freenet-devel mailing list with a scary declaration by project leader Ian Clarke that Freenet is a research project and has always been, which scared some list members, since Freenet has been actively promoted as a production network and has a sensitive userbase, including Chinese dissidents. Some people are already moving to similar networks like GNUnet and Entropy. " Of course, that does sound different then what has been said before.

Comments

Re:Child porn

[Zocalo]

On the subject of child porn's "underground" portrayal in the (mainstream) media I once read an article about an IT journalist who was always being asked by his non IT colleagues "Where's the porn?" Their intent was obviously to write another "Diss of the Internet as a hive of pedophiles" article that were and are so common. His standard response was "If it's is easy to find as you and your ilk claim, then I'm sure you can find it all by yourself, can't you."

When the journalists reporting on the subject don't have a clue, then it's hardly suprising that their articles are somewhat skewed. Skip forward a few years and now we are getting the same standards of journalistic brilliance applied to P2P and the whole copyright issue.

Then and Now

[Plasmic]

Ian's Comments on Freenet... Then and Now

Real vs. Theoretical:

Then: "Freenet is not just theoretical, it has been downloaded by over 1.2 million users since the project started, and it is used for the distribution of censored information all over the world, including countries such as China and the Middle East." -- Freenet web site

Now: "Freenet is a research project, always has been. If people find that its usable, then great, they can help us research how to make it better." -- Ian, Newsgroup posting

Use Freenet vs. Use Something Else:

Then: "Freenet is a pretty effective and scalable way to distribute large files and it is immune to "denial of service" attacks, so it is certainly useful beyond its primary goal of permitting anonymous information distribution." -- Ian, GrepLaw Interview

Now: "If you want something easy to use that works today and claims to protect your anonymity, I suggest you try Earth Station 5, its developers tell us that its just *great*!" -- Ian, Newsgroup posting

Production vs. Development:

Then: "Freenet is also actively used in other countries, including the United States, to distribute censored information such as the Church of Scientology "Operating Thetan" documents. Freenet has been download by over 2,000,000 people." -- Ian, GrepLaw Interview

Now: "I have never ever characterized Freenet as being anything other than in development. Either help, stop griping, or find an alternative." -- Ian, Newsgroup posting

I didn't find any direct conflicts in the articles linked above, but there's certainly a shift in tone. It's also worth mentioning that they have a release called "stable", in addition to the "development" and "unstable" branches.