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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.
does someone seriously believe Freenet is just a research project when it has such social ramifications?
In a couple of decades' time, when everything, such as phone, radio, television, movies, music, books, the lot, are locked up through DRM/Palladium, something like Freenet would be the anemia (sp?) of the command-and-control society companies are pushing us towards. It may well be illegal some time in the future.
If Ian Clarke claims it is anything but research, then people will start to see it in a whole new light, perhaps claiming Ian (and other developers) be held resposible for its use.
Maybe he just seeks to avoid those conflicts?
My <1000 UID is with a hot chick
Anyone find anything of interest in FreeNet? It was too slow for casual browsing, at least...
Apparently, it is easier to find all kinds of "interesting" stuff (mostly entertaining documents by crackpots) in run-of-the-mill p2p networks, such as DC. And all the feds looking for child porn distributors would do well to take a look at edonkey2000 network. DC is self-censoring, i.e. child/gay porn sharers aer kicked away from the hubs.
It's funny to see how hysterical people are about child porn, and how "underground" it is portrayed in the media. But yet relatively public networks such as edonkey has lots of the "pre-teen" material. It's not like it would take a heroic detective skills to raid some of the houses of people who are distributing it...
A standard problem with deploying systems is that as soon as there is a critical mass of users, the bulk of them want stability rather than innovation.
The solution is to have multiple parallel versions, one for the early adopters, one for the mass market, and one for the late adopters.
If this is not possible within Freenet itself (because the network exists as a single entity) then the solution is to have alternative products. It seems quite fair to have (e.g. Gnunet) providing a robust and stable product while Freenet continues to act as a research project: both needs are clear and there is no real need to compromise either of them.
Eventually the question of how to build such networks will be fully understood and the research will end and everyone will migrate to the One Network that does it best.
Until then, yay, more Freenet, and more choice!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Perhaps if it were anything other than a research project, Mr Clarke might be classified as a terrorist.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
# What is Freenet?
Freenet is free software designed to provide a forum where information can be published and consumed without fear of censorship. It does this by providing a completely decentralized, and robust way that people can publish and read information anonymously. Freenet grew out of a paper I wrote while still a student at Edinburgh University.
Sounds like the canary has changed its tune, eh? Now freenet is a research project, not a 'forum where information can be published and consumed without fear of censorship.' Although I always respect a developer that wants to go back and fix bugs with a system before moving to another release (or I suppose in this case, after moving to another release), the email from Ian Clarke sounds downright aggorant -- you can address points about bugs without telling someone to go use another network. I don't use freenet, so it doesn't really affect me, but I definately feel sorry for those who do/did.
Ian Clarke is just saying that Freenet is imperfect, and some people are overreacting to what he said. Freenet is not about to start divulging anybody's anonyminity anytime soon. Actually the "research" is looking into continually better ways of protecting it. Freenet still has a long way to go, and creating some sort of pseudo-"stable" branch is not going to help things. Ian Clarke was talking about the bugs found in all software programs, not actual design failures. Of course, perfect security is a pipe dream, and those people who are throwing this tantrum can stop asking for it.
It's easy, really.
Dissidents are people with an opinion that differs enough from popular opinion to attract negative attention from state officials, while terrorists are people who try to accomplish their goals by killing civilians on purpose.
Does that clear things up for you?
Of course, the word dissident is only used by people who agree with said opinion, and the word terrorist by those who disagree with said goals.
Better comparisions would be freedom fighter/terrorist, dissident/fundamentalist, and education/propaganda
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Why are you lumping gay porn in with child porn? Is the only acceptable porn that depicting women, or heterosexual couples?
Just curious.
I like this comment:
It is estiamted that, after digging a 100 ft well, it is possible to achieve over six kilobits of extra RAM storage at 20 kHz.
We are currently looking for distributors.
Data storage in a well!
Seriously, though, I've been thinking that something like this is the solution to the real-world problem of permanent storage. CDs die. Tapes (or their hardware) die. Harddrives die. The only way to maintain permanent storage over _long_ periods of time is to think of it like drops in an ocean: data forever moving. The net will live forever.
We need a p2p network for secure, private file storage, not sharing. Anybody know of such a project? I don't think it's freenet, nor is it kazaa. Is this a new p2p idea? Data always flowing, noone knowing what's there. Just have everyone pay N MB to store one MB of private data, then the data can be N (-1?) fold secure.
Who?
Ive been using freenet for quite a long time. And have, in the past hyped it up and distributed CDs of it and related software to people. As it stands at the moment I will not use freenet until it improves drastically. The latest builts wont retrive anything, even the common link pages. Last time i checked most site maintainers had abandened their site because the network was so sucky. Ian Clark seems to be one of the worst freenet developers. His conserns over the type of material beening distibuted seem to be one of the many reasons freenet development is not progressing as well as it should. I only hope freenet will continue and grow into something to be proud of. We all need this kind of network, if not now, in the future.
I'm sorry, but this guy isn't being paid for his project, made all of his source open, and worked his ass off on something the community uses.
He doesn't "owe" anyone anything, and we should all be thankful that (and this is the main advantage with open source) a project isn't dead just because it's creator is tired of maintaining it.
Instead of complaining about it, branch the code! Make it better! Or at least make it into whatever you want. You see, that's the beauty of open source, instead of "shit, or get off the pot" it's "code or STFU".
Real vs. Theoretical:
Use Freenet vs. Use Something Else:
Production vs. Development:
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.
I don't think that's true. I went to cnn.com and foxnews.com and looked up recent stories about U.S. soldiers under attack in post-war Iraq. In the CNN story they call the attackers "gunmen." In the Fox News report they call them "ex-soldiers," and also mention "dissidents" who were protesting and throwing rocks. I think the media is using the correct words.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
There's no money in helping kiddies. There's votes to be had in saying that you're going to help them, but saying is a very different thing from doing.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
And maybe while we are at it: the difference between prisoners of war and "detainees".
(Cue music)
.
Ian Clarke, Ian Clarke, riding through the land. .
"Blimey, this redistribution of free information is trickier than I thought."
Look, you take a few million rugged individualists the try to throw one blanket over them this sort of thing is bound to happen. An acquiantence of mine once complained that they couldn't get people who were Libertarians to register as party members.
Well duh!
Parties aren't part of the Constitutional structure of America. Why would a real Libertarian join one?
The very concept is a bit like the proverbial procrastinators meeting or herd of cats.
This was bound to happen. It's also bound to blow over. Maybe it'll even result in some "genetic annealing" of the net.
KFG
Linux was at version 0.x from 1991 until 1994 when version 1.0 was released. I remember people using Linux 0.x in 1994 though (and 1995, 1996), sometimes in a production capacity, although I'm sure caveats would have recommended against it. In fact, was Linux version 1.0 ready to be used in a production environment with no worries? Not really (I remember my 1.x server getting the "ping of death" and going down, among other things). Freenet was released in 1999. When it goes to version 1.x, that's when I'll expect a more production-oriented p2p network. But Ian does not feel it is ready, and I tend to agree. Linux was very complex, but it did have many other OS's to compare with, it was not totally groundbreaking and revolutionary (although it partly was). Freenet is forging a new path, thus takes more time.
It now points to freenet's donation page.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
It's just a project leader telling someone to help fix what's broken, wait till it's fixed, or go play somewhere else. Happens all the time, read some Linus Torvalds posts to see how he gives people hell who give him shit. Nothing new here, move on. It's not the end of Freenet.
That's pretty easy, too, Dave.
Check the Geneva Convention. A "prisoner of war" is a legal definition. You have to meet certain criteria in order to be considered an official "prisoner of war," and those criteria are specifically enumerated in the Geneva convention. In general, you have to be a member of, or closely affiliated with, an armed force of a legitamate government. The Al Qaeda fighters are not uniformed, and are not under the command of a governmental authority responsible for their actions. Therefore, they cannot be official prisoners of war, and therefore they do not receive any of the protections afforded by the Geneva convention. Also, it's not like they play by the rules of Geneva convention, anyway.
So then, a "Prisoner of War" is someone who meets the criteria specified by the Geneva convention, and a 'detainee' is somebody captured during military action who does not fit that criteria.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
What part of >0.<5.1 don't people understand? How can people claim that we describe Freenet as production ready when the fact that Freenet isn't is embodied in the very name of each release?!
This is not inconsistent in it being downloaded by users, nor is it inconsistent with people using it - since, as anyone familiar with Open Source development, such usage is part of any O.S development process.
Anyone that does choose to use Freenet is encouraged to understand what it does and does not protect at the moment, and those that do, do-so on this basis.
We agreed to resolve these issues by creating a more conservative stable branch of Freenet, and efforts are underway to make this happen as we speak. Bottom line: "Move along, there is nothing to see here".
... of the times when I was still using freenet-project.
On IRC, they always were mobbing me because of
OpenBSD, and after two head developers, Ian Clarke
being one of them, named me a Nazi and made tail-
length comparisions, I left.
Not only this saved me from the hassle of putting
up first Java then freenet-project up on OpenBSD
and publishing the results as a service to the
general public, no it also showed me, again, that
many projects have problems with their attitude
(can't exclude MirBSD though).
They were trying to replace fproxy by a Mozilla
(full bloat version) fork with fproxy integrated
at that time. Nothing really stable...
PS: Please don't ask for the IRC logs of when They
offended me - I delete my logs daily.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
In WWII, eight German soldiers infiltrated the U.S. to commit acts of sabotage. They were captured, tried for espionage before a military tribunal, and found guilty. Six were executed, and two served long prison sentences. As they were engaged in clandestine acts of espionage and sabotage, they were not covered under the Geneva convention, and were not Prisoners of War, so it was perfectly legal to try and execute them. How is the current situation with Al Qaeda different?
Well for one thing they were at least charged with something! Some of the prisoners in Guantanamo were ex-taliban and probably meet the definition for prisonners of war, some are Al-Quaida and probably do not. But that's not the point.
The point is that they are EITHER prisonners of war (with specific rights), suspected spies (with specific rights) or common criminals (also with specific rights). Right now the US claim "none of the above". They are held in an artificial legal no man's land by their jailers. Isn't it pretty hypocrytical that they are being held in Cuba to shield them from the jurisdiction of their captor's own tribunals, and yet the same captors do not recognise the jurisdiction on the foreign country they are being held in either either. So whose jurisdiction are they under?
Even the most fierce oponents of this policy do recognise that a great many of them are probably guilty (of something). But having them handled outside any judicial system does not help the cause and sets a HORRIBLE precedent for other countries. I personally find the current situation worse than a mock trial! At least after a mock trial it is known who and where they are, and what they were charged with.
Your example is flawed, many of the people in Guantanemo where taken there after fighting a war in their own country.
In your example that would be like Germany entering France, taking some of the resistance and executing them. They were the bad guys remember.
But I suppose you didn't want to draw that parallel eh.
p.s
Britain is not your ally, Tony Blair is:-)
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
This thing about a 'revolt' is false. First, Ian Clarke endorsed the idea (From the developer newsgroup October 5 2003):
Reskill wrote:
> Stricter upgrading sounds good to me if it helps bring the network out
> of this hole... but I do think that, while the technically minded among
> us play with the latest code, some of us reside on a separate network
> so we can enjoy freenet for what it really is.
>
> For those wanting to give this a try, see http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~mids/freenet/
Lets do this properly and keep it under the project umbrella. The last
thing we need are different competing and deliberately incompatable
Freenet versions.
Basically stable should be reverted to whatever the current consensus is
on a stable version, and we need two separate seedlists.
I already have a seednode harvester set up, I can easily set up two each
specific to a different network provided there are volunteers who will
make their nodes available for seeding.
Ian.
Second, this is split (making a second network from a older (ver. 692) more functioning version) is win-win for everyone. The new secondary Freenet network I was on was much faster then the current one (Getting 100,000 kilobytes per second thoughput, and that was just because there is a default cap of 100,000). And the developers get a network to study that has 1 build, instead of a willy-nilly collection of many different builds.
The detainees at Guantanamo are not being tried. The problem is that these people are in a legal limbo. If they committed crimes, try them and punish them. But we have no way of knowing what these people are even accused of doing.
To believe that our government would not detain innocent people is to be naive to the point of absurdity.
The point here is that locking people up indefinitely, with no right to face their accusers and defend themselves, is unAmerican, and should be deeply offensive to every real American. We should all resent the erosion of America's reputation as the world's greatest bastion of liberty and justice. If we lose that, we've lost something a whole lot more important than anything the terrorists can take from us.
Some people, though, get off by mislabelling both so that others will download it. Put up what you prefer, but label it appropriate. Many people don't have a problem with other people enjoying their variety of pr0n (be it by preference or fetish - so long as it is legal), but it's really a pain when you download a 125MB file only to find it is something else.While I accept pr0n for "alternative preferences" than my own, it's definately not a turn-on. With the illegal stuff, it's even worse, because now it's been on my hard-drive, and were it to be found it would look bad even if it hadn't been what I was looking for.
It's an assumption, but perhaps this is what the parent was discussion, as I have noticed the behavior of posting such material mislabelled is becoming too prolific in P2P lately.