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Freenet Project More Stable, In Need
An anonymous reader writes "The Freenet Project is asking for donations to help keep their main programmer, Matthew Toseland. After a long time, finally Freenet, software which 'lets you publish and obtain information on the Internet without fear of censorship' is working fine (and fast) again, since their overload problems are almost completely fixed. They even plan to write a paper about the overload problems. If you want to try, be sure to run the latest stable or unstable snapshot."
I just installed it and its running slow as shit. Same as last time. Is freenet being slashdotted or is this just hype?
...when trying to pull up the freenet website results in something like this (what I see at work):
Request for URL http://66.35.250.209:80/ denied by WebBlocker (Status: denied Category: questionable/illegal/gambling). This site has been blocked per Company [or country] policy.
Are there alternate sources to get Freenet in the first place?
You probably shouldn't click this.
I'm sympathetic to Freenet's idea, as I understand it, but still a little hesitant. I have two questions.
First, is it relatively safe? Does it do what the directions say it does and no more? Is especially vile content a big problem and will I feel guilty once I get into it?
Second, Is it being run efficiently? I really don't know what it would take. One programmer plus a herd of volunteers sounds good, but please do let me know.
Thanks. I have a new bunch of parts coming in and will soon have more than 500MB of disk space to spare, so this isn't an entirely idle bunch of questions.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
What about the Communist dissidents in countries like China where their government won't let them publish their views? Should they also be deprived of their freedom of expression?
Is freenet really going to help them though? I'm asking this as a question, not implying that it won't, but I'm wondering: Can you detect that a given packet or set of packets are freenet packets, regardless of being able to determine what's in those packets?
If I were the communist China government, I'd set up the country's firewalls to drop freenet packets. There could be benign uses of freenet, but there's definitely uses that don't appeal to the communists.
Either that...or anyone using freenet gets arrested. In China, they might have an easier time getting away with that than in the US...maybe there won't be proof that you were doing anything illegal...but can you prove that you weren't doing anything illegal?
I might point out that child porn and rape are completely disconnected. Some child porn does not depict any actual sexual act, and legal sexual acts may illegal to make images of. In fact, in America, it would be perfectly possible to go to jail for possessing an erotic picture of your own wife.
In Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, Conneticut, in fact in the majority of states, it's perfectly legal to screw that 16 year old cheerleader, you just can't take her picture.
You are consfusing the age of consent with the age of majority, a confusion the laws themselves often promote. Perhaps this is the cause of your being modded as a troll by someone.
P.S. you forgot to include the legal disclaimer that your post is void where advocating changing the law is illegal. The net police shall be arriving with their black helicopters momentarily. Please, do not resist arrest. Maybe you'll get lucky and get to inhabit Thoreau's old cell.
KFG
I was asking as more of a general question. I personally have no purpose to or interest in downloading Freenet from work. Note my addition of [or country] to the above quote from our web filter.
My point was simply, Freenet sounds like a great tool to "obtain information on the Internet without fear of censorship," but how do you obtain Freenet in the first place, if you are under said censorship? My workplace was just a convenient example.
You probably shouldn't click this.
Yes, the anonymous storage on your PC is a problem for many people. I also do not want to support the most disgusting people by giving storage to them for free.
But, anyway, you have to make a very important distinction between freenet and the real world:
Freenet transfers information. Rape nad Murder *always* happen in reality. IMHO, there should go the power of law enforcement.
Full Disclosure: I've never installed Freenet, but I've been following its development closely since its inception. I'm subscribed to the notification of new releases from Sourceforge ...
And therein lies the problem. The last release on that page is dated July 17, 2003. And by Clarke's own admission in his 'State of the Freenet' letter, it doesn't work very well. He *thinks* this new algorithm will solve the problems, but nobody knows that for sure.
Projects that deliver results have an easier time attracting donations *and* volunteer developers. Sourceforge lists 4 project admins and (count them!) 60 developers! Is Freenet so hard that this many programmers can't deliver a working version in close to a year?!
The goals of Freenet are lofty, and for that maybe they deserve more patience, but when does the community just cut and run?
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
I don't use Freenet, and I don't currently have anything controversial to say. But I believe, that the principle is important. I signed up for a $5/mo recurring contribution.
That's nothing compared to what I spend on stupid crap that the monolithic media corporations have convinced me I need to be happy while they work to take away my freedoms.
And just preemptively: I don't think everything should be free. I don't download songs illegally. I am an creator/artist who has been paid for my creative/artistic work on occasion, and would like to make that my life, though I've yet to be able to do so. Still, I think the current lack of consumer rights is appalling.
I am glad to support this project that gives us the technilogical means to work around the crap that's become acceptable in our free country.
Cheers.