Revamping Freenet

N3wsByt3 writes "Many will have heard about the anonymous P2P-system Freenet. What many probably don't know is, that a big change is at hand: the Freenet developers have decided to drop all support for the 0.5x version, to skip version 0.6 and to completely revamp the 0.7 build into some kind of poorly described, presumably scalable darknet. The main coder even threatened to quit if such a darknet would be rejected. So, is it finally going the right way with the development of Freenet? Maybe not, since they seem reluctant to provide real data and rather rely on security through obfuscation, and then there is still the problem of their general inability in regard to pooling human resources, which, for any OSS project, is of the utmost importance." Obviously, the article submitter has his own feelings on Freenet, but notwithstanding that, what's the latest scuttlebutt from within the Freenet crowd?

Comments

Please ignore flamebait

[dj28]

For anyone who reads the freenet mailing list daily (me), you'd know the the submitter of this article (Newsbyte) is a known troll who doesn't actually contribute to the project.

I suggest that people who want to know the whole story check out the mailing lists going back a month or so.

Re:Child pornography

[mmkkbb]

See, the wonderful thing about such loaded language is that even if you tolerate the existence such content, by using Freenet you are being FORCED to distribute it. Isn't that lovely? And if you complain, the powers-that-be make YOU the bad guy!

Great, here come the CP trolls

[Laxitive]

Every time there's a freenet article on /., the usual comments about child pornography and other "bad stuff" are bandied about.

Personally, I see Freenet as an experiment in what's possible. There's an abstract problem statement: how do you share data anonymously? And Freenet attempts to provide a solution to that problem. There are many valid uses for a solution to that particular problem. The canonical example is "dissidents in ". But it goes beyond that. Everything from corporate and government whistleblowers even in relatively free countries, to those who want to expose sensitive information they might be privy to without giving themselves away.

The problem is that such a system, by design, is necessarily going to be useful for people that organize activities and spread information that has little redeeming value. If dissidents and whistleblowers can obtain anonymity when sharing information, then so can child pornographers and terrorists and gangsters and whoever else.

This dilemma occurs with many systems based on an ideology of freedom and opposition to censorship. The US constitution's first amendment guarantees the right of NAMBLA to express their views on a public webpage.

The point is, freedom to any extent in the public commons will, necessarily, support both good and bad uses of that freedom. The question people have to ask themselves is wether their belief in the ideology behind that freedom is worth the tradeoff or not.

If you believe that the "bad guys" should be kept off of Freenet, then you don't believe in Freenet, or any other truly censorship-free information sharing system.

-Laxitive

Re:Great, here come the CP trolls

[evanbd]

Yup, you're welcome to express those views. And yes, there is CP on Freenet. There's also a lot of other stuff.

The point of view of most of the developers (and myself), however, is that you can be either for or against absolute, anonymous free speech. You clearly fall into the "against" camp. Most of those working on the network, however, believe that the benefits of having uncensored speech outweigh the cost. That the gains in human rights from publishing police brutality videos outweigh the losses from making terrorist discussion easy. That the gains from making DeCSS available outweigh the costs of copyright infringement. That the gains from proof of election fraud outweigh the losses from child porn. You're more than welcome to disagree with that point; I understand your position. However, there is another side, and it's more complex than "I want my child porn."

Me, I think I'll support Freenet and all that it entails, even if the results aren't perfect.

Re:Child pornography

[Kihaji]

The problem with anonymous freedom of speech is you eliminate the responsibilty of speech. Sometimes it's difficult to decide what is worth more.

Re:Child pornography

[Rei]

So where do you draw the line as to what one is allowed to post and what they aren't?

* Should people be allowed to post any pornography at all? (illegal in a number of countries)
* Should people be allowed to post a glowing post of support for Falun Gong? (illegal in China)
* Should people be allowed to publish a diatribe denying that the holocaust occurred? (illegal in much of Europe)

Etc. You can claim that, "Well, allowing the posting of child pornography or terrorism-related materials offends universal sensibilities", but this obviously isn't true, or the material wouldn't be being posted in the first place (not to mention, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter). Just as a demonstration of how much people's sensibilities are different in different parts of the world, this (originally posted on msnbc.com) covers an interview with an Afghan mother who supported her daugter's execution by stoning for the crime of adultery ("My daughter is a criminal. If she hadn't been killed, I could never hold my head up again in my community.")

If the data is being created through abusive means, go after the source of the data. If the data is being used to plan violent action, use proper security at likely targets (not like it's hard for people to hatch plans in secret anyways - this is nothing new). The fact of the matter is that data wants to be free.