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New "Dark" Freenet Available for Testing
Sanity writes "The Freenet Project has just released the first alpha version of the much anticipated Freenet 0.7 branch. This is a major departure from past approaches to peer-to-peer network design, embracing a 'scalable darknet' architecture, where security is increased by allowing users to limit which other peers their peer will communicate with directly, rather than the typical 'promiscuous' approach of classic P2P networks. This means that not only does Freenet aim to prevent others from finding out what you are doing with Freenet, it makes it extremely difficult for them to even know that you are running a Freenet node at all. This is not the first P2P application to use this approach, other examples include Waste, however those networks are limited to just a few users, while Freenet can scale up almost indefinitely. The new version also includes support for NAT hole-punching, and has an API for third-party tool development. As always, the Freenet team are asking that people support the development of the software by donating."
You can also use TOR.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Well, it is not a foolproof solution, but you can try using TOR: The Onion Router (http://tor.eff.org/). It will act as a random daisy-chain of proxies that pass all the information (except for the final hop) encrypted.
Failing that, you could always buy a laptop/PDA/etc. and a cheap wifi card and connect to random WAPs using a spoofed MAC address.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
>I wish there was a way that I could view websites without giving any IP or client information
Anonymizer.com, cotse, and many others.
There's some loss of functionality. For example if you have Java turned on then a remote web site can grab your IP even through a proxy. So you have to turn off Java, and Anonymizer disables Javascript as well.
Which is fine if you think that's something worthwhile, but is quite different in practice from your examples.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
One should note that Tor won't attempt to hide the fact that you're running a node
Modern Java virtual machines can actually be more efficient than native code in many situations. The old criticism of Java, that it is slow, and a CPU/memory hog relative to native compiled code, was definitely valid back in the 90s, but is much less-so now. Check out some recent benchmarks involving Java if you don't believe me.
On 31 Mar 2006, at 20:08:
> This isn't about *technical* support, I just wanted to tell Matthew
> thanks
> for working on this project. The US government is really scaring
> me and
> I'm glad someone's working on this. You're doing a great job man.
>
> One question I have is that the paypal balance on the home page
> usually
> says something like a few hundred $, and I was wondering if it's
> actually
> generating the required $2300 per month, or if it's falling short.
> I've
> had a monthly donation set up for quite a while now, and I just
> want to
> make sure everything is going well financially for the project.
We have been fortunate enough to generate just about enough to pay
for Matthew for the past few years, but donations have been tailing
off as we haven't put out any new releases in quite a while due to
our work on 0.7, and the financial situation is actually quite
precarious just now.
Our hope is that with the 0.7 alpha release we will get some
donations, but if anyone can contribute, now would really be the time
(as there can be no guarantee that the 0.7 alpha release will
generate the level of publicity we have seen for previous releases).
Ian.
I have an automatic donation to Freenet of $20 per month set up. These guys really need some support, especially now between versions.
There is always one of you per Freenet discussion.
I've used Freenet off and on for a number of years and I don't see much churn in the number of free sites. The most active free sites tend to be FLOGs (Blogs on Freenet). Many of the sites in Freenet have been there since what seems like the beginning of time. There are new ones added (like someone mentioned the Diebold files), but they tend to not be kiddie porn.
Here's an idea... run a node, access the non-kiddie porn content, post your own content, and use the network. The network is changed by observing it, so by accessing non-kiddie porn, you are encouraging it to be replicated across the network, while also making the kiddie porn hard to find.
Andrew
All Clarke has to do is demonstrate that Freenet has legitimate uses other than child porn -- which it most certainly has -- and you're in deep doo-doo.
Any questions?
Everything on Freenet has a timestamp. If a wiretap shows your node pushing an original key with a timestamp newer than when the wiretap started, you're the source.
Say again? Bulk data keys (CHK) come directly from a hash of the source, no timestamp involved. Some Freesites have a rotating key system (really stupid) which means new keys must be inserted to keep a site alive which could sorta be what you're talking about. but I think these have pretty much died out and even so the timestamps could be forged. All current Freesites I know of use static SSKs. These are signed (unlike CHKs) but don't contain a timestamp. "Userspace" timestamps like those in Frost are meaningless. I could set my computer's clock to next week and post "in next week".
As for the rest, your basic wiretap would show an encrypted connection, nothing more. Maybe if you're talking about some wiretap/poison node combination you could get somewhere. In fact, forget the wiretap. If I got a node talking to your node, I have a lot better chance of making a statistical case (enough for "reasonable suspicion and a search warrant) than a wiretap.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In this new Freenet, network connections only pass through a select few friends, but the routing layer hides this - files are globally available, as they used to be. You've misunderstood the protocol design.
Also, you've even misunderstood the "select few friends" thing. It's not that you can exclude people. It's that you have to actively include people - and you have to have their permission first.
An analogy would be: passing messages between people by telling a trusted friend, he tells his trusted friend, and so on until it reaches the destination.
More importantly to me is that this is free software which requires a big ugly chuck of non-free software to run. Java sucks because there are no good and free implementations. Freenet hasn't worked with a free implementation in a looong time.