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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."
Hooray! Now I can browse the net at dialup speeds once more!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The Dark Side of the Freenet is a pathway to many websites some consider to be unnatural.
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 totally agree. With the lawmakers obviously unconcerned about the steady erosion of civil liberties, practical measures like these could be the only option for maintaining our freedoms.
Read Pynchon.
I tried running a delivery service once, briefly, out of curiosity. Ripping open envelopes and boxes, I didn't notice any terrorism plans, but I sure saw a hell of a lot of people mailing child pornography. I closed my business, fired my employees, and never messed with delivery services again.
I tried starting an ISP once, briefly, out of curiosity. While monitoring my customers' connections with a packet sniffer, I didn't notice any terrorism plans, but I sure saw a hell of a lot of people swapping child pornography. I turned off my routers, shut down my business, and never messed with providing internet service again.
I tried running a telco once, briefly, out of curiosity. Listening in on my customers' conversations, I didn't notice any terrorism plans, but I sure heard a hell of a lot of people discussing child pornography. I turned off my switches, burned my service trucks, and never messed with selling phone service again.
I tried being a mayor once, briefly, out of curiosity. Breaking into residents' houses at night with my police chief, I didn't notice any terrorism plans, but I sure saw a hell of a lot of people looking at child pornography. I shut down city hall, razed my city to the ground, and never messed with human communities again.
As I understand it, Clarke does not support the distribution of child pornography. However, he supports absolute anonymity and absolute freedom of speech. Neither of those can be guaranteed if you're censoring in any way, form or fashion. Once you have the ability to censor one form of speech (whether it's political speech, hate speech, or something like child pornography) you have the ability to censor anything you want. This is what Clarke is trying to prevent. Child pornography is illegal, as it should be, but you shouldn't have to trade your freedom of speech and anonymity to help catch distributors of child pornography, just as you shouldn't have to trade those rights to help stop terrorism. I think you did the right thing by uninstalling Freenet, because you're not ready to accept what freedom means. It's not something you can have in stages.
And although I do believe in free speech (no government censorship), I don't think that extends to child pornography
Neither does Ian Clarke. You've missed the point. It's not about protecting child pornography as free speech, it's realising that you can't protect other, legitimate forms of free speech without also protecting child pornography as well. It's the unfortunate reality of information theory. If anybody has the power to stop the kiddy porn, they have the power to stop the legitimate speech as well, e.g. dissidence. The only true protection of freedom of speech is incapable of distinguishing between kiddy porn and legitimate speech by its very nature.
If you've come up with some revolutionary scheme that can stop kiddy porn without harming the protection of the legitimate speech, then I'm sure Ian Clarke would jump at the chance to implement it. But there's every reason to believe this will be completely and utterly impossible forever. Think about it.
The sad thing is, no matter how many times this is explained, there's always somebody as ignorant as you willing to tell people all about how he thinks kiddy porn is free speech. Please stop that.
These are pretty serious charges you are leveling against Clarke. Can you provide quotes with links that indicate Clark does indeed believe what you claim he believes?
"... He is actively helping people to distribute child pornography"
What you have posted is frankly libelous.
You can be sued, and unless you can prove that you know that he was helping to distribute child porn, you will lose. Otherwise, if you know this for a fact, I hope you have reported this to the authorities.*
Do you know for a fact that he is specifically helping to distribute child pornography, rather than simply building a general purpose network? *Any* communications network can be used to distribute child pornogrphy. Remember that usenet, AOL, and most recently Myspace was used to distribute child pornography. Are you making the same claims that the creators and owners of usenet, AOL, and MySpace are "actively helping people to distribute child pornography", like you said of Ian Clarke?
I turned off the freenet myself because I thought it could be used for child porn, and I didn't want any part of it. I do not support child pronography. But, I cannot support you making such claims about a person without evidence. Put up or shut up.
*I have the feeling you do not know this specifically about Ian Clarke. If you do, you should report it to the authorities, and if you had reported it, you wouldn't be blabbing libelously on the internet. You have correctly understood that the freenet, like any network, can be used to distribute child porn, but I don't think you know this about Clark. If you do, for God's sake, don't ruin the investigation by blabbing all over the internet.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Java is "heavier" than a native language/platform but for something like Freenet where privacy can be extremely important, reducing the possibility of stack smashing/bufer overrun type vulnerabilities to near zero - which Java helps do very well - is more than worth the execution overhead.
I think the main problem with freenet, I2P, and other similar services is not their privacy concerns (although important), but SPEED.
The speed at which any of these services run reminds me of when I had dial-up. Except these darknets don't even guarantee you can connect to even the most popular darknet sites. Even when I tweaked all the settings I couldn't ever get decent connections on freenet.
These sites are not going to be very viable until a lot of people use them, and a lot of people aren't going to use them until they reach something at least comparable to speeds of the regular web.
I appreciate all the effort of the people who make these pieces of software, but I can't help but feel much of their energy is misdirected.
Just my thoughts.
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.
- Ian (Founder, Freenet Project)
welcome the idea that our overlords will have a harder time censoring and surveilling us.