After 3 Years, Freenet 0.7 Released

evanbd writes "After over 3 years of work, the Freenet Project has announced the release of Freenet 0.7. 'Freenet is software designed to allow the free exchange of information over the Internet without fear of censorship, or reprisal. To achieve this Freenet makes it very difficult for adversaries to reveal the identity, either of the person publishing, or downloading content' ... 'The journey towards Freenet 0.7 began in 2005 with the realization that some of Freenet's most vulnerable users needed to hide the fact that they were using Freenet, not just what they were doing with it. The result of this realization was a ground-up redesign and rewrite of Freenet, adding a "darknet" capability, allowing users to limit who their Freenet software would communicate with to trusted friends.'"

Comments

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles.

[Anonymous Coward]

A new and improved way to share that child pornography! More congratulations are in order for the powers that be. They have managed to convince a large segment of the population that the only consequence of anonymous communication on the internet is the proliferation of child porn. The citizens are now ready and willing to be tracked and logged.

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles.

[Hyppy]

Is that the only use you can think of for this? Is this just a hopeless attempt at trolling? Is your world view so ethnocentric that you don't realize how censorship affects people?

Here's a quick list of situations or people off the top of my head that could benefit from this:

- Citizens of a government which controls information flow (China, Kuwait, etc)
- Investigative journalists releasing stories (Judith Miller, anyone?)
- Leaking protected or damaging information (Wikileaks has been shown to be vulnerable)

If all you can think about is "OmG teh CHILDRENS!!111", then something is seriously wrong with you.

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles.

[Anonymous Coward]

More congratulations are in order for the powers that be. They have managed to convince a large segment of the population that the only consequence of anonymous communication on the internet is the proliferation of child porn. The citizens are now ready and willing to be tracked and logged.

It's a signal-to-noise ratio problem, and what constitutes signal (or noise) is a function of what the authorities are looking for.

In China, Freenet is a tool used by traitors to pass destabilizing messages (to the PRC, that's signal) back and forth, hiding in a sea of American child porn (to the PRC, that's noise).

In the USA, Freenet is a tool used by pedophiles to pass disgusting images back and forth (to the FBI, that's signal), hiding in a sea of "Free Tibet" and "Falun Gong" emails (to the FBI, that's noise).

Unfortunately, since the network is designed that you can't host one without hosting the other, neither is a particularly advisable thing to have on your network, no matter where you live.

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles. QWZX

[grub]

Have you actually seen Freenet? The only purpose it's pretty much used for is the exchange of the worst crimes of humanity.

With Freenet you have to actively look for what you want. If you found "the worst crimes of humanity" it's because you were looking for them in the first place.

Re:Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom of Hosts

[Sanity]

but if my computer is hosting content, I should have the freedom to choose what that content is

If you have the ability to choose what you host or don't host, then you become responsible for it. Its a bit like the concept of a "common carrier" in US telecommunications law. Freenet gives you freedom by preventing you from censoring the content you host. Its a feature, not a bug.

Freedom of speech is not an absolute

If not, then who gets to choose what speech is permissible?