Some people may consider the ability to freely copy information to be a fundamental human right. There is no right or wrong set of human rights: each person has their own ideas about it.
And you don't need to sit at your computer all the time a movie is downloading! Just set it off and go outside for some fresh air. Hopefully when you get back it will be ready to watch.
My assumption was that the AC thought that communism was bad for human liberty (because of its centralized authoritarianism), and that he thought Freenet was also bad for security in an analogous way. The implication was that Freenet was bad for security because it used a centralized model, which it doesn't.
But he didn't explain why he thought Freenet was bad for security.
Freenet is very secure, as far as I can see. It is open source and the code is looked at by a lot of people more clever than I. It is designed to be as non-centralized as possible so it would be very difficult to censor or block by a government.
There are known statistical attacks that could theoretically give some information if you have evil peers, but you are advised to run Freenet in "darknet" mode so that you choose trusted peers. Even so, the consensus is that this risk is minimal.
Maybe the AC actually meant bad for security of a country in the sense that it could be used to leak military secrets. But then that wouldn't fit with the original analogy.
OK, if that is right then I understand now. I thought that the AC was referring to the security of the person using Freenet, and was implying that there was some risk to the user.
Well, the same reason that you would want anonymity in any situation. If you are in a country where the law forbids you from sharing information that you think needs to be shared - for example political news or opinions, information from whistleblowers, government leaks, information that companies are trying to suppress - it could be useful for that reason.
You could also just be opposed to copyright and want to share copyrighted material without risk of being sued, and many people do.
Copyright restrictions on sharing don't really work in a truly anonymous network. Whether you like it or not, millions of people ignore copyright on a daily basis because they don't think it is relevant. Anonymous networks are just hastening its demise.
It is well worth trying out the Freenet p2p network.
It is an anonymous distributed data storage system that is ideally suited to filesharing. I have been using it for the past few years and just recently it has got a lot faster and more usable. Music and movies are regularly shared and it can only take a few hours to get a full album.
Speeds are slower than bittorrent etc., but that is to be expected - you never get something for nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
Some people may consider the ability to freely copy information to be a fundamental human right. There is no right or wrong set of human rights: each person has their own ideas about it.
And you don't need to sit at your computer all the time a movie is downloading! Just set it off and go outside for some fresh air. Hopefully when you get back it will be ready to watch.
I did understand the comment!
My assumption was that the AC thought that communism was bad for human liberty (because of its centralized authoritarianism), and that he thought Freenet was also bad for security in an analogous way. The implication was that Freenet was bad for security because it used a centralized model, which it doesn't.
But he didn't explain why he thought Freenet was bad for security.
Freenet is very secure, as far as I can see. It is open source and the code is looked at by a lot of people more clever than I. It is designed to be as non-centralized as possible so it would be very difficult to censor or block by a government.
There are known statistical attacks that could theoretically give some information if you have evil peers, but you are advised to run Freenet in "darknet" mode so that you choose trusted peers. Even so, the consensus is that this risk is minimal.
Maybe the AC actually meant bad for security of a country in the sense that it could be used to leak military secrets. But then that wouldn't fit with the original analogy.
OK, if that is right then I understand now. I thought that the AC was referring to the security of the person using Freenet, and was implying that there was some risk to the user.
Well, the same reason that you would want anonymity in any situation. If you are in a country where the law forbids you from sharing information that you think needs to be shared - for example political news or opinions, information from whistleblowers, government leaks, information that companies are trying to suppress - it could be useful for that reason.
You could also just be opposed to copyright and want to share copyrighted material without risk of being sued, and many people do.
Copyright restrictions on sharing don't really work in a truly anonymous network. Whether you like it or not, millions of people ignore copyright on a daily basis because they don't think it is relevant. Anonymous networks are just hastening its demise.
Yes, I understand what he said, and I think my response makes sense. I'm still none the wiser as to what he meant though.
Can you explain that cryptic analogy some more?
Freenet is decentralized which would seem to be a direct opposite of the Soviet Union model of communism.
It is well worth trying out the Freenet p2p network. It is an anonymous distributed data storage system that is ideally suited to filesharing. I have been using it for the past few years and just recently it has got a lot faster and more usable. Music and movies are regularly shared and it can only take a few hours to get a full album. Speeds are slower than bittorrent etc., but that is to be expected - you never get something for nothing.