Re:That is what happens...
on
Revamping Freenet
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Nice troll, lots of accusations and insults, with not a shred of evidence.
When a self-absorbed "project leader" encounters a problem which is far beyond his skills.
Thanks for setting the tone, you don't like the project leader. I am sure we can expect this view to be carefully justified and supported in the rest of your post...
The existing system is basically unworkable and was proven to be completely useless for its main stated purpose: protecting dissidents.
I guess you are too busy making further unsubstianted claims to actually justify those you have made so far. Exactly where is this "proof"? Have you told the real life dissidents that are actually using Freenet today?
This project neeeds a serious theoretical discussion and research to determine if it is even feasible.
And let me guess, you are just the person to do it. I look forward to reading your paper.
Re:Newsbyte is a well known troll
on
Revamping Freenet
·
· Score: 5, Informative
How about using this opportunity of discussion on Slashdot to bring up some of your own thoughts on Freenet?
With pleasure. Freenet has indeed had its fair share of problems, including an increasingly complex codebase that suffers from a lot of legacy code and abandoned ideas. That is why Freenet 0.7, the next major release, will be quite a significant rewrite.
Here is a recent email I sent describing the plan for 0.7:
People could be forgiven for thinking that the project had somewhat stagnated given the lack of activity on these mailing lists, so I wanted to provide an update because this could hardly be further from the truth.
Oskar Sandberg, Matthew, and I have been developing some ideas for 0.7 which represent an even more fundamental architectural shift than have been proposed to-date, and which should address one of the most fundamental shortcomings of Freenet as it relates to Freenet's usage in a hostile environment, and which I believe represents a significant new innovation in the P2P-space.
As most people will be aware, Oskar was one of the core Freenet developers in the first few years of the project. He is now working on a PhD in Mathematics. Over the past few months he and I have been collaborating on gaining a much deeper mathematical understanding of how Freenet does what it does. While this work is far from complete, it has given us some extremely useful insights and much more confidence in determining what aspects of Freenet's design work well, which don't, and why.
To understand the new idea, I should start with some theoretical background. Consider a simple "graph". A graph in the mathematical sense consists of a set of nodes, some of which are connected to each-other. At this stage nodes don't have a position in space, all we know or care about them is which nodes are connected to each-other. We can assume that connections are bi-directional.
The "diameter" of a graph is the minimum number of nodes you must go through to get from any one particular node to any other particular node in the graph. Note that it may not be easy to find this path, but the important thing is that it exists.
There is a mathematical result which tells us what kind of graphs have a small diameter. Basically imagine we have three nodes, A is connected to B, and A is also connected to C. The mathematical result says that if, given that both are connected to A, there is an increased probability that B is connected to C, then the graph will have a small diameter.
So, if we have a graph that has this property then we know that we *can* get from any one node to another in a small number of steps, but we don't necessarily know *how*.
Now imagine that each node in the graph has a position in space, this can be 1 dimensional, 2 dimensional, 20 dimensional space, it doesn't matter too much. Imagine that we want to get from one particular node in this graph to another particular node. A simple approach is, from our starting node, go to whichever node we are connected to is closest to the node we want to get to. This approach will work quickly in a graph that is a "small world". In essence, a small world graph is where there is a higher probability that nodes which are close together are connected than nodes which are far apart.
In the ideal case, the probability that two nodes are connected is proportional to 1/(d^n) where d is the distance between them, and n is the number of dimensions in the space in which our nodes reside. This mathematical result is due to Kleinberg.
A small-world graph therefore not only has a small diameter, but provides an efficient means to find it.
Anyway, back to the story. One of Freenet's weaknesses in terms of its usefulness in a hostile environment, is tha
What Freenet does is fundamentally more complicated than what a web browser does, so it will always be more complicated.
Having said that, right now you basically install the software, and open your web browser - and you are surfing Freenet. Its only in "outlying" cases that things are significantly more complcated than this (ie. with firewall issues), and we are working on that.
Newsbyte is a well known troll
on
Revamping Freenet
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Newsbyte is a well known on the Freenet mailing lists as a troll who likes to criticise Freenet's developers, yet hasn't actually contributed a single line of code to the project in his several years of trolling the mailing lists. Needless to say that this doesn't prevent him from lecturing the Freenet developers at every opportunity. I personally routinely ignore his emails.
Matthew has indeed indicated that he believes it is essential that we support "trusted links" in Freenet, and the other core Freenet developers, myself included, agree with him - so Newsbyte's attempt to stir that up into some kind of controversy is just another example of his trolling.
I have no idea where Newsbyte's accusation that we are relying on security through obscurity comes from, certainly the archived email he links do doesn't seem to support any such claim.
As for the blog entry he links to, it essentially boils down to whining about why we don't implement each and every one of his suggestions.
When considering the value of Newsbyte's opinions, I would urge you to look first at what he has actually contributed to the project, versus those that he seeks to criticise.
IIRC the UK and US are the only two countries (there may be one other) that still use the "first past the post" system - its rediculous.
In the UK Labour said they would fix the voting system in 1997. Now they are saying that they have fulfilled that promise because they use proportional representation in various regional and EU elections, but the election that really matters, the one for Westminster, is still in the dark ages.
The Independent newspaper is pushing the issue, see this article.
A recent story in The Register claims to have exclusively discovered an "easy forensic attack" that would allow an attacker to determine what you had downloaded from Freenet. Whether raiding somone's home and gaining access to their computer can really be considered an "easy" attack is debatable, but either way this issue is not news to us, we have publicly discussed it as early as October 2003, when it was raised on our mailing list.
The article doesn't point out that while the attack as described requires someone to have direct access to your computer, Freenet is not designed to thwart forensic analysis of your hard disk, but there are numerous tools which do that have been widely available for years. These tools can be used in conjunction with Freenet if you consider it likely that your home will be raided and your computer forensically analysed.
Of course, even the theoretical possibility of this kind of attack is undesirable, and as the article points out, it will be addressed in the next major release of Freenet which we are working on at present.
Those with tinfoil hats will surely be thinking of the youth in Orwell's 1984
Or in Hitler's Germany. Co-opting the youth is a common tactic for those that wish to exercise control over society. This is easy because the youth tend to be more gullible (sorry but its true, Pokemon anyone?).
The key question is why the education systems we all pay for are facilitating this (although perhaps not in this particular case, many schools in the US have also been willing channels for pro-intellectual property propaganda).
here. Its in PDF format, and makes a *really* good read. Rocard outlines the issues with uncommon clarity - if they end up following his recommendations it will restore my battered faith in the European Union.
EICTA has published a pro-swpat counter-response to Rocard's paper, here, in advance of today's crucial meeting of the European Parliament's legal affairs committee (JURI).
Thanks for the link, this is interesting but predictable. From EICTA's paper:
While it is acknowledged that there may be room for further improving the definition of "technical contribution" as it stands in the Common Position, any definition or test based on "controllable forces of nature" or "physical forces" would exclude patents for intangible inventions, e.g. speech coding, communication protocols, radio signal handling, error correction, data compression etc., all of which are currently patentable and traditionally have been patentable for decades.
Firstly, all of these things are software patents, and these have not been patentable for decades, even in the US software patenting didn't really begin until about 1992.
Groups like the EICTA claim not to want software patents, but then they go on to provide such a narrow definition of "software patent" that it really doesn't apply to anything.
The broad conclusion from these workshops was that while definitions based on "physical forces" and "controllable forces of nature" may be more legally certain than the current definition, they are also (very) expansive, and would render almost all CII inventions unpatentable.
Correct, because "computer implemented inventions" are software patents! "Computer Implemented Inventions" is a term specifically invented by the pro-software patent lobby so that they could push for software patents without claiming that they are pushing for software patents. This is the level of honesty of the pro-software patent lobby in the EU.
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How Indy Works Indy uses an advanced collaborative filtering system to predict what kind of music you'll enjoy hearing. As you rate songs, Indy finds out what you do and don't like. It compares your preferences with the ratings of all the other Indy users. For example, if you rate a song highly, and another user also likes the same song, Indy guesses that you'd probably like other music that they enjoyed. As you rate more songs, Indy will gets better and better at picking songs that you'll really enjoy.
Not necessarily, the paper linked in my blog entry demonstrates that this is possible in logarithmic time. With a UDP-based protocol it could be very fast indeed.
give you different results each time you logged on
I must say that I have growing concerns about the prospect of one company effectively determining what can and
cannot be found on the world wide web, not to mention one company handling the email of a vast proportion of
Internet users.
I mean, much as I hate to criticise one of Slashdot's fatted calves, and much as I recognise how innovative
Google is, and what a keen grasp they clearly have of how to design user interfaces for the web, Google are
answerable to shareholders, not some higher moral sense, much as we all would like to think that they are.
I recently wrote a blog entry
on this subject, and suggested that it should be possible to create a decentralised, cooperative P2P web search
network that could do what Google does, but without any centralised reliance on a service, but rather a
decentralised reliance on other people. Click the link for more detail about how this could be achieved in a scalable way.
Do people have an inherent right to have any and all information free?
If not, who decides what information should and shouldn't be permitted?
What most would consider freedom advocates will still want all spam shut down.
Spam is about getting information you don't want. Freenet only gives you what you ask for. The freedom to communicate is about the freedom to communicate between two consenting people. Few people willingly consent to receive spam.
So the question arises, should countries, with their own values, be able to determine what content their people are exposed to?
You shouldn't confuse countries with those that happen to be in-power in those countries at the present time. Often those people are in-power against the will of the majority of the inhabitants of the country they rule.
...we are working on Freenet and supporting efforts like Freenet-China. We are also beefing up Freenet's security to more effectively thwart Chinese censorship, allowing extremely vulnerable users set up a "global darknet", where they only communicate directly with
people they trust. Read more about it here.
As always, if anyone would like to support our development effort, please feel free to donate.
Slashdot Mirror
With pleasure. Freenet has indeed had its fair share of problems, including an increasingly complex codebase that suffers from a lot of legacy code and abandoned ideas. That is why Freenet 0.7, the next major release, will be quite a significant rewrite.
Here is a recent email I sent describing the plan for 0.7:
Having said that, right now you basically install the software, and open your web browser - and you are surfing Freenet. Its only in "outlying" cases that things are significantly more complcated than this (ie. with firewall issues), and we are working on that.
Matthew has indeed indicated that he believes it is essential that we support "trusted links" in Freenet, and the other core Freenet developers, myself included, agree with him - so Newsbyte's attempt to stir that up into some kind of controversy is just another example of his trolling.
I have no idea where Newsbyte's accusation that we are relying on security through obscurity comes from, certainly the archived email he links do doesn't seem to support any such claim.
As for the blog entry he links to, it essentially boils down to whining about why we don't implement each and every one of his suggestions.
When considering the value of Newsbyte's opinions, I would urge you to look first at what he has actually contributed to the project, versus those that he seeks to criticise.
IIRC the UK and US are the only two countries (there may be one other) that still use the "first past the post" system - its rediculous.
In the UK Labour said they would fix the voting system in 1997. Now they are saying that they have fulfilled that promise because they use proportional representation in various regional and EU elections, but the election that really matters, the one for Westminster, is still in the dark ages.
The Independent newspaper is pushing the issue, see this article.
Can be found in this article.
The key question is why the education systems we all pay for are facilitating this (although perhaps not in this particular case, many schools in the US have also been willing channels for pro-intellectual property propaganda).
here. Its in PDF format, and makes a *really* good read. Rocard outlines the issues with uncommon clarity - if they end up following his recommendations it will restore my battered faith in the European Union.
Its a shame this link didn't make it into the original story (it wasn't available when I submitted it yesterday).
But it is only a small victory in a large battle where the other side has won many victories too.
Groups like the EICTA claim not to want software patents, but then they go on to provide such a narrow definition of "software patent" that it really doesn't apply to anything.
Correct, because "computer implemented inventions" are software patents! "Computer Implemented Inventions" is a term specifically invented by the pro-software patent lobby so that they could push for software patents without claiming that they are pushing for software patents. This is the level of honesty of the pro-software patent lobby in the EU.Indy is a music discovery program that learns what you like, and plays more of it. And it's free.
Indy makes it easy for you to find great new independent music. Just download Indy and double-click: as it plays songs, you rate what you hear. Indy quickly learns what you like and gets really smart about sending you more music you'll like. Let Indy help you find your place in the collective conciousness as you help other people find theirs.
DOWNLOAD NOW - Windows 98/2000/XP
Latest News
19th April, 2005, Build 3 Released - Read more...
Why Indy Rocks
You aren't just a target market - Indy can help you find your own path to the music you like. There are tons of great bands out there that don't have big labels promoting them; Indy helps you find them. And once Indy downloads a track, you can add it to your music collection, listen to it whenever and wherever you want. For musicians, Indy gives you a chance to reach a whole new audience that's excited about what you're playing. Best of all, it's free for everyone!
How Indy Works
Indy uses an advanced collaborative filtering system to predict what kind of music you'll enjoy hearing. As you rate songs, Indy finds out what you do and don't like. It compares your preferences with the ratings of all the other Indy users. For example, if you rate a song highly, and another user also likes the same song, Indy guesses that you'd probably like other music that they enjoyed. As you rate more songs, Indy will gets better and better at picking songs that you'll really enjoy.
Indy contains no adware or spyware.
I mean, much as I hate to criticise one of Slashdot's fatted calves, and much as I recognise how innovative Google is, and what a keen grasp they clearly have of how to design user interfaces for the web, Google are answerable to shareholders, not some higher moral sense, much as we all would like to think that they are.
I recently wrote a blog entry on this subject, and suggested that it should be possible to create a decentralised, cooperative P2P web search network that could do what Google does, but without any centralised reliance on a service, but rather a decentralised reliance on other people. Click the link for more detail about how this could be achieved in a scalable way.
I couldn't find it either.
Is there any way to filter out stories about Google on Slashdot?
As always, if anyone would like to support our development effort, please feel free to donate.