Brandon's creative ways of adding any service on top of this limited base are fun, but they aren't really specific to Freenet as equivalent protocols would work over any system that provides a secure way to put things in and take things out. In fact, it is pretty easy to see how TCP could be implemented over any such system be enumerating each packets name (it would be faster than rfc1149 anyways...)
Or as the pessimist would put it: After four years (or whatever) of intense calculations involving 300.000 computers, they have finally established the single first bit the 64 bit encryption key.
Or the optimist: They have now managed to cover an entire 63 bit keyspace, showing that a 63 bit key can be cracked, and that just a single bit remains until the goal of cracking rc5-64 is reached.
It's a good thing our world is linear rather than logarithmic, isn't it? All the bickering about half empty and half full seems pretty harmless in comparison...
Instead of trying to shield the kids from real life, you should take out two birds with one stone and teach them something about it in the process.
If I ever have kids, I'm going to set up a packet snooping / TA system to figure out exactly what they are doing online, and teach them about the lack of privacy on the Internet from the begining. And when they are smart enough to circumvent my spying with encryption, anonymizers, and mixnets, then they have proved they are smart enough to handle whatever they may see...
Uhh, you can speak legally in Oceania without being a criminal, as should be pretty self-evident. You can of course still speak logally all you want. Criticising big brother is not a loegal form of speach, so of course they'd be take to room 101 if this were to happen in Oceania. I'd be pissed if a bunch of "protesters" criticised me too.
Yeah right. If that is so, how come at the O'Reilly P2P conference back in February the "Aimster" representative wasted 20 minutes of all the attendees time explaning that "Aimster" was the nickname of a little girl called "Amy" that he wanted the product to please. His explanation for this was so long and weird that he came across as some sort of pervert, and managed to piss off everybody expecting something interesting from the discussion.
If you are going to lie, then at least stick to your story...
<head><title>Object moved</title></head>
<body><h1>Object Moved</h1>This object may be found <a HREF="http://www.ford.com/servlet/ecmcs/ford/index.jsp">here</a>.</body>
Well when you stress freedom it applies to everyone. Even people you don't like. Otherwise its not freedom. So yes film producers are going to be using linux if they think it will help them get their product out the door. Just like many other people.
We do not grant freedom to those people who would use or have used it to take others freedom away. What do you think jails are for? By "our" values, hollywood are guilty of real crimes, so it is not necessarily immoral or hypocritical of us to want to take the software freedoms which we have worked hard for away from them.
Don't forget about cell phones that even if it seems like a good idea at the time, there are serious security risks in Open Source cell phone drivers; I'd say this is a pretty clear-cut (and rare) case of Open Source being more trouble than it's worth in some circumstances. (Cell phone fraud is a big industry that caters to some pretty shady characters, in case you have no clue why I have a problem with this.)
The reason that cell phone fraud is big business is exactly because it has been so closed. When the "security" relies on the obscurity of closed standards and hardware barriers, then the hacks wander over into the realm of those who can take the calculated risk and have money for the investment (read, organized crime). If you open up the system then you can make it truly secure (don't tell me that cannot be done), possibly at the cost of some amateur hacking as the system evolves.
The truth is that the closed and fuckwared nature of cell phones has nothing to do with actual security. It has everything to do with the environment in which they evolved (the traditional telecom companies have little understanding of openess, let alone giving away control) and trying to keep freedom from the users - for example the ability any user to strongly encrypt traffic (the GSM encryption is purposely broken, eventhough all legitimate phone tapping could be done at the operator base station) or to optimize usage (they don't dare have open devices accessing the new GPRS packet radio services here, as people could write IP voice programs that would be cheaper than normal phones).
It seems the site for their "development network" reagrding the "Open Standards Terminal" is here. TheRegister ran a story the other day about Nokia's callout for linux developers to help code for the platform (I though it was/. worthy, but then anybody with a clue reads TheRegister already).
On the surface this would seem like just another company trying to milk the free software community of gratis code without giving anything back, but it could also be extremely important. Remember that Sony and Microsoft are both creating "media terminals" with the very clear goal of usurping the PC and becoming the main devices for accessing the Internet. And there can be no mistaking about their motivation behind this - to take charge of and close off the agents with which people access and handle networked information, so that they can regain the total control of it they need further their ultimate goals (their bottom line - at any cost to our network). Remember Sony's words: "We will block you at you PC".
I don't think it needs to be said again how profoundly dangerous this process is, and the enemy knows it.
It would be dangerous to try to paint Nokia as an angel of grace in this regard - cellphone handsets are hardly open platforms, in fact I know of few devices so infected with fuckware. But at least this move looks genuine, and while it may seem like an underdog Nokia should not be underestimated (handsets are the largest sector of consumer electronics, and Nokia the market leader by a long shot). Certainly, this looks more realistic then anything that Indrema put forward, and by not targeting games specificly it is in a better position to not have to go head to head with the big two (leaving their legions of evil to hack at each other) and target a market where Linux is more useful. I think that we could do worse for ourselves than support this effort.
They rounded the foot of Quentulus Quazgar Mountains, and there was the message written in blazing letters along the crest of the Mountain. There was a little observation vantage point with a rail built along the top of a large rock facing it, from which you could get a good view. It had a little pay-telescope for looking at the letters in detail, but no one would ever use it because the letters burned with the divine brilliance of the heavens and would, if seen through a telescope, have severely damaged the retina and the optic nerve.
They gazed at God's Final Message in wonderment, and were slowly and ineffably filled with a great sense of peace, and of final and complete understanding.
Fenchruch sighed. 'Yes,' she said, 'that was it.'
They had been staring at ut for fully ten minutes before they became aware that Marvin, hanging between their shoulders, was in difficulties. The robot could no longer lift his head, had not read the message. They lifted his head, but he complained that his vision circuits had almost gone.
They found a coin and helped him to the telescope. He complained and insulted them, but they helped him look at each individual letter in turn. The first letter was a 'w', the second an 'e'. Then there was a gap. An 'a' follow, then a 'p', an 'o' and an 'l'.
Marvin paused for a rest.
After a few moments they resumed and let him see the 'o', the 'g', the 'i', the 's', and the 'e'.
The next two words were 'for' and 'the'. The last one was a long on, and Marvin needed another rest before he could tackle it.
It started with 'i', then 'n' then a 'c'. Next came an 'o' and an 'n', followed by a 'v', an 'e', another 'n', and an 'i'.
After a final pause, Marvin gathered his strength for the last stretch.
He read the 'e', the 'n', the 'c' and at last the final 'e', and staggered back into their arms.
'I think', he muttered at last, from deep within his corroding rattling thorax, 'I feel good about it.'
The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.
Luckily, there was a stall nearby where you could rent scooters from guys with green wings.
Others think that it is wrong to read something written by you without paying you the amount of money that you request. Because enforcement of that necessarily leads to the inhibition of the freedom of information, it is not acceptable regardless or whether it is right or not. How is this any different?
Don't be a hypocrite, Ian. If you believed in those words when you wrote them, then they are equally true now. You should be happy they got moderated up again...
Going to the press right away with his grand plan was probably the wrong idea - obviously charges can still be brought against him as long as he controls the main server, regardless of its physical location.
The promising prospect of running a Napster like service from Sealand is that they have said (IIRC) that they will protect the identity of their customers - so with enough care it should be possible for somebody to run a service like Napster from there without being in the public eye or corporate crosshairs. The problem is of course that of funding the operation, since taking payments anonymously is a hard problem in todays world (one could sell account passwords through underground channels - though that is certainly a much more risky enterprise).
The best model today would probably be if some rich philantropist was willing to fund the service until a good way of making money off it emerges. If anybody is serious about that, feel free to contact me and I will gladly help draft designs for file-sharing networks that minimize the load on the central server (just having a central point makes life easier - most of the work can then be farmed out). My public key is in my user info.
Way to go Jon Katz for telling off those shallow Hollywood people for jumping on a bandwagon and making inacturate, largely fictional, and stereotyped depictions of "Geeks", pretending that they are on our side when they really don't have a clue what they are talking about!
(Maybe he should have patended the business model...)
I have the same problem, but I like to do many of my calculation against a blackboard as well. Though that should be solvable, say using chalk with a uranium powder that can be picked up by a censor in the room (right though your body!)
I can say no more - must call up USPO right away!
Re:Has anybody found Freenet useful yet?
on
P2P Piracy? Piffle!
·
· Score: 2
It doesn't help. The writer of the article probably has absolutely no clue what beta actually means, but simply used it as a term for "unfinished software" (because in the world of non-free software, beta is the first stage that users ever see). The web page does say that Freenet is in development, and I can't find a single mention of the term "beta" on it.
The current release is numbered 0.3.5. Didn't that give you a hint?
And honestly, I really don't care what clueless reporters are writing, it just strikes me a weird that people like you take it as gospel...
Re:Has anybody found Freenet useful yet?
on
P2P Piracy? Piffle!
·
· Score: 5
I'm aware that the software is "in beta" (as it has been for months already), but would somebody please tell me whether or not the project has lived up to any of its hype since it first came out? Are there any Freenet developers here who might be able to shed some light on what its current status is? Is there a concrete timeline where it will move from Beta into some semblance of production? Is there any attempt at creating a global list of keys or a search function (for those keys whose authors want them to be public)? The idea itself is incredibly interesting, but I'd like some assurance that for all the hype, we're not looking at another example of vaporware.
First, Freenet is _not_ "in beta". While I know the terms are abused completely, AFAIK "beta" generally means something that is close to being finished / feature complete. Freenet is still in the experimental stage, and likely to stay there for some time. As far as the hype goes, it has certainly lived up to everything that I have hyped it as (an interesting idea with a long way to go). In many ways, the amount of interest in the project amongst the press and geek circles has led to a hyping that has happened completely without the assistance of the actual developers - I don't know how many times I have a crinched after reading "Freenet will save the world" posts here on Slashdot. Of course Freenet is not a panacea, nothing ever is.
And no, there is no timeline for "some semblance of production". It is a free software project, and we are going to continue working on it on the rate we are able and can afford, and hopefully/maybe the day will come when it starts being truely useful. If I were to venture an optimistic guess I would say come back in a year, but don't quote me on that.
Is Freenet vaporware? There have certainly been days when I have been depressed enough by amount of work remains to feel that it actually is. Nothing is for sure in life, and nobody can be sure that Freenet will work as well we would like or even at all. So no, I can't give assurance to contrary, only say that we are working as hard as we can on glimmer of hope that we are really on to something. What more should I be doing for you?
The Internet? don't get to worked up yet
on
P2P Piracy? Piffle!
·
· Score: 5
(cirka 1994)
The Internet works -- just not all that well. And that's good news for BBS and online services like Compuserv and Prodigy.
Mind you, the concept retains its geeky appeal. It's not just the prospect of communicating with anybody you want, phone companies be damned. There's also the techy coolness of the idea -- direct linkages between millions of computers, without the clumsy mediation of some central BBS service. A slick idea, but devilishly hard to execute.
[...]
Keep in mind that the Internet is still under development and bound to get better. But as long as it remains a pure network system, with no central service or company to keep tabs on the network, the Internet will probably never be as slick and efficient as AOL. Which is why Internet style communication may not be quite such an apocalyptic peril after all.
Freenet is a work in progress, and it isn't even half done at the moment. Ways to update data on the network have been on the table for almost half a year. It's not an easy thing to achieve, but we believe that it can be done, and I think we are 90% agreed on the method (I wrote up a detailed proposal a few months ago, which should be somewhere on the webpage). Don't hold your breaths, but I would certainly like to get started on it in the somewhat near future.
That said, there are of course things that cannot be done on Freenet the way they are done on the web. Obviously you can't allow limited lookups against a database for example, but more often than not it will be a question of thinking different (let Freenet be the database...)
No, the logic is that you _should_ be locking your doors (ie, using crypto) rather than just nailing some of them shut but leaving the others open and unlocked on the grounds that they are too small for a thief to find.
Trying to secure a network that spans more then a single room through physical security is monumentally stupid.
Both Tim O'Reily and Intel are just blowing bullshit here. There is no such thing as "P2P", at least not in this new definition of it (that is the definition that they aren't sure what it is yet), and everybody except the press, the bullshitters, and the venture capitalists know it.
I mean, what exactly are Napster and Gnutella that makes them something new and revolutionary?
They are simply search engines (and rather bad ones compared to say Google) that can handle a high volatility of the hosts where the data is located. And the only reasons why this high volatility is present at all is that:
a) ISPs are doing their best to keep people from having static address where they could put normal servers. This partially because of the lack of IPv4 addresses, but mostly in order to maximise profits by having users that need servers require more expensive accounts.
b) The data they are being used to distribute is illegal and so non-volatile sites carying it are hunted down.
So, a) is caused by corporate stupitidy at the ISPs (many of whoom, I'm sure, will say they are P2P supporters now that it will help the stock price), and b) is because of the legal stupidity also known as copyright law (which has it's biggests supporters in companies like Sun, IBM, and Intel, all "P2P working group founders" according to the ZDnet story). There is no revolution here, just a clumsy workaround for a completely unnecessary problem. What these programs offer is simply the chance to download stuff that has been hunted off the web by lawyers working for the same corporate structure that now thinks "P2P" will be the next big money extorting machine for them...
I am one of the three or four lead designers/coders of one of the networks mentioned in the article, and I honestly couldn't give a rats ass how this working group is formed, or who controls it - at least until they can actually define what the fuck they are in control of, and what it is that makes this something new different.
(The project that I am a part of, Freenet, is trying to do something new, but what we are trying to achieve is only of the very surface connected to "P2P" as the money crowd sees it. And it will take years before we are ready (the Internet was given 25 years before the money crowd realized it was a prime rape target - why can't we have a tenth of that?))
Slashdot Mirror
What Freenet provides in this model is simply a balloon and honeypot ("So it does!" said Pooh. "It goes in!" "So it does!" said Piglet. "And it comes out!") which I think most people are aware is all that Freenet is at the moment (and unfortunately it currently seems to have a rather big hole in the bottom of the honey put to boot).
Brandon's creative ways of adding any service on top of this limited base are fun, but they aren't really specific to Freenet as equivalent protocols would work over any system that provides a secure way to put things in and take things out. In fact, it is pretty easy to see how TCP could be implemented over any such system be enumerating each packets name (it would be faster than rfc1149 anyways...)
&& oskar sandberg
Or as the pessimist would put it: After four years (or whatever) of intense calculations involving 300.000 computers, they have finally established the single first bit the 64 bit encryption key.
Or the optimist: They have now managed to cover an entire 63 bit keyspace, showing that a 63 bit key can be cracked, and that just a single bit remains until the goal of cracking rc5-64 is reached.
It's a good thing our world is linear rather than logarithmic, isn't it? All the bickering about half empty and half full seems pretty harmless in comparison...
Instead of trying to shield the kids from real life, you should take out two birds with one stone and teach them something about it in the process.
If I ever have kids, I'm going to set up a packet snooping / TA system to figure out exactly what they are doing online, and teach them about the lack of privacy on the Internet from the begining. And when they are smart enough to circumvent my spying with encryption, anonymizers, and mixnets, then they have proved they are smart enough to handle whatever they may see...
&& oskar
Uhh, you can speak legally in Oceania without being a criminal, as should be pretty self-evident. You can of course still speak logally all you want. Criticising big brother is not a loegal form of speach, so of course they'd be take to room 101 if this were to happen in Oceania. I'd be pissed if a bunch of "protesters" criticised me too.
Yeah right. If that is so, how come at the O'Reilly P2P conference back in February the "Aimster" representative wasted 20 minutes of all the attendees time explaning that "Aimster" was the nickname of a little girl called "Amy" that he wanted the product to please. His explanation for this was so long and weird that he came across as some sort of pervert, and managed to piss off everybody expecting something interesting from the discussion.
If you are going to lie, then at least stick to your story...
$ nc fuckgeneralmotors.com 80
GET / HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.1 302 Object moved
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 16:23:04 GMT
Set-Cookie: dialogue_id=3e42052c20010518411f690a; path=/; expires=Mon, 16-May-11 16:23:04 GMT; domain=.ford.com
Location: http://www.ford.com/servlet/ecmcs/ford/index.jsp
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Length: 169
Content-Type: text/html
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDGGGQGCDK=DILNHCGCPMNABIDCGOGLKBIB; path=/
Cache-control: private
<head><title>Object moved</title></head>
<body><h1>Object Moved</h1>This object may be found <a HREF="http://www.ford.com/servlet/ecmcs/ford/inde
Well when you stress freedom it applies to everyone. Even people you don't like. Otherwise its not freedom. So yes film producers are going to be using linux if they think it will help them get their product out the door. Just like many other people.
We do not grant freedom to those people who would use or have used it to take others freedom away. What do you think jails are for? By "our" values, hollywood are guilty of real crimes, so it is not necessarily immoral or hypocritical of us to want to take the software freedoms which we have worked hard for away from them.
Don't forget about cell phones that even if it seems like a good idea at the time, there are serious security risks in Open Source cell phone drivers; I'd say this is a pretty clear-cut (and rare) case of Open Source being more trouble than it's worth in some circumstances. (Cell phone fraud is a big industry that caters to some pretty shady characters, in case you have no clue why I have a problem with this.)
The reason that cell phone fraud is big business is exactly because it has been so closed. When the "security" relies on the obscurity of closed standards and hardware barriers, then the hacks wander over into the realm of those who can take the calculated risk and have money for the investment (read, organized crime). If you open up the system then you can make it truly secure (don't tell me that cannot be done), possibly at the cost of some amateur hacking as the system evolves.
The truth is that the closed and fuckwared nature of cell phones has nothing to do with actual security. It has everything to do with the environment in which they evolved (the traditional telecom companies have little understanding of openess, let alone giving away control) and trying to keep freedom from the users - for example the ability any user to strongly encrypt traffic (the GSM encryption is purposely broken, eventhough all legitimate phone tapping could be done at the operator base station) or to optimize usage (they don't dare have open devices accessing the new GPRS packet radio services here, as people could write IP voice programs that would be cheaper than normal phones).
It seems the site for their "development network" reagrding the "Open Standards Terminal" is here. TheRegister ran a story the other day about Nokia's callout for linux developers to help code for the platform (I though it was /. worthy, but then anybody with a clue reads TheRegister already).
On the surface this would seem like just another company trying to milk the free software community of gratis code without giving anything back, but it could also be extremely important. Remember that Sony and Microsoft are both creating "media terminals" with the very clear goal of usurping the PC and becoming the main devices for accessing the Internet. And there can be no mistaking about their motivation behind this - to take charge of and close off the agents with which people access and handle networked information, so that they can regain the total control of it they need further their ultimate goals (their bottom line - at any cost to our network). Remember Sony's words: "We will block you at you PC".
I don't think it needs to be said again how profoundly dangerous this process is, and the enemy knows it.
It would be dangerous to try to paint Nokia as an angel of grace in this regard - cellphone handsets are hardly open platforms, in fact I know of few devices so infected with fuckware. But at least this move looks genuine, and while it may seem like an underdog Nokia should not be underestimated (handsets are the largest sector of consumer electronics, and Nokia the market leader by a long shot). Certainly, this looks more realistic then anything that Indrema put forward, and by not targeting games specificly it is in a better position to not have to go head to head with the big two (leaving their legions of evil to hack at each other) and target a market where Linux is more useful. I think that we could do worse for ourselves than support this effort.
They gazed at God's Final Message in wonderment, and were slowly and ineffably filled with a great sense of peace, and of final and complete understanding.
Fenchruch sighed. 'Yes,' she said, 'that was it.'
They had been staring at ut for fully ten minutes before they became aware that Marvin, hanging between their shoulders, was in difficulties. The robot could no longer lift his head, had not read the message. They lifted his head, but he complained that his vision circuits had almost gone.
They found a coin and helped him to the telescope. He complained and insulted them, but they helped him look at each individual letter in turn. The first letter was a 'w', the second an 'e'. Then there was a gap. An 'a' follow, then a 'p', an 'o' and an 'l'.
Marvin paused for a rest. After a few moments they resumed and let him see the 'o', the 'g', the 'i', the 's', and the 'e'.
The next two words were 'for' and 'the'. The last one was a long on, and Marvin needed another rest before he could tackle it.
It started with 'i', then 'n' then a 'c'. Next came an 'o' and an 'n', followed by a 'v', an 'e', another 'n', and an 'i'.
After a final pause, Marvin gathered his strength for the last stretch.
He read the 'e', the 'n', the 'c' and at last the final 'e', and staggered back into their arms.
'I think', he muttered at last, from deep within his corroding rattling thorax, 'I feel good about it.'
The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.
Luckily, there was a stall nearby where you could rent scooters from guys with green wings.
Fight fuckware (Futile Unnatural Control Keeping Ware, credit to Oskar Sandberg for that).
I can't help but feel that if people use that term and then feel like the need to credit me, they have sort of missed the point...
Others think that it is wrong to read something written by you without paying you the amount of money that you request. Because enforcement of that necessarily leads to the inhibition of the freedom of information, it is not acceptable regardless or whether it is right or not. How is this any different?
Don't be a hypocrite, Ian. If you believed in those words when you wrote them, then they are equally true now. You should be happy they got moderated up again...
Going to the press right away with his grand plan was probably the wrong idea - obviously charges can still be brought against him as long as he controls the main server, regardless of its physical location.
The promising prospect of running a Napster like service from Sealand is that they have said (IIRC) that they will protect the identity of their customers - so with enough care it should be possible for somebody to run a service like Napster from there without being in the public eye or corporate crosshairs. The problem is of course that of funding the operation, since taking payments anonymously is a hard problem in todays world (one could sell account passwords through underground channels - though that is certainly a much more risky enterprise).
The best model today would probably be if some rich philantropist was willing to fund the service until a good way of making money off it emerges. If anybody is serious about that, feel free to contact me and I will gladly help draft designs for file-sharing networks that minimize the load on the central server (just having a central point makes life easier - most of the work can then be farmed out). My public key is in my user info.
// Oskar Sandberg (The Freenet Project)
As well as Orson Welles classic movie:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0057427
there is also one from 1993 with Anthony Hopkins:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0108388
so apparently not...
Way to go Jon Katz for telling off those shallow Hollywood people for jumping on a bandwagon and making inacturate, largely fictional, and stereotyped depictions of "Geeks", pretending that they are on our side when they really don't have a clue what they are talking about!
(Maybe he should have patended the business model...)
I have the same problem, but I like to do many of my calculation against a blackboard as well. Though that should be solvable, say using chalk with a uranium powder that can be picked up by a censor in the room (right though your body!)
I can say no more - must call up USPO right away!
It doesn't help. The writer of the article probably has absolutely no clue what beta actually means, but simply used it as a term for "unfinished software" (because in the world of non-free software, beta is the first stage that users ever see). The web page does say that Freenet is in development, and I can't find a single mention of the term "beta" on it.
The current release is numbered 0.3.5. Didn't that give you a hint?
And honestly, I really don't care what clueless reporters are writing, it just strikes me a weird that people like you take it as gospel...
I'm aware that the software is "in beta" (as it has been for months already), but would somebody please tell me whether or not the project has lived up to any of its hype since it first came out? Are there any Freenet developers here who might be able to shed some light on what its current status is? Is there a concrete timeline where it will move from Beta into some semblance of production? Is there any attempt at creating a global list of keys or a search function (for those keys whose authors want them to be public)? The idea itself is incredibly interesting, but I'd like some assurance that for all the hype, we're not looking at another example of vaporware.
First, Freenet is _not_ "in beta". While I know the terms are abused completely, AFAIK "beta" generally means something that is close to being finished / feature complete. Freenet is still in the experimental stage, and likely to stay there for some time. As far as the hype goes, it has certainly lived up to everything that I have hyped it as (an interesting idea with a long way to go). In many ways, the amount of interest in the project amongst the press and geek circles has led to a hyping that has happened completely without the assistance of the actual developers - I don't know how many times I have a crinched after reading "Freenet will save the world" posts here on Slashdot. Of course Freenet is not a panacea, nothing ever is.
And no, there is no timeline for "some semblance of production". It is a free software project, and we are going to continue working on it on the rate we are able and can afford, and hopefully/maybe the day will come when it starts being truely useful. If I were to venture an optimistic guess I would say come back in a year, but don't quote me on that.
Is Freenet vaporware? There have certainly been days when I have been depressed enough by amount of work remains to feel that it actually is. Nothing is for sure in life, and nobody can be sure that Freenet will work as well we would like or even at all. So no, I can't give assurance to contrary, only say that we are working as hard as we can on glimmer of hope that we are really on to something. What more should I be doing for you?
(cirka 1994)
The Internet works -- just not all that well. And that's good news for BBS and online services like Compuserv and Prodigy.
Mind you, the concept retains its geeky appeal. It's not just the prospect of communicating with anybody you want, phone companies be damned. There's also the techy coolness of the idea -- direct linkages between millions of computers, without the clumsy mediation of some central BBS service. A slick idea, but devilishly hard to execute.
[...]
Keep in mind that the Internet is still under development and bound to get better. But as long as it remains a pure network system, with no central service or company to keep tabs on the network, the Internet will probably never be as slick and efficient as AOL. Which is why Internet style communication may not be quite such an apocalyptic peril after all.
(I believe this is in our faq.)
Freenet is a work in progress, and it isn't even half done at the moment. Ways to update data on the network have been on the table for almost half a year. It's not an easy thing to achieve, but we believe that it can be done, and I think we are 90% agreed on the method (I wrote up a detailed proposal a few months ago, which should be somewhere on the webpage). Don't hold your breaths, but I would certainly like to get started on it in the somewhat near future.
That said, there are of course things that cannot be done on Freenet the way they are done on the web. Obviously you can't allow limited lookups against a database for example, but more often than not it will be a question of thinking different (let Freenet be the database...)
/ Oskar Sandberg
Not every story has to be about how some big company is taking some right away.
Well, obviously this one was. Your rights.
Want to find out? Reverse engineer your PS2 and write a Napster client for it. Wait for the lawyers.
Or reverse engineer your PS2 and figure out a way to make copies of your game disks. Wait for the lawyers.
Or just reverse engineer your PS2 and publish the information online. Wait for the lawyers.
No, the logic is that you _should_ be locking your doors (ie, using crypto) rather than just nailing some of them shut but leaving the others open and unlocked on the grounds that they are too small for a thief to find.
Trying to secure a network that spans more then a single room through physical security is monumentally stupid.
Both Tim O'Reily and Intel are just blowing bullshit here. There is no such thing as "P2P", at least not in this new definition of it (that is the definition that they aren't sure what it is yet), and everybody except the press, the bullshitters, and the venture capitalists know it.
I mean, what exactly are Napster and Gnutella that makes them something new and revolutionary?
They are simply search engines (and rather bad ones compared to say Google) that can handle a high volatility of the hosts where the data is located. And the only reasons why this high volatility is present at all is that:
a) ISPs are doing their best to keep people from having static address where they could put normal servers. This partially because of the lack of IPv4 addresses, but mostly in order to maximise profits by having users that need servers require more expensive accounts.
b) The data they are being used to distribute is illegal and so non-volatile sites carying it are hunted down.
So, a) is caused by corporate stupitidy at the ISPs (many of whoom, I'm sure, will say they are P2P supporters now that it will help the stock price), and b) is because of the legal stupidity also known as copyright law (which has it's biggests supporters in companies like Sun, IBM, and Intel, all "P2P working group founders" according to the ZDnet story). There is no revolution here, just a clumsy workaround for a completely unnecessary problem. What these programs offer is simply the chance to download stuff that has been hunted off the web by lawyers working for the same corporate structure that now thinks "P2P" will be the next big money extorting machine for them...
I am one of the three or four lead designers/coders of one of the networks mentioned in the article, and I honestly couldn't give a rats ass how this working group is formed, or who controls it - at least until they can actually define what the fuck they are in control of, and what it is that makes this something new different.
(The project that I am a part of, Freenet, is trying to do something new, but what we are trying to achieve is only of the very surface connected to "P2P" as the money crowd sees it. And it will take years before we are ready (the Internet was given 25 years before the money crowd realized it was a prime rape target - why can't we have a tenth of that?))