Yep, anonymity is a favourite topic of conversation of me and my colleagues.
Join the club:-)
Frankly, I do not understand the concerns of the "Entropy" project leader.
I do. See, when he doesn't believe even in the cryptographic methods used, something is really wrong. I really support his decision to "abandon the sip", even if I think it is a great loss to this kind of projects that someone with his experience and skills doesn't intend to join his mind to any other project in the field.
Theoretically, it is impossible to have anonymous communication on the Internet.
That paper is quite a good reading, but many research has been made in the field since 1988, and that's not quite true... Take this papers as a reference, and then take a look into GNUnet project itself. This comment may be taken into consideration regaurding your second point too.
Finally, I do not understand the author. He just seems pissed.
I'm afraid the "pissed" tone on his message was directed to some developers out there... If you don't understand it it's not certainly directed to you;-)
Still, even with this project retreating, the subject remains interesting.
Agreed. Fortunately there are other projects on the field, like GNUnet.
In fact, GNUnet is the first and only (AFAIK) p2p program that guarantees a level 3 anonymity, which, per se, makes it the most attractive p2p project (for me, of course, those who doesn't care with anonymity and encription and prefer speed won't choose an anonymous P2P protocol...).
I generally agree with your post, but feel the urge to comment some statements:
What if the project defines itself as a network, rather than a framework, or even a file-sharing application?
GNUnet is not a network: it is a framework, and the people using it are building a network of GNUnet nodes.
GNUnet is not a file-sharing application, it is a framework that, having the AFS protocol, creates a way of people writting and using file-sharing applications that run over GNUnet (as gnunet-gtk).
What if its not much different than installing a virtual ethernet adapter, or if all your experience setting your computer up for TCP/IP counts for something on it?
That was close, but not quite the case. GNUnet implements a protocol (like TCP) that can be run over TCP, UDP and SMTP. Peers communicate with each other via GNUnet Core or AFS messages (that run over the already spoken TCP, UDP or SMTP), and GNUnet applications communicate with the node using GNUnet Core, AFS or TestBed messages over TCP. More info on that here.
Um, I don't mean to be snarky, but my experience has been that GNUNet is even less friendly and less popular than either Entropy or Freenet.
It still has the feel of a research project
Well, GNUnet is well versioned, like most of GNU apps, and it's intended to be friendly, popular and without "the feel of a research project" when a version 1.0 comes out. We're still at version 0.6.2b, version 0.6.3 is expected to be released in August... So yes, there's lot's of work to do until v1.0 is out.
self as a framework rather than an application means that 99.9% of their potential audience won't be able to figure it out or use it.
I don't understand why do you say that a framework is harder to use then an application (or whatever you intended to say): GNUnet is a framework, which means you don't really want to "use" GNUnet, you want to use one application that runs over GNUnet (like gnunet-gtk for file-sharing, or gnunet-chat for chat, or those browser apps, e-mail-apps and such who are built over GNUnet).
Could your Mother download, compile and install gnunet-gtk?
My mother doesn't know how to turn on a computer, but GNUnet is as easy to install as any other application: just use the package for the system you use (like apt-get install gnunet on Debian, as someone said).
GNUnet already does that, plus it guarantees level 3 anonimity and all connections are encrypted.
On another field, an exploit like the one described wouldn't work because if you manage to exploit GNUnet you could exploit one node, but couldn't make it reproduceable to the other nodes.
Maybe the the gandparent and grand-...-parent should read more about GNUnet before making such claims.
When I was a kid, in my hometown, I literally read all the books the local library had.
When I came to this city, one of the first things I did was to visit the Public Library: and got shocked to know that I had to pay to get a card (and loan books).
I really can't consider this as offtopic, since it was also my first reaction: didn't all you know that people (not only American, all around the world) is reading less?
Of course you can: it's even a good exercise for studying: reading all the things you have to stury and do sparknotes of it, then read the sparknotes and make spark-sparknotes... Probably those are going to be the ones you really need to study, you'll be able to recall the rest...
I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market.
Maybe if you had some Management textbooks you could read about how to face the crisis... Like diversifing your products.
I don't sell sick stuff like Stephen King
Stephen King wasn't sick, he was an artist... If you can't understand that you're most certainly in the wrong business.
I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian sections that I know of
So you don't sell Sci-Fi but you sell relegious propaganda? I like to see libraries with a good theology section, but if you only sell Christian stuff and ignore all the other religions, you can't call your library a family store, you should call it fascism propaganda store.
On Slashdot, you can find and download hundreds of dollars worth of reading material in just minutes.
Really? WOW! I read/. since 1997 and never ever saw that option! How do you do it?
If somebody cannot obey the basic rules of society, then they should be excluded from society.
Maybe it's not an issue of "kill/reload/kill" being boring, but because games are progressing to a more realistic level, adding more features in an attempt of adding "virtual realism" to the game?
Don't forget that online games are moving in the direction of turning themselves in virtual realities, and that most games are adding "online" capabilities to them (or are fully online)...
What the RIAA is doing is having a chilling effect on online music trading, like it or not.
Of course is having: lot's of people (including me) are buying LESS CD's because some of them are with copy protections that doesn't let people play them on their CD players.
I don't really know what was your intention when you posted this, but I've seen this moderated as Score:0 and Score:2...
You have a point here: probably the most kind of downloaded "movies" (which I suppose they call to everything with certain extensions, like.avi,.mpeg,...) is porn, and with the expansion of p2p file-sharing networks and broadband, more and more people probably download porn stuff there, I even imagine lot's of teens using p2p software only for that purpose...
That explains why people download movies, not why do they do it MORE then in the past, and MORE then music.
I tend to agree with the author, when he says that's because of broadband.
This is FAR FROM the truth behind Kevin Mitnick's story.
You you want some REAL STUFF about what happened (about Kevin and about how shitty Takedown is), maybe you should see "Freedom Downtime" instead of "Takedown".
BTW, Freedom Downtime was made by 2600, the same guys behind The Fifth HOPE.
People here love to hate the RIAA and MPAA, and few if any people here are musicians and filmmakers so it's easy to ignore the rights of those groups of content creators, but I'm curious to see how Slashdot's general position will change when software piracy begins to have a real effect on the people here who make a living developing software. Or is free OSS the only way to go now?
Well, I disagree with MPAA and RIAA's actions, I'm not a filmmaker, I'm a musician and I've never ignored the rights of those groups of content creators. The issues often discussed here related to MPAA and to RIAA are completely different than the issue of software piracy. Please be carefull next time you try to stand a position by talking about another thing... sometimes it just doesn't make sence.
Slashdot Mirror
In fact, GNUnet is the first and only (AFAIK) p2p program that guarantees a level 3 anonymity, which, per se, makes it the most attractive p2p project (for me, of course, those who doesn't care with anonymity and encription and prefer speed won't choose an anonymous P2P protocol...).
GNUnet is not a file-sharing application, it is a framework that, having the AFS protocol, creates a way of people writting and using file-sharing applications that run over GNUnet (as gnunet-gtk). That was close, but not quite the case. GNUnet implements a protocol (like TCP) that can be run over TCP, UDP and SMTP. Peers communicate with each other via GNUnet Core or AFS messages (that run over the already spoken TCP, UDP or SMTP), and GNUnet applications communicate with the node using GNUnet Core, AFS or TestBed messages over TCP. More info on that here.
On another field, an exploit like the one described wouldn't work because if you manage to exploit GNUnet you could exploit one node, but couldn't make it reproduceable to the other nodes.
Maybe the the gandparent and grand-...-parent should read more about GNUnet before making such claims.
When I came to this city, one of the first things I did was to visit the Public Library: and got shocked to know that I had to pay to get a card (and loan books).
I really can't consider this as offtopic, since it was also my first reaction: didn't all you know that people (not only American, all around the world) is reading less?
Of course you can: it's even a good exercise for studying: reading all the things you have to stury and do sparknotes of it, then read the sparknotes and make spark-sparknotes... Probably those are going to be the ones you really need to study, you'll be able to recall the rest...
/,ers? Like... Slashcommers? ;-)
Richard Bach has 12 books, only one in movie (and way weaker than the book, as usual). Do you think I should wait? I don't think so...
Well... Thanks for the funny reading! :-)
There is still good sci-fi... :-)
Take, for instance, this books for your summer!
Hackers On Planet Earth
Yes, that's why campers are seen as assholes in games where there's not an implicit objective of stealthing...
Don't forget that online games are moving in the direction of turning themselves in virtual realities, and that most games are adding "online" capabilities to them (or are fully online)...
It's just a predictible step to the future...
Yes, Linux has to improve, but it has nothing to do with "market penetration". Hell, it's not even on the market!
If you read the article you'll see that they only inquired broadband users.
x-co-worker? x? Oh no, YOU GOT FIRED? :-)
Wow, nice move.
You have a point here: probably the most kind of downloaded "movies" (which I suppose they call to everything with certain extensions, like .avi, .mpeg, ...) is porn, and with the expansion of p2p file-sharing networks and broadband, more and more people probably download porn stuff there, I even imagine lot's of teens using p2p software only for that purpose...
That explains why people download movies, not why do they do it MORE then in the past, and MORE then music. I tend to agree with the author, when he says that's because of broadband.
BTW, Freedom Downtime was made by 2600, the same guys behind The Fifth HOPE.
Freedom Downtime
2600