Freenet Project More Stable, In Need 606
An anonymous reader writes "The Freenet Project is asking for donations to help keep their main programmer, Matthew Toseland. After a long time, finally Freenet, software which 'lets you publish and obtain information on the Internet without fear of censorship' is working fine (and fast) again, since their overload problems are almost completely fixed. They even plan to write a paper about the overload problems. If you want to try, be sure to run the latest stable or unstable snapshot."
Will code for spare change... (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to the new world of Open Source, courtesy of the GNU Manifesto [gnu.org].
I'm still waiting (Score:5, Funny)
Good stuff (Score:3, Funny)
Moderators, please have some fucking sense of humour.
What the net was (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the net was (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What the net was (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, right now, if I was to take my web server, and put up a site claiming that Osama Bin Laden was the new messiah, and that I agree with the destruction of the World Trade Center, and the acts of terror; I would be lucky to see a lawyer, before I landed in Guantanimo; even if I stated on the site that I am not advocating violence.
Granted, this might be a bit of an exageration, but do you really think I would be left alone? Especially if my site got popular.
Now, techinically, I should be able to publicly espouse the belief that Al Queda is right, and that the US is the Great Satan, etc. But with the current climate, I'd be nuts to do so. Its not a case of what I can and cannot say, its a matter of me having to censor myself out of fear of begin punished for my views. But, if I can put forth those views, and do so anonymously, I am less likely to censor myself out of fear; and, as such, truly have free speech.
Re:What the net was (Score:3, Insightful)
And this will help I'm sure (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And this will help I'm sure (Score:5, Insightful)
In short I donated $20.
Donate!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Funny (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Funny (Score:5, Funny)
So WTF are you doing reading
Isn't that how it's always been.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Small works well. Then, every time there's something that spurs a lot of interest, the performance is abysmal. Now I'm sure the same excuse that this is just temporary growing pains will come up again, but I for one have lost faith in that.
To me, it looks like Freenet has got fundamental scaling issues, as it would appear from the circle of people I know, that Freenet regains its past performance about the same time that the numbers using it are back to where it was.
It's very easy to make something work well on a small scale - small enough, and even a dumbfire search (pick a route at random) works. Rate limiting, load balancing and getting the most out of each node is good, but I don't think it'll solve the real problem.
I'm not saying I have the answers to make it so that it *does* scale well. But I think I've understood enough of what Freenet does to realize it *won't* scale well. Ah well...
Kjella
An anonymous reader? (Score:5, Funny)
An anonymous reader? Hah! I've traced the pirate back to the ip 234.4.119.181! So much for slashdot anonymity! Which just goes to show...
You should have used FreeNet[tm].
Since everyone is asking for donations (Score:4, Funny)
*Content of picture my be inappropriate and disturbing. 18 and over only.
How does freenet help... (Score:5, Interesting)
Request for URL http://66.35.250.209:80/ denied by WebBlocker (Status: denied Category: questionable/illegal/gambling). This site has been blocked per Company [or country] policy.
Are there alternate sources to get Freenet in the first place?
Re:How does freenet help... (Score:5, Informative)
They already thought of that. Freenet comes with the ability to host a distribution page for others to download Freenet from.
You can download Freenet from my node [comcast.net]. (Will be up for 24 hours or 100 downloads, whichever comes first)
Re:How does freenet help... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, from the same place you should be getting your seednodes if you're in a dangerous place to be running Freenet: a trusted friend.
I know it's an incomplete and semi-'chicken and egg' response, but it does apparently work, as there are definitely some folks from China who use this to safely communicate with one another. To me, that's worth all the extra baggage that comes along with running Freenet.
Re:Just a guess here... (Score:5, Interesting)
My point was simply, Freenet sounds like a great tool to "obtain information on the Internet without fear of censorship," but how do you obtain Freenet in the first place, if you are under said censorship? My workplace was just a convenient example.
Re:Just a guess here... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.vrhome.com/freenet
Freenet... (Score:3, Interesting)
What if it was YOU that had your personal information dragged all through freenet from an Ex-Wife or Disgruntal banker? I bet then you would wish for some control to the service.
Re:Freenet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Freenet... (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, and your ex told me about that last Christmas before she left you. You totally deserve it, you fucker. And what the hell were you doing with the owls in that picture? There's all this glare coming off the ice sculpture.
Re:Freenet... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I would be going after my ex-wife or banker, not complaining about freenet.
That is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Basicly, Freenet is open to libel, slander, fabrications, pump&dumps, fraud, disclosure of trade secrets, personal information and whatever else you can imagine that involves misuse of information.
It's not just the kiddie porn. And if you wan
Hmmm (Score:3, Funny)
The network is finally working, Great.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The network is finally working, Great.... (Score:5, Informative)
If for some reason you have a particularily slow computer the resource usage can be reduced by turning down the number of threads and/or connections it uses.
Re:The network is finally working, Great.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What good is a node whose CPU and memory are hardly used, but fullfills no requests because the network is screwed up?
Priority 1: Create secure, anonymous, decentralized network
Priority 2: Get network reasonably functional
Priority 3: Get resource usage reasonably low
Priority 4: Get network running very well
Priority 5: Get resource usage way down
Right now, I'd say they're working towards 3 and 4, and doing a damn fine job at it. When you can design a functional, anonymous, secure, scalable, and fault-tolerant network, and have each and every node use minimal resources, feel free to let the Freenet team know. Until then, either run a node, or don't run a node - donate, or don't. But don't sit there and complain with no useful suggestions, corrections, help, or ideas to offer.
I Tried Freenet Once Before (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad that they claim to have fixed those issues, because I seriously love the concept, and I'm jumping at the chance to try it again.
Great Idea, but.. (Score:3, Informative)
2 Questions (Score:5, Interesting)
First, is it relatively safe? Does it do what the directions say it does and no more? Is especially vile content a big problem and will I feel guilty once I get into it?
Second, Is it being run efficiently? I really don't know what it would take. One programmer plus a herd of volunteers sounds good, but please do let me know.
Thanks. I have a new bunch of parts coming in and will soon have more than 500MB of disk space to spare, so this isn't an entirely idle bunch of questions.
Re:2 Questions (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, as far as I can tell (been running freenet sporadically for several years, constantly since last summer). The source is open, and due to the nature of the project there are a lot of slightly paranoid people looking at it. The bandwidth limiting code is actually kind of flaky, but if it's a big concern to you you can always run lower-level traffic shaping software.
Is especially vile content a big problem and will I feel guilty once I get into it?
Well, I've never felt guilty about running a node. There's certainly quite a bit of illegal distribution of copyrighted material going on over freenet, as well as a non-trivial amount of actual bad shit (read: child porn) (at least, I assume there is; I've seen links indicating that that's what they lead to, but never followed them). I feel, however, that there are better ways of dealing with such stuff than by making all secure, anonymous communication impossible. It's about as easy to avoid content you don't wish to see on the freenet as it is on the regular old web.
Second, Is it being run efficiently? I really don't know what it would take. One programmer plus a herd of volunteers sounds good, but please do let me know.
Um... it's kind of chaotic, but it gets results (in fits and starts, sometimes). The active developers are mostly nice, very smart people. You might be interested in perusing the freenet-devel archives [gmane.org].
more than 500MB of disk space to spare
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that will fill up in about a weekend. My local datastore is currently about 12GB, and I'll be putting in a spare 40GB drive soon just for freenet. Don't let this put you off, though; the network has plenty of storage space; what it really needs is more bandwidth. If you have a fast network connection, you should really try it out. It's an interesting project to follow, and could end up actually being very valuable to the world.
Native code implementation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does Freenet really work? (Score:3, Interesting)
So if the government really wants to find out who posted what, it is still possible.
Can someone please enlighten me? Is Freenet a false sense of anonymity?
Re:Does Freenet really work? (Score:5, Informative)
The real reason freenet hasn't taken off... (Score:4, Insightful)
It had always seemed that Freenet leadership is obsessively interested in getting press, yet at the same time embarrased enough by the actual system that they make it impossible for anyone but the most dedicated techies to get started using it. Considering that at startup some of the first content encountered is (quite unfortunately) child pornography collections, I wouldn't be surprised if this is almost intentional to keep the Press talking about the high ideals without seeing the current reality. Maybe it's even best for the project at this stage.
If freenet is to succeed, and we all desperately need it to, it's going to have to make itself both USABLE and RESPECTABLE. That means new potential users should not be confronted with stomach wrenching content even if such things are available by the nature of the system.
-braddock
Re:The real reason freenet hasn't taken off... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The real reason freenet hasn't taken off... (Score:3, Insightful)
When the network and the code base are less volatile, then it makes more sense for people to get working on things to help out newbies. As it is, it's probably best that the AOL crowd NOT join up just yet, as they're no
Depends on Sun (Score:4, Insightful)
> Software!
But it requires the Sun JRE, which is proprietary bloatware.
Re:Depends on Sun (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I can tell, trying to run it with any free java implementation fails--unsurprisingly, since it looks to be impossible, according to Sun's java license, to make a free java implementatino of a java standard post-1.1 (I'm not a Java expert though, and if I'm wrong I'd love to hear it).
I do always find it annoying when a program that claims to be free software is dependent on something that isn't free. I'm not criticizing the desire to use the Java language for free software, but couldn't they have
Disappointed in Freenet (Score:5, Interesting)
And therein lies the problem. The last release on that page is dated July 17, 2003. And by Clarke's own admission in his 'State of the Freenet' letter, it doesn't work very well. He *thinks* this new algorithm will solve the problems, but nobody knows that for sure.
Projects that deliver results have an easier time attracting donations *and* volunteer developers. Sourceforge lists 4 project admins and (count them!) 60 developers! Is Freenet so hard that this many programmers can't deliver a working version in close to a year?!
The goals of Freenet are lofty, and for that maybe they deserve more patience, but when does the community just cut and run?
Re:Disappointed in Freenet (Score:3, Informative)
Their page is somewhat misleading....
The client will happily update itself to the latest 'testing' version.
Built nightly, I might add---
These changes (version changes) propagate themselves through the network version.
In the windows version, you need to click on a menu choice. In the linux version, you need to run update.sh
There are plenty of interim versions, and they have VASTLY improved the project, and VASTLY improved performance.
They aren't willing to release a new 'stable', but the projec
Re:Disappointed in Freenet (Score:5, Insightful)
"I've never driven, or for that matter seen, the 2004 Jaguar XKR, but I looked at it on a website. I've got to say, the thing is a total piece of junk. The radio looks like it probably doesn't give good sound, the seats don't appear very comfortable, and I seriously doubt it rides very well either. Plus, judging by the way the engine looks, it probably doesn't have any power at all. I don't understand why anyone would even bother considering to buy one"
"The last release on that page is dated July 17, 2003."
The last major release was then. That being said, the very fact that we're not even at 1.0 means that major changes happen all the time. Had you bothered to look further, or perhaps subscribed to the devl list, you'd see that stable receives updates about once a week on average, and unstable is updated almost daily. Each 'minor' update contains numerous bug fixes, and often contains new routing features or additions to the protocols. The current stable release is 5070, which was released today. The last stable release was put out about 3 or 4 days ago. The rapid, sustained development of Freenet continues to be the fastest I've ever seen, of any project I've ever followed.
"And by Clarke's own admission in his 'State of the Freenet' letter, it doesn't work very well. He *thinks* this new algorithm will solve the problems, but nobody knows that for sure."
You're taking the letter very much out of context. Again, reading the devl mailing list would provide you with far better understanding of the issues surrounding Freenet's development, problems, and solutions.
"Is Freenet so hard that this many programmers can't deliver a working version in close to a year?!"
This, you discern, without even having tried it? That's incredible. Listen, put down the 3-way call with Kenny Kingston and Ms Cleo, and ask some people who actually run Freenet. Or, wait a week or two for the Slashdot-Freenet overload to die down a bit (takes a little while for the network to adjust to massive influxes of new people), and *gasp* download the program so you can try it for yourself?! In case you're wondering, Freenet has worked to varying degrees since I started using it about a year ago. As the protocols and code is adjusted, things either get really good, really bad, or somewhere in between. When you're doing something this brand new, and making major changes all the time, there's nothing else to be expected. As of right now, stable is working fairly well (was working outstanding a few weeks ago), and unstable is working even better.
"The goals of Freenet are lofty, and for that maybe they deserve more patience, but when does the community just cut and run?"
I would assume that most 'cut and run' within a few days of downloading the program at this point. Why? Because it's not a simple AOLesque installation. It requires some configuration, some manual configuration, a bit of knowledge, and a lot of patience. There is a large group of die-hard Freenet users, such as myself, that would need to have serious, prolonged problems with the software before thinking about giving up on it. Most of us have talked with Toad and Ian enough to know that we're not being jerked around, and that this thing is going to move forward to the benefit of many, many different people. They're open and honest about progress and problems, and they both make themselves available all the time. Toad, especially, has gone the extra mile with me on a few different occassions to make sure that I was able to solve problems I was experiencing. I didn't get a 'RTFM', nor a non-response, and I certainly didn't get ignored. My mail to the support list has always been answered with much help from numerous people. I couldn't possibly fault any
You people should be ashamed of yourselves. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nearly all of the posts i'm seeing talk about how horrible freenet is because it may be used for child pornography or other illegal things and then go on to say that freenet should not exist and how terrible they must be etc. etc. I've even seen posts saying (to paraphrase) 'everyone should have free speech except kiddie pornographers and nazis'.
get a clue and go fuck yourselves! If you want to filter what someone says because you dont agree with it than it's not really free speech, is it?
Further, these morons arguing against freenet are using the same argument i see used so fervently in defense of DeCSS or any other tool that allows them to pirate music or do something 'cool'...
'Hey! you cant make this tool illegal! Just because I have a card programmer doesnt mean I am stealing. i have rights, man! Free speech!'
So, which is it?
(a) Tool X can be used for illegal things and therefore should be banned.
(b) Tool X can be used for illegal things. It does, however, serve useful, legitimate purposes. Keep it legal.
I vote for option B myself.
Re:You people should be ashamed of yourselves. (Score:4, Insightful)
There has always been a bugaboo, right now it is child porn and terrorism but not long ago it was communism, or the KKK or neo-nazi's or what ever.
If you do not like child pornography then you are free to set up a freenet webpage and give your views as to why it, and anything else you dont like, is wrong.
As to the parent, I also agree that people seem to be hypocritical in that they think one type of 'illegal' speech is ok (MP3 copying etc.) but other types (child porno) is bad. Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Marge is forced to stop trying to censor the violent cartoon industry because she realized she was a hypocrite in wanting Michangelo's David (nudity) to be shown.
Re:You people should be ashamed of yourselves. (Score:5, Insightful)
We cannot forget that while we need to aspire to freedom of speech as much as possible, it should not encroach on the freedom of others in society.
If you're sleeping in your house and I start yelling at you through the window like a fucking moron, let's see how you like that.
If someone is doing brainsurgery on you with a speech-controlled robot and I run past the O.R. purposefully yelling "LABOTOMY LABOTOMY LABOTOMY" that's not free speech at work and should not be protected.
When free speech is only a cover for destroying the essential FREEDOMS of others, it is not free speech at all, but the cry of a coward to cover up a crime.
And yes, child pornography is an example of just that. Freedom of speech cannot be used to defend this because you've severely curtailed the Freedom of the child. Directly or indirectly don't try to fool yourself.
What's even worse, is in your black&white world, you don't even consider the case of when an individual exercising his right to 'free speech' prevents another individual from exercising his right to 'free speech'.
This can happen in a room, out on a street, online, in print and many other situations.
Now it is not my intention to set up a straw man, so I will quote you directly:
So, which is it?
(a) Tool X can be used for illegal things and therefore should be banned.
(b) Tool X can be used for illegal things. It does, however, serve useful, legitimate purposes. Keep it legal.
How about we include many other options.
(c) We keep Tool X legal, but regulate it's uses and take action against individuals who we deem misuse it like we've done with other things in the past.
or
(d) We keep Tool X legal, but reshape it so it becomes impossible to do illegal things with it while still retaining the benefits of the legal aspects.
Freenet is not a solution to our problems. It's designed to treat a symptom of curtailed freedom of speech, but it comes with side-effects(like yes child porn).
Why don't we instead concentrate on treating the disease so that we can avoid having our freedom of speech curtailed and also avoid the side-effect of letting people commit crimes.
By the way, I actually think freenet is a really cool project and am in no way against it's development. I'm just trying to show you that the debate you think is old hat, is in no way settled and should be encouraged, not discouraged like you're doing.
Europe: Nazis and pedophiles (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds pretty European to me. A lot of European countries *really* still have a lot of social crap left over from after World War II. Garmany and France, in particular, are incredibly uptight (at least from an American standpoint) about Nazi-related stuff. The UK has some kind of pedophiliaphobia. I mean, sure, nobody likes the worst-case sort of sexual content related to kids -- kids g
Re:You people should be ashamed of yourselves. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You people should be ashamed of yourselves. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Not On My Computer posts. (Score:5, Insightful)
By the most sensible definition of location of data, the child porn is not on your computer.
What you have on your computer is indistinguishable by all known statistical tests from random noise. The sum of this pseudo-random data on all nodes, viewed in a particular way, i.e. through a suitable client, is the Freenet network. The child porn is there, all right - if you're sick enough to seek it out. But the nature of Freenet means that no mapping can be found between data in it, and encrypted data on nodes. That's the whole point. So why worry? If there was a scheme by which you mailed your hard drive to some island and they added it to a pool of storage anyone could access, would you have the same qualms about your disk being possibly contaminated?
Voicing My Support (Money Talks) (Score:5, Interesting)
That's nothing compared to what I spend on stupid crap that the monolithic media corporations have convinced me I need to be happy while they work to take away my freedoms.
And just preemptively: I don't think everything should be free. I don't download songs illegally. I am an creator/artist who has been paid for my creative/artistic work on occasion, and would like to make that my life, though I've yet to be able to do so. Still, I think the current lack of consumer rights is appalling.
I am glad to support this project that gives us the technilogical means to work around the crap that's become acceptable in our free country.
Cheers.
How about bandwidth controls that work. (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe in the principles of Freenet.
I am willing to dedicate disk space
I am on a broadband connection where I can affort x GB / week.
I have tried freenet carefully setting the supposed bandwidth controls. At first everything was fine, but as days and weeks went by my node got more and more popular. Eventually it was way above the limits I had set and I could find no way to throttle it back to a reasonable rate, so I was forced to remove the service. This was far more problem than even it's slow speed -- it made it impossible for the average user to use. Normal users get into trouble if their bandwidth usage keeps going up without limit. I also run web pages that eventually become unusable if they get too much competition. That is the make-or-break feature for me. I must have bandwidth controls that put a real cap on bandwidth.
I can't believe this is Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess what? Before you ask or accuse, I don't like the idea of child porn. Duh. Does anyone other than the small minority of people who have some deep seated issue? Quit parroting every politico seeking reelection.
Just because you find ponography (to you) of any sort, doesn't mean that something like Freenet is bad or not needed. There is an ever increasing inabillity to exercise free speech every day. Read your ISP's TOS. Try and get a letter to the editor printed that is critical of the paper. Try to buy an ad during the SuperBowl.
Why isn't this figured out by now? I kill someone with a hammer. Oh, outlaw hammers! Nevermind that with that same hammer I could help fix a poor family's house. I know, "But you still killed someone with the hammer!"
It's rather obvious to me that those who would filter free speech are the world's biggest pussies. Frankly, I enjoy and use my human! (NOT GOVERNMENT GIVEN) right of free speech every day.
Those who would filter it miss the whole point, and miss the irony of the fact that they are encouraging the removal of any personal responsibility, free action or speech.
Yeah! Freedom of Speech is great as long as I like it! You can recite that over and over, when you're in prison for saying something that your new leader didn't like.
i hate freenet (Score:3, Interesting)
When they need support or money, they're the last best hope for freedom online. When you want them to actually produce something that looks like results, they're a research product and they claim that any useful code they produce is only a biproduct.
I wish slashdot would quit passing them free publicity. Better projects have gotten farther without getting a dime.
Still slow (Score:3, Informative)
I respect the goals that Freenet is trying to accomplish. And contrary to what some people say in here, it's not the spread of child porn. The ability to say things without fear of reprisal is important. Not just from the government, but from corporations, too. How many times have we heard about a big corp coming down on a whistleblower?
That said, I believe anonymous systems are important to the future of communication, especially with the orgy of civil surveillance that's going on in the US right now. But regarding Freenet specifically, I have to wonder what the point of anonymous system is if it's completely unusable.
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is freenet really going to help them though? I'm asking this as a question, not implying that it won't, but I'm wondering: Can you detect that a given packet or set of packets are freenet packets, regardless of being able to determine what's in those packets?
If I were the communist China government, I'd set up the country's firewalls to drop freenet packets. There could be benign uses of freenet, but there's definitely uses that don't appeal to the communists.
Either that...or anyone using freenet gets arrested. In China, they might have an easier time getting away with that than in the US...maybe there won't be proof that you were doing anything illegal...but can you prove that you weren't doing anything illegal?
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:3, Insightful)
After installing FreeNET and trying it out , I couldn't care less about its claims to be a conduit for freedom of speech. Along those lines, I also couldn't care less about poor, oppressed people in communist countries who aren't allowed to express their views, if they try to express them via FreeNET
FreeNET claims to provide an safe haven for people to exchange information without fear of oppression or censorship. What FreeNET is (whether or not by design) is a "harbor house" of sorts for child pornograph
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Insightful)
> child pornographers, terrorists, and other criminals.
You mean `the internet is...`. So why are you using it. Perhaps you should stop using the phone, postal system, visiting libraries etc.
You can only make the world a better place with information. Ultimately, it is better than ignorance, even if you can pick a few examples of the downside.
I'm still at a loss as to how the internet can help terrorists. What can they now do that they couldn't do before with phone calls? Likewise for "criminals" in general.
I think the internet is a godsend for police and other agencies trying to track down child pornographers.
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Insightful)
That would make me a terrorist to the current administration.
Let us say also that the Administration was making use of advances in Science to monitor dissidents communications, purchases, library visits, how many times you go the bathroom each days, etc.
Freenet is a neccesary evil, much like lawyers.
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Insightful)
"It does not extend to breaking laws revolving around child endangerment and molestation and civil rights violations and hiding behind it by claiming it's protected by the right to free speech."
Personally, I think you're totally crazy. A digital camera and a CD burner might seem like ideal tools for publishing child pr0n. Should they be illegal? Should I say that I couldn't care less about their non-infringing uses? You're just another hypocrite who hates the DMCA for it's effects on non-infringing uses, but at the same time is more than happy to kill a project like FreeNET because it can be used in ways that are in violation of your laws and morals. I don't want to start a war here, but what is wrong with you people!?!?
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Are the dissidents communists, or are those oppressing them communists?
Your statement makes very little sense. Communism is an economic system - and an economic system has very little to do with freedom of speech.
(Actually, communism may have more of an effect upon freedom of speech, but in the case of communism as an economy, it actually HELPS it)
China's government is communist (though it's becoming arguable with the humungous amount of foreign trade going on). However, it is also a dictatorship (and a somewhat fascist one at that) - a dictatorship certainly supresses civil liberties.
India is communist by popular election. No system of government which supresses personal freedoms as China does would be acceptable to the masses. And you certainly don't see these violations of civil liberties in India today.
Looks like you're still feeling the ill effects of Senator McCarthy (America's worst politian. Ever)
Re:Freenet. Pull the plug before someone gets hurt (Score:4, Interesting)
>
> What, so things can happen now with the internet which couldn't have happened before? No doubt you're thinking of bomb making or something? That's the example you always here. You know how easy it is to make an explosive? They practically tell you how on the news every time there's an attack on the American troops currently occupying Iraq, or on Israelis.
Boy did you miss the point. (Or you confused me with someone else.)
Seriously, I couldn't care less about Joe "One-beer-short-of-a" Sixpack downloadin' his good ol' self a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook and promptly evolving himself out of the gene pool.
But I am worried about the one really unlucky Joe Sixpacks who get chosen as the first few test cases in the West. Some poor slob who think Freenet's just another way to "freely" swap MP3s with reduced risks of getting a nastygram from RIAA, but who wakes up to black-masked agents screaming "FEDERAL AGENT! WE KNOW YOU'RE HOSTING ILLEGAL PR0N! DON'T MOVE, YOU PERVERTED FREAK!"
The reference to someone getting killed is the fact that Unlucky Joe Sixpack isn't the worst case. The worst case is the prototypical pro-democracy dissident in China -- who (just like Unlucky Joe) thinks he and his friends are free to communicate using Ian and Matt's shiny toy, only to wake up to the sound of a round being chambered, and to never hear anything else again.
Take a close look at how Freenet nodes operate, and realize the minimal amount of traffic analysis that would be required on the part of any government agency to identify node operators and direct queries to guarantee that for any value of "contraband" required, some data corresponding to "contraband" exists on the node of the person selected to be the test case.
When Freenet was created, the technology to perform such an attack didn't exist in China, and the legal infrastructure of the West made any evidence gleaned as the result of such monitoring inadmissable. Neither of those two things are true any longer.
On a moral level, Freenet was a success: it proved the point that arguing for absolute anonymity really does mean having to deal with things you might find repugnant. (And I agree with its creators' stand -- if you can't deal with the ramifications of absolute anonymity, you have principled, not merely practical, grounds not to be a part of it.)
On a practical level, however, due to its susceptibility to traffic analysis and other forms of attack by a sufficiently well-motivated and well-funded opponent, and given that a sufficiently well-motivated-and-funded opponent exists on every chunk of addressable IP space on the planet, Freenet is a hazard to anyone actually using it.
Freenet is not Kazaa. The risks you face from running a Freenet node are far, far, far greater than what you risk from running a Kazaa node. In the case of the perverts, I'm OK with that. But I'm not OK with that when it's MP3 downloaders getting the perp walk for sex charges, and I'm very very not OK with that when it's the Chinese democracy movement getting a perp walk to the organ bank.
Re:Freenet. Pull the plug before someone gets hurt (Score:4, Interesting)
And this protects you from the following scenario, how?
"Your Honor. Agent Smith clicked on this link, which he reasonably believed to contain illegal content. A request went out from his machine to another machine on the network. Some packets got sent back from different machines. Illegal content was stored on our hard drive. Our client happens to have been modified to record the IP addresses of each encrypted chunk of every file as it's being downloaded. Our logs tell us that the 12 chunks that make up the illegal content came from the following 12 machines. With data shared from a source we're not necessarily going to talk much about, we were able to determine that 12 of these nodes were relaying requests (trafficking) but that 8 responded to requests from within their datastore (possession).
In order to prove that the owners of all 20 of these machines are cooperating as part of an illegal content distribution ring, we require a warrant that enables us to seize their equipment."
At this point, your life is over. You just don't know it until the flash-bang hits. All that's left (in the West) is to determine who get part of their life back after six-digit legal fees and several years in the legal system, or whether you get the Grand Prize of 15-20 in the Federal pound-me-in-the-ass pen. (The Chinese get no such choice; a healthy supply of organs is a nice source of hard currency.)
"After we have the warrants, we plan to take the copies of the hard drives from all 20 machines, set them up on a 21-machine lab LAN, and with a few fancy routers, re-create the network as it existed at the time of the crime. By clearing the datastore on our 21st machine and requesting the same key we did in the warrant, we intend to prove that all 20 defendants are engaged in a conspiracy to distribute illegal content. If we get the content from an air-gap isolated LAN, we've proved our case - the 20 defendants' machines collectively hold the illegal content and distribute it to anyone requesting a key."
Furthermore, a smart adversary will file based on a bunch of "popular" keys that are likely to be stored on any subset of 20 nodes based on its traffic analysis and/or profiles of time-taken-to-respond-to-request certain requests versus certain nodes as sampled over time without even making a request itself, simply by passively monitoring data from many chokepoints on the network for a sufficiently long period of time, but even if the adversary is dumb and only gets a warrant for a key it requested and is somehow unable to recreate the content in the crime lab, you're proven Not Guilty.
Big deal. It doesn't matter if you don't get the Grand Prize of 15-20 years. The damage (to your gear, your reputation, and your career) is done when the warrant is signed, not 6 years later when the dust settles.
If you want to run a Freenet node because you believe in anonymous free speech, and you understand that you could well become the test case for Ian and Matt's political stance, go right ahead. If you agree with Ian and Matt's stance, go right ahead -- it's a free country, which means you're allowed to do things that are of untested legality. You just have to be prepared to face the charges when people with differing legal opinions, differing political agendas, and overwhelmingly superior firepower decide to bring the matter before the courts.
I have a principled objection to running a Freenet node. My gear, my network, my rules. Freenet doesn't allow me to enforce my rules. So I enforced my rules the only way I could -- by not installing it.
There's also a practical objection
NOT TROLL (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW - if you are unaware - unlike most P2P systems, on FreeNET you do not choose what material to share, rather it gets stored (and served from) your computer according to the network-wide demand. So if someone uploads kiddie porn to the network it may be stored on your computer for others to download. Because of its anonymous nature (well, nearly) it is very attractive for people who may want to bypass local law enforcement - i.e., those that wish to engage in unlawful activities will be disproportionatly drawn to it.
But (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that only popular items becomes memes as they are spread to other servers when requested.
Things that are not popular eventually go away as the servers they are on smoke them when more popular content is downloaded.
So, if your server is storing lots of kiddie porn (and there's no way to tell without trying to download it and seeing how fast it goes), then that means many people are downloading it...which means that you are probably living next to child pornographers, and probably have some
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Interesting)
In Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, Conneticut, in fact in the majority of states, it's perfectly legal to screw that 16 year old cheerleader, you just can't take her picture.
You are consfusing the age of consent with the age of majority, a confusion the laws themselves often promote. Perhaps this is the cause of your being modded as a troll by someone.
P.S. you forgot to include the legal disclaimer that your post is void where advocating changing the law is illegal. The net police shall be arriving with their black helicopters momentarily. Please, do not resist arrest. Maybe you'll get lucky and get to inhabit Thoreau's old cell.
KFG
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Interesting)
But, anyway, you have to make a very important distinction between freenet and the real world:
Freenet transfers information. Rape nad Murder *always* happen in reality. IMHO, there should go the power of law enforcement.
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want my node to be used to harbor child porn, offensive content or terrorism. What can I do?
The true test of someone who claims to believe in Freedom of Speech is whether they tolerate speech which they disagree with, or even find disgusting. If this is not acceptable to you, you should not run a Freenet node. There is another thing you can do. Since content in Freenet is available as long as its popular, you can help limit the popularity of whatever information you do not like. For example, if you do not want a file to spread you should not request it and tell everyone you know not to request that specific key. However, keep in mind that freenet is not designed so as to only allow communication between people if a sufficient number of people agree with the communication. Freenet is designed to make communication possible even if there's just one publisher and one reader, and this is already reasonably feasible on the current freenet.
Personally, I think the only way to stop kiddie porn is at the source. Removing the transport medium will only lead to those involved seeking another medium, and there's always SneakerNet.
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:4, Funny)
I agree. We should outlaw kids.
From the Freenet FAQ... (Score:4, Informative)
The true test of someone who claims to believe in Freedom of Speech is whether they tolerate speech which they disagree with, or even find disgusting. If this is not acceptable to you, you should not run a Freenet node. There is another thing you can do. Since content in Freenet is available as long as its popular, you can help limit the popularity of whatever information you do not like. For example, if you do not want a file to spread you should not request it and tell everyone you know not to request that specific key. However, keep in mind that freenet is not designed so as to only allow communication between people if a sufficient number of people agree with the communication. Freenet is designed to make communication possible even if there's just one publisher and one reader, and this is already reasonably feasible on the current freenet.
Re:From the Freenet FAQ... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a huge difference between tolerating something and actively propagating it.
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:4, Informative)
In the cases of kiddy porn where kids have been raped (which is rather a minority of it, AFAIK), the rape has already happened. Nothing can keep it from having happened. The fact that a video exists does not change anything. Distribution of that video, while it violates the child's privacy, does not tangibly harm anyone. In fact, one could even argue that distribution of such material on Freenet reduces actual child rape, because material on Freenet is by definition free as in beer, so the original "content producer" isn't getting any money for it.
I'm against child abuse and rape as much as anyone else, but we really need to get our priorities in order. As the Freenet FAQ says, "While most people wish that child pornography and terrorism did not exist, humanity should not be deprived of their freedom to communicate just because of how a very small number of people might use that freedom."
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah! And I'd rather not have kiddie porn travelling by mail. If we need to end the postal system, so be it, it's for the children. Come to think of it, those vile kiddie pornographers are using encryption to hide their behavior. Let's ban encryption too. Some are even using the Internet, let's ban that. And they're using cameras to take those pictures, time to ban cameras.
Hmmm, now that I think about it, human beings are a common threat in the sexual abuse of humans. We better get rid of people ASAP.
Ultimately your argument is, "But what about the chiiiiiildren!" There are lots of tools used by criminals. Yes, child pornographers use Freenet. It's unfortunate, but it's not the fault of the tool. Terrorists use airplanes and box cutters, but no one is trying to ban them.
Re:I don't like Freenet (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't like Freenet (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? When is it ok to silence speech? When it goes against something you belive in? I personally don't agree with your post
but that doesn't mean that I think you shouldn't be allowed to speak your opinion.
distribution of illegal material (Score:5, Insightful)
Be it on freenet, the open web, or the US-mail.
If that offends you then dont contribute time/energy/resoruces/money to freenet.
Oh, and dont buy stamps, or buy gas or anything else.. As there is nothing in this world that isnt tainted somehow..
Just get used to it, and move on.
Re:I don't like Freenet (Score:5, Insightful)
What checks does Freenet have in place to preserve privacy, and yet prevent the distribution of illegal material?
That's kind of the point. Illegal != immoral != harmful. It's up to each individual user to determine whether what they're doing is "right" or "wrong". Is it wrong to wail against communism? The Chinese government thinks so. Is it wrong to spread child porn? The U.S. government thinks so. But, what does the USER think. It's THEIR responsibility to do the right thing rather than the government forcing them to do it. I must say, I don't participate in freenet because I'm not convinced that the benefits of using my computer to help spread democratic propaganda away from the prying eyes of the Chinese government outweights the negatives of some sick fuck using it to spread kiddy porn, but that's MY decision, not the governments.
When you rely on the government to hold people to certain standards, you're just asking for trouble. Look at the gay marriage thing. Does it hurt anybody? No. Still, there are people who say it's right and people who say it's wrong. The government wants to stick it's big nose in the mess now and that's just begging for trouble. They'll try to legislate morality which is just plain nuts. The government is hear to PROTECT and SERVE the public, not be a self-appointed moral watchdog. Freenet is an interesting experiment in putting the power of deciding one's own moral course back in the hands of individuals.
Unlike the screwball grandparent poster, I like Freenet in principle, I'm just not convinced that I like it in practice...
Re:I don't like Freenet (Score:4, Insightful)
Offtopic (Score:3, Interesting)
Take care, and keep up the good work. You folks have been doing an outstanding job, especially recently. Don't let the nay-sayers and trolls here, or anywhere,
More Bad joke time (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently its hard to pay the bills with "free" these days.
Re:Is censorship such a bad thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
And this free anonymous speech can be filtered, since it is free, and it is anonymous. Filtered in the sense that I'm more likely to trust something my mom says than some voice I hear whispered in a subway. We've gotta teach our kids to moderate that free speech and figure out if it's trustworthy or not, before they let it convince them to become teenage sluts building pyramids for alien-worshipping monkey gods, or whatever it was you alluded to. Anything you read on Freenet should be treated as an unfounded rumor. Which doesn't do much good for our Chinese dissidents, I guess.
Re:Freedom of hate? (Score:3, Insightful)
Child porn (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want a system that can censor a particular kind of data, it would require a central authority to make that judgement -- and the entire point of a decentralized network of expression is lost.
Re:Freedom of hate? (Score:5, Informative)
The idea that the net, meaning newsgroups, the Freenet overlay, web pages, FTP sites, the idea that all of them are hotspots of kiddy porn -- where did this idea come from?
Is there a metric? Has anyone done any studies? How could such a count be made, since viewing the pictures, hell, having them on your harddrive, is a federal crime?
Isn't it mostly anti-free internet politicos and religous agitators the people making these claims? And cops, federal and local, who are making big budget careers out of policing the net?
Isn't it just pandering to people's fears?
I mean, it started out small, this meme. After years in the echo chamber of mass communication, "terrorists and pedophiles" are now almost synonymous with file transferers. And, oh yeah, music and video "thieves". Small, now HUGE.
How many thousands of kiddy shots have any of you actually seen? Downloaded? And how many of that subset of imagery on the net was made lately? Are most if not all ancient 8 MM junk made in the 80's, and long before that? And of all that, how much is actually really being traded around by willing hosts, and how much of it is BEING PLACED THERE BY COPS looking to make some easy bust?
IS there kiddy porn on the net? Really? Examine the question for a minute. We are, in my opinion, being suckered into believing something is real 'cause everyone SAYS it is real -- like the WMD in Iraq, who dares say it is a pile of vapor?
And what is kiddy porn? Is a 16 year old in a bikini porn? For most people in this argument, yep. I seem to recall as a young lad that I really liked the Montgomery Ward catalog for its fashionably clad young ladies. Was it kiddy porn?
I seem to remember that Scott Ritter, the chief American weapons inspector in Iraq, got busted for "kiddy porn" on his hard drive not long after calling Bush a liar about WMD's. He's walking around today, so I guess the highly publicized charges were dropped, after he was suitably ruined, of course. What were those naughty pictures? I'm guessing it was the not-kiddy-porn variety.
Again and again, WHAT kiddy porn? How would anyone know without downloading it? And if they don't download it, HOW THE HELL DO THEY KNOW IT'S "ALL OVER" THE FREENET?
Re:Freedom of hate? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate child porn as much as humanly possible. But that doesn't make me hate cameras. Or freenet. It makes me hate child pornographers. They should be found and shot dead. If it is hard to find them, I don't blame the largeness and complexity of the physical world. Or freenet.
I don't have a solution to child porn, but I don't want restrictions on useful technology because of the sick actions of a few.
Cheers.
Re:Freedom of hate? (Score:3, Insightful)
Freenet is the ultimate test of tolerance - will you allow things you(and possibly most people) disagree with, such as those things the parent just mentioned, in exchange for supporting those things that you DO agree with? Or will you say "no deal?" It's hard to say that anyone "wins" whichever side you choose, since you don't know what you're participating in, but in the end it's all a matter of trusting that the elements y
Re:Freedom of hate? (Score:3, Insightful)
So are you saying any speech that doesn't promote your idea of freedom should be outlawed?
Re:Freedom of hate? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would be more concerned that knee jerk laws would find you liable for some crime, regardless of the fact that you don't (can't!) know what data is on your machine.
Re:Freedom of hate? (Score:3, Interesting)
But no (reasonable?) philosophy of freedom of speech is absolute. The classic example is shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater; but there are various forms of libel and slander as well. Speech should be free, but that's different from saying you should be able to say whatever you want, in any circumstance.
The actual problem of deciding whether or not to host child porn is a practical and technical problem that results from providing anonymity, not a philosophical one dictated by the goal of free speech. O
Re:Freedom of hate? (Score:3, Insightful)
Freenet is an unlimited (well, very very large) supply of megaphones. If you'd like to use one of the megaphones, the only requirement is that you not stop other people from using the megaphones. As there are more megaphones than people, no one will ever be left wanting. In that vane, if you stop others from using the megaphones (uninstall Freenet), you lose the use of them as well.
Now, keep in mind that having a megaphone does not guarantee an audience. If you cannot
Re:Hold on a sec... (Score:3, Insightful)
The solution is, of course, easy. Accept that you cannot solve social problems by technical measures. Censorship and political oppresion are political problems, they will be solved by political changes or not at all. A P2P network mi
Re:bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
It's not working as good as it has. just prior to the v0.5 release, and the first 4 releases of v0.5 were pretty much ideal; after that... pffft.
It's getting better, if a site can get inserted, you can pull it up 100% of the time, but getting a site inserted is still a nightmare.
It's pretty good for file sharing using Fuqid, and if you wanted to download MacroHard source, cash register software, the dirt on Kerry, it's all there.
FROST was killed by it's abandonment by Jantho, the guy who came up with the idea; as he was leaving you had a pretty rocking little usenet-like interface searchable interface for freenet, but the guys who took it over killed it deader than a doorknob; the old version still works, and works well, but apparently i'm the only one who knows it.
so, if you want to use it for file trading, use IIP to contact people for keys, and the web interface to see the sites from people who have enough skill or luck to insert frequently.
Re:Screw the children! Think of yourself! (Score:3, Informative)
It's even worse than that -- you aren't merely in possession, but distributing it.
Re:Jesus Christ... (Score:5, Insightful)
They state as much in the FAQ. The downside of an uncensorable system is that some people will use it for things you and I would prefer to censor.
Aside from that, the same can be said of the internet itself. The same can be said of the real world, as well. Shall we destroy the internet and the real world to prevent disgusting things from happening or being posted? Or should we address the problems behind the content, such as the abuse of children? We can continue to ignore the problems that are out there by censoring them away, or we can recognize that there exists a major problem, and then go on to solve it.
"While I'm sure there are lots of chinese people who will find value in it, "
Well, yes... considering the fact that it saves their lives . Quit living in your tiny little world and open up a little bit, just for once, hmm? Just recently, a Chinese dissident was jailed for posting "subversive" materials on the internet. Had this person had access to, and used Freenet, they would still be promoting democracy, instead of wondering how many times the guards will be back for torture sessions this week. People in China and other places DO use Freenet to communicate safely with one another. In places like China, North Korea, Zimbabwe, etc, speaking out means you're going to die. How it is you can simply brush aside the fact that Freenet saves peoples' lives every single day is beyond me.
" there are lots of child pr0nographers rubbing their dirty little fucking hands with glee. "Oh look, something free and uncensored! Better puts some child porn on it! (uploads)."
Again, the same can be said of the internet. How many sites have been busted for selling access to child pornography? How many years did those places operate with impunity? How many others continue to go undetected by law enforcement? How many others pop up on the regular internet every single day? Obviously there are those who use Freenet for things that disgust most of us, but those people will find ways to distribute that content regardless of Freenet's existence. The capture of one, or ten, or a hundred, or a thousand does little to stem the tide. Until we address the underlying problem, the content will always exist.
"Yeah, free speech is nice, but at the same time providing free speech to child pornographers and Nazis is both hypocritical and wrong."
Your definition of hypocrasy is flawed. Hypocrasy is to pretend to be or believe something which you are not, or do not believe. It would be hypocritical of Freenet to advertise free speech, and then censor that with which it does not agree.
What you mean to say is that you don't like those who would produce or distribute child pornography, and you don't like Nazis, and you wish that they would be quiet and go away. Guess what - I wish the very same thing. The difference is, I'm not willing to call for the downfall of something that saves lives every single day simply because some people use it to say or distribute things that turn my stomach. It's people like you who think that censorship stops at things with which they disagree. In fact, there will always be someone wanting to censor the very things you hold most dear, because they find it offensive. Do you believe in God? There will always be an athiest who doesn't want you 'indoctrinating' their child, and thus wants you banned from saying the word under any circumstances. You don't believe in God? There will always be someone who finds the very thought so utterly repulsive that they want you jailed for even menti
Re:if certain people (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think Freenet is about 'avoiding responsibility', I think it is about protecting yourself from those who find your opinions 'distasteful'.
Yup. Sadly, that may include pictures of porn. And it may include photos and reports of people getting killed for going to a democratic rally.
Porn will be made and distributed with or without Freenet. What about censored, unpopular, unjust information?
It's easy to sit back in your Aeon chair and say, "Well if they can't be bothered to run over to the local AP wire office, then their story must be false."
That's exactly what the government wants you to think, no tinfoil hat needed.