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."
The network is finally working, Great.... (Score:5, Informative)
Great Idea, but.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How does freenet help... (Score:2, 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:Good stuff (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The problem I have with FreeNET is... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Funny (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Native code implementation? (Score:2, Informative)
Freenet isnt that free.. (Score:2, Informative)
Now forgive me if im wrong but freenet, to me, and I have used it is freedom of speech by depriving your freedom of choice!
Think about it, you can do/view and say what you want on their but in return your hosting material you do not have a choice about what its hosting and dont have a choice not to host?
Thats why I dont use it. Not because it deals with many taboo subjects, but because it is conscripting my machine into helping others view taboo material.
Re:Does Freenet really work? (Score:5, Informative)
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 project is coming along quickly---
Tell me, do you think Debian deserves no more patience? Should the community just cut and run?
It's not that their lazy, far from it---they are just very, very conservative when it comes to issuing new 'stable' releases, and for good reason too----
Freenet is designed to be safe for use by individuals in countries with an oppressive orwellian state------
How would the developers feel if a security 'bug' in the latest version got some people imprisoned, or even executed?
Take a second look, my friend----Freenet is delivering results.
P.S. Clarke's said that it doesn't work very well. But he KNOWS, 100%, that the new algorithm DOES solve the problem. Because that new algorithm is implemented on MOST of the network already--->Before implementation, at the critical point, 95% of messages in the average node's queue were "out of queue space".
Now that figure is around 5%, and dropping. The changes WORKED......
Infact, I think this is an indication that Freenet is growing---the old routing algorithm was not capable of scaling to the number of new users, but the next generation algorithm is working just fine.
Re:I don't like Freenet (Score:1, Informative)
Public deception designed to harm one person.
"2. harrassment/threats"
Extortion and intimidation.
In both cases, speech is incidental, a means to an end. Many others, however, use such arguments to negate the freedom of speech and the promotion of the concept of speech crime (little sister to thought crime).
Incidentally the standard argument is the "yelling fire in a crowded theatre" one. This doesn't work either because such an act constitutes deliberate reckless endangerment, not speech crime, as proven by the fact that the same result could be achieve by pulling a fire alarm.
Re:Hold on a sec... (Score:2, Informative)
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: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:The real reason freenet hasn't taken off... (Score:5, Informative)
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."
Other more worthy projects (Score:2, Informative)
It solves some of the problems with Freenet. GNUnet's number one goal is security/anonymity.
Re:Just a guess here... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.vrhome.com/freenet
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: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:Disappointed in Freenet (Score:2, Informative)
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:Freedom of hate? (Score:3, Informative)
In the internet you would have to truely search for the stuff, the only things i have EVER seen in Freenet are:
-warez
-porn
-kiddy porn
-pseudo terroist stuff
-pseudo "free thinking stuff"
-pages that dont load even after 30minutes (99.95% od them)
I just was running the unstable version... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How does freenet help... (Score:2, Informative)
The people who make censorware often also block well-known "loophole" sites (proxies, archives, Google caches, toys that do funny filtering to web pages, etc etc...)
One way of getting Freenet is to connect to a publicly open freenet node and download distribution package directly from there, then install it and auto-upgrade. I'm not aware of any at the moment, though, but I guess they are out there...
Freenet Rulez! (Score:2, Informative)