After 3 Years, Freenet 0.7 Released

evanbd writes "After over 3 years of work, the Freenet Project has announced the release of Freenet 0.7. 'Freenet is software designed to allow the free exchange of information over the Internet without fear of censorship, or reprisal. To achieve this Freenet makes it very difficult for adversaries to reveal the identity, either of the person publishing, or downloading content' ... 'The journey towards Freenet 0.7 began in 2005 with the realization that some of Freenet's most vulnerable users needed to hide the fact that they were using Freenet, not just what they were doing with it. The result of this realization was a ground-up redesign and rewrite of Freenet, adding a "darknet" capability, allowing users to limit who their Freenet software would communicate with to trusted friends.'"

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles.

[Anonymous Coward]

A new and improved way to share that child pornography!

More congratulations are in order for the powers that be. They have managed to convince a large segment of the population that the only consequence of anonymous communication on the internet is the proliferation of child porn. The citizens are now ready and willing to be tracked and logged.

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles.

[Hyppy]

Is that the only use you can think of for this? Is this just a hopeless attempt at trolling? Is your world view so ethnocentric that you don't realize how censorship affects people?

Here's a quick list of situations or people off the top of my head that could benefit from this:

- Citizens of a government which controls information flow (China, Kuwait, etc)
- Investigative journalists releasing stories (Judith Miller, anyone?)
- Leaking protected or damaging information (Wikileaks has been shown to be vulnerable)

If all you can think about is "OmG teh CHILDRENS!!111", then something is seriously wrong with you.

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles.

[Anonymous Coward]

More congratulations are in order for the powers that be. They have managed to convince a large segment of the population that the only consequence of anonymous communication on the internet is the proliferation of child porn. The citizens are now ready and willing to be tracked and logged.

It's a signal-to-noise ratio problem, and what constitutes signal (or noise) is a function of what the authorities are looking for.

In China, Freenet is a tool used by traitors to pass destabilizing messages (to the PRC, that's signal) back and forth, hiding in a sea of American child porn (to the PRC, that's noise).

In the USA, Freenet is a tool used by pedophiles to pass disgusting images back and forth (to the FBI, that's signal), hiding in a sea of "Free Tibet" and "Falun Gong" emails (to the FBI, that's noise).

Unfortunately, since the network is designed that you can't host one without hosting the other, neither is a particularly advisable thing to have on your network, no matter where you live.

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles. QWZX

[grub]

Have you actually seen Freenet? The only purpose it's pretty much used for is the exchange of the worst crimes of humanity.

With Freenet you have to actively look for what you want. If you found "the worst crimes of humanity" it's because you were looking for them in the first place.

Re:The failure of Freenet

[evanbd]

There are two issues here. One is that the network isn't as robust as would be ideal; there are legitimate concerns about buggy implementations causing problems. A lot of the work debugging freenet goes into things that are essentially emergent behavior, and the bugs get even harder to track down on a non-homogenous network.

The second is one of documentation. Yeah, it's practically nonexistant outside of the source code. But my impression from discussions (none recent) of alternate implementations was that the developers would be willing to support them by answering questions and such, and had no actual objections (concerns about buggy clients, yes, but not objections). There has been discussion of people creating alternate implementations, but so far no one has actually followed through. So, if you want to go write one, I suggest you start writing some code and posting questions to the mailing list or on IRC.

I speak here as a #freenet regular and a coder, though not a freenet developer.

Re:Exchanging gas ovens?

[jesdynf]

You know, I never thought about it before... but why is it necessary to compare "rape" and "murder" and decide which of the two are worse?

Both are supremely unacceptable acts, full stop. The hypothetical question asked doesn't seem very realistic. "I would choose neither." "NO! What if you had to choose... because you're on a bus! And a madman would blow up the bus if you didn't choose, or it slowed down!" I'm not feeling it.

I'm not prepared to agree that killing N people is better or worse than raping N people, and that's before I even GET to the part where we bring up the religion thing. What if you *raped* N people for religion, but then killed N others just because you're a jerk? How does that stack up? And what if you double-parked because you wanted to make it harder for someone to drive away, thereby increasing the energy they expended and hastening, ever so slightly, the end of the universe? And you just raped N people to produce delicious candy? Hard to call that one, I tell you.

Re:The failure of Freenet

[computational super]

Yep, assuming that you're Toad from the list, that's pretty much what you said back then.

I've added you to my friends list as my small token of appreciation for the great service that you're doing for humanity - if there's any cosmic justice in the world, you and Ian will both be remembered by history as heroes of the 21st century.

But I still think you're wrong about developing multiple client implementations.

Re:Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom of Hosts

[Knara]

Translation: I'm for freedom of speech, so long as it is speech I agree with.

Apparently you are not the target audience for freenet. Or the 1st amendment, for that matter.

Re:Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom of Hosts

[computational super]

Freedom of speech is not an absolute.

Well, either it's an absolute, or it doesn't exist at all.

However, as another poster noted, you can easily control what's hosted on your node - if you don't request something, it doesn't get on your node. But once you request it, you start hosting it for others.

Re:Seriously?

[dreamchaser]

Actually, you missed his entire point. You have freedom of speech, but not freedom to make other's repeat your free speech. Additionally, it's already been established that certain things (like the child porn example I used), are NOT protected by free speech. The same goes for certain other types of expression such as yelling FIRE in a crowded theater when there is none.

The founding fathers recognized this fact and realised that government was a necessary evil that by it's very definition restricts or moderates certain natural rights. In a total anarchy you would be absolutely correct, but we do not live in one.

Re:Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom of Hosts

[Sanity]

but if my computer is hosting content, I should have the freedom to choose what that content is

If you have the ability to choose what you host or don't host, then you become responsible for it. Its a bit like the concept of a "common carrier" in US telecommunications law. Freenet gives you freedom by preventing you from censoring the content you host. Its a feature, not a bug.

Freedom of speech is not an absolute

If not, then who gets to choose what speech is permissible?

Re:Seriously?

[Sanity]

You have freedom of speech, but not freedom to make other's repeat your free speech.

So you don't mind if your ISP blocks your access to websites they don't like, or drop emails they disagree with? Freenet users choose to give up the right to control your speech on Freenet. In doing so, they protect themselves from responsibility for what you say.

Additionally, it's already been established that certain things (like the child porn example I used), are NOT protected by free speech.

Yes, but what measures are tolerable to prevent it? Do you mind if all your mail is read by the government just in-case it contains child porn?

The same goes for certain other types of expression such as yelling FIRE in a crowded theater when there is none.

Common misconception, this is perfectly legal in the US ever since the Brandenburg v Ohio [wikipedia.org] case in 1969.

The founding fathers recognized this fact and realised that government was a necessary evil that by it's very definition restricts or moderates certain natural rights. In a total anarchy you would be absolutely correct, but we do not live in one.

That is a Strawman argument. Just because I believe that governments shouldn't be permitted to monitor and control communication doesn't mean you believe we shouldn't have governments at all.

Re:Seriously?

[dreamchaser]

"So you don't mind if your ISP blocks your access to websites they don't like, or drop emails they disagree with? Freenet users choose to give up the right to control your speech on Freenet. In doing so, they protect themselves from responsibility for what you say."

Talk about a strawman arguement! ISP's do not have the same rights as individuals.

"Yes, but what measures are tolerable to prevent it? Do you mind if all your mail is read by the government just in-case it contains child porn?"

No, I just don't want to serve bits of child porn JPG's from my computer, in the context of this discussion.

"Common misconception, this is perfectly legal in the US ever since the Brandenburg v Ohio case in 1969."

Fair enough, but you still understood the intent of the example.

"That is a Strawman argument. Just because I believe that governments shouldn't be permitted to monitor and control communication doesn't mean you believe we shouldn't have governments at all."

I never said that you didn't. I was pointing out that rights can be moderated by goverment, by design. That was at the heart of the debate leading up to the US Constitution. Just how much can Government control rights, and what rights does Government have? Your claim that I was making a strawman arguement was in fact a strawman arguement itself.

Thanks for the civil debate though. It's often lacking these days. I have to go to dinner now so if I don't reply again you'll know why. Be well.

Re:Very insightful

[erlenic]

I can appreciate what you're saying, but continuing to share those photos is violating the privacy (an essential liberty) of those children without their informed consent. It certainly does pale in comparison with actually creating the photos, but I still consider it a violation of an essential liberty through force.

Re:Seriously?

[Sanity]

Talk about a strawman arguement! ISP's do not have the same rights as individuals.

ISPs are corporations, and at least in the US, corporations do have the same rights as individuals. Anyway, you are missing my point. Common carrier status is a bargain, the ISPs give up the right to censor content, but in doing so they aren't held responsible for that content. Freenet users make the same bargain. If you don't like that bargain, don't use Freenet, but many people do like that bargain.

I was pointing out that rights can be moderated by goverment, by design.

Yes, but the founders recognized that speech was special, because speech is integral to the democratic process, and if a government can control speech, then they can manipulate the process through which they are regulated by the citizenry. We believe that governments should have no right to regulate speech because then they can short-circuit the democratic process.

Re:Dodgy Area

[unlametheweak]

I'll reword that to be more appropriate for our day and age:

I see where you are going and in principal I agree. The problem is the consequences of religion and other unspeakably inappropriate religious behavior generally play out over a lifetime and _generally_ speaking lead to more inappropriate religious behavior at an early age to more children.

It very quickly turns into a "grand scale" social problem due to geometric growth of inappropriate behavior.

Again, I generally agree with the principal of what you are saying, but it's very important to point out the deeply corrosive effect inappropriate religious anything has in a society.

There you go... Other Slashdot users can fill in the bold areas with their own moral hangups.

Re:comparing rape and murder

[NotBornYesterday]

I promise, by the end of this rambling post I will be on-topic.

That depends on what you base your morality on.
- If rape and murder are immoral primarily because a deity says so, ask the deity.
- If they are immoral primarily because of their effects on society as a whole, you would need to conduct a study to measure the effects of each over time in society.
- If they are immoral primarily because of their effects on the victim, your answer will vary with the victim.

If you put a gun to my head and said "PICK: RAPE OR DEATH!", I would (reluctantly) pick rape. On the other hand, I've heard of rape victims who suicide because they are haunted by their past. Surviving rape appears to be subjectively worse for some than others. Of course, being a victim of neither (thus far, anyway ...) I don't have unimpeachable perspective into which might be better or worse.

I don't think you're going to get a definitive answer here; I dont even think it is possible. The best you could hope for is some form of pseudo-quantum probability [www.hi.is] that one would be less immoral than the other, depending on the victim.

My subjective, relatively uninformed answer is that murder is more immoral than rape. I can't speak as a deity, I can't speak for society at large, and I can't speak as a victim. The only thing I can base my judgement on is that I am an optimist. Since murder is final, it offers no possibility of the victim overcoming adversity, recovering, moving on. As unspeakably wrong as rape is, it at least offers that (difficult) chance for its victims.

As an optimist, I see Freenet or any anonymizing technology as one more tool for toppling repression. Given the chance, I think more people will choose to do good with it than evil. Killing anonymous internet access because of CP would be immoral in the same way I feel murder is. The chance and that choice to rise above adversity is taken away.

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles. QWZX

[aliquis]

You and me don't really appreciate the freedom and personal integrity we benefit form because we both probably have had it for our whole lives. If you lived in a country there you didn't already had them you would probably indeed want to have them, and that's why they should be cared for so we don't lose them again.

Yeah, many of us don't think we have that much to hide, but then we also expect everyone else to play nice, but what if they don't? What if some political forces don't share your opinions and try to hide them / freeze you out / silent yourself / lose your connection with others which say the same thing or something similair.

But then one have to balance that with how much one want the "bad" people to get caught, but I expect the really bad ones to know how to and also do cover their communication and tracks anyway so who is it really stoping?

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles. QWZX

[evanbd]

You use it because you're curious, or want to support free speech. Adding to the userbase and content available helps the network grow, and helps those who actually need it. There are plenty of people who need it or think they need it even though their government isn't out to get them -- for example, there's at least one freesite by a victim of abuse who doesn't appear to be particularly comfortable talking about it in other forums. There are also plenty of conspiracy theorists who seem to think they need it -- I think they're wrong, but who knows? Not for me to judge. I'm sure there are some people using it as a route for "normal" copyright infringement that's secure from the RIAA et al, though that usage is discouraged.

Re:The failure of Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, most Java VMs are written by american corporations (== in general teh evil, for billions of people in the world, even millions in europe - we remember ECHELON and Boeing/Airbus industrial espionage...) and are closed source. Any hole in the Sun JVM is a hole in freenet running on top of it. Now, sun recently truly open-sourced a java - but does freenet run on it?

Does freenet compile with GNU GCJ or run on kaffe yet?

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles.

[LiENUS]

No, you do host things requested by your peers as well. However, since the process is content-neutral, in most jurisdictions (including the US) you should have safe harbor laws working in your favor as long as you aren't the requester.

Care to list any relevant court cases regarding freenet or a network like it? or any specific laws.

Re:Are we just now getting this dupe

[slimjim8094]

Well.... I'm not gonna flame you, but you're not 100% correct

Basically, the entire POINT of a darknet is you don't connect to the FBI nodes. You connect to the nodes of close, close friends and so on. It's like the Kevin Bacon game, carried out to about 50 iterations or so - hopefully you can get to everything you want, that's a lot of people.

So the FBI nodes don't get connected to because you have spent significant face-time with your good buddies and decided to connect on Freenet, and they did the same with the rest of their friends and so on.

Yeah, right. Not nearly enough people are using it. Not even remotely.

So you could hop on an IRC channel and trade noderefs insecurely, or have a bot do it for you. Which is sub-optimal...

So they re-implemented Opennet. So it's all a matter of preference, and at this point there's no compelling reason for 0.5

Re:Seriously?

[syousef]

So you don't mind if your ISP blocks your access to websites they don't like, or drop emails they disagree with?

Error: Bad analogy detected.
Detail: You pay your ISP to provide you with a service, that service being access to the Internet. In contrast you don't pay other freenet users (unless you choose to consider the bandwidth you allocate as payment)

Re:Congratulations to all pedophiles. QWZX

[DMUTPeregrine]

AnotherIndex's spider occasionally picks some up, but he generally edits it out of the index rather quickly. Most of the other indexes aren't spider-based, and so choose what to put up manually. Then again, Google picks up CP all the time. Google+I2P or Tor is far, far faster than Freenet and has tons more CP.