Freenet's First Employee 154
An unnamed reader writes: "The Freenet project's first employee started work today. Oskar Sandberg, one of Freenet's core developers, will be working full-time on Freenet for the next two months, his living expenses being paid for by donations to the Freenet project. Freenet has come a long way in-terms of usability in the last few months, Oskar will initially be working on the next major release, 0.4, which will bring significant performance, security, and usability improvements to Freenet.
The original announcement is here." (And here's where you can sweeten the pot, too.)
Big Question and Waiting for the Big Answer (Score:1)
Freenet already had employees in the form of
volunteers, so what's the big deal?
Not waiting in anticipation because I know this will moderated downward.
Thank you.
Some practical questions (Score:1)
Assuming it is a good thing they have an employee, I have some practical concerns...
Important step (Score:3)
The fact that donations can make this happen really demonstrates the desire for people to have, finally, a Free Net.
Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:1)
Um, do we get to throw Napster users to the lions?
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
Not the same thing, and doesn't look scalable (Score:2)
These guys would be well-served to investigate the "Dining Cryptographers" problem, which is a way that a group of peers can transmit information to each-other but remain anonymous (within the group) with mathematical certainty. Again, it isn't very scalable, and is subject to DOS attacks, but it does work.
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Two months (Score:2)
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a quibble to your quibble (Score:2)
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But can you support your initial assertion? (Score:2)
I would certainly be interested to hear why you think that it is more anonymous and more scalable than Freenet? Nothing I can see supports your claim.
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Er - no (Score:2)
Having said that, the usage guide you point to isn't actually the usage guide at all, the actual usage guide you are thinking of is at http://freenetproject.org/quickguide/ [freenetproject.org] and has been for months, and AFAIK there are no references to "fools" anywhere - so I really don't understand what you are talking about.
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Re:How's this going to work ... (Score:2)
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But groups inhibit scalability (Score:2)
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Yup, same guy (Score:3)
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Oh come on! (Score:3)
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It is a voluntary effort (Score:5)
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Probably not (Score:5)
Also note that some ISPs, including Earthlink, are refusing to cave to pressure from these self-appointed IP police. In fact, many of these companies are going out of business.
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Re:It is a voluntary effort (Score:2)
Here's my budget (if anyone cares
Income:
$2800/month
Expenses:
Rent: $825/month (I live in the city, and have no car, so living within walking distance of work means high rent - but the savings of not having a car makes it a bit easier)
'Net Access: $100/month (Cable sucks here, so DSL is the way to go - but again, the expense is partially offset by the fact I can host my own domains, and not have to pay for hosting)
Cable: $50/month (digital)
Utils: $150/month (gas, electric, water, phone, etc...)
Food: $300/month (feeds both my fiancee and I quite well)
Total expenses: $1325/month
"Extra" money leftover at the end of the month: $1475
More than enough to upgrade the computers every once in a while, support our anime habit, and save for things like a car, and a vacation later this year.
I can see how someone *could* live comfortably off of $1250/month - dialup ISP, lower rent area, less food, no cable, etc... but it would still be pretty tight (I've been there - 2 people supported on less than $800/month - it wasn't pretty - but we managed).
There's a lot to be said for getting paid *anything* to do what you love to do, however - that alone could be worth the tightening of the belt and skimping on extras.
Legitimate uses of Freenet... (Score:2)
Re:The End of Intellectual Property? Cool! (Score:2)
If everyone posts an "I donated $xx" amount message, we can raise money for them at the same time as we break the previous Slashdot postings record.
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Re:Free Advertising! (Score:5)
That's what separates the people who use Linux because it's free (as in beer) from the people who believe in free (as in speech) software, and are willing to fund further development of it.
Sure, ten bucks isn't a lot, it's about two lunches for me, but hopefully if more Slashdotters contribute a few bucks, they can come out with better FreeNet servers & clients.
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Re:Probably not (Score:1)
A quibble: they're not really self-appointed, they're getting paid by the RIAA, MPAA, etc. Apparently not enough, though, if they're going out of business. It's not like there aren't enough IP violations out there to keep them going :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:a quibble to your quibble (Score:1)
Huh, I stand corrected. I wonder on what basis they're going after people if they don't have the backing of the original copyright holder? I mean, it's not like I could just start suing people for trading mp3s, could I?
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:1)
Yeah, but it's one thing to code in your free time and not get paid much, or even not at all. But when you're taking it as a full time job? I mean, this puts him below the poverty limit, at least in the U.S. I don't see a whole lot of incentive in taking a full-time job that will still leave me eligible for welfare.
Cheers,
He's working full-time on this? (Score:3)
They're only paying him $2500 total for two months full-time work? That's just sad. Doesn't exactly make me want to sign up for a open source project anytime soon.
Cheers,
Re:Not the same thing, and doesn't look scalable (Score:1)
Re:But can you support your initial assertion? (Score:1)
From what I've understoon about Cryptobox, I think that it is extremely scalable since the bulk of message passing occurs in small groups. The rest of the messages are 'administartive' and they are exchanged with other clusters. Since it doesn't really matter what the degree of the nodes inside a cluster is (due to the optimizations) they can afford more bandwidth. Also, since they keep cells fairly small (60 nodes in each?) it doesn't really matter how big the whole network is (it can be hundreds of millions of nodes). Finding nodes with Janus is smart.. I never thought of that.
More anonymous since it is totally immune to MITM attack - beyond suspicion (from my memory, Freenet is not). An observer would need millenia to figure out which messages are real and which are fake and can't even figure out whether a node is sending anything useful since it is sending messages all the time anyway.
Anyway, I'm a PhD candidate in crypto and I'm not an expert on networking.
PS: They do mention dining cryptographers but decided against it... my guess is because they have a way to statistically thwart correlation.. I don't know for sure but I will definitely mail them and see whether they will tell me how they do it.
Re:Not the same thing, and doesn't look scalable (Score:1)
You can't compare USENET/Internet with anonymous nets (that's why they are anon in the first place)... it's a whole other ballgame.
Re:FreeNet (or other OSS) Project Critical Mass? (Score:1)
Better than Freenet (Score:2)
After reading the overview of that project, it looks much safer and more anonymous than Freenet (it probably even scales better too).
Re:But groups inhibit scalability (Score:2)
My guess is (and it's pretty obvious to me at least) that when you wish to communicate with a certain node, you have to find it first by querying various cluster leaders and that is done by checking leaders' cache of names of cluster members. They should be able to tell, with certain probability, whether a member they are looking for is in the cluster. If they chose an algo that I have in mind, they should be able to find a node that they are looking for within a short period of time by sensing direction.
PS: I e-mailed the author and I can forward you his mail when he replies if you wish.
Re:Too slow (Score:2)
Re:Too slow (Score:2)
That's the point. Freenet is a storage/server medium, not the user interface element.
Re:The OS Warz? (Score:2)
Re:Legitimate uses of Freenet... (Score:1)
Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:1)
Maybe if you don't add up all of the taxes paid.
Re:Legitimate uses of Freenet...geographical cults (Score:2)
Of course he also pointed out the untraceability of where the file originated, but the dynamic and ever-fluid nature of exactly where the physical file might be was what captured my imagination at the time.
Thus it seems that applications with geographic overtones might be conceived as the truly legitimate ones. For example, if Derrick May and Juan Atkins could have posted MP3s to Freenet, they would have quickly seen techno take off in Europe; that's where they would have headed to do their live shows. (Of course they did that anyway, but by tracking record sales, a somewhat slower process.)
Similarly, any kind of culture-based phenomenon could exploit this: an author in Maine finds that Samoans can't get enough of his stuff; Romania goes gaga over a tricky Brazilian beat; people in West Germany start a political party based on ideas that first popped up in New Zealand -- you get the idea.....
Re:It is a voluntary effort (Score:1)
Figure:
$250/month rent (with roomate)
$150/month utils (including cable modem, again, split with roomate)
$50/month car insurance (pay ever 6 months)
$200/month groceries
That's $650 a month in "necessary expenditures". I bring home roughly $1400/month (I work part time at night, go fuck yourself). That leaves $750 to do what I please with, per month. Generally, it's sticking about $200 in a savings account (the car is paid for, but I have my doubts as to how long it will last), the rest I use to pay off credit cards (evil, vile things).
What I'm getting at is that if you can't live on $2k/month, you're doing it to yourself. In some areas of the country, rent is high. I know this. Get a roomate or move to a less "exclusive" neighborhood. There are literally millions of people living BELOW that level, in every city of the US, so don't kid yourself. It can be done with a little planning and foresight.
Personally, I can't wait to graduate so I can get a real job. Sure, I can live on $2k/month, but I'd rather not...
Re:Oh come on! (Score:1)
Re:Oh come on! (Score:1)
it's been awhile, so gimme a sec..
*ahem*
Make me.
My mother can whip your daddy's ass.
Feel better?
Re:Free as in FIRE! speech (Score:1)
It's a fire practice
Re:Where's the Web Cam? (Score:1)
> pets
A dog I think
> cars
I shouldn't think so
> current contents of his refrigerator
Rumored to be a good cook
> Do they have him hooked up to record vital statistics?
!
AGL
Re:honey.... (Score:1)
JMR
Re:The End of Intellectual Property? Cool! (Score:1)
--Moss
This is a
Now there are two of them.
uprizer (Score:2)
Freenet coordinator Ian Clarke's side venture Uprizer says different. He scored
$4mil [newsbytes.com] in April.
Uprizer looks like its trying to compete in the CDN realm. The idea is a good one, Freenet has a number of unknowns in it, ie content expiration, that wouldn't make it suitable for certain business applications. It probably trades off some of Freenet's anonymity requirements for certainity. Similar to the idea of businesses not using the Internet for applications that need guarenteed data rates, they don't use the commodity Internet they buy a dedicated circuit.
Re:Beaujolais for Donations! (Score:1)
Frankly, I wouldn't work for $2500 either. But then again, I'm not anywhere near as nutso as Oskar is.
Re:How's this going to work ... (Score:1)
It doesn't really act like, say, a Web server.
Re:Build it, and they will come? (Score:2)
Seriously, it knocks me out when people say stuff like this. If free speech and freedom of the press can be outlawed, then don't we have ALL THE MORE NEED for an alternative publishing system? If you're this concerned, then you need to get Freenet going DAMN QUICK, man.
As to the illegality: there are a number of ways to make Freenet run "under the radar," such as using steganography to camouflage Freenet protocol messages as, say, mail messages, or HTTP pr0n downloads, or anything else.
That's not on the Freenet development roadmap for a while, but it's definitely something that's been suggested.
Re:Is Freenet a Lost Cause? (Score:3)
Freenet has become a fine platform for Web publishing, for example. If you've got a Web site (ANY Website -- even pictures of your cat) you should REALLY REALLY read the Website publishing HOWTO [freenetproject.org]. It gives step-by-step instructions on how to put your site into Freenet.
Remember, back in the day, the World Wide Web and other Internet services had the same outlaw reputation that peer-to-peer systems like Freenet have right now. It was only because many "ordinary" people put their "ordinary" content on the Web that it became an acceptable, in fact indispensible, computing platform.
We can do that with Freenet, if we work at it. But it takes thousands of individual efforts to make it happen. If you think there's a potential for a bad future for Freenet, you need to start helping, rather than resigning yourself to Yet More Totalitarian Bullshit.
Re:The OS Warz? (Score:3)
Beaujolais for Donations! (Score:5)
I don't know if the future of Free Software projects is really in donation-based organizations like Freenet, but it seems like it gives a nice "push" to projects that are in high-velocity development phases.
I especially think that the hiring of an employee at non-profit wages is a great way to spend the donation money. We all want a better, faster, stronger, more anonymous, less attackable Freenet, and I think this will really help. Not to mention that Oskar is a pretty OK programmer, despite being an irascible grouch. B-)
As per the low wages: I think the wages are just right, actually. They're enough that we keep Oskar on a leash for a few months, but they're not enough that the rest of the developers get jealous and slack off from working.
One more thing: people interested in anonymity should check out EOF [sourceforge.net], a collection of applications like mail, news, apt (!!), etc. that work over Freenet. Good shit.
Re:Too slow (Score:2)
Where's the Web Cam? (Score:4)
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Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Too slow (Score:1)
Re:The End of Intellectual Property? Cool! (Score:1)
Re:back to fidonet (Score:1)
Re:It is a voluntary effort (Score:2)
Re:What's the interface? (Score:1)
Shit, I don't care if it's voice-based or not, if I can know the value of $5000 worth of IBM stock an hour from now, I want it.
(Hell, even if it costs a million bucks, all I have to do is use it often enough and it'll pay for itself ;-)
Re:The OS Warz? (Score:4)
As would I.
Check out this example [freenetproject.org] of what I see as a Bad Idea.
If the goal is to bring anonymous publication into the mainstream, example filenames like "Britney Spears Felch.jpg" are... well, unhelpful.
Funny as hell? Yes, to the author, and speaking as one with a sick sense of humor, I thought it was pretty damn funny too.
But is it the first thing you'd want your Congresscritter to see when he decides to find out "what this free net thing is all about?" after the local Fundie-sponsored lobby group complains that FreeNet has to be banned for the sake of the chilllldrun?
C'mon, folks, let's get real here.
milosevic-evidence.jpg - good
95_theses.txt - even better
britfelch.jpg - not bloody likely
The End of Intellectual Property? Cool! (Score:3)
That would really be cool if they can pull it off. Every Slashdot user and anonymous coward should immediately write a check to those people. May the RIAA and other freedom destroyers tremble in fear! May they have horrible visions of empty bank accounts and past due legal bills! May their power to restrict the freedom of others dwindle exponentially! Go Freenet!
IP laws are unnatural. They can only be enforced with the use of powerful police states. Demand liberty! Nothing less!
Re:Legitimate uses of Freenet... (Score:2)
Distributed File Server - Place a group of files into a "directory" that is shared across the network via Freenet nodes. Of particular note, this "file system" would be OS independent, but to share stuff in a peer workgroup situation (I'm thinking a LAN-only freenet here) you wouldn't even have to worry most of the time if your co-worker's computer is on or not.
** Yes, this is being done with other software, but you asked for a legitamate use.
Another very beneficial use:
Http over Freenet: (the implementation has already been done... go to the Freenet site to check it out)
Putting web content on freenet. This has the advantage that the person who wants to "host" a website doesn't actually need a physical server (or server farm). Additional benefits are that a "freenet-web site" can't be slashdotted... this just spreads the information further into more nodes, and in fact makes the data more accessable.
In terms of free speech, this is already a critical piece for the China Daily News (an independent Chinese-language news web page that is currently being censored by the People's Republic of China. In fact, China is currently blocking most attempts to even obtain Freenet.)
Another very beneficial use would be for the IPN (Inter-planetary Internet). Freenet out of the box (as in using just the current implementation... more or less... there may have to be some tweaks to get it working right) can be used to cache and forward data files in a manner that FTP couldn't even dream.
The fact is that Freenet is already rattling some cages, and reading the mailing lists is enough to get paranoid about every conspiracy group you can think of... Bavarian Illuminati, Counsel of 500, UFOs, New World Order, ect. The fact is this software is designed from the fundimental foundation as a means to send data without censorship of any sort. If this means that warz or mp3s can be sent when other people don't want them tranfered, together with political speech, that is the price of freedom.
Re:Free Advertising! (Score:2)
Re:Is Freenet a Lost Cause? (Score:2)
Obviously, though, you could be prosecuted for having a meth lab. Just as you could be prosecuted for keeping all the equipment for a meth lab in your house and deliberately letting others use this equipment. That's exactly what Freenet's doing: you're opening up your computer for others to use to transmit data. In other words, you become an accessory to crime.
Put differently, you won't be prosecuted for running Freenet. You'll be prosecuted when your Freenet transmits illegal data, as is inevitable given Freenet's design.
Paypal. (Score:3)
Have an understanding ISP (Score:1)
The moral of the story is: Have an understanding ISP. I've had experience with a few. Not too many tho.
One wasn't understanding, and he lopped my account real fast.
My current one seems to have a bit of a clue and knows a little of what I get up to, so I can trust they won't be unplugging anything too soon.
Try and be like jelly: They squash you here, you appear there. If FreeNet does gain critical mass ahead of the dodgy dealers influx, then we may have a case for our survival. So don't trade those MP3z just yet.
Depends on where you live (Score:2)
Give it a try.... (Score:2)
Have you used freenet? If not, get a client and fire it up - it's not terribly difficult to do. During the two or three days I played around with it, I found:
The client that comes with the freenet package that I got works as a mini-webserver: that is, you can connect to your box on port 8081 through your browser of choice. From then on, it's just like using the web.
Try it out - it's like having your own private, anonymous internet. So if you're asking about legitimate uses, it's like asking about legitimate uses to the ordinary web. Sure, you could use the web to trade warez, but you could also put up a personal home page.
We have received almost $2000 in donations (Score:1)
What is Freenet? (Score:1)
back to fidonet (Score:1)
libfreenet, C freenet library (Score:1)
http://thalassocracy.org/libfreenet/
Re:Probably not (Score:1)
- Steeltoe
Re:Give it a try.... (Score:2)
Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:2)
Re:Is Freenet a Lost Cause? (Score:5)
The fact is that the internet was not designed for privacy and it is only natural that people will want their privacy. I don't have curtins on my windows because I have methlab or something, I just don't want people to be able to look in my house all the time. FreeNet and other encrypted/private communication mechanisms are just a natural extension of the internet: people want to communicate instantly and have instant access to information, but sometimes they want it to be private.
How's this going to work ... (Score:2)
Re:Too slow (Score:2)
Walking Freenet is not quick and painless. It can be an agonisingly slow wait for a document to arrive, and the actual act of pulling the document affects how the document is cached. That's why searching should be a protocol. At the very least it should be possible to pull a document without raising it's importance.
I donated $15. (Score:2)
Free T-Shirt with Job (Score:2)
Synonyms: see bullseye.
It makes it so much easier for the MPAA / RIAA goons to target, er, identify you....
Pay by check (Score:2)
Of course, it's much better to donate by credit card, than to not donate at all. :>
Also, please note that your contributions are tax-deductible (at least in the USA).
-- Agthorr
Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:2)
Oskar was working on Freenet long before he started getting paid to do it. One shouldn't be getting involved in Free Software development because there might be money in it; it should be because you like to do it.
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Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:2)
He was doing for free a long time before he started getting paid for it. So it used to be his leisure time, and most likely will be again once the summer is up.
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Re:I was the first FSF employee (Score:2)
I kinda hate to break this to you, but Oskar isn't exactly going to be doing grunt work. He's been in Freenet development, IIRC, for about two years and has always done the Ugly Innards of Freenet. He wrote documentation once "when I was young and stupid" (so he says). There's no way he's going to be doing grunt work. From what I've read on the Freenet mailing lists, he'll be working on getting the next version of Freenet in working order, particularly a new system of node announcement which will do away with Freenet's last centralization (inform.php).
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Re:How's this going to work ... (Score:3)
>from running servers?
Good point. There was serious discussion some time
ago on the mailinglist about techniques to allow
setting a node to only accept connections from
trusted nodes. That way it would be impossible
for someone to detect that you were running a
freenet node from the outside, while you still
had full access to the network and your node
could be used for storage.
It was turned down by Ian because he thought it
was a non-issue.
The argument used was that once Freenet becomes
popular enough there is no reason why running
a Freenet node means that you are doing something
suspicious. And Freenet grows easier with fully
operative nodes than with those 'stealth' nodes.
(at least that's what I remember from the discussion)
The problem of course is, that Freenet will never
become popular if ISP's start shutting the servers
down.
Ian's reply to this was:
'It is my experience that when users demand
P2P and Freenet access all ISP's will bend
over backwards to give it to them'
And I think he may be right about that. My own
ISP interpreted the 'server' clause in a way
that you were free to use napster as long as
you set the number of allowed incoming connections
to zero (effectively disabling the server). That
way people cannot upload from you, which is what
was actually illegal about Napster (downloading
is fine as you might own the CD yourself)
The ISP WANTS to offer Napster to people. They
offer broanband services so Napster is a good
reason to switch over from PPP. So they make
sure the customer CAN have Napster.
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GCP
The OS Warz? (Score:5)
Freenet is a darn good thing, and something we should all support in whatever ways we can. We MUST preserve free speech (not neccessarilly free-as-in-'FIRE!' speech, of course) on the net, if nothing else, and Freenet garauntees it.
I would like to entreat the guiding hands behind Freenet, however, to consider the greater audience out there. Yes, the project is working with Open Source tools, and that's a good thing! However, it must be accessable to everyone. They can't afford to alienate any potential users of Freenet. For that reason, calling the directory that the Windows usage guide [freenetproject.org] in, 'Freenet for Fools,' could be considered insulting to Windows users.
I know, this is /., where anyone who relies entirely on a Windows machine is a chump, and just SO needs flaming change to get on the clue bus, hurled at him at supercavitating speeds. Come on, let's think about this maturely. I hate Microsoft as much as any other person who's had to clean up after BSODs (sometimes I can see a blue residue on the screen after rebooting...) but MS machines are Out There, and people will be using them.
Freenet essentially calling a fair amount of their user base 'fools' to their face will just turn those users away. "Oh, more elitist Linux users," they'll sigh. "If I join Freenet I'll just be exposed to more of that elitist crap. Screw it, I'm not putting up with that." And one more potential Freenet node disappears.
Good riddance to bad rubbish? You miss the point of Freenet. Freenet is Free Speech without harrassment. Free Speech without fear of being taken down by a government. Free Speech without fear of being dragged into a court. (And believe me, there are some courts in this world where you won't even have the courtesy of being ordered to bend over a barrel; a bullet in the back of the head is far more likely.)
Freenet should not involved in the OS warz. Maybe I'm blowing it out of proportion, but remember, this is coming from a grey-matta-flambe helpdesk drudge. That's all I have to say. =)
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Chief Technician, Helpdesk at the End of the World
Re:FreeNet (or other OSS) Project Critical Mass? (Score:2)
Free as in FIRE! speech (Score:2)
Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:3)
-John
Re:Where's the Web Cam? (Score:2)
His name is Nasubi [http]. He seems like a likable if odd fellow.
Re:FreeNet (or other OSS) Project Critical Mass? (Score:5)
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
honey.... (Score:2)
Then again, I think I'm talking about a differenct pot...;)
FreeNet (or other OSS) Project Critical Mass? (Score:3)
--CTH
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Re:Free Advertising! (Score:2)
Forgive me if I don't see a Ferarri in short term future.
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Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:2)
Time to restart my Freenet node :)
at our mercy (Score:2)
Starving programmers! What a novel idea!
Re:He's working full-time on this? (Score:5)
Oskar Sandberg?? (Score:2)
I've only seen him once since, on a trip to Scandinavia.
Either a small world or a very common name (though switchboard comes up empty). Oscar: If "Red Diamond" means anything to you, email me!
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Is Freenet a Lost Cause? (Score:5)
How long before they hire agents to do traffic analysis on the net looking for heavy Freenet usage. Even though they don't know what's being moved, it must be "bad", or they wouldn't be trying to hide it.
They'll point this out to the users' ISPs, who would in turn threaten to disconnect them. A few well-publicized incidents could prevent Freenet from ever reaching critical mass. So much for the free information utopia.
Build it, and they will come? (Score:2)
Re:Free Advertising! (Score:2)
You'll have to ask Phillip GreenspIn from ArsDigita...