Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Internet

Learn About FreeNet Straight From The Source 203

Posted by Roblimo from the protection-from-the-nosies dept.
We've been hearing plenty of discussion about FreeNet lately. Instead of speculating in the dark, we might as well talk directly to the project's founder, Ian Clarke. Obviously, before posting a question, you'll want to read the FreeNet FAQs. We'll send Ian 10 - 15 of the highest-moderated questions tomorrow and post his answers sometime within the next week.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Learn About FreeNet Straight From The Source More

Learn About FreeNet Straight From The Source

Comments Filter:

  • second-order implications (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How would you feel if you knew that FreeNet had made possible an act that led to the deaths of innocents, or other such atrocities?

  • Why Java? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    3.5. Why Java?
    * Java is one of the most cross-platform languages currently available.

    i guess he missed C ?!? hello there ?!?
    as anyone know, java sucks!!! it's not cross-platform at all, try to compile a MSJava proggy on a sun machine. Java sucks oh my god i hate java it's incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    there's no java on BeOS, no java on QNX, no java on etc etc etc
    i'm sorry to tell you that all this FreeNet thing is a joke, with Java it's already dead.
  • Yeah, and in the same article they quote an artist who complains:

    "I know people using Napster are chuckling about kicking big, bad record labels. But as evil as the record companies may be, at least they're paying for your recording budget, and at least they're promoting you, and paying for tour support."

    Either this performer got the sweetest record deal in 20 years, or she simply doesn't understand that the record company is NOT paying for her recording budget, promotion, and tour support. In fact, all of these expenses are generally supplied to the artist in the form of an advance, and she won't get a penny from the label until her little sliver of royalties has paid for all of these things that she thinks that the record company is paying for.

    The reason she isn't getting royalties isn't because of Napster. It's because she's been completely ripped off by the record company and doesn't understand what is happening to her.

    Anyway, this entire article is self-serving record industry propaganda and should be treated as such.
  • Artists primarily sell their music (or the rights to it) to gain enough fans to host/be a part of a concert. Concerts generate VAST amounts of revenue - $30-40 per person.. multiplied by the tens (sometimes hundreds) of thousands of people.

    Are you a professional musician? No? Do you know any? No? Then shut the fuck up and read this story [slashdot.org] (particularly this part [salon.com] of the article it links to). I am an amateur musician and used to think it might be possible to make a living from concerts until I read that story. Then I looked at some of the musicians I know and realized it was impossible.

    One of my buddies is an excellent drummer, guitarist and bassist. He played with several big bands, including one band who enjoyed moderate success (10k+ crowds, opening for some pretty big names). They played some pretty big venues. He made no money because nobody was buying their album.

    I know another band that has since all but broken up. It wasn't as big as the above band, but they played all the time and made no money because nobody would buy their albums or T-shirts, even though they played at least once a week, each crowd about 30-50 people. It actually cost them more to drive to the venues (read: bars) than they got paid.

    I know one guy that just got signed. He's made no money, but is excited because the studios are paying for instruments, back-up musicians and album distribution. More goes into making a song than you might think.


    Please read that article. Get this through your head: The GPL doesn't work for music. The important thing to remember is that most musicians can barely afford to get started and that it's honoring copyright that let's them dedicate all their time to the art you claim to love so much.

  • FreeNet Interview (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is an interview with Ian Clarke at www.olinux.com.br/interviews/ .Before posting questions here you guys should read it first, since it already answers alot of stuff.
  • How will all these systems cope with the fact that there will be clones distributed sharing away more than the selected part of the local file system?

    I'm not saying that open source is bad. But in this case, it's much easier to spread a trojan that both are "evil" against themself and attractive for folks who are trading illegal files.

    All executables got from the net are of course subject to this criticism, but as this from the start has been designed for local disk scanning and network filesharing it would be the easiest application to build the next BO-like from.

    Don't you consider this as a risk that should be taken action against?

  • Does Freenet make a good PGP public key storage?
    __
  • Some things should be censored, and I'm not talking about the bluebox plans. Nazi sites for example may need some form of censorship, I'm afraid the whole freenet thing could become a nazi haven

    Including "nazi" in a discussion is not very welcome. Somebody could link to that Usenet law "Mixing the nazis in any discussion is the best way to stop any intelligent treatment".
    Anyway, if you think that there should be limits to freedom of speech, then Freenet is not for you. That's a fact.

    Besides, my current view is that you combat bad speech with good speech, not with censorship, but I may be wrong.
    __
  • Another difference of Freenet from HTTP is resistence to damage through replication.
    __
  • SPP [firstmonday.dk] is the antidote. It's basically the honor system with this twist: the donations are pre-emptive, held in trust by a third party, and when they reach the "price" of the work, it's released into the public domain by the author, and he gets his money.
  • Thrasher bots fail because of freenet's caching system: continually requesting a file from freenet just makes sure it's at the top of the cache near you; caches near other people will be unaffected. This also has the neat effect that heavily-demanded stuff will migrate to the local machine, thus saving bandwith.
  • On freenet, there is no such thing as an abandoned file. Anything no-one cares about will simply vanish from the system as other items are pushed above it on the cache. This means that the content of freenet will simply be a plain unvarnished look at what people really want and would otherwise fear to post/read. If it contains kiddy porn and snuff movies, that's because people want them.

    Censoring freenet is very simple: you must convince most people not to want to download kiddy porn or whatever. If that happens, it will quickly fall off the system. But it no longer allows you to make-believe by frightening anyone who thinks immoral thoughs into hiding them (which is the basic premise of accountability).
  • Some replies:

    First, if you want to a preview of what will be most prevalent on freenet, take a look at what people search for on google etc. Porn, including very extreme porn, is likely to make up a huge fraction of freenet's content.

    Second, flooding fails on freenet because the caching system won't distribute your data any further than the server nearest to you. At most it will jam up one server.

    Third, freenet is deliberately reticent on the topic of who is doing what with the data - it's designed to prevent any sort of censorship including blackmail-to-behave. As such, keeping any track of users and queries is specifically against design principles.
  • It would depend largely on whether admins have control over what is hosted, or if the system employs push-technology. If it's push instead of pull-based, you're right - and the only solution there is to have "post cancellations" similar to Usenet. If it's pull, the admins can explicitly declare what they will, and will not, host.. as well as maximum/minimum filesizes, etc.

    It's a design decision.. but an EXCELLENT question.

  • About two other people and I have worked on Ompages.com [ompages.com] for about a year now. It's been slow because we all work full-time. We have software, and when I get around to rebuilding the web-site, plenty of information will be there.

    I think these guys at Freenet, Napster, etc., have the right spirit but a completely wrong approach; we have it right.

    Our aim at Ompages, is to build a highly scalable VPN that anyone in the public can easily join. It will make the user's host appear has 'host.ompages.com' sort of like dhis.org's client does, but the connections between hosts on ompages' network will be encrypted.

    In other words, our goal is proliferate secure communications technology. I view a world where people can plug in their shiny new Linux telephony cards, join Ompages, and start having encrypted phone conversations around the world. Of course file sharing is part of that, but our software is not designed to make that activity easy and anonymous. It's not about anonymity, it's about secrecy...

    We need help, the few of us remaining are swamped. We used to play around with shell accounts, etc. That was not a workable model. Now we just want to build a huge public VPN. Our main site has news about stuff related to privacy, government regs, and crypto. Take a look and let me know what you think.

    My real, email address is natepuri@office dot ompages dot com...

  • One of the largest problems that plauged the Napster and gnutella clients (and their respective pipes) was the lack of adequate bandwidth limitations. The unrestricted client was free to saturate the internet connection of its host network. In order for an anonymous distributed information-sharing system to be legitimately installed (as opposed to installed by a subversive hobbyist) on a fat pipe, I believe that there should be precautions in place for restricting bandwidth utilization to an "acceptable" amount.

    What methods, if any, does FreeNet use to prevent a node from saturating its host network?

    CapnBry
  • You bring up several intersting points.

    Major of this is that the reaction of many when faced with self freedoms is to run and hide from themselves.

    I think more people need to think how comfortable they are living in an age where we are free to express ourselves to each other. It seems more and more that a large chunk of the online population is crying for controls and regulations to protect them from the evils of others and more importlantly the evils they could do to themselves,

    It just maybe that the mass of the globe is not ready of this level of freedom.

    In which case, please report to the nearest detention center and subject your will to the masters. All pain will be taken away, as will all freedoms.

    Come JOIN THe LOTUS EATERS

    and leave the real world to those that cant take it on.

  • Your for freespeach, but only with a restriction. This one restirction is enough to block speach off for a large chunk of people.

    Sometimes keying a person with an idea can be a bad thing. People going through various medical and psychological treatments may want to be part of an exchange but not have thier Ids known.

    This is just one example, im sure you can come up with more.

    So ya see, where as you may think you are for free speach, you are really for Restricted Speach, or if i were to put it more PC, you are for Correct Speach.

    Big difference.

  • Ive been on the Freenet mailing lists for a few weeks and have been impressed beyond words. The ways in which you are working witht he participating user base and the speed at which your code is forming up is amazing.

    Will you keep this level of user involvement in the future?

    Given the amazing impact certian "simple" apps and protocals have had on the way we think and work (mp3, tcp, http) what is your expectation for freenet?

    How is the work going on having Freenet spread to non java code? Do you see Freenet as dependent on a particular language or do you see it as being free from such constraints?

    When the beast goes offical in a few weeks, I am curious as to how much "moral" constraints youwill hamper Freenet with. Given the posts here on slashdot it seems more than a few people would love to see you add in all sorts of Big Brother controls to stop the spread of warez and other such items.

    How much moral bondage will you put on Freenet, if any?

    Do you see yourself as being responsible for the actions of the protocals users or do you lay the reposnibility on the users themselves?

  • How does this system compare to Hyper-G [whatis.com] ? Hyper-G is interesting because of the highly efficient P-Flood alogorythm used to distribute updates in a push fashion to other servers.

    Ross Andersons' Cambridge crypto group have theorised a Steganographic distributed information system along these lines called The Eternity Service [cam.ac.uk]. Worth a look.

    Asmodeus
  • A recent (and misguided IMHO) court case in the UK ended with Demon Internet (an ISP) being held liable for a libelous usenet post originating from one of their home customers. Demon were ordered to pay a large (I believe about 400K - but this is from memory so don't quote me) settlement. Demon have argued for common carrier status, but don't yet have it. I think the reason for this is that the Government don't understand the technical difficulties in monitoring the volume of traffic that passes though Demon's systems. To link this comment in - I don't think FreeNet stand a cowboy's chance in a nuclear explosion of getting common carrier status.
    Asmodeus
  • I have an idea to make money over FreeNet,
    I create some kind of repository of illegal but highly sought after material (for example kiddie porn) under FreeNet.

    I create a web site, and for some money I give customer the key which allow them to retrieve the material from FreeNet.
    Advantage:as FreeNet transaction are totally anonymous, my customer is sure that someone won't see that they are downloading kiddie porn.

    Sure you could still trace the transaction of the web site, but it adds another level of indirection which could be hard to fight..
  • For many people, a boycott is a good way to show you are not supporting a particular company or product. But for a few, that is not enough. For that few, the boycott++ is required. A boycott++ is when a person does not only not purchase an item, but goes out of their way to STEAL it. Thereby using a product and denying it's manufacturer of profit. And for those few SUPER hard core protestors, there is VisualBoycott++. VB++ is when you ruin a product for everyone, sell it to other people for cash for yourelf and basically take any measure you can to further your own monetary gain while causing a companies products to fail.

    It's funny, laugh.
    Bad Mojo
  • I could be completely off base here, but from what I understand both FreeNet [sourceforge.net] and Everything [everything2.com] are both places to store stuff, as in whatever you want.

    Besides the fact that Everything is centralized and FreeNet is not, are there any other fundamental differences between the two?


    ---
    "Everybody knows the moon's made of cheese."
  • It would be cool if people on dynamic IP's (who can therefore connect to other servers but can't be found via dns) could be freenet nodes. This would open up a huge pool of people to participate. Any plans in this regard?
  • jms:

    Here's hoping you review your posts for comments...

    I am interested in asking some questions about VM - please email me at:

    gill at iprg dot nokia dot com

    Thanks
  • This is disussed and answered in the FreeNet FAQ. They plan ensuring that FreeNet is compatible with the alternate Java implementations at all times.
  • Usually, I'll be very happy with the lack of censorshipability - but there are some problems with this.

    1. Some countries has limited the freedom of speech, so if i have any form of "illegal" documents on my server, I could be claimed responsible for it, without me actually "owning" the document. Being unable to find the real "owner" one can be trialed.

    2. Some things should be censored, and I'm not talking about the bluebox plans. Nazi sites for example may need some form of censorship, I'm afraid the whole freenet thing could become a nazi haven.

    Another problem is the inability to decide which documents to delete in a case of overgrowth, for example i may post a page which may seem irrelevant now, but in 3 years it will be requested, how can i assure it won't be deleted, and if i can, who says people won't use this feature to fill freenet with junk? there are people that like to harm.


    ---
    The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck,
  • --- snip ---
    Also, you say it's not searchable? Well, I pictured that with a directory structure like the one outlined, one would be able to load /hardware and see directories like reviews, previews, articles, etc, in the directory, and that's how all directories would work, and thus be searchable? After all, woulnd't someone have to go around giving out the document location anyway? How anonymous is that?
    Well you could have third party indexes where people could post interesting document links. These sites could also have a review/synopsis of the document. Think USENET --> DejaNews. If you were really paranoid about staying hidden, I'm sure anonymous mail gateways/websites will be created. Fill out a form on a website you trust not to log you, then you just register your FreeNet resource with one of these indexes and away you go.

    --snip--
    You say that there will be no centralization. So how are all of the new servers gonna know where all the other servers are? My point: doesn't it seem like there will HAVE to be at least one mothership of all servers to give out lists of all other servers?
    I don't think so. I haven't looked at the protocol, but here's one way to do it:
    Node A knows how to fetch data from nodes B,C,D
    Node B can fetch from E,I,F
    Node C can fetch from A,I,F
    etc.
    Basicly your requests propogate depth first along a directed graph. Presumably the node that you requested the data from, and possibly the intervening ones would cache the data as it made its way back to you. As long as there exists a tree that spans FreeNet your covered. I'm sure there are ways to gaurentee this, although I'm not qualified to discuss them.
  • I think the only real way to implement this sort of control would be an equally decentralized moderation scheme (similar in theory to /., i guess..).

    Any other way would be defeating the whole purpose of it, for one simple reason. Who's to say what information is correct and what isn't? Or what's malicious? As an extreme example, what if there's a sociopathic cult of chicken worshippers who believe that the RIAA is the end-all answer to the world's problems...don't they have the right to post that information?

    Come to think of it, wouldn't any sort information control as you propose have a negative effect? The point of the FreeNET structure is purely for storage and distribution of information. A more logical solution to your concern would probably be implemented in the -gateway- to this information, where you could easily propose moderation of data, and no one would be forced to use this gateway.
  • Hi.

    I am interesting in knowing how much
    work it would be to change FreeNet to
    another propose: A mirroring network for free software.

    When RedHat and others release the latest distributions
    there mirror site a slowed down.

    if FreeNet could be changes to a generic mirror network
    for free software this problems could be eliminated.

    The changes it would take.

    1) Only the mirror maintainer can file packets on the network.
    2) The packets is removed when the traffic for them vanish (self cleaning.)

    By make this changes the will help in distributing
    free software instead of pirate software.

    Knud
  • How does one retrieve a document? You have to know it's title and/or keywords, plug them into a client, and here it comes?

    I'd invisage people putting in an index when they submit a collection of files, so you'd know where to find related stuff, and publishing the location of this index by other means. People could collect these indexes together into meta-indexes: it'd be a bit like Yahoo or something. It would then be possible to crawl through these links and do an Altavista. It is going to be more difficult than the web though (and the current lack of crypto signed updates would make updating the index impossible: that's a bit of a pain).

    If not searchable, how does IT find stuff in itself? (To anthropomorphize a bit.)

    RTFM :-)

  • They settled for 15 Kpounds plus costs.

    Costs which will probably run to the hundreds of thousands, of course, barristers costing what they do. Oh well, the rest of my article was right, anyway.

  • First of all, I like the idea of FreeNet a lot. It is intellectually rather satisfying.

    However, I have wondered for a while now about what might be called the kiddie porn attack where individuals, organizations or governments who have an axe to grind with FreeNet start inserting material such as child pornography, confidential patient medical records, prose of racial hatred, etc.---short, stuff that most people would have a hard time defending---into FreeNet servers in a certain geographical area, and then tip off to produce a public outcry. Would enough people be willing to ride this out to make FreeNet viable in the long run?

    My personal opinion is that it is a waste of resources to put up a fight for free speech when your opponent has it so easy to drag the discussion into such muddy waters. If you want to fight, for example through the courts, do it on a topic that is sure to embarrass them, not you.

    So I'd like to make the following suggestion: Create a virtual network---virtual in the sense of mindshare, with absolutely no logical connection, links, etc.---where the site operators monitor each others' sites, and mirror documents that are currently controversial.

    The point is that every site operator makes the decision herself to post a particular document, based on her personal opinion about the cause. The importance of the network comes in when a document is attacked. When targeted, every site operator has two choices:

    In the exceptional case, when the cause really strikes her self, provided the conditions in her jurisdiction are favorable, she would keep the document up, with a notice that it's under attack, and fight the attack in court.

    In the normal case, the operator would immediately comply with all demands, and put up a notice that a document has been censored. She would also provide, if possible, the name of the attacker, all the notices and paperwork, and an MD5 checksum of the document. Since other operators would constantly monitor their peer sites (or have software do it for them), people in a different jurisdiction would come in and put up more copies of the document that are still around somewhere.

    This is pretty much how the internet works anyway, but I still would find it useful if open guidelines could be developed and optimized, and some simple(!) software could be developed to make this process extremely simple and low maintenance, so that many people would engage.

    Further, I want to stress that, in total opposition to FreeNet, it is important that there is no network besides the internet, so that any legal attack would be very very hard, even for multinational corporations because they are dealing with concerned individuals. Also, this would have a build-in moderation mechanism, hence is immune to the kiddie porn attack, and will also filter important stuff (like slashdot is doing every day, but I can see the day when Andover will cease to be the impartial party). So the sites in this "network" will become the sites where people turn for "news that matters" (TM).

  • Re:Kiddy porn, rape movies, snuff films. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No matter what zealots tell you, no freedom is absolute. Your freedoms end when they infringe on the rights of others. This includes your freedom of speech.

    That is a largely meaningless statement. You say that my freedom of speech ends when it interferes with your right to be free of "kiddy porn, rape movies, snuff films". Well, I say that your freedom to remove those things from the Net ends when it infringes on my right to free speech. One or the other is obviously going to have to take priority, and the real question is which is more important.

    What arguments can you make FOR free, anonymous access to kiddie porn, snuff films and rape/torture erotica?

    That question assumes that you can separate the things you mention from the other things that the service might be used for. That does not seem to be the case.

    It turns out that, in order to suport whistleblowers, freedom fighters, and the generally oppressed, it helps to create a system that doesn't let server operators know what they're carrying, and that doesn't allow anybody, server operator or otherwise, to remove anything. Once you have such a system, it's going to be used for things you don't like as well as for things you do like.

    If you allow anybody to remove anything, then that person can be put under pressure by Bad Guys, as well as by Good Guys. Admittedly, it's possible that the Bad Guys will nail operators anyway, but it still helps under some circumstances.

    Therefore, the question for a utilitarian (which I am not, but you seem to be) is whether the positive impacts of the system outweigh the negative impacts. The positive impacts are pretty obvious, so let's see how much actual harm there is...

    On the face of it, the distribution of the stuff you list does not, in itself, seem to harm anybody much... nobody is damaged by somebody else looking at a picture, especially if they don't even know about it. It may be that the production of the material harms somebody, but not the distribution.

    People often claim that allowing distribution encourages production, and therefore creates harm. There are two big problems with that argument:

    1. There are ways of producing the material that do not hurt anybody. All publicly distributed "snuff" films that anybody credible has investigated have turned out to be complete fakes. Rape movies haven't been studied, but I'll bet you anything that all or almost all of them are fake. Kiddie porn can now be produced using digital effects, without involving any actual children.

      New technology has made it easier to fake things. As fakes become easier, it seems likely that real victimization will die out. It is, after all, illegal and therefore dangerous.

    2. Even for material, like most presently existing kiddie porn, that may have actual victims, it's not clear that noncommercial distribution actually increases production. There is even an argument, albeit not one that I find 100 percent convincing, that says that the distribution of already-produced material satisfies the demand so that new material doesn't get made.

    We therefore have hypothetical and easily reduced harms, stacked up against very real gains.

    Why should *I*, a server operator, nurture these sorts of activities in an ideal environment?

    Because that environment is also ideal for other things... things that are valuable and more important.

    I'm more worried about the "abusive" material overloading the system than I am about the system being used for those things at a moderate level.

  • Ummmm....if you really dislike the current music-industrial complex - for which I do not blame you - then stealing and breaking the law is not the answer. Simply don't buy the music. Go download from artists at MP3.com or somewhere that do want to put there music out to fans without the record company whores controlling it. All the 'they charge too much so I'm just gonna take it' excuses are just that, excuses. If you think M$ stuff sucks and is overpriced, don't steal it. Go use Linux or BSD, learn to program and help develop new software, or just support the open source movement or companies that do make decent products at a legit price.
  • I'm curious to know the reasons behind the choice of Java as the programming language for FreeNet's development. I can think of some pros (reasonably nice language, cross-platform), but also of a big con for an Open Source software project: the standard Java development environment (the JDK) isn't free.

    Do you plan to actively support the use of FreeNet using free Java tools (like kaffe [kaffe.org], japhar [japhar.org], gcj [gnu.org])?

  • Okay. In that case, if you sister ever gets sexually abused (not that I'm wishing it to happen), I hope that she will be able to participate in online recovery groups with her full name attached, so that everybody knows what happened to her...
    I'm not in favour of absolute, 100% cypherpunk-style anonymity, but being able to speak up anonymously can be important in some cases.

  • FreeNet is free software.
    How do you pay your bills?
    __
  • Since It will be virtually impossible to forcibly remove a piece of information from Freenet [sourceforge.net], if a Trojan horse manages to run in my system and it is programmed to silently broadcast sensible information (my /etc/password, email directory,...) on the Freenet filesystem, any attacker can read this information from anywhere in the world without anybody knowing who was the perpetrator.
    In current schemes, the Trojan sends the info to somewhere and you can watch this somewhere and deduce who gets profit from this.

    Is there some provision against this?
    __
  • Suppose that, for some reason, you decide that Freenet is a bad idea and you want to kill the project.

    Given it is free software and the current state of the development, could you stop it? Could anybody? And a natural disaster?
    __
  • Is it possible to measure the popularity or difussion of a Freenet document?
    Maybe sampling time to reception from widely-sparse nodes?
    __
  • Well, in my understanding, if Spam Inc. puts 2000 MB of garbage into Freenet, if that garbage is not demanded it would be only stored once and not replicated, and if it is demanded, it is not garbage.
    Then maybe a programmed decay or node faults without backup would remove randomly information scarcely stored.

    Innit?
    __
  • Once some info enters Freenet, nobody can control it.

    Do you value privacy?
    __
  • You say that Freenet can people freedom of speech.

    Let's imagine a country with an authoritarian and powerful enough government (suppose that penguins carry red flags there :) ). Freedom of speech is not a right in this country.

    How would you justify using Freenet in this country for ~good~ uses so that this government don't decide to make a crime to be a Freenet node?
    I mean, in the ~free~ world :), if they find you using Freenet, you can always plead freedom of speech or not knowing what is passing through the server, but there are places where this is useless
    __
  • How do you plan on overcoming the distribution of servers? This is the core problem of any system, and the only way I could think of was to use the MBone network.

    Some background about this - A network dedicated to preventing any one entity from shutting it down (such a network would naturally be a target for legal action) needs to have a decentralized yet easy to access repository of information. Since the volume of information would quickly rise beyond the point of any one system to host it, a method needs to be created to redirect clients/queries to system(s) which have the material. Think of it as a super-DNS system similar to WINS resolution (for you NT/samba people).

    The central problem lies in TCP/IP - it's a peer, or point-to-point, protocol on the 'net at large. you can't broadcast to 255.255.255.255 and expect it to go everywhere. So an abstraction layer is required to give broadcast functionality to the network.. via TCP and UDP. Very difficult without a centralized server to host it.

    Why is a centralized server bad? Simple: it has a complete record of who has what.. and more importantly, where they are. The MPAA or any other organization could seize the "browse master" and then go after each mirror site. So any network which wants to stay alive must be decentralized.

    My question is real simple: how do you intend to accomplish decentralization and maintain network integrity?

    P.S. I've given this idea alot of thought and was considering launching an effort. Glad to see somebody else already has. If I can find the time, you may see my e-mail appear in the dev list. =)

  • Operators of FreeNet nodes will spend a significant amount of resources such as bandwidth, storage and CPU. Naturally, not all node operators will be equally interested in all types of content. Is there any way for node operators to determine on what content their re$ources will be spent?

    ----

  • No you're right. You've articulated it well. Email me at natepuri@office.ompages.com if you want to know more... Later...

  • Or Freenet could simply swallow the Web by adding a node for each WWW URL that existed. A node that started with "http:" could automatically load the web page if queried by a Freenet client, or this could be built into the Freenet architechture itself.
  • How would you feel if you knew that a person using a public telephone and a disposable calling card, paid for in cash, had made possible an act that led to the deaths of innocents, or other such atrocities?

    Anonymity in and of itself is ethically neutral.
  • How exactly is Freenet going to protect itself from:

    Spammers... filling the servers with ads for porn sites and get-rich-quick schemes

    Flooders... since it's free, grabbing all the bandwidth just to be annoying

    Pranksters... posting bogus data just to devalue the real data

    Slanderers, pornographers, warez kiddies and other bottomfeeders of the net doing their sleazy thing and giving the service a bad name.
    Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Freenet! In fact I'm already on the mailing list and I'm joining the project. But... what about those tough problems?
    --
  • Two points--the web and freenet aren't competing, for a variety of reasons. A web implementation would make it trivial to find the source of a posting, and also remove a posting--these are things FreeNet is working against.

    Secondly, just in case you're interested, there are plans in the pipe for gateways between FreeNet and the Web, i.e. access freenet info through a normal browser--this will leverage the ubiquity of the web without letting the freenet network depend on it, you'll still have to upload your info to a node the normal fashion (as I understand it) which will protect your privacy and the information.
  • blanu is one of the developers I know, and have discussed with him this post; this is one of the top developers, Brandon Wiley, as listed on the sourceforge freenet [slashdot.org] homepage. This response to Eric's attack on freenet needs to be modded up such that it appears along side it.
  • As I understand it, the key to this strategy would be to keep requesting. More specifically from different nodes. However, to get the information cached in many places requires doing a lot of requests from a lot of different places.

    I think the only real problem is not physical resources, but the vast consumption of meaningful namespace.

  • FreeNet is a great idea. But it has a fundamental flaw. The information is stored on dozens of servers, and paid for by dozens of admins. But they cannot delete it.

    That means that spammers will have a *Great* time. They can spam whatever they want, and nobody will be able to pull it of the net. Furthermore, they won't pay for the storage of the spam themselves.

    Think about it. Making a freenet "website" - and then spamming freenet about it. Nobody would be able to pull it away. More companies would do it , and so forth. The result beeing that freenet gets overloaded with JUNK - and nobody is able to stop it.

    Right? (That's my major concern about freenet..)


    --
    "Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
  • No, its not sorted out.

    The company could simply request the information sent time after time themselves. They could put in on thypically "popular" URLs. Or they Could spam on UseNet / Irc / whatever with the freenet site, and get lots of newbies to go read.

    The problem with this, is that the spammers would get others to pay for their goodies. They would abuse the resources -- to the extreme. So much that good information would fall out.


    --
    "Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
  • The Freenet protocol is open (although still in development). I am researching the possibility of developing an alternate implementation as a Perl module or a collection thereof - Net::Free, perhaps? - , and then developing a set of applications based on it: a command-line client for Unix, a "regular" Freenet daemon, and a Freenet-to-Web gateway. Those interested might want to email me on the above address; I'll be setting up a mailing list shortly.
  • I looked around your site, and am mainly interested in the technical challenges. Just last week I was trying to figure out how to do this exact same kind of thing. It seems like you have addressed a lot of the major issues that I was playing with. However something kept nagging at me while I was reading. What speech are you interested in protecting that does not already have adequate protection under the first ammendment? (sorry to be US specific)

    Fundamentally I agree with the premise that all censorship should be abolised. However, I would like some examples of speech that you think are not adequately protected AND are not already illegal for other reasons.

    The most important facet of free speech is preventing prior restraint. If I can get the word out and distribute the truth, I can deal with the consequenses afterward.

    With or without Freenet, I can get any piece of information distributed to a national audience. I might have to answer for my actions, but that comes with the territory. For the most part the Internet has been a very healthy development for the free speech movement. However I do recognize there have been some abuses recently. The deCSS case is probably the best example. Ask yourself- how would your system have really helped the publishers? There already are anonymous channels they could have used for distribution. Did they take advantage of them? No, instead they made their case publically, stood in court to defend themselves, and have greatly increased public consciousness. Is there any shortage of deCSS mirrors now? I think that the source code is in the court records and on tee shirts. Would an anonymous posting of the source to linux newsgroups and dvd forums have had the same impact? I saw a story about deCSS on the local news. Would posting it to the Freenet have gotten the same attention? The last thing we need is to hide these issues among warez and Backstreet MP3en. Free speech abuses need to be held up to the light and exposed in the mainstream press. How does Freenet help with this process?


    -BW
  • A recent (and misguided IMHO) court case in the UK ended with Demon Internet (an ISP) being held liable for a libelous usenet post originating from one of their home customers. Demon were ordered to pay a large (I believe about 400K - but this is from memory so don't quote me) settlement.

    Demon weren't ordered to pay anything. They settled out of court, presumably because they realised they were going to lose. They settled for 15 Kpounds plus costs.

    Demon have argued for common carrier status, but don't yet have it. I think the reason for this is that the Government don't understand the technical difficulties in monitoring the volume of traffic that passes though Demon's systems.

    Note that common carrier is a technical term under UK law which does not mean what you think it does (I found this out because I posted to uk.net and uk.legal using this term: see this article [deja.com] for details). It's best not to use the term in discussions on UK law.

    To link this comment in - I don't think FreeNet stand a cowboy's chance in a nuclear explosion of getting common carrier status.

    Who cares? Freenet has gone as far as they can in terms of plausible deniability by encrypting the stuff on the servers, but in any case, Demon's problem was that they could not use the innocent dissemination defence because they did not remove the material when requested. If you're running a Freenet node in the UK, all you do is remove something when you're asked to. This will have a minimal effect on the rest of the Freenet, of course, but that's the problem of the person threatening to sue you.

    A more interesting question is what happens when you remove something when you're asked to and then you end up caching it again. I suppose server owners might want the option not to cache data (or data and links, if you're Demon) for particular keys. That said, all that happens then is someone resubmits under another key.

  • FAQ says it isn't searchable, no one knows what's on their own site, no idea where documents are stored.

    How does one retrieve a document? You have to know it's title and/or keywords, plug them into a client, and here it comes? If not searchable, how does IT find stuff in itself? (To anthropomorphize a bit.)
  • They're also charging alot more than, IMO, the music is worth.

    You know, according to economic theory, if you pay for something you by definition, think it is worth at least what you payed for it, otherwise you wouldn't have paid for it.
  • I liken Freenet to Usenet in some ways. A system of interdependant servers who all agree to publish one anothers data.

    As we all know, Usenet is subject to gross abuses. How do you propose to prevent such abuse on Freenet. Is there a Freenet 'death penalty?' Whats to prevent me from creating a porn site, or spam site on Freenet that could easily consume most of the available bandwidth and resources of the entire network?

    John
  • Yes, please post that link if you have it.

    Unfortunately, though, some of the design goals of FreeNet as I understand are antithetical to using this method. FreeNet caches copies across nodes. Frequently requested files are cached on local servers. This is deliberately added redundancy. This seems to partially be for speed purposes and to eliminate single points of failure for the network.

    Since the stated goal seems to be free preservation of information for the whole world for all time, I don't see that it's likely that it's intended for files to expire like for Usenet. I really have to wonder how this caching system works and what happens to rarely requested files. The lack of indexable searching makes me wonder how hard it would be to check for redundancies in a distributed filesystem like this. I doubt it would be feasable, but let's wait until next week to see what the designer has to say.
  • If I read your FAQ correctly, FreeNet is based on a multi-layered cashing system (like cashing proxies on the internet today). For static content (i.e. graphic images, white papers, stories, mp3s, iso images...) this type of system would work great. On the other hand you have dynamic data (i.e. stock quotes, e-commerse, search engines, "today's top 10 list", ...) How do you plan on handling dynamic content such as slashdot.org?

  • Ach... forgot to mention that Java on the Mac has notorious compatibility problems with otherwise compliant java. Yeah this is Apple's bad, but a lot of it can be worked around if I'm not mistaken.

    Sorry for appearing like an idiot who didn't read the FAQ.

    ----

  • Being a Mac user and a non-programmer, I feel fairly well left out of the entire OpenSource movement. Of course I could always dump the MacOS in favor of LinuxPPC but, being a graphic designer who works both web and print, I cannot abandon programs such as Quark nor can I live without reasonable WYSIWYG rendering of fonts, something which Linux doesn't do terribly well with at the moment. (And not to mention reliable color calibration, but we won't go there.)

    Often I feel as though the MacOS is neglected as a viable platform for OpenSource development because it's viewed as being a weaker platform because it lacks a CLI and has been, in the past, extremely unstalbe. Additionally the OS itself is decidedly closed (with the notable exception of Darwin), which tends to lead people away from OSS development.

    What are your thoughts on this issue, the lack of OSS development for platforms other than Linux? Nothing would make me happier than to see a FreeNet client for the legacy MacOS and, of course, MacOS X.



    ----
  • Well the Java source is free as in beer. Just go download it when you download the JDK. I've used it several times to figure out what was actually going on behind the scenes. Actually you /cannot/ redistribute the JDK AFAIK...you must only redistribute the JRE.
  • I realize that the main idea is to make a network that's kind of anonymous in location... but where are you actually physically locating the servers?

    I'm just curious about what laws you are actually under. I mean, we DID have the comments the other day about using Mir for a location out of international laws... but unless you have some major contributions in hand, that's not an option. So how can you legally get around having lawyers knock down your door?

    Don't get me wrong, I think freenet is a great idea. It's just hard to see how it could possibly get off the ground with all of the laws it's going against.


  • In creating a decentralized information network, FreeNet is obviously drawing ideas from Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu [xanadu.com]. Of course, the www itself also drew from the same, pool of ideas. Unfortunately, it grew so fast that the implementation was not perfected before the standards such, as html, became de facto. Several issues, such as two-way linking, version management, and information maintenance were never addressed. Now we are left with several semi-fixes and upgrades (e.g. XML), which try to make a more perfect internet. I saw in the FAQ that unused information would automatically be deleted, which takes care of some information maintenance.



    Now for my questions: How do you address these other ideas (two-way linking, version control, etc.) that Project Xanadu attempts? Do you, indeed, draw any of your ideas from Xanadu, or is the inspiration simply to make a better www? How, in general, does the FreeNet project compare to Project Xanadu?


  • What is dynamic content? Well, in MOST useful cases, it's simply a dynamic query into a larger set of static content (slashdot [slashdot.org] and pricewatch [pricewatch.com] are good examples of this) This is necessary because the web browser architecture does not allow you to make these specific queries on your own without serverside help.

    I don't know if FreeNet is going to be such that it will be practical to have forums like slashdot emerge (it sounds like it's going to be funcionally more similar to usenet than to the www, but I can't really tell).. but what we think of as dynamic content really isn't all that dynamic at all.
  • The source to the JDK is not free, but the development kit itself is. Anyone can download it, build with it and redistribute it.
  • I am intrigued by the possibilities that a net-wide Distributed Filesystem Filesystem such as Freenet offers, but put off by the obvious tendency to fragment. A DFS is obviously subject to network effect; the more people use it, the more valuable it becomes.

    Is the architecture of Freenet such that it could someday be extended to gateway to or otherwise include/subsume other parallel systems?

    If so, what would it take?

  • A little harsh, but I'm still unsure, even after reading the FAQ.

    Many people have already made some (good) posts about the chance that people will just put up warez other illegal items. But what about the good? What sorts of documents would Freenet be better at handling than the WWW?

    In essence, what content will be on Freenet that I can't get on the web? More precice information? Art sites? Less banner ads?


    ------------

  • No offense but why is this a 5 it's answered in the FAQ.

    "3.5. Why Java? Java is one of the most cross-platform languages currently available. There are free Java implementations available such as Kaffe. We will ensure that Freenet is always compatible with these versions even if Sun attempts to make it more difficult for free Java implementations to keep up with their proprietary versions. Java has excellent network support. Java is easier to debug than other languages such as C++. This lets us get on with the business of implementing Freenet quickly and reliably!"

  • I must ask if you read up on freenet?

    Basically...when data is requested, it propagates
    ie is copied out to more servers, then those
    servers also serve that data when it is requestd.

    ie data has no "fixed home" it stays where it is
    popular, and is eventually deleted from servers
    that never see requests for it.

    How would you do dynamic content when there is no
    central area to hold a database or run code
    on? I supose it could be done with javascript or
    some such...but it would have to be all
    client-side code.

    kind of an interesting idea though.
  • From looking at things, the freenet system
    really isn't designed with "dynamic content"
    in mind. It is designed as a place to
    publish information in a way that it can not
    be forcibly removed. Dynamic content isn't really
    possible without some sort of central system.

    Freenet is more than just "multilevel cache"
    no document has a "home". Wherever it is copied
    to IS its "home". It may dissapear completely
    from the server it started on and live on another
    node. (or multiple other nodes) if it is more
    popular in other places than where it started.
  • For the past couple of weeks I have considered contributing to an open source project and have hesitated due to the fact that even though I am competent in C and C++ my area of core competence is Java. Imagine my surprise when today while hunting around I found NOT one but TWO sizeable open source projects that primarily use Java; Apache's Tomcat server [apache.org] and now FreeNet.
    Now on to my questions.

    a.) Besides source code is there an object model or UML diagrams available for potential contributors to Freenet to view?

    b.) Do you know of any other sizeable open source projects that use java primarily?

    c.) Are you worried about Freenet becoming a haven for pirates and W4R3Z d00ds and if so are any steps being taken to combat this?

  • But what about the good? What sorts of documents would Freenet be better at handling than the WWW?

    Freenet is ideal for hosting data that some powerful organization wants to destroy or hide.

    A few examples of such organizations and the data they are trying to suppress:

    • the MPAA and DeCSS,
    • the US gov't with strong crypto software,
    • the Chinese gov't and anything at all controversial about Democracy or human rights.

    Information posted to a node in Freenet cannot be removed from the system if it is sufficiently demanded (ie, not spam). The initial poster is also protected from persecution as their identity cannot be easily determined (though anonymity is not too well implemented at this point, according to the FAQ). This is in contrast to the Web, where all data is on an identifiable server and (often) can be traced back to who put it there.

    Steve

  • OK there are two things mentioned on the Web site about how this is supposed to work. And I have been forced to ponder about two of them:

    1) Directory architecture.
    People should be able to access documents in a manner like /hardware/reviews/celeron/overclocking etc, right? Well first of all I want to know, like everyone else, who controlls this directory architecture? What if tons of garbage get pumped in, like hundreds of empty files and stuff? Also, you say it's not searchable? Well, I pictured that with a directory structure like the one outlined, one would be able to load /hardware and see directories like reviews, previews, articles, etc, in the directory, and that's how all directories would work, and thus be searchable? After all, woulnd't someone have to go around giving out the document location anyway? How anonymous is that? I think we'd be able to remain pretty annonymous by having at LEAST a username and password that each person can use. For example: /hardware/articles/athlon_rules.html->fleckster or something like that, tagging the file name with the user name, in a virtual manner, wouldn't really bother anyone, they could use a bunch of phony logins if they really need to remain anonymous, right?

    2) Centralization
    You say that there will be no centralization. So how are all of the new servers gonna know where all the other servers are? My point: doesn't it seem like there will HAVE to be at least one mothership of all servers to give out lists of all other servers? It's like saying I could get a list of all Quake III servers without a master server containing a list of public servers. Basically, this doesn't seem like it can happen without one master server, unless you reimplement TCP/IP communcations to work like DNS does, and "just find stuff" by hierarchy, but that doesn't seem quite possible for something that RELIES on TCP/IP, does it?

    Well that's it. Thanks a ton for listening.
  • This country was founded with a "thumbing your nose at the status quo" mentality. Although it may have not been a pure and unified movement it was illegal(at the time) and effective. Another foundation of this great land of ours is capitalism. Which "country" and "land" are you referring to? There is nothing in your post that says where you're from.

    The bus came by and I got on
    That's when it all began
    There was cowboy Neal
    At the wheel
    Of a bus to never-ever land
  • I, too, am an amateur musician, yet I think your argument is flawed. Do you think that if people stopped downloading MP3s tomorrow, your friends would make money? No, because the music industry is a rigged game.

    Unfortunately or not, chances are your friends will remain poor musicians. If they are interested in making money, they should get into a game that is less rigged (say, bricklaying). Why is it that so many musicians expect to get paid for what they do? Because the music industry itself has created an image of the rock star, the big bucks, etc. It's a hopelessly flawed dream.

    Quit blaming Napster. This technology -- peer to peer file exchange -- is only going to grow. It's here to stay. If the music industry wants to save its fat ass, it will adapt to it and figure out how to make even more money than they do now (by all reports, they make more money than ever, even with so called MP3 piracy).

    I'm sorry, but you sound like an apologist for retro technology (compact disc and the old distribution model). Things are changing -- if you don't get out of the way, you'll get run over...

  • URL and dynamic generation (Score:3)

    by Pseudonymus Bosch ( 3479 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @09:17AM (#1149480) Homepage
    I know that http://www.slashdot.org/ gives me the latest version of Slashdot (modulo net delay).

    But in Freenet, any dynamically generated document would have to have a different and cumbersome name for each generation. This makes impractical to publish dynamically on Freenet, isn't it?
    __

  • URL squatting (Score:3)

    by Pseudonymus Bosch ( 3479 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @08:42AM (#1149481) Homepage
    From what I read, in Freenet storage is unlimited but the scarce resource is URLs, names, URIs or whatever you call them.

    How do you organize so that interesting documents have a name like "GNU license" instead of "/software/free/GNU/GPL/COPYING" because some decided that it would be funny to post a blank pixel with the name "GNU license"?
    How do you avoid that "the good name are all taken"?
    __

  • Anonymity is a fundamental right (Score:3)

    by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @10:21AM (#1149482)
    I believe it used to be a practice a thousand years ago for petition signers to sign names ina circle, so that the "instigator" could not be determined from the order of signing.

    The US supreme court ruled that political posters can be distributed anonymously, being a fundamental right.

    Voting is anonymous.

    Anyone afraid of anonymity is being awfully silly. Only Big Brother need fear it.

    --

  • What about firewalls? (Score:3)

    by Ledge Kindred ( 82988 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @10:04AM (#1149483)
    I notice on your "Installation" instructions, it mentions that some of the requirements are:

    * A static IP address
    * No Firewall or Proxy between your machine and the Internet

    It goes on to say that a static address is not *strictly* necessary, but if your address changes, you will need to rejoin the network.

    I am on Roadrunner, like I'm sure a great number of other people out there who would like to participate in Freenet. However, I also filter traffic between my machine(s) and Roadrunner with a box running NATD/IPFW. Simply telling NATD to forward traffic for the port(s) on which I have configured Freenet to listen does not seem to work. I have been told that this is a fairly well-known issue and that Freenet actually communicates over many ports, which really *does* require that you have a completely open and "unencumbered" network connection to be a Freenet node.

    So the question is, doesn't this seem to be counter-intuitive to the sorts of people who would like to run Freenet nodes? Doesn't it seem that the type of person who would like to make available an anonymous, distributed repository for information would also like to keep that machine fairly well locked-down? Are there any plans to change the protocol or node implementation, or whichever part of the Freenet system that seems to require that you run it on a machine sitting out for the whole world to see? (Or have I been completely mis-informed and am just doing something wrong?)


    -=-=-=-=-

  • First, let me give you some background. My step-father - whom I've spent a good deal of my life with - is a musician, he owns a high-end studio store where I also work, and my mother has been a caterer/lighting/rigging crew member for concerts since I was 10.

    The only bands that make any money off of concerts are the insanely popular ones - read Smashing Pumpkins, the Stones, etc. The only reason any band would EVER tour is to promote their CD. Although they only make $1.50 or so from each sale, having thousands of people buy their CD is much better for them than spending their entire lives on the road, maybe making close to that for each concert goer. Keep in mind though, that even famous bands like Blink-182 don't fill stadiums - they fill clubs of 5000 people, usually playing with other bands who also take a cut. And here's other people (& items) that take a cut:

    Promoter
    Tour Bus Drivers
    Caterers
    Rigging Crew
    Lighting Crew
    Mixing Crew
    The Venue itself
    TicketMaster
    Advertisment for the Show

    Now add in traveling expenses - bus rental, gas, expensive hotel rooms, meals out, road gear, for EVERYONE on the crew, and you can see how quickly the $20 joe schmoe gave them for the concert has disappeared. Or they could sit at home, write more and better music, and collect money from CD sales. Even though record labels profiteer like crazy, it's only because bands usually wouldn't have happened without initial investment from said record label. Putting together a good tour and producing records are VERY expensive, as stated above.

    The only way "free music" could ever work is by the honor system - you listen to one of their songs, you give them $0.50 for each song. The problem is the honor system will never work - kids will always want something for free, take advantage of it if possible, and leave the artist twisting in the wind. So please buy the CD - pay the people who deserve to make a living.

    IF YOU DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR THE MUSIC, DON'T LISTEN TO IT. It's that simple.

    Ghetto

  • Use? (Score:3)

    by Signal 69 ( 159601 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @08:38AM (#1149485)
    How do you forsee freenet being used? Reading over the FAQ, it does seem like an ideal method of trading warez, porn & mp3s (similar to Napster or Hotline), although your ideal seems reminiscent of Project Gutenberg or the FSF -- sharing information without fear of censorship. The anonymous information sharing for legitimate purposes could be very important in places where sharing of information is suppressed (China, for example). 10 years ago, no one could have predicted that the Internet would be used as it is today. In 10 years, how do you forsee freenet being used?

  • Why is FreeNet useful if its not anonymous (Score:3)

    by sgoldgaber ( 161732 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @08:18AM (#1149486) Homepage
    In your FAQ you admit that FreeNet does not offer even a modicum of anonymity (ala Mixmaster), does not encrypt communication between nodes, and (I infer) is vulnerable to trafic analysis. So why is it useful? How can you possibly claim that "individual documents cannot be traced to their source or even to where they are physically stored"?

  • Wireless Freenet (Score:4)

    by john187 ( 32291 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @09:06AM (#1149487) Homepage
    I think Freenet would dovetail nicely with wireless network technology. I system of Freenet servers 1-2 km apart could blanket metropolitan areas and eliminate dependancy on ISP's for network service.

    What are your thoughts on this? Are any hardware people interested in looking at this problem? Building some prototypes?

  • Why the name FreeNet? (Score:4)

    by K8Fan ( 37875 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @08:35AM (#1149488) Journal

    Maybe I'm just showing my ago, but to me a "FreeNet" is a local free Picospan/shell account. Maybe it's a bad idea to take the name of an existing and quite venerable free service?

    Here is part of the Detroit Freenet FAQ: [freenet.org]

    * What is a Free-Net? A Free-Net is a free, public-access community computer system. Free-Nets can serve populations of any size, from large metropolitan areas to small cities and towns. They offer a wide spectrum of on-line information services to the public, including community and government databases and worldwide electronic messaging. They don't charge for their services, so everything on them is free. Free-Nets also have an interactive aspect, in that users can dialogue with information providers. While there are many Free-Nets around the world, each Free-Net is tailored to meet the needs of the local community, so no two Free-Nets are identical.

    Seems like the existing Freenet is already a very good and useful thing, and it really doesn't need the confusion.

  • some technical questions.. (Score:4)

    by Cuthalion ( 65550 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @10:06AM (#1149489) Homepage
    Once something is put on freenet it cannot be removed. What does this mean? No censorship, but also misinformation stays in the system just as long as correct information, so long as it can 'trick' people into requesting it (by seeming to be relevant, for instance). This can be exploited intentionally to censor (some things are nearly unfindable on search engines because of 'key' collisions - the band 'Reload', for instance), or unintentionally - I write something, post it, and five minutes later learn that I was mistaken. Oh well! People will just have to decide for themselves what is truth. Even if I DO post a retraction, there is no way to verify that a trusted entity (such as the original author) retracted it.

    As a medium for sharing artistic works (eg, music, essays, images) this is not as important, but to carry actual facts (eg, hardware specs, controvertial news items, etc) this seems a major shortcoming. Is there any solution to this problem in place or in progress? I ask because I feel that this is not adequately discussed in the FAQ.

  • Re:Why compete? (Score:4)

    by TheCarp ( 96830 ) <sjc@NospAM.carpanet.net> on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @10:21AM (#1149490) Homepage
    Actually....the Freenet Has a huge technical
    advantage over http protocols. The thing is...
    its not just hard to track down who wrote it
    (unless they sign their name...its only anonymous
    if you want it to be) and where its stored...

    It has cacheing built in. When you request
    something, it propagates. Thi smeans more
    copies exist. So if a document is REALLY popular,
    then no one server is bogged down with
    distributing it.

    Imagine some really popular band that believes in
    mp3 distribution puts out a new mp3. Now everyone
    80% of colledge students go to download it.

    WHat happens? After the first few downloads at
    each colledge...the local university freenet
    server will have a copy of the mp3 and will
    be serving it to that university.

    None of the requests for it will be going outside
    the local university network. Its the basic
    equivalent of everyone in the world being behind
    multiple layers of httpcacheing proxy, except
    somewhat better (its built into the protocol)

  • With freedom comes responsibility. And the general public, at least those who have been using Napster, don't seem to be terribly responsible. Passing around of copyrighted music in violation of its license terms is rampant. Because of this, we face severe restrictions in our net freedom driven by the music and media companies.

    Most Open Source folks aren't the offenders here. They created their Open Source software so that they'd not have to bother with restrictive copyrights. But most of them are ethical enough not to engage in passing around music when they don't have the right to redistribute it.

    My impression is that it's people who are entirely naive about copyright and intellectual property who are responsible for most of the passing around of music via Napster, and they are going to screw up the net for the rest of us.

    So, if you are worried about net freedom, be a responsible net citizen. Don't pass around music when you don't have the right to redistribute it. Thanks

    Bruce

  • Eric Scheirer, a music technology researcher at MIT's Media Lab, said Freenet is an interesting experiment, but said it would likely be used only by a small community of pirates and "privacy nuts."
    I stand by my quote in that article, although naturally it's a little short on context. Let me make clear that I am in favor of privacy, security, and anonymity when appropriate, and I despise the current attempts to make the WWW more corporate-controlled via both code and law. I don't think there's anything wrong with Freenet, I just don't think it will ever take off in the mainstream.

    The fact is that most of the things that most people like to use the WWW for--such as e-commerce and Slashdot--cannot be built on Freenet, since it has no cookies and no memory. Given this, I can't see anything happening with Freenet except that it becomes a huge storehouse for illegal porn, pirated MP3s and 3l33t w8r3z.

    It's a shame, because the potential political benefits that it raises, by allowing dissident speech in repressive countries, is great.

    I guess my question for the Freenet developers would be: I am not a pirate, a privacy nut, a political dissident, or someone trying to spread illegal trade secrets. What does Freenet offer me? And are these benefits broad enough to a broad enough segment of the world population to create the momentum needed for Freenet to work sociologically as well as technically?

    -- Eric Scheirer
    MIT Media Laboratory

  • It's pretty scary when Wired slams you with the headline, "Alternative Net Protects Pirates", which contained in the story gems such as:

    "
    Eric Scheirer, a music technology researcher at MIT's Media Lab, said Freenet is an interesting experiment, but said it would likely be
    used only by a small community of pirates and "privacy nuts."
    "

    And, failing Monday's piece in the Nando Times(http://www.nandotimes.com/opinions/story/bod y/0,1096,500188504-500253045-501284316-0 ,00.html) [nandotimes.com], that's actually been the best article so far. The New Scientist
    is running "Out of control: The Internet is about to get even harder to police" in their current issue at
    http://www.newscientist.com/news/news_223135.htm l , and ABCNews.com
    did a one-paragraph style summary of this article at
    http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/dailyne ws/freenet000322.html
    , with the lead of "An Internet system designed to guarantee anonymous free speech on the Web could be used by child pornographers and terrorists, according to New Scientist magazine, " which then
    proceeds to all but call You and the other programmers pedophiles in a grammatical burp.

    My question is, if this is to be successful (which I for one am all in favor of, I'm in close contact with Brandon and Steven, two of the FreeNet programmers, and am very much in support of the existence of this), FreeNet can't come off as a tool for criminals and miscreants, lest you attract more attention than you'd like from the Fed-types. Now, you may say that because it's open-source and already available etc. that the Feds can't put it down, but if it is branded as an evil tool for child pornographers (like it is currently), it will never gain the popularity and user-base needed to make it sufficiently robust against machine removals.

    To get something called a tool for privacy nuts by Wired is pretty bad--and the rest of the press has been worse; is there any plan to get this project out of the gutter?

  • Poisoning the waters (Score:5)

    by Mike Schiraldi ( 18296 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @08:38AM (#1149494) Homepage Journal
    What protection is there against someone poisoning the system with malicious data? For example, let's say MPAASoftRIAAOL Corp. sets up a system of computers all over the place with wildly different IPs, and they feed either random or specially crafted bogus data into the system.

    This is sort of analogous to renaming Barry_Manilow.mp3 to DaveMatthewsBand.mp3 and putting it on Napster. How do we prevent it? Some sort of decentralized, everyone-is-created-equal moderation system?
    --

  • Bandwidth and Piracy (Score:5)

    by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @08:42AM (#1149495)
    In your own FAQ, you pretty much sidestep the entire issue that FreeNet would become a humongous "warez" distribution system by saying that it's merely a more efficient means of doing what others have been doing before. Ignoring the seeming subtle endorsement of piracy through the system, I'll raise an important question for adminstrators of FreeNet nodes.

    In your FAQ, you say that it is very hard for FreeNet node admins to know what is on their site. With the inevitable proliferation of "warez" on the site, how will the system avoid getting bogged down with hundreds of illegal copies of popular pieces of software?

    For example, when Diablo 2 finally comes out in the stores, what would prevent servers from being overloaded with:
    • /software/games/Diablo2.iso
    • /software/games/RPGs/Diablo2.iso
    • /software/games/rpg/Diablo2.iso
    • /warez/l337gam3z/Diablo2.iso
    • /fr33gam3z/war3z/rpg/diabloII.crack.iso
    • /mywarez/ObfuscatedDistributionKey/Diablo2.image
    • ...etc.?
    '
    You could literally have hundreds of 650 Mb images of games floating around jamming up everyone's nodes. With the lack of searchability, no one would know what keys hook into what files. Without this knowledge, warez people might keep uploading copies to different keys, thus flooding the system. In essence, does not the lack of protection against piracy and the seemingly intentional goal of keeping admins from controlling their system threaten to bring down the entire network under the burden of warez and junk?

  • Reversed priorities? (Score:5)

    by mattr ( 78516 ) <mattr&telebody,com> on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @09:51AM (#1149496) Homepage Journal
    If files live longer the more they are thrashed, will this not just breed thrasher bots and crowd out data from clients with less connectivity? How about a voting system for one or more directories which does not add files easily but they are there for good. If it is that good a resource it deserves a champion to protect it.

    Also, I take it you are comfortable with already having divulged the identities of the entire first wave of sysadmins of FreeNet nodes? Seems like your most vulnerable time is now.

    I've long considered the value of a peer to peer system for countries underdeveloped in the areas of infrastructure and rights. Unfortunately it seems that social engineering is steadily on the side of repression. Wouldn't the best way to get FreeNet into such environments be to make it a source of economic strength? In other words, your growth metric might look much better if you include authorship, copyright, and microcashpayment management. I can't see the Declaration of Independence sticking in the current system for long.. but it is in both a good library and a good bookstore.

    Basically you have built a distribution system which in its optimal configuration has no delivery time since you already have the commodity on your hard drive.. make it work for business as well and it may reduce prices and take on a life of its own.

  • Kiddy porn, rape movies, snuff films. (Score:5)

    by Jinker ( 133372 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @09:54AM (#1149497) Homepage
    No matter what zealots tell you, no freedom is absolute. Your freedoms end when they infringe on the rights of others. This includes your freedom of speech.

    My thoughts when I first heard about this project were extremely positive for the first 5 seconds or so. I was going to set up a server, and suggest all my other bandwidth-rich friends do the same. Then I thought about what would be going to and from my server.

    Anonymity has it's place from time to time, but usually in the cases of an abuse by a higher power against an individual. But in the general case, I feel that freedom of speech entails the responsability of accountability.

    If I'm going to say that I hate Virgos, and all Virgos should be locked up and treated as the inhuman beasts that they are, I should have the conviction to do so without a pointy hood over my head.

    If I'm going to be distributing porn, I should be able to do it with a clean conscience. If I wanted to post naked pictures on a website, I'd be in some way traceable. And if I wasn't identifiable, there at least would be a mechanism in place (an email to my upstream provider) to curb my freedom of speech if I was posting vile material.

    The ideal of individual freedom falls apart in the environment of actual individuals who abuse it.

    I'm not saying in any way that this should be a legal matter, or that the product should be banned, just that in the case that it turns out like I expect it to (the majority of traffic for illicit files, both violating copyright and basic human decency) I will have no respect, even a measure of contempt for the people that do run the servers. THEY will be the ones I will hold accountable for the 'free speech' being exercised on the network. And if they were to be sued off the net by the RIAA, church of Scientology and MPAA, I can't say I'll be surprised, or all that upset.

    What arguments can you make FOR free, anonymous access to kiddie porn, snuff films and rape/torture erotica? Why should *I*, a server operator, nurture these sorts of activities in an ideal environment?

  • Who is liable? (Score:5)

    by tcd004 ( 134130 ) on Wednesday April 05, 2000 @08:18AM (#1149498) Homepage
    You said that this:
    allows information to be published and read without fear of censorship because individual documents cannot be traced to their source...

    I'm all for an open forum for free speech, but this seems almost reckless. In most venues of speech, accountability for someone's words is fundamental. The internet has opened up the possiblity of free speech without accountability to a small degree, and look at what has happened. Do you fear any legal reprocussions to your group for creating this forum based on this fact?

    tcd004
    LostBrain [lostbrain.com]

Slashdot Top Deals

Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

Close