I am concerned about CofE's comments with-respect to people censoring their own datastores, in that I don't think people are seeing how dangerous this could be.
Consider a scenario: Joe Bloggs installs the "KiddiePornBeGone(tm)" software in a well-meaning attempt to support the wider goals of Freenet without helping pedophiles. A few months later the police come knocking on his door, and he gets dragged to court. When he gets there he discovers a bunch of well-paid Church of Scientology lawyers. They show evidence that they were able to request CoS trade secrets from his node (detailing how they believe us all to be infested by aliens and only by giving all our money to them can we get rid of these "thetans"). Joe looks at the judge in disbelief - "But they could have got those through any node they requested them from, there is nothing special about me". "Ah," replies the CoS lawyer "you already run KiddiePornBeGone, so you are obviously capable of controlling what can be requested through your node, and thus you are responsible for it. If Mr Bloggs was running our "LiesBeGone(tm)" software then he could easily avoid violating our trade secrets and breaking the law". The judge (keen to finish up with this case so that he can get to his Scientology meeting), is convinced, and Joe is locked up for life. Other Freenet users look on in fear, and most obediently download and install "LiesBeGone(tm)" to avoid the same fate. Suddenly the Church of Scientology decides what is and isn't permitted on Freenet. Ian. -- Ian Clarke ian at freenetproject.org Founder & Coordinator, The Freenet Project http://freenetproject.org/ Chief Technology Officer, Uprizer Inc. http://www.uprizer.com/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 232 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/chat/attachments/20020206/d8df3577/attachment.pgp>
