-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news_223135.html
New Scientist magazine, 25 March 2000.
Out of control
The Internet is about to get even harder to police
A SYSTEM that makes it easy to publish information on the
Internet anonymously could give a free rein to terrorists,
software pirates and paedophiles, say Internet watchdogs.
But the creators of Freenet believe the risk is worth
taking to preserve free speech on the Net.
Ian Clarke began creating Freenet in his final year at
Edinburgh University, in response to Australia's proposals
for stringent Internet censorship laws (New Scientist, 12
June 1999, p 22). "The Freenet protocol is designed to make
tracing the publishers of content impossible," says Clarke.
"It's also extremely difficult to remove files from Freenet
once they've been published."
Unlike files on the Web, files on Freenet do not have a
unique Internet address that specifies the computer on
which they are held. Instead, files are distributed around
the Net on computers belonging to Freenet members. Several
copies of each file exist in different places to make it
hard to delete them.
When a file is stored, it is given a "key", Freenet's
equivalent of a Web address. The software then forwards the
data to other servers, but the creator of the file doesn't
know to which. To retrieve a file, users enter the key.
Their computer then queries Freenet servers until one is
found that has the associated files.
If a Freenet user has a copy of a file on their machine, it
doesn't mean they published it. In fact, they might not
even know it's there. Clarke argues that at no point can
any one computer user be held responsible for Freenet
files, because there is no way of knowing their origin.
"It's a perfect machine anarchy," says Clarke. "No single
computer is in control."
But Roger Darlington, chairman of the Internet Watch
Foundation--an independent body that monitors websites
hosted in Britain for illegal material such as child
pornography--is worried about the implications of Freenet.
"There is clear potential for misuse by criminals,
terrorists and paedophiles," he says.
Keith Akerman, chairman of Britain's Association of Chief
Police Officers' working group on computer crime, agrees.
"I'm all for freedom of speech, but networks like [Freenet]
could severely impede our ability to investigate Internet
crimes," he says.
David Cohen
� Copyright New Scientist, RBI Limited 2000
.
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