On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:06:42 +0100, Matthew Toseland wrote:

> Nonetheless the general thrust of Jusa's argument was that there is no
> point having darknet. He's wrong. Opennet is a means to an end, not the be
> all and end all.

More to the point, I'm trying to argue that having a global darknet is not
an attainable goal, and pushing for it will accomplish nothing except
hinder Freenet growth and functionality. The chances for anyone wanting to
join the network to have IRL friends already running it are nearly
nonexistent due to the small amounts of such users currently in the
network; and remember, you need at least three such contacts before your
node is actually routing.

And of course opennet is a means to an end. So is the whole Freenet, and
every other computer program in existence, as well as the computer itself.

> On Thursday 07 June 2007 22:34, Ian Clarke wrote:
>> On 6/7/07, Florent Daigni?re
>> <nextgens at freenetproject.org> wrote:
>> > * Jusa Saari <jargonautti at hotmail.com>
>> > [2007-06-07 23:23:48]: Implementing a workaround (opennet,
>> > backtracking, ...) is only a way of fixing temporarily the topology to
>> > the expense of both liberty (it has to be the default behaviour as you
>> > pointed out) and safety (everyone knows that the opennet approach has
>> > design caveats).
>> >
>> > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
>> > safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" -- Benjamin Franklin
>>
>> Your use of the Franklin quote suggests that you are looking at this
>> backwards.
>>
>> The alternative here is not between users using an opennet or a darknet,
>> its between them using an opennet, or another solution that is far worse
>> (such as a public proxy).  This is the simple reality of the situation
>> that we see time and time again whenever we bother to listen to our
>> users.
>>
>> Consequently, by giving people the option of an opennet, we aren't
>> inviting them to give up liberty, we are inviting them to increase it.
>>
>> Most sane people think teenagers should have access to condoms, but some
>> people think its a bad idea, claiming that giving teenagers access to
>> condoms will encourage them to have sex.  The point, obviously, is that
>> teenagers will have sex anyway, the only question is whether it will be
>> safe sex.
>>
>> Substitute opennet for condoms, and darknet for abstinence, and you see
>> that many of those arguing against opennet are following the exact same
>> wrongheaded line of reasoning as those that disagree with allowing
>> teenagers access to condoms.
>>
>> Ian._______________________________________________ Devl mailing list
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