Re: bad PR for freenet on Slashdot From: redbull at efWjUA~iOGl7afilkLeYJvWwGX7~GrDoZQd0qUYSfZ0 Date: Friday 02 May 2008 01:04:54 Groups: freenet Followup-To: freenet References: 1 2 3 frogger at lY4SBJ0hg2L7moUkJq~uXc56BjQD5r6b~~WCHTBC4Wg wrote: > At Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:51:38 +0000 starobrno wrote: > >> Why is this bad PR? If all pedos suddenly left Freenet i would be very >> worried. I mean, it is supposed to protect people from being executed by >> evil dictators. >> If Freenet couldn't even protect the anonymity of people who like to >> look at naked children it would not be really bad. > > It hurts the spread of Freenet. Many people are not willing to run a node > because of this... content. > > So it's bad for Freenet. >
IMHO the reason that content is on Freenet is exactly because Freenet achieves higher degree of publisher anonymity and is easier to use than I2P/Tor, at least for static content. I experimented with servers on i2p (eepsites) and Tor (.onion) in the past. Setting up such a server is far more complex than inserting a freesite and publisher anonymity is far lower. Why ? 1) You need to run a webserver somewhere 24x7 if you want your site to be usable ==> need for a server 2) Extra Software. Only i2p brings a minimalistic built-in web server, for tor you have to run your own web server. 3) Avoiding identity leaks by web server software is complex. apache, php, phpbb developers never considered identity leaks a security problem! in anonymous network it *is*, and a benign error message could easily disclose the web server location. This is a very real problem. Recently, someone started an anonymous I2P site... well, it was supposed to be anonymous but one script on his server could load a file from external URL... I think you guess the rest ;) you could read the story here http://forum.i2p2.de/viewtopic.php?t=2574 The only way I can think of to prevent identity leaks completely is to run a web server box (real or virtualized) in a DMZ with no internet connectivity. Something like this: ---[internet]---[gateway box I2P/Tor]-->[Firewall]-->[Anonymous server] Firewall should allow only connections from I2P box to the Anonymous server, but not vice versa. This way anonymous server itself can't find out where it is, but this takes significant effort. And even _then_, my server was a kind of experimental box and didn't have any real content on it. But if I would be one of those guys with illegal content, I personally would be afraid to serve it via this box, because there is Murphy law and something could go wrong ;) Now, compare all this complexity and risks with Freenet, where someone could just insert files from his laptop, delete the files, and go offline. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/devl/attachments/20080502/0570d511/attachment.pgp>
