On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, Ian Clarke wrote:
> Just so it is clear, I have heard or read nothing about their technology
> which suggests that it is capable of compromising Freenet's aims of
> providing anonymity to the producers and consumers of
> information. Further, I have heard or read nothing that suggests they
> could effectively identify a significant number of Freenet node's, and
> even if they could, that there are any effective measures which could be
> taken.
I got the impression they were just going to start scanning through IP
addresses themselves. I don't know if it's feasible for them to scan every
single port in search of a Freenet node. Sounds more like cheap terrorism
that a legitimate tool.
> > One service, Copyright Agent, allows content owners to provide ISPs
> > with lists of files to remove and, in many cases, to have Internet
> > access to certain users cut off completely. The systems work by
> > automating the take down and removal policies in the Digital
> > Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, many of which have been too unwieldy
> > for service providers to monitor.
>
> In the case of Freenet, it would be impossible for an ISP to monitor what
> information was being communicated between Freenet nodes, and extremely
> difficult for ISPs to identify Freenet nodes at all. In the case of
> broadband connections such as cable, even if you can identify that a
> particular IP address is running a Freenet node, and even if the ISP can
> be persuaded to try to remove the user, there is no way for the ISP to tie
> the IP address to a given user over a cable local loop, and thus no way to
> deny them access.
Huh? If Mediaone (or whatever they're called now) decided to ban
24.131.185.22, they certainly could find me.
> Further, IANAL but AFAIK an ISP does not have liability for the bits
> communicated over their networks, so I don't see why ISPs would go to the
> trouble of installing this software *and* potentially annoying their
> users, *and* when the software is very unlikely to be effective anyway!
But the ISPs aren't installing anything. They recieve a demand from the
copyright holder and a list of infringing users. They could weasel out of
it or they could immediately cancel your account. It's up to them.
> > According to the DMCA, Smith said ISPs are required to remove
> > materials from their system once copyright owners have identified the
> > infringing content.
>
> This cannot be achieved with Freenet since the process of checking to see
> whether content is on a machine will actually place the content on that
> machine regardless of whether it was there before, so it is *this
> software* which will cause the propagation of the infringing content - by
> their reasoning, therefore, it is their own software which should be
> banned. We call this the "I'm Sparticus" strategy.
But a request with HTL 1 does work.
> > Its application tracks the MD5 checksum, which uniquely identifies the
> > original source of a song, allowing Emusic to track files that were
> > being made available.
>
> Ah yes, change one bit of the mp3 file and you get a different checksum
> rendering this mechanism worthless. That's *really* smart.
That is quite stupid, however, a song by Britney Spears is protected, bit
or no bit, and if the file name looks illegal or if the CHK has been
identified by them as illegal, they have a complaint to your ISP.
[snip]
> > While Mediaenforcer President Travis Hill said the system can't track
> > everyone on Freenet, he claims it can track the last person to come in
> > contact with the information, which might be enough to slow down the
> > growth of the file-trading system.
>
> Er, so let me get this straight. He gets the IP address of a Freenet
> node, and requests the information from that node, this process *may*
> result in the information being cached on that node BECAUSE of his
> request! He then thinks that he has legitimate cause to blame that user
> for the content being there, even though it wouldn't be there had he not
> requested it. I would love to see him in court trying to explain that
> one... :-)
What's the defense mechanism against HTL=1 requests again?
> > "People claim if you don't know the original provider on Freenet, you
> > can't do anything," Hill said. "When all these people are running
> > Freenet, we connect to each one of them, throw in a query and if a
> > particular node responds to that key, we consider that IP address to
> > be infringing.
>
> 1) *You* might consider it to be infringing - but who cares given that it
> is only infringing as a result of your actions?
>
> 2) Even if the ISP cares (and as pointed out in the article, it is very
> unlikely that they would want to get involved), in the case of a Cable
> user there is no way to reliably match the IP address to a user so that
> they can be disconnected.
>
> > "Then you can go to the ISP and hand them that IP address. The
> > disadvantage to being anonymous is that the only way to stop the
> > infringement, if you're an end user, is to stop using Freenet."
>
> Nope, the only way is for Travis to stop requesting the content from
> Freenet!
AFAIK, planting false evidence is a serious crime in this country.
[snip]
--
Mark Roberts
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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