Toad wrote:
Well, this contradics what you just wrote above. If you are right on this point, then your fears about thousands of users leeching and burdening freenet without giving anything back are unfounded already because of this, even disregarding my arguments above. Or vice versa. Of course, if you're right on this, then running the thing would be fairly meaningless. However, as long as it's not damaging, it doesn't matter much if it's meaningless; when I realise that I'll just take it down.
No, because they are not indexed, because we send a robots directive on fproxy IIRC.
Uhm, that's a bit too laconic for me. Please explain. Are you saying that a request for a key will be sent out even if the key is present in the local store? But yet, if the usage is low, the network burden will be low either way.
E. You get slimed in the press and elsewhere as a paedophile because you provide child porn.
If the prosecuror has ordered me to block it, I don't provide it. If the prosecutor has not ordered me to block it, I think "you're barking up the wrong tree, here's the phone number to the prosecuror" is an adequate public defence. I also think the blood-thirst of the press can be somewhat mitigated by a well-done portal and FAQ.
[openness vs closed circuit]
Perhaps so. I suspect that Freenet will gradually have to get less open,
but we'll see. When it's fairly closed is exactly the time when it's
most vital. But right now, openness is good.
It's a very difficult assessment, if not impossible. All one can do is try to use good judgement and hope for the best.
["self-regulation"]
The really nasty governments are of course the worst in this. Chinese ISPs etc are encouraged to censor their clients, without generally having any explicit idea what the rules are. In the West, ISPs generally don't go looking for content they don't like on their customers' sites. The way this happens is simply that they have all-encompassing AUPs so that if they get a threatening letter they can dump you with no liability themselves. Which of course they do.
Yet I see a bigger problem in the west than in China. In China, the government is involved and actively participates in the censorship. Therefore, China is on every list of every state and of every NGO who monitors censorship, and gets fingers pointed at it all over the place. But the US? Europe? Censorship, no sir, we have nothing of the kind here; that's the official approach and it works very well too. We get censored and our governments get to keep their good reputation and stay out of disturbing political winds too.
The latest drive is "hate speech", with France and Germany pulling the strings. If they get their way, anything that happens to disturb some group - especially some non-negligible minority - will be illegal. Little do they understand that if you want to fight neonazism, racism, anti-semitism, whatever, you need to see your enemy, you need to let him talk so that you can trash him.
Establishing that Freenet is slow and only used to distribute illegal content is a disadvantage.
But freenet *is* slow and it is *not* only used to distribute illegal content. In fact, the little I've looked around, I didn't run across any content that would be illegal in the west. Of course it's there, I'm just saying it doesn't seem to be predominant.
[capability to comply with orders]
Sadly, all nodes are capable of compliance with "don't serve key X" orders, they just have to modify the code. Since it is open source, this is easy.
Not for a non-programmer. I wouldn't know how to do it and current legislation does not require me to learn java. Besides, before you can serve an order to a freenode, you need to find it. And even if X node would block Y key, the same content would reappear under a different key, as well as under the old key on node Z.
[precedents and their effects]
No. You go to jail, your ISP gets away with it. Because you're not an ISP. They'd find some way to fudge it.
In this you might very well be right. Over-estimating the legal system is among the most stupid things one can do. Admittedly I've done it more than once.
[immunity to civil suits]
LOL. Co$ strikes again! ;)
Really, I should put a big banner on the portal, "this site was made possible through the kind cooperation of the church of scientology". That would at least put the kiddie porn to a good use ;)
[Al Quaeda hacked]
Uhm, there's a real AQ site?!
There was, although it wasn't called that; it was the site of some or other moslim foundation, on which AQ communiquÃs often appeared first hand. It went down a year ago or so.
[not logging]
No, but they can compel you to keep more logs. In UK law, they can compel you to keep more logs and require you to continue running the node, and not tell anyone (including the judiciary) about it.
They can't have it both ways. Indeed I don't enjoy the protection that ISPs enjoy, but also, precisely because I'm not an ISP, they can't compel me to log, or to run a service in the first place. You want logs? Sorry, the service is gone, your telecommunications act is not applicable on me, go re-write it and then come back.
Besides, if logs is what they want, it would be far easier for them to run their own proxy than to start quarreling with me on this issue. I am not to be trusted in such matters, there is a serious risk that I would post on freenet/usenet/whatever that they are demanding logs and my proxy is turning into a trap. A professionally- working prosecutor who doesn't want his investigation ruined would probably assess this risk correctly and not try to use me as an instrument for his investigation. Then again, there are plenty of unprofessionally-working prosecutors out there, I'll grant you that.
[Flashback]
You will get exactly the same problems with child porn, and probably other sites, that may be on Freenet. The trouble with democracy is that the mob generally want what you don't want.
Indeed, but a good democracy is not the dictatorship of the proletariat. If what we have is not a good democracy, then so much more a reason to try to make it one, or at least to not give in to the mob.
Z
-- Framtiden Ãr som en babianrÃv, fÃrggrann och full av skit. Arne Anka _______________________________________________ Support mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.support Unsubscribe at http://dodo.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support Or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
