There are two dimensions to anonymity: A1 - Anonymity against The Man. A2 - Anonymity against my friends.
Freenet 0.5 has moderate A1 and A2, but is highly vulnerable to attacks from The Man. Freenet 0.7/Open will be much the same, but slightly faster and slightly more attack resistant. Freenet 0.7/Dark has good A1, is highly resistant to attacks from The Man, and has poor to very poor A2. This can perhaps be improved with significant work, and significant performance cost. The largely static topology, the fact that known people lie behind each node link, and the ease of spying on your neighbours, means self-censorship is not only possible, it is very likely to happen on some networks. An IMHO inevitable self-censoring network fork would go as follows: - Content is plaintext, or there is heavy spidering. - Each node attacks its neighbours, possibly in collaboration with the other neighbours of the node. - The user is presented a random sample of the inserts and browsing of each of his neighbours. - The user is also presented a random sample of the unidentified inserts and browsing routed through his node. - If he finds anything objectionable, he tells his neighbour who forwarded it. She can then forward it to the next node, and so on. This is not automatic; it is on a social level. But if a node persistently forwards evil stuff, the ultimate sanction is simply to disconnect from it - she was expected to find the culprit and warn or disconnect him. Or rather, the next hop on the chain. This would go WAY beyond Cleanex, and would provide a platform usable by cells of people who don't agree with our full philosophy. In fact, seeing your friends' browsing might be a useful source of new links etc. - a la LiveJournal. But it would still be very hard to crack down on, and the effects on freedom of speech would be subtle; it would still provide a form of anonymity. I'm not proposing we build such a thing. I'm suggesting that it is inevitable, and will probably be better than nothing for those who use it. -- Matthew J Toseland - toad at amphibian.dyndns.org Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/ ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/tech/attachments/20050902/315d6c29/attachment.pgp>
