[HN Gopher] Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-re... ___________________________________________________________________ Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication Author : brian_herman Score : 188 points Date : 2021-09-19 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (freenetproject.org) (TXT) w3m dump (freenetproject.org) | leshokunin wrote: | I wonder if Freenet is used for anything but super illegal stuff, | and sheer curiosity? | | This isn't to say privacy and escaping the bottleneck of | traditional internet isn't compelling. But I've yet to see a use | case for Freenet. | [deleted] | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | You can't see any use case for a private and censorship- | resistant publishing platform that isn't illegal? Okay, | pretending for a moment that privacy and censorship-resistance | aren't good ends unto themselves: Whistleblowing, publishing | something perfectly legal but which political or corporate | interests don't want published, and publishing or reading LGBT+ | content in a political, social, or family situation that would | disapprove. | tootie wrote: | Does this actually solve those cases though? If I run one of | these in China and talk about the Uighur genocide am I | actually safe? Not being sassy I'm actually wondering. | commoner wrote: | It would definitely be safer to discuss that topic on | Freenet than on Weibo or WeChat. China requires websites to | be licensed,* so the typical self-hosting route isn't | viable. | | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICP_license | user-the-name wrote: | Yeah, but, is anybody _actually using it for that_? | | Or is it just used for criminality, in practice? | ogurechny wrote: | How would you know if someone shared data with someone else | (using any kind of communication system, not just | anonymous) without telling you? How would you gather | statistics of such transfers? | | Some time ago, certain people used Freenet to transfer | enormous amounts of data (for such a small network) _in the | open_ , and most users did not notice, and it rarely got | mentioned (if at all). So when people state they have | estimates of network usage, I get really skeptical. | user-the-name wrote: | Nobody has stated they have any estimates of anything, | but this is a really defensive response to the mere | suggestion that it might be good to know if the network | is used for criminality or not. | ogurechny wrote: | In simple terms, if someone has uploaded a picture of a | cat to a non-public Freenet key, and someone downloaded | it, both you and I have no way to learn about it unless | we can spy on those users or flood the network with | spying nodes to the point of logging each piece of data, | and deducing that these two people exchanged something. | Even theoretically, we can only make assumptions about | publicly announced data (freesites and message systems), | and then try to estimate the proportion of communication | that happens in the dark. | | And people often make wrong assumptions. | user-the-name wrote: | So you are telling me that it is hard to find out if | running a Freenet node will help criminals, or decent | people. | | That does not really do much to convince me running it is | a good thing, you know? | ogurechny wrote: | I didn't think I was convincing anyone to run anything, | just explaining that this approach wouldn't work. | Moreover, there's always a possibility that you, a | "decent person" can become a "criminal" one day, and, | counter-intuitively, that's when you want the laws to | work and be equal for everyone, not when you're a "decent | person". | | But it doesn't need to be so dramatic. Like most of the | people on this site, you probably use more or less cheap | broadband or mobile internet at home. The reason it's | much cheaper than a dedicated line to your location is | because a lot of people in your area want an internet | connection, too (and they don't use it fully, or all at | the same time, etc.), so there's a great deal of ISP | infrastructure sharing. So you help your neighbor in | having a cheap internet access, and your neighbor helps | you. | | What if one of your neighbors is a maniac who streams | killing people, or a botnet owner, or a military drone | operator working from home, or just a domestic abuser? | Have you asked your provider to only join the "decent | people" network? If not, you are actively helping bad | people right now. | h_anna_h wrote: | One man's criminal is another man's freedom fighter. | Snowden is a criminal but his supporters consider him a | decent person. I do not believe that the two are mutually | exclusive. | | The whole point of projects like freenet is to let people | communicate data between each other without censorship | and without being identified, no matter what that data | is. If you disagree with that principle then I believe | that freenet is probably not for you. | | > That does not really do much to convince me running it | is a good thing, you know? | | Make sure to block TLS connections on every network that | you manage. You don't know what naughty things your users | might be doing after all. You would not want to help a | criminal, would you? | exporectomy wrote: | What's wrong with illegal stuff? Perhaps you mean to say stuff | that your culture shames, abuses or ostracizes people for? In | that case, yea, that's why somebody would want to hide their | activity. | einpoklum wrote: | If nothing else, many people use it for personal, interpersonal | and group communications about perfectly mundane issues, | uninteresting to governments, on principle. | | (... for some definition of "many".) | romesmoke wrote: | I tried hosting my blog on IPFS recently, ended up paying ~80 | euros for my crypto illiteracy, still no decentralized blog. Yet | censorship-resistance is something I want to have around my | online home. So Freenet looks interesting. Could a Freenet-hosted | page be accessible from a simple Web browser running on a machine | with merely an Internet connection? If not, implementing such a | thing sounds like a thing. | EGreg wrote: | Yes!! | | Finally. And the next generation of freenet is maidsafe. | | Many people on HN are unaware of most of these things. Tor still | has sites hosted on a server. Dat and IPFS still have IP | addresses of swarm peers. Freenet and SAFE network don't. | alanweber22 wrote: | In what ways does maidsafe improve upon freenet? | EGreg wrote: | Far far more advanced -- it splits data into chunks, encrypts | it end to end, uses a Kademlia DHT which removes the IP | addresses after the first hop so no one can find all the | nodes, has consensus about the files and their evolution, and | uses later cryptographic primitives like BLS keys etc. etc. | | https://safenetforum.org/t/maidsafe-vs-freenet-i2p-ipfs/9409 | cgtzczykldpq wrote: | Freenet is _not_ affiliated with Maidsafe. | EGreg wrote: | That's correct! | p4bl0 wrote: | I see a lot of people here comparing Freenet with I2P and I know | that these are historically tied together but I would say that it | would make a lot more sense to compare Freenet with IPFS, as both | are content network, while I2P is more like Tor than Freenet, an | overlay transport network. | | I don't know how Freenet works well so I'm not sure how it | differs from IPFS, I would really like to see some kind of | comparison table on how they do things. | Cilvic wrote: | I read the basic difference to be anonymity of the user. Which | freenet protects by design but has therefore spam and DoS to | deal with. Whereas IPFS doesn't have those problems, but also | no privacy. | Yuioup wrote: | I stay away from it because chunks of the data is hosted on your | local machine, and it could potentially contain very unsavory | data. Sure it's encrypted but try to explain that to your local | law enforcement. | fsflover wrote: | > Sure it's encrypted but try to explain that to your local law | enforcement. | | But how will they read it if even you can't? | __MatrixMan__ wrote: | They might've purchased a decryption key from some dark | corner of the internet and after failing to trace the money | to the bad-guy they're now hoping to track him down by IP | address. Probably it would surface in court that you're not | the bad guy they're after, but who knows what kind of bad | things they'll do to you in the meantime. | not_m_anissimov wrote: | They know what they're looking for. If they know the file | locators they can find any matching chunks and decrypt them. | It gets worse, if someone connects to you and requests a file | from you, good chance your node will cache the chunks in that | file. Freenet is a probable-cause paradise. | ddtaylor wrote: | Some HN users are stuck in an interesting privacy paradox. Most | of the time when a company or government tries to undermine | privacy or encryption they jump at the throat and point out the | need for both. | | However, it seems when we actually accomplish those goals and | create systems that are truly anonymous, private and/or encrypted | they basically say it's only for criminals and child abuse. | ma2rten wrote: | Are you sure those are the same people? | lottin wrote: | This is a good point. Censorship-resistance sounds good in | theory, but when you actually think about it there is certain | stuff that everybody would agree needs to be censored. | h_anna_h wrote: | A lot of people? Sure. | | Everybody? Not really, some people are really vocal about how | "data wants to be free". | wongarsu wrote: | If everyone agrees that it needs to be censored, then who is | posting it? | nullc wrote: | One problem is that the privacy invading and censorous systems | work 99% of the time ... sucking away most of the market, which | is boring usage, and leave the alternatives concentrated in | "other stuff", much of which is undesirable. | kragen wrote: | Can you point out which HN users are doing both of these? Maybe | they're Russian trolls. | [deleted] | trutannus wrote: | There's another side here. Some don't like companies and | governments chipping away at privacy. At the same time, they | don't trust Shiny New Privacy Startup 2021 to not expose them | to illegal material as a result of being overrun by bad actors. | I would personally rather an established organization to | respect my privacy, rather than move to a new platform that | does not have the resources to protect me from liability. | cgtzczykldpq wrote: | Freenet has been in development for 21 years. | bitwize wrote: | The upshot of a project like Freenet is that no matter how noble | the intentions, these days it's pretty much a CSAM distribution | network and little else -- and if you publicly fess up to using | it you'll be put on a list. | | This is why the future of the internet is censored, regulated | platforms like FB, Twitter, and Reddit -- if you seek out | uncensored platforms you are ipso facto up to no good because of | the reputation of what goes on on those platforms. | mantas wrote: | There're plenty of locations where censorship is much broader | topic. And, unfortunately, the list seems to be growing. | dkdk8283 wrote: | I think this comment is sensational but generally true. Replace | CSAM with "right leaning" politics and you are just as fucked. | | I'm thinking about leaving the US and getting a EU work visa to | avoid the shitshow. There are a lot of people who think | censorship is good - in the name of fighting misinformation - | and generally hold a negative opinion of opposing viewpoints. | fortran77 wrote: | Nevermind "CSAM" and "right leaning" politics -- I can't even | seem to find a place that will host the anti-obesity group | that I used to enjoy reading on reddit. (It was removed by | Ellen Pao when they cleaned up "hate groups".) | user-the-name wrote: | That is because it was, in fact, a hate group, not an | "anti-obesity" group. | fortran77 wrote: | Ok, I get it. You're against free speech. | | But the point stands--it's difficult to find a place to | host a forum that contains legal discussions that happen | to offend the sensibilities of the type of people who run | tech companies. | lancesells wrote: | You can't find a hosting provider for an anti-obesity | forum? I would think there are all types of servers you | could find. | JaimeThompson wrote: | The Dixie Chicks, the PMRC, and a host of other examples | show this isn't a new phenomenon. | mullingitover wrote: | > Ok, I get it. You're against free speech. | | Another day, another person confusing 'free speech' with | a private publisher not wanting to publish hate speech. | | You're entitled to print what you want, you're not | entitled to force someone else to print anything. | fortran77 wrote: | I said was I couldn't find another place that would host | it. I didn't say that Reddit didn't have a right to | remove it. | barbacoa wrote: | >>you're not entitled to force someone else to print | anything. | | Unless you're the surgeon general. Then you can force | private companies to publish compelled speech on their | alcohol and tobacco products. | [deleted] | mullingitover wrote: | That was a very acceptable tradeoff for the makers of | those products - I'm pretty sure they're rather print | reasonable warnings than just have their products, which | are indisputably health hazards, banned entirely. | [deleted] | user-the-name wrote: | No, I am against hate groups. They are the absolute worst | of humanity, they destroy people, and they destroy | societies. | | Do not participate in them. Do not support them. Do | everything you can to oppose them. | fortran77 wrote: | I'd bet you and I both would agree that we don't like | people who recklessly put themselves in a situation where | they are at extreme risk to catch or spread COVID. If we | were to have a forum that criticized people who won't | vaccinate, won't distance, won't wear protective masks, | and promote unproven treatments would that be a "hate | group?" | mullingitover wrote: | Obesity isn't contagious so these things aren't remotely | comparable. | | It was just a hate group, stop digging man. | stavros wrote: | Yes. I visited /r/hermancainaward the other day becsuse I | wanted to check it out, and I was stunned at how hateful | the comments were against people who, sadly, had opinions | that lead to their death. | | I was sad that people could be so misinformed/misled, but | the subreddit seemed genuinely happy that these people | died. That sounds very much like a hate group to me, and | I'd like to see it as banned as fatpeoplehate (which has | hate in the damn name) was. | | It's not about the _subject_ of the criticism, it 's how | you go about it. These subreddit are toxic hate-pools, | they aren't a force for good. They're reveling in the | misfortune of others instead of trying to somehow help, | and that's what makes them hate groups, not whether or | not being fat or an antivaxxer is bad. | fortran77 wrote: | > I was stunned at how hateful the comments were against | people who, sadly, had opinions that lead to their death. | | And yet Reddit management is ok with it. | kragen wrote: | That's interesting. Can you elaborate on what this "anti- | obesity" forum was like? How was it different from a hate | group? | noxer wrote: | Everyone moved to telegram. They host your "offensive" | memes and chats, they dont care. Right-wing, left-wing | whatever you can post it there. | | You cant call for violence or show violence, like gore | content and terrorist videos do get removed. Everything | else is fine (for now). | | Download the app from the website not form the stores to | avoid googles censorship. | hwers wrote: | Not really sure leaving the US would do that much good | (speaking as a european). | zepto wrote: | You do realize the EU is _further_ down the path of enabling | censorship than the US? | fsflover wrote: | What are you talking about? | sgjohnson wrote: | There is no near-absolute right to free speech in the EU. | Countless people have been successfilly prosecuted for | what would be covered under the 1st amendment in the EU. | h_anna_h wrote: | ECHR contains the freedom of speech as a human right and | so do most EU countries in their own constitutions. | "Countless people have been successfully prosecuted for | what would be covered under the 1st amendment" (and the | ECHR) in the US too. The constitution only has value as | long as it's enforced. | bitwize wrote: | If you express Nazi views in Germany, you will be | arrested. In the USA the First Amendment has been ruled | to apply to even the most odious kinds of speech, | including neo-Nazis and the KKK. | | That said it's also true that Germany is, in practice, a | freer country than the USA -- and a lot of that may have | to domwith the fact that they banned Nazism and public | expression of Nazism over 70 years ago. The concept of | "unalienable rights" so enshrined in American political | philosophy is a myth. COVID should have taught us that | all freedom is contingent. A corollary of that is that in | order for a society to be, in practice, free, individual | rights must be balanced against public health and public | safety. The radical American belief in inviolable | individual rights led us down the present course of toxic | individualism, which got us Trump and the current antivax | movement. | sgjohnson wrote: | > That said it's also true that Germany is, in practice, | a freer country than the USA [citation needed] | | Freer by what standard? | | I'm a European living in Europe, but if I could move to | the United States, I'd do it overnight. | bitwize wrote: | Don't. In addition to the fact that our police are | intrusive, our criminal legal system is optimized for | tallying high numbers of convictions rather than justice, | everything is dependent on your credit score, you get | effectively no vacation and very little in the way of | labor protection compared to back home, and you're fucked | if you get sick or injured without adequate employer | health care -- according to various European Hackernews | who came here, our food is terrible. | | As for how Germany is freer than the USA... it | consistently scores higher on various press freedom | indices and on Cato's Human Freedom Index. Social | mobility and legal protection of privacy are both higher | in Germany. | h_anna_h wrote: | > which got us Trump and the current antivax movement | | I think that you are stretching it a bit here. Claiming | that individualism is responsible for that seems | unsubstantiated. | notriddle wrote: | It's a stretch to blame "absolute rights" for Trump's | election. That can be placed pretty solidly on | xenophobia. | | The anti-maskers? The only reason those guys think they | have a case is exactly because they think bodily autonomy | has no limits. | noxer wrote: | Makes no sense, Trump is pro vaccine and has been from | the beginning. | noxer wrote: | Ursula Haverbeck is currently in a German prison at the | age of 92 for the "crime" of verbal holocaust denial aka | for speech. | | There is no free speech anywhere in Europe. And there is | no doubt she would be free in every state in the US. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Haverbeck | h_anna_h wrote: | > There is no free speech anywhere in Europe | | This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim. | | > And there is no doubt she would be free in every state | in the US. | | For this specific action? Sure. For other actions that | are protected under the 1st amendment? Depends on whether | there is a law against it and if she pissed off someone | "important" or enough people. There are various such | cases. | ltbarcly3 wrote: | There aren't any cases I know of for anyone being jailed | for expressing their beliefs. Can you name several? | noxer wrote: | >This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim. | | I'm fine with that but its non the less the hard truth | there is nothing like the 1st amendment in any other | place. | | >For other actions that are protected under the 1st | amendment? Depends.... | | To be in the right doesn't mean you win the court case | that's true but in the EU you dont have the 1st | amendment, you dont have the right to free speech. If the | court system does its job correct you go to jail not when | the system fails because of "important" people and | corruption. You go to jail because what you said is | actually a crime to say. Needless to say that the list of | "crime speech" only gets longer and longer over time. | sweetbitter wrote: | Federated platforms are pretty good with getting rid of public | objectionable material. I thought that ever since encryption | became a thing, we had pretty much forfeit the possibility of | preventing the sharing of CSAM? Hence why Facebook is where the | overwhelming majority of CSAM is found on the internet. | IndySun wrote: | >Hence why Facebook is where the overwhelming majority of | CSAM is found on the internet. | | It's not that. It's because fb is huge. CSAM and it's | purveyors will determinedly find a way to share digitally, | eventually, on every platform. Only regularly shutting | down/restarting anew, wholesale, disrupts; that or | censorship. | ogurechny wrote: | If something is not safe for child porn and terrorism, it is | not really safe for everything else. Only as safe as someone | lets you be. Alternatively, if something has means to censor | "just" child porn and terrorism, they WILL be used for | something else one day. | Popegaf wrote: | Is this comparable to IPFS running on I2P? | grumbel wrote: | Freenet feels very similar to IPFS, but it differs under the | hood. On Freenet the network itself is the data store, you | don't host your own files, you upload them and they spread over | the network. If you go offline, the files still remain on the | network. On IPFS on the other side you are storing your own | files and the network is just used for lookup and caching. | Everything on Freenet is also encrypted, so you don't get the | content-addressability benefits (e.g. dedup) you get on IPFS. | summm wrote: | Freenet uses convergent encryption, so you do get | deduplication. | ogurechny wrote: | ...and its development has been exponentially decaying to zero | for years. Mostly because of unsolved social problems (uneducated | public doesn't understand they need real anonymous systems, and | happily use corporate junk marketed as "private and secure", | while educated public dreams about making the next fart button | app for the millions, and selling their data), but also because | readily accessible public network gives too much power to | dedicated observers to be safe in current political climate | (which has been known for 15 years, yada yada). | | Still, no one has made anything more advanced and educational. | Which is quite sad, as these are still the ideas on anonymous | communication from the '90s and early 2000s. A whole generation | has probably gone down the drain, and did not do any work. | [deleted] | smoldesu wrote: | I agree, and it's frankly hard to believe that our governments | didn't have some hand in shaping that future. The further you | follow the cryptography and anonymity paper trail, the more | often you run into intelligence agencies. In some ways, it | wouldn't surprise me if our current "big tech" paradigm is | being relentlessly funded and propped-up by the United States | in some way or another. As more and more users get herded into | silos like TikTok and Facebook, the stage is being set for | international-scale data warfare. | garmaine wrote: | No need to speculate, we know that governments had a direct | role in this thanks to the Snowden revelations. | hushpuppy wrote: | Governments have structured financial markets heavily to | favor large publicly traded corporations through allowing | them access to massive amounts of borderline free credit. | | The goal is growth and consolidation. They want every major | industry to be completely dominated by a small handful of | big players. This makes it much easier to regulate and | implement policy. | | It would be impossible for them to have nearly the same | amount of control over a economy if the economy was | dominated by hundreds or thousands of small and medium | players. By having 3 or 4 major public corporations they | are much more easier to manipulate and keep tabs on. They | can 'invite them to the table' to advise and help draft | policy and regulations that are mutually beneficial. Also | it makes it much easier to convince the public that such | regulation is done for the public's benefit. | | This model of American State Corporatism was developed in | the late 19th, early 20th century and has since been | exported across the world. | | It is a pattern that is repeated over and over again. | Whether it's automobile manufacturing, steel manufacturing, | railway transportation, television broadcasting, ISPs, or | Social Media.. once the government set it's sites on | regulating it you will see markets devolve into 3-5 major | corporate players that pretty much control everybody else. | All of this heavily encouraged through regulation of | capital markets and central banking systems. | | The classic pre-internet example is the development of AT&T | monopoly. FCC used it's ability to regulate peering | agreements to heavily favor the markets towards re- | establishing the AT&T monopoly. A monopoly that they | essentially lost when the early Bell patents ran out. | | They were then able to use that monopoly, through | regulatory forces, to gain control over the communication | infrastructure during the cold war, which was a national | security priority. That is how we ended up with things like | Room 641A. (which was in 2003-later era, but is something | they did through out the entire cold war) | | History repeated itself with the Prism revelations. | cgtzczykldpq wrote: | Freenet development is _NOT_ dead! :) | | I have been contributing for ~ 12 years and now have acquired | long-term funding (independent of Freenet's own funding!) to | continue my contributions in a more intense fashion. | | The core network which serves static HTML sites + audio/video | is stable and usable. It has a bunch of reliable long-term | contributors working on it. | | Hence development on my personal side is focused on polishing | existing dynamic applications which are built on top of | Freenet, and implementing some new ones. | | Basic implementations of notably forums, social networking, | blogging and mail exist already, the goal is to make them easy | to use (integrate them into the main UI instead of being | standalone), add much more features, improve performance and | security. | | Here's a list of these and dozens of other apps built on | Freenet: https://github.com/freenet/wiki/wiki/Projects | | Developing dynamic stuff is taking so long because it is a | complex endeavor: | | On the regular Internet, censorship happens by "look up who | owns the IP, go to their address, remove the computer." | | Since this is not possible on Freenet as everyone is anonymous, | censorship will happen by denial of service: For example forum | systems would be spammed to death to get rid of unwanted | content. | | Thus the architecture of censorship-resistant systems has to be | reinvented from scratch, you can't just take a regular forum | system and stick Freenet on top of it. | | It has to be decentralized to be resistant against DoS - there | must not be Tor-alike central servers ("hidden sites" / .onion | sites). Instead messages are stored across the whole network | and replicated automatically if they are downloaded more often | and thus need more bandwidth (the added redundance also makes | them more censorship-resistant). | | And spam filtering need to be a first-class application, I have | worked for years only on that. | | So the different architecture is the primary pitfall which many | projects which decided "Freenet is too old, we're gonna build | this from scratch with nice Javascript etc." fell into IMHO: | First it's "we'll develop a regular app, we can bolt Tor onto | it later", then they realize that the threat-model is so | different that this is just not possible and the projects never | become anonymous/censorship-resistant. | | So privacy needs to be built in from the start. | | Luckily, Freenet did that right (even though it was the first | anti-censorship + privacy network!), and I don't mind that it's | taking decades to develop because of the extended threat model: | | That's still better than being one of wheel-reinventing post- | Freenet projects which then abandon the privacy idea in the end | anyway, or postpone it forever. | sweetbitter wrote: | Loopix - https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.00536 Nym (Loopix but using | blockchain for users to pay nodes) - https://nymtech.net/nym- | whitepaper.pdf | | https://nymtech.net/ | belorn wrote: | Freenet as a censorship resistant tool had potential a long | time ago, through in my view the failure points had more to do | with the design and the positioning in the censorship resistant | tool chain than with the unsolved problems. A shared "data | store" that shuffles its pieces around was a good idea in | theory, but torrents without any privacy did a better job of | being a shared data store. Copyright enforcement has been too | slow and ineffective to push people into using Freenet. | | Tor won over most of the anti-censorship users of Freenet by | adding hidden services. The model of servers and clients seemed | to be easier to model around than a shared data store, for | reason that might have to do with how websites on internet has | moved on from the 90's and early 2000s. | | I am unsure if the concept of a anonymized and censorship | resistant shared data store has a place in the future. If | copyright enforcement actually become effective in stopping | torrenting, then maybe Freenet will see a renewal (possible as | a patch to the torrent protocol). Hopefully without java. | cortesoft wrote: | > uneducated public doesn't understand they need real anonymous | systems | | I really don't like this wording. How are you so sure that they | NEED real anonymous systems? I understand the value of privacy, | but I don't think I get to dictate what other people NEED. | ogurechny wrote: | Some time ago, some people believed they needed a glass of | wine, a ten course meal, and a charming beauty to whom to | read poems, and that those backwards peasants in the fields | could understand none of these needs, and only needed to get | whipped regularly, just in case. | | So I'm all for dictating that everyone need everything. | samsquire wrote: | You have to go out of your way to find abusive media on freenet. | There are many top lists of freesites and they are censored of | abusive media. | | I recommend FMS the freenet messaging system which uses web of | trust successfully to moderate messages in a Usenet forum. | ta988 wrote: | I am glad it evolved a bit, it used to host a lot of child | porn, nazi/fascist material etc And clearly you would be | exposed to it through messages or not well annotated index. | azalemeth wrote: | Out of curiosity, what sort of things are on freenet? Is it | worth installing it in a Tails VM? | cgtzczykldpq wrote: | Freenet's default feature is HTML sites - just like the | regular web but fully hosted on Freenet and only accessible | through it. | | The content of those sites is whatever their authors want it | to be :) | | Further, dynamic applications such as forums are also | available. Here's a list of apps built on top of Freenet: | https://github.com/freenet/wiki/wiki/Projects | | Freenet needs UDP so it likely won't work on Tails as Tails | tunnels everything through Tor - which does not support UDP | AFAIK. | Flocular wrote: | Still haven solved the CSAM problem, so the public servers are | off limits. The private infrastructure solution always looked | interesting to me, but I'm missing any actual application ideas | for that? | cgtzczykldpq wrote: | I've been using Freenet for 12 years and have not run into CSAM | involuntarily, and of course also not voluntarily! | | So I don't know how you get the impression that "public servers | are off limits"? | | It is possible that CSN exists in certain forums on Freenet | which have the specific goal of sharing CSAM. | | But if it were to be posted into non-CSAM forums then the | community would flag it as spam and thus make it disappear for | those who don't un-flag it manually, so you're unlikely to | involuntarily see it there. | | Some HTML sites might link other sites which contain CSAM, but | the links will very likely have a name which implies what | you're gonna see. | | Also, IMHO saying "public / private servers" in the context of | Freenet is wrong because Freenet is not organized into | "servers". Basically the whole of Freenet is connected into one | big public network. | | And it addresses files, not machines: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28588336 | | "Private" happens in terms of a file being "private" if you | don't share the link to it with anyone. | | (A separate Freenet network which is fully private would be | possible if every participant configures his instance to not | connect to the outside. But one participant disobeying that and | it is not private anymore, so it's unlikely that such networks | exist.) | unixhero wrote: | Is that still around? | marcodiego wrote: | I like the fact that I can expose a machine using tor. Its .onion | address becomes something analog to a public ip address[0]. It | even works behind a nat, so I can ssh to a machine of mine from | anywhere in the world. The problem: the other point must support | tor to access it. | | Anyone knows a way using these overlay networks, tor, i2p, | freenet, to expose a service on a machine behind a NAT to be | accessed through the internet without the need of clients needing | special software? | | [0] https://golb.hplar.ch/2019/01/expose-server-tor.html | cgtzczykldpq wrote: | Freenet is _not_ a point-to-point network. I.e. you cannot | address a specific computer on Freenet by something like an IP. | | (Well you can, but you shouldn't want to, will explain below.) | | Freenet is a datastore: It addresses content, not computers. | | So a Freenet address points to a file or a directory of files | (a zip). The addresses can be versioned so files/dirs can be | updated. | | A file/dir may be stored _anywhere_ in Freenet. Where it is | stored is _not_ known - the machines which store it are | anonymous so censorship is prevented. If many people request a | file, it will get stored on more machines automatically. | | Now of course you can make a specific computer constantly | publish new versions of a file to "send" data like on IP and | poll for a remote file to receive data. This can emulate direct | connections and does work. | | But it invalidates the whole point of Freenet: | | Freenet wants to be censorship-resistant, so content should not | rely on a single computer to keep existing because that is a | single point of failure. | [deleted] | fsflover wrote: | How is it better than I2P: https://geti2p.net? | | Upd: found this: https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/freenet. | dejw wrote: | how is it different to Tor project? | hkt wrote: | They are different things. I2P is a transport layer, freenet is | a (imo weird) combination of transport layer and distributed | storage. So, running IRC over freenet (for instance) isn't a | thing. Personally my take is that freenet is conceptually not | as interesting as running bittorrent over i2p, but YMMV. | ogurechny wrote: | Freenet implements low latency queue and allows for near- | realtime communication over distributed storage. | Specifically, "IRC over Freenet" WAS made long time ago. You | get modem-like delays and bandwidth, but is this a problem? | Trying to use it when someone is actively searching for you | is a different story, because there's a balance between | sending data and being detectable. | hkt wrote: | TIL, my mistake. Thank you! | azalemeth wrote: | My understanding is that: | | -- i2p was originally a fork of freenet | | -- Freenet was designed and conceived as a datastore, fist and | foremost, whereas i2p using 'garlic routing' was apt for any IP | protocol proxied over it (a bit like tor) | | -- Freenet therefore is more efficient and distributing popular | data | | -- There are some concerns about the algoirthms behind | freenet's anonymity, which i2p claims [1] are troublesome. | | -- Incidentally, I have heard complaints about the crypto | behind i2p, but I am not expert in this area enough to comment. | My understanding is that the consensus is that "tor r is | better", but note you can e.g. run freenet over tor if desired. | | I played with both as a curious teenager around the time they | were released. I am now largely terrified to, because of the | prospect of accidentally finding CSAM, which I suspect is very | high on both platforms. | | [1] https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/freenet | not_m_anissimov wrote: | You're not likely to find child porn on Tor anymore unless | you go looking for it. It's there, because Tor is much bigger | than Freenet and I2P, but it's out the way. The hidden wikis | were all cleaned up years ago. I bet the drug marketplaces | thought it was bad for business to be listed alongside that | sort of thing. | | Freenet is the same as it ever was. I don't think you could | play around on there and not find that stuff. Dunno what's | going on on I2P these days. | sanity31415 wrote: | > Freenet is the same as it ever was. I don't think you | could play around on there and not find that stuff. Dunno | what's going on on I2P these days. | | You're very unlikely to find it unless you're looking for | it, none of the default indexes allow it. | wongarsu wrote: | > I am now largely terrified to, because of the prospect of | accidentally finding CSAM, which I suspect is very high on | both platforms. | | Chilling effects in a nutshell. | amelius wrote: | It's in the Bitcoin blockchain too: | | https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47130268 | mikece wrote: | Without getting into which are better for now, are these the | only two options for this concept right now? | fsflover wrote: | https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/other-networks | | Also, Tor hidden services are somewhat close: | https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/tor. | mastazi wrote: | From the second link you posted: | | > The two primary differences between Tor / Onion-Routing | and I2P are again related to differences in the threat | model and the out-proxy design. | | This is the first paragraph. No further explanation is | given about this point. The fact that it says "are again | related..." suggests that the page used to have another | paragraph before this one, that was later removed? | | I would like to read about the different threat model and | about the out-proxy design, anyone has sources? | encryptluks2 wrote: | There is always Tor | eptcyka wrote: | Interestingly, Freenet hasn't migrated away from Freenode. Mind | you, there is no affiliation between these two projects, AFAIK. | kragen wrote: | Maybe Freenet people are chatting on FMS? | w6rpv3om wrote: | I like to read about those projects, but only use Tor in my daily | life. | MrStonedOne wrote: | Freenet generally has peers act as file stores. This presents | some concerns people would have, but also presents an interesting | question: | | With the existence of crypto that requires large disk spaces to | mine coins, could you abuse freenet for this goal? | root_axis wrote: | No. The data being stored as proof of work cannot be useful, | otherwise it's not "work". | Waterluvian wrote: | I've never heard about disk space as a relevant constraint on | crypto mining. Do you mind elaborating or sharing a link or | term I can search? | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | Probably https://www.chia.net/ , a crypocurrency that uses | "Proof of Space and Time" (prove you've stored stuff on disk) | rather than proof of work. | drefanzor wrote: | Chia Coin miners use hard drive space as proof of work. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-19 23:00 UTC)