Re: Crazy idea: How trust in darknets enables secure de

If you really feel the need to do something like this:
 Why not just support blacklisting of CHK's that are known objectionable 
material. If the node comes across a request for one of these, it will pass 
it along but refuse to cache it thereby making people feel all warm and 
fuzzy about not helping the c.p. or whatever spread. Freesites could catalog 
and create a text file that lists known "immoral/illegal/unwanted" CHK's and 
visitor's to each of these "list" Freesites can chose to download these 
files every so often into the Freenet directory where the node will check 
for a changed file and enter the CHK's found in the file into the "don't 
cache" routing table. Users of each "list" Freesite could submit CHK's they 
have come across and they could be added to the list. Then communities can 
form around these sites based around different ideas of what is "acceptable" 
and they can all be mind numbingly uniform and bland "together" without 
affecting the rest of us thinking individuals. This could be configured 
on/off in the config file. 
 Of course even this route has many dangers:

   - The fascist/communist/ideological dictatorship that forces its 
   citizen's to all use it's lists blocking free 
   speech/Christianity/Muslim/(insert your religion here) 
   - The Freenet Project could be forced to block all known 
   "illegal/copyrighted material" thus becoming a huge burden on the project to 
   pay to hire people which it can't because it doesn't make any money off this 
   product 
   - Freenet users could be forced to "make a reasonable effort" to 
   download the above CHK lists or face criminal charges for "distributing" the 
   content in those files

I am not a lawyer, I am just looking at it from a "what if" point of view a 
few years from now...
 In my opinion, you shouldn't implement ANY kind of feature/tool that could 
be used to limit free speech WHATSOEVER because the slippery slope is the 
enemy of free speech everywhere.


On 7/11/05, Tom Kaitchuck <[email protected]> wrote: 
> 
> Thrasher Remailer wrote:
> 
> >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >Hash: RIPEMD160
> >
> >In message <20050711151749.GA13039-EI5O+8PHWbJeeLb3ft/[email protected]>,
> >toad-EI5O+8PHWbJeeLb3ft/[email protected] wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Here's a really whacky idea I came up with on the train back from
> >>Strasbourg (please read the whole email before flaming me):
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I'm not going to flame, but I cannot begin to state how strongly I 
> disagree
> >with this idea or any idea even remotely like it.
> >
> >
> >
> >>Personally I support Freenet being uncensorable and providing
> >>untraceability for posters, because there is no way to prevent
> >>censorship abuses by the powerful (including governments and
> >>corporations), while still allowing censorship to prevent e.g.
> >>child porn. I propose below a means that could provide some form of self
> >>regulation, under locally democratic control, which would provide a
> >>powerful deterrent to people posting objectionable materials. This is
> >>only possible because of the trust relationships underlying a scalable
> >>darknet such as Freenet 0.7/Dark. There is an argument that unpopular
> >>content will fall out of the current Freenet; it won't if the original
> >>insertor keeps on pushing it back in. Maybe, just maybe, we can have our
> >>cake and eat it too. The result would be that freenet could be far more
> >>mainstream, usable by far more people (e.g. oppressed religious groups 
> in
> >>china are likely to object to all the kiddy porn on freenet), and its
> >>content would reflect what its users want rather than what the state
> >>wants.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Essentially, this will destroy freenet's original purpose.
> >
> >You propose introducing traceability. Bad Idea. The whole point of 
> freenet
> >is that it's users are NOT traceable and can remain fully anonymous. You
> >spoke of only people you trust being able to know your IP, I don't trust
> >ANYBODY!
> >
> >
> Fair enough, but that prevents you from using the Darknet all together.
> But that has been flamed about before...
> 
> >I use freenet because I can function anonymously, I rely on the fact that
> >freenet's distributed nature makes it impossible to identify or take 
> action
> >against the insertion of any particular content.
> >
> >Granted, there are people abusing that to insert wide varieties of porn,
> >including c.p. but you see, that's a price that has to be paid. If 
> freenet
> >is to be what it's stated purpose is, then the ONLY action that can be
> >taken in regard to content that somebody finds objectionable is to not
> >request it. One can also help push older objectionable content out by
> >continuing to insert quality content.
> >
> >
> I wonder if the existence of the objectionable content is really the
> problem. I mean people know there are things they don't like on the
> normal Internet, but largely ignore it because they don't go to those
> sites. The issue people see with freenet is that they could be spreading
> this content. I think if we could eliminate this it would be better than
> forcing people to look at the content that they don't want to see.
> 
> >The problem with tracing and taking action against objectionable content 
> is
> >that the definition of objectionable content has a tendency to change.
> >
> >Today the bad thing is c.p., tomorrow it's a certain political view, next
> >it's something else... and so on.
> >
> >
> It would be great if we could specify criteria for what is acceptable,
> and let the software handle it. However there is no way that software
> can KNOW what the content is, at all. So all such decisions are
> ultimately made by people. However if people did the right thing, we
> would have no need for software.
> 
> >I'm thinking ahead to when the thing that is illegal to distribute is
> >certain Christian teachings. Given a system like you describe it is true
> >that a lot of c.p. can be removed. However that same system would cause
> >the deaths of a lot of people in the eventual Hyper-Anti-Christian world
> >that is developing.
> >
> >
> DEVELOPING? Where? Today a great number of religious groups including
> various Christian ones are illegal in China. Some provinces in India are
> no better. 5 years ago Christianity was a capital offense in
> Afghanistan, today many of it's neighbors have globalization friendly,
> but internally oppressive governments. The "western" world, however is
> certainly not becoming any more anti-Christian, it is true that there is
> more rhetoric as Christianity has come to the forefront of the political
> scene. But today in the United States for example, weekly church
> attendance as a percentage of the population is at it's highest levels
> ever. (and yes that includes those 200 years before it it was founded.)
> So the "Western" world will not become "Hyper-Anti-Christian" in our
> lifetimes or our grand children's. However the fact remains that all the
> world is not so fortunate. Today more than 2/3rds of the worlds
> population lives in arias where free speach is simply not allowed.
> 
> Given that Freenet appeals to a global audience, there are two important
> things to consider:
> 1. It is easy to filter everything, especially if you control all the
> infrastructure and can pass laws requiring monitoring of people.
> 2. Most people don't have the Internet.
> 
> So it makes since to try to present Freenet as being reasonable and safe
> software to further it's adoption (I doubt most governments really care
> about Kazza, but people like it). On the other hand one could try to be
> more absolute and try to conceal the network completely. In this case a
> darknet makes sense, it might make it's adoption harder, but it would
> not be so easily taken down. However I don't see the gain in doing both.
> (Technical anilisis of proposeal to come...)
> 
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-- 
"I might not like what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say 
it!"

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