Re: attention users of both freenet networks

Matthew Toseland :
> On Thursday 24 Feb 2011 23:27:01 Nomen Nescio wrote:
>> you have a right to know
>>
>> USK@1WZPo6qZmlCpi6rZWjtz~kig1gcpcnzh5drmqpW9L8Q,ksaFFDkSJfnOXB3ppYhQ2R14z3W
>> QCYxGqXNERCYcHD0,AQACAAE/wordsoftoad/-1/
> 
> I'm only going to say this once.
> 
> First off, it was nearly 5 years ago.
> 
> Second, I made it clear in the post and the extensive discussion at the time that Hereticnet
>  and Freenet are (hypothetically) *two* *different* *networks*, using 
different (albeit related) software.
> 

No need to defend, Matthew. The idea of internal censorship may be a 
lousy one, at least it sounds like that to me.
But the conclusion our anonymous crusader starts out with: 'proof of his 
hypocrisy' and you not to be trusted, is pretty ridicilous. Were you 
indeed not to be trusted, you wouldn't have done this brainstorming 
about a sort of censorship-from-the-inside in the open, and were you out 
on implementing whatever backdoor in FN in order to expose users, you'd 
surely not published about it at all.


For convenience of those interested, below the text on the freepage.


=======
Herein LiE the words of Toad.
Proof of his hypocrisy.

Among other things, you will find proof, in his own statements, that he 
obviously desires to enable and encourage censorship in freenet so that 
he can purge it of content that he disapproves of.

He is therefore not to be trusted

Nor is his code to be trusted without intense peer review

(this site mirrored to both networks to insure Toad sees it in the 
unlikely event he has the 'nads to respond.)
	

In this first example Toad describes a theoretical means by which 
somebody who inserted something into freenet could be identified and 
then forced out of the network.

Toad, you know better than this!

Freedom of speech must be ABSOLUTE or it is not truly free.

If somebody could be identified, they can also be given up for 
prosecution, whether they actually deserve it or no simply because you 
and your fellows disapprove of him. This makes you no better than the 
forces that freenet aims to avoid.

You named this entry accurately indeed

I am certainly grateful that you no longer code for 0.5!

0.7 users beware of Toad and his not quite so hidden agenda!

2006/08/29

Another amphibian

Heretic

There are a number of persecuted groups who would greatly benefit from 
freenet's technology, but who cannot use it for moral or political 
reasons. For example, persecuted churches. Even if you are an atheist I 
hope you accept that freedom of thought, and therefore of religion, is 
important: You have the right to sincerely believe in the Jesus, Buddha 
or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, if you want to. Others have the right 
to ignore you and think you are crazy. So there may be room for a 
darknet variant which uses a lot of freenet's code, but has different 
goals. Note that I am saying nothing against Freenet itself: I like 
Freenet, I am morally happy with it, but I think there may be room for 
something else as well, once Freenet has reached a reasonable level of 
stability.

Such a network would be resistant to external censorship, but provide 
for internal censorship. In other words, it would be a high standards 
darknet: A community with its own standards for content, which it could 
enforce through expulsions and schisms, but which is not necessarily the 
same as the outside world's standard. On such a network, content inserts 
would be tagged with a cryptographic structure allowing the insert to be 
traced back one hop at a time, but only with the consent of (for 
example) 2/3rds of the nodes surrounding each hop. If somebody found 
some content they object to, they could file a complaint. This would be 
discussed on the chat system, and ultimately people on the network would 
inspect the disputed content (hence the need for a fairly 'high' 
standard), and decide whether to vote to trace the author, to trace the 
complainant, or to do nothing. If enough nodes vote to trace the author 
at each hop, he would be traced. He would then be identified to his 
direct peers, and everyone else would know his topological position. The 
network must then decide what to do with him. His direct peers may 
simply disconnect from him. Or they may choose to protect him, (either 
after the trace or during it), in which case they themselves may be 
disconnected from. Irreconcilable differences will have to be dealt with 
by a larger network split: What was one community is now two.

This is by no means an easy way out of the conundrum that is freedom of 
speech. It requires significant effort on the part of the users, and it 
also requires a fairly high standard; "anything but child porn", for 
example, is likely to result in permanent brain damage (or at least a 
need for counselling) to active participants on the network, since 
disputed content will normally be close to the border between what is 
allowed and what is not. A persecuted church would have a much higher 
standard, while most of its content would still be illegal by the local 
laws. And it is likely that such networks would have major problems with 
splits and schisms, as any other community does. It would closely 
represent the underlying community. It seems to me that this would be an 
interesting experiment, and it might be useful to somebody. Comments? 
Contact me!
=====

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