New version of Freenet released
05/09 2008 | 11:23 AM
Posted by: Janko Roettgers
Version 0.7 of Freenet, the decentralized P2P network that aims to be a censhorship-free publishing platform, finally got released yesterday after having been in the works for three years. From Freenetproject.org:
"The journey towards Freenet 0.7 began in 2005 with the realization that some of Freenet's most vulnerable users needed to hide the fact that they were using Freenet, not just what they were doing with it. The result of this realization was a ground-up redesign and rewrite of Freenet, adding a "darknet" capability, allowing users to limit who their Freenet software would communicate with to trusted friends."
The new version is also more efficient and easier to use, according to the site. Not evenryone seems to agree on the security aspect though, as a long discussion on Slashdot.org shows. Some users don't seem to like the idea of a darknet topology at all. Says one commenter:
"When the NSA node see a request, they know with a approximate 2 in 3 probability that the information requested came from a member of the same darknet that their node is on. And they know the IP address of the darknet members. Do I really need to point out anything more on this?"
Freenet never was all that popular to begin with. With the new release apparently splitting its user base even further, one has to wonder whether the project has any realistic chance of a comeback.
"The journey towards Freenet 0.7 began in 2005 with the realization that some of Freenet's most vulnerable users needed to hide the fact that they were using Freenet, not just what they were doing with it. The result of this realization was a ground-up redesign and rewrite of Freenet, adding a "darknet" capability, allowing users to limit who their Freenet software would communicate with to trusted friends."
The new version is also more efficient and easier to use, according to the site. Not evenryone seems to agree on the security aspect though, as a long discussion on Slashdot.org shows. Some users don't seem to like the idea of a darknet topology at all. Says one commenter:
"When the NSA node see a request, they know with a approximate 2 in 3 probability that the information requested came from a member of the same darknet that their node is on. And they know the IP address of the darknet members. Do I really need to point out anything more on this?"
Freenet never was all that popular to begin with. With the new release apparently splitting its user base even further, one has to wonder whether the project has any realistic chance of a comeback.
b_i_d wrote:
This comment only points out one thing: The commenter has no idea whatsoever how Freenet works. So let's clear this up a little, shall we?
- You don't HAVE to use darknet. It's up to you if you wanna use Darknet, Opennet or both at the same time.
- The whole point of the darknets is that you only connect to people you know. Of course I don't know how many of your friends work for the NSA, but my list of friends is pretty clean of spies...
- If your darknet only consists of VERY few people it is more insecure. Yes, of course it is! I think everybody should already know that it's kinda hard to hide in a "crowd" of 3 people.
- But even when ignoring the facts above: You just have to have ONE peer (or more) in your darknet who also connects to the Opennet. Because messages are routed over a few peers before reaching their destination, the spy just couldn't tell if you requested that data or someone from the Darknet or (routing over the dark/open-guy) someone from the Opennet.
So the comment may sound frightening at first but it just ignores the whole design of Freenet itself.