General

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<100> General

General

[101] - What is Freenet?

First, let's say what it isn't. Freenet is not a traditional "peer-to-peer" file sharing application. It does not let you instantaneously share a full directory of MP3s. It does not let you search other people's computers for MP3 files. In fact, you cannot search for specific types of files at all.

What Freenet is is an encrypted, anonymous, distributed publishing medium. The "Freenet" project aims to create an information publication system similar to the World Wide Web (but with several major advantages over it) based on the protocol described in Ian Clarke's paper A Distribute Decentralizeded? Information Storage and Retrieval System.

Information can be inserted into the system associated with a key (for example "KSK@gpl.txt"). Later anyone else can retrieve the information using the appropriate key. In this respect it is a little like the World Wide Web which requires a URL to retrieve a particular document.

Unlike the Web, information on Freenet is not stored at fixed locations or subject to any kind of centralized control. Freenet is a single world-wide information store that stores, caches, and distributes the information based on demand. Files in Freenet are copied from node to node, much like Usenet posts, except that they are only copied to nodes that ask for them, not to the entire planet.

Freenet is more efficient at some functions than the Web, and also allows information to be published and read without fear of censorship because individual documents cannot be traced to their source or even to where they are physically stored. This emphasis on anonymity also means that Freenet is far *less* efficient than the Web in many other ways. Freenet's strength lies in the fact that popular content becomes more widespread and therefore easier to find. However, unpopular content may be difficult to find, and will eventually be dropped from the system.

To participate in this system users will simply need to run a piece of server software on their computer, and optionally use a client program to insert and remove information from the system. Anyone can write a client (or indeed a server) program for Freenet, which is based on an open protocol. Reference implementations of these programs are being written in the Java programming language.

[102] - Why is Freenet interesting?

Freenet does not have any form of centralized control or administration. It will be virtually impossible to forcibly remove a piece of information from Freenet.

Both authors and readers of information stored on this system may remain anonymous if they wish.

Information will be distributed throughout the Freenet network in such a way that it is difficult to determine where information is being stored.

Anyone can publish information. They don't need to buy a domain name or even a permanent Internet connection.

Availability of information will increase in proportion to the demand for that information.

Information will move from parts of the Internet where it is in low demand to areas where demand is greater.

[103] - Who should use Freenet?

Firstly, anyone who believes that Freenet's core goals of anonymity and censorship-resistance are important to them. This includes all manner of dissidents and whistle- blowers, plus anyone who is concerned about how continual monitoring by governments and marketing organizations erodes individual privacy rights. This includes people who don't personally take advantage of the anonymity; the more users there are, the stronger the anonymity becomes.

Secondarily, people who wish to take advantage of Freenet's performance/scalability characteristics, such as distributing free content to large numbers of users.

[104] - Who should not use Freenet?

People for whom Freenet's design goals and strengths - notably anonymity - are less important than its "non-goals" and omissions. Lawyers and archivists would probably find Freenet unsuitable for their needs, for example, because Freenet lacks data permanence and that is an important feature for those audiences. Similarly, people whose security interests revolve around access control and auditability rather than anonymity might find Freenet's security model inconvenient to work with.

[105] - Who is behind Freenet?

Ian Clarke is the project coordinator. Other developers are listed on the front page of the Freenet web site, and will change from time to time as volunteers join and leave the project. See also the Freenet Readme.

[106] - Where can I find out more about Freenet?

Take a look on the Freenet homepage at http://www.freenetproject.org . From there you will be able to view other documents about Freenet, view or join the discussion groups, download software, and more.

[107] - If authors are anonymous how can you trust information?

Cryptographic signing of information allows people to prove authorship, this technique is frequently used to authenticate authorship oemail'sls. Moreover, you could actually sign information while remaining anonymous, thus having an anonymous persona. You could prove that you wrote different pieces of information on Freenet, without revealing your identity. In this way you could build up an anonymous reputation for reliability.
SSKs, Signed Subspace Keys, are one way to archive this goal. They consist of a public part, which is used as part of a Freenet Key, and of a private part, which is only used to insert a Page into Freenet. As a user you can safely asume that all Pages inside the same public SSK have the same Publisher, which is especially useful for DBR-Pages or Edition Pages?. For a Publisher SSK offer an own, private Place to insert Data into. Unlike KSKs, SSKs can not be spoofed without Knowledge of the private SSK.

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