Freenet build 1495: new user experience and performance(freenetproject.org)
freenetproject.org
Freenet build 1495: new user experience and performance
https://freenetproject.org/freenet-build-1495-new-user-experience-and-performance.html
110 comments
Freenet has a different concept than MaidSAFE: While MaidSAFE (as it was when I last looked into it — a few years ago) is a hosting and application platform, the focus of Freenet is to be the technical component for censorship resistance. Everything it provides comes from this — even the recently added video and Android support (because Black Lives Matter showed clearly that the information that people need to share the most is video content nowadays).
Therefore the overarching design goal of freenet is to make censorship as hard as technically possible. That’s the reason for - providing anonymity (else you could be threatened with repercussions - as seen in the case of the wikileaks informer from the army in the USA), - building it as free software network (else you could just shut down the central website, as people tried with wikileaks), - providing safe pseudonyms and caching of the content on all participating nodes (else people could censor by spamming or overloading nodes), - including good moderation tools (otherwise people could censor by just "flooding the zone with shit"), and even - the darknet mode and enhancements in usability (else freenet could be stopped by just prosecuting everyone who uses it, or it would reach too few people to be able to counter censorship in the clearnet).
One core difference between MaidSAFE is that Freenet provides communication. Content in Freenet stays accessible while people access it, without tracking accesses: When you upload something, you can imagine that a clock starts ticking. After a while (depending on file size) the content is no longer accessible. But if someone accesses it, their node "heals" that content, which resets that clock.
Also Freenet enables people to connect purely to their friends, so there’s no central point of failure or detection.
I once did a comparison to other projects for a funding proposal (that did not succeed, though) which should still give you an idea about the difference between Freenet and other systems: http://www.draketo.de/proj/freenet-funding/#sec-9
Therefore the overarching design goal of freenet is to make censorship as hard as technically possible. That’s the reason for - providing anonymity (else you could be threatened with repercussions - as seen in the case of the wikileaks informer from the army in the USA), - building it as free software network (else you could just shut down the central website, as people tried with wikileaks), - providing safe pseudonyms and caching of the content on all participating nodes (else people could censor by spamming or overloading nodes), - including good moderation tools (otherwise people could censor by just "flooding the zone with shit"), and even - the darknet mode and enhancements in usability (else freenet could be stopped by just prosecuting everyone who uses it, or it would reach too few people to be able to counter censorship in the clearnet).
One core difference between MaidSAFE is that Freenet provides communication. Content in Freenet stays accessible while people access it, without tracking accesses: When you upload something, you can imagine that a clock starts ticking. After a while (depending on file size) the content is no longer accessible. But if someone accesses it, their node "heals" that content, which resets that clock.
Also Freenet enables people to connect purely to their friends, so there’s no central point of failure or detection.
I once did a comparison to other projects for a funding proposal (that did not succeed, though) which should still give you an idea about the difference between Freenet and other systems: http://www.draketo.de/proj/freenet-funding/#sec-9
Having been in that space at the time, I think this point is not arguable at all. Freenet was not the first decentralized file sharing system. Freenet might have been the subject of a PhD thesis in 1999, but by the time it became even slightly usable Napster and Gnutella already had substantial user bases. (Similar to Ceph BTW which had a long gap between being a PhD thesis and being an actual usable distributed filesystem, during which time others had existed in the wild for some time.) The "arguable" part is whether you could include eDonkey, GNUnet, and others in that list. What is true AFAIK is that Freenet was the first such system with things like censorship resistance as a primary design goal (though the MojoNation folks might even disagree with that) and a non-trivial user base.
In case anyone doesn't believe me, here's the Freenet thesis which actually mentions both Gnutella and Napster in references. Hard to claim precedence when that's the case.
https://www.cs.cornell.edu/people/egs/615/freenet.pdf
In case anyone doesn't believe me, here's the Freenet thesis which actually mentions both Gnutella and Napster in references. Hard to claim precedence when that's the case.
https://www.cs.cornell.edu/people/egs/615/freenet.pdf
Napster wasn't decentralized, it relied on a centralized index which is why it was shut down. Gnutella relied on a broadcast search which didn't scale. Freenet's use of small world routing to be both decentralized and scalable was unique, as was it's use of cryptographic contracts (signed subspace keys).
That paper isn't the original Freenet paper, it came later. This is the original: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Distributed-Decentra...
That paper isn't the original Freenet paper, it came later. This is the original: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Distributed-Decentra...
Gnutella moved from broadcast to dynamically structured search early on (in version 0.6, 2002). See https://rfc-gnutella.sourceforge.net/src/rfc-0_6-draft.html
Including decentralized download via HTTP using just three added headers and Tiger Tree Hash Exchange: https://rfc-gnutella.sourceforge.net/src/Partial_File_Sharin...
Scalability was limited to global search in around 5 million nodes (with the network spanning 40 million people at its peak), though, due to restrictions in the number of TCP connections Windows (private edition) supported.
Including decentralized download via HTTP using just three added headers and Tiger Tree Hash Exchange: https://rfc-gnutella.sourceforge.net/src/Partial_File_Sharin...
Scalability was limited to global search in around 5 million nodes (with the network spanning 40 million people at its peak), though, due to restrictions in the number of TCP connections Windows (private edition) supported.
Flagged as a (rather obvious) dup account to get around what appears to be a shadowbanned s4n1ty who had just made the exact same comment.
Can't blame somebody for that; shadowbans are repulsive.
Really cool stuff, thank you for this!
Great content, by the way.
I really want to like Freenet. The idea of a serverless network with resources distributed amongst the nodes is such an elegant solution. It makes even more sense today with the easy access to fiber or high-speed cable and cheap storage. It's everything I wish the internet as a whole could be.
But when I've used it the experience was absolutely dreadful. It's difficult to find anything, and there's a lot of emphasis on trusted peers, but I don't know anyone who has even heard of this, and it's unclear how you'd find nodes to trust. Also it's horribly slow and the proxy server eats a ton of resources.
I think it's a beautiful concept with massive potential, but I'm extremely skeptical it will ever find widespread use
But when I've used it the experience was absolutely dreadful. It's difficult to find anything, and there's a lot of emphasis on trusted peers, but I don't know anyone who has even heard of this, and it's unclear how you'd find nodes to trust. Also it's horribly slow and the proxy server eats a ton of resources.
I think it's a beautiful concept with massive potential, but I'm extremely skeptical it will ever find widespread use
The author's Locutus project seems to be a more relevant to today's web needs.
Freenet is well designed and well maintained, but it is a solution looking for a problem. We dont yet life in the police state where everyone's political opinions need to be hidden in dark networks. At the moment, freenet has a bad reputation for hosting very illegal content. That rep is so bad that if authorities ever look into your internet traffic, freenet connections are more than enough to get warrants that will rip your life apart. Imho, running freenet is like commuting to work on a sportbike. It is perfectly legal (i used to do it) but dont be suprised if the cops pay closer attention to you. Except those "random" license checks by the roadside arent nearly as embarrassing as them inspecting your computers.
> We dont yet life in the police state where everyone's political opinions need to be hidden in dark networks.
Millions of people are in places where acknowledging that they want abortions[1] or miscarried[2] can pique the state's interest, along with people who are trans[3] or have trans kids[4].
We have police using web searches to prosecute women for abortion[1], we have states compiling lists of transgender individuals[3] and we have parents being investigated by the state because their kids were open about being trans[4].
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/03/abortio...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59214544
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/14/texas-trans...
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/texas-tra...
Millions of people are in places where acknowledging that they want abortions[1] or miscarried[2] can pique the state's interest, along with people who are trans[3] or have trans kids[4].
We have police using web searches to prosecute women for abortion[1], we have states compiling lists of transgender individuals[3] and we have parents being investigated by the state because their kids were open about being trans[4].
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/03/abortio...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59214544
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/14/texas-trans...
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/texas-tra...
That is what Tor is for. If all you need is protection from authorities, Tor is enough. Freenet is content-focused, designed so that not even the original uploader can ever remove popular content. Tor protects people and speech from the police. Freenet protects files from everybody.
That’s not quite true.
Freenet protects communication — content in flow. Somewhat larger files that are not accessed automatically disappear from Freenet after a short while.
Tor protects your connection to another computer.
The stated usecases are excellent examples for usage of Freenet: information for transgender people or about abortions. Even accessing such information can get you in danger nowadays.
And a site accessed via Tor can more easily be compromised (to get your identity by tracking information from your OS or similar) or taken down (so the information is gone).
Freenet protects communication — content in flow. Somewhat larger files that are not accessed automatically disappear from Freenet after a short while.
Tor protects your connection to another computer.
The stated usecases are excellent examples for usage of Freenet: information for transgender people or about abortions. Even accessing such information can get you in danger nowadays.
And a site accessed via Tor can more easily be compromised (to get your identity by tracking information from your OS or similar) or taken down (so the information is gone).
Plenty of pertinent information exists as documents, like lists of abortion providers or how/where to get hormone replacement therapy, etc. Freenet can be used for such content and would save a person from having related search queries and sites in their normal web history/traffic that can later be used against them.
Well.. Tor can create trouble for you as well, or at least it did for me. I used to sometimes go through Tor to visit competitors' websites when I used my work computer, just because I didn't want to leave a trail of my company's domain in the competitor's logs. That was quite innocent I thought. Then my sysadmin informed me that the national security monitor (or whatever it was called), which my company was connected to, got an alarm on that. Turns out they had a trigger on Tor connections because they considered it as something used for malicious purposes. It's even triggered if a passive Tor application is running on a mobile device connected to the wifi guest network, b/c it may sometimes probe a node even if not in use. So, uninstall it is. If it's that easy to monitor that someone is using Tor I don't see how it can actually be used by anyone anywhere, where it matters (for something more important than what I used it for).
Yes Tor usage by default is trivial to detect because the list of Tor nodes your client connects to is public. The EFF has a nice interactive graphic that shows what different actors see if you use Tor [0] You can make that harder to detect by using a bridge. https://bridges.torproject.org/
[0] https://www.eff.org/de/pages/tor-and-https
[0] https://www.eff.org/de/pages/tor-and-https
That’s why we need to make it the default that people use Tor whenever they search for anything connected to health or politics — topics that others might want to discriminate against you on.
Women looking for abortions in the US just learned the hard way why this is an essential practice.
Recommended watching: The NSA surveillance doesn’t scale — Constanze Kurz at Euro Python 2014: https://archive.org/details/EuroPython_2014_kSFzmDYc
Women looking for abortions in the US just learned the hard way why this is an essential practice.
Recommended watching: The NSA surveillance doesn’t scale — Constanze Kurz at Euro Python 2014: https://archive.org/details/EuroPython_2014_kSFzmDYc
> national security monitor
What is this? Are governments mandating that corporations install government monitoring modules in their networks?
What is this? Are governments mandating that corporations install government monitoring modules in their networks?
Yes. Various countries, including the US, mandate isps install equipment for easy wire tapping. Google "CALEA". There is a whole consultant industry supporting compliance with such laws.
Came here to post about this seconds after you did.
Not only CALEA, but telecoms, ISPs, and other providers work hand in hand with governments who request data, whether those requests are via NSLs, warrants, subpoenas, court orders or just government employees asking nicely for the data.
Many companies, including for example Apple who is open about this, are happy to hand over private information via simple requests from law enforcement that they are not legally bound to respond to like they are with warrants or subpoenas.
I'd assume by scratching law enforcement's back, the government scratches compliant companies' backs, as well, considering the contracts they get and favorable treatment they get from regulators.
Not only CALEA, but telecoms, ISPs, and other providers work hand in hand with governments who request data, whether those requests are via NSLs, warrants, subpoenas, court orders or just government employees asking nicely for the data.
Many companies, including for example Apple who is open about this, are happy to hand over private information via simple requests from law enforcement that they are not legally bound to respond to like they are with warrants or subpoenas.
I'd assume by scratching law enforcement's back, the government scratches compliant companies' backs, as well, considering the contracts they get and favorable treatment they get from regulators.
I was under the impression that law enforcement has established a large number of Tor exit nodes, allowing them to unravel the onion (so to speak).
Exit nodes would let them decrypt plaintext network traffic coming out of the exit node, but if they controlled some of the entrance and relay nodes, too, the chances of being able to deanonymize traffic increases.
Given that Tor is a US government creation, I'd assume they'd find value in controlling as many different nodes as they can in order to deanonymize traffic. Tor only has/had value to them as a way for government agents to communicate clandestinely in other jurisdictions.
Given that Tor is a US government creation, I'd assume they'd find value in controlling as many different nodes as they can in order to deanonymize traffic. Tor only has/had value to them as a way for government agents to communicate clandestinely in other jurisdictions.
Lanz(2)
> We dont yet life in the police state where everyone's political opinions need to be hidden in dark networks.
You may not, but many of us actually do. Naturally not every political opinion, and it depends on how you express it, but still.
> At the moment, freenet has a bad reputation for hosting very illegal content.
Why is that a bad reputation? Isn't that part of the point? ... Perhaps you mean unsavory, or immoral, or socially detrimental.
> but dont be suprised if the cops pay closer attention to you
Now that is a significant point in its disfavor, yes.
You may not, but many of us actually do. Naturally not every political opinion, and it depends on how you express it, but still.
> At the moment, freenet has a bad reputation for hosting very illegal content.
Why is that a bad reputation? Isn't that part of the point? ... Perhaps you mean unsavory, or immoral, or socially detrimental.
> but dont be suprised if the cops pay closer attention to you
Now that is a significant point in its disfavor, yes.
I said illegal and meant exactly that. Morality and societal norms are debates for twitter and facebook. Tor/freenet/i2p are at another level of seriousness. Freenet has a rep for child abuse imagery.
[deleted]
> Freenet has a rep for child abuse imagery.
If I connect to Freenet, will I be offered images of abused children? ... I would assume the answer is no.
Well, child abuse is one of the top excuses for governments to demand to be able to spy on everyone.
Once we've seen a complete ban on government use of violence because it sometimes kills innocent people, then talk to me about how private communications is problematic because people use it for child porn.
If I connect to Freenet, will I be offered images of abused children? ... I would assume the answer is no.
Well, child abuse is one of the top excuses for governments to demand to be able to spy on everyone.
Once we've seen a complete ban on government use of violence because it sometimes kills innocent people, then talk to me about how private communications is problematic because people use it for child porn.
That “think of the children” argument is so tired and played out.
Freenet is known for child abuse content, a topic so sensitive and disturbing people don’t want to even refer to it directly.
These days you have to go actively searching to find such on Freenet. And as journalists proved multiple times¹, if you do go searching, you’ll find a lot more of it in the clearnet via forums accessible with Tor than in Freenet.
And for the highest security in Freenet (the friend-to-friend mode), you need to have friends whom you trust not to go to lengths to spy on you — friends would be able to run statistical attacks if you transmit large amounts of known content. And such trusted friends are what people who want to access child abuse content do not have.
¹: Example (in German): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iItLpwkQMUQ
And for the highest security in Freenet (the friend-to-friend mode), you need to have friends whom you trust not to go to lengths to spy on you — friends would be able to run statistical attacks if you transmit large amounts of known content. And such trusted friends are what people who want to access child abuse content do not have.
¹: Example (in German): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iItLpwkQMUQ
>"We dont yet life in the police state where everyone's political opinions need to be hidden in dark networks"
The next statement below totally contradict the first one above.
>"hat rep is so bad that if authorities ever look into your internet traffic, freenet connections are more than enough to get warrants that will rip your life apart."
If mere internet traffic will "rip your life apart" - that is a police state in my book.
The next statement below totally contradict the first one above.
>"hat rep is so bad that if authorities ever look into your internet traffic, freenet connections are more than enough to get warrants that will rip your life apart."
If mere internet traffic will "rip your life apart" - that is a police state in my book.
> If mere internet traffic will "rip your life apart" - that is a police state in my book.
Exactly. Anyone who thinks the US is not a police state has not been paying close enough attention, because the standard for getting a warrant is much lower than this. Moreover, cops will exaggerate the circumstances to get questionable warrants, and being served will absolutely ruin your day if not your life.
Exactly. Anyone who thinks the US is not a police state has not been paying close enough attention, because the standard for getting a warrant is much lower than this. Moreover, cops will exaggerate the circumstances to get questionable warrants, and being served will absolutely ruin your day if not your life.
You don't live in a police state. My Russian friends definitely do. You can easily get a large fine (on the order of 2 average monthly salaries), or 5-10 years in prison for stating your political opinion on the internet. There are many countries like that and I am not at all surprised that the top comment does not even acknowledge their existence.
[deleted]
Just having a Freenet connection does not get a warrant — though there are researchers who use some fishy statistics which may be reason not to run a very fast node in the US (because running a fast node provably causes false positives in their statistics).
For some more details, see https://freenetproject.org/the-discredited-levine-2017-appro... and the links therein.
For some more details, see https://freenetproject.org/the-discredited-levine-2017-appro... and the links therein.
I think you might underestimate how easy it is to get a search warrant, paticularly in the US. This isnt the standard for arrest, let alone conviction. A cop saying "the machine regularly connected to a suspect network" is more than enough for many judges/magistrates... most of which dont know an IP from an IPA.
(Lol, got over v underestimate mixed up.)
(Lol, got over v underestimate mixed up.)
Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the lawyer pinch zooming on an photo gallery on an iPhone and arguing its legit is all you need to know
It's fascinating how bipartisan this issue is and how little people still seem to care.
Can you provide examples?
So you fear you getting "warrants that will rip your life apart" just for using a program, and you think you don't life in a police state?
> We dont yet life in the police state where everyone's political opinions need to be hidden in dark networks.
Maybe you don't. I expect my country will turn into such a state mere days from now. A communist president will assume power next year and I have no doubt he will regulate the press and the internet to extents I didn't think possible. There's also a judiciary dictatorship installed with supreme court judges openly persecuting right wing political parties. Tools like these will be absolutely vital for anyone exercising political or intellectual freedom.
Maybe you don't. I expect my country will turn into such a state mere days from now. A communist president will assume power next year and I have no doubt he will regulate the press and the internet to extents I didn't think possible. There's also a judiciary dictatorship installed with supreme court judges openly persecuting right wing political parties. Tools like these will be absolutely vital for anyone exercising political or intellectual freedom.
We’d rather have it and not need it at the moment, versus needing it at the moment and not having it. In other words, persistent development at this early stage is about being proactive.
[deleted]
Ever heard of China?
That’s where we don’t want to end up, because they actually have on-device spying on mobile devices via the IME (which the Freenet First Start wizard warns about to avoid giving a false sense of security).
Something like the planned ChatControl,¹ but through a non-trustworthy third party most people have installed for convenience.
Nothing can fully protect against that.
¹: https://chatcontrol.eu
Something like the planned ChatControl,¹ but through a non-trustworthy third party most people have installed for convenience.
Nothing can fully protect against that.
¹: https://chatcontrol.eu
>We dont yet life in the police state where everyone's political opinions need to be hidden in dark networks.
Try being a communist in America. You will get fired and your life ruined for your political opinions.
Try being a communist in America. You will get fired and your life ruined for your political opinions.
Try disagreeing with the woke mob or being a Conservative. How many times have they tried to cancel Chris Pratt for being a Christian now?
It's been a few decades since McCarthy's house unamerican activities committee was a thing.
These days you get people openly saying that capitalism is evil and major politicians insisting that ubi is the only way forward.
These days you get people openly saying that capitalism is evil and major politicians insisting that ubi is the only way forward.
No, do not try to be a communist, anywhere. It's a horrible political philosophy.
100m dead people agree with you.
Any source for that made up number? "The black book of communism"? The one book who listed fascists killed by communists as "victims of communism"? That book lists people killed in wars started by the USA as victims of communism, for gods sake!
That book has been laughed out of the room of serious conversation for being basically capitalist propaganda and complete bullshit.
A more detailed debunk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RIFgoVNVUQ
That book has been laughed out of the room of serious conversation for being basically capitalist propaganda and complete bullshit.
A more detailed debunk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RIFgoVNVUQ
Stalin and Mao had nothing in common with communism they just called it "communism" (or more precise Stalinism/Maoism...the difference here is really important), please read Marx.
BTW: I don't say it's a perfect system but worth a look, and maybe one could mix both systems together.
BTW: I don't say it's a perfect system but worth a look, and maybe one could mix both systems together.
When all practical realizations of a political ideology end up as being oppressive one party states, perhaps there's something wrong with the ideology.
Then again, seeing the current state of "market-based" Russia, I'm giving more credence to the idea that it was not communism than ruined Russia, but vice versa. They seem to have that effect on many things.
Then again, seeing the current state of "market-based" Russia, I'm giving more credence to the idea that it was not communism than ruined Russia, but vice versa. They seem to have that effect on many things.
Stalin and Mao were communists and they handsomely defended communism and transformed their respective countries into global powers. You have bought into capitalist demonization of Stalin and Mao. Stalin in particular was responsible for the enormous growth of the USSR and for providing high standars of living to all citizens in the Soviet Union like they never experienced before. They both also had to defend themselves against imperialist aggresion while trying to support global communist struggle.
Don't be so quick to jump into cold war propaganda against Stalin, with all his failures and shortcomings he was still an amazing leader.
Don't be so quick to jump into cold war propaganda against Stalin, with all his failures and shortcomings he was still an amazing leader.
>high standards of living to all citizens in the Soviet Union
You must live i a parallel world...this is unbelievable.
>he was still an amazing leader.
Now i am getting sick of you.
You must live i a parallel world...this is unbelievable.
>he was still an amazing leader.
Now i am getting sick of you.
Its amazing how propaganda can shape human perception. Stalin literally oversaw transforming the Soviet Union from agrarian society to world superpower, yet it is "unbelievable". This is what capitalist propaganda does to your brain, you literally believe lies are true, and actual reality is false. The USSR was not an industrialized, first world nation, no, it was a cartoon nightmare. I pity you. Your brain is completely consumed by propaganda. Wish you the best in freeing yourself from propaganda.
>This is what capitalist propaganda does to your brain, you literally believe lies are true, and actual reality is false
Holodomor never happened, and the Gulags are just western propaganda right?
Holodomor never happened, and the Gulags are just western propaganda right?
Those are buzzwords the capitalist world uses. Of course a primary agrarian society can have famines. It's not a surprise that an agrarian, semi-feudal society such as the USSR when the bolsheviks took power could suffer such a disaster. What they never tell you is that:
a) It was the last big famine that the USSR suffered in its history (after a long history of famines), after it the union of republics experienced tremendous growth and prosperity and famines were erradicated once and for all
b) Famines such as that were common in capitalist countries, like Ireland, and in colonies of capitalist countries, such as India. There, the british killed dozens of millions of people, maybe surpassing the famines in the USSR, and it was a conscicious policy of the british (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_famine_of_1899%E2%80%93...). Yet you never hear about how England is an abhorrent country that should be shamed and erradicated from this world. They killed far more people and it was a completely conscicious decision, but THEY are the ones to judge which famines we remember and which ones we forget.
Gulags: another western buzzword. The famous book that popularized the concept in the West was the "Gulag Archipielago", which has throughly debunked as a fabrication, made up from folk tales, oral testimonies without proof and just made up bullshit. Even wikipedia admits it:
"Natalya Reshetovskaya described her husband's book as "folklore", telling a newspaper in 1974 that "the subject of 'Gulag Archipelago,' as I felt at the moment when he was writing it, is not in fact the life of the country and not even the life of the camps but the folklore of the camps."" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago)
Yes, there were gulgas, but those were centers of detention, not death camps. The average prison length was around 5 years. And yes, prisons with forced labor are horrible, but America has them and they consider themselves to be the most "democratic" country in the world, right? There isn't any aspect of the gulags that is much different from what we have today in most democratic countries, yet they are singled out as an extraordinary fact, while Guantanamo Bay is just America being democratic and promoting freedom and stuff.
Finally, you have to remember that the Soviet Union was under extreme internal and external pressure to destroy communism and bring back the burgeois class to power. There were plenty of reactionary, anti-revolutionary spies, saboteours, nazis, fascists, tzarists and so on that wanted to destroy the revolution. How do you deal with that, if you want to preserve the revolution? Yes, a lot of innocent people were unjustly condemned (again, not too different from our current system), but you have to have prisons to deal with people (a lot of them nazis) who want to destroy communism and bring back capitalist exploitation.
a) It was the last big famine that the USSR suffered in its history (after a long history of famines), after it the union of republics experienced tremendous growth and prosperity and famines were erradicated once and for all
b) Famines such as that were common in capitalist countries, like Ireland, and in colonies of capitalist countries, such as India. There, the british killed dozens of millions of people, maybe surpassing the famines in the USSR, and it was a conscicious policy of the british (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_famine_of_1899%E2%80%93...). Yet you never hear about how England is an abhorrent country that should be shamed and erradicated from this world. They killed far more people and it was a completely conscicious decision, but THEY are the ones to judge which famines we remember and which ones we forget.
Gulags: another western buzzword. The famous book that popularized the concept in the West was the "Gulag Archipielago", which has throughly debunked as a fabrication, made up from folk tales, oral testimonies without proof and just made up bullshit. Even wikipedia admits it:
"Natalya Reshetovskaya described her husband's book as "folklore", telling a newspaper in 1974 that "the subject of 'Gulag Archipelago,' as I felt at the moment when he was writing it, is not in fact the life of the country and not even the life of the camps but the folklore of the camps."" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago)
Yes, there were gulgas, but those were centers of detention, not death camps. The average prison length was around 5 years. And yes, prisons with forced labor are horrible, but America has them and they consider themselves to be the most "democratic" country in the world, right? There isn't any aspect of the gulags that is much different from what we have today in most democratic countries, yet they are singled out as an extraordinary fact, while Guantanamo Bay is just America being democratic and promoting freedom and stuff.
Finally, you have to remember that the Soviet Union was under extreme internal and external pressure to destroy communism and bring back the burgeois class to power. There were plenty of reactionary, anti-revolutionary spies, saboteours, nazis, fascists, tzarists and so on that wanted to destroy the revolution. How do you deal with that, if you want to preserve the revolution? Yes, a lot of innocent people were unjustly condemned (again, not too different from our current system), but you have to have prisons to deal with people (a lot of them nazis) who want to destroy communism and bring back capitalist exploitation.
> fabrication, made up from folk tales, oral testimonies without proof and just made up bullshit
I believe most of what we know about the alleged Holocaust was also from oral testimonies. And I don't think they were cross-examined at all in Nuremberg? Other highly suspicious sources include a young girl's diary.
You sound very biased to assume that only side did propaganda. You have an extremely provocative theory, that the alleged massacres of Katyn and Holodomor didn't happen, very interesting.
It's also quite damning that skepticism of this event has been brutally criminalized.
> Even wikipedia admits it
It's a known thing that Wikipedia (it's inner cadre of editors) has been taken over by commies. It's unreliable when it comes to anything even mildly "political", unfortunately.
I believe most of what we know about the alleged Holocaust was also from oral testimonies. And I don't think they were cross-examined at all in Nuremberg? Other highly suspicious sources include a young girl's diary.
You sound very biased to assume that only side did propaganda. You have an extremely provocative theory, that the alleged massacres of Katyn and Holodomor didn't happen, very interesting.
It's also quite damning that skepticism of this event has been brutally criminalized.
> Even wikipedia admits it
It's a known thing that Wikipedia (it's inner cadre of editors) has been taken over by commies. It's unreliable when it comes to anything even mildly "political", unfortunately.
Look i stop here, you twist reality so it matches your illusion of a "Great Stalin", and mix in half truth.
It just makes no sense to argue like that.
If you want to change your mind that many Gulags where death camps have a read:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1gxp6fb
>>Russia's Penal Colony in the Far East: A Translation of Vlas Doroshevich's"Sakhalin"
It just makes no sense to argue like that.
If you want to change your mind that many Gulags where death camps have a read:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1gxp6fb
>>Russia's Penal Colony in the Far East: A Translation of Vlas Doroshevich's"Sakhalin"
Man, are you kidding me or you are a troll or a CIA ops?
Doroshevich died in 1922, 7 years before Stalin took power!
Sakhalin was written 20 years before the October Revolution! What the fuck are you talking about?
You know what doesnt make any sense? To quote works of fiction written by novelists 20 years before the Russian Revolution to argue against Stalin.
This is the life expectancy in Russia since 1845: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041395/life-expectancy-...
You can see that Stalin was directly responsible for increasing life expectancy from 37 years (in 1930) to 58 (in 1955). That's 20 more years! And the communist policies almost doubled life expectancy until it started to stagnate in the 60s. Also, part Stalin, part Lenin were responsibly for erradicating illiteracy from the Soviet Union, read about the Likbez.
Those are facts, not some works of fiction written by some dude 20 years before the russian revolution.
Doroshevich died in 1922, 7 years before Stalin took power!
Sakhalin was written 20 years before the October Revolution! What the fuck are you talking about?
You know what doesnt make any sense? To quote works of fiction written by novelists 20 years before the Russian Revolution to argue against Stalin.
This is the life expectancy in Russia since 1845: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041395/life-expectancy-...
You can see that Stalin was directly responsible for increasing life expectancy from 37 years (in 1930) to 58 (in 1955). That's 20 more years! And the communist policies almost doubled life expectancy until it started to stagnate in the 60s. Also, part Stalin, part Lenin were responsibly for erradicating illiteracy from the Soviet Union, read about the Likbez.
Those are facts, not some works of fiction written by some dude 20 years before the russian revolution.
[deleted]
You've never experienced communism. So stop talking out your ass.
I'd take it over this abomination that we have now any time.
Vietnam. Cheap life, good life, friendly people. None of this "I'll try to screw you over and steal your money, because money is all that interests me"
You have no idea.
Vietnam. Cheap life, good life, friendly people. None of this "I'll try to screw you over and steal your money, because money is all that interests me"
You have no idea.
We don't have to experience everything personally, because we have written an oral histories.
I assure you, I have a pretty good idea.
I assure you, I have a pretty good idea.
Written and oral histories are fallible
If this is the level of argumentation, so are personal experiences. Perhaps even more so.
Communism is far more fallible, base on the history of failed communist states.
Hey, try to be a social-nationalist anywhere, you'll probably even get jailed for your political opinions.
No, do not try to be a nazi. It's a horrible political philosophy.
Well, that was more like a rhetorical hypothesis. But I won't try to be a communist either.
Fortunately most of the nationalists I know recognize the value of capitalism, and most of the socialists think globalization is a good idea.
Globalism is destroying the environment.
Texas will take your children from you if they get a report that they are transexual
mikrotikker(2)
Also check out Locutus https://github.com/freenet/locutus from the same inventor as Freenet
I dabbled with Freenet when it first came out in '99/2000 is but I found the performance just awful - think I once waited 30 mins for a 100k html file. And each year after they said "we solved that, works great now" but it didn't. I'd be curious to know what it's really like now. Well, I would, except that there was so much CP on Freenet I don't think I'd dare install it because of the risk of taint. Is there much legit anon material?
There is a lot of personal opinion nowadays — along with forums and microblogging and people discussing philosophical arguments in IRC-over-Freenet (FLIP).
You’ll wait up to 30s¹ for a 100k html file nowadays. 1 minute for a 2 MiB website.
¹: if you have at least 10 peers. If you try to run with the lowest possible specs (5 peers), you won’t get a good experience, but with 10 peers it works pretty well (and the Japanese with their awesome connection speeds actually get 60 peers).
Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34180729
You’ll wait up to 30s¹ for a 100k html file nowadays. 1 minute for a 2 MiB website.
¹: if you have at least 10 peers. If you try to run with the lowest possible specs (5 peers), you won’t get a good experience, but with 10 peers it works pretty well (and the Japanese with their awesome connection speeds actually get 60 peers).
Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34180729
These are some of the most underrated devs on the internet.
Definitely. Ian Clarke's Freenet has been around since March 2000 which is when I discovered Linux and Perl. The only thing I don't understand is why it was written in Java instead of C/C++. Napster was also built with Java, however, so even slow as Java was back then it was still fast enough for building file-sharing networks.
Java was a much better choice security-wise back in 2000.
But I think it crippled adoption, it required far too much RAM for the computers of the time.
But I think it crippled adoption, it required far too much RAM for the computers of the time.
[deleted]
lmao at two nearly identical glowie comments
While Freenet is a technically well-designed and maintained network, it has a reputation for hosting illegal content and being associated with warrants that can cause significant disruptions in users' lives. Using Freenet may attract more attention from authorities and may not be necessary at the present time, as the current political climate does not necessitate the use of such networks to hide political opinions.
This reads like a ChatGPT censor trying to assure me that I don't need to know how to make a Molotov cocktail.
where do you live ?
Sorry I’m not tech savvy! How is this different from Tor?
Like Tor, Freenet attempts to provide anonymity by obscuring the ultimate origin of any given request
Unlike Tor, Freenet can't be directly used like a VPN.
Unlike Tor, Freenet nodes don't route to specific origin servers, but also provide storage to the network. Data is "inserted" to announce its presence, and then cached along the path of any requests. This is supposed to both provide robust access to popular data and provide plausible deniability against any given node operator being responsible for the data (the extent to which it succeeds at either aim in practice is a subject of quite some discussion).
Unlike Tor, Freenet can't be directly used like a VPN.
Unlike Tor, Freenet nodes don't route to specific origin servers, but also provide storage to the network. Data is "inserted" to announce its presence, and then cached along the path of any requests. This is supposed to both provide robust access to popular data and provide plausible deniability against any given node operator being responsible for the data (the extent to which it succeeds at either aim in practice is a subject of quite some discussion).
Louis Rossmann recently did an interview with Ian Clarke (founder of the freenet project) and it is a pretty good dive into it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoV9amsnaQg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoV9amsnaQg
https://youtu.be/eoV9amsnaQg?t=360
I had to rewind a few times. Is Clarke saying the covid "lab leak" theory was censored and turned out to be true?
I had to rewind a few times. Is Clarke saying the covid "lab leak" theory was censored and turned out to be true?
Tor gives you an anonymous connection to some server. Stuff that’s not linked to is still available to the server admin.
Freenet provides an anonymous, encrypted, and distributed cache that does not rely on the security of any one server. Stuff that’s not linked to could just as well not exist, because no one can access it.
Freenet provides an anonymous, encrypted, and distributed cache that does not rely on the security of any one server. Stuff that’s not linked to could just as well not exist, because no one can access it.
In a nutshell: Tor is communication, while Freenet is storage (with some communication as a matter of necessity). Folks like me might quibble about whether Freenet is reliable storage or something more like caching, but the key point is that data exists in Freenet at rest for retrieval later.
In basic terms, Tor is used to browse the Internet, while Freenet is used to browse Freenet. You can browse the Internet without Tor, but you cannot browse Freenet without Freenet.
Freenet is slightly older and doesn’t route internet traffic, just distributed static sites.
Thank you for solving my 20 years mystery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrRqUkJpMQ
The interview -- like most of my interviews -- goes into depth about the entire space, and also touches on Locutus, his new project.
PS: I like to interview people on topics related to what we build at Qbix and Intercoin.
Freedom of Speech and Capitalism (with Noam Chomsky) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv5mI6ClPGc
Identity and Civic Engagement (with David Boulet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRzVj2W9WGM
Free Cities (Patri Friedman, grandson of Milton Friedman) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgil1M9tAXU
Community Economics (Thomas Greco) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXTn52kL0Yo
Crypto and Securities Laws (Sara Hanks) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocrqgkJn4m0