One Mans Blog
Specialization is for Insects.
Posted on May 15, 2007 - 1:55am by John P. in Philanthropy, Thoughts
Freedom. It’s nice, right? It ought to be… the freedom we enjoy was paid for with the blood of our forefathers, and is maintained by the blood of our siblings. And no freedom is more precious than that of speech. From it all other freedom flows.
Unfortunately there are still many oppressive regimes that do not offer the luxury of free speech, and people are being tortured and killed for speaking out against injustice. (As I’ve often noted.) This is why I have decided to put my money where my mouth is and provide financial support for the Freenet Project.
Freenet is free software which lets you publish and obtain information on the Internet without fear of censorship. To achieve this freedom, the network is entirely decentralized and publishers and consumers of information are anonymous. Without anonymity there can never be true freedom of speech, and without decentralization the network will be vulnerable to attack.
One prominent feature of the current Freenet Project is that in order to join the network you must enter through someone you trust, or at least someone you know. This is called “Darknet” and it ensures that the people you are connecting to aren’t the very people you’re afraid of. In some places merely using Freenet can land you in jail… or worse.
The one drawback is that it can be a little difficult to get connected (which is not so bad when your life depends on it). For this reason, the project is being expanded to include a feature whereby users, at their sole discretion, can opt to let Freenet find neighbors for them. This will be called “opennet” and will trade some security for convienence in order to allow more people to participate.
Time Magazine had the following to say in 2000:
The implications are profound. Dissidents in totalitarian states could use Freenet to post samizdat that once had to be cautiously hand-circulated. Whistle-blowers could safely bring smoking-gun documents to light.
But Freenet could also be put to less high-minded use. Critics say it will be a boon to drug dealers, terrorists and child pornographers. And it poses a new threat to intellectual-property rights. With Napster, at least there’s a company to sue and a way to trace individuals who have downloaded CDs. If Freenet catches on, it may be impossible to find anyone to punish.
More than a decade ago when I founded HTMLHelp.com I had a vision of the Internet as the “great equalizer”. I believed that it would free us from the content filtering imposed by mega-media companies and governments. It turns out this has been true for most of us - but not all.
I view supporting the Freenet Project as a logical extension of that original dream, this time to include people who were previously unable to freely participate.
After careful discussions with my friend Ian Clarke, and as a demonstration of my support for this project, I have awarded Freenet $10,000 towards advancing the software to it’s next release. Additionally, advertising revenues from One Man’s Blog for the remainder of 2007 will be donated to the Freenet Project.
I’m not doing it for the tax benefit, but to draw attention to a cause that is very much in need, and worthy, of support. As an example, see the Freenet China news page which subverts the governments attempts at censorship.
I would encourage you to provide financial support to the project as well. Freenet serves as a modern day equivalent of the Underground Railroad, and this is your opportunity to help procure freedom for those who can’t help themselves. Please, donate whatever you can to this 503c non-profit organization. Even $5-$10 helps considerably.
Here is a video of Freenet founder Ian Clarke delivering a lecture about the project. It gives an overview and discusses the challenges of free expression that people face:
If you are interested in actually trying out Freenet, first download it here, then read the Wiki about how to get it running. If I know you personally, or you are a prominent netizen that I can research thoroughly, you may send me a request and I’ll serve as your entree into the Freenet.
Please note, some people are having a hard time connecting to the Freenet. The funding which I’m providing (and hopefully YOU) is being put to use specifically to solve this problem and to enable even more people to gain access to freedom of speech.
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The only problem I have with freenet is that fact that you have no idea what is on your system. You have given part of your hard drive to the community, now you have no idea what is stored on your hard drive. I know its safe security wise, but just not knowing is what keeps my away.
Yes. That is true. There is a philosophical issue at play here that is difficult to wrestle with. On one hand no one wants to aid criminal enterprises or radicals. On the other hand the potential to provide aid to people without freedom is quite promising.
I would view this decision as similar to many others. For example, do you provide food and aid to an impoverished country when you know the corrupt government is going to siphon off at least a portion of it for themselves? It is certainly easy to argue not to provide material aid to anyone under such circumstances. But one could also come to the conclusion that in order to help the poor there is inefficiency built into the system which results in some “cost”.
In Freenet I believe we can see the nobility represented in the concept of absolutely free speech, and the cost in terms of the fact that this may at times be providing material aid to people we don’t want. In the end we have to find other ways of dealing with the riff raff.
No one ever said that freedom comes cheap.
John
JimShoe and John P., I totally agree about the security concerns (giving access to your hard drive to the community). On the other hand, being centralized by one router or firewall (like china as the Ian said in the video) is disaster.
I was born in middle eastern country and I lived their first 22 years before I moved to los angeles. I used to feel scary to write in Forums what I feel about politics, women rights, or anything. We can not speak loudly because of the intelligence and we can not write on the net since the government monitor everything. I am not sure if you will believe me if I tell you that few of my friends were jailed bacause they posted in a forum joke about the president. See this site:
http://www.freekareem.org/
This guy is Egyptian blogger, he has been in Jail for long time because he posted in his blog secular posts!!!!
I personally have special love for Freenet specially after the huge project we did during the Masters degree.
I really feel that freenet has creative idea, it needs to progress.
That is a terrible story about your friends and I’m sorry that you had to live for decades under such an oppressive system.
Personally, I don’t care what religion or politics people choose to believe, or not believe, as long as no one is forcing beliefs on others. If you can provide a convincing argument to win people over, fine. If not, they should be allowed to continue to think whatever they want and be able to argue their reasons for their belief.
Thanks for sharing your story. I believe it further emphasizes why the Freenet Project is worthy of support.
John
Thank you for reply John. I totally agree about what you said:
“Personally, I don’t care what religion or politics people choose to believe, or not believe, as long as no one is forcing beliefs on others.”
But this is not the case in huge regions of the world (middle east + china). I lived in many countries in the middle east and the situation in terms of freedom is not something you can imagine.
I would like to add another story. In an election of an Arabic country (actually it was not election, it was election to say if you disagree to have the current president son the new president!!!). A few bloggers I know, started asking for real election. 7 bloggers were disappeared (I am very serious), and till this moment no one knows where they are.
I do not expect from Freenet to change mentality of those idiots :), but it will help the blogging community.
Adi
One can never get privacy online… even all ISPs have FBI Trackers
Elie,
Actually, Freenet is the one service which technically comes closest to providing total anonymity.
Also, remember that we are talking about the whole world and not just the US, so the FBI or CIA is not omnipresent - though other foreign governments often employ similar techniques.
If Ian stops by perhaps he can explain exactly how it is that you could run Freenet in a country where it would otherwise be illegal without actually being detected. I’m a little vague on that particular technical area.
John
If Elie watches Ian video, he will know that. Or he can check one of the papers here:
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/clarke00freenet.html
or the freenet help resources:
http://www.freenethelp.org:14741/BrowsingFreenet (teaches you how to make Mozilla Browser Anonymous)
Well, what problems does freenet really solve? I mean, let’s assume you’re completely anonymous, and write about the corruption in china or egypt, what would this really accomplish? Are there any educated people who don’t know how the chinese government treats its people and how corrupt they are? the same goes for egypt and it’s likes…
Adi, you say that people started to disappear for blogging, and what did the people of egypt do about that? Shouldn’t they have gone to the streets and revolted until their safe release? Just as John said, freedom does not come cheap…
I honestly think freenet is pretty much useless in these cases, if a population wants freedom it should demand it, take it by force if necessary, in the egyptian case, the “government” won because they made an example of those bloggers and no one dared to oppose the tyrants, they can write thousands of years on freenet and the world wouldn’t care less of their daily misery…
On the other hand, I find it useful to share books and culture which are banned, but then again, it’s just a temporary solution to bypass the oppression of the government… At the end of the day, a government/kingdom which mistreats its people should be taken down by its people.
just my 2 cents, Johny
You have been very generous in helping promote Freenet. I am looking forward to getting my disreputable site, Pussy Galore, up and running again; incidentally it is not visual pornography but rather the pornography of politically incorrect ideas though there is the occasional racy picture with a comic caption.
Of the potential uses or disadvantages that you mention arising from Freenet I think the issue of intellectual property rights is very interesting. Digital media and the internet are already forcing reappraisal in this area. This is not because rights owners desire current excessively restrictive laws to be changed but because so many ordinary citizens are ignoring the law and getting away with it. Laws which are not widely respected and which can be broken with impunity are inherently bad laws. The market place for intangible products is going to have to come to terms with this and adopt new business models. For instance lower prices because fewer middle men need be involved, fast downloads for buyers, support for buyers, and recognizing that profits must come from an initial surge of interest and that a long tail of unauthorized copying and outright piracy is inevitable. In other words they must become realistic.
I am keen to see current intellectual property rights on our shared heritage of academic (scientific and in the humanities) literature thoroughly trashed. Most academic work was funded via government (taxpayers) or charities (donors). Why should not every citizen have free access to it? Currently it is wrapped up by organizations such as Elsevier. Often it is sold on to those who don’t have access via universities at exorbitant prices. May Freenet help smash this offense against the sharing of knowledge.
dngloz - On one hand I agree with you. I would literally rather die than live without freedom. However, the vast majority of people would rather live with restrictions than die for a cause.
It is important to note that overthrowing a government with an organized and well armed military is not easy. Especially when the citizens are neither allowed to own weapons nor allowed to openly discuss overthrow of a corrupt regime. In most places like this people can’t even get to the stage of dissent because they will disappear.
For these people Freenet can mean the difference between life and death. How else would you even be able to begin talk of a revolution?
There are other uses for Freenet that have nothing to do with oppressive governments. For example, lets say that a drug dealer lived in your neighborhood but you are too scared to tell anyone. You could send a truly anonymous message to someone for help dealing with that situation.
Or what if you worked for the government or a large company and were aware of something highly illegal that was going on but you didn’t want to come out as a whistle blower. You could post the incriminating evidence on Freenet and let a newspaper pick it up or something.
I would strongly disagree that it doesn’t make a difference to share the information. Just because a single message doesn’t change the world today doesn’t mean that the accumulation of thoughts over time won’t. A classic example of this at work is demonstrated by the Christian faith.
In the early days after the crucification of Jesus all Christians had to go into hiding. They would be killed if they spoke openly of their belief, so they had to use a hidden code to let one another know of their beliefs. It was the symbol of a fish, and they would draw it to let one another know they were on the same side. Well, it took hundreds of years, but now Christianity is a major and dominant religion.
Duke - Very interesting points. I know almost nothing about intellectual property rights, but it will be interesting to see how things turn out as the Internet and privacy applications mature.
Thanks for the stimulating comments guys,
John
HI!
Thanks for your contribution, i hope it will help a lot against total control of the governements on internet.
I m french and ly actual government use laws to spy associations and people, it cant be tolerated, but if we cant solve this problem by democratie, with thoose kind of programs we can continue to keep link with others people who want to fight agains restrictions of liberty.