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Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

freenet.org

141–150 of 302 posts

Re: Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

#141
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wise boss of mine, after reading a set of threads that I wrote like this, asked me to go think for a day on the difference between "being right" and "being effective." Some of the things you say in these threads might be "right" but I can assure you that many of them are not effective, which is counterproductive to the goal you are trying to achieve.

I prefer to say what I believe to be true rather than live in fear of how people looking to take offense might misconstrue something. A culture where people are expected to constantly self-censor to avoid bad-faith interpretations is unhealthy and corrosive.

This reminds me of something someone said. Something about assume everyone is coming from a place of good intent. Even if they are not, you can communicate with people more effectively without bringing in a form of bias that ends up infecting everything.

Just because you have a belief about something doesn't make it right to always assume the worst from people and that you always have the best answer.

I tend to avoid people that don't come from a place of good faith. And I feel that attacking people because you might be right about something is coming from a place of bad faith and isn't always the best course of action. There is a place for that, when it comes to your freedom being violated or something, but when it comes to having discussions with people, we are all human. Ego can be a determinant.

Re: Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

#142

Decentralized web has been a pipe dream forever but group chat actually working in practice is more convincing than anything they could have shown. Real time sync was always the hard part. Curious about mobile though, you mentioned iOS is the main blocker because of wasm restrictions. Is the plan to run the peer on desktop and have mobile just connect to it, or are you expecting people to run a full peer on Android?

The hard part imo was not being exposed to, or unknowingly redistributing illegal content. They claim this new freenet solves this but the details on how weren't super clear.

Re: Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

#143

Exciting to see Freenet innovating so much, Ian! I haven't really dug in too deep but love that it's in Rust. What's it look like over the wire? How conspicuous is it in the face of, say government censors who can see and control every packet? Been chatting a lot with the HolePunch/Tether folks, and their work is impressive, particularly the use of the DHT for all signaling, Tailscale-inspired (aka Birthday Paradox)…

Without knowing too much about the drama discussed here, I think the bottom line is that the "old" Freenet was a bit on life support as far as I could tell and absolutely needed this kind of innovation from its founder.

The medium tends to amplify drama far beyond the reality of it, hope you are well :)

Re: Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

#144

Decentralized web has been a pipe dream forever but group chat actually working in practice is more convincing than anything they could have shown. Real time sync was always the hard part. Curious about mobile though, you mentioned iOS is the main blocker because of wasm restrictions. Is the plan to run the peer on desktop and have mobile just connect to it, or are you expecting people to run a full peer on Android?

The hard part imo was not being exposed to, or unknowingly redistributing illegal content. They claim this new freenet solves this but the details on how weren't super clear.

They got rid of anonymity, which makes this a trivial problem: Law enforcement takes care of it.

Now, whether giving up anonymity was worth it is a separate issue.

Re: Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

#145

Exciting to see Freenet innovating so much, Ian! I haven't really dug in too deep but love that it's in Rust. What's it look like over the wire? How conspicuous is it in the face of, say government censors who can see and control every packet? Been chatting a lot with the HolePunch/Tether folks, and their work is impressive, particularly the use of the DHT for all signaling, Tailscale-inspired (aka Birthday Paradox)…

Thank Adam, nice you see you!

> What's it look like over the wire?

Encrypted UDP, but likely identifiable based on timing etc - we're not trying to hide it right now - the focus is more on decentralization.

> In particular, does it do fully decentralized hole punching?

Depends on what you mean by "fully". When peers first start up they need to connect to a "gateway", a freenet peer that can receive unexpected inbound UDP. But gateways are only required to introduce peers to the network, after the initial introduction they form new connections through the network.

Right now we run these introductory gateways but will decentralize it over time.

Re: Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

#146
post #70
post #33

Is this similar to how Napster worked?

Yes in the sense that users pool resources for the network, but no in the sense that Napster relied on a centralized database of content - whereas Freenet is entirely decentralized. Also Freenet is much more general, you could think of Napster like a shared hard drive, whereas Freenet is like a shared computer capable of running decentralized applications like group chat, social networks, search engines, etc.

Is there any reason why a system like this can't be distributed like bittorrent? It just seems like decentralization is used to censor content at the node.

Re: Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

#148
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating a bad decision does not make it any wiser.

History will be the judge, and so far it's looking very promising given our progress.

What does your progress have to do with the name? You're so defensive that you're reasoning with non sequiturs.

Re: Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

#149
post #124
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The submitter is the creator of the original Freenet. If anybody gets to decide what we will call Freenet, it’s him.

I'd agree if this was more like a Freenet v3, but it's an entirely different project with completely different goals.

How are the goals different?

Re: Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps

#150
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was no "year of debate". Incorrect, I raised the issue with the lead maintainer over a year prior to that announcement. > You came to the mailing list and declared it as a finalized decision. As the project's architect I'm entitled to make decisions about the project's future direction. > It's all public for anyone to see on the mailing list archive: > https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5…

> Incorrect, I raised the issue with the lead maintainer over a year prior to that announcement. The previous lead maintainer, Steve, voiced their frustration with your decision here: https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5526... To which you sent a brash reply, which sounds like you don't know Steve's position in the community: https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5526... To whic…

I also like how his first response to a reply to the announcement (and multiple others) was "who do you speak for?" while simultaneously framing a discussion with a single person, in private, as a good faith effort to hear from the community with the implicit assumption that that one person spoke for the community.
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