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Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

freenetproject.org

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Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#261

Post by CRConrad »

ogurechny wrote: post #167
Dylan16807 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if one of your neighbors is a maniac who streams killing people, or a botnet owner, or a military drone operator working from home, or just a domestic abuser? Have you asked your provider to only join the “decent people” network? If not, you are actively helping bad people right now. But they weren't asking about whether the network had some users doing "super-illegal" things. They asked if it was roughly all…

You mean that helping some cold-blooded killers is okay, but after their percentage reaches some tipping point, it becomes too much of a headache? I can't say that I agree with that moral. One of the central ideas of Freenet (and some other projects) is that you don't know what exactly you transfer. Moreover, if you could discern “good content” from “bad content” in some general or specific fashion, you would instant…

> You mean that helping some cold-blooded killers is okay, but after their percentage reaches some tipping point, it becomes too much of a headache? I can't say that I agree with that moral.

OK, so then you're saying that unless you can prove for sure that NO criminal -- "really bad", actually morally repugnant "criminal" -- activity benefits from Freenet, one shouldn't run it. Great, thanks for the clarification.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#262

Post by pnathan »

I've run Freenet twice in the last twenty years. Maybe 2006, 2012? Each time CSAM was surprisingly visible. Maybe these days it's kicked off to a corner but back then it was pretty much a click away.

I'm going to have to say if that's the basic motivation for censorship resistant communication in the USA, I am disappointed and sad.

Wonder if it's actually useful in places where you actually have censorship, or if it's just a nice beacon for the ISP to send the rubber hose men to visit.

Not to mention random links purporting to be terrorist manuals, normal porn, incoherent blogs and the other usual detritus.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#264

Post by CRConrad »

h_anna_h wrote: post #76
user-the-name wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are telling me that it is hard to find out if running a Freenet node will help criminals, or decent people. That does not really do much to convince me running it is a good thing, you know?

One man's criminal is another man's freedom fighter. Snowden is a criminal but his supporters consider him a decent person. I do not believe that the two are mutually exclusive. The whole point of projects like freenet is to let people communicate data between each other without censorship and without being identified, no matter what that data is. If you disagree with that principle then I believe that freenet is pro…

> Make sure to block TLS connections on every network that you manage. You don't know what naughty things your users might be doing after all. You would not want to help a criminal, would you?

Way not to get the point.

Are you saying the overwhelming majority of users on some network GP manages are using it to do "naughty things"? Yes, then of course GP should shut it down. That's why the question in this sub-thread is "Is this used for other stuff too, or in practice almost exclusively for morally repugnant stuff that I don't want to support?".

If the question can't be answered, that's one thing; then people will have to base their moral judgment of whether to participate or not upon their own more or less educated guess. But most of the proponents here seem not to (want to) even understand the question, and in reply gibber about anything and everything except what was asked. Which makes not only themselves but the very thing they seem to think they're defending come off in a real shitty light.

Way to score an own goal.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#266

Post by CRConrad »

noxer wrote: post #107
h_anna_h wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no free speech anywhere in Europe This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim. > And there is no doubt she would be free in every state in the US. For this specific action? Sure. For other actions that are protected under the 1st amendment? Depends on whether there is a law against it and if she pissed off someone "important" or enough people. There are various such cases. edit: will respond to the replies af…

>This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim. I'm fine with that but its non the less the hard truth there is nothing like the 1st amendment in any other place. >For other actions that are protected under the 1st amendment? Depends.... To be in the right doesn't mean you win the court case that's true but in the EU you dont have the 1st amendment, you dont have the right to free speech. If the court system does its job…

> in the EU you dont have the 1st amendment, you dont have the right to free speech.

Most EU countries have some rather close analogue of the US First Amendment in their law or constitution. Sure, pretty much all of them have various exceptions, so there's no absolute free speech -- but then the US has such exceptions too, and thus also lacks absolute free speech.

On the whole, IMO your comment is much more wrong than right.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#267

Post by CRConrad »

int_19h wrote: post #145
h_anna_h wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ECHR contains the freedom of speech as a human right and so do most EU countries in their own constitutions. "Countless people have been successfully prosecuted for what would be covered under the 1st amendment" (and the ECHR) in the US too. The constitution only has value as long as it's enforced.

Let's talk about Germany, to give one example. In that country, the top court can outright declare political parties illegal, if it believes that they constitute a threat to the democratic order. This was used against the Nazis, of course - but also against the Communist party. So, ironically, under the current interpretation of 1A, communists have more freedom of speech and association in US than they do in Germany.

> Let's talk about Germany, to give one example. In that country, the top court can outright declare political parties illegal, if it believes that they constitute a threat to the democratic order.

So what? Which country can't declare organisations illegal, if it determines them to be terrorist organisations? I'm pretty sure the USA can. So what does it matter if a terrorist organisation calls itself a "party"? (Didn't the Symbionese Liberation Army try exactly that?)

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#268

Post by CRConrad »

notriddle wrote: post #113
h_anna_h wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which got us Trump and the current antivax movement I think that you are stretching it a bit here. Claiming that individualism is responsible for that seems unsubstantiated.

It’s a stretch to blame “absolute rights” for Trump’s election. That can be placed pretty solidly on xenophobia. The anti-maskers? The only reason those guys think they have a case is exactly because they think bodily autonomy has no limits.

> ...they think bodily autonomy has no limits.

...they think THEIR bodily autonomy has no limits -- not even where sane people would see that it has to be limited to not encroach on OTHER PEOPLE'S bodily autonomy.

There, FTFY.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#269

Post by CRConrad »

iammisc wrote: post #164
noxer wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes no sense, Trump is pro vaccine and has been from the beginning.

It has been incredibly interesting how the antivax movement has suddenly become a right wing thing after years of festering on the left (including not so long ago with our own VP). I mean... I used to live in Marin county, one of the bluest in the country and one of the least vaccinated. Then COVID comes around and suddenly everyone's pro-COVID-vax, but anti every other vax. Robert Kennedy JR was also instrumental in…

Doesn't all this just go to show that anti-vaxxery[§] is not really a partisan political issue in the first place?

Plain old lunacy in itself is politically neutral. The distribution, some shades at some times being more popular on one side of the political spectrum only to sometimes migrate to the other or spread all over it... That seems to be influenced by fashion, by world events like COVID-19, etc, etc -- but basically, mainly, more or less random.

___

[§]: Like, say, spiritualism, crystal healing, homeopathy, flat-eartherism, past lives, shoving rocks up your vajazzle...

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#270

Post by ArneBab »

bananamerica wrote: post #263

Everyone wants absolute free speech until their platform is taken over by conspiracy freaks, white supremacists, nazis, and anti vaxxers...

And then you find out, whether your moderation works.

Point in case: On Freenet it does. But I had to close down my youtube comments on my channel completely when they discovered my youtube-Account. Because it’s the clearnet where moderation sucks.

Its actually scaling, fully decentralized moderation system is how Freenet keeps communication friendly with actual pseudonymity and privacy protection: https://www.draketo.de/english/freenet/friendly-communicatio...

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