Freenet: Survey and Implications
Abstract: Freenet is a peer to peer file sharing network protocol, first conceived by Ian Clarke, and designed to meet several goals: scalability, anonymity of both publishing and reading, and immunity to all but the most determined denial-of-service (DOS) attacks, whether legal or technological in nature. This paper briefly examines some of Freenet's predecessors, examines how Freenet attempts to achieve its design goals, and examines the implications of a fully functional, world scale Freenet.
Keywords: Freenet, peer-to-peer, p2p, open source, file sharing, Ian Clarke, copyright, censorship, intellectual property.
Historical Background: Peer-to-peer is an idea as old as the internet. From the first days of Arpanet, it was recognized that arranging computers in an anarchic, rather than hierarchal configuration offered far greater scalability and reliability. (Brand, 2001) Once the internet began to be widely implemented, it also became clear that to a great degree, it also offered anonymity.
Approximately two years ago, Shawn Fanning released the Napster client beta. Napster usage immediately began to increase at an exponential rate, and new users signed up almost as soon as they heard about it. (Napster, 2001). Until that time, the internet had been moving increasingly towards a central server model, away from the original idea of a collection of peers. (Shirky, 2000). Indeed, Napster also uses a central server, although it is only to create an easily accessible catalog of all files available at any particular moment. All actual file copying takes place directly between two client machines, and it is also the clients who decide what, if any, content is available to the network. (Napster, 2001)
Although Napster was, and remains immensely popular, it was also recognized that it was not the type of program that powerful intellectual property providers were going to accept easily. In fact, a matter of months after release, and soon after incorporating, the brand new Napster, Inc., was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America. (Napster, 2000).
However, it was quickly recognized that Napster was only vulnerable to legal attack because a central entity was required to run the indexing servers. Nullsoft, who created Winamp, a popular Mp3 player for Windows, soon released Gnutella, a proof-of-concept design that built upon the Napster idea by sharing all types of files, not just Mp3s, and needed no central servers at all. Although Gnutella remained on the Nullsoft website for only 24 hours before parent company AOL removed it, it was quickly disseminated to much of the internet, reverse engineered, and new clients based on the original protocol were released.
Anne Frank was my age, 15, when she was murdered by Nazis during World War II. I can’t even fathom what she must have gone through in the months before her death. Through her diary, one can understand the hardships of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany occupied countries
Napster is a virtual community, which consists of music news and chat-rooms, the main feature it offers is an easy way to download MP3's (music files). This controversial service has brought the lawsuit to Napster. Napster allows its subscribers to download the music files without charge. It is not however, from Napster that the subscribers get these files. It is from each other. The users share their hard drives so that other users can download any of their music files that they want.
Those who survived are here to tell the tragic and devastating history of their lives. The survivors have shared brutal but yet realistic stories from each of their experiences before, during, and after the Holocaust. History shall never repeat itself in the manner of racism, murder, and fear of our leaders. The burning hope of those who were involved still generates an enormous sadness upon the many who have heard the horror of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust was a very impressionable period of time. It not only got media attention during that time, but movies, books, websites, and other forms of media still remember the Holocaust. In Richard Brietman’s article, “Lasting Effects of the Holocaust,” he reviews two books and one movie that were created to reflect the Holocaust (BREITMAN 11). He notes that the two books are very realistic and give historical facts and references to display the evils that were happening in concentration camps during the Holocaust. This shows that the atrocities that were committed during the Holocaust have not been forgotten. Through historical writings and records, the harshness and evil that created the Holocaust will live through centuries, so that it may not be repeated again (BREITMAN 14).
The Holocaust is considered the largest genocide of our entire world, killing more than 600,000,000 Jewish people during the years of 1933-1945. The memories and history that have filled our lives that occurred during the Holocaust are constantly remembered around the world. Many populations today “think” that constant reminders allow for us to become informed and help diminish the hatred for other races still today. These scholars believe that by remembering the Holocaust, you are able to become knowledgeable and learn how to help prevent this from happening again. Since the Holocaust in a sense impacted the entire human race and history of the world, there are traces of the Holocaust all across our culture today. As I continue to remember the victims of this tragic time period I think of all the ways that our world remembers the Holocaust in today’s society. Through spreading the word, works of media and memorials across the world, I am continually reminded of the tragedy that occurred.
Wiesel begins his story in 1944 with memories of his idol, Moesh the Beadle. Moesh talked for long hours with Wiesel about prayer, God, and Jewish books. Suddenly, one day all foreign Jews were removed from Sighet and since Moesh was a foreigner, he was crammed into the overcrowded trains by the Hungarian police. As the train pulled away one Jew said,"What can we expect? It's war."1 This comment displays the beginning of the denial by the Jews.
As early as age thirteen, we start learning about the Holocaust in classrooms and in textbooks. We learn that in the 1940s, the German Nazi party (led by Adolph Hitler) intentionally performed a mass genocide in order to try to breed a perfect population of human beings. Jews were the first peoples to be put into ghettos and eventually sent by train to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At these places, each person was separated from their families and given a number. In essence, these people were no longer people at all; they were machines. An estimation of six million deaths resulting from the Holocaust has been recorded and is mourned by descendants of these people every day. There are, however, some individuals who claim that this horrific event never took place.
If the individuals, governments, and countries would have stood up for what they knew was right, the Holocaust would have ended before it did. Just like society now, we don't care about something if it doesn't directly impact us.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks have had a staggering growth in the past few years. Since Napster, dozens of P2P networks have been created in its imitation. Due to the growing accessibility of broadband, which increases the speed of downloads, P2P networks generate nearly 1.8 billion downloads per month. Popularity and acceptance is still continually growing.
The word “Holocaust”, was originated from the words “Holos” meaning whole, and “kaustos” meaning burned. To Adolf Hitler, Jews were an “inferior” race. After years of Nazi rule, Hitler’s “final solution” came under the cover of world war, with mass killing centers constructed in the concentration camps. Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma Gypsies, Priests and Pastors, homosexuals, and black children were all victims of the holocaust. Most of the victims left were from other countries. 6,000 Jehovah's witnesses, over 15,00 homosexuals, 400 “colored” children, and over 5,000,000 jews were killed.
Most recently the Supreme Court had to decide whether it was fair or not for music fans to download their favorite songs free of any royalties to the artists. The program, design by two college students, is named Napster and its designed to allow the sharing of mp3 music files over the Internet. Currently, the program is still available and operating with much support from its users.
Evans, Chris. “Napster, My.MP3.com, Digital Music, and the Future.” Online Article. March 28, 2000. http://www.netfreedom.org/news.asp?item=113.
The name “Anne Frank” is synonymous with hope, optimism, and belief in human good, even in times of relentless evil. Although she only lived to be fifteen, Anne is known and respected throughout the world for the humanistic light her work shed on an infamous time. Born June 12th, 1929, in Germany, she spent her early years in a middle-class Jewish-German family. However, the tranquility of the Frank family and 522,000 other German-Jews’ would be shattered by one of the most nefarious events in history, the Holocaust. Anne’s diary became an influential resource in understanding historical and emotional aspects of the Holocaust. Although she was young, Anne Frank is the greatest diarist of European history because she preserved a critical time in history, her work captured the human experience of the Holocaust, and her ideals of hope and optimism remain influential throughout our world today.
The Great Potato Famine was a huge disaster that would change Ireland forever. The people in Ireland were extremely dependent on potatoes and when the blight came the economy went down. When the fungus attacked the potato crops slowly crop by crop throughout Ireland, people began to lose their main source of food. With the people in Ireland’s huge dependency on the potato, people began to starve or get sick from the potatoes. No one had any food to eat. The potatoes were black inside with molds through out it that came from the fungus from something in nature. The weather that brought the blight also was one of the causes because they could not control how the weather was bringing the fungus. Ireland was under the British government and did not help Ireland when they needed Britain. The aftermath of the Great Famine was not only a huge drop in population, but emigration, and much more.
We have all watched over the last year and a half as the controversy over the digital music provider Napster has clogged our television screens and lined our floors in the forms of newspaper articles. We are also well aware of the implications and revenue losses that the service either directly or indirectly causes. What I am going to investigate more in-depth in this article is, more specifically, the effect that Napster has on the operations of record stores worldwide. I am going to try to describe the most profound effects that Napster has on this industry.