Word: freenet
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...Clarke wasn't using Napster or MP3.com He downloaded Oops! on Freenet, a next-generation Napster-like program of his own creation that ratchets file sharing up to the next level. What sets Freenet apart is that information on it travels from PC to PC anonymously. There's no way to tell who posts a document and no way to tell who downloads...
...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...
Clarke, a lanky, earnest 23-year-old, became fascinated with computers after seeing the 1983 hacker-fantasy flick War-Games as a child in Navan, Ireland. A computer-science major at the University of Edinburgh, Clarke developed Freenet as a student project over the summer of 1998. His key innovation was the element of anonymity. PCs hooked up to Freenet (the software can be downloaded from freenet.sourceforge.net become "nodes," meaning they are host to data files deposited on them for varying amounts of time. There's no central server, as with Napster. And there's no need for users...
...real threat to that business model, however, is client-to-client-based programs like Napster, Gnutella and Freenet that make searching and swapping MP3 music files quick and painless. Suddenly Metallica and Elektra no longer control the quantity and destiny of their songs. It costs zip to download Metallica's And Justice for All via Napster. If you're selling CDs, it's hard to build a business around that price point...
Technology may soon make the decision in this particular lawsuit obsolete; new programs known as "Gnutella" and "FreeNet" may allow the Napster-like sharing of all types of data, not just MP3 files, and such services would be difficult to shut down because they would not rely, as does Napster, on a central server for searches. However, if carried to its conclusion, the spirit in which the lawsuit was filed would make universities into electronic gatekeepers, watching each packet of data sent across the network and monitoring students' activities online for fear of being held legally responsible...