Freenet

:For other uses, see Freenet (disambiguation)

History

Freenet is an enhanced open source implementation of the system described by Ian Clarke's July 1999 paper "A distributed decentralized information storage and retrieval system", written while Clarke was a student at the University of Edinburgh. Shortly after the publication of this paper, Clarke and a small number of volunteers began work on what became Freenet. By March 2000 version 0.1 of Freenet was ready for release. Since March 2000 Freenet has been extensively reported on in the press, albeit primarily due to its implications for copyright rather than for its wider aim of freedom of communication.

Related Topics:
Open source - Ian Clarke - 1999 - 2000 - Copyright

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Freenet has been developed via a collaborative, open source, methodology. Clarke, originally from Ireland, worked with individuals from many other countries, in a distributed manner utilizing the Internet. Not only is Freenet itself distributed, decentralized Internet software, but the method used to develop it is also distributed and decentralized.

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Reports of Freenet's use in authoritarian nations is difficult to track due to the very nature of Freenet's goals. One group, Freenet-China, has translated the Freenet software to Chinese and is distributing it within China on CD and floppy disk.

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According to Citeseer, Ian Clarke's "Freenet: A Distributed Anonymous Information Storage and Retrieval System" was the most cited computer science paper of 2000.

Related Topics:
Citeseer - Computer science

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One analysis{{ref|2}} of Freenet files conducted in the year 2000 claimed that the top 3 types of files contained in Freenet were text (37%), audio (21%), and images (14%). 59% of all the text files were drug-related, 71% of all audio files were rock music, and 89% of all images were pornographic. It is important to note the fundamental design of Freenet makes accurate analysis of its content difficult. This analysis was done several years ago from within the United States, and the network has been vastly changed and expanded since it was published and many different types of content have been added.

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