True decentralized infrastructure builds an authentiverse online.
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2026
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I would be interested to see a proper comparison between the original freenet, now known as hyphanet, and this platform. It looks like Ian Clark is the author of both of them with this one originally named Locutus. So in some ways it seems this is the second major rewrite of freenet, the first being the rewrite at version 0.7
I know they removed the anonymity features, but he says they have plans to add something as a layer on top instead of having anonymity baked into the core. He said with anonymity, they'll still have "robust safeguards against illegal usage." IDK what that means.
Either is or it isn't and this clearly isn't. I suspect it's a skill issue
robust safeguards against illegal usage
So it's not truly anonymous? Isn't the entire point of anonymity is to be against people snooping on your private business? Also, since when illegal a catch-all term for all bad things?
Owning slave was legal, and that is certainly bad. Apartheid is still legal in places and that is certainly bad. Criticizing the govt are illegal in MANY countries, but that is certainly bad. Jaywalking is illegal, but does that warrants it being bad?
Does the author of Freenet appoints his moral to a law other human made, god(s?) made, or he himself made?
Maybe I thought about this too far and missed freenet's author points, maybe I'm just pissed off with people playing by the rules that wants to remove other people's privacy and increase the privacy of people in power.
Maybe I'm just lame and this is the coolest thing ever.
Hmm, though it's exceptionally tough to corral illegal use without attribution, that notion of anonymous posting was one of the principal drivers of the original project. Whistleblowers and the like have solid needs to be able to get info out without it being traced back.
Of course, illegal would have to be defined as well. Inevitably disclosing classified info is illegal, but in many cases not immoral.
does this have anything like piefed and lemmy. the thing with me is I mainly like the whole subject matter area convesations. Its more organized to me that way.
Pretty sure they renamed to Hyphanet.
I definitely stay far away from either freenet as they have a huge CSAM problem.
That's a people problem, not a freenet problem. The same can be said about the fediverse. CSAM has been used exhaustively as pretext for surveillance along with terrorism, so I wouldn't really use this as a reference. Lack of authoritarian oversight is the cost of freedom
the fediverse allows defederation, and i'm wondering if there's a way that users can block content despite a collective persistence of it.
if user A circulates cat pictures, user B circulates dog pictures, and user C circulates both, can user A block dog pictures from B and C, but still see user C's cat pictures? at that point it'd be up to the users/collectives to provide insight as to what addresses deal in unsavory content and helm each other block/filter, which comes back around like defederation.
that doesn't guarantee creeps won't circulate creep content. but i think the solution lies in community action anyway, both in helping prevent people from seeing things they wish they didn't, and in apprehending offenders.
mine is not a super educated take, but it seems like it should be possible -- i'm hoping smarter nerds than i could answer!
The design with the original freenet could be described as a collective communal hard drive. No individual knew or had control of what content, or more likely portions of content, their node held. They simply offered up an amount of space to the net along with bandwidth.
The data was all encrypted and defined by content hash keys with each request being passed from node to node asking for the key. If the node had it then it was passed to the node requesting it from them, which may or may not be the originator of the request.
Same way with inserts of content. That passing back and forth up a chain makes things functionally anonymous, but easily bottlenecked if you have some slow node in the path.
By not knowing or having control what's stored on their own node it gives the operator plausible deniability in theory. Not sure if that was ever properly tested in a court.
Not sure if that was ever properly tested in a court.
Freenet probably never had enough usage to get to that point
that's what i figured. i guess what i wondered is if users are able to revoke their willingness to (potentially) store something unsavory post facto and/or if the content link was shared to block prescriptively.
if i only wanted dog pictures on my computer and blocked any cat picture content i came across (for example), could that block all future attempts to store a portion of any content i chose to block, as long as the key/hash matched?
hypothetically, that aproach could narrow it down to where if virtually all people chose to block a file, it might stop circulating and only exist on a single person's hard drive. i realize, though, that it wouldn't take much to alter a file slightly and alter its hash therein
This is a problem that will likely happen in every network that isn't exposed.
So it's exactly like ZeroNet then? I listened to the talk about FreeNet but I didn't hear much about how moderation is supposed to work. Somehow there needs to be a way to remove content.
Hyphanet (the predecessor to this new Freenet; possibly superior in some ways) uses an implementation of the "Web of Trust" idea for stuff like this. It doesn't remove content, but hides it if you and the people you trust, don't trust that pseudonym (you can assign trust levels in the 0-100 range IIRC). There are also freesite indexes that are curated (multiple levels; a "clean" one that only contains stuff that is unlikely to cause legal problems, an intermediate one that allows stuff like piracy, and a unmoderated one I think). I guess you can say that Hyphanet doesn't bake moderation into the system itself, but offloads that to individuals and groups. I like this idea, because different people and groups think different things are acceptable and not.
So their solution is to hide the csam for the masses and let the pedos run wild in the dark? What about human trafficking?
As much as I think that freedom and free speech are super important, I also think that some things should not be freely allowed.
Presumably, there are other ways to catch them than to allow total surveillance of society. I mean, I don't think the post office should inspect every person's mail without a warrant either; and I'm sure there's plenty of CSAM transmitted through it.
Yeah and I am completely against total surveillance as well. But we need some solution to catch these predators.
The main problem with the internet compared to sending mail is that everyone can be exposed to what is available online. Like for example on ZeroNet, on some chan-board I randomly visited, there were some csam that I got exposed to and it was not by choice...
I now had csam on my computer and I was now also helping distribute it since I had seen it. (Yay peer to peer internet). In the end I decided to deleted the ZeroNet program off of my computer and never come back.
I am not advocating for total surveillance or restrictions of rights but we need some solution to a real problem. If it's a technical solution or a societal solution I can not say.
Yeah and I am completely against total surveillance as well. But we need some solution to catch these predators.
Then go catch them? We know who they are. We have the Epstein files. One of them even posts from the official Twitter account of the POTUS.
But don't throw the rest of us under the bus. In particular when it's them driving the bus and equipping it a Mad Max-style plower.
If you think that the only pedos in the world are Epstein and his friends then I have news for you.
I don't, but I do know it's those pedos who make the surveillance and the laws about it.
So come on, what are you waiting for? Go be useful.
What's up with you being this confrontational and wanting me to go be useful?
I am not American. I have nothing to do with their shitty politicians and their shitty laws and regulatory system.
My country and our politicians has nothing to do with Epstein and his pedo ring.
I do what I can from my position and right now that is spreading awareness and raising the issue about moderating a platform that is designed to not be moderated.
What the fuck are you doing?
Hmm, yeah, the being exposed thing is what the Web of Trust system is supposed to prevent. I guess I feel that it's more important to protect everyone's anonymity than to possibly make it easier to catch people distributing and consuming CSAM. There are other ways to catch and prosecute the people who produce, distribute, and consume CSAM. It doesn't happen in a vacuum, and is not a purely digital crime.
I don't disagree with you, but good luck catching these monsters when the very same monsters run the US. It's hard being optimistic in the short term all things considered.