Build Date: Fri Aug 28 03:40:17 2026 UTC
I think I better dance now.
-- Tom Jones
Get in on the Ground Floor of FREEDOM
2000-02-24 13:16:53
Ever wish you could go back to 1991 and get in on the ground floor of the World Wide Web? Well you CAN'T. It's not gonna happen. But what CAN happen, right now, is for you to get in on the start of FREENET. Freenet! Can you smell the freedom!?
Now, far be it from me to GIVE UP on Freedom on the World Wide Web. Fuck that! Despite the hassles, the endless lawsuits, the cease-and-desist orders, the fucking MPAA and RIAA, the ubiquitous advertising, the evil legislation, the patents, the domain-name squabbles, etc., etc., etc., it's still OUR WEB. We built this city on Rock and Roll, is what I'm trying to say. There's way too much good going on here to write the whole World Wide Squirrel off as a lost cause.
But STILL... STILL... wouldn't it be COOL to have a NEW WEB where the mistakes of the past can be rectified? Where the legal shenanigans of some bumblefuck DA in Asswipe, FL can't destroy years of publishing and acres of information? Where it's NOT NECESSARILY the guys with the most LAWYERS who win?Where, in fact, the lawyers COULDN'T EVEN FIND the people they want to sue, in the first place?
Well, people, that's starting to happen. There's a new project out there called FREENET, that's intended to start a NEW SYSTEM of World-Wide-Squirrel publishing, without all the hassles of the current one. It's kind of a mix of Usenet, the Web, and a RAID disk system, all fudged up into a super-crypto wet dream.
Freenet is a web of servers running the Freenet software. The software is currently written in Java, but there's an open protocol, so new implementations are bound to come out. Documents are held in the system AS A TOTAL, and not on any one server. Documents are located, not by the server they live on (like HTTP urls, i.e., "http://www.pigdog.org/index.html") but by a unique key ("Pigdog Journal Index"). And there's widespread encryption of data built in from the get-go, so that on-the-wire reading of other people's fetches is probably going to be difficult.
Tracking of usage is difficult, also, since no one server owns a document. And the requests that are used to download a document are the same as the ones that servers use to slosh the docs around between themselves, so it's like, who will know?
You should download the Freenet software IMMEDIATELY and start using it! It's great! There's not that much stuff on the Freenet right now, but who know? Soon, you should be able to get Pigdog Journal on there. Whoopee, and all that! Go check out the Freenet NOW! This is your ground floor opportunity!
T O P S T O R I E S
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C L A S S I C P I G D O G
The Liquidation of Hobo Junction
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The IBM Selectric Typewriter Changed My Life
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I just came across this coolio essay by Pigdog Journal Science Editor binky wedged between two staves in the back corner of the submissions barrel. It's on the origin of the cyberbilly and is definitely de rigeur for any serious student of this fascinating sociological movement. (More...)
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Skunk School -- Learn Why Not To Keep Skunks As Pets
There is an alarming trend in pet purchasing habits this fall. People inspired by the WWII film, "Life is Beautiful" -- the one with that annoying Italian guy -- are buying descented skunks by the millions. (More...)
Vacationing from Somnambulant Narrow Realities
So about six months ago, I was chilling in Chang Mai, Thailand with ICBINJ, perursing the Bangkok Times over my banana pancake and Big Chang breakfast when I spotted this article reprinted from the LA Times. It was about some kooks from California (where else?) who were claiming to have been to the front lines in Afgahnistan in mid-December and had recorded the whole feat on their website. "Holy Fuck!" I thought, "Now That's web journalism. Who are these guys!?" (More...)
