Feral Filtering and the Not-So-DarkNet
p2pnet news | Freedom:- In a Reader’s Write to p2pnet’s Big 4’s IFPI demands Feral Filtering, Cyberscan: says
I have recently seen a 1 TB USB hard drive in the store for less than $350. This combined with a laptop computer and a commonly available wireless router can mean a community wide file sharing network with very little interference from big brother.
DVD’s, Thumb drives, etc are widely available and can hold tremendous amounts of data. If Big Corporations and Big Government succeed in locking down the Internet, we will simply create our own networks.
Many people have already done so. With lasers, unused radio frequencies, and home brew DSL, hackers, amateur radio operators, and phone phreaks can use current technology to put together something much better than what we currently have.
I remember the days of computer communication before the Internet was widely available. We used dial up bulletin board systems that communicated with each other in an ad hoc network called Fidonet.
Nowdays, commonly available wired and wireless equipment can take the place of the telephone line and transmit much more data locally. Cities can be very well served by such a network, and rural areas can be served depending upon population and effort.
The proverbial cat is out of the bag, and it is not going back in.
In other words, the Not-So-DarkNet.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
p2pnet – Big 4’s IFPI demands Feral Filtering, December 27, 2007
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December 27th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
It’s always been a source of humor to me that if the copyright forces succeed in getting control of monitoring school networks that it will not shut down sharing at all. It will only drive it to other forms. With today’s cheap USB drives and external hookup hard drives, instead of getting a file at a slow speed, they will now be able to swap hard drive to hard drive, without being on the net, at far faster speeds than was ever possible before the start of trying to herd cats on the internet.
Not only will they be able to share files faster but the tracing and tracking will be harder as well with no IP address to tie it to.
Bad idea, bad implimentation, and an even worse black eye for an industry already reeling from terrible PR from those they expect to help them stay financially solvent.
I’m not the first one to have this idea of sharing hard drives without the internet. Nor is it any great leap of intelligence for others to come up with the same one. Just like the closing of Napster brought on the onslought of far more file sharing sites, the attack on the internet will only drive the file sharing to other, more effective means.
December 28th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Heh.
The irony in this post is that, strictly speaking, there IS no such thing as “the Internet” (in the sense of “one network”.
What we commonly refer to as “the Internet” is, in fact, a vast array of smaller “nets” — that’s the whole point. “The Internet” or rather TCP/IP — was designed to create a multiply-redunant “mesh” of pretty much independent “nodes” which would survive as a whole, even if large numbers of those nodes were damaged/destroyed (say, in a nuclear war.)
So, no — the idea that “the internet” can be “locked down” is complete rubbish. But that STILL doesn’t address the reasons WHY p2p and “sneakernets” and all of the “file-sharing” is occuring at all.
It couldn’t be that a large portion of p2p enthusiasts simply don’t want to PAY for stuff, now could it?
Actual quote from one of the comment-threads here:
“Why pay for crap, when you can get it for free?”
’nuff said.
LET THE HATING COMMENCE!!