The recent launch of the latest version of the Freenet Peer-to-Peer file sharing software has attracted a great deal of media coverage. Every credible paper in Ireland and the UK covered it and most pondered the same question. Is it ethical to create software where the creator knows that it will be used in fraud and theft? OK, we’re not pulling any punches here. Ian Clarke is without doubt a brilliant software designer and is an idealist at heart but as Conor Flynn of RITS Security points out in last week’s Sunday TImes
“The Freenet system group say it’s for sharing information and they can’t help it if people abuse it. They know damn well that it will be.”
Ian’s site is endearingly lowkey but his comments about unprizer being his “first serious venture in capitalism” are a bit disingenuous. I presume he’s been living in a kibbutz all these years then :-P. Seriously though, darknets are compelling technology enabling data distribution to be effectively hidden from network users. I can see the applications in permitting freedom of information & within countries with oppressive governments but this can’t disguise the fact that most of the goals that Ian talks about for freenet involving subverting the information and copyright legislation in the country in which it’s used. It promotes anarchy in an era where many are becoming increasingly concerned about their security and ever more permissive of the measures their governments take to guard that security. The ethics of darknet technology are similiar to gun manufacture. It’s welcomed in equal measure by peacekeepers and violent terrorists. True freedom of speech exists where a country’s people and government agree that people can express their opinions regardless of it’s unpopularity, subversiveness etc. When this is practiced the source of commentary does not have to hide in a dark alley or a darknet. This is IMHO a more admirable ideal than anarchy. Darknets have a deterrent factor but they should not become an end in themselves in promoting freedom of speech.