Re:Check the Specs! (Score 3)

• There is no cure for corrupt node syndrome. This is similar to NNTP. Your NNTP server could replace every one of the articles you read with goatsex advertising.

Buzzz! Incorrect answer. The bulk of data in Freenet will be inserted under CHKs - content hash keys. Tampering with the contents is impossible, because the key used to request it is unique to the data.

But how can I get these hashes to request? Meet SVKs. These keys are cryptographically signed, and their data is intended to redirect the user to CHKs containing the real data. Also check out SSKs - these permit a publisher to insert plaintext keys under his own "subspace", all signed by his private key. For example, you might request "freenet:SSK@down_with_the_state,ut8hLKSEDHt9ut3OT GDIty40", where the string after the comma is the publisher's public key. Cool, huh?

So it's really simple. Content is guaranteed to be what you expect through secure hashing. Built-in cryptographic signing provides an elegant way to find out exactly what data to request.

• The claim that Freenet is completely anonymous is not entirely true.

Right. Only the first node in the chain knows who you are. That's why you MUST run your own node.

When you request data from Freenet, you send a request from your Freenet client to your local Freenet node, saying "I am looking for X". Your node relays this to the node most likely to have this data. It probably won't, but it'll forward the request again to the node it thinks is most likely to have the data. After ten hops or so the data will almost certainly be found, and it'll travel back down the chain.

Now what does this mean for anonymity? Well, if you're running a local node, and you request data through it, for all the other nodes know your node is just relaying a request from someone else. So there's no way to prove you've actually requested anything!