The Freenet Police

Well, Freenet isn't completely immune to policing methods that are being developed to enfore the DMCA. There is now software that will allow content providers and ISPs to track infringing material (in the case of MP3s, it tracks the MD5 checksum) on Napster or Gnutella or Cutemx. What the hell does this mean if content providers force ISPs to shut down the connections of copyright infringers?

It means P2P will come under control of the music and record labels. It means more than keeping P2P transactions legal. In the case of Freenet, where the original source of the material cannot be determined, the user who actually stores the material (unknowingly, encrypted, on the Freenet virtual server) risks having his IP blocked. That user may not be trading bootleg MP3s. The only way for the user to protect himself is to not use Freenet. Everyone loses because of one infringer.

But, I said before that the only way to shut down Freenet was to shut down the Internet, and in fact, the creator of Freenet has said that with a few improvements, Freenet traffic will look just like any other encrypted traffic on the net. So the policing software will not be able to differentiate the two, which means you'd have to stop all encrypted traffic to stop Freenet. It looks like P2P will always stay one step ahead of the "police".