The cost of online anonymity

Found on BBC News on Monday, 12 September 2005
Browse Censorship

Founder and co-ordinator of Freenet, Ian Clarke says: "Our goal was to provide a system whereby people could share information over the internet without revealing their identity and without permitting any form of government censorship."

Freenet encourages anonymous uploading of any material. Some users of the English version believe it is so secure they have used it to confess to crimes they have committed, or to their interest in paedophilia.

The storage is dynamic, with files automatically moved between computers on the network or duplicated. This adds to the difficulty of determining who might be storing what.

Even if a user's computer is seized, it can be impossible for experts to determine what the owner was doing on Freenet.

"You are giving over part of your computer, it will be in encrypted form, you will not know what you are carrying, but some of it is going to be seriously unpleasant. Are you happy with that?"

There's always that pro/contra argumentation. Take a look at censorship (which does not only happen in China, but also in the US or Europe): information should be free, even if it is not pretty. Of course there are some trade-offs; that's the price.