File-sharers are turning to "darknets" to stay away from prying eyes, says Business Week Online in "The Underground Internet" (September 15, 2003). Sources of technology include Freenet, Waste, BadBlue and Groove.(Read more ... )
"Darknet" software is made to enable small groups of trusted individuals to quickly set up and take down secure networks on the infrastructure of the public Internet. The article says large corporations are using darknets to communicate and share information with partners in a channel more secure than their corporate intranets. Another potential use is for swapping of content, including unauthorized copies of copyrighted materials. There are a variety of "flavors" of darknet technology.
Freenet uses a ring of trusted persons to search for and exchange information. It has been used in various sectors politically threatened by systematic denial of free speech and privacy. For a technical and practical introduction to Freenet, see a 2002 IEEE paper "Protecting Freedom of Information Online with Freenet". It is also referenced in numerous scientific articles accessible through Citeseer. Freenet's Ian Clarke has declared that Freenet will not enforce copyrights.
Direct Connect (DC) is another, but BusinessWeek Online says it secures its net with passwords, making it easy to penetrate.
Waste is said to be more secure than DC, says BWOnline, because it requires participants to exchange public keys then encrypts data travelling between network participants in transit. It was quietly made available as open source software in May by Justin Frankel, at the time head of a unit of AOL, then quickly withdrawn. Not quickly enough. It was promptly picked up by SourceForge, which also develops Freenet. Frankel also developed WinAmp, Shoutcast and Gnutella, according to an article in MIT Enterprise Technology Review.
BadBlue offers two white papers about their technology: "A Standards-based, P2P Approach to Marketplaces and Exchanges" and "BadBlue Platform Approach: A Web Server in every device."
Groove is the company that was founded and built up by Ray Ozzie, using the ultimate proceeds his share of the 1995 sale of Lotus to IBM for $3.5 billion. Ozzie was the principal developer of Lotus Notes, which was the "jewel in the crown" that IBM was after. In 2001, Groove announced a strategic relationship with Microsoft . Ozzie's weblog.
The entertainment industry is not worried about darknets yet, according to Randy Saaf of MediaDefender, Inc., who told Business Week: "If they are using private networks, there is very little risk of being caught, but there is very little risk of them really doing much harm to the entertainment companies."
Posted by dougsimpson at September 15, 2003 01:35 PM | TrackBack