The software more resembles a parallel World Wide Web than it does the simple search-and-download networks of more familiar file-swapping services like Kazaa. People can post Web pages, store files and, using recently developed technology, even produce live Webcasts across the network, all completely anonymously. The developers have spent considerable time building in a level of encryption and anonymity that ordinary peer-to-peer services can't provide, noting that their aim is more to allow global, uncensorable free speech than to facilitate the distribution of such things as music or movies. Using a network like Kazaa or Napster, anyone offering content or downloading content exposed their address on the Internet, which made them easily traceable through their ISP (Internet service provider). Freenet works by having each person involved dedicate a portion of their hard drive to hold content uploaded to the network. This is encrypted, so no person will know what is in their cache at any given time or be knowingly responsible for hosting any particular piece of content. Content migrates automatically between these "nodes" as people make requests to download it. Thus, if several users in Scotland want to view a Web page or download a file, it will make its way across the network and be stored in a location close to those users. Like any peer-to-peer network, it is thus dependent on the number of users and the generosity of the people who donate space from their hard drive. One recent estimate found about 2,500 "nodes," or active host computers, on the Freenet system, although developers caution that there is no reliable way to count participants. Clarke says he expects copyright holders' groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America to "stigmatise" the network if it grows in popularity. However, the network has also won some kudos for its use in China to help evade government censorship. It's this use that ultimately points out the network's strengths, and it will become even stronger as the Webcasting component grows more stable, Clarke said. Even in the US, it's won attention from people worried about censorship in the wake of the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act and other actions, he said. "I anticipated that (the anti-terror policies) would work against Freenet," Clarke said. "But people look at the Patriot Act and the Department of Justice and realise that Freenet is a useful safeguard against that kind of government power".
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