Brightnets are Owner Free File Systems 502
elucido writes "OFF, or the Owner-Free Filesystem is a distributed filesystem in which everything is stored in reference to randomized data blocks, as opposed to a 1:1 copy of the original data being inserted. The creators of the Owner-Free Filesystem have coined a new term to define the network: A brightnet. Nobody shares any copyrighted files, and therefore nobody needs to hide away. OFF provides a platform through which data can be stored (publicly or otherwise) in a discreet, distributed manner. The system allows for personal privacy because data (blocks) being transferred from peer to peer do not bear any relation to the original data. Incidentally, no data passing through the network can be considered copyrighted because the means by which it is represented is truly random." Their
main wiki page discusses a bit of what this means and how it might work as well. I've been saying that we need this for many years now, if only because we all have 10 gigs free on our machines and if we could RAID the internet we'd need fewer hard drives.
Re:Encryption (Score:5, Informative)
How is this different to Tahoe? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Psst. Copyright doesn't work like that! (Score:3, Informative)
As a rule, you don't copyright the exact data (i.e. the sequence of numbers representing a digital file). You copyright the actual tangible information. Attempting to abstract the law into mathematics is pointless. They are not compatible.
That's not the point. The point is that if someone downloads blocks from me to be used for copyrighted material, I cannot know what it is used for. Maybe these block also encode legal stuff. Because the same block encodes multiple files, and because a request does not state what the data is gonna be used for, I (probably) cannot be holded responsable for sharing copyrighted material.
Re:The data would change from (Score:5, Informative)
The cool thing is that the files really are random. They are simply numbers that can be combined to make a copyrighted file but don't have to be.
In other words: (As stated on the wiki) you will infringe on copyright the second the random files are combined. But downloading and sharing the files is not a copyright infringement.
Re:Data != Information (Score:3, Informative)
The idea of a chunk that 'could' be used to represent part of a copyrighted work is specious. Using XOR encryption, a copy of Madonna's latest video 'could' just be my weekly shopping list, encrypted with a particular one-time pad. Anything could be anything, and therefore the concept of 'could be' is useless.
A lot of misinformation floating around... (Score:2, Informative)
There's a lot of misinformation floating around here (RTFA please). Here's what happens: you want to upload a file. The program makes up a bunch of random numbers - really random numbers that have nothing to do with the original file. The original file is not consulted to make the random blocks - they could be pre-generated even.
Also generated is a URL that has the instructions on how to get the original file back from the random blocks. Anyone that shares this part is going to be guilty of copyright infringement (assuming the work in question is copyrighted).
It's basically a substitution cipher - with a unique way of substituting real data for the random blocks, as determined by the URL. So really, it's a one-time pad of sorts.
Re:Context matters. (Score:1, Informative)
I'd like to add some emphasis to something you touch on.
Copyright is about the right to make copies. If you can copy a work by turning it into a number, you have still copied it.
Ergo, as long as you still depend on the original as a source of the data, copyrights apply.
Re:The data would change from (Score:3, Informative)
Actually the algorithm is not performing a search through truly random blocks, but rather generating new 'random"* blocks by combining old blocks with the copyrighted file.
So the blocks AND they key are derivative works, meaning even users of this app who are just researching it become liable for copyright infringement if any of the users puts even a single copyrighted file on it.
DESPITE not being able to read said file.
The law does not specify what comes out, only what goes in. Copyrighted files go in -> duplication of what comes out is prohobited without copyright owner's permission.
It's like leaving your car without the handbreak on the top of a hill. Nothing has to go wrong, but one little blow of wind, one single individual who brushes the car and *bang*.
* this is a totally unprecedented definition of the term random, by this definition anything not recognizeable is random. So a rot-13 encrypted stream of zeros will be random under this definition ... it's not. At all. These blocks contain in reality a huge amount of entropy.
Re:Encryption (Score:3, Informative)
Well the wiki is down so I can't look.
I don't see how that's any help though. You have to store the data representing the relationship between the chunks somewhere too. Suppose instead of 128K chunks we use 1 bit chunks. We'll store all the 1s on one computer, all the 0s on another computer and the relationship between the data on a third computer. Where is the copyrighted data?
Re:Encryption (Score:3, Informative)
However, both are unethical and ineffective anachronisms long overdue for abolition.
[...]
Use the GPL. It's a legal device against litigation.
You do realize that the GPL is absolutely meaningless without copyright law, do you? Did you ever actually read the GPL?
Re:Worrisome... (Score:4, Informative)
"Trojan Generic..." Yeah, right. That's not a trojan sig that the antivirus recognized, it's just a heuristic that tags possible malware. Only 3 out of 32 [virustotal.com] antivirus programs complain. The message "Suspicious Self Modifying File" indicates that it's probably just because they used an uncommon packer.
OFFsystem sez [planetpeer.de]:
Re:Not a Brightnet yet (Score:4, Informative)
It seems some moderators are not aware of the way some atheists use the term "bright"...
Re:Psst. Copyright doesn't work like that! (Score:3, Informative)
Brightnets don't distribute material. They distribute random blocks. The URL distributes the material, by combining the random blocks in the Brightnet to something none-random. That none-random part can be anything, it could be something that is copyright-infringing or it could be something innocent like holiday photo's. If I'm storing random blocks for a Brightnet, I'm doing just that. Storing Random blocks of data. Nothing more nothing less. I have not clue, and can't know, how people are going to use those random blocks. It all depends on the URL, not on the Random Data.