Freenet: Survey and Implications Abstract: Freenet is a peer to peer file sharing network protocol, first conceived by Ian Clarke and designed to meet several objectives: Scalability , anonymity of both publication and reading and immunity to all Denial-of-Service (DOS) attacks, except the most determined ones, be they of a legal or technological nature. This article briefly reviews some of Freenet's predecessors, examines how Freenet attempts to achieve its design goals, and examines the implications of a fully functional, world-scale Freenet. Keywords: Freenet, peer-to-peer, p2p, open source, file sharing, Ian Clarke, copyright, censorship, intellectual property. Historical Context: Peer-to-peer is an idea as old as the Internet. From the early days of the Arpanet, it was recognized that arranging computers in an anarchic, rather than hierarchical, configuration offered far greater scalability and reliability. (Brand, 2001) Once the Internet began to be widely implemented, it also became clear that, to a large extent, it also offered anonymity. About two years ago, Shawn Fanning released the beta version of the Napster client. Napster usage immediately began to increase at an exponential rate, and new users signed up as soon as they heard about it. (Napster, 2001). Until then, the Internet had increasingly moved towards a central server model, moving away from the original idea of ​​a set of peers. (Shirky, 2000). In fact, Napster also uses a central server, although it does so only to create an easily accessible catalog of all the files available at any given time. All actual file copying occurs directly between two client machines, and the clients also decide what content, if any, is available on the network. (Napster, 2001) While Napster was and remains immensely popular, it was also recognized that it was not the type of program that powerful intellectual property providers would readily accept. Indeed, within months of its release, and soon after its incorporation, the brand new Napster, Inc., was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America. (Napster, 2000). However, it was quickly recognized that Napster was only vulnerable to legal attacks because a central entity was needed to manage the index servers. Nullsoft, which created Winamp, a popular Mp3 player for Windows, soon released Gnutella, a proof-of-concept project that built on the Napster idea by sharing all types of files, not just Mp3s, and needed no central server. Although Gnutella only remained on Nullsoft's website for 24 hours before parent company AOL removed it, it was quickly spread across much of the Internet, reverse engineered, and new clients based on the original protocol were released..