Peer 2 Peer News Services

Ross Anderson, a Cambridge University professor claims that by 2010, news will be distributed via peer 2 peer networks. This will overcome censorship.

Silliness. First, if you've been getting your news from the internet for the past 5 years, you'll know that what makes news valuable is not a monopoly of distribution, such as exists for music. A news article which appears from AP can show up on the NYTimes website in 5 minutes, WaPost 2 minutes after that, WSJ, and your hometown newspaper within 10 minutes, and agglommerated via Google.

"What about important news stories that are ignored by the media?" you might ask. Here are my politics: there are none. Media organizations need content to attract eyeballs to pay for advertising -- they will distribute anything which comes their way. Don't believe me? Have you read an "alternative newspaper" lately, like LA Weekly in Los Angeles, or The Phoenix in Boston. How frequently do you come across an article in these alternative outlets, who claim to cover news ignored by the media, which you find interesting or useful? They function largely as local newspapers for fringe issues --- somebody who claims mistreatment by the police department --- than a distributer of news of interest to >1000 people.

What about news for people in countries where the government censors information? People under a dictatorship want to read and report news -- like the fact that a local official is corrupt, and no one is doing anything about it. Where there is a monopoly on distribution does exist, P2P can overcome that. However, when the monopoly exists for purposes of political control, then the important technology is not distribution, it's anonymity in distribution. People don't just need access to news, or the ability to spread it themselves, they need it in such a way that will not result in the police bursting through their door and pulling them into the street. That's not something which exists -- the cornerstone of p2p is that you eventually find out what IP addresses the information you want can be gotten from, and those IP addresses can be traced.

What about storing news articles in places where there is no monopoly on information, so that it can be downloaded by people in places where there is? That's not P2P technology, that's "Radio Free Europe" -- it doesn't break censorship, it makes use of places without censorship to the benefit of the censored. It's not a new technology, it's old technology in the new medium of the internet. What's more, if you're at home on your T3 line, and you send out a request for news articles through the internet to a recognized IP for underground news distribution, the oppressive government will packet-sniff that, find out the requesting IP, and send the dogs so fast it'll make your head swim.

P2P is not the technology which will overcome censorship. Censorship can be enforced, as long as the participating parties can be identified personally. Technologies which provide anonymity for the reader as well as the poster would.