FreenetProject/Tor: Should Christians host anonymous internet content on their computers

Hi. I've been a lover of computers for as long as I can remember. I enjoy being able to talk to people about Christ in private conversations and feel blessed to have the opportunity to share the Good News to people who otherwise would rarely hear it. My topic today is a question; whether Christians should be allowing their computers to be used as Tor (tor.eff.org) and Freenet (www.freenetproject.org) servers. What are your doctrinal positions on hosting this type of anonymous content? Can Christian's use anonymity networks with a clear conscience, knowing that someone out there is probably storing or routing offensive material on or through the Christian's computer.

Anonymity networks allow people to search the Internet for things anonymously (with plausable deniability that they were the ones doing the search). This can allow people in China, Vietnam, India, and other countries where Christian persecution is strongly present to get bibles, Christian books of all sorts, and materials to help in their learning of correct truths of The Way. By using these networks one can connect to other private computers that can route data for them, and in such a way, as to make it nearly impossible to say that a person searched for any specific content (as it could have been one of the many other users of the network that searched for the material).

However, it's not just Christians seeking bibles that use these networks. Criminals and perverts of all sorts use these same networks to communicate securely with fellow beasts. So can a sincere born-again Christian help these networks by offering disk space or bandwidth to the causes, knowing that some people will not use the networks for what the Christian intends?

I remember hearing or reading somewhere in the Holy Bible that we are not to be partakers in works of iniquity. 1 Corinthians 6:9 comes to my mind.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God
-1 Cor. 6:9-10

Through the content that these networks host there is promotion of sex before marriage and the temptation of the married and single to be defiled by pornographic content. Homosexual and pedophilic content even have their own channels to discuss nothing but perversion. Software piracy and illegal reproduction of novels without permission from the copyright holder tempt the users to download them and thus become a theif. As for the covetous, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers there is plenty of opportunity to share gossip, recipies, and engage in clandestine business involving stolen or illegal materials to be sold. This is what the immoral use these networks for. But the networks need not only cater to the perverse. They can allow people in oppressed countries to hear the gospel of Christ as the networks can allow connections to sneak through national firewalls, using cryptography and tunneling of connections. It can be reminiscent of Brother Andrew's work in "God's Smuggler" of smuggling bibles into the former Soviet Union, see http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Smuggler-Brother-Andrew/dp/0800793013/sr=8-1/qid=1169432239/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1347366-6834407?ie=UTF8&s=books

What can we as Christians do and allow, are we called only to publish Christian material to such networks or can we also host connections to people who are seekers of truth. Can we host space on our servers for our Christian sites, knowing that perverse sites will be stored along side them on our own hard drives? How can we proclaim the truth without defiling ourselves and our houses at the same time?

For more information on the topic check out http://freenetproject.org/whatis.html and http://freenetproject.org//philosophy.html and http://tor.eff.org/overview.html.en

My spirit is troubled by this dilemma. What do you think about this? What does the Bible have to say that can apply to situations such as these. I would like to hear your thoughts on the topic. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Wes

*bangs head against keyboard*

Ah how I wish I were learned enough to help you!!

Please, someone help this man. I have my views, but I cannot express them as clearly as i've seen experienced, loving, meek members do. I pray you recieve guidence soon brother.

Hello Wes.
Eddie is my name and the only absolute truth in this world is in the spirit of truth that runs through
the Bible.
Christians are the salt of the earth. I read somewhere that during the time of Christ that salt was thought of as food and as a purifier. So my thought was that the networks could benefit from Christian discourse and a good purging.

You could always 'accidently' format the server (if you have that level of access) then change the hosting requirements to a christian world view.

I honestly think that your spirit has shown you the folly of this technology and is telling you to do something about it.

You could stand in the gap, there are people who are using their computers to promote the Gospel, but we have to be wise.

Avoid becoming entangled in the web of Satan's internet! When my concience was touched by the Lord this past year I purged my hard drive of MP3s and software that I hadn't paid for.

I think every Christian has the duty to be especially guarding his heart on the internet. It saddens me when I think that Christians pirate as much music and software as non christians.

So many people at my church have MP3 players filled with Christian music they didn't pay for, and many of our church multi-media projects are put together using software we didn't buy.

I'm really at a loss for this one... It's been a difficult transition to open source software to replace my pirated software, I keep trying to excuse myself and re-install some pirated software because i 'need it.'

It's amazing how many Christians are becoming chronic thieves because of illegal file sharing, gossips because of forums, slanderers because of blogs, and the whole issue that affects more than fifty percent of professing christian men, pornography. I think the internet, despite it's usefulness (this site, and ccel being some of the clear exceptions) is almost entirely the dominion of demonic powers.

Christians need to guard their hearts on the internet, but most of them don't take the threat seriously. I didn't realized how dangerous the internet was until I was addicted.

I agree Ian, I too have some software that has not been paid for but it is a lot less now than a few months ago.

Christians are to be in the world but not of it.

We must show non believers that we will not download pirated songs / software / hacks and cracks. We won't buy or even watch copied DVD's

Satan will use things like this to get a foothold,

Jesus said: Mk 9:45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.

God showed me that it meant if something was corrupting me to get rid of it (the TV went a couple of years ago, the PC will go if I fall to the temptation)

As to the Original Post I do think we should take what the world has and use it for His glory, we cannot help what others use it for, these servers should not be Christian, that's like being a postman and knowing that the letters you're posting are helping sinners into deeper sin.

Any one else got some advice for this brother?

allhavsinned wrote:
We must show non believers that we will not download pirated songs / software / hacks and cracks. We won't buy or even watch copied DVD's

I got rid of my pirate software, two years ago, after a witnessing encounter where the guy I was talking to raised the issue of pirate software. The thought occurred to me that I was wilfully lying, by saying that I "agree" to the software manufacturer's terms and conditions. Software piracy is not a "passive sin", it takes a deliberate exertion of the will, and a conscious choice to lie. No one can claim, "Well I didn't know it was wrong."

Regarding the topic of the forum, all I can say is, I'm glad I don't have to ask myself the question. Curly one...but I know that I avoid file sharing because of the high level of accessibility to questionable content. Better to be safe than sorry, because one can rarely tell when temptation will come in strong doses.

SeanHobson: Thank you for your prayers.

rowdy2: I agree with you that "the networks could benefit from Christian discourse and a good purging." I have firmly decided that I will continue to post Christian material to the Freenet network. This will require that I at least transfer some of other people's content, and for stable use will require a 24/7 connection to other nodes of the network so that my node will be recognized quickly by other nodes that my uploading may not take very long. As I don't have to route data for the Tor network to publish my content, all routing and storage for that network has been stopped. It is only the Freenet network that I am routing for now. Unfortunately, as Freenet is a decentralized distributed anonymous collective of resources I can not simply purge it as I don't have control over the network - no one person does; even several people who decided to empty their datastore would find that the network would simply compensate and store the data on other nodes. So purging the network is not an option.

iansmith: again, I can not format the server, and data is very rarely stored with only one copy of the data. It most often is hosted verbatim on at least 3 separate node's datastores. I certainly wish that I could change the requirements to a Christian world view, but that would be impossible under the network's current design. Ian, I too have purged my computer of all illegal and immoral content. The only MP3s I have are ones I have legally obtained (the laws in my country allow downloading of music which is copyrighted without paying for it -- it is considered along the same lines of recording onto a cassette tape what is broadcast on the radio. However, even though I can legally pirate MP3s I buy the CDs of whomever I listen to consistently. I just bought a disc from Rebecca St. James about two months ago. As for the software that I havn't paid for, the only software I use under this category is abandonware; such software that is no longer supported by its developers and can not be registered even if I wanted to register it legally. I have no software on my computer which I can not legally use. Most of the stuff I run is opensource (as I run the Linux OS only. I don't feel tempted to download pirated software or other material off these networks either. Your note about things that corrupt or tempt me did nudge my spirit, however. I no longer use sites on the Freenet without having a full description of the content which I'm about to be exposed to, and I only use content search facilities that do not display a graphic picture provided by the page's developers (each publisher of content can make a little logo or image to represent their site); I use the filtered site index only (except for the rare instances where I'm just checking to make sure my site's logo displays in the search properly). Ian, my church too used to have the problem of using unregistered or pirated software, but this has stopped completely when some members of the church pitched in to buy new hardware and software for all that was needed. The main thing to be registered was MS Office, as they use PowerPoint a lot. We first tried using freeware software to present the PowerPoint content (with the OpenOffice software package), but people found that it didn't offer as many features as the Microsoft software did; thus a $350 MS Office was bought. Ian, I read your last paragraph and have thought to myself: "Oh how the Internet resembles Babel before the confusing of the speech; now that sites of various languages can be translated into English or whatever other tongue "on the fly" or "as requested" (instantly)"

allhavsinned: the use of the network by no means is a strong temptation for me to pirate anything, or use hacks/cracks. My TV went as well; I gave it to my parents as their TV died and their minds were firmly set on spending hundreds of dollars on a new one. Neither they nor I have cable or satellite TV, and the only show I regularly watch is the news. They, however, watch all sorts of junk that comes in from the antenna, but this I can not stop. I often voice my distaste of the general content of TV to them. Your second last line has really struck my conscience where you have said "that's like being a postman and knowing that the letters you're posting [transfering] are helping sinners into deeper sin." From this sentence I feel a strong conviction to not provide storage space for Freenet's general use. My store size is now at its minimum configurable level of 32 megs. Thanks for your comments. I want to by all means use everything I can to reach the lost; that "I am made all things to all [men], that I might by all means save some." - 1Cr 9:22

CJaKfOrEsT: I have taken what you said to heart. I am currently in the process of installing filters to the newsreader and file-sharing software that I use relating to the Freenet network. I am blocking even the listing of any graphical images, and am filtering all content which uses curse words and other offensive words.

Thank you everyone for your input. I would like to hear more from any other Christian that has thoughts on this matter. Please though, stick to the original topic of hosting space or bandwidth to anonymity networks.