Introduction

What is Entropy?

Entropy is a software, which creates a "net inside the net" (inside the internet) for its users. This software can be used both by *nix- and Windows-users.

Entropy is "Free Software" (under GPL) and can be downloaded here:
http://entropy.stop1984.com/

Why a "net inside the net"?

The Entropy-net can hardly be put under surveillance, this is the difference between the "direct" internet and the Entropy-net. Nobody is able to know who has up- or downloaded which content as there are no central logfiles and no central server.

Why should I use Entropy?

If you do not want to accept the growing surveillance of any communication and the growing censorship -often in the name of copyright, branding or similar laws which are used to restrict communication - you should protect your communication.

Software to encrypt your e-mail (PGP, GnuPG) does help. But: anyone who is interested can still see that person A has communicated with person B. File transfer is usually unencrypted. HTTP, FTP etc. are protocols which are not encrypted. They do leave traces and so someone can find out which files have been up- or downloaded, by whom and to or from which server. Entropy tries to plug these holes (holes meant in the way of data security) by hiding connection details.

How does Entropy work?

Entropy is a software for several tasks - tasks for the purpose of an anonymous and uncensored communication:

• it connects (via the internet) your computer with other computers where Entropy is installed and running (P2P - Peer to Peer)
• it distributes or downloads pieces of data (chunks) to/from computers taking part in the Entropy-Network
• data-loss by "nodes" being (permanently or temporarily) offline is avoided by redundancy (FEC = forward error correction).
• data exchange between nodes is encrypted
• one file (the cache) is being used as store for the data - both your own as those of other nodes (you can, of course, define the size of this cache)
• it does not store complete files or file names in a legible form(!) on a single computer

Entropy supports the Freenet Client Protocol (FCP) so that existing clients can easily and quickly be used for Entropy. Freenet (http://freenetproject.org) and Entropy can be used at the same time.

One example for those clients is Frost (http://jtcfrost.sourceforge.net/), a software originally written for Freenet. Frost can be used for exchanging news and files (it serves as messageboard and file-sharing client at the same time) and can be used for both Freenet and Entropy.

What does Entropy look like?

Entropy can be used in different ways. The average user will probably use the web-interface (proxy).In this case, Entropy will not be looking much different to the known pages on the WWW. The difference is that there are no central servers and no "active content" which could be used to track users' surfing behaviour.

Clients like Frost are also meant to address to the "average user" - for those users who want to exchange opinions, texts, pictures, documents, music etc. or who want to have access to "blocked" information.

For the sophisticated user, who is able to design HTML-pages himself, there are helping programs (tools) to put one or more websites into the Entropy network. The difference between this opportunity and a provider is that there is no regulation for the content because there is no chance for regulation (as mentioned above: any down- or upload is made anonymously)

Other tools are to be thought of. Some of them are already "work in progress" (a shared SQL database, HTTP-proxy using Entropy as cache). The Freenet Client Protocol offers relatively simple ways for the development of new applications if you are interested to create new applications.

System requirements:

1. *nix-box, Windows-PC, Mac OS Xm, Darwin, or Yellow Dog Linux
2. internet-connection (at least 56K-Modem)
3. at least 500 MB free disk-space (for the cache described above)
4. the Entropy software (download of ca. ~600K source or ~2M Windows zip)
5. some online-time with an IP-address not changing too quickly
6. a free TCP-port (You will probably have to adapt your firewall or NAT. see the next section for more information)
7. a web-browser addressing localhost/127.0.0.1 without proxy (for security)

How do I start Entropy?

This is different on each system - a description can be found at: howto.html as well as in the README file that accompanies the Entropy distribution.

What do I do if there are problems occuring with Entropy?

There is a discussion board, especially for Entropy at: http://f27.parsimony.net/forum66166/

Problems, questions, remarks are best placed there :-) Please write in either English or German as we do not speak any French or Spanish etc.

Or just contact Pullmoll (the creator of Entropy) by sending a mail to: pullmoll@t-online.de