All attacks we have identified exploit the lack of endpoint anonymity and are aided by the effects of free riding. We have seen effective legal measures on all peer-to-peer technologies that are used to provide effectively global access to copyrighted material. Centralized web servers were effectively closed down. Napster was effectively closed down. Gnutella and Kazaa are under threat because of free rider weaknesses and lack of endpoint anonymity.
Lack of endpoint anonymity is a direct result of the globally accessible global object database, and it is the existence of the global database that most distinguishes the newer darknets from the earlier small worlds. At this point, it is hard to judge whether the darknet will be able to retain this global database in the long term, but it seems seems clear that legal setbacks to global-index peer-to-peer will continue to be severe.
However, should Gnutella-style systems become unviable as darknets, systems, such as Freenet or Mnemosyne might take their place. Peer-to-peer networking and file sharing does seem to be entering into the mainstream – both for illegal and legal uses. If we couple this with the rapid build-out of consumer broadband, the dropping price of storage, and the fact that personal computers are effectively establishing themselves as centers of home-entertainment, we suspect that peer-to-peer functionality will remain popular and become more widespread.
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