# The Internet

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet/71049>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 3, 2001, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet/71049 "2001-07-03T04:20:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sublime1300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Sublime1300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublime1300)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2001, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet/71049/1 "2001-07-03T04:20:35Z")

</div>

what is the name of the website that gives you free internet service that was made up by a kid in college and the website can’t be shut down unless everyone belonging to the website gets offline?and has it been shutdown by the courts yet?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![micco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f8ce5/32.png) [@micco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/micco)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2001, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-internet/71049/2 "2001-07-03T14:02:16Z")

</div>

Are you talking about Freenet? It isn’t a website per se, but it fits your other criteria. It’s a peer-to-peer network that propogates content between nodes. This makes it difficult to shut down or censor because resources don’t exist solely in one place.

[http://freenet.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=whatis](http://freenet.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=whatis)

It has not been shut down by any court, nor is any action pending AFAIK. It doesn’t do anything “wrong” anymore than the Internet itself does, and, unlike Napster, it does not exist predominantly to facilitate piracy, so court action is unlikely.