Off-shoot of anti-copyright service gets Intel funding

The new company provides “decentralised, distributed networking technology for internet and enterprise customers.” It is the first company to develop proprietary technology based on Clarke's Freenet architecture.

Like Napster, Freenet is software that allows one user to access files stored on the hard drive of another PC if that PC is on-line with Freenet installed. The differences are that it is a non-commercial venture, any files can be swapped by those with the free software (not just MP3 music files) and, most importantly, it is decentralised, so there is no single server to shut down to disable the service. Basically, there is nobody to sue for infringement if copyrighted material is swapped by users except the users themselves.

However, unlike the similar Gnutella service, Clarke developed the Freenet system to be anti-copyright and anti-censorship, giving complete anonymity to users – thereby protecting users from legal action. The current drawback for users is that the software is still being developed and, although available in beta form, it is not yet user-friendly.

Uprizer says it is developing applications that are designed to allow customers to globally scale in ways that are currently limited using conventional, centralised networking approaches. The company's technology is expected to include the added benefits of increasing both network efficiency and reliability, and significantly reducing the total cost of network ownership.

Intel has likely invested because the growth of P2P computing relies on PCs with significant processing power – and the supply of processing power is where Intel profits.