Free Haven

The Free Haven Project was formed in 1999 by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students with the aim to develop a secure, decentralized system of data storage. The group's work led to a collaboration with the United States Naval Research Laboratory to develop Tor, funded by DARPA.
Distributed anonymous storage system
The Project's early work focused on an anonymous storage system, Free Haven, which was designed ensure the privacy and security of both readers and publishers. It contrasts Free Haven to anonymous publishing services to emphasize persistence rather than accessibility. Free Haven is a distributed peer-to-peer system designed to create a "servnet" consisting "servnet nodes" which each hold fragments ("shares") of documents, divided using Rabins Information dispersal
algorithm such that the publisher or file contents can be determined by any one piece. The shares are stored on the servnet along with a unique public key. To recover and recreate the file, a client broadcasts the public key to find fragments, which are sent to the client along anonymous routes. For greater security, Free Haven periodically moves the location of shares between nodes.
Its function is similar to Freenet but with greater focus on persistence to ensure unpopular files do not disappear. The mechanisms that enable this persistence, however, are also the cause of some problems with inefficiency. A referral- or recommendation-based "metatrust" reputation system built into the servnet attempts to ensure reciprocity and information value by holding node operators accountable. Although nodes remain pseudonymous, communication is facilitated between operators through anonymous email.
Work with Tor
The Free Haven Project worked with the US Naval Research Laboratory under the US Office of Naval Research along with funding from DARPA to develop Tor for the purpose of securing government communications. Tor was deployed in 2003 as the third generation of onion routing systems.<ref name="ieee"/>
In 2005, the Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped in to provide additional funding to the Free Haven Project to continue development for civilian purposes.<ref name="ieee"/> Since 2005, Free Haven has also been funded by the Omidyar Network, the International Broadcasting Bureau and Reporters without Borders.
Free Haven hosts Tor as well as the Mixminion Type III anonymous remailer.

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