Small-world topology
The basis of Freenet's routing is the small-world topology. If a network has small-world topology, then routing can work, and should scale with roughly O(log^2 N) (O(log N) if nodes have O(log N) number of connections). If not, it won't.
Small-world topology for Freenet purposes means:
1. The network is fully connected, in the sense that there exists a route between any two nodes on the network.
2. There exist short routes from any node to any other node.
3. If A is connected to B, and B is connected to C, then there is an increased probability of A being connected to C. (the "triangles" property).
See
the papers section∞ on the main website.