p2p

WASHINGTON--Verizon Communications doesn't currently block or slow down peer-to-peer file-sharing applications like BitTorrent on its broadband network, but it can't rule out doing so in the future, a company vice president said Monday.

The comments by Verizon executive vice president Tom Tauke arrive as Comcast has taken heat for throttling BitTorrent traffic in the name of "reasonable network management" and as the Federal Communications Commission is studying whether Internet service providers should be permitted to manipulate P2P traffic. Consumer interest groups have asked the FCC to declare that "degrading peer-to-peer traffic" violates the FCC'… Read more

Qtrax is the first free and legal music download service that sounds promising enough to check out. (They claim it's a "P2P" service, but I'm not sure you can upload anything, so that disqualifies it in my book.)

They're advertising 25 million tracks, and claiming that all four majors are onboard, although Warner apparently begs to differ. Files are encrusted with DRM, but only to prevent users from burning them to a CD--transfers to any Windows Media-compatible portable music player are OK, and iPod support is promised later this year. (Qtrax hasn't said whether … Read more

On Thursday, Japanese authorities announced the arrest of a college student and two associates who are alleged to have written and distributed a Trojan horse via a popular peer-to-per network.

Because Japan currently lacks computer crime laws, the three (whose names were withheld) were instead arrested on copyright violations. Between October and November of 2007, the author of a Trojan known as Harada used images of a popular anime character to entice users of the Winny P2P network to download the malware.

Computers infected with one strain of Harada displayed a message saying, "You're already dead. Come here. … Read more

Not to be confused with UStream, a new technology put together by the folks at BitLet (coverage) called Westream lets you listen to music files that are being distributed via Bittorrent. Up until now there hasn't been an easy way to listen to Bittorrent files without downloading the entire file, or group of files. In the case of Bitlet's system, all you have to do is drop in the URL link to a Bittorrent file, and the system will pull up the tracks, complete with a player that lets you pause, skip songs, and increase and decrease the … Read more

At least, that's what a recent study from Digital Music News and BigChampagne suggests. Why? Because 36.4% of the 1.66 million computers survey had LimeWire, a popular peer-to-peer (P2P) program installed. Guilty by association?

I have LimeWire installed on my Mac. This doesn't make me a thief. In fact, I've bought a wide range of music through iTunes over the past year. I think I've downloaded one or two songs and a few goal compilations using LimeWire in the past year when I couldn't find them on iTunes. The songs in question - by Led Zeppelin - I ended up buying (again, as I'd already bought them once or twice on CD and cassette tape) when they became available on iTunes.

So, 99.999% of the music I've listened to in the past year was happily bought through legitimate means. .001% was not. At least, not originally. Am I a thief? I suppose so. But not by any devious plan. I imagine that I'm not alone in how I consume music.

But maybe as a 30-something geezer, I'm atypical. Maybe everyone does want to steal music, as the music industry seems to believe. If this is the case, as Ars Technica writes, charging more per song does not sound like a winning resolution to the problem:… Read more

There would have to be something seriously wrong with us if we willingly discussed infections--digital or other. But virus protection is something we all need, and what better way to protect ourselves than to use the scariest-sounding anti-virus software on the planet?

BullGuard Internet Security 8 launched recently, and immediately appealed to us as it combines anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, spam filter, online backup and technical support. That's almost everything you could ever need from a digital prophylactic--for 44.95 pounds a year (about $93).

Old-school file sharers should remember BullGuard: It was built into the Kazaa P2P client to … Read more