Distributed Computing Program Hidden in Kazaa

The_THOMAS writes: "A federal securities filing Monday revealed that the hugely downloaded Kazaa P2P (file sharing) software contains a piggyback program which will create a second, new, network controlled by Brilliant Digital. They plan to awaken the software, already on millions of computers, within the next four weeks. The program will be used to host and distribute other companies' content and may be used for distributed computing. Read the details here."

Comments

Trojan horse

[nebbian]

If a trojan program is useful, does that make it any less of a trojan? Where do you draw the line? To my mind, people have downloaded a program, expecting it to do one thing, and really it has a payload that con do something completely different... Makes me wonder what else the makers of this 'brilliant' scheme aren't telling us about it :-)

Re:Trojan horse

[aminorex]

That's why you should run open source software.

If you agree to terms that permit them
to do this, you don't have much to complain about.

what a joke!

[Monkelectric]

Im not sure if this is an april fools joke or not ... I would guess not because unlike the other jokes, this one is liabel. So assuming it is not, the quote "...We're trying to create a secure network based on end-user relationships."

Sneaking software onto peoples computers to create a good relationship with users ? ... or did they mean a good relationship with b3d's clients?

Revenge

[0xB]

Once the client starts receiving and transmitting data it shouldn't be hard to get a rough idea of what's being transmitted and then we can start sending duff data to their servers.
It doesn't matter whether we know what the data is or not, it just going to be a binary chunk with probably a checksum somewhere. Fill their servers with random data and see how long they want to continue using our resources

Sigh...business as usual

[NotoriousQ]

I find it very sad, that companies will trick the user into installing the software without the knowledge. I mean, how many users would mind a spare cycle burner to help the service they like. I mean if they included the abviosly visible message (not hidden inside license agreements) saying something like "We are providing this service free of cost to you, but in return, this service will install software that will use your computer while it is not being actively used by you, and only while kazaa is running. Unfortunately, if you do not wish to run this program you will not be able to run kazaa as our finances depend on it. We promise that no information about you or your files will be used." If such a message came from a company with not a bad reputation (winamp comes to mind), i would install the program, as would many other users, adn both parties gain. When it is done in secret, it only damages the company rep, thus making it even harder for them to make money..

Furthermore, it seems that the wasted cpu tiem is becoming a precious commodity, which I am currently donating to seti, with no financial compension (in other words I am not selling the cpu time). I wonder how long till the government will accept donated cpu time as a real donation, so i can put it on my tax return....hmmm, i am thinking about at least a dollar per unit, and i am now at 780 units, that makes it 780$ deducted from taxes, and if it is a dollar per hour....

that could be a hefty some for stuff donated to a good cause....

maybe someone at seti would give me a receipt...hey, that would mean more people doing units for them...could be beneficial to both sides...

Re:April Fools?

[JebuZ]

Given that the supposed quote from the Terms of Service given in the page doesn't actually appear in the Terms of Use listed on the KaZaA site, it's probably safe to assume it's a joke.

Re:There's a subtle logic at work here

[mgblst]

the artists still aren't getting paid!

With the current cd for cash model, the artist doesn't really get paid either!

Distributed doubleclick?

[MadFarmAnimalz]

Under this plan, an ad that a person sees on a Web site might be hosted by a nearby computer running Brilliant's Altnet instead of on a central ad server, as now typically happens with DoubleClick.

Well, this seems pretty much to be the end of ad blocking through firewall rules... Pretty easy to see why doubleclick would like this scheme.

You'd basically never know what host would be spamming your browser...

*sigh*

Incredible

[TheCrunch]

Am I the only one who thinks these P2P apps are evil?

I used Grokster on my networked Win2K box at home. This box contains my personal files, such as financial info and I also use it to do online banking. So my privacy really matters. I also use this box for work and I have it streamlined and tweaked to run as efficiently as possible. No foolish system tray or startup apps etc...

Well it seems that P2P apps like Kazaa or Grokster work hard to breach my privacy and fudge my system. I've never known software to be so malicious. First, I see that Grokster has web-based ad support. Okay, that's tolerable, they need some form of revenue. But don't think I haven't noticed your "secret" stash of cached ads in my system directory, Mr Grokster. Then I notice the popup ads. Also annoying.. but again I tolerate. I didn't run Grokster for longer than a day and my system can handle twenty browser windows. But then, incredibly, it turns out that the required advert component also sends out information about me, including my browser history. Big no-no, Mr Grokster. Now I have to spend time to counteract this. I found a replacement set of libraries which do not send personal information. From that point on, I figured I was safe. Oh no... this weekend, after a Grokster session, I spotted a strange "extract.exe" on my desktop. Hmmm. How did that get there? I took a look inside and found various executables and libraries. How quaint. I most certainly did not download it. So I searched my system and lo and behold, it seems some ActiveX has automatically downloaded and run this program for me, spreading half a dozen files around my system. Looking through the registry I see that in fact it's installed a browser toolbar. Oh lovely.. just what I wanted. Took me a good half hour to rid my system of it's leeches.

The moral of the story, don't run Grokster. Well fine, I've learnt my lesson and I'm fortunate enough to have another disposable machine to unleash the Grok on. But my concern is the X million people who don't have a clue. The sort who click on "www.yahoo.com.exe". They see Grokster or Kazaa on download.com or whatever, download it and use it blissfully ignorant of what I consider to be a virus. In fact, the only difference I see between Grokster, Kazaa etc.. and viruses is a service. Package your virus as an application and you earn amnesty from antivirus software.

Slashdot articles and anti-spyware sites keep us geeks in the loop, but that doesn't help the masses. Only laws help the masses. There must be some law somewhere that states such practices to be illegal. Tricks used by these programs such as placing independent components in the system directory posing as actual system files, running programs without permission, not informing users of these hidden "features" and so on, are clearly malicious.

I'm for P2P networks, but clients such as these seriously rub me the wrong way and I'll be glad when the RIAA eats them. I just pray for a nicer client to take their place.