Kazaa Continues to Evolve

Zephy writes "The New York Times (free registration etc.. ) has an article about a new partnership between Kazaa, and Tiscali, the European internet access provider. Seems that Kazaa will carry ads for Tiscali's broadband services in return for a cash 'bounty' when a user signs up for broadband. To quote the article, 'This gives legitimacy to KaZaA.' Also, Cnet has an article about the new Kazaa version which has features designed to help users avoid corrupt or wrong files such as those spread around p2p by the MP/RIAA."

Comments

Finally

[batboy78]

I like to have all of my pr0n named properly

Re:Finally

[gabec]

so what's to keep the MPAA from making a bunch of profiles and then going around marking legitim...err.. uh... appropriately named files... as fakes?

Re:Finally

[thomas.galvin]

Numbers. More than 3 million people downloaded kazaa last week, or about 120 million in total.

Now, lets say that 10 percent of there people are actually using it. That's 12 million people. Lets say that only 10 percent of these people bother to rate files. That's still 1.2 million people rating files. For the RIAA/MPAA/etc to screw with ratings, they would need at least 50 percent of the votes, or about 600,000 active accounts. That is an awful lot of people to throw at the problem.

I take it from the summary...

[CrazyDuke]

It still has all the nice little trojans and spyware? I'll wait for the lite version.

Re:I take it from the summary...

[milesbparty]

I've never tried Kazaa, but try Ad-Aware by LavaSoft to clean up the spyware. It's always worked well for me on software like Bearshare.

Re:I take it from the summary...

[lordkuri]

FYI... if you use Ad-Aware to remove the spyware components of Kazaa, it kills the program.

-LK

Re:I take it from the summary...

[pangur]

If you ue AdAware to remove KaZaa's spyware, KaZaa will no longer function.

When you start it up, it says something to the point of "Hey, you agreed to run this spyware. I'm taking my ball and going home". The sofware just exits at that point.

I don't know of a way to get around it other than installing KaZaa on a crappy laptop I don't use (200Mhz) and only turning it on when I download stuff.

Re:I take it from the summary...

[NineNine]

No need to wait. The lite version has been out for quite some time... http://www.kazaalite.com

Re:I take it from the summary...

[ncc74656]

FYI... if you use Ad-Aware to remove the spyware components of Kazaa, it kills the program.

IIRC, Kazaa needs Cydoor to run. Fortunately, there's a dummy Cydoor DLL available. (Can't say that I've used Kazaa or Kazaa Lite in a while, though...I started running Shareaza recently, which is spyware-free, ad-free, and works with a true decentralized network.)

Re:I take it from the summary...

[e2d2]

I use the KazaaLite version and although I can scan for spyware and not find any just fine, it still pops up advertisements using IE. I left kazaalite on one night a few days ago and come back to 10 pop up ads on my tool bar. Maybe not spyware under a strict definition but a pain in the ass nonetheless. Oh well.

Re:I take it from the summary...

[DennyK]

I started having that problem with my (older) neutered version of Grokster. To fix it, I just turned off all scripting in IE. Grokster continues to work fine, but it no longer displays popup ads. I haven't tried the new version of Kazaa, but I'd guess the same trick would probably work with it.

DennyK

Re:I take it from the summary...

[arkanes]

You can go one step further and just add the domains it calls up to the restricted zone in IE. I forget all the domain names, but the kazaa lite site has a list of em.

Re:I take it from the summary...

[Suppafly]

You most likely have other spyware stuff from other programs.. don't forget that audio galaxy and many other p2p services install spyware as well as several webpages exploit active x scripting to switch you over to useing their popup generating proxies.

Re:I take it from the summary...

[NineNine]

Also, unless you get the newest HOSTS file from kazaalite.com, the "home page" for Kazaalite is still the official Kazaa page, which DOES cause the popups. So, just get the hosts file at kazaalite.com which will redirect the kazaa home page (hardcoded in the program) to the kazaalite home page (no popups of any kind). Also, it's a really good hosts file that kills a LOT of ads (including some here on Slashdot)

Re:I take it from the summary...

[DennyK]

True...but it's easier for me just to block all scripts. I don't use IE for web browsing anyway, so I just leave it set to ask before it does anything. Then I can just tell Grokster "No" and the occasional IE-only site that I have to visit "Yes"... ;)

DennyK

Legitimacy?

[toupsie]

'This gives legitimacy to KaZaA.'

Is that possible? And how does this give legitimacy to a company that spells its name in mixed case letters? I just love press release speak, says everything, means nothing.

Re:Legitimacy?

[Suppafly]

Yeh, its also not really possible to add legitimacy to a company whos primary objective is to distribute software which facilitates distributing illegal music and software.

Here's a good test I've developed to tell if a company is legit. Does it bundle spyware with the software? If yes, its most likely not legit and will be sued out of existance sometime soon. Does it facilitate transfering music and video on a peer to peer level, if yes its most likely not legit and will be sued out of existance.. With kazaa, both are true so it'll be gone soon.

Re:Legitimacy?

[InnovATIONS]

On on another level, how can a company be legit when it has to locate on a tiny island in order to avoid criminal prosecution in the countries where it really does business?

Re:Legitimacy?

[VoiceOfRaisin]

like ATi and nVIDIA?

Re:Legitimacy?

[grumpygrodyguy]

Here's a good test I've developed to tell if a company is legit. Does it bundle spyware with the software? If yes, its most likely not legit and will be sued out of existance sometime soon

Yes, I purported to exercise a similar test on your testicles. But the test samples were too small to find anything conclusive.

Re:Legitimacy?

[Catbeller]

illegal music and software.

Illegal music.

Why am I the only one I know who is terrified that possessing and listening to music can be illegal?

Re:Legitimacy?

[_Spirit]

Well if you play music loud enough you might hurt or even desintegrate people. I know of countries where that might be considered bad form or even illegal.

Re:Legitimacy?

[toupsie]

Still better than AtI and nViDiA.

Re:Legitimacy?

[Warped-Reality]

The smaller the potatoes, the bigger the steak.

The clock is ticking

[Njoyda Sauce]

How soon till the RIAA slams Kazaa as long and hard as Napster? Surely they don't think that joining forces with European companies somehow protects them from the long arm of the RIAA?

Re:The clock is ticking

[forgoil]

Why shouldn't RIAA stop them? If they would have done legal business instead of spreading illegal copies of copyrighted material I don't think that RIAA would stop them.

Whine all you want, but it is justifying theft, one way or the other, to think that it is ok to have services such as Kazaa.

I hate RIAA as much as the next guy, and I am not too happy about MPAA either, but then again, I am not happy about a lot of things really, but that doesn't make me some kind of moral superhero for the people...

Re:The clock is ticking

[NineNine]

What I'm wondering, and I've asked this before, is is there any way for the RIAA to "shut down" Fasttrack? Is Fasttrack as distributed as they say it is? If there were servers for the RIAA to attempt to shut down, is it enough to shut down all of the Fasttrack network?

Re:The clock is ticking

[Zhe Mappel]

I hate RIAA as much as the next guy, and I am not too happy about MPAA either, but then again, I am not happy about a lot of things really, but that doesn't make me some kind of moral superhero for the people...

Not for "the people," no. But when you uncritically parrot the sentiments of our economic masters, who decree that one must never share one's music, then you become their hero. Or stooge, as it were.

Re:The clock is ticking

[SirSlud]

> Whine all you want, but it is justifying theft, one way or the other, to think that it is ok to have services such as Kazaa.

We should shut down FedEx too. Last I heard, they had delivered lots of illegal things to sketchy people. Clearly we must ensure that people are on tigbht-fitting technological leashes so they don't have to think or act accountable for their actions. Welcome to utopia, where, if you can physically do it, it must be okay! Never think about the consequences of your individual actions again!

Would you be the first to turn in your friends and family, or are the people that made the tools responsible for bending and warping their puny little minds into acts of wonton piracy?

Re:The clock is ticking

[Cornelius the Great]

Imagine that... if RIAA can shut down a p2p network like Kazaa, there won't be anything that they can't touch. Most likely, the judge in the case won't know a bit of difference between Kazaa and Napster.

Am I worried about the future of our rights online? Hell yes.

But am I worried about my ability to download mp3s/divx's of the net? Not really... something else will always take the place.

Unfortunately, I guess it won't be long before the RIAA tries to shut down IRC chats that host channels where files are swapped (DALnet come to mind?).

Re:The clock is ticking

[Worminater]

big brother is watching?

Re:The clock is ticking

[psxndc]

Most likely, the judge in the case won't know a bit of difference between Kazaa and Napster.

I'm as anti-RIAA as the next guy, but legality-wise, what is the difference between Napster and Kazaa? Not technically-wise, legality-wise. Both allow the trading of music on a massive scale without the artists' and record companies' consent. Personally I think the the record companies rape the artists and the consumer, but that's not the issue. Kazaa and Napster promote priacy. For me personally it also promoted buying a crapload more albums, but I know and am fully aware that was I was doing was stealing (in the sense of getting something I didn't pay for. I realize that stealing also implies depriving someone of the original possession which is not the case here, but I digress...).

psxndc

Re:The clock is ticking

[xigxag]

Both allow the trading of music on a massive scale without the artists' and record companies' consent.

It's the Internet which allows it. Kazaa merely facilitates it. And of course, it's the participants who perform it.*

Napster was deemed illegal because it was considered to be an active participant in the filesharing process. The case against Kazaa is somewhat harder to make.

(*And it's me who italicizes it.)

Re:The clock is ticking

[JoeRobe]

"...one must never share one's music..."

Who's music? Your music? Music that you wrote and recorded?

You may want to share music files, but don't be mistaken: it's *not* your music unless you're the artist that made it. If you buy the CD, then you own a little round piece of plastic, but you still don't own the music.

Re:The clock is ticking

[NeMon'ess]

Napster only existed to share music. Kazaa allows file sharing of any file type. So if I write an e-book and want everyone to copy it, with Kazaa they can find it easily. Kazaa has more legal uses than Napster.

Re:The clock is ticking

[Bamfsog]

The difference between FedEx and the Kazaa/Napster networks is that the MAJORITY of the file sharing network's content is a problem. Their primary business and attraction to end users is the illegal content.

There was an article in the news the other day about a guy selling weed at KFC, and slipping it into the orders. The majority of the business being done was still tasty chicken, so KFC wasn't the problem. If they had removed 90% of their menu and replaced it with Weed, then they would be shutdown.

Re:The clock is ticking

[fish waffle]

...is there any way for the RIAA to "shut down" Fasttrack?

Fasttrack is proprietary, so any guess may be correct. However, they do describe their network as formed from regular nodes and 'supernodes' that act as directory services for the regular nodes. Registration is used to find the initial supernode(s), but after that it is p2p (and supernodes can appear/disappear).

So, perhaps you could shut it down by demanding kazaa tells you about all the supernodes it knows about, and following the links. That will not get everyone, since links are transitory by nature in p2p, and so being exhaustive would be impossible. Alternatively, you could demand kazaa release all the registrant names, and use those as a starting point. But not everyone will have registered (you can find your way onto the network without registering), not everyone will have been entirely truthful when they did register (credit cards will help, but not guarantee), and besides that's a lot more work.

Alternatively, you could force ISPs to filter out Kazaa traffic. This works poorly; ISPs will not filter their traffic for just anyone (and there are costs/tradeoffs involved), and people would just hide the traffic some other way anyway.

So, there is no 100% way in a technical sense. Of course there are lots of imperfect solutions, and there may be a balanced level of enforcement that would keep it out of the mainstream---the answer could be yes in a pragmatic sense.

Re:The clock is ticking

[Archfeld]

BULLSHIT IT IS MY MUSIC the INSTANT I PAY FOR IT.
I can alter it, change the way I listen to it, edit it, time shift or media shift it in any fashion I want. What I can't do is provide it to others for free, or resell it. Beyond that it is my MUSIC, and if the RIAA thinks differently they are STUPID. I treat a CD I bought just like a book I bought.

Re:The clock is ticking

[Planesdragon]

1: It's "wanton", not "wonton."

2: FedEx and other true "Common Carriers" have no way to tell that the contents of one wrapped package are illegal--and if they do (i.e., it's got a "do not export" label on the outside and is being shipped to Iraq), they've probably allready been sued to stop & check.

VCR recorders were declared legal because a significant legal use was declared--and then followed through on. What's the significant legal use of KaZaa, again?

Re:The clock is ticking

[SirSlud]

> What's the significant legal use of KaZaa, again?

Until it is shown that most people pirate content that they either already own, have owned, or purchase legally in the future, there's not much one can say to that. This would really be the "smoking gun" - getting a statistic that really spells out what percentage of KaZaa downloads are listened too "illegaly" (in that once its listened too, the listener should either own the song , purchase it in the future, or decide s/he doesnt like the song and never listen to it again). I really have my suspicions that the number is not nearly as high as the RIAA is trying to spin it to.

I don't have much sympathy for the RIAA tho. Yes, the rules are in their favour, but they are really abusing the system to stymie any possibility of competitors in the online music distribution industry. Its an industry that should already exist, but the RIAA's tactics just delay the maturation of the industry for us consumers.

All of this belies this simple fact, a fact that many others here have echoed: were it not for Napster, the RIAA would have *less* money in its pockets thanks to the music I discovered that I wanted to buy. It's as simple as that.

Re:The clock is ticking

[fandelem]

It is your COPY of the ARTISTS MUSIC, for your own personal use, yes. You can edit a track on your CD to your heart's content, as long as it's for personal use. The minute you distribute this in any way, it infringes on the copyright (which you have stated). Just like you buying a book, you could write a different ending, but when you start to claim that it's yours/selling it, it doesn't really go over to well, now does it?

I think you're not on the right topic-- The topic is regarding sharing files (ie. infringing on the copyright), not your rights concerning personal usage.

Re:The clock is ticking

[forkboy]

What's the significant legal use of KaZaa, again?

1. Porn. Lots of it. All you can ever want. Much of it put there by the people who own it to promote their websites.

2. mp3s that you legally own. I dunno about you, but I am picky about what I listen to. I own the CD to just about every song that I possess in mp3 format. (bootlegs not withstanding) I just like them in a portable, network-transportable format. Many people such as myself do the same.

3. Distribution of free and open source software. Can't get into Redhat's FTP site? None of the mirrors giving you a good connection? Pull the ISO off of Kazaa.

Yes, there is a hotbed of illegal activity there, but there's just as much legal activity. Just like Vegas. (but without so many hookers.)

Re:The clock is ticking

[dustman]

Would you be the first to turn in your friends and family, or are the people that made the tools responsible for bending and warping their puny little minds into acts of wonton piracy?

Arrr, me eye spots another trade ship from the orient! Ready the cannons, and pull hard to starboard! Wonton soup for everyone who lives through it boys, and if luck be with us, we'll score some crab rangoons and general tso's chicken!

Re:The clock is ticking

[JoeRobe]

"So music stores do not sell music, they sell round peices of plastic?"

Yes, they do just sell a little piece of plastic, but it has someone else's intellectual property on it. Just like when I buy a book, the book store isn't selling me the property or thoughts of the writer, but the pieces of paper with the writer's thoughts on them.

"You are confusing the right to play/listen/share with the right to re-record/sell&profit."

I'm not talking about rights, because that brings up the issue of copyrights, which is a whole new can of worms. All I'm saying is that when you buy a CD, that music, which is intellectual property, is not yours. You merely own a copy of someone else's work, just like a book.

Re:The clock is ticking

[timmyf2371]

Yes, the Fasttrack network can be shut down. A while ago the Morpheus client was locked out (anyone remember that?) which is why Morpheus is now based on Gnutella.

Fasttrack is AFAIK fairly distributed, but there are central points of 'failure'

Tim

Re:The clock is ticking

[TheKey]

Yes, but it also has new illegal uses because of that. For example, just searching for Windows XP Professional turns up an ISO. Heck, I can get the leaked UT2k3 beta on there I wanted. Anything you want. Of course, I'm not suggesting they should shut it down. Do something. I don't know what.

Re:The clock is ticking

[Archfeld]

I see your point. This is not directly germane, but in an effort to ensure the Corporate right to profit, they are going to ensure I can't exercise my free use rights. I think the governemnt needs to tilt the field towards consumer free use and the burden of ensuring a secure system should rest on the producer NOT the consumer. The existing laws COVER this situation and should be exercised, we DON't need more legislation, the only ones who benefit that way is the lawyers.

Re:The clock is ticking

[Catbeller]

Actually, you do own the book and the words on them. This has been established for centuries.

You can read them aloud, make a copy of them, chop them out of the book and make bomb threats with them (which would make it a real crime), set them on fire, write an article about them and quote selected portions. You can resell the book, because you own it -- the publishing company does not own it, and has no rights to it. Period. Tho they are currently trying.

About ten years back, RIAA tried to shut down CD resale shops. They failed. About the same time, they tried to to shut down digitial audio tape. Blank CD's. About fifteen years before that, they tried to make casette tapes illegal. The screamed that the music industry would collapse if copies were possible. They were wrong.

The movie industry tried to outlaw video tapes. Video tape machines. CD-burners, I think, were a target. Failed, failed, failed.

I understand the book publishing conglmerates are trying to use the wonderful new intellectual property theory so successfully used by audiovideo corporations to shut down book resales.

I can only attribute the new successes of these conglmerates to annihilate 200+ years of property owners' collective rights to their purchases to a new quasi-religious belief in the supremecy of corporate rights uber alles... the old adage "the business of America is Business" raised to biblical power.

If these extremely radical rewriting of national -- hell, international -- laws get the heartfelt support of just about every business-connected American, our future will be sealed books with embossed licenses.

The idea behind copyright was to encourage artists to create works to benefit mankind -- not to make a profit for all eternity. They were granted a limited time to pursue benefit of their monopoly, at the end of which they were to surrender the property to the commons. This system has worked wonderfully for two centuries, providing the world with incredible insights and art not previously seen in such volume.

And now, incredibly, a radical movement of corporate takeover of content is throwing our laws out the window. I'm astounded "conservatives" swallow this horse#$*& with such glee. This is radical political thought more violent to the collective spirit of man than the old dartboards of Communism and Socialism.

Intellectual Property is a notion cooked up in the early 20th century, and is anathema to the intent of the writers of the U.S. Constitution. Those writers decided to promote arts for the benefits of all. IP is for the benefits of those who can afford a printing press, a bleacher of lawyers, and the shackling of content creation for their own selfish purposes.

Knowledge is not property. Ideas are not property. In essence, the Constitution provides a clear declaration of a granted license to businesses to control the right of distribution -- for a limited time. It does NOT say that the artists OWN the works. Does NOT. It was assumed that ownership of an insubstantial thing as an idea was ridiculous and unenforcible. But they get to print and control printings by others to make a profit. For a couple of decades.

Interestingly enough, it took 120-130? years for American courts to recognize copyrights of other nations' artists. We stole like hell from anyone else.

Re:The clock is ticking

[Chasqui]

This is a technology that makes file sharing easier. Can it be used to distribute copywrighted material? Of course. Hammers are a technology that make nail driving easier. Can hammers be used to smash ones fingers? Of course. (I freely admit to having smashed a thumb on more than one occasion) Will a judge find that the primary purpose of this software is to facilitate copywrite infringement? Maybe. I don't think that I am unlike many who find that putting MY purchased CD's in MP3 format is convinient. I also downladed songs to hear them - liked them and bought the album. Guess what I did with the songe I didn't like? Delete. Does that make me a criminal? I find this problem exasperating because I can see RIAA's point - people might be downloading songs they would otherwise have to buy or listen to on the radio (and pay for by listening to commercials). They would probably label me a fool for purchasing the album when I can download it so easily. Make it lest tempting! Instead of making the music harder to copy sell me something more than just the music. I can't belive how chinzy the packaging on CD's has become. How do they justify $18 a pop for CD's?!

Re:The clock is ticking

[Dirtside]

1: It's "wanton", not "wonton."

Mmm... wonton. :) Seriously, though...

What's the significant legal use of KaZaa, again?

That thread's been argued to death (and is unresolvable without hard numbers), so I'll ask another one: if 95% of the citizens of a country ignore one of its laws, should the law continue to exist?

I'm not saying it should or shouldn't, in general, or that this specific kind of copyright infringement should or shouldn't be, but it's certainly something to think about. When everyone's doing it, should we punish everyone, or rethink the law instead? Or is there another option?

Re:The clock is ticking

[Planesdragon]

Until it is shown that most people pirate content that they either already own, have owned, or purchase legally in the future, there's not much one can say to that.

Those are still illegal actions. What's ethical and what's legal are not always the same thing.

All of this belies this simple fact, a fact that many others here have echoed: were it not for Napster, the RIAA would have *less* money in its pockets thanks to the music I discovered that I wanted to buy. It's as simple as that.

I wish it was as simple as that. But the courts can't say "RIAA, you're making more money, so shut up." Control of who gets to copy what songs is important--especially when unfinished works of art are being distributed through the world's most efficient method of mass distribution.

Re:The clock is ticking

[Planesdragon]

if 95% of the citizens of a country ignore one of its laws, should the law continue to exist?

No. But until the legislature repeals said law, it does exist and "should" be followed.

And, of course, there's the fact that some laws are there to move against people's base nature. (Speed limits, nondiscrimination laws, outlawing dueling, anyone?)

When everyone's doing it, should we punish everyone, or rethink the law instead?

Both.

Re:The clock is ticking

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Could I get an extra side of mashed potatoes w/ that?

Observation

[poot_rootbeer]

'This gives legitimacy to KaZaA' means the same things as 'This paints a big bulls-eye on KaZaA's back for Rosen & Valenti to shoot at.'

How does this give legitimacy?

[BoomerSooner]

The line is what? "Sign up for broadband and you can steal even more music online!"

Sounds legit to me. (end sarcasm)

Re:How does this give legitimacy?

[allism]

Actually, that's what a lot of the broadband companies seem to imply in their ads...One local company has a shot with a teenager saying excitedly, "Now I can download even MORE of my favorite music!!!" If that's not implying, "Get broadband to increase your pirating efficiency", I don't know what is.....

Re:How does this give legitimacy?

[phorm]

In most cases of rampant idiotic teenage download-everything-without-paying yes. However, my 2 CD's full of fully legit mp3 downloads do argue against this.

As more try-before-you-buy mp3 shops come up, hopefully this will become more popular.

Would rather pay for something I DL'ed and liked than a CD of mixed semi-crapola anyday - phorm

Re:How does this give legitimacy?

[allism]

I agree that using a download service that offers licensed downloads is the way to go (I personally prefer emusic.com), but I think a lot of people aren't going to know the difference right off the bat, or how to find the legitimate services. Heck, my great-uncle has had internet access for five years, surfs every day, but hasn't gotten the hang of how to find something using a search engine.

Legitimacy, arrrrr

[tuxedo-steve]

To quote the article, 'This gives legitimacy to KaZaA.'

Yes, and to quote the KaZaA CEO:

"Arrr, me harties! This be giving us legitimacy! We sail for New Orleans, with our bounty of broadband gold and pirrrrated MP3s!"

Just because you're the King of Spain's privateering vessel doesn't mean you don't have a peg-leg and a parrot. Get me?

Re:Legitimacy, arrrrr

[Java Pimp]

"Arrr, me harties! This be giving us legitimacy! We sail for New Orleans, with our bounty of broadband gold and pirrrrated MP3s!"

This reminds me of the Video Pirates sketch from Amazon Women on the Moon. The pirates capture a ship with a treasure chest full of VHS videos. :-)

Re:Legitimacy, arrrrr

[falzer]

YAR! That'll replace the whale in me nightmares!

Re:Legitimacy, arrrrr

[limekiller4]

tuxedo-steve wrote:
"Just because you're the King of Spain's privateering vessel doesn't mean you don't have a peg-leg and a parrot."

It does if you work at the Pizza Pizza.

Re:Legitimacy, arrrrr

[Hi_2k]

Are you sure it wasnt "Speak like a pirate day" when he said that? Still, pretty rediculous.

Don't download it!

[Mr_Silver]

Obvious point for some, but still I'll make it.

Wait until Kazaa Lite is released before you go downloading it. Unfortunately www.kazaalite.com doesn't work any more but doa2.host.sk (which is where www.k-lite.tk points to) does.

At the moment they only have 1.7.2 up there, but give them a chance and check back next week.

Re:Don't download it!

[thallgren]

How do you know they didn't put another "home-made" spyware into Kazaa Lite? I tried it once and sure, those pesky Gator ads were gone, but I got a lot of phone ads instead.

Given that the source isn't out, I'd rather stick to the official spyware version instead of using something that might give criminals an income, or take over my computer.

Regards, Tommy

Re:Don't download it!

[NineNine]

Well, Kazaalite.com is hurting, but luckily, you can get Kazaalite on Kazaa! I get quite a few people downloading my copy Kazaalite with either grokster or Kazaa.

Re:Don't download it!

[Schnapple]

How do you know they didn't put another "home-made" spyware into Kazaa Lite?

The way you know is this - you fire up Ad-Aware, the NAV of Spyware, and you check. Check before and after you install it.

The deal is this - "real" Kazaa has spyware. Remove spyware and Kazaa refuses to run/work. Kazaa Lite is a hacked Kazaa that uses an empty file instead of the Spyware DLL Kazaa uses. When you install Kazaa Lite it tells you to let a particular file slip past Ad-Aware, as Ad-Aware will think it is a spyware file but really it's an empty useless file (pop it into Notepad to verify).

If Kazaa Lite "pulled a Gator" and just replaced Kazaa's spyware with its own then Ad-Aware would catch it. Is it possible that Kazaa Lite could just replace the spyware DLL with its own? Yeah, it's possible, and if that possibility scares you off then file sharing is not for you.

Re:Don't download it!

[NineNine]

If you're still getting ads after removing Kazaa and using Kazaalite, then you have something else still installed on your box. I've checked Kazaalite, and it's very clean. Don't badmouth Kazaa Lite when the culprit is your own machine.

Re:Don't download it!

[thallgren]

I doubt AdAware can detect a home-made spyware. That was my point. They could do it and get quite a lot of money before someone discovered it.

Regards, Tommy

Re:Don't download it!

[thallgren]

So you checked Kazaa Lite, how? With AdAware? Do you really expect AdAware to find home-made spywares?

Regards, Tommy

Re:Don't download it!

[Schnapple]

Still, isn't that better than installing something with established spyware? I'd rather install something that might have Spyware for a little while than something that definitely has Spyware that can't go away.

Re:Don't download it!

[NineNine]

I installed Kazaalite on a clean box. No ads. I run it on 5 PC's now. No ads.

Re:Don't download it!

[kasparov]

Do you know how many geeks you file sharing? Guess how many of us download and install software, open a network sniffer, and watch the traffic that goes by... I guarantee that you'd have verification that Kazaa Lite included spyware within an hour of them adding it.

Re:Don't download it!

[thallgren]

I don't think so because the down-sides with running Gator are well-known. Gator is also a real company trying to do "legitimate" business, they'll get sued if they do something too radical.

A home-made spyware could do just about _anything_, including getting your credit-card number, using your computer for DDOS attacks, distributing child porn etc, and you wouldn't know until it's too late.

I mean, do you even know who's behind Kazaa Lite?

Maybe I'm just a bit paranoid. :)

Regards, Tommy

Re:Don't download it!

[thallgren]

And no trojans? Nothing that steals credit card numbers? Gives out email addresses? Oh, you wouldn't know until it's too late. :)

Regards, Tommy

Re:Don't download it!

[forkboy]

Anyone with even a modicum of technical saavy knows how to monitor traffic on their box. Kazaalite does not have trojans, virii, or spyware, I assure you.

Between antivirus companies and people like me who obsessively watch network traffic when they're bored, anything shady would have been caught a while ago.

Re:Don't download it!

[WWWWolf]

Guess how many of us download and install software, open a network sniffer, and watch the traffic that goes by...

Nah, network sniffers are lame, because they're detectable in one way or other, especially if it's on the same machine. The spyware just notes "Holy heck, ppp0 is in promiscuous mode, I guess someone is logging this so I won't exchange the secret documents for now". =)

Besides, how many of you log, store and analyze every packet that passes through - especially in case of decentralised P2P apps that connect wherever whenever god knows how many times? Besides, not all of these protocols are even documented...

The real question should be, of course, do we geeks decompile every P2P app and find out exactly what they do? "Yeah, this dll has only no-op functions that return success" vs. "Eek, this supposedly clean dll has live code afterall, looks like it's connecting somewhere!"

Re:Don't download it!

[McCart42]

Unfortunately, no. If you try to remove the adware from KaZaA it will either redownload it or refuse to work. I'm not sure which yet. To the best of my knowledge the adware is linked to the kazaa executable so your firewall probably wouldn't be able to distinguish its traffic. Besides, they're sneaky.

Re:Don't download it!

[McCart42]

If it had any sort of a keylogger in it, which is what you're suggesting, I would see the text I'm typing show up in my packet sniffer. It hasn't. So, KaZaA lite does not have the type of spyware that you describe. And for those who don't use a packet sniffer on occasion, you can rest assured that things like this are tested on a regular basis by those who do. If you're seriously that worried about it, then don't use it. I don't see why you've got to be so up in arms about it.

now that I go back to check your post again...distributing child porn? That's not spyware. Spyware to me is rather one-way (aside from the ads)--sending information on your browsing habits or other information from your PC to somewhere else.

Re:Don't download it!

[thallgren]

And for paranoid people, it's fully possible that information is hidden in the data you share. For example, cryptated data could be melted into jpegs and movies. Heard of terrorist(well...) messages hidden in porn? Heard of digital signatures?

Perhaps it is possible to do this very fast, maybe even in real-time. And all the receiver has to do is to download a lot of media from random people and search for signatures. No naïve packet-sniffing(standard answer to my other posts in this thread) can detect that.

But I suspect this technique is far too advanced for the Kazaa Lite h4xx0rs, in fact, the Real Kazaa are more likely to have the resources to do it.

Regards, Tommy

Re:Don't download it!

[glesga_kiss]

Given that the source isn't out, I'd rather stick to the official spyware version

Technically the source is out for the cydoor dll hack. It's the only new binary and it is a set of empty function delarations that normally contain the spyware stuff. By replacing the dll with the sanitized version, the spyware is rendered useless with Kazza none the wiser.

The rest is just the installer. If you are really paranoid there is a web page somewhere explaining how to turn a full legit copy of kazza into kazzalite. However, if you have run it even once before doing the hack, you have already lost because the spyware has already done it's spying.

Besides...WinMx is better and has no spyware at all. (according to it's web page and ad-aware). It's slightly harder to use, but in the way that vi is harder to use than notepad. The extra features like adjustable queuing thresholds (AEQ) are really powerful, if you know what you are doing.

Re:Don't download it!

[glesga_kiss]

I get quite a few people downloading my copy Kazaalite with either grokster or Kazaa.

Defeats the purpose, the spyware has already done it's job.

wow

[laserjet]

Here's the main gist of the article, boiled down into a single rock:

"Under the deal, KaZaA's owner, Sharman Networks Ltd., will advertise high-speed Internet access provided by Tiscali, an Italian Internet provider, to its tens of millions of European users. In return Tiscali, which serves around seven million customers in 15 countries, will pay Sharman a "bounty" for each KaZaA user who signs up for its high-speed access service."

Seems like an OK move for both companies, but I think there are so few people that actually look at and consider banner ads that it won't do much good. On the plus side, Kazaa gets another partner.

It does seem a bit funny that a high speed ISP would partner up with a file-sharing company that eats up all their bandwidth. While some ISPs are figuring out how to ban them, others are joining with them. I hope they have a lot of bandwidth to spare.

Re:wow

[Tha_Big_Guy23]

It does seem a bit funny that a high speed ISP would partner up with a file-sharing company that eats up all their bandwidth. While some ISPs are figuring out how to ban them, others are joining with them. I hope they have a lot of bandwidth to spare.

Well, as the old saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, Join 'em. But I think there's a hidden agenda going on here. Why would any ISP pay someone to get people to sign up to use a service that just tears through their bandwidth. Either they've got a really good solution to the problem, or they've been puffing on the hash pipe too long.

Re:wow

[rmadmin]

Maybe the said ISP has, or is planning to block P2P traffic, Because, after all, you don't need to advertise to someone who is already on your service. But then again, why would kazaa agree to something like that. Never mind, another conspiracy theory shot to hell.

Re:wow

[critter_hunter]

Easy: put up a limit to users' bandwidth, and charge extra when they go above the limit. Fuck, one of my friend running a Hotline server got a 250$ bill when his ISP started charging 8$ a GB above 5 gigs... that's what happen when you don't read the notices they send you

Re:wow

[amorsen]

It does seem a bit funny that a high speed ISP would partner up with a file-sharing company that eats up all their bandwidth. While some ISPs are figuring out how to ban them, others are joining with them. I hope they have a lot of bandwidth to spare.

File sharing is just about the only way they can sell high-speed connections. There are practically no content providers for high-bandwidth content. It is nice to have web pages download slightly faster, but for most users the difference is not worth the extra cost. Personally I went for ADSL because the alternative around here is to pay by the minute. I want to be on always, the bandwidth is secondary.

Tiscali is one of the nicer ISP's, at least here in Denmark. They do not mind sharing of connections or running servers.

Incidentally, I find it sad that we are calling ADSL high-speed.

Re:wow

[toroid11]

In Italy 25% of pay per view satellite TV is watched using pirate smartcards. There is a lively black (and white) market of cards, equipment, codes etc.
The content providers only make token attempts to stop this, because they realize that it actually increases the sale of their packages, as many people buy minimal cheap subscriptions to appear legit. The point is that piracy (and porn) is another form of inducement to take up a new technology that requires initial equipment investments (and higher running costs). It has all happened before: VCRs, internet, even chat lines. Tiscali understands this very well and will use it to reinforce their market penetration. Other broadband providers such as BT are making tentative noises that they want to cap the traffic for 'heavy' users and obstruct P2P usage. My bet is that they will soon find that users give them a wide berth. Of course in order to remain attractive Tiscali will have to keep increasing capacity and manage their contention ratios wisely, but this is a small price to pay for this aggressively expanding company.

Self Moderation

[QEDog]

"Kazaa's new software allows people to rate files so that corrupt or false files will quickly collect ratings poor enough to warn people away from downloading them. "

I wonder how long till this system is also exploited to give poor ratings to the real files. Maybe some other alternatives to self moderation can be used.

What about the other wrong labels?

[Corvaith]

The one time I tried Kazaa, I didn't drop it because of the ads or any of that junk. I don't like it, but that's life. I dropped it, in the end, because every time I tried to download /anything/, it seemed like, the labels were wrong. The filename said one thing, the label said something else, and the thing itself was usually some third thing. I don't /think/ that the MP/RIAA has been masking Eminem as the Indigo Girls claiming to be Ani Difranco, but... I suppose I could be wrong.

Re:What about the other wrong labels?

[Suppafly]

Yeh, I love how someone will download something, think it's someone different than it is and rename the file before sharing it again, paying no attention to the id3 tags.. Doesn't every use winamp? I'm amazed at how often I'll get mp3's which are labeled wrong, but have the correct id3 info because the person who originally ripped them used a service such as cddb.

Re:What about the other wrong labels?

[NineNine]

Well, the great thing about Kazaa is it's viral. If you get a song that's wrong, you can either nuke it, meaning there will be fewer bad copies out there, or you can rename it yourself, and that copy will propgate faster than bogus copies.

What?

[batboy78]

'This gives legitimacy to KaZaA'. So does this mean that RIAA/MPAA is going to get off of KaZaA's back about the terabytes of MP3z and Movies and Pr0n that are available on the system? I don't think so. They will be after them more now, since they know that the service has some influx of revenue.

Re:What?

[SirSlud]

But it sounds like this ISP is in support of Kazaa, and won't be a pushover.

The RIAA wanted Kazaa dead before, but now they have to deal with a company with money. Different ball game for RIAA, don't you think?

Re:What?

[batboy78]

I hope that Kazaa and company can put a decent fight, I really hate seeing the Media industry telling people what they can and can not do with their products. I don't promote piracy, but I should be able to watch my DVDs wherever I want on whatever I want, Listen to my music wherever I want, in the car, on the way to work, in the bathroom. They are encouragin companies like Microsoft to include DRM in all of their products to stop me from moving my CD/ MP3 collection to another product.

Its enough to drive you crazy.

Re:What?

[Suppafly]

but I should be able to watch my DVDs wherever I want on whatever I want, Listen to my music wherever I want, in the car, on the way to work, in the bathroom.

You can do that without kazaa, and infact downloading stuff off of kazaa is not fair use at all.. its one thing to steal music, its another to try and justify it as legal. If you really want fair use, you are entitled to it, but you have to make the copies yourself instead of downloading them.

Why kazaa?

[xyzzy-ladder]

Is there any advantage to kazaa over Gnutella?

Re:Why kazaa?

[NineNine]

Kazaa has a HUGE advantage over Gnutella. Kazaa has many, many more times the number of users and number of files that Gnutella has. And, that difference is only going to grow. Somebody downloads both, sees that Kazaa has a hell of a lot more, they use Kazaa, and share their files on Kazaa, thus improving Kazaa.

Re:Why kazaa?

[snatchitup]

I use gnut.

Just got my gnutella server back up and running over the weekend. I went to get the latest version of gnut (A terminal mode linux client/server) and see that it's not listed under www.gnutelliums.com

I was actually able to get the source from my previous istallation, re-compile on the newer Linux kernel and was up and running.

I didn't have any problems finding some stuff.

I log into my home Linux box running gnut through OpenSSH from work using Putty. I've got gnut running in "Screen" so I reattach to the screen. It's really cool. I can start a search or a download from work, then get home 1/2 later and listen to the song and whatnot.

gnutella is a free for all dude. There's no discrimination in what it is for. I've gotten some great junk from all over the worl with gnut.

Re:Why kazaa?

[FooBarWidget]

Exactly, I want to just open the program and search & download the files I want. But I don't want to wait 7 hours until I'm finally out of the "remote queue" so the download can begin at 3 kb/sec while connected to 6 people, so I use Gnutella.

Re:Why kazaa?

[Smthng]

Just like AudioGalaxy had a huge advantage because of their nice webclient and ease-of-use.

Just like napster had a huge advantage because of their big name, large and growing userbase and indexing servers.

Of course both of the above are gone now. And that is what is going to happen to kazaa very shortly. So although it seems like Kazaa is the biggest for now, it can only be the biggest while it still exists :)

Re:Why kazaa?

[NineNine]

Assuming that the Fasttrack network CAN be killed..

Re:Why kazaa?

[FooBarWidget]

The network can't be killed but the clients can. Shutdown FastTrack and Kazaa and the clients won't be able to find each other because they can't connect to the first server.

Re:Why kazaa?

[gabec]

Actually, the biggest reason to use the FastTrack network (KaZaA, Grokster, etc.) for ME is because of reliable and fast connections. Every time I've tried Gnutella to find files, first, when I start the app it'll take forever to successfully connect to the network and second once I do find files it'll say "50 people have this file" and it still takes forever to download it... why? Of those matches most of the connections fail or time out. FastTrack is almost always fast in both initialization and reliable file transfer.

how does this give legimacy(sp)??

[gl4ss]

how does this make kazaa more (or less) legit than with other ads?? IIRC kazaa has had ads for soo long time.. onlything worth noting is that they've finally gotten some crc checking(apparently) to get rid of fakes and criplers..

Re:how does this give legimacy(sp)??

[SirSlud]

Because the company thats advertising in this case has money, and (presumably) decent laywers.

Let the pissing contest begin! Down with the RIAA! :)

Rating System

[SealBeater]

Quick question on the rating system. What's to stop the same people who are
saturating KaZaa with false files to simply rate good files negatively? That
way, they don't even have to flood the network, all they have to do is stomp on
a file at a time and nobody is going to download it to see if it's good or not.
Is the rating system simply going to make it easier for companies to steer
people away from good files?

SealBeater

Re:Rating System

[hey]

The MPAA proxies would be outvoted millions
to one. Since there are millions of Kazaa users.
It would be hard for the MPAA proxies to simulate
being millions of users.

Re:Rating System

[z4ce]

I agree. It seems pretty flawed. I'm sure the theory is the number of users rating it will overcome the RIAA's attempt to mark it bad. But, what if the RIAA is the first one to mark it bad? And what if they register 1000s of accounts? It seems to me the answer to this file trust problem is to assign a modified web of trust to people using PGP/GPG keys. Maybe someone will implement it in giFT...

Ian

Re:Rating System

[Erasmus Darwin]

"The MPAA proxies would be outvoted millions to one. Since there are millions of Kazaa users."

That's just flat-out poor logic.

For any given file, only a small percentage of the total Kazaa users will download it. Of those who download it, even fewer will rate it. There won't be millions of votes for any song on Kazaa unless someone rigs up an automated voting script.

Re:Rating System

[RollingThunder]

Except that the real ones will be getting the positive votes. Slowly, they will begin to pull ahead of the pack, and thus gain more attention - and a similar increase in getting good votes, until there's a clear authoritative "Fooblah Slim - Grok my Parser Up.mp3".

Re:Rating System

[Chaltek]

There is a critical difference which would keep a slashdot style meta-moderation system from working on a p2p network.

On /. vast numbers of users see each item to be moderated (comments), and so a few moderators are able to cover them all. In contrast, each item on a p2p network is seen by only a (relatively) small number of users, and so having a subset of the users with moderation privileges would prevent most items from being rated at all.


~ Chaltek
-- I'm too new to /. to have a cool sig, so this is my placeholder.

Tiscali == Full of FTP Abusers

[Frater 219]

Perhaps this will cut down on the number of port-21 scans I see from Tiscali. At present, they're one of the largest sources of scans for open anonymous FTP servers, right behind Wanadoo. The abusers are looking for FTP servers that allow both upload and download in the same directory. When they find them, they fill them up with warez, porn, and movies.

Now, you may think, hey, free warez, porn, and movies ... but I'll bet you don't work for a site with a few hundred technically bright but security-dumb scientists. These folks like open FTP because it makes it easy to collaborate and share data, but they don't like having their disks fill up with blowjob MPEGs.

So if Tiscali can get its warezers and pr0nsters running Kazaa and shoving spyware onto each other's systems all day, maybe they will go away and leave my users' port 21 alone.

Re:Tiscali == Full of FTP Abusers

[Hieronymus Howard]

This should really piss off the pr0nsters:

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/home/ftp/pub/blowjob.mpg bs=1024 count=100000

HH

Re:Tiscali == Full of FTP Abusers

[nolife]

When they find them, they fill them up with warez, porn, and movies.

Let it run for a few days and fill up your HD without doing anything. Where do I sign up? Much easier then browsing P2P..

Re:Tiscali == Full of FTP Abusers

[WWWWolf]

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/home/ftp/pub/blowjob.mpg bs=1024 count=100000

I think it'd better to download a blowjob MPEG, cut 2 seconds of blowjob from it, and paste that small clip over and over for 20 minutes, save and encode that as MPEG. Preferrably also mess with filters for some of the clips, add a fake title sequence and copyright warnings so that they don't cancel the download immediately...

...and the result would probably be far more thrilling than your average pr0n movie. =)

Re:Tiscali == Full of FTP Abusers

[PD]

Even better would be to make a driver that hooks up to /dev/blowjob. As long as you read from that device, it delivers a snippet over and over again. Why waste the disk space?

Re:Tiscali == Full of FTP Abusers

[Saeger]

What? A scientist loses all credibility if he isn't also a security specialist or if he uses an "unprofessional" naughty word?

Fuck you.

--

I'll be glad when kazaa dies..

[Suppafly]

As someone who has to do network support, nothing is worse than a computer which has had kazaa and the accompaning spyware installed. That new.net crap ruins the winsock stuff forcing a total reinstall, and those spyware proxys have people complaining about QoS when its the proxy which is providing the crappy service. I await the day we come to /. to bury kazaa, not to praise it.

Re:I'll be glad when kazaa dies..

[jidar]

yeah.. well... you can fix the winsock problems by removing tcp/ip and then removing the mstcp tree in the registry. Reboot and then readd tcp/ip.
So.. how many harddrives have you needlessly nuked? heh

Re:I'll be glad when kazaa dies..

[shepd]

>you can fix the winsock problems by removing tcp/ip and then removing the mstcp tree in the registry.

That's assuming the user was intelligent enough to keep their CD. Since about 50% of the machines I work on have pirated windows, and worse yet, they didn't even keep the CD-R their brother/niece/friend installed it from, and the dough-heads didn't copy the cabs to the HD, I can't always fix it the "easy" way.

Remember, there's (may even be more!):

- Win 95 original
- Win 95 B
- Win 95 OSR2
- Win 95 OSR2.1
- Win 98
- Win 98 SE
- Win ME
- WinNT 4
- Win2k Professional
- Win2k Server
- Win2k Advanced Server
- WinXP Home Edition
- WinXP Professional

Too much stuff to lug about, not to mention it would be illegal for me to have many of those...

Re:I'll be glad when kazaa dies..

[Suppafly]

I've had limited success with removing and readding tcpip.. haven't tried hacking the registry too much other than to make kazaa not load on startup and to unregister ad proxys.

Re:I'll be glad when kazaa dies..

[Suppafly]

- Win 95 original
- Win 95 B
- Win 95 OSR2
- Win 95 OSR2.1
- Win 98
- Win 98 SE


Luckily all of those will fit on the same cd saving some lugging around..

Re:I'll be glad when kazaa dies..

[shepd]

>Luckily all of those will fit on the same cd saving some lugging around..

That's a really good idea. Thanks for the tip! :)

Re:I'll be glad when kazaa dies..

[nelziq]

Kazaa Lite: All the wares, expcept the spying kind.

Interesting developments

[Scarblac]

There are several interesting developments here. For one thing, Tiscali allies with Kazaa - a natural step for them, because after all, they want to sell bandwidth, and why would people need a lot of bandwidth, if there weren't any applications like Kazaa?

Then in the second article, one of the things that's mentioned is that they partner with a music company for which Kazaa is actually the only way it distributes its music. This may be good for Kazaa's legal case, after all Napster seemed to lose mostly because they couldn't show that their networks were used legitimately at all.

On the other hand, I wonder what the judge will think of the new feature against 'bogus music and video files', that are inserted by the record companies to make the network useless. Almost all of those files will make themselves look like songs that are actually illegal to trade, so making a feature to stop them, however useful and natural to make, could be seen as actively helping to download copyrighted stuff.

But I can't really see them winning the case in the US anyway, after Napster.

Re:Interesting developments

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Almost all of those files will make themselves look like songs that are actually illegal to trade, so making a feature to stop them, however useful and natural to make, could be seen as actively helping to download copyrighted stuff.

Not at all. The WYSIWYG feature merely make sure that the user is in fact downloading what they think they are downloading. That would also prevent a ten-year-old from downloading the "Donald Duck gets a blowjob" mp3 when he/she in fact was looking for Britney Spears.

Re:Interesting developments

[jbolden]

Then in the second article, one of the things that's mentioned is that they partner with a music company for which Kazaa is actually the only way it distributes its music. This may be good for Kazaa's legal case, after all Napster seemed to lose mostly because they couldn't show that their networks were used legitimately at all.

The problem is there are much better ways to distribute legal stuff than Kazaa. A rootless peer to peer setup involves enormous networking overhead (over 1/2 the packets) that you wouldn't have with the standard download systems. I think almost all anonymous peer-to-peer file shares are going to face this problem; if what was being distributed was legal you wouldn't go to this much trouble.

I think the best thing for Kazaa would be to get political stuff of an extremely non mainstream nature: everything from KKK literature to communist party literature to anarchist stuff to taliban philosophy to Turner diaries traffic to taiwanese indepence writings ... That way there is a good reason to be doing in anonymously and at the same time its highly protected. The downside is you might end up attracting enemies more powerful than the MPAA and RIAA.

Re:Interesting developments

[grumpygrodyguy]

A rootless peer to peer setup involves enormous networking overhead (over 1/2 the packets) that you wouldn't have with the standard download systems

The only thing that makes computers interesting is Moore's Law. If it wasn't for that, most of us wouldn't even be using these things...there'd just be a cloistered few of us at IBM or the DoD babysitting a main-frame.

What were your parents doing in the 60s and 70s? Smoking bud, drinking beer, going to football games...instead you're on Slashdot right now. And Moore's Law is the only reason.

If one thing is certain, the networks are going to get faster, the harddrives are going to hold more, memory will get cheaper and faster, etc. etc. etc. So you can harp all you want about performance problems in the present, but unless it's going to effect us 5 years from now, it's a moot argument.

Now if you want to argue that we should break all of our computers because it's giving you a 'moral' dilemma, then that's a different issue entirely.

Re:Ad-Aware

[CrazyDuke]

I make sure every windows machine I own or work on has it.

Tiscali? Arggh

[perlyking]

Spam I report often originates from Tiscali accounts. I wouldnt give them any of my money for that reason.

That's all well and good...

[Dirtside]

...but if Kazaa evolves to be radioactive and fire-breathing, I'm leaving the island.

How odd that an ISP wants warez kiddies

[vidnet]

Most ISPs seems to want to block or limit throughput for heavy traffic apps like this. What exactly is Tiscali trying to do?

Are they trying to round up all the kiddies on their network, driving bandwidth costs down?

Re:How odd that an ISP wants warez kiddies

[SirSlud]

Maybe Tiscali recognizes that if Kazaa has been downloaded 120 million times, there can't be that many Kazaa users that are full blown warez kiddies.

Most of the people I know who p2p (I don't out of sheer laziness, but then again, I've stopped buying music due to the crappiness of product right now) were not bandwidth guzzling warez monkeys but just wanted a recording of a top 40 song that they could have taped off the radio twice an hour anyhow.

So maybe Tiscali sees p2p as broadband's killer app, and has taken a more objective analysis of how their bandwidth will be affect by this partnership rather than just assuming that they'll only attract the types who throttle the pipe.

First impressions

[EpsCylonB]

they are promoting bands and videos on the search page but to play them you need to update your DRM software.

seems to me that kazaa could be trying to set it's self up as a media delivery system when palladium and all the copyright protection is implemented.

Re:First impressions

[grumpygrodyguy]

Won't they be dissapointed.

KaZaa != freedom

[The Ape With No Name]

KaZaa is the biggest piece of shite ever. It shouldn't even warrant this fluff post on /. . Spyware. DNS hijacking. It completely fucked up our DynDNS system with CommonName.

Re:KaZaa != freedom

[Quill_28]

KazaaLite

Mac version?

[adrew]

Has anyone released a version that runs on Macs (either OS 9 or OS X)?

I've searched but haven't found anything.

Re:Mac version?

[adrew]

That's what I use and I'm not happy with it.

I thought KaZaA was independent of the Gnutella network used by LimeWire et al.

My sister has KaZaA Lite on her Windows box and I can find a HELLUVA lot more stuff on it than I can on my Mac with LimeWire.

I also like its Napster-like "browse host" feature.

Legitimacy?

[csnydermvpsoft]

Woohoo, Kazaa joined an affiliate program. Does that that give my favorite pr0n site legitimacy too?

WinMX all the way

[Winterblink]

For my windows music searching, WinMX is my program of choice. No spyware, no ads.

Even if RIAA managed to shutdown Kazaa's makers...

[realxmp]

How the hell do they reckon they can remove the network itself? Without a centralised server they have to kill about 2.4 million peering clients and as long as at least one copy of Kazaa's client software exists somewhere in the world the network can regrow.

"more sources needed"

[British]

Does anyone else get 99% of their dl requests stonewalled with "more sources needed"? Reminds me of all the failed transfers I had with napster, yet no problems getting mega-rare tracks from AudioGalaxy.

I was hoping with less and less P2P services, people would flock to a common one, hence boosting the available tracks out there.

Re:Tiscali == Full of FTP Ab..isn't this illegal?

[incog8723]

I always thought this was illegal. I remember back in 1991 when I basically just discovered the internet, I had second thoughts about port scanning. I can see a single probe being not such a big deal, on a single port. However, since P2P is such a big thing, and lilly padding is becoming the way of the future, it seems as if it could all be automated.

It is theoretically possible to block IP scanning almost instantaneously, if there was a protocol that traded information with other clients when it was abused.

Just an idea.

Can we expect anything more from a well-known p2p?

[XTaCE]

In my personal opinion, they're all the same (with reguards to the programs used by myself and friends - the "teen" generation). Napster got clamped, so did Audiogalaxy and I'm just waiting for the same to happen to every progam I (reluctantly) use.

I am currently using KaZaA, and even after 5 mins of use, I realised it was a piece of 3u11$h17! Full of ads, especially (highly) annoying pop-ups that fill the entire screen.

As for Tiscali, I give them the same rating that's been plastered all over AOL (who happened to join with my local cinema, which has been completely AOL-ised)...4r$3!

Bad BroadBand; Good Cycling Team

[The Ape With No Name]

It's a shame that JaJa is associated with Tiscali.

Did you even read the article?

[Jeppe Salvesen]

The new Kazaa version attempts to address these exact issues. They will even reward the users that rate the content with priority when downloading.

Now go away, you over-moderated troll!

Two words.........

[Ride-My-Rocket]

"KaZaA" and "Lite". http://www.kazaalite.com/

Nooooo...

[shepd]

Cleaning up KaZaa ruined machines makes me a decent part time living! :-)

I'd be out of business if it weren't for KaZaa and WebShots... (well, not really, but I'd be out of _easy_ jobs).

Don't worry, I always tell my users not to use these programs after I've cleaned up their messes.

Re:Nooooo...

[FallLine]

I don't think it's quite fair to compare Webshots and Kazaa. Webshots may interfere with the operation of your computer in some circumstances, but no more than any other app that runs in the background like that. Webshots is not engineered to mess with your computer and it can be easily disabled. Granted, many users may bog down their systems with it, but it's a trade off between features and responsiveness that one can consciously make. Kazaa is an entirely different animal.

Re:Nooooo...

[shepd]

Webshots messes with your computer much more than you think.

Webshots includes Gator and OfferCompanion, which are some of the bane of all evils in the spyware business. Now you know why you got so many popups on all those computers running webshots.

Webshots and KaZaa are exactly alike, except KaZaa includes a little more spyware, Webshots a little less.

Basically, you think you're using a friendly program, but all this evil stuff is done behind your back. GetRight comes to mind, as well, but at least it asks if you want the garbage installed or not. :-)

Bad mp3 quality in Kazaa

[OberonX]

I've been using Kazaa for a few weeks now and I always find that I can almost never get mp3 with a bitrate higher than 128(while with the now defunt napster and audiogalaxy it was quite easy). Why is is that and is it there any way to get higher bitrates? TIA

How to buy great music

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Here's my Quality Assurance procedure when I buy new records:

1. Browse the reviews for stuff that looks interesting.
2. Jump online and find samplers
3. If samplers are good after about three listens, buy the disc.

I've avoided quite a few downers by following this procedure.

Re:How to buy great music

[ipjohnson]

How about going to see live music and buying the album if you like it?

Re:How to buy great music

[Skater]

I have another method: When something new comes out that I like, I wait 2 years before buying it. If I still want it after two years, then it's worth having, but most of the time the radio kills any interest I had in the song(s).

Re:How to buy great music

[jbolden]

I don't find that much connection by how good a group sounds live and how good their records are. In most ways this method is less accurate then going by the one or two songs on the radio.

Oh, GREAT!

[Asprin]

I can't wait for the first time I can't Meta-Moderate because we've been Googled!

By the way, does anyone know if this will solve the slashdot-effect-site-caching issue?

Re:Can we expect anything more from a well-known p

[fussman]

I am currently using KaZaA, and even after 5 mins of use, I realised it was a piece of 3u11$h17! Full of ads, especially (highly) annoying pop-ups that fill the entire screen. Whatever. I use KaAzA too, and I don't get that much shit. You must be a (closet) Netzero user.

Use packet sniffing.

[martintt]

If you use a sufficiently zealous firewall/packet logging system checking what's coming out of your system, then you will know if you have any spyware. Surely spyware is only used if it can send the information back somewhere. It might be a real pain to do but would be perfectly possible to packetsniff out any spyware.

And yes you might have to turn down the logging afterwards...

My own approach is not to trust a machine with kazaa on but...

Re:Tiscali == Full of FTP Ab..isn't this illegal?

[Frater 219]

I always thought this was illegal.

What, portscanning? In the U.S. at least, some courts have ruled it legal, whereas some courts have considered it an element of computer crime. I don't know what the case is in Italy.

It is theoretically possible to block IP scanning almost instantaneously, if there was a protocol that traded information with other clients when it was abused.

Sure. Now, tell me how you'll secure this protocol from forgery -- so that when Joe Hacktivist gets pissed off at CNN kowtowing to Red China again, he can't just tell the world that CNN is scanning him and get them cut off the Net.

Think also of the sheer quantity of processing that is involved in maintaining routing tables now, and how fucked-up the Net gets when routers do stupid things or when rogue ISPs (like Above.net) propagate fraudulent routes as a mechanism of censorship.

Typo in article

[Spunk]

... Kazaa will carry ads for Tiscali's broadband services in return for a cash 'bounty' ...

Kazaa users are often called pirates, right? In that case, I think they mean booty.

Arr!

Still 1.72

[OberonX]

The Kazaa webpage does have a new Kazaa 2 download link but it points to the download.com site with the download of only the 1.72 version. !?!?

Re:KAZZA LITE

[beebware]

Pssst: http://www.fasttrackmovies.com may be able to help you there.... Have a read (and, hopefully contribute) to the forum as well..

Why Kazaa? Winmx is and stays nr.1

[Jayenell]

yeah thats it and everyone using Kazaa must be a wanabee internet user. Cheers, J

Nice movie title...

[DrLarry]

The P2P's GodFather

Tiscali: Hey, we gonna make you an offer you can't refuse...
KazAa: huh?
Tiscali: Our cousins in the US are very powerful, so be a good boy an let's make business...

How is this "Evolution"?

[ites]

Kazaa is not evolving, just doing some deals.
"Evolution" would be something actually changing.
Maybe a workable ratings system?
Maybe getting rid of their ads and spyware?
Maybe... ah forget it.
One more piece of post-Napster junk.
Will someone please inform Sharman Networm^hks that Kazaa is DEAD?

A good strategy

[0xdeadbeef]

By this time you'll also find it in used CD stores, thereby getting it for a reasonable price and pissing off the record companies for the lack of a new sale.

Only 2GB!?

[The Raven]

You can't be using Kazaa correctly... just in the past week I've downloaded over 10GB. Of course, I haven't been very choosy about it... I've been sucking down every unique AMV I could find...

But only 2GB in a month? They should be HAPPY you've kept your usage so low. :-)

Re:KAZZA LITE

[stipe42]

Use the 'preview/play' option to watch what you've downloaded so far. You can't fast forward or anything, but you should be able to watch enough to tell if it's the right thing.
stipe42

I'm curious to know what you think of Andromeda...

[turnstyle]

"I await the day we come to /. to bury kazaa, not to praise it"

I'm just curious if you would consider my software Andromeda more friendly for your network. It's not like the main P2P networks insofar as you can't really use it as a mass anonymous downloader.

However, you can use it to stream your collection over a local network and/or over the Internet. Basically, it bulds a complete streaming web site from a collection of MP3 files. PHP and ASP versions are available.

There's no spyware, it doesn't need to talk 'outside' of your network, and it transfers over http so there typically aren't firewall hassles.

Best, -Scott

kazaa for mac?

[wtmcgee]

anyone know if a mac version of kazaa is planned?

Limewire Doesn't Smell That Great

[Blue Stone]

I downloaded and installed Limewire long before I tried Kazaa. It didn't work for me. Nothing I did seemed to help. Downloads just didn't happen.

I installed Kazaa (Lite, natch) and I was downloading straight away.

Besides anyone who knows how to tie their shoes, uses Kazaa Lite, with no adverts (or spyware) for free.

Great a way to get rid of the virii infested asf's

[Billly Gates]

I can't wait for the new legitimacy testing. I am sick and tired of the stupid porn baitbus ad which, by the way has virus encoded in its format every single time I download porn. These assholes just add some extra garbage bits to change the size and then they change the name. Its still the same old file advertising their porn and opening up a million websites at once and uploading the litmus worm on my system. I updated my system so the virus won't execute but I want to get a gun and shoot those motherf*ckers. Litterally %70 of the porn out their is from 1 of their 3 ads! I bet they have a bot that changes keeps remaining the original video file and storing and hoping suckers download it and spread it some more.

Another obnixous one is abunch of stupid kids singing to a midi file playing and they disguise their mp3's with names like Metallica-for-whomthebell-tools or Nirvanna-come-as-you-are-accoustic-rare.

What is wrong with these downloaders? If you guys get burned, please do us all a favor and just delete the bad movie and mp3 files?

Linking to NYTimes though Google

[shine-shine]

As NYTimes allows Google News to link directly to its articles (no registration)... Here you go.

Re:Linking to NYTimes though Google

[MrZaius]

The url for the NYTimes link follows:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/23/technology/23T UN E.html?ex=1033444800&en=9a698cd830314cae&ei=5062&p artner=GOOGLE

Notice the partner=GOOGLE?
All this annoying NYTimes user name nonsense would go away if slashdot would enter into such an agreement with NYTimes. Now THAT would be something worth donating for.

Re:Linking to NYTimes though Google

[Suppafly]

All this annoying NYTimes user name nonsense would go away if slashdot would enter into such an agreement with NYTimes. Now THAT would be something worth donating for.


Why should /. pay for a partnership, when they can just append &partner=SOMEOTHERPARTNER to the end of the links and achieve the same effect for free?

Re:Linking to NYTimes though Google

[MrZaius]

Why should /. pay for a partnership, when they can just append &partner=SOMEOTHERPARTNER to the end of the links and achieve the same effect for free?

Because they probably can't, assuming that SOMEOTHERPARTNER has to pay for it. NYTimes would might be displeased, ja? It is also quite likely that /. wouldn't have to pay very much to obtain Partner status, as NYTimes is likely pulling the majority of its revenue from advertisement. The increased referals from /. would certainly be most welcome.

I can't be the only one that uses google or a reposted text of the article in /. rather than mess with their login system.

Re:Linking to NYTimes though Google

[hobbitsage]

Of course now with google news if you see an article from ny times in /. then you can always google news to it. no linking needed.

Wrong files by the MPAA?

[MrZaius]

I'm a little bit confused. Every bad video file that I've ever seen or downloaded turned out to be pr0n instead of the music video or tv episode I was trying to get.

I sincerly doubt that actions by RIAA and the MPAA influenced the new design anywhere near so much as the kids w/their misnamed pr0n and broken files.

Lime Your Gnut....

[greymond]

I'm using limewire on the winxp machine and it's linux version of Gnutella on my slashdot friendly machine. - so why is everyone still using kazaa-look-what-i-install-too-software?

Re:I'm curious to know what you think of Andromeda

[turnstyle]

"You should add the ability to download files and you will have a *killer* idea!"

Well, you'll be happy to know that you can indeed download files - just right-click a file name in the left-hand column, and choose 'save as'. fwiw, site operators can also configure Andromeda to disable the download links.

As for Google, since Andromeda generates web pages, Google can index that. Again, if you don't want to be indexed, you can run Andromeda behind a password, and/or set up a robots.txt file.

Don't use Kazaa, try Edonkey

[Jacek Poplawski]

I think Kazaa will die like Napster or AudioGalaxy did. Don't use Kazaa. Please try edonkey2000 network. It's free, it's available not only for Windows, and you don't need to watch any commercials.

official (closed source) client: edonkey2000
free (GPL) client: mldonkey
free, Windows-only client: emule
ShareReactor community: ShareReactor

You think that's tough...

[jrwillis]

Try finding some good jazz at a higher bitrate on there. I'm finding that unless you like whatever's popular with the kids these days you're pretty much screwed on the p2p networks. Oh how I miss Audiogalaxy.

Does it run under linux/BSD yet?

[nurb432]

Would be nice to not need windows for anything..

I miss NorthEast Coast Wonton soup...

[netglen]

It's "wanton", not "wonton."

Off topic but I truly miss east coast Chinese Wonton soup. Chinese food is *terrible* out west. I miss going to WoHops in China Town in NYC. :(

Re:KAZZA LITE

[critter_hunter]

Not if it's in DivX, and every full length is in DivX. The only way I've found so far is to copy the partially downloaded file to another folder and then open it with Virtual Dub. VDub will reconstruct the index and then you can preview the file

They _CAN'T_ release the source.

[Dave2 Wickham]

Given that the source isn't out, I'd rather stick to the official spyware version instead of using something that might give criminals an income, or take over my computer.

They can't release the source, for one reason... They don't have it. It's a hacked version of KaZaA.

How 'bout......

[Y-Crate]

...it evolves into an OS X version?

Please?

(There is a serious lack of P2P software on OS X, all help is appreciated)

Re:KAZZA LITE

[slaker]

My boss had a "bring your kids to work so they can play with Kazaa on the multiplexed cable connection" day, and ran into exactly that problem. ... of course, two hours later, the nine-year-old was doing direct searches for that stuff.

Me? I blame Disney.

Meta Moderation

[danny256]

Hey, its works on slashdot, it can work on kazaa. Meta moderation keeps the trolls from abusing their moderation power, it can stop the RIAA too.

Re:I have a question... Is DL'ing anime fansubs le

[critter_hunter]

What the fuck are you doing on Kazaa to get Anime? Get Hotline, then after a while when you have accounts on good servers, you can download the latest anime a few days after the DVD comes out... in Japan. Of course, it requires a bit more effort since you have to fill people's request and find servers, but it's well worth it.

I don't see any ads in Kazaa anyway...

[myowntrueself]

1. I tell Norton internet security that 1214 is a web port so it filters for ads & viruses. 2. I run XP and log in as an unpriviledged user and deny myself write access to the directories where Kazaa keeps its advertising. Works for me! :-P

Horrible

[critter_hunter]

The new version is sluggish and seems to have memory leaks... the database system they use for your files information freeze the whole program for a few seconds to a minute everytime you modify a file or enter a new folder... and after a few hours running the task manager tells me Kazaa is taking up 43 MB in memory. What's this, a fucking BETA?

try mozilla, seriously

[rumba]

mozilla has built-in popup killer. 1.2 has solved the speed issues. I've been using mozilla off and on since milestone 8. Mostly off. I used to think it was the bloated, most unusable piece of crap. I've changed my mind. It may be a little bloated, but it is very usable.

Free Fasttrack client?

[TKinias]

Given the well-established evilness of KaZaA, is there any free (speech, not beer) client for the network? (I don't do Windows, so the `lite' version won't cut it, ideological issues aside.) In my experience, the Gnutella network is much poorer in content than the Fasttrack one, but I'm not willing to run Windows to access it.

Not your music

[0x0d0a]

Actually, "yours" is defined by the legal system, so, no, it isn't yours.

You have the right to own and listen to your copy, though. You also have a few other specifically granted rights. But you do not hold the copyright on the music, which is the mark of ownership of that music.

You do own the raw CD, and you could melt it and then do whatever you like with the raw materials...but you do not have ownership of the data that comes pre-recorded on the CD.

Piracy?

[0x0d0a]

Until it is shown that most people pirate content that they either already own, have owned or purchase legally in the future....

Riiight.

Also, purchasing in the future does not make pirating the song legal. It also makes sense not to have that make it legal -- to some degree, you decrease the value of the song by listening to it, since the best time is the first time. Also, the artist/company does not have your money in the meantime, and cannot be using the money to produce more goods or earn interest.

It doesn't matter what you're doing is even in the RIAA or even artists' best interests -- it's still illegal.

Now, whether you're concerned over whether what you do is a crime is your own concern...

Re:Piracy?

[SirSlud]

> to some degree, you decrease the value of the song by listening to it, since the best time is the first time

Many songs take _more_ than one listening in order for you to appreciate the value (in fact, most, unless you're really lacking in any appreciation for music.)

What you're proposing is perposterous. By your logic, we should prevent friends from hearing the album we just bought because they should buy it themselves. Think about what you're saying. Do you really owe studios a buck when you watch a movie at a friends house? You've just decreased the value of the product! No .. because labels know that if your friend likes it, they'll buy it themselves.

You sound like the reason you buy a CD is to listen to a song once. The poor pop music industry sure makes it feel that way, doesn't it? People forget that you buy albums because you want to hear the song many times. If you listen to something once, what you want is the radio to play it, or to go over to your friends house to hear it (uhoh, call the police!)

You have to be kidding me that you really consider that when you go over to a friends house to check out a new album, you're decreasing the value of the product. I suppose that should be illegal too?

Fasttrack can be shut down

[0x0d0a]

Yes. The network was not originally based around a single central point of failure, but in an effort to make money, the Kazaa people added a centralized authentication system in. If this point is shut down, the entire network goes down.

w00t, it's already there...

[rsborg]

Wait until Kazaa Lite is released before you go downloading it. Unfortunately www.kazaalite.com doesn't work any more but doa2.host.sk [doa2.host.sk] (which is where www.k-lite.tk points to) does.

It's there. Here's the link
(note: I hope they survive the slashdotting)

Re:Bitzi an open alternative for ratings, metadata

[gojomo]

Yes, it's free: to use, to embed in your programs, to create derivative works.

FTP? Why not scp?

[rjkimble]

These folks like open FTP because it makes it easy to collaborate and share data, but they don't like having their disks fill up with blowjob MPEGs.

FTP? Don't you think it's time to look at scp? And ssh? Don't tell me they're still using telnet!

Re:FTP? Why not scp?

[Frater 219]

Show me anonymous scp, please.

The reason our folks like open anonymous FTP (until it gets polluted and we teach 'em about write-only "incoming" directories) is that they can collaborate with people at other sites without dicking around with accounts and passwords.

No, Freenet or the latest "p33 ][ p33" toy is not an option. "Cross-platform" here does not mean "runs on Windows 2000, Red Hat 7.x, and Mac OS X 10.1"; it means "runs on SunOS, HP/UX, Windows 98, IRIX, and Windows 2000, Red Hat, and Mac OS X." Folks here have been using Unix for 10+ years. They don't want to tell their partners at another institution, "Well, to access our data this week you need PantsShare 3.2; 3.1 won't work, and 3.3 has a trojan in it."

That's what's so entertaining about this setting. We have to teach them how to be secure without taking their way of working away from them. That's called "science, not IT, runs the institution." That's called "go ahead, be a bleeding-edge geek and work here; but don't expect someone who's been using Unix for 15 years to predicate her work on your toy because it's k3wl."

And yes, we've convinced 95% of them to use OpenSSH -- entirely by education; without BOFH (read: "fuckless IT asshole") tactics such as blocking Telnet at the firewall.

Re:FTP? Why not scp?

[rjkimble]

Well, I wasn't suggesting anything outlandish. I think ssh/scp or something similar are pretty much required these days because of all the jerks out there with high speed access to the Internet. I acknowledge your point about lack of anonymity, although couldn't you create a special "anonymous" user ID that required no password? OTOH, an anonymous ftp server that allows uploads is bound to bring you the grief you mention.

However, I don't buy the "science, not IT, runs the institution crap." I realize that's a political reality for you, but I'm old enough to have seen the transition from slide rules to calculators, not to mention computers, so I'm not exactly a neophyte. I also realize that many of my colleagues don't take such changes well, so I know exactly where you're coming from. However, somebody has to bite the bullet and accept the inevitability of change. I'll bet their lab instrumentation has kept up with the times.

One thing you say that I won't accept is that blocking telnet makes you a "fuckless IT asshole." There are zillions of acceptable ssh clients covering pretty much every OS, especially any OS that has a telnet client. And using ssh is virtually identical to using telnet, so there's no retraining required.

In general, I think the best approach is to team with the folks who understand the value of better technology and enlist their assistance in bringing around their colleagues. I also recognize that such techniques take time. A couple decades back I was a mathematician teaching physics in the physics department at a U.S. service academy. I developed some really useful data analysis software that I shared with my more adventurous physics colleagues. After a while, even the "curmudgeons" were interested in using my software, seeing the vastly more efficient data analysis being performed by the ones using my software. By now, everybody sees the value of computers, but then again, the really old ones have retired and the new guys have grown up with the stuff. I wish you luck!

NYT article

[Xavier000]

I don't like the idea of having to give the NYT my personal details to be able to access the article. Instead of reading it now, I think I'll just wait until it becomes available on one of the many P2P applications.

Re:Can we expect anything more from a well-known p

[XTaCE]

It's KaZaA mate :)

I guess everyone's entitled to their own opinion. But, I do use KaZaA. Thanks.

NONE

[Seego]

If you use kazaa then bloud should shoot from your ears.....

Last Post!

[alpg]

(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as
I can tell even _they_ don't have it ;-)
-- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...