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New Kazaa Lite Protects Identity

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the can-you-guess-who-i-am dept.

Denver_80203 writes "Found this story about the new Kazaa K++ 2.4.0 and it's new sister program which claim to protect your identity while sharing files. Any of you folk know how legit this could be? We all knew it wouldn't be long... is this the war or just another battle?"

9 of 668 comments (clear)

  1. This isn't surprising. . . by Salgak1 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    . . .and neither will the response be a surprise: the RIAA et al using a different bunch of IPs, defeating this method. Give them a few weeks, enough to get some new lines provisioned, and they'll be back at their old tricks.

    Just in time for the next move in this move-countermove chess game. . .

    1. Re:This isn't surprising. . . by dmauer · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Really, I'm not sure why I haven't seen this used yet. Almost all the major sites out there that provide music content will let you play a 10 or 20 second sample of the music for free (and as far as I know, they don't have to license it), so why can't filesharing system users legally do the same? It just so happens that each user has a different clip... and the software is intelligent enough to piece them back together into one music file instead of me having to do it by hand ;)
      Well, I have at least one idea: What you're describing is a technology whose sole purpose is to flout copyright laws. You may be right -- technically, using this method might be legal. However, it clearly goes against the point of copyright, and it's clearly just exploiting a loophole... which is something that really doesn't sit well with me, and certainly wouldn't sit well with the uber-rich lobbyists who got the DMCA signed in the first place. Don't think that widespread use of something like this wouldn't, in some way or another, result in more nasty restrictions on Fair Use -- I imagine it wouldn't be long before many of the online music retailers who offer short samples of songs would be forced to stop. The idea here is to get active, get the unfair laws changed, and get our fair use back. NOT to find tricky ways to break the law without really breaking the law. -d
      --
      === "Some people see the glass as half-empty. Others see it as half-full. I see the glass as too big." -G. Carlin.
  2. RIAA Should be commended by bugsmalli · · Score: 5, Insightful

    for pushing us to come up with ingenous ways to screw them. When the heck will they wake up and realize whatever they try they can't subdue filesharing. Why not just make it easier and rake in some money (read profit. anything more than 0 is...). sheesh. is the org run by a bunch of retards or what?

  3. umm by ramzak2k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Both Kazaa K++ and Kazaa Lite, two very similar modifications to the Kazaa file-sharing system by Sharman Networks, now contain hooks to the PeerGuardian database of IP addresses

    Database of IP addresses is going to protect us ?
    Cmon now. What prevents RIAA from using anonymous IP blocks that they can purchase legally for use?

    --

    Siggy Say, Siggy Do
  4. Not true. by Eric_Cartman_South_P · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Well, it IS true in the fact that it blocks a known range of RIAA and other "bad" IP's. However, do you really think they wouldn't use random, seperate IP's to do their dirty work? I don't think the "music-searchin-lawsuit-makin" box is sitting next to their Exchange Server. They do have the cash to get some techies who know how to read ZeroPaid and Slashdot and I'm sure the "music-searchin-lawsuit-makin" box is on a completely different class C ip, or even random cable/dsl modems accross the country. Why not? THat's what I would do (uhg, feels dirty to even think like them for a second). That said, the new Kazaalite features are an ok, simple start to something good I guess.

    The new feature that blocks users from seeing ALL files, however, is VERY smart. All 50 million users (pulled that number out of thin air, should be close) now appear to be sharing only the ONE file you searched for. Makes hiding in the sea of users fruitful.*

    * Disclaimer: Don't steal music. :)

  5. Re:K++ edition by Karamchand · · Score: 5, Insightful
    • This PL = 1000 thing is actually rather bad for the P2P network as a whole. If noone sees the need to share files fewer people will share files (specially in the light of recent RIAA threats)
    • Actually your's is a rather bad theory. Because the identity is not your Kazaa nickname (which you can change anyway to anything you want) or anything like that - but it is your IP address. Without fundamental changes to the way FastTrack works (think rewrite in Freenet direction) it won't be possible to hide your identity.
  6. If only... by revmoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The thing is, the RIAA has subsisted all along on being the middleman. They don't really DO anything. Sure they promote new albums.......oh wait, no they don't, they have ad agencies and their ilk to do it. I know, they press cds......oh wait, no they don't, they outsource it to record pressing companies.

    The RIAA(meaning the record companies) only exists because the artists and the consumers haven't really questioned their existence. Artists stand to make a lot of money without the RIAA in place. Why not make all music free? If you want to brave the p2p networks for different quality mp3s and such help yourself. OR, you can pay $5 directly to the artist to download the cd from their website.

    Artists can make MORE than enough money from licensing their music(think movie scores, and commercial soundtracks), and live performances. Without having to pay large portions of their income to the record companies, artists stand to make a LOT more money, once the RIAA is gone.

    The artists you see fighting p2p etc, are the ones that NEED the RIAA to survive. I'm talking about the sell-out corporately manufactured groups that wouldn't last if the RIAA wasn't there to spam their name all over the radio and mtv every 10 minutes. Those are the only artists that NEED the RIAA, and if we lose them, frankly, here is one slashdot poster that could care less.

    It's not that I mind paying for music, but isn't it about time for a paradigm shift? Natural selection has provided an easier and better way to get new music and the record companies are a dying breed.

    I have a couple thousand mp3's on my hard drive that I didn't pay for, but I also have heard a lot of new artists that I will jump at the chance to see live, or buy merchandise from.

    I'm a bit of an aspiring dj, and I buy records from artists that I've heard and liked through p2p. If it wasn't for p2p those artists wouldn't have had my purchase.

    The problem doesn't lie with the consumer.

    --
    I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
  7. Security Through Obscurity by Deathlizard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pretty much works the same way as Security Through Obscurity if you ask me.

    Although it blocks users from browsing your files and blocks queries from known malicious IP's It would not stop the RIAA from downloading from you from a not yet known malicious IP, Proxy, wierd "Save the Music Industry" Campaingn where they pay you to hunt down P2P Users, ETC.

    Basicially if they do a search for "St. Anger" on Kazaa, Download it, and verify that it is "St. Anger" they have an IP going to somewhere. And that IP now has a big red Bullseye on it whether it's a proxy, a user or whatever else that could obscure your idenity.

    The only way to truthfully be anonymous is to be encrypted, swarmed and stored all over the place by hundreds of users like Freenet does it, and even that gives them an IP to paint a target on with the excuse that even though you dont know what your PC is sending thats no excuse to infringe. Although the courts would have to decide that.

    --
    In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
    1. Re:Security Through Obscurity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      with the excuse that even though you dont know what your PC is sending thats no excuse to infringe. Although the courts would have to decide that.

      Well, some courts have decided that: http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/op3.fwx?submit1=showop &caseno=02-4125.PDF

      From the decision, in relevant part:
      We also reject Aimster's argument that because the Court said in Sony that mere "constructive knowledge" of infringing uses is not enough for contributory infringement, 464 U.S. at 439, and the encryption feature of Aimster's service prevented Deep from knowing what songs were being copied by the users of his system, he lacked the knowledge of infringing uses that liability for contributory infringement requires. Willful blindness is knowledge, in copyright law (where indeed it may be enough that the defendant should have known of the direct infringement, Casella v. Morris, 820 F.2d 362, 365 (11th Cir. 1987); 2 Goldstein, supra, ? 6.1, p. 6:6), as it is in the law generally. See, e.g., Louis Vuitton S.A. v. Lee, 875 F.2d 584, 590 (7th Cir. 1989) (contributory trademark infringement). One who, knowing or strongly suspecting that he is involved in shady dealings, takes steps to make sure that he does not acquire full or exact knowledge of the nature and extent of those dealings is held to have a criminal intent, United States v. Giovannetti, 919 F.2d 1223, 1228 (7th Cir. 1990), because a deliberate effort to avoid guilty knowledge is all that the law requires to establish a guilty state of mind. United States v. Josefik, 753 F.2d 585, 589 (7th Cir. 1985); AMPAT/Midwest, Inc. v. Illinois Tool Works Inc., 896 F.2d 1035, 1042 (7th Cir. 1990) ("to know, and to want not to know because one suspects, may be, if not the same state of mind, the same degree of fault)." In United States v. Diaz, 864 F.2d 544, 550 (7th Cir. 1988), the defendant, a drug trafficker, sought "to insulate himself from the actual drug transaction so that he could deny knowledge of it," which he did sometimes by absenting himself from the scene of the actual delivery and sometimes by pretending to be fussing under the hood of his car. He did not escape liability by this maneuver; no more can Deep by using encryption software to prevent himself from learning what surely he strongly suspects to be the case: that the users of his service--maybe all the users of his service--are copyright infringers. This is not to say that the provider of an encrypted instant-messaging service or encryption software is ipso factor a contributory infringer should his buyers use the service to infringe copyright, merely because encryption, like secrecy generally, facilitates unlawful transactions. ("Encryption" comes from the Greek word for concealment.) Encryption fosters privacy, and privacy is a social benefit though also a source of social costs. "AOL has begun testing an encrypted version of AIM [AOL Instant Messaging]. Encryption is considered critical for widespread adoption of IM in some industries and federal agencies." Vise, supra. Our point is only that a service provider that would otherwise be a contributory infringer does not obtain immunity by using encryption to shield itself from actual knowledge of the unlawful purposes for which the service is being used.
      (emphasis added)

      Small wonder this opinion is by Posner from the 7th Cir., known for being an industry goon. (He's from the Chicago school of 'screw the little guy' economists, as is Scalia, and many other jurists with sway.)

      The point however is that merely encrypting files does not provide a defense. Likely, you'll still get sued, if you infringing use becomes large enough to attract one of the factory robot lawyers the RIAA is about to retain.

      I would urge developers to read the 7th circuit opinion carefully. It lays out some tests for what a 'safe' p2p application can show to avoid liability. If others are interested, I'll follow up with a list of suggests for a bittorrent sister app I'm making that carefully follows the rules of the 7th circuit.