Slashdot Mirror
Morpheus Infiltrates Other P2P Networks
An anonymous reader writes "Morpheus was the number one post-Napster P2P app until Sharman Networks took over KaZaa and got them bumped off the FastTrack network. Now Morpheus is back on FastTrack, according to MP3NewsWire, tapping into it and the other leading networks through a beta of the NEOnet technology in the just-released version 4. Thomas Mennecke over at Slyck speaks more about it with Michael Weiss, CEO of StreamCast Networks." prostoalex also points to a ZDNet article discussing this new version of Morpheus, and notes the Download.com warning that: "Third-party applications bundled with this download may record your surfing habits, deliver advertising, collect private information, or modify your system settings."
Doesn't this mean now that the RIAA only has to download one program when they want to find file swappers and what not?
Morpheus always seemed to look a bit dated aswell..
Morpheus got back in the Matrix? Any word on Neo?
If Morpheus wants to capture a big share of the product market and really make a stand, it should do two things which I believe are critical:
A successful 3rd generation P2P program should;
a) Either have no spy-ware or, if necessary, do it out in the open. List each program that is in use, what it is recording, and remove it on an uninstall. It's one thing to have advertising and tracking information: its another to pull a Sherman and hide it all (and then !deny all when they get caught)
b) Have some sort of way to filter out the fake files put out by record companies and the RIAA. Check files, particularly MP3s, for filler, or repetitions of strings (the usual cause of noise on fake MP3s). Make users able to chose the actual content that they are after. Perhaps also blacklisting of unreliable users from a user level?
Put in these two features and your program can be competitive on any server (particularly ALL servers)
I wonder what the size of the profit they reap from spyware?
"Third-party applications bundled with this download may record your eating habits, deliver doomsday predictions, collect the neighbours paper, or may leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth."
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Why would anybody ever download something bundled with the crap referred to here, much less install it? Such "third-party applications" make the main product worse than useless.
I'm surprised there isn't a completely open-source, distributed P2P filesharing application widely available to people. Such a thing, when advertised as been spyware/adware-free, would likely be a huge hit. But I guess the "distributed" problem is a tough one, and it's the only way to avoid having to host some sort of master server (which would be expensive).
BitTorrent is probably the closest thing we have so far, but it doesn't provide an index or anything along those lines...
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Who cares?
Hate me!
The answer to spyware ? Two words: "Reverse Snapshot".
Long live VMWare.
DZM
TFA starts:
Morpheus 4 is Here and Legal
Morpheus 4 is here and legal - "the only American file-sharing software ruled legal by a U.S. federal court," its owner StreamCast Networks boasts.
But never says why and how, further more, how is it legal and supports FastTrack network at the same time?
Anyway, FastTrack isn't the network it used to be, the quality of its files is getting worse and worse, many times you'll download something to find out that it was something else but renamed, I've switched to eDonkey long time ago, much better file quality, yes it's slower, but that is just fine with me as long as the file quality is OK.
It's much harder to share fake files in eDonkey anyway, because of the file hashing and voting system.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
Some 70 to 80 per cent of Internet traffic is already P2P related. I wonder if a sizable portion of this is pure query traffic. I would assume that applications such this one that support multiple networks would be cause for increased query traffic all around. Therefore in my opinion it's hard to say if this development is a good thing at all.
(This sig intentionally left blank)
January 21 MUTE 0.2.1 was released.
http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/
Jan 7 slashdot posting about MUTE 0.2
Changes includes mention of a time out problem in win32 version fixed. I hope that also reduces the tendency for MUTE to abort downloads.
It may be a bit wobbley in these early stages, but it's anonymous and doesn't install spyware and crap. Worth supporting if only by running it so there are more active nodes.
The user comments at download.com have more mention of the apparent spyware - to quote one comment:'The claim by the program vendor that this software is free of Spyware is utterly ridiculus. I installed it on a fresh install of Windows XP Pro. It installed "Websavings by Ebates" without the option to opt out.' But then, maybe that's just intrusive adware and not technically spyware - not being familiar with this ebates doobrey I wouldn't know.
On the RIAA comment, the download.com blurb states that 'Morpheus protects your privacy with integrated access to public proxy networks.' But I'm a bit skeptical about that myself.
It's always been a mystory to me how to actually become a participant in the Nielsen ratings system. If 3rd generation p2p apps with spyware actually fed back information as to what I was downloading and watching... I would think that would be most spiffy, well except for that whole MPAA RIAA thing, but ignore that for a moment.
I for one would be perfectly willing to submit what I watched in the hopes that it would improve its ratings, so long as the process didn't lag down my system. I would also be perfectly willing to live with comercial content if it paid for the media.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Just face it... P2P isn't going away. P2P clients are like Whack-A-Mole: As soon as you smack (sue, crash, buy out, whatever) one, three more pop up.
So, RIAA, do like the government strategy : If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
I'm waiting for the RIAA 'official' P2P network that allows record labels to profit from the spyware ads on a user's machine. Not like I'd use it, but... it's a better (and more profitable) idea than suing 15-year-olds. And it makes the RIAA look like the good guy!
I recently saw "Poisoned" being used on a Mac OSX box and it brought home to me the generally sucky nature of P2P on Windows I had been using KaZaA + DietK but switched to a recent build of KaZaAliteK++ which is much leaner and more friendly, but can't match Poisoned's multinetwork, spyware-and-adware-free smoothness Which P2P apps would /.ers recommend for the Windows platform?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Discussion is already up on the MLdonkey Lists about possible infringement of the MLDonkey GPL License.
:-)
MLdonkey connects to all kinds of Networks, as Edonkey, Overnet , Bittorrent , Gnutella, Gnutella2 and Fasttrack and that seems where the Morpheus NEOWhateverTech (insert your favourite marketing-droid-speak here) code comes from.
BTW, apart from being GPL and from being written for linux originally, MLdonkey gives you a nifty web-interface which lets you search and download (at home) all sorts of stuff while hanging out at the office
And Next on Slashdot, 3l3T3_h4k3r_20x6 releases his newest P2P app: Trinity.</kidding>
P2P was a neat concept way back when it was called a bulletin board. I guess it still is a neat concept, now that we have IM for sharing snapshots and web-camera streams. The truth, however, is that it isn't nearly as effective in pushing around bits as administering a cheap Linux box with 200GB of HD off a cable modem with a bunch of college frat buddies.
Moreover, it isn't nearly as good as having a private server with 500+GB of storage on a college LAN... I lost count after the 5th HD was added to my frat's file server. Dues in a frat house go to the 60"HDTV, game systems, parties (It's all about the Super Bowl), and the file server "as needed". As long as you meter/throttle the bandwidth so that the file sharing outbound network doesn't spike the University's network admin's attention (or better yet, have a student network admin in your frat), bandwidth consumption looks just like a massive Quake (or other FPS) game. Match that to the right port for Quake, etc, and even the best sysadmins are fooled.
Lest you think that this is too paranoid, I have a colleague who only traded audio or video on his private 10/100 ethernet switch which was behind a Linksys NAT/firewall from his dorm room's connection (he graduated recently). In these days of IPods and USB2 devices, a portable 200GB HD can be filled up pretty quick. They cost less than $200 for a USB2 200GB drive.
Another friend started using NetFlix recently, and copying the DVDs to DVD-Rs (they are even cheaper at $1 per 4.5GB in bulk).
A recent alum halfway around the world shares popular series like Farscape or Carnivale in DivX. One of our friends likes to encode the director's comments and such when he rips DVDs. Others go for the make-it-fit-in-700MB VCD. These are all private networks with strong encryption. Having a "P2P network" of geeky college aged friends with a central file store provides orders and orders of magnitude the bandwidth and security from being caught.
I'm not saying that I don't purchase media (now that I live on my own, I do have a cable subscription). But when I go back to the house on the weekend, there's a good selection of media.
Let me just say that DRM doesn't work, and neither does software activation. People don't rip crappy stuff. All my friends buy content (CDs, MP3s, DVDs, etc) when it suits them. Busting all my friends would be nice for the MPAA, RIAA, or BSA, but lets just face it, that's not going to happen, because this content is on private devices. The wire taps required to even discover the shared content aren't legal, and aren't practical (go ahead and try to wire tap my dorm's P2P WEP protected 802.11g WiFi network). The answer is to provide the content at high quality on demand over that broadband channel. TV does this, with the exception of the on-demand part. At 3AM, though, if I want to watch Farscape season 2 episode 4, that's what I want to watch with no commercials at DVD or DivX quality.
It's a good thing we live next to a guy with an open WiFi network. I might be afraid to post something like this from my home network logged in with my user name... You can trace this message off a few bounces into some poor guy's closet, and if you get the IP address, then it may or may not have been changed since his network seems to be going down regularly (see related thread on RIAA lawsuits).
Isn't funny how an application that distributes mp3 illegally is now breaking into other applications that do the same thing, which instead of doing only one illegal action it is now doing two
OK I'll bite. Copyright violation *is not theft*. Find me a piece of legislation (not an RIAA press release) that says it is and I'll buy you a large virtual drink... Morally speaking, in your universe it may be theft. But not in most people's. Try asking a random selection of 1000 people the following question: "Am I a thief if I make a tape of a friend's (copyrighted) CD?" (this is a form of copyright violation most people, even not computer literate, can understand and relate to). If you can honestly say that more than a small percentage will agree that you're a thief, then I think you're deluded. So: If you do it, then you *are* morally a thief since you believe yourself to be. The rest of us aren't.
Now this?
"Third-party applications bundled with this download may record your surfing habits, deliver advertising, collect private information, or modify your system settings."
When the average person ELECTS to use something even after reading this warning, you can be assured that the Internet has really and truly become McNet. (McDonald's reference for those of you unfamiliar with it) Hmmm... now that I think about it, it sounds like the Microsoft EULA, and plenty of people accept that every day. ;P
A sad day indeed. A sad, sad day...
Un-news
I had installed it in my desktop two days ago and I can't say that I was impressed. ----I know that it is still beta----, put it has a lot of way to go! -It uses the mldonkey fasttrack plugin in order to connect to the kazaa network... Hmmm... doesn't this mean that they should provide source or something? Correct me if I am wrong -User interface is awful!! Big ugly graphic buttons and I have the impression that I didn't see any proper menu bar. Of course, there is a ad-box in an uncomortable position taking up a whole strip of the screen just in order to display an ad in the middle. At least kazaa ads to not take up a whole row (There are the play-stop-etc buttons next to them) - There is no way to see the peers you are connecting to (At least that was my impression after the 20min. period that it had the honour of being installed in my machine) -UI was slow on my P4 3ghz, 1gb ram (!) -It crashed.
In all this talk about a "open" protocol and client that doesn't have spyware, Im suprised that I never hear /.'ers talk about OpenFT/giFT client. I had been using it regularly but constant changes to the protocol and server updates made me look else where. Even though this was a problem I'm supprised there isn't a bigger community pushing giFT and there efforts to help make it a solid product. I noticed they have more clients and one that works with windows now (cross plat is good). Like I said its been awhile since I used it but at the time I loved it. After reading this post I revisted their site and it looks like they are making progress so Im assuming that they have a some what more stable protocol that doesn't get changed all the time. I think ./'ers should either take a look at it or give it another try like I AM!