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Professor and Student Thwart P2P File Sharing
Digitus1337 writes "Wired has the story. 'A computer science professor and graduate student have been awarded a patent for a method of thwarting illegal file sharing on peer-to-peer networks by flooding the network with bogus files that look like pirated music.' This raises the question of whether or not companies that are already using such techniques are in violation of the new patent. Good news for subscription services?"
Now I know who to sue for permanent hearing loss from those annoying shrieks and beeps in those decoy files. Maybe I'll send them a nice Beach Boys CD filled with brown noise...
Spammers have been doing this for years, ever since Napster and Gnutella came out. And, people have been filtering it since then. Once a P2P system has some sort of trust system built into it, this becomes far less effective.
Do these people have any shame?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
The patent was apparently first filed for in 2000 (early days of Napster), so it may be that they were among the first to develop this. It'll be interesting to see how they try to enforce the patent rights...
First off, many P2P networks are smart enough to easily defeat this attack. Reputation tracking alone, out of several technologies already implimented to prevent this attack, is almost enough. The news here is not about the technology used, it's the patent itself.
With that said, this is then a barrier to entry for Overpeer, MediaDefender, and like companies- either they convince these folks to license this technology or they'll probably face a lawsuit (depending on whether they're infringing currently, which is probable).
So yeah, this is good news for P2P filesharing specifically, and P2P networks in general, as being a network disrupter is probably more costly because of this patent.
The courts, however, might rule that one cannot patent things such as this-- there's little-to-no qualitative difference between folks patenting this and me patenting a method for a DDOS or patenting a method used in a computer virus. Depending on the judge, they may be in for a surprise if their patent goes to court.
RD
Something like this could also be used to confuse the RIAA with their obviously unresearched lawsuits. Hmm...
IRC. Unless this thing can stop IRC, it's only making it harder for the casual filesharer. Determined individuals will just go elsewhere.
1. Invent product
2. Deploy into market
3. Product becomes obsolete
4. Patent awarded
"Ladies and gentlemen of the RIAA, we will be happy to allow you to license our patent to continue your technology-based counter-p2p operations.... for ONE BILLION DOLLARS!" [touch pinkie to corner of mouth, for added effect]
And of course, phase 3: Profit!!!!
If there are 10000 bogus files, but only a handful that have more than 5 sources, chances are these are the real McCoy and all the others are the decoys.
:-)
And even if there are 10000 files around with a lot of sources for each file, I'm sure people will start trading files containing the RC5 checksums of real files, on IRC or something. Hell, they might even P2P the real-files index
In short: should the RIAA/MPAA and friends even adopt that technique, it'll give them only a very temporary reprieve. They really should realize the cat's out of the bag and they should start thinking of new business models around digital file sharing, not against it.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I switched to using media search engines like Singing Fish and altavista. It may be a limited selection, but it doesn't have the crap and security flaws P2P has.
http://www.toadywonders.com The Empire of Todd
Wouldn't that be an example of prior art? If so it wouldn't cause much of a problem for them.
Either way, I have to wonder how effective this method would actually be. Surely I could get around it by simply downloading the file with the biggest number of sources?
...that if you can prove the technique was in use prior to someone else claiming to invent it, that they cannot patent it? Meaning there is no way for this guy to patent it, or at least the p2p networks can argue that they cannot be charged royalties or be in anyway affected by this professor having a patent?
So it's safe to put 5. Profit :)
The Raven
Bad copies of files and bogus files won't propagate as far, as fast and as wide as the real thing. They never do. Most people will delete the bad file as soon as they find out its bogus. They've been trying this technique for years and it hasn't stopped anything.
With a cable modem, it's no hassle at all to download 10 copies of the same song at the same time, it doesn't slow down the overall download and you're bound to have a good one. Then you just delete the cruft.
we'll beat it. just like everything else. aren't they getting the hint?
I hope everyone sees he good side to this. They can sue the RIAA for patent infringment. Not that abuse of the patent system is a good thing... Hmm, i'm conflicted.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
They're going to put an end to what the RIAA's doing with Kazaa and other sharing agents now, or that they're going to extend it to other Filesharing networks? And what about having a decentralized file signature service which checks signatures of the songs against known good and bad songs?
The signing program would kinda work, but it'd have to be more centralized than most P2P networks for security reasons... more of a reason to move to Secure P2P like WASTE.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this but couldn't this be illegal? You're lying and making someone spend money ( bandwidth=money) for something that is just a waste. Whether you're trying to commit a crime or not, its still fraud. Isn't it possible that its also violating laws regarding computer communications crimes?
>>University of Tulsa professor John Hale and doctoral student Gavin Manes are working with the university to commercialize the invention and market it to record labels, movie studios and software companies.
This is disgusting. Here are their email address. Everyone: tell them what you think!
john-hale@utulsa.edu, gavin-manes@utulsa.edu
They can license it to the RIAA/MPAA/etc. How is that good?
It is like someone patenting the process of "harassing people". I don't know whether to cheer for it because it makes harassing more expensive, or to feel sad about the overall state of affairs at the USPTO.
I am sure there is plenty of prior art for this. DDOS, bogus uploads to P2P (e.g. people try to become the "supreme being" on kazaa by putting dummy files named after the latest hits). If the only difference is the "intent" and "amount" of the junk sent to P2P networks, granting a patent looks ridiculous.
However, if it there is a lawsuit between these guys and the MPAA/RIAA, I will cheer for the patent.
S
One could almost argue that it's the equivalent of creating bogus web pages filled with keywords designed to skew rankings of a search engine. More generally: creating noise in a communication channel. Whoa! I'm glad we have patents for these innovations.
there's no place like ~
Well IMHO this professor and student are prime candidates for the Iraqi prison system.
Is it just me, or does the poster raise the point that some of us are being hypocritical with regard to the prior art stuff? If we say it is okay to grant patents to professors and their students despite the fact that there exists prior art simply because we want to prevent the Big Evil Companies from flooding the network, what right do we have to complain when they file patents of their own despite prior art? Although I don't know the exact details of this new patent, the story leaves me wondering whether it should have been granted...
The Definition says:
First spotted in June 10, 2000, so the patent is a false or fradulant one.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Now if we look at the garbage that they will be sending over our precious P2P networks they do have to make some choices...
What protocol??
What file names do they impersonate?, if this is done manually that would definately suck
Will they be able to avoid file hashing (used by E-Mule et al)
even if they can P2P *Pirates* can also use special naming conventions try adding a special chars
Now other than polluting the network and assuming this gets enough hype (RIAA will *love* this) they should be able to get bandwith no probs..
but other wise all they have is some kazaa kiddies with mixed up backstreet boys tracks it saturating the worlds bandwith worth it? They should know by now supply and demand will give us more and more stronger protocols
This is a good idea but will it last?
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Let's just get them all over with...
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, the network floods YOU with bogus files!
In nazi germany, you get SHOT for flooding the network with bogus files!
1. Flood P2P networks with bogus files.
2. ???
3. Profit!
Just compare the files using a hash. It would be hard to create a file that would produce the same hash, unless you hacked the client.
Bad files would be less likly to be shared than good ones. If a files has fewer sources, its more likely to be fake.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
but, as soon as you get a bad download, you erase it, so people dont spread them. If you search for a song using say gtk-gnutella, just download the file that has the most sources. It's highly unlikely that 80+ people will have a bogus song under the file you're looking for. We're in trouble if they start sharing on multiple IP's though...
I do not use kazaa because of the RIAA lawsuits. But Usenet seems perfectly useful to me....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
No, good news for Direct Connect.
John Susek
From the article It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Much like legitimate email in our inboxes.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
If you eliminate one technology, another one will pop up in its place. Maybe even just an improved version of the one currently in place! Since this has been done before, you'd hope that they did an improved version of it in some way, and that's how they got the patent? It hasn't worked yet, and it won't work anytime in the future either.
All this does is damage a network through crap flooding anyhow. It will kill freely distributed content as well as the content they are attacking. On the same note, I think that it's complete crap that you can patent something like that. Patent a means of attacking something? If they can patent this, I really need to patent my method of ridding people of underage drinking, known as firing a pistol at the containers that they are holding.
I use bittorrent for my content, and have no need for something that someone is trying to keep me from using, hearing, or seeing by eroding my privacy and rights. If they want to put a barrier between me and their product, I won't waste my time or money on it.
That's scary.
According to Kazaa's EULA, you can't share bad files. Sharman will sue your ass.
This is the biggest thing to happen in Tulsa since the two headed cow was born.
This implies that with a licence from the professor i am allowed to twart their(users of this tech) future p2p networks too. Because at some point in time everybody uses p2p networks.
This is basically a patent on the reality of spam. A bunch of noise that makes email/IM/p2p such a mess that it's hard to find anything that you want.
If only someone held a patent on spam, maybe that'd lower the volume of it somewhat.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Damn, why didn't I think of that? All those usenet trolls would owe me a fortune...
Though couldn't hipcrime be considered prior art?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
You know who else this is good for? Newspapers. this is one of those Side-One vs. Side-two stories that journalists are good at telling, only it's with tech news, which they aren't good at, but that people want. I'll take bets you'll see this one in NYtimes shortly.
You can't spell LOLCATZPURR without TROLL.
Maybe someone should put a patent for "random program failure algorithms in a computing device"... But I think Microsoft can provide previous art for this one.
Am I the only one who finds it funny that it took a professor and a grad student to come up with such a trivial solution??
Contrary to the claim made in the article, it would seem that someone with an ulterior motive could easily disturb the distribution of a competitor's content.
I hope that "student" gets a punch from each of his fellow students. A student attempting to stop filesharing? What is the world coming to.
This is good news for anyone that gets sued by the RIAA. How can they prove that you actually downloaded their IP, if there are a bunch of fake files with the same length and size as the real thing? Anyone who gets sued can just say that the file they downloaded contained white noise so no copyright infringement took place.
When someone uses P2P on Fastrack or other popular networks, generally the more mainstream a song the more bogus files there are. I can guarantee you that 90% of peers out there serving a popular song will have a bad (Beeps, static, sounds, etc. purposefully scattered through the song) copy.
Back a year or two ago, I remember encountering an mp3 file being served by over 1500 sources on FastTrack, and it was screwed up beyond belief.
I use Apache for all my file sharing needs. Anyone wanting to download anything from me needs either my domain name or IP address -- and has my word that the files are genuine.
Ultimately, the Internet will recognise the uploading of "poisoned" files as damage and route around it accordingly.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Enough said.
Now the patent is over-priced rectum cleaning material.
What the hell is the point of paying for a patent when the circumvetion techniques outdate the technology itself?
Sure, like P2P apps haven't had difficulty with this before.
Magnet links send you right to the file without neeeding to search.
You can check for files with lots of sources AND different IPS with a file that ISN'T rated 0 with a FAKE comment attached to it.
IP Bans, file size checks, sample checking, file hashing.
There's too many ways to block fake files.
My faith in the patent system decreses yet again.
I patented making MP3s full of shit noise and then naming them after known works of music? Couldn't the artists sue them for slander against their music? If I took a chior of mentally handicaped people, recorded some of their music, and distributed it as "Backstreet Boys - Every body now" (or whatever they name their stuff)... someone could take offense to that and probably take it to court.
Patnets are getting even sillier. The patent office had the right idea when they required the inventer to provide an example or model of the invention. I wonder if the USPTO will allow a patent for the process of placing a flaming bag of dog crap on somebody's doorstep.
Here is a picture of the dick doing this. Looks like he's pretty bitter about not getting laid. That'd explain everything.
I thought the original problem with P2P in universities was the high bandwidth consumption. So why how does this fix the problem? Discourage them? I'm sure most of them will just look harder.
This has been done for years allready!
/.
Oh yeah, it's a patent.
Every "evil" patent is news on
my bad.
So, I note that a lot of the time, recently, when downloading music files, some of the hosts have the correct version and others the decoy.
This is dangerous, though, because it exposes the possibility of distribution of other types of file (eg application binaries) with shady bits from crackers inserted.
Peer-to-peer networks should look at this as a significant security risk and devise ways around it.. I think bittorrent could be made the most resistant, as there's generally a progenitor host that chunks could be validated from.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that pretty much the same as what's involved in jamming radar or radio signals?
I'd say that there's prior art on this one.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
'A computer science professor and graduate student have been awarded a patent for a method of thwarting illegal file sharing on peer-to-peer networks by flooding the network with bogus files that look like pirated music.'
Proving that educated idiots are still idiots.
First off, many P2P networks are smart enough to easily defeat this attack. Reputation tracking alone, out of several technologies already implimented to prevent this attack, is almost enough.
Keyword here: almost. I've gotten a number of "Excellent" rated files from kazaa and found them to have the same annoying screech-pop sounds and any other ones. I no longer pay any attention to whether or not a file is rated because it hardly makes a difference.
How is rating a file going to stop this? The only people who use it are the RIAA anti-piracy people. They get 50 people to rate it excellent, and then everyone downloads it. The find out its the same pop-screech sound, but they leave it on their hard drive and don't rate it down. Other people see that there is an enourmous bandwidth for this "excellent" file and figure its a sure thing. Wrong!
You're nothing; like me.
Used right this patent could be a *Very* good thing. If it is enforced against the companies / individuals who are doing this already, but the owners choose not to fill the networks with crap themselves this could seriously clean up the mess that's been created on P2P networks!
So, basically they were awarded a patent for being lame.
We're all in violation of that patent at least once every now and then!
-Imidazole
Hilarious Office Prank!
Notice that the article does not tell the month, should it be July 2000, then the patent is false.
What makes this patent different from all the other false patents? Oh yeah, right, there was one-click ordering before Amazon.com first came online, etc. Apparently liars can file a patent before the originatior of the idea does and then sue them for it.
Alexander Gram Bell invented the telephone, right? Wrong! There was one invented before Bell did and another one. Many people still credit Bell for the invention of the telephone. IP Theives apparently can cash in on patents if they can file them quick enough.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
All it takes is someone to put it all together, most of the bits and pieces are already there. And that, is only a matter of time. Unfortunately, I suspect there will be some collateral damage:
They're now trying to cure what I would call light sniffles with heavy antibiotics when it comes to information control. One day, not so many years from now someone will point at the copyright holders and say: "You see the movie of this 4yo eating cum, that'll download if I double-click? We can't stop it, and it's all YOUR FAULT"
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Why would you email these people and complain? Applying social pressure isn't going to stop the march of progress any more than the RIAA sending nastygrams is going to stop me from adding code to P2P clients and working on approaches to counter attacks on P2P networks.
r s-can't-effectively-beat-it network will be reached. The RIAA/MPAA/people protecting content are guaranteed to lose. Even harsh legislation against copyright infringment just promotes increasingly more anonymized systems like Freenet.
:-)
Spamming is a known attack on most P2P networks, because such networks treat everyone with a certain level of (possibly undeserved) trust. It's not rocket science, and if people designing networks failed to take it into account and allowed it to be an effective attack, it's *their* problem (just as the RIAA devising a business system with expensive music and infeasible protection has copy protection as *their* problem).
This does nothing to solve the thing long-term.
Here is what will happen.
Initially, P2P networks took a "trust anyone" appraoch. (Napster, etc). This rapidly was shown to be infeasible, and systems allowing black/whitelisting users, allowing trusted endorsement of files (Sharereactor and similar), and allowing community rating (Bitcollider) popped.
Hale and Manes just took the obvious next technological step, which is to make it easier to attack the network -- have a system that learns what people are suckers for most, and to exploit it (well, and just about every other claim they could think of to throw in, but that's the meat of the patent). I think that it's absurd to make this patentable, frankly. These ideas are not only obvious, but have been floating around on P2P system development forums. Furthermore, the academic and business systems that we have rewards people like Hale and Manes for creating bullshit patents -- that's still not their fault. It's that of the people who have control over the patent process, which is ultimately all of us.
It's quite possible to counter whatever Hale and Manes are claiming is new and revolutionary. There are current systems like WASTE with simple trust systems -- users can be in or out, and anonymous users aren't trusted. It may take a trust network with non-binary trust (this person is *really* trusted to provide good files, this one not as much) and transitive trust. The schemes coming from Hale and Manes are quite beatable, though -- it's a losing position to be holding.
Anyway, after someone comes out with a trust system, people like Hale and Manes will then come out with patents on processes that demonstrate attacks on whatever statistical methods are used to assess trust in such networks.
The algorithms will be tweaked by P2P folks, and eventually a pretty-good-to-the-point-that-P2P-network-attacke
Content providers will be forced to move more towards service-oriented systems (you buy a music "service" with access to a vast music library, and then content creators and marketers are recompensed based on how much their content is used). It's not the end of the world for anyone, and the same cycle of upheaval and technological improvement has happened time and time again in many areas. In the end, we generally have a more effective system for all involved.
I personally *like* it when people run out and attack P2P networks. It drives people to do systems right, rather than just hack things up without a thought for security (and unlike a cracker breaking into a computer, someone attacking Gnutella doesn't prevent anyone from getting work done or expose personal data). I think that producing "properly built" networks that don't have such weaknesses is an absolute blast, a fun research topic, the side that gets all the love from people who are trying to toss data around, etc.
Heck, it might even be neat to work under Hale and try to thwart the latest in anti-sharing strategies that one of his other students has come up with.
May we never see th
Like this patent will hold up. the **AA's have been doing this for years. Just one more example of how our IP laws our SEVERLY broken.
Indeed. The good networks like Gnutella2, EDonkey2000 have hashes. You can flood the networks all you want. You can't flood fake files that pass the hash. The ip address of the flooder is going to be shitlisted.
Also learned from Hale. Good teacher, but sucks that they are foiling P2P.
I've always preferred social discovery in peer networks because it avoids the weaknesses that automated systems and spammers in general can exploit to subvert search results.
Social discovery, reputation and trust metrics, and feedback to close the loop will all become bigger and bigger concerns in partially or fully decentralized peer networks as a natural consequence of attacks and exploits like these.
The incentives for groups and individuals (even government) to try and subvert these systems is growing by the day. These networks will either adapt and improve their resilience against these activies, or their users will depart to other networks that do.
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." John Gilmore (EFF).
I think this quote reveals alot. It is one of the inescapable facts about the Internet.
There will always be something that fills a gap left by something else. Using technology that is described above only has a limited life-span.
Someone somewhere will devise a better system.
It will eventually equalize down to the lowest common denominator of this simple fact, from this point forward digital entertainment will have to be sold to people for a reasonable price. And putting a false scarcity on digital entertainment for the short-term greed of mega-corporations isnt the business model that can work in the long-term.
....move along....nothing to see here....
"If you have a secret that gets out there, how do you get the genie back in the bottle?" Hale said.
You don't.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Even assuming the Cuckoo Egg Project was sufficient subject matter to invalidate the claim, it is not necessarily prior art. June 10, 2000 would not be a bar date for an application filed in August, 2000, provided that the inventor can file an affidavit alleging possession of the invention prior to that date.
you don't see a third option? they refuse to license the technology, and sue the pants off anyone who uses it? thereby enabling filesharing?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Only the "fittest" files will survive on these networks. As a result, it amuses me to see these guys try and put bogus files out there. They almost instantly die in the wild when people rank them as bogus.
When will they learn?
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
That was the "lawsuit" part of your parent post. He agrees with you.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
As official member of the Society for the Preservation of Corpo-Culture, we must save RIAA, Overpeer, MediaDefender whoever's spoofing creations before their patents get revoked.
t tp://www.suck.com/daily/2000/03/24/nc_index4.htm l
h ttp://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,57402,00.ht ml
f ficial RIAA Bootlegs Press Release:A ABootlegs- ReadMe.txt
When it comes to patents, Prior Art can revoke a patent. As mentioned in another post, Cuckoo we're a practicle application of spoofing technology. The next two webpages, document that spoofing p2p was invented as early as 2000, before the Overpeer and this new patent.
http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/07/11/
h
The Society for the Preservation of Corpo-Culture began a blog in early 2003 to save RIAA/Overpeer content.
http://noneinc.com/RIAAEM/RIAAEM.html
They are still taking submissions.
A few weeks ago, Scary Sherman & Claire Channel released the RIAA-Mix.
http://riaamix.com/
"This slamming new remix style pairs today's hottest Top40 tracks with the rough'n'tumble aesthetic tradition of anti-pop freeform noise!"
In retaliation, The Society for the Preservation of Corpo-Culture created Bootlegs of RIAA-Mixes vs. RIAA Exclusive Mixes as reported in the blog, "The RIAA is my favorite band"
http://noneinc.com/RIAAEM/RIAABlog.html
O
http://noneinc.com/sound/RIAABootleg/RI
Please save RIAA/Overpeer/MediaDefender content; submit them to the folks at:
http://noneinc.com/RIAAEM/RIAABlog.html
So that everyone can appreciate the culture offered by multi-million dollar companies.
Thank you for your time.
PeterALopez
-part time music fan
Flooding a network with bogus files is nothing new, if anyone remembers Madonna's attempt to distribute a fake single. Fasttrack (the network Kazaa uses) is loaded with fake files and viruses already, and it's decline is already evident in its dropping from the number 1 most downladed software on cnet.
The next generation of file sharing software is already here. For movies, apps, and games, BitTorrent and eDonkey provide a realiable means to transfer the file. Unless they've found a way to get through MD5 fingerprinting of files, 'flooding' BitTorrent with fakes will do absolutely nothing.
As for music/mp3s, fingerprinting files is not common simply because there are way too many mp3s to catalogue, except for the odd pop-album. What is becoming successful are private hubs and chatrooms you find on DirectConnect and IRC. Spread fakes there and you'll be banned very quickly.
Even conventional search-download p2p apps have security features which block IP addresses like Overnet from spreading fakes.
I don't know what the solution to file sharing is, but bogus files are simply not it unless you're dealing with antiquated networks like Fast Track.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Because we're talking about P2P, it's okay to crapflood the networks with this shit? Who the hell do these guys think they are?
That's bullshit hypocrisy right there. Because you don't like something, that gives you every right to destroy/break it?
Yeah, smart thinking there. Ruin P2P because it's a medium used to share copyrighted material. While you're at it, crapflood IRC, Newsgroups, Instant Messaging protcols, and email because they could be used to send others copyrighted material.
These dickheads need to mind their own business.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Fake files are already flooding the P2P realm.
Any movie file with a time of 1:02:28 is always bad
and spreads like a virus in user's shared files. These files are copied and come up in searches in the hundreds.
people keep asking about whether or not these "inventors" will sue various organizations for infringement. the article seems very ambiguous about their intentions, but it seems logical that they will attempt lawsuits, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with the patent to begin with.
i just want to say that i am particularly fond of rare unreleased versions of songs that you simply cannot buy anywhere - that is to say i cant complain about what they are doing except to say that bandwidth is expensive and id rather be able to find what i like in an environment free of punitive repercussions by vengeful record labels. i dont see anything wrong with downloading these files because its my belief that the artists wouldn't perform if they didn't want the world to hear it - they would just package up canned recordings and never set foot on stage.
you wont find me having to wade through gobs and gobs of b.s. files because all i want to hear is "ratm - killing in the name of - live in amsterdam with tool and NiN.mp3" and the like. the nsync cucoo files wont affect me not only because the word "nsync" will never make the search box on my copy of gnutella, but because if it did it would be in the context of a much more affinitive and personal search.
so have at it, pricks. send your dummy files all day long, but start your own damn p2p to do it on. IMHO the *AA's of the world are on the wrong track so to speak. look at MS and all the problems they have with pissed off worm authors gifted enough to bring down power grids. once they get bored with trashing an operating system thats allready crippled out of the box, they might turn towards more entertaining endeavors.
ok so maybe im the kind of person the laws are out to get, but i can say that i own alot of CD's and a large percentage of the songs in my rare and live collections have a canned counterpart somewhere in here haha...
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
What... It took a professor and a student to concieve of this? It's childs play, and issuing a patent for this sort of thing seems useless, but who cares. This technique won't work on all P2P networks. DirectConnect (DC++ anyway) shows a hash code along with the search results. Simply ignore the files that have the same size and different hashes. If you download the wrong file to begin with, then download the other heh. Plus, the DC hub daemons seem to only allow 4 search results per person searched, so at worst, you could get 4 bogus hits from any one source of bogusness. In the ongoing war between anti- and pro-file swappers, technology WILL escalate until someone stays on top, and my guess is techniques like this won't keep traders down for long before they solve the 'problem' of fake file shares.
no, he says, they license it, or get sued for using the technology (without paying)
I suggest, they refuse to license it, and sue people for using it, (without permission-which a patent holder does not have to grant)
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I for one welcome our p2p network bogus file flooding overlords.
This kind of thing has been happening for a long time now. I've seen this on the kazaa networks for the last couple of years, usually with newly released songs.
To be honest, I get a kick out of it...I derive an amount of satisfaction after I find a "good" version of a song that somebody went through the trouble of making and distributing a decoy of, knowing that they FAILED in their attempt to stop me from downloading. Once you've had it happen to you enough times, it isn't all that hard to pick out the good versions of a song and ignore the messed up ones (I started calling them riaa bombs, since I figured they are probably behind it.)
This issue underscores one of the problems with p2p networks...if you want to get your music this way you have to remember its a crapshoot. You might get an intentionally messed up song like this, you might get an mp3 that was encoded by an idiot (full of pops and scratches, dropouts, terrible sound, joint stereo, low bitrate, came from the radio or analog tape, etc) who either doesn't bother or care to check his work; or you might get a nice well made music file.
It also seems like a lot of people download bad versions of songs like this, and never bother to check them...so their spread is helped. In fact this can help you spot bad files on kazaa, when 50 sources show up for one file there's a good chance its one of these.
This threat isnt going to keep me awake at night if it's confined to music, but as the article says,
Hale said the technology could be applied to protect all sorts of sensitive or confidential material.
This means we won't be able to trust the current generation of P2P networks for authentic news, commentary from reputable sources, free (as in either) software, accurate documentation for same, or any data that some powerful organisation doesn't want us to share. In many cases such forgeries would be illegal under copyright, trademark, defamation or competition laws, but proving which cuckoo laid the egg could be very difficult.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
> You need a central certificate authority to validate the autheticity of users.
A way-out is to make it expensive to infiltrate the P2P network at large-scale. For example,
files could have a quality record attached, that lists what each previous downloader voted
about the quality ("good" vs "fake" file). Cryptographic algorithms could be used to make it
excessively expensive to compute a valid quality record. Time for one computation should be
a decent portion of minimum download time, eg 10-60 minutes for a 700MB file. The P2P system
could pre-compute the vote record while downloading the file and then let the user make his
vote. If you were to insert fake votes into the system, you would have to go through the
expensive algorithms for each and every individual fake vote.
When searching a file, the P2P system could cryptographically verify the votes, and weed out
the "cheap" fake files (that didn't go through the expensive computation).
The cost of cryptographic effort could be configurable. The releaser of a file could judge
the risk of "his" file being attacked (and with how much effort), and thus choose a cost
setting that is low enough to be reasonable for the downloaders, but high enough to void
all attacks.
Yes and no. I read it as the lawsuit would be to force the companies to license their IP or else refrain from using it. Missing was the option where there is no intent to offer licenses in the first place and only have a lawsuit to prevent them from using it at all.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Problem solved - peer network users will quickly be able to excreed bogus files by declaring them as 'suspicous'. Quality content will flow to the top and will be shared more effectively. In fact, while this might throw a monkey wrench into existing clients and frameworks, it might actually lead to higher quality downloads.
The courts, however, might rule that one cannot patent things such as this-- there's little-to-no qualitative difference between folks patenting this and me patenting a method for a DDOS or patenting a method used in a computer virus. Depending on the judge, they may be in for a surprise if their patent goes to court.
The difference, in this case, would be that the patent is worth going to court for (which means someone else is officially interested in the technology)
Hang on! I just want to go dig through my trash to see if I can find anything to patent.
2nd hand condom - Patent No. 87628476 Stale bread - Patent No. 9374784 Empty tin can - Patent No. 98724877
Free Firefox news reader.
If I develop a better method of breaking into other people's houses, can I patent that, too?
For me to be fooled when downloading, many people need to share the same file. If it's a bogus file, users usually delete it from their hard drive. Also, modern P2P networks build file identities on file hashes, not "similarity" in size, name, or even sound. Two slightly different versions of the same information will look entirely different to the P2P clients.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
no, he says, they license it, or get sued for using the technology (sued to pay for a license)
I suggest, they refuse to license it, and sue people for using it, (sued for damages and an order to stop using the technology)
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Well the good news is anyone can cite "Madonna - American Life.mp3" as prior art and nullify the patent, so it should end up as one less patent in the world....
that says, post humously != post humorously, you do realize that posthumously means after death? As in, a way of retaining even more than AC-level anonymity?
I think I need my humor checked.
I remember thinking I could really increase downloads by writing a script to publish the file under many, many names and Napster ID's. It even struck me as a plausible business model: get record companies to hire me to piss in the pool, so to speak.
Unfortunately, I decided to pursue a more mundane line of work: writing boring database code. It didn't work out. Maybe I shoulda gone with the Burpster concept. I mighta made a small fortune before Napster went Nopester.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
I used to rename my Metallica tracks things like "test.txt" and "readme.txt" - yeah, I know it's kinda backwards and sorta counts as flooding the network with real MP3s disguised as garbage, but hey, it's Metallica!
Translating "all your base are belong to us" into Latin is surely some kind of punishable crime :).
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Does the Modonna p2p file that is blank except "What the fuck do you think you're doing" count as prior art.
In the US, patents are awarded based on (among other things) the date of invention, not the date of the application. So, in this case, it will come down to who can prove they had it first.
That's why US corporations are big on leaving a paper trail in their R&D departments. They want to prove in court they invented something first.
In most other countries a patent is awarded based on the application date.
Is it just me or is it possible we could get this prof and his students for violating the DMCA?
Does this kid have *any* friends at all?
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I would be very wary of patenting something that might tick off a big party. Either they will ignore the patent, or, even worse, they'll drag you to court to get the patent invalidated. And if they get nasty, they will unleash their patent machine onto you. As a computer scientist, I can only hope the big ones will never see me as a danger, or they can bloody well kill off my profession.
is that it's not always a peer problem. It's entirely possible for a (stupid or sloppy) user to store bogus files along with good files.
Also, as long as systems don't hash the entire file, but just hash a short part (such as on Kazaa network) it's going to be very easy to spoof files.
The courts, however, might rule that one cannot patent things such as this-- there's little-to-no qualitative difference between folks patenting this and me patenting a method for a DDOS or patenting a method used in a computer virus. Depending on the judge, they may be in for a surprise if their patent goes to court.
Morality hasn't been a factor in patents for ages, and was inappropriate when it was. You can patent bad things.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
..That maybe these 2 are people in favour of filesharing and are using this as a method of thwarting the RIAA et al. I mean there is a college student involved, and how many college student do you know want to shut down P2P?
flooding the network with bogus files that look like pirated music
People have been doing this for years now.
Britney, Justin, Christina, they've all been making bogus files that look like music and getting them spread on the P2P networks.
Artists who want to share their music on P2P networks wouldn't be affected, he said. The content owners could designate only particular files for spoofing.
Right, like the RIAA and the world's big five music companies would never engage in any kind of anti-competitive behavior like shutting down an alternate distribution channel. The whole reason they hate music sharing is because a broader taste in music that top 40 cuts into their monopoly profit margin. They will never tolerate real competition.
Flooding a network with noise should be a FCC violation, regardless of copyright issues. I don't share music because I don't have anything original to contribute. At the same time, I expect my ISP to take swift action if anyone sets up some of these noise boxes on my leg of the web. It's going to get in everyone's way but achieve nothing. I'm paying for bandwith that these fuckers are going to waste.
Isn't the Internet already "flooded" with enough garbage as it is? Spam, worm viruses, etc... Is it really a good idea to add even more useless Internet traffic?
Just seems like a poor solution to me. (Maybe) Like preventing pirate FM radio stations by flooding the airwaves with thousands of watts worth of static noise. Sure, it might prevent the pirate radio jockey from broadcasting his signal, but it also ruins the quality of the signal I'm getting from the radio stations I like to listen to.
I understand there's a big difference between radio broadcast and data packet transfers. So obviously my analogy falls short. But it's all I could think of off the top of my head.
I don't see this professors "solution" as really solving anything. It's just going to inspire better P2P software to be written that will check the "fingerprint" of the song they are downloading to ensure they are getting what they want.
RIAA actually sues people who share their legit files with others. They download the copy that those people have made available, make sure that it's a song they hold the rights to, and then sue the person for copyright infringement. IE, for making copies availabe despite not having the copyrights to the mp3.
Why will it probably not work?
On the P2P networks, there's a Darwinian natural selection going on - of information, rather than life forms (although, if you think about it, life forms are really just information carriers through their DNA. Perhaps one day, like life forms, digital information will be able to replicate the machinery needed to copy itself, but this is a digression).
The valid music will be selected for - it'll get replicated by many peers and be kept by the peers. The bogus files will be selected against - whilst some will undoubtedly be around, there will be a strong selective pressure against them as they are "killed" on the P2P nodes. For the bogus files to survive they must successfully be able to inhabit many nodes in the P2P network, and it's a reasonable assumption that most of the nodes will be the "pirate" nodes favouring the real music instead of the "poisoning" nodes favouring the bogus files. The P2P networks themselves will evolve to defeat the "poisoning" nodes just as spam techniques have evolved to get around SpamAssassin.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
How do you identify someone to compare them to what's on your black list? IP address? Good luck cause you have to deal with DHCP and NAT. Use a token instead? What's to keep them from using a new token whenever they like?
Its easy to say, just use a list but it's not easy to do that.
A white list setup leaves you with a WASTE-like network not an anonymous one.
The product becomes obsolete
as in "nobody does P2P that way anymore"
Which do you use more these days BT or Kazza?
The patent on a useless technology does not lead to
5. Profit
Geniuses are borned not trained, those university computerstudents and professors whill never beat the smarts out of real hackers. By trying to flood the internet with (more) worthless junk their only wasting their own time and money. The people want entertainment not rules and laws. Yes if no one purchased the entertainment industrys movie tickets and DVDs they whould go bankrupt ! But thats just isnt the case, is it now ? Absolutly not, there are still people (like myself for instance) who rather see movies worth seeing on the big screen made of silk. And there whill still be people who whill buy the DVD-box just for the covers sake. But dont get me wrong. I dont blame them for trying, i blame them for their methods as someone already said in this thread this is SPAM. And folowing the new laws agaist corporations SPAMING the entire world with pills and erection pumps or whatever, this whill send the message that spaming is legal as long as its goverment led or protected under a patent law can only get things worse. This was round one, lets hope "the good people" dont deliver ALL their punches under the belt in the secound.
What is this world coming too. Will they demand payments for all those idiot drivers out on the roads ?
And i thought there was prior art for being a jerk....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Those older users, of which I'm one, looking for old songs, mostly from the 50s, 60s, 70, 80s, a few from the 90s, and perhaps one or two from the 00s, are unaffected by this. The record companies aren't selling these tracks, have no interest in selling them, and aren't interested in this segment of the market because it's too non-homogeneous in its tastes, so it's not worth their while to generate tens of thousands of fake files to block downloads for stuff they're not even selling. (notwithstanding Æsop's fable of the dog in the manger)
If the record companies were really smart, they'd use monitoring of the P2P networks to find the old songs that people are really looking for, and release a budget price absolutely-must-have "one-hit wonders" album that would top the charts for months... (Damn! There goes my patent! But seriously, why haven't they done exactly this?)
...find a way to checksum, not merely the data, but the sound of a music file. Something conceptually similar to what a "soundex" is for text.
This has three immediate uses
1. Anti-garble for P2P
2. Detect accidental/incidental damage to sound quality
3. Classify music. Sort songs by their "musicex" and they'll be grouped by similarity
This method was talked about in a Suck.com column four years ago:
m l
http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/03/24/nc_index4.ht
The author's suggestion: register thousands of accounts Napster with hundreds of song titles. Each song is actually "Achy-Breaky Heart"
I wonder if someone could incorporate a turin test into a P2P program, to prevent automated systems from displaying files. Could improve the quality of p2p.
Maybe not. How long before someone gets angry and floods the net with bogus subscription services?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Are you saying it's bad to combat P2P piracy? Slashdotters shouldn't care, right--after all, they don't illegally pirate. Right?
I've been buying from the iTunes store since it came out. There is no valid reason whatsoever to pirate an artists' works on Kazaa and eMule. Slashdotters have yet to legally or morally justify ripping off an artist's stuff.
Again I have to state that filesharing is not illegal. Violating copyrights, sex laws, and liscense agreements is illegal. People who produce CDRs etc, are not responsible for what I choose to do with them. If I produce a copy of a copyrighted product and give it to a friend, then I, not the CDR manufacturer, have committed a crime against the copyright holder. Therefore, when I make my mp3 collection available to the public via a p2p or ANY filesharing method, I commit the crime, not the people who offer the p2p service.
As much as I despise record companies, and the artists who whore their artform for profit, they have every right to copyright their material. That being said, I don't however think they have the right to take the law into their own hands. I don't agree that this tactic of, for the lack of a better anology, throwing thousands of baseballs into the air so noone knows which ball is in play, is neccesarily fair, and I question it's legality. But I would LOVE to see one p2p service, any of them, be completely free of pirated materials. Just imagine how usefull that service would be! It would be like the world wide web, only with a centralized searching system, and no slashdot effect.
Some laws are unjust and they are right to be broken. Copyright law is in a grey area at best and is far from the most unjust law I can think of. Music, film, and yes even porn lovers should be at the forefront of those fighting to get pirated materials out of p2p, because when legitimized, p2p could be the greatest part of the internet since the www.
In the mean time, try to avoid pirating copyrighted materials. If you're cheap, there's plenty of free stuff out there that will keep you busy.
#include
How could they proceed against a P2P service already using the technique? If the patent holder claimed that an operation in existence before his filing date was using his method, he'd be asserting the existence of prior art and denying the validity of his own patent.
rj
There are no grounds for a lawsuit against them if they were using the technology before the patent was pending: in that case, it would be "prior art", and the patent owner could in fact be penalized in court for not revealing the prior art in their patent application.
Don't sweat this one too much: it sounds like another case of the patent office being overworked and underpaid and issuing a stupid patent.
Mod parent up!
I think the trojan defense has significant merit. After all, RIAA lawsuits are not designed to actually win at law, they are simply a strongarm tactic aimed at scaring other filesharers out of their habits. Kinda like certain overly-litigious software companies ;o)
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
What if their intent in getting this patent was to prevent anyone from flooding P2P networks with imposter files by suing them into oblivion if they did it?
One thing you can do with a patent is prevent anyone at all from using the patented method.
paintball
One of the major reasons to thwart file-sharing on your network is traffic. So they are just doubling their traffic? To do what, protect the RIAA's monopoly? I did not RTFA, so disregard this if the article answered it.
I hate sigs.
...PRIOR ART?? This flood of bogus files has been the rule ever since the dawn of Gnutella!
Repeal the DMCA!
Really, this whole thing is focused on flooding a system with enough garbage data to make it useless.
If this is a patentable "idea", then I've got a few dozen systems to fix over the years which prove prior art. They were quite happy to corrupt themselves when fed bad data.
In fact, they were much more advanced than this attack, because they would actually corrupt existing data when fed garbage!
Yes, I'm sure there is something special that means it's more than a garbage data flood, but that's just legalese to try and make it special. The basic approach has been around as long as humans have punched data errors.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This raises a very interesting point. If one were to start a service that would be borderline legal, the best way to protect the profitable, questionably legal portions would be to patent every method of attack. As you are the one designing the system, you have a good chance of seeing its weaknesses first.
In this way, you use the patent system to shield illegal activity. If one could find a way to wrap a DMCA encryption layer into the process, one would have lots of ammunition against those companies that are attempting to vigilante your semi-illicit activities.
The ______ Agenda
If the bigwigs in music continue to flood p2p sites and are sued for breach of the patent it wouldn't stand up in court. The simple reason is that if the people who were awarded the patent base there program off the music industries current program then the music industry will win. The simple reason for this is because all the Music industry has to do is too appeal on the basis that the patent was awarded to somebody when there was already prior "public knowledge." If this happens then the patent is nullified. So therefore the music industry won't be in violation of patent law even if the code these people come up with is exactly the same.
This raises the question of whether or not companies that are already using such techniques are in violation of the new patent.
If somebody is already using such techniques there is a prior art, invalidating such patent.
There you are, staring at me again.
...a P2P network without files is nothing. It is an attack that can be applied not only by the copyright holder, but to any file being exchanged. Thus, it is an attack against the network and something they should strive to develop counter-measures for. Since a considerable number of people seem to be vandals and asshats (or simply idiots), I don't find that unreasonable either.
Come back when you have designed a power that can only be exercised by the copyright holder or their designated agents. Then there might be a point here, but I don't quite see it now.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Does this mean competitors (or digital vandals) can screw up any such use? Forcing a thousand people to purchase your physical CD at the expense of losing ten thousand people who would pay to download the content seems to be an odd business model.
Kazaa? Get a real P2P program..
It took a Professor and student to figure this out. Wow they are so smart. I wonder if they are going to figure out that spam is not real mail.
In Germany publication before patent application also destroys the eligibility to file a patent.
an even earlier work that shows someone else had the idea before the people who filed for the patent.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
you create bogus web sites that have HTML descriptions of the file and link to the files for download that are Cuckoo Egg files. Then submit those web sites to search engines.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
is that two wrongs do not make a right.
If you fraudelently file a patent to prevent someone else from doing wrong, you are still doing wrong.
Besides in a way, this promotes piracy of MP3 files, by trying to take away a method meant to discourage it. I am not saying that method is right, just that neither method is right if something wrong is being done on both parts.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
The Gnutella2 protocol has nothing in common with the free and open gnutella protocol, which is developed by a group of volunteers.
It'd be like AMD releasing the "Pentium 5", except that in the business world it's illegal as trademark dilution, whereas in the P2P world it's scummy and wrong, but I don't believe it's illegal.
Can I get a patent for my method of weeding out bogus files so that people can pirate the right files?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Patenting a method doesn't make it popular, it makes the method expensive (or even illegal). This means that now whenever the RIAA tries to destory p2p network with fake content (which they currently do), they'll have to pay this kid royalties--how ever much the kid wants--or they're not allowed to do it.
This opens up all sorts of new doors for us. Doesn't anybody see the implications here? We can actually use the patent system we've argued against so vehemently to our advantage. The ability to patent is the ability to write law. You can use patents to make almost any unwanted behavior illegal.
Take a page out of Microsoft's book--don't try to patent overly general techniques--pick very specific things you don't other people to do, and patent it:
You can then use your shiny new patents to either (A) fund your organization's fight against patents, or (B) simply make the patented behavior illegal.
The key that we've learned from past patent suits is that if you make your patent specific enough to your targeted application, you won't have to worry about prior art. ("Sure, they may have done something like this before, but they didn't do it with web browsers"). You really can patent just about anything, we've seen more than enough absurd patents to know that. You just have to beat the bad guys to it: patent it before they get a chance to put their plans into effect.
And the end result? Perhaps the business disruption created by these crazy patents will spur a reformation of the patent system, or perhaps angry consumers will continue to be able to write their own laws to fight unwanted business practices. Who cares? Either way we win, as long as we're the ones getting the patents.
Now, go to, and make it happen!
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
What idiot awarded them a patent for this? Clearly Homer should be fired for his incompetence. DOH!
In all seriousness, it is too bad that this "original idea" is now protected by a patent. Some colleagues and I were recently talking about creating a large P2P presence to server up bogus kiddie porn in the hopes of making P2P useless for distributing kiddie porn.
What is the point? It just makes it anoying to download music. Thus I hate the music industry more and am willing to take 10 minutes to find a version of "My Salsa" that doesent make a hideous beeping noise. What does the RIAA think? That if they deafen us with their fake files we will no longer be able to hear and will not download anymore music. It is actually the opposite I make people angry and therefore more persistant. It is like saying "To stop shoplifting we have decided to make fake CD's that kick you in the ass when you open them." That would just make theifs mad and beat your head in with a baseball bat.
Geek Code Version 3.0 GSS d? s++
Come one. How many lame patent do we have to see until the system breaks down. I can write some software like that in 5 mins.
Granted, this maybe an attempt to stop these decoying tactics by requiring a license fee for such tactics. Still I can't agree with it.
Kazaa is the only popular filesharing protocol that does incomplete hashes. Emule and G2 both do complete hashes, and take much longer to hash your shared folder.
I recall reading an article about how Madonna technically broke the law by releasing dummy tracks to p*ss off filesharers. She (or her agency) released a track that comprised the first few seconds of the actual song, followed by Madge saying "What the f*ck to you think you are doing?" over and over.
Turns out this is technically illegal because it can be considered an unfair trade practice. To quote from the above: "the FTC has general jurisdiction over fraud, false statements, fraudulent pretexts, hucksters, con-artists, and most things deceptive"
In retaliation, her site was hacked. Heh.
President of the In
I believe the only sane way to go about filesharing vs. trying to prevent it would be by implementing freely accessible standards for accepting micropayments for your content at a fair rate. That way it would be possible to concentrate on the real offenders and not Joe & Jane who really wouldn't mind throwing in a few cents for a song... Heck I believe that if properly managed micropayments combined with P2P technology would blast every previously invented distribution system and previously imagined earnings for the content provider out of the skies.
However it is important that everyone has acces to becoming a content provider freely - Thus an equal opportunities system needs to be implemented so that large companies do not block individual artists/content providers from making it on their own.
I believe such a patent as mentioned in the post could be harmfull to the consumer as white noise traffic would tie up the web this will mean increased running costs for the web overall and this means greater cost for each and every user of the web.
By implementing such protection schemes we are actually working to increase the digital divide by barring poorer nations or rather their inhabitants access to the web simply due to the reason that the fees to be online can be expected to rise due to increased traffic, the ISP's will not carry the cost of additional traffic - you can take that to the bank.
As for the patent... well there will always be a workaround such measures for anyone with half a brain. Why waste time using something that is already doomed from the moment it is conceived.
I don't think he was talking about morality.
I think he was talking about prior art.
Wow. Mr. Gatling and Mr. Winchester are in for a surprise too. Not to mention Mr. Oppenheimer and Mr. Einstein.
The Cuckoo Egg method, while it does not say to put Cuckoo Eggs on web sites, that would be the next logical step. However, one has to use their brain to figure that out.
Face it, two methods were thought of before the patent was filed. The patent is false, why can't you accept that? Unless you can show evidence that these people who filed the patent had the idea before the other two, I am going to stick with my theory that their patent is false.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
evaluating the effectiveness of said shared decoy media file in inhibiting the identification and retrieval of proprietary media via said automated search engines; and
Fancy talk for creating web pages and submitting them to web sites. Spammers have done this for as long as the WWW existed. How can you patent something like that?
interactively modifying process configuration parameters to influence the effectiveness of inhibiting said identification and retrieval of proprietary media via said automated search engines
Increasing one's rank in a search engine is nothing new either. Also Spammers have used these techquies since search engines existed. Again nothing new.
What these paragraphs that you keep quoting tell me, is that the patent is 100% pure BS. They can reword it all they want, it is still 100% pure BS and based on technquies and ideas that others have used since before the patent was filed.
Let me put it in words your feeble mind can comprehend:
If I file a patent for combining a virus with a spamming program to create a zombie network for sending out spam, it is a false patent. Even if nobody filed for it before, it has been in use before I filed it. I can use legalise and any other rewording that I like to use, but it is still 100% pure BS.
End of discussion.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I can't believe that this same old anti-intellectual garbage keeps getting modded up as "insightful" or "interesting". It seems that a lot of moderators have trouble with basic comprehension.
You (bonch) keep on crowing about morality, but you fail to acknowledge that your "morality" only exists because of a law--a law that not everyone agrees is just. In other words, it's morality that comes at the point of a bayonet (or gun, poison-pill, or what have you).
There is no natural law/morality that says, "Copying words/ideas/music/bits is wrong, you shall not do it!" Yet you still act as though there was, and act as though you stand on the moral high ground. Never mind that that so-called moral high ground was fabricated by those whose interests it served.
When you get right down to it, your argument boils down to "YOU'RE NOT PAYING THE ARTIFICIAL RENT I HAVE IMPOSED UPON YOU! THEIF! THEIF!"
And if you take things to their logical conclusion, you will find that you are also anti-capitalist, since you want the government to squelch the free market with its copyright laws (and yes, this includes black markets--to say otherwise is *definitely* not capitalist).
When you get right down to it, your argument boils down to "YOU'RE NOT PAYING THE ARTIFICIAL RENT I HAVE IMPOSED UPON YOU! THEIF! THEIF!"
By your logic, the GPL doesn't exist. It's just an "artificial construct we've created!"
The day that free P2P is stopped is the day that cable internet companies get masses of customers disconnecting their services. P2P is the basis of many home user's usage. Looks like most people are going to downgrade their plans. Less profit for the internet service providers.
reputation tracking, not file rating. The parent poster is talking about the reputation of the user in the network, not the reputation of the files.
If a user has a surplus of bad files, he gets a bad rep and nobody downloads from him. simple as that, really.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.