Slashdot Mirror
New Wave Of File-Sharing Embraces Secrecy
twin-cam writes "There's an article over at The Inquirer that software developers are designing secret file sharing networks that will make it harder for the music and file industry to prove cases of piracy.
According to Reuters, three file sharing networks are being planned which its users think will make it a lot harder for
music industry to track and charge people on their networks. The first is Optisoft which runs on Blubster and Piolet, music-only file-sharing networks. Only a matter of time before the RIAA requests a data dump from the ISPs or just sues everyone using their network."
But have you tried using it? Even for the technically oriented it can be a pain to use, and it's incredibly slow. It's fine for what it's designed, but that isn't for home users to trade copyrighted material.
this seems 100% just about making copyright infringement safer (especially the music-only one), not the kind of thing most /.ers will be in favour of.
this is a bad thing because they're playing up to the role of "the evil pirate" though since their aim to protect copyright infringers I doubt they could care less about hurting supporters of legitimate p2p.
Can I do that without buying another 15 songs and get a lossless copy that is free of DRM?
Good?? Hey let's invent technology that makes copyright infringement easier, proving that the RIAA was right all along and p2p technologies are all about theft of services!
Come on. It's one thing to try and claim that p2p is being 'abused' by the users but when you develop something to hide where the data is coming from you're doing it to hide illegal activity.
Not only will this slow RIAA and MPAA down, but it can slow FBI, CIA, local law enforcement to stop child pornography, or other things like those terrorists that use computers from caves (sarcasm on that last one, I really don't think the morons in caves use computers that much)
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
The "problem" is that the DMCA forbids cracking / disassembling of the code.
But who needs that if you can download a free application to access the network?
And even better, if the project is OpenSource, they don't even have to hack the application. They just write some additions to the code and voila (fr).
Privacy is terrorism.
The DMCA works for corporations because they can afford the cost of litigation. Your average person isn't going to be able to afford to win a DMCA case against the RIAA companies.
You'll notice that these DMCA cases are never seen through to the end. The little guy runs out of money, has to give up, and the big corps get their way.
Who modded that "funny" for goodness sake? It should have got an Insightful or Informative IMO, it's just a shame /. doesn't have a "too bloody accurate by half" rating.
I personally think music-only networks will just be a "warez" ring for copyright music, not an alternative distribution network for indies...
BUT, you take the bad with the good, and fully anonymous P2P is a good thing for folks who need it. People in countries where freedom is a dirty word, for example.
I doubt the music/general folks will let these freaks on their own networks, but if pedos start using this kind of thing the Police (or whoever monitors this shit) will step in and shut the affected networks down. And fair enough too. Civil suits are one thing, but it's really in the networks interests to keep it criminally legal, lest they find law enforcement tapping on their doors.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Of course not. That's not what they are selling. Can I get just one section of that orange? And without the peel please. And instead of you, the seller telling me how much you want, I'll tell you how much you get...
Doesn't work that way in a Capatalist society.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Holy shit, I need a cigarette, cause that sounds cool!
:)
Actually, what worries me is that the RIAA/MPAA could try to cite that all private encryption are being used to infringe on their copyright, therefore making non-corporate encryption = evil. Then again, I'm paranoid about shit like that, so take this with some salt on the slippery slope.
Join the TWIT army now!
It's called a CD single. Look into it.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Sorry, but ROT13'ing the title is creating a derivative work. The DMCA only applies to original content for which YOU HOLD THE COPYRIGHT.
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
Every time I read something like this. I'm reminded of the black sheep in the family that spends most of his time dreaming up get rich quick schemes, and ways to get out of work, rather than actually going out and getting a job. All that effort, anyway....
"When you send a file "to the network", that file is split into blocks, and encrypted with your public key, and those blocks are dispersed to everyone else on the network, in that encrypted fashion, and the "map" to reassemble them is dispersed likewise."
Who's key? Why don't you just put a John Hancock on the file while you're at it?
I think substituting a Reed-Solomon FEC for networks of blocks would strengthen your suggestion significantly. Instead of pointers to blocks, you'd just need to find a large enough fraction of different blocks to reassemble the whole file.
And, IIRC, there's a clause of Fair Use that allows one to have a snippet of a copyrighted product, right? Then the only copyright violation at that point is the person that assembled the final file (and didn't already own it), and that would be almost impossible to track.
Doesn't work that way in a Capatalist society.
...
... all in some degree or some way or at some time illegal, but enough people want it, and it was supplied.
.... you're not a fascist, are you?
Except that, sometimes, it does.
If enough people start clamouring for individual orange sections, there will be a vendor who appears to fill that need. Supply&Demand works two ways.
Now, excuse me while I got get the devil's advocate
Look. If people don't want to pay, they won't. If enough people want a different distribution means, it will appear. If people don't want to compensate artists, artists will stop making their product available for consumer consumption. It is blatantly obvious that there is a big enough group of people who don't want to pay, won't pay, and will use the means available to achieve what they want. There comes a certain point where people don't care anymore, the laws won't be able to keep up with them (can't sue everyone), and the market will be forced to change.
I'm not saying that's a good thing, mind you. Historical analogies: Prohibition in the United States, the illegal drug market, propogation of war
Now, someone please jump in and provide some positive examples.
Government control of industry and commerce is the first step towards fascism
--End of Devil's Advocate Transmission--
caveat: i'm not endorsing one view point or another, i'm not personally attacking you are anyone or anyone's intelligence or anyone's pet rock, free exchange of ideas is welcomed, flames will be ignored and taped onto my refrigerator.
I've often wondered why this isn't more extensive. I think it's just a matter of convience. With MP3s, you could have your whole collection on a small hard drive, but people don't tend to share musical tastes, so there would be maybe 5 people in each musical group, sharing with each other, assuming a good 40 people or so. So the trading isn't exactly massive.
As for movies, you can't really fit your whole collection on a single hard drive, and I'm sure nobody wants to carry around a rack stacked with jewel cases. So, people may meet, share 50GBs of movies on their removable HDs, but that's usually files they both downloaded off of P2P anyhow, and there just isn't enough floating around on removable hard drives to cover all the movies people want to get.
802.11 networks might just change that. You could have a neighborhood of 1,000 computers, all with wireless cards, all sharing massive numbers of audio/video files at speeds an order of magnitude faster than the fastest consumer broadband connections. And all of this is happening with a local scope, so the RIAA would have to have to go war-driving over every mile of the entire country to find these hotspots. It would make prosecution unprofitable, to say the least.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
CD's released in the US - erm.. US
And if it puts the RIAA "out of work" it'll put independents "out of work" too.
That's the problem here -- cheering on file-sharing just because "the RIAA sucks" is *also* going to wind up having a similar impact DIY independets.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
You will have no problems.
Until you try to play it on your computer or car CD player as it's not `fair use' to use an audio CD in a CD-ROM drive according to the RIAA.
You've got astroturfers on /. that regularly get moderated up, so why wouldn't you have RIAA officials sneaking into these social networks?
Or even more likely, what's to stop the RIAA from paying somebody a few bucks to hand-over their username/password to the network? Or maybe one person gets busted, and the cops can get the info off his computers. One weak-link and the whole network is wide open. You can revoke access, but not until you know something is wrong, which may be too late.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
That's where you're wrong. That exactly how it works in a capatalist society. The consumer determines the price point. And that's what we're doing. We're effectively saying "We're willing to risk breaking the law until you wake up and provide a product that is reasonable."
Eventually, they *will* bend to the consumer's will. We're just having to drag them there kicking and screaming, because they're children, and always want to have it their way.
Slippery slope arguments are not valid (as you probably already know).
"The solution is exceptionally simple: When you hear a song you want, go to the store or whatever source, and buy it. You will have no problems."
I'm glad that was moderated as funny.
When you hear a song you want, go to the store or whatever source, and buy it.
- You may get a CD that fails to play in your computer.
- You may get a CD that fails to play in your CD player.
- You may get a CD with tracks that can only be accessed using Windows Media Player with DRM downloads.
- You will get a CD that scratches easily, and which you can't make backups of.
- You will get a CD at a price which was found to be illegally high by the EU.
- You will get a CD that was deemed "popular enough" by the record store. If you want a CD by an independant band, you will go to the store, ask them whether they have the CD, and they will say no. They could order it electronically and have it delivered in a few days, but then so could you.
MP3.com had the right way to buy music. Until there's another site like MP3.com, there's not really any suitable way to buy music. Sure, Amazon is good when you know which music you want, but how do you preview it?
Sure, band websites are good when they work, but Mp3.com (a) got people to use a simple website that worked, (b) used a standard uncrippled music format, (c) put everything in one place with links, and (d) showed artists how to make money by making tracks available for free download. If there's nobody to do that sort of thing, then band websites become flash-laden WMA-format crap that nobody can use, just because the people writing band websites don't know how the web works.
For numerous years, many in the /. and CS world have said and known that closed source and encryption does not truely work. These can always be broken. Yet now, some companies come along and say that they will prevent others from knowing by encrypting the files, doing UDP transfer, etc. The truth is that it is only a matter of time before RIAA is able to break all of that and get the IDs.
Instead, now is a very good time to move away from labels and move to indi music or simply those that support downloads. Kill RIAA's power by simply not buying from them anymore.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"When you hear a song you want, go to the store or whatever source, and buy it."
And buy it each time the media its stored on goes out of date, and buy it each time you want to listen to it since the future of DRM is that you will only rent the information, and buy it each time anyone other then you wants to listen to it (i.e. your friends over for a party).
Why stop at music too? Every time you want to read something you'll have to 'buy it', no more Havens of Copyright Infrindgement and Free Information (A.K.A. libraries).
You may like this information consumerism future, but I don't and will fight against it.
It's becoming harder and harder to believe the desperate cries of "why don't they understand that people are interested in P2P for legitimate uses!" in light of developments like these. Do you honestly need these convoluted secrecy schemes like 1024-bit encryption and splitting up files into thousands of pieces that are distributed to thousands of other machines on the network just to share Linux ISOs and Project Gutenberg texts? Clearly these non-copyrighted (or copyrighted, but freely distributable) files can be made available openly on web sites or FTP sites without fear of "the man" coming down hard (but please, feel free to share some isolated exception to this rule with me), and chances are you'll be able to download it faster to boot.
Honestly, it can't be about download speed. I've used Bittorrent before. It's slow. Unless the file you're trying to get is very popular, your download is going to be stalled for a long time, after which you'll be pulling a whopping 3KB/sec for hours on end. Maybe you'll top out at an underwhelming 40KB/sec. Color me unimpressed. Why anyone would want to download a Linux ISO using Bittorrent or Freenet (now THAT'S what I call agony) is beyond me. Just a few weeks ago I downloaded two FreeBSD ISOs at a consistent speed of approximately 500KB/sec from one of FreeBSD's FTP sites. No muss, no fuss, no "more sources needed" messages. Remind me again why I should have preferred using a P2P app to grab those ISOs? Remind me again why anyone would want to grab a Linux ISO from a P2P app when there are plenty of fast FTP sites where the ISO can be downloaded? This is why I roll my eyes when I hear people on Slashdot talking about how P2P apps have revolutionized their Linux ISO (for example) downloads. No one would put up with greatly reduced download speeds and file availability when nine times out of ten the file can be found on much faster non-P2P sources. On the other hand, when someone is trying to obtain files that cannot be freely distributed, they're willing to put up with awful download speeds and, of course, desire having unbelievable encryption on everything they do on the network.
What P2P advocates need to do -- and I've said this many times -- is create a self-policed P2P network where the sharing of files that users DO NOT have the right to redistribute is strictly prohibited. Users report violations they've found, and the offending user is banned from the network, perhaps reported to the authorities if the people in charge of the network -- NOT the RIAA -- determine a legitimate case of copyright infringement has occurred. Before any user creates an account on the network, make them aware of this fact. It's simple, and while nothing can be done to stop the network being used for copyright infringement entirely, I'm sure such measures would greatly reduce the amount of piracy that would occur. This would finally create the P2P utopia I've been hearing so much about on Slashdot.
I feel your pain. Have you checked out the iTunes Music Store? It's pretty popular, and they have a much wider selection than the typical record store. Plus, you can preview music.
They do not allow you to download music in an MP3 format for convenient dumping into your Kazaa directory, but life is full of compromises. The attitude of many slashdotters is that the evil copyright holders are making it so that good, honest people are simply forced to pirate music, but it's not the case. If folks want to pirate, that's fine, but it's their choice. The fact that a small percentage of CDs have DRM, or that a CD might get scratched (as might a car or a DVD or a bike or most any other physical object), or that iTunes isn't quite convenient enough, do not make it acceptable to break the law.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Or maybe it should have been modded as Overly Paranoid. The day the RIAA starts trying to sue everyone is when they go bankrupt. I could see it as a last ditched effort, such as what SCO might be doing, but this will ultimately lead to their demise (unless something else gets them first).
So, did he answer "been there, done that" or "that's dumb"? Or did he just nod politely and suddenly act like he was being hailed from across the room? Only about a thousand people have had variants of the same idea; the two closest would be Farsite or SFS, but there are many others. One thing that's unique to your proposal, though, is the idea of sending every block to every node - creating a system that cannot possibly scale beyond a trivial number of nodes.
There's nothing wrong with blue-sky thinking, but when the sky is already crowded with planes and helicopters and blimps you should take some time to study them before repeating the mistakes their designers made ten years ago. It's also good to get the basics working or at least decently thought out before you start speculating about what extra buzzword-compliant ideas you can throw into versions two through ten. We already have Freenet to show us what can happen when people don't heed either of those lessons.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
--it's only been recently that music was purposefully made to not be recorded from. I used to record to reel to reel from vinyl and off the airwaves. As soon as the technology got there for joe home user, we could use it. What's different now is, these various industries want all the use of modern high technology to increase productivity and lower their expenses,to increase profits, but they don't want anyone else to have access to roughly the same technoilogy. And they most definetly COLLUDE to keep that in place, ie, "break the law".
Well, that just sucks. They've had years to adjust to changing times, all they have done is legislate away our rights to use technology so they can maintain a pricing schedule that reflects standards from years ago, and to keep it that way, forever.
Music and art used to be live only,and expensive, it was restricted to kings and such like that could afford to hire musicians and artists, or to people freely sharing with others, the local hoe down. Then it got to be recorded,first on paper rolls, then wax cylinders then vinyl, then tape now digital on hard magnetic media or plastic that is embedded, etc, and it's cheap beyond belief.
That's reality. But, it was expensive way back when it was first able to be copied for later use and didn't require the artists to be there to hear it (or view it), and they charged accordingly, but it was BECAUSE it was still difficult to make copies. It was more or less fair then, because it was still hard to do, it was expensive to make those copies.
Now, this isn't so, yet they still want the higher fees of yester-year, and, frankly, people revolted eventually. They revolted because the rip off prices were-revolting. Quite revolting.
The music and movie industry is going through changes, and they will NOT suceed in keeping technology away from people, so my best advice to them is to come up with a new way of doing things or get left in the dust.
Perhaps they may need to come to grips that there are so many people making music and art, that our society can't support those millions *just* doing that for a living, and if that is so, we will also no longer support an artifical class of music and art copier middle men.
It could be that the expensive media middlemen copiers and sellers are the buggy whip retailers of the 21st centyury, and their business is close to becoming completely obsolete, and they just can't stand the thought of having to go get another job after decades of some extraordinary fat city profits. Seems like everyone else around here is in the same boat, what makes them so special that it can't affect them as well? Joe rustbelt assembly line worker is told he's too expensive and tough crap, he can be replaced at a dime on the dollar, and gets replaced. Joe keyboartd banger is now being told he can be replaced by another person someplace else for a dime on the dollar, and too bad to him too. So what makes these music and art copying mechanics all that special? the answeer is NOTHING, they can be replaced, and quite easily, and for not dimes but PENNIES on the dollar, so tough crap to them, too, they are in the same boat everyone else is in now.
It looks to me more and more that what artists that are hip and honestly understand what is happeneing and are smart enough to deal with it and the various consumers of said art will get closer together, and just keep bypassing the middlemen, to the point of making independent studios and marketing concerns and professional copying mechanics massively and redundantly *unnecessary*. for most practical purposes, they are NO LONGER NEEDED IN OUR ECONOMY.
Maybe I am wrong, but that is what it looks like to me. The tools avaialable to both the productive artists and to the end users of that art are fantastic now, stuff that only the most wealthy of businesses could assemble and use just ten years ago. Well, it follows then then those specialty niche industries that used to be necessary in the middle are on the way out, they have been a
A CD with copy-prevention techniques applied is like a car with no bumpers and a leaking brake-line.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the way attempts at copy-prevention are implemented on CDs - almost invariably they "use up" the error-correction data on the disc so as to confuse any CD reader that cares about that stuff when there are no errors (e.g. many CD-ROM drives). Thus a scratch on one of those discs has a much greater probability of rendering the disc unplayable on regular equipment than an equal scratch on a standards-complaint CD.
Furthermore your implicit connection between people who wish to exercise their rights as customers to receive the highest quality product for their dollar is simply anti-american and probably communistic to boot.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.