Exeem Open Beta Released

BrasOnMyGuitar writes "The file sharing application known as eXeem (made by the creators of the now-defunct file-sharing site SuprNova.org) has gone into public beta. The program is based on the BitTorrent protocol. However, it eliminates the need for trackers and decentralizes the user from the network. This allows for Kazaa-style searching with the speeds and benefits of the BitTorrent protocol." Reader Eeknay points out that Linux users can run it too.

Comments

First Thoughts

[Klar]

Just downloaded the program, the interface is pretty p2p standard. When installing, It asks you to install an eXeem IE Toolbar, which I did not do.. Also, it seems to be having problems connecting to the network and searching for files. Hopefully it will be as widely used as suprnova was, and have some good download speeds. After several tries, I was able to connect to the network, and find a few files, but there were very few results, and only 1 seed on each of them. Since suprnova has been down, I've mostly just been using torrentspy. Anyone have an other recommendations for sites? I prefer just having web pages, so I don't have to run a separate client.

Re:First Thoughts

[surefooted1]

Mininova.org and Thepiratebay.com/org (I forgot sorry) Those are both good ones.

Re:First Thoughts

[mr.henry]

I miss suprnova too. isoHunt is pretty decent.

Re:First Thoughts

[martok]

It's unfortunate that they aren't opening this protocol as BitTorrent was. The nice thing about BitTorrent is the user can run it under any environment he chooses. From a gui windows program or as in my case, via btdownloadheadless/btlaunchmany on a headless fileserver.

This seems like just another p2p app to me.

Re:First Thoughts

[XMyth]

My thoughts exactly.

My fear is this may (possibly...) splinter the existing BT community. I'm sure the smarter, more tightly controlled ratio sites (IOW, the *good* ones) will not jump into this...hopefully their users will see the folly in doing such.

If it comes down to that though, I'd rather see eXeem go away completely. As you said...it's just another p2p app.

Re:First Thoughts

[russint]

The pirate bayFree for all, the worlds largest tracker.
Torrentbytes, requires registration. Only new releases, great download speeds.
Filelist, requires registration. Only new releases, great download speeds.
Elitetorrents, requires registration. Only new releases, great download speeds.

Re:First Thoughts

[Jugalator]

The world's largest P2P tracker was unharmed when MPAA went berserk and is at tracker.piratbyran.org.

There's sometimes some web server hickups and they've done some maintenance recently.
The server load increased a lot when Suprnova entered hide & seek mode.
Just wait a while if it's down and it should be online again, with thousands of torrents and seeders. ;-)

Re:First Thoughts

[scowling]

I've read every post up to and includign yours, and I've seen none that advocate sharing infringing material.

Knee, met jerk.

Re:First Thoughts

[kid-noodle]

Yeah, so you didn't install the eXeem toolbar.

But you did just install cydoor, kudos to them for actually rolling this, but I'm happy sticking with the alternatives until a version not spyware ridden appears.

I'll repeat that, because it isn't made instantly clear (fairly clear, but not as clear as I'd like): eXeem will install cydoor, with no opt-out.

Re:First Thoughts

[rikkards]

Except Mininova can't handle the load (yet) that they have received over the last week.
I usually go between Piratebay and Loki Torrent

Re:First Thoughts

[Rei]

One has to wonder whether exeem will have the moderation of Suprnova.

I mean, it's possible to have moderation in a decentralized system - it's just a lot harder. Probably the easiest way would be a torrent extention or file associated with a torrent that holds digitally signed ratings from the previous suprnova moderators. Each user can then have their own list of public keys of moderators that they consider trustworthy, and can share those lists directly with friends. Instead of just a rating, you could do a full metadata system.

A much more complex, but more adaptable system, would be a full-featured self-organizing web of trust. But this would work in the meantime.

Re:First Thoughts

[sewagemaster]

Since suprnova has been down, I've mostly just been using torrentspy. Anyone have an other recommendations for sites? I prefer just having web pages, so I don't have to run a separate client.

there's lokitorrent
Eventhough the folks at lokitorrent have gotten a letter from the MPAA also, the site has continued to stay up.

For TV episodes, there's btefnet (#bt efnet on irc) - the site's been great since tvtorrents have been down

Re:First Thoughts

[cg0def]

eXeem uses BT as the underlining protocol so I have no idea what you're talking about. eXeem is a client that has adds features to BT because they don't like the current state of the protocol. If you ask me it's a pretty dumb idea because if they cared so much about doing good business they would have just contributed some man power to BT 2 and saved themselves the time to port their crappy little program later on. Oh well just another company that is after fast money in the computer industry. You'd think that people would learn from the dot com bubble.

Re:First Thoughts

[Narchie Troll]

What hypocrisy?

Re:First Thoughts

[sjrstory]

Another which has not been mentioned is Torrent Reactor

Re:First Thoughts

[ssimontis]

Wait...So you guys are getting all excited by new p2p applications made by pirates. Can't we all recognize that piracy is illegal? If you think you have some big excuse for not buying the software, don't buy the product. Sorry for ranting, its just that I expect this to be used for illegal purposes, and not for downloading Linux ISOs and other things.

Re:First Thoughts

[Pharmboy]

In the last two weeks, I have downloaded Fedora Cord 3 and SuSE 9.2 using bittorrent. The main reasons is because I can start the download and forget it for a few days and it helps others get it as well.

I have always advocated bittorrent as a new method for distributing patches for games, since they are generally very large. This should be built into the game itself.

There are also lots of really good music that the musicians encourage people to access via bittorrent and other P2P.

Yes, I am sure the majority of traffic is illegal, but there are plenty of valid and legal reasons for using bittorrent as well.

And no, no one here is getting excited about it. It appears to contain spywear, is closed source and proprietary while using an open source protocol. I don't see this a a worthwhile product, since there is no shortage of tracker servers for anything I want to download, and setting up a tracking server is trivial.

But it is still news.

Re:First Thoughts

[Yartrebo]

This is exactly why I do not install any closed source software anymore (with a few exceptions ... I will install games ported by Loki ... but only with user level permissions in their own user account).

Re:First Thoughts

[Algan]

The question is... once I remove that stuff with spybot, does Exeem still function?

Yes, I just checked that indeed it does :)

Re:First Thoughts

[zootm]

I heard another place that it may reinstall the CyDoor system when it starts if it has been previously removed. Worth checking.

Re:First Thoughts

[hobo2k]

In fact disabling eXeem's spyware is a breech of contract. From the EULA:

6.5 In exchange for downloading the Software at no cost, you expressly agree that you accept the Embedded Third Party Software and that so long as you have not entirely deleted the Software from your computer you will not take any action, including downloading other software which modifies, is intended to modify or permits others to modify registry or other settings on your computer to, disable, remove, block, prevent the functioning of, or otherwise interfere with any of the Embedded Third Party Software.

I'm not saying that this should surprise anyone. Kazaa is well known for its spyware and eXeem is positioning itself as a Kazaa replacement. For most users the free (as in no money) access to large amounts of copyrighted content is ample compensation for having their machine rooted by a company which wants to make money off their personal info. The hidden cost of being 0wned by cydoor is much less than the obvious cost of actually buying the CDs or DVDs that you want to enjoy.

whoops, there goes my "excellent" karma.

Re:First Thoughts

[Jugalator]

Indeed it does. It reinstalls Cydoor each time you run Exeem. No way I'm even touching this until a hacked version is released. ;-) They threatened with bans if you used a hacked one, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. :-) It's not like alternatives like The Pirate Bay doesn't exist after all.

Re:First Thoughts

[trotski]

Anyone have an other recommendations for sites?

Yes - bi-torrent.com.

It's just like suprnova, enjoy!

Re:First Thoughts

[I(rispee_I(reme]

Exeem Lite coming soon

Re:First Thoughts

[rikkards]

Poor americans, cd levies are great, you should have had one, then you wouldn't have this issue. :)

Re:First Thoughts

[Moonshadow]

Go go gadget Spybot S&D!.

Installed eXeem, ran SS&D, nuked Cydoor, and all is happy again. :)

Re:First Thoughts

[friedmud]

I'm pretty sure that in the webcast from the main exeem developer he mentioned something about being able to rate torrents directly in the interface... this way bad torrents get pushed out of the system quickly... I don't know if it's implemented yet, but it sounds like a good idea to me.

Friedmud

Re:First Thoughts

[friedmud]

Now that I've downloaded it and tried it out I can say that there are a couple of (really neat!) ways to rate torrents.

Firstly.. after you download a file you can right click on it and "Vote OK" or "Vote NOT OK". It collects the percentage of OKs and displays that as a rating next to the file while you are browsing around.

Next there is also an awesome built in commenting system. You can leave your comments on a file and you can also view all comments made about that file... very interesting indeed!

So using these two methods it should be pretty easy to weed out bad torrents....

Friedmud

Re:First Thoughts

[Rei]

Now, realistically how can that work? P2P moderation systems are a really complex issue; stopping clients from dropping data that they don't like (or blocking votes), syncing the metadata between nodes (including ones that may be offline at a given time), discarding data when it become superfluous without making it seem like suspect activity, etc isn't easy.

My bet is that they're betting on no one implementing a 3rd party client, to protect them from malicious clients. I doubt that will last if Exeem does.

Re:First Thoughts

[necro2607]

Funny, if it's that large you'd think I would have heard of it by now, seeing as how I've heard of and used far less-known P2P/file-sharing software like Hotline, Carracho and KDX...

Re:First Thoughts

[DarkMantle]

My favorite sites.....
http://www.lokitorrent.com/ - Requires Free Reg, I've got no spam from this (yet.)
http://www.bi-torrent.com/index.htm - Was a suprnova.org mirror, now is laid out similar (categories and such) to suprnova.
http://www.isohunt.com/ - classic from the days of IRC, still searches IRC as well
http://www.packetnews.com - another from IRC, does both IRC and torrent now.
http://www.torrentreactor.net/index.php - Been using it for a while. Pretty complete list of things available.

Re:First Thoughts

[Roosta]

I maintain a list of bittorrent sites here w.torrentland.co.uk. Apologies for the bad site design, it's in the process of being improved at the mo.

Re:First Thoughts

[friedmud]

Ummmm ok.

The thing is why would a third party client want to do away with those features? For me those features are two of the reasons to use Exeeem in the first place... stipping them out would make me not use Exeem.

As it is right now those two feautres work well... I'm sure they've thought about the complexities of doing a distributed commenting and voting system... they seem to have thought about everything else.

I'm still looking for reasons why this app isn't the one I'm going to use. I would really like to say "Eh, it's not an open protocol so I'm not going to use it" but fact of the matter is that Exeem (atleast right now) really does work.... so I'm probably going to use it.

Friedmud

Re:First Thoughts

[BandwidthHog]

No, but they were a huge part of the old school warez scene. Especially Hotline. Heh. The memories...

Re:First Thoughts

[Rei]

A 3rd party wouldn't do away with them; it would abuse them. Malware, porn, and virus peddlers are famous for messing with clients to try and get their pitch heard far and wide. They'd love to toss any negative moderation about their content.

Re:First Thoughts

[gcnaddict]

rofl... settings eh? well maybe a hex hack will do the trick! ha! yes! just hex hack the forst 5 lines to 00 within cydoor and it becomes non-operational!!! and it doesnt circomvent the EULA!!! OWNED!!!! F__K YOU SLONEK!

Michael

[Anonymous Coward]

what is your paypal address? I wrote this kool new program that I want you to put on the front page. Look forward to doing business with you! Thanks!

Re:Michael

[Angband's Bane]

Don't be jealous that he's been chatting online with babes all day. -Ang

Re:Michael

[Guspaz]

Exeem has been mentioned on Slashdot before. It's the sucessor to the largest BitTorrent site on the internet. A followup is certainly in order.

Re:Michael

[me at werk]

And in previous mentions it was revealed that it was not made by the SuprNova crew, as it was stated in this inaccurate blurb. It is just promoted by the ex-owner of SuprNova.

Re:Michael

[LuSiDe]

eXeem is far from a succesor to the 'largest BitTorrent site on the Internet'.

First of all, i challenge the notion 'largest BitTorrent site on the Internet'. I think there are other websites which generate a lot of BitTorrent traffic albeit closed communities, or only counting original content (own trackers, or initialized for *that* community), or only counting legal content (e.g. lossless audio).

That aside, its only a beta as we speak. With only like, 200 active test persons from what i read in this thread. At least, nothing near the original counts of Suprnova.org.

Suprnova.org was build on the open source, MIT licensed BitTorrent technology which was open and fully specified. It ran because of donations (money, servers, bandwidth) and ads on the website. BitTorrent ran on a Solaris machine through Python. BitTorrent ran on an IRIX machine through Python. BitTorrent ran on Windows using Java. C clients were available (i know -- i ran all on previously mentioned platforms except the C implementations, those on Linux only). BitTorrent was (and still is) *very* portable.

Compare that to eXeem which only runs on Windows and through WINE ("runs on Linux Slashdot? Yeah right. Not using my shell, and not on my SPARC for sure!) and is nothing of a succesor at all in the sense that its from the same developers. The corporation behind eXeem, who are trying to earn money through spyware/adware and tight-controlled proprietary software, are merely lifting on the popularity of Suprnova.org.

Its a piece of junk. About the only thing i might come up with, is that its convenient to use and more decentralized than BitTorrent; its not anonymous though, nor does this mean other initiatives can't catch up regarding convenience. So i'd say: case closed. Next! -- Next indeed; instead of reporting on eXeem, Slashdot would do good by ignoring the piece of junk instead. There are a number of much more _innovative_, _radical_, _interesting_ and _open_ initiatives developed as we speak. For example, there's one which tries to be more scalable than BitTorrent is, but its also open and allows the metadata to be transfered in a FTP-like way (using URI scheme's users may chose). There's also a new layer between those 'ride' server-programs and the 'tracker'.

Re:Michael

[Guspaz]

Not just promoted, his involvement goes deeper than that. There are reasons for the great many similarities between eXeem and Suprnova that I don't think would have been there otherwise.

Besides, it's not like this was a spur of the moment thing. When I was running Novasearch, I was told (And this was a few months before even the closed beta for eXeem started) that an application-based replacement for Supnova was in the works.

I think it more likely that Suprnova actively sought out such a partnership. What does it matter if Suprnova themselves developped the application, so long as they use it as their official transition path? They decided this is the route they wanted to go, and found somebody to take them there.

Re:Michael

[Guspaz]

Spyware? Hardly. It installs adware, which is an entirely different thing. Cydoor, the ad provider, is solely designed to download ads and display them in the program. And above all, it ONLY RUNS when the host app (eXeem) is running.

And this is information I got from Symantec, totally backing up what Sloncek has said about Cydoor and eXeem.

http://sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/adware.cydoor .h tml

Cydoor was used to provide ads to the Suprnova website for months. Now they're using the company to provide ads for their program.

Besides, something being closed source isn't a valid reason to trash something. The opensource philosophy, while a great thing, doesn't work everywhere. People should be able to get paid for their hard work if they so choose.

I'm not sure what you mean by "stinks the RIAA all over the place". Do you mean that they will attract the RIAA's attention? I'm sure they will. But their location in the caribbean is likely to protect them from that.

Re:Michael

[Guspaz]

Suprnova got over a million pageviews per day. There are not many websites in general that are that large, let alone BitTorrent websites. At it's peak it was nearly the 500th biggest website on the net (According to Alexa). It's fair to say it was likely the most popular BitTorrent site by an enormous margin.

As we speak, it is indeed a beta, but a public one with hundreds of thousands of users. eXeem seems to follow the Kazaa concept in which you can't see every user out there (Correct me if I'm wrong), but my machine has seen upwards of 40 to 60 thousand near me in the eXeem network.

Suprnova was just as closed source. They didn't release any of their (PHP) source. Nobody complained. Technically, Exeem, being based on LibTorrent, is based on open sourced code just the same.

Is eXeem trying to ride off the popularity of Suprnova? Perhaps. I'm of the opinion that Suprnova went looking for such a company before they were approached. While I was running Novasearch I heard months before the public beta started that Suprnova was looking into an application-based replacement for Suprnova.

Opensource isn't the end-all be-all of software, no matter what RMS would have you believe. Closed software has it's place, and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. People deserve to get paid for their hard work, and if they want to donate code in their free time, great.

Re:Michael

[NetNifty]

"Suprnova was just as closed source. They didn't release any of their (PHP) source. Nobody complained."

Probably because suprnova was a web page and as such isn't going to be running code on my machine with access to all my files (on windows at least, well in admin user anyway) and has a far less potential to infect my machine with spyware (I use firefox, which although may not be completely secure in practice, I trust it more than a piece of software which includes advertisements from a known spyware company).

Re:Michael

[gurumeditationerror]

Well said!

Privacy of the person sharing?

[surefooted1]

How well does it protect the person sharing or seeding the file?

Re:Privacy of the person sharing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it's still bittorrent, It doesn't protect the person /at all./

Re:Privacy of the person sharing?

[ericdano]

Maybe when Safepeer or something like it is available........

The security/anonymous ability is something people need in the "next gen" of filesharing.

Re:Privacy of the person sharing?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the key- I've found nothing in their documentation that talks about that...

Re:Privacy of the person sharing?

[Anonymous Coward]

my first point is p2p in no way will ever be competely safe from tracking. first you need to know who to ask. seccond you need to send the data some where. the only way to protect yourself is to make a data haven that will route all traffic through and remove all identity info. but then why not just host the content in the data haven. unless you use the data haven for a cache that will kepp copys of the most popular content. now that would cost a lot for one person or people would have to pay to maintain that cache server unless you use the kast network. its protection is the deniability, you auto forward any thing you receive so you could say i did not know what was on this channel or i delete it if it is copyrighted and it did not start here. but that is a week defense. also one program called ant sent info through all sorts of relays (other users of the network) but that seriously cuts bandwith and so would any protected p2p. my seccond point is now what is the difference between this and any other popular p2p client kazaa, winmx. unless i dont know something.

Re:Privacy of the person sharing?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually that isn't true. There are ways, they just tend to have excessive costs. Take for example the following. The idea would be the sender and the reciever never communicate dirrectly and the reciever only identifies itself with a disposable (probably random) identifier. Then all the intermidate nodes seperating the sender and reciever would simple look at a packet (also probably encrypted but thats a whole other story) and say 'well thats not *my* current random disposable ID' and then pass it on to the next node. Leaving it up to the reciever to pluck the data it wants. This is based on the idea used by the French resistance in WW2 (and others) that you can't be made to devuldge the identities of people you don't know. The obvious downside of the system described above is it would KILL bandwidth... even if there were some way to keep the number of intermidiate links between sender and reciever small the number of extra packets sent for each actual packet of data communicated between the sender and reciever would be HUGE. Which is why I never bothered to code what I just described ;)

Re:Privacy of the person sharing?

[Rei]

Not true. There are two good ways to do it: Spoofing and proxying. I am currently working on a spoofying system, although it's still in its early stages. Both incur costs.

Spoofing incurs no bandwidth cost, but can have several downsides:

1) Portability: The underlying way to deal with raw and promiscuous sockets varies from OS to OS. I'm using libnet and libpcap to help alleviate this problem.

2) Complexity: There's a lot of work to a good spoofing system, just because networks vary so much. Some people are behind hubs. Some people are behind switches. Some people are behind NAT. Some people's switches are resistant to being put into promiscuous mode by ARP attacks; some people's aren't. Cache poisoning can work to varying degrees. Some people's routers will carefully examine the source of packets coming through them; other's won't. Etc. In an optimal situation, you can send data from one fake IP and mac addr to another fake IP and mac addr, and still have it arrive. In a worst case situation, you can't do any of it.

3) User pains: All of that complexity and the technical nature of a lot of it means that it would be a lot of work for your average user to configure. Consequently, I'm going to have to try to make it autodetect as much as possible. That adds a lot more programming complexity.

Proxying has one major problem: the bandwidth cost. And people don't like having their bandwidth eaten for someone else's transfer.

Of course, to receive the benefits of anonymity, not everything needs to be spoofed, and not everything needs to be proxied; you just need a *significant percentage* of total traffic to be spoofed/proxied, and there to be no apparent difference between real and spoofed or proxied traffic.

Re:Privacy of the person sharing?

[Jugalator]

It's closed source, so hard to know from an independent/unbiased analysis. :-p

Re:Privacy of the person sharing?

[karstux]

There is actually a quite practical way for anonymous, secure p2p filesharing - Freenet and Frost.

The Freenet system is designed to be completely decentralized, and it should be nigh impossible to track data paths over the nodes - no one knows which node originally requested the information, and the requesting node doesn't know where it's coming from. Also, all communications between the freenodes are encrypted, and everything in a freenode is stored in encrypted form as well. The owner of a freenode has no way of knowing what's stored in it.

All parts of the system are open-source and thus can be reviewed and trusted, unlike this eXeem garbage. As a bonus, it's written in Java and runs on a variety of platforms.

Finally, as you may have guessed by now - the system is slow as molasses flowing uphill in winter. Also, the freenode should best be running 24/7, which certainly is impractical for most.

But secure, anonymous filesharing is possible, today, with existing software.

Usage

[Vandil X]

And of course, eXeem will be used exclusively for the mass distribution of Free, Open Source, GNU, and GPL'd software.

Re:Usage

[Man in Spandex]

using Cydoor adware..... Yes. The world makes sense now

Re:Usage

[TheDauthi]

Well, you have the free right.

Re:Usage

[RonnyJ]

To be fair, the site associated with this program, Suprnova, catalogued a variety of torrents, some legal, others not so legal.

Having said that, doing a search for 'linux' on eXeem only turned up one file, an unofficial guide to getting eXeem to run on Linux (presumably through WINE).

Re:Usage

[Eravnrekaree]

It is real pity that this p2p application is not open source. Without it being open source there is no way to know if something installs spyware or whatever else and no way to port the software to other OSs, for it to be inspected for security issues, and so on. As such, this is of little use for those who want to use something that gives them free software freedom (as in free speech).

Re:Usage

[yarbo]

That place is still around?

Well...

[Neophytus]

It now does nothing really that new, apart from using the bittorrent protocol. Networks like the long lost WinMX have supported downloading from users with partially downloaded for years now.

I guess it just saves the client from searching for the peers itself, leaving that job to the supernodes.

Re:Well...

[XFilesFMDS1013]

Hey! WinMX is NOT long lost, you can find almost anything you need there (if it's a song of course), and I use it regularly.

Re:Well...

[Neophytus]

Long lost, not long defunct. I remember it loosing out to a lot of people in the KaZaA mainia of 2003...

Re:Well...

[AmberBlackCat]

I always found WinMX to be better than Kazaa for music because they didn't have nearly as many fake songs. I guess there was a benefit to being less popular. It also made them less of a target. I hope the recording industry doesn't visit Slashdot.

Re:Well...

[Fallen_Knight]

winmx still lives, last beta was released on the 13 of dec http://www.winmx.com/beta/beta354.html

lots of people still on it, can find pretty much any somewhat popular track. Thats all i use it for so not sure how well movies and the like are found.

Frontcode is very slow with updates but they do come eventually.

eXeem lite...

[KhalidBoussouara]

...has already been released.

eXeem Lite

Re:eXeem lite...

[mboverload]

That is not the latest version, however.

Re:eXeem lite...

[LoneGunner]

But it still works great... for now.

Re:eXeem lite...

[davron05]

Right now (Jan 21, 10pm GMT) the eXeem Lite site only allows to download a lite version of the eXeem Lite Beta Tester 0.18 version, i.e. the version intended for private testing only. If you install it, it will ask for the betatester's code.

But according to this post we can expect a "lite" version of the recently released eXeem 0.20 to be available within a day. At least that is what the authors claim.

Re:eXeem lite...

[Darthmalt]

Hanging out in the exlite irc channel and the admin just notified us that .20 is not hard to crack and will be out "soon"

Spyware

[FiReaNGeL]

Does it contain spyware ala Kazaa? I sure won't install it until I seen the source, eXeem being affiliated with Suprnova.org which was.... well, hosting tons of illegal .torrents?

Re:Spyware

[Bungopolis]

According to the eXeem Lite FAQ eXeem does contain spyware.

Re:Spyware

[GweeDo]

Actually according to the eXeem Lite FAQ eXeem Lite doesn't contain spyware. No were in the FAQ do they actually say that eXeem does.

Re:Spyware

[NetNifty]

Yup, says here that they use Cydoor, and a quick google pretty much confirms that it's spyware, or that company uses spyware at least, and hence shouldn't be trusted.

Re:Spyware

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Well, I say that eXeem contains a 4-leaf clover and 2 bottles of peanut oil, but that doesn't mean it's true.

The Exeem Lite faq says:

2. Does eXlite contain spyware?
eXlite was sorely made to take out the spyware from eXeem so to make it clear eXlite does not contain spyware.

Are there any details here?

Re:Spyware

[Caine]

You say the FAQ doesn't claim eXeem has spyware?

11. What is the official eXeem website? Return
the eXeem website is located here, but the official eXeem client does contain spyware!

...I rest my case.

Re:Spyware

[zargag]

It has the Cydoor adware package. Antispyware removed it and Exeem seems to run fine...

Re:Spyware

[GweeDo]

I stand corrected :)

Re:Spyware

[crummynz]

Hey! You graciously admitted defeat! What kind of slashdotter are you!?

Re:Spyware

[ryusen]

yeah! [/obligatory "me too" post]

Re:Spyware

[RichardX]

"Exteem" and "Exteem Lite" are two different things.
Exteem DOES contain spyware.
Exteem Lite has the spyware ripped out.

Hence you are 100% correct when you say "Exteem lite does not contain spyware", and the parent is correct in saying that Exteem does.

Re:Spyware

[idlemachine]

The question is: what makes the eXeem Lite guys any more trustworthy than the eXeem developers?

How do we know eXeem Lite doesn't contain its own spyware? Because of the "Lite" in its name?

This seems too much like someone playing off the Kazaa/Kazaa-Lite mindshare to position their software exactly where they want it to be.

Re:Spyware

[aero2600-5]

" "Exteem" and "Exteem Lite" are two different things."

Now, if you would kindly explain to use what the fuck Exteem us, we would all be greatly appreciative.

The rest of us have been discussing some new shitty p2p app called Exeem.

Aero

Re:Spyware

[RichardX]

Wow, don't throw your toys out of the pram!
Yeah, for some reason I called it "exteem" instead of "exeem" (or "eXeem" if you insist) - no idea why, as I know it's correct name, but that's what I get for posting in the middle of the night. Either way, my point remains the same.

I had a look through some of your recently posted messages to see whether you have a generally hostile disposition, or if I got special treatment. I didn't. Every other post of yours is some kind of flame, cheap shot, or criticism, most of which contribute nothing useful to the topic at hand. It's a shame, really. It's people like you who are lowering the general tone of Slashdot, and making it an increasingly less friendly place to be.

Re:Spyware

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Hence you are 100% correct when you say "Exteem lite does not contain spyware", and the parent is correct in saying that Exteem does.

I never said that "Exteem lite does not contain spyware".

I'm asking the authors of Exceem lite to provide proof that Exceem has spyware. They don't back up their claim or provide details, which is dissapointing.

I don't trust everything I read.

Slashdotted already?

[jtapper]

I made it to the main page and clicked on the download button and I just get a blank page.

Is there a mirror kicking around or a *cough* torrent *cough* to download this?

Re:Slashdotted already?

[UID1000000]

If there is please post it here:
http://f.moya.scarywater.net/
BitTorrent Files for Slashdot Effect Victims

Here's the download

[Aggrajag]

http://download.exeem.com/exeem.htm

Re:Here's the download

[Alan]

Slashdotted for me :( Anyone got a .torrent of the file?

Too bad that the exeem site is so graphics heavy, they should have put up the text only version for slashdot :)

Re:Here's the download

[John Hurliman]

http://tracker.piratbyran.org/download.php/3280073 /eXeem0.20.exe.torrent

Re:Here's the download

[dourk]

http://www.lokitorrent.com/download.php?id=104593

No native binaries for Linux

[Slayer_X]

Actually the client runs with the help of wine, I prefer native binaries :/

Re:No native binaries for Linux

[Hatta]

Actually the client runs with the help of wine, I prefer native binaries :/

Not just native binaries but how about a CLI? Not all of us have X on the machine we p2p from.

Re:No native binaries for Linux

[rhennigan]

According to the site, they will be developing a Linux client as soon as exeem is out of beta. By then, hopefully the network will have really taken off with plenty of files. I guess I don't really mind waiting in that case.

Re:No native binaries for Linux

[stratjakt]

As long as it has a CLI/curses version, because I've been doing all my torrent-ing on a little linux "grunt" box that runs btlaunchmanycurses.py under screen, so it just scans for new .torrents I drag into my home folder, and I check up on it by ssh'ing in.

I want to keep this setup because I can drop a .torrent in, or check up on it, from anywhere. I'll find, say, a knoppix torrent at noon at work, ftp it up to my box at home, and by the time I get home, it's there waiting for me.

Re:No native binaries for Linux

[chris_mahan]

Heck, since you're using python, why not have it intreface with a webservice on your webserver, get the torrent uri, investigate, and report findings (d/l, 404, etc) back to the webservice, to which you could hack together a web interface, so you don't have to ftp and ssh nothing, just launch your firefox, log in to your site, submit the uri, and mosey on your business.

Of course, I don't really want people to realize just how very brain dead it is to use python with old machines, since I "rescue" old boxes from fed up windows XP people who can't operate on less than P4 3.0 256MB. :)

Of course, that would be too easy, as then you could have a py prog on usb drive, and cli the torrent uri from anywhere...

Them wheels are a'spinning.

Re:No native binaries for Linux

[paranoidgeek]

I prefer source.

That way i can run it on what ever arch takes my fancy ( Not to mention it would allow me/others to write CLI versions of it ).

Yay RIAA!

[Alan]

It's nice to see that the taking down of sites and services such as napster and suprnova has stopped piracy in it's tracks!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Mini Review

[bgreg03]

As the guy above said, when you first open this program, it appears to be a very normal p2p program, like kazaa and ares. The ability to create your own 'torrents' is what will really set this service apart. Some of the downsides of the other p2p applications (including bittorrent apps) was the inability of the layman user to contribute and share things new and unique. I personally think you will see this take off VERY quickly, and will be the next level of p2p. Lets see how this turns out.

Re:Mini Review

[grub]

he ability to create your own 'torrents' is what will really set this service apart.

Azureus, a Java BitTorrent client, makes it a snap for the user to create torrents.

Re:Mini Review

[aero2600-5]

"The ability to create your own 'torrents' is what will really set this service apart. Some of the downsides of the other p2p applications (including bittorrent apps) was the inability of the layman user to contribute and share things new and unique."

I'm sure this has never occurred to you, but do you think it's possible that not allowing the average user to create their own torrents might be a good thing? Really, do I want to sift through 20 different torrents for the most recent episode of The Daily show because some boobs downloaded it from Loki and wanted to be the first to post it on Exeem? The reason why Suprnova.org was so great was that just about every torrent, unless posted by a regular submitter, was checked before making it onto the front page. Having people download from 20 different torrents instead of just one completely defeats the purpose of swarmed downloading.

I think Exeem will quickly turn into another Kazaa, except slightly better. It'll wind up being full of garbage just like Kazaa. I hope I'm wrong, but that's what will happen when you let anyone submit anything they want.

And before someone tries to lecture me on the comment system built into Exeem, and how it'll prevent all of these problems, it won't. For anyone looking for an example, the second most seeded file on Exeem at the moment is called 'Barbie web cam sexe.mpeg' It has 102 seeds, a rating of 81.6%, yet all of the comments say it's stupid and not worth the bandwidth. I'm glad the comment system is getting rid of all those worthless downloads.

I'll stick to the real BitTorrent, open-source and spyware-free, and I'll just continue to support the sites that aren't willing to cave like suprnova.org.

Aero

Re:Mini Review

[UID1000000]

yes azureus is a very nice client to use. I find it's processor heavy though so if you are using a notebook - make sure that it's plugged in.

grandparent obviously hasn't heard of it yet or is karma whoring.

Re:Mini Review

[zenon3]

I actually see this the other way around. With so few people creating torrents, the traffic was concentrated to the few good trackers. This helped speed and more importantly, quality control. This is going to be just like all the other p2p apps with a billion versions of the same file, only slightly different or varying qualities.

Re:Mini Review

[danila]

The ability to create your own 'torrents' was present in pretty fucking much every P2P application. BitTorrent was the only example of retarded programming by that idiot Cohen, which doesn't have this ability.

To release a file in KaZaA, eDonkey, DC, WinMX, SoulSeek, even original Napster, you just include the folder in the list of shared folders. Most applications offer to search your disk and automatically share media files.

This ability will no more set this service apart than the ability to maximize and minimize the application window. Next level of P2P my ass! What a moron.

Re:Mini Review

[danila]

You're right, I was too harsh. But while what you are saying is indeed a clear advantage of BT, it's very different from what the GP was saying. BT has the flash crowd effect, where smart uploading allows much faster distribution of new files - "oversaturating" the network with the file. eDonkey (and eMule) are less effective at this. But it should be noted that 200-600 Mb files are still released on eDonkey quite well. But to say that it wasn't possible to release a file on other networks is simply not true. If a file is popular, it spreads anywhere, be it BitTorrent or KaZaA.

Re:Woohoo

[Bungopolis]

From the FAQ:

14. Is eXeem(TM) open source?
No, eXeem(TM) is not open source.

In other news...

[b374]

Reader Eeknay points out that Linux users can run it too.

Reader b374 points out that Linux users can run Notepad using Wine too... (let's see how fast someone points out that it should be GNU/Linux :) )

Re:Woohoo

[chris09876]

...and I know this isn't an open source application, but it's only a matter of time. (Sorry about that, hit the 'submit' button too quickly. I meant to clarify)

note

[Klar]

forgot to include br's so formating looks pretty dumb on that post.. also, I started downloading a file, was getting pretty good speeds(150k/s), then lost connection to eXeem, and havnet been able to get back in :|

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Download Link

[nstrom]

Download link did not appear on the linked download.htm page for me, but is apparantly here: http://download.exeem.com/eXeem0.20.exe

Re:Download Link

[nstrom]

Just finished downloading, and the official file does match the posted torrent.

$ md5sum eXeem0.20.exe
282f935710277f2253d45d45dc2d84fb eXeem0.20.exe

CRC32/SFV:
; Generated by cfv v1.16 on 2005-01-21 at 21:27.00
;
eXeem0.20.exe 5c01a28b

official torrent download link

[Zulithe]

http://suprbash.org/vip/lexa/exeem020.torrent from a moderator in the exeem chatroom happy torrenting

Safe and sane P2P client...

[__aaclcg7560]

Is this the safe and sane version of bit torrent? Or do I have to worry about 1) being infected by virus, malware and God knows what else, and 2) will the record industry's Nazis come kicking down my door for downloading Linux-related files?

I just scrubbed my roommates' computers that was loaded to the brim with virus and malware from using P2P when they download music files (so they claim) with various P2P clients. I like bit torrent although I think using FTP would be a lot faster sometimes.

Re:Safe and sane P2P client...

[goldspider]

"2) will the record industry's Nazis come kicking down my door for downloading Linux-related files?"

No, the record industry's Nazis will come kicking down your door for illegally distributing copyrighted music.

Re:Safe and sane P2P client...

[EnormousTooth]

Nice copy and paste. suprnova.org. [suprnova.org] Next time think before you paste.

Re:Safe and sane P2P client...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down. I Googled and the above post is ripped off from here. Also, it's been posted on slashdot before -- how else would 'the same guys that run suprnova.org. [suprnova.org]' appear?

Not to mention, he did the same thing with this post in the same thread.

Go back to your cave, troll.

Re:Safe and sane P2P client...

[aero2600-5]

which way is up, this post you've just made and received a "+5 informative" for is my post from December 2nd when Exeem was first brought up for discussion. It would appear that this is the second time you've done this today. Quit being such a karma whore.

As a side note, I was banned from the Exeem beta forum for making this post on Slashdot.

Moderators, please mod down this plagiarizing piece of crap.

Aero

Re:Safe and sane P2P client...

[zenthax]

or distrbuting any files with names simliar to copyrighted files. What rights?

question about linux use

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the adware they install run under wine too?

Re:question about linux use

[Kethinov]

Modded funny, but I'd really like to know the answer to this.

It's time to do a GPL version of this

[darthcamaro]

This service will end up the same as Supernova eventually. The only way a p2p torrent service will ever survive is if it is GNU/GPL.

Re:It's time to do a GPL version of this

[Kidbro]

Elaborate, please. BitTorrent itself is released under the MIT license. Suprnova was just data - no code - so licensing it under the GPL wouldn't have made much sense (license what, by the way?)

I really don't understand what your suggested solution is. It's not even clear what problem it's a solution for.

Question

[Spy der Mann]

If it doesn't use trackers, how is the connection between clients done? "Suprnodes" i suppose? I'm trying to find out but TFSHBS (The * Site Has Been Slashdotted). So, any info plz? Or a .torrent for the docs? ;)

Re:Question

[awolk]

If it doesn't use trackers, how is the connection between clients done? "Suprnodes" i suppose? I'm trying to find out but TFSHBS (The * Site Has Been Slashdotted). So, any info plz? Or a .torrent for the docs? ;)

1. Mirrors:
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/764ecea 2714349e08 72bb15300c31d12/index.html
http://www.mirrordot.o rg/stories/be6b55cafbd710266 e6055abafed4cee/index.html

2. No, everyone acts as tracker(for things you've downloaded), as far as I know ... Haven't read everything through, though, but I think it's fully decentralised, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

not open source...

[hyperstation]

not to be trusted with your privacy, period.

Re:not open source...

[which way is up]

eXeem is a piece of shit. Not only that it will have adaware and spyware, it is also a "lock-in". You will only be able to use it on SuprNova. They have modified the torrent file. It is missing a lot of dictionaries ("key -> value"), and dictionaries that should have been subdictionaries start directly in the file. For example "files" is not in "info" it starts with it directly. This torrent changes were unnecessary. Also, the "announce" and "announce-list" are missing. eXeem has a hardcoded url of a tracker of all the peers on eXeem. The original seeder of a torrent acts as a tracker (so SuprNova won't have to host torrents), but eXeem is in no way decentralized because of the tracker that keeps in contact all the eXeem users (it does not care about torrents, just eXeem users). So, all you have to do is to kill the main server, and all the users of exeem will be disconnected (this happened when suprnova died). THIS IS WORSE THAN THE WAY TORRENTS ACT NOW. EXEEM IS HYPE AND A WAY TO MAKE MONEY. IT SUCKS! I think the best way to decentralized BitTorrent, is to have trackers that are decentralized IRC server style. If you people want something decentralized and a little bit of BitTorrent, get G2 (Gnutella2) and add BitTorrent's tit-for-tat to it.

Re:not open source...

[manyac]

Kenosis (www.kenosisp2p.org) promises to solve the centralized tracker problem, and.. it's open source :-) I've tried it some time now, running my own kenosis-enabled tracker, but I never see any torrents listed, the network is still in its infancy.

Re:not open source...

[nightgeometry]

It was so much more insightful when space_soldier first said it here

Hmm, this is the third time this story you have ripped off another comment...

Re:not open source...

[jo42]

I'll wait until someone does it as a plug-in for Azureus...

Re:not open source...

[aero2600-5]

I believe 'which way is up' has brought the defintion of karma-whore to a whole new level. It's so sad that it's almost amusing..

Aero

What piracy? P2P is 100% legit!

[goldspider]

Hmm... from reading Slashdot, I was under the impression that the only files being traded through P2P were research papers, Linux distributions, and independent music files.

What is this 'piracy' you speak of? Surely there aren't people using P2P networks to commit copyright infringement!

Interesting place for a company

[redshadow01]

Just looked up exeem.com on whois...looks like a caribbean island is a good place to be if the MPAA comes calling...take a look for yourself:

Administrative Contact:
Swarm, Systems Inc. contact@exeem.com
Swarm Systems Inc.
Suite 4 Tample Building, Main
Charlestown 1000
Saint Kitts and Nevis
304568187
Technical Contact:
Swarm, Systems Inc. contact@exeem.com
Swarm Systems Inc.
Suite 4 Tample Building, Main
Charlestown 1000
Saint Kitts and Nevis
304568187

Re:Interesting place for a company

[moonboi]

sealand would also have been an alternative they are offshore and unregulated, costly bandwith still...

Re:Interesting place for a company

[MC68000]

Indeed. St. Kitts and Nevis is not a signatory of any world copyright treaties. This is the reason why part of Sharman networks (which owns Kazaa) is partly located on Nauru (a remote pacific island).

Re:Interesting place for a company

[Martin Blank]

"Costly" doesn't begin to describe HavenCo's servers (which are located in Sealand). Exorbitant is more accurate. Colocation starts at $1500 per month, and you get a paltry 256kbps connection. A 1Mbps connection is $1800 per month.

They claim to have intensive security, but it doesn't seem to me anything that would be too trivial for a reasonably-skilled team to get around. Miles of ocean separating Sealand and Britain and only a handful of residents on the island means that if something was wanted, it wouldn't be too difficult to get.

If you download Exeem Lite

[WormholeFiend]

make sure you read the readme file

Torrent for the beta?

[dr_skipper]

Anyone hosting a torrent for the exeem beta?

I'd check suprnova.org but you know... lol

Re:hmm...

[VAXGeek]

An option for Freenet mode?

A good use for Freenet is re-experiencing surfing the web on 1200 baud.

Slow down cowboy!

eliminate trackers, doom bittorrent

[sbma44]

Hey! No need for trackers! Hurrah! Peers can just find each other automatically! Gosh, I wonder how that works -- could it be a standardized port range? And could that make it incredibly easy to throttle, track and persecute BitTorrent use?!?!

If my hunch is correct, these guys are morons. The nominal point of Exeem is to reduce the ability of copyright owners to sue pirates. Actually, it'll make it much easier for BigChampagne and others to track down users and prosecute them. Way to go, guys.

Please note that I'm not making a moral judgment about piracy -- please withhold the flames. My point is simply that the Exeem architecture, while created to fix BT's legal vulnerability, is actually likely to enhance it.

Re:eliminate trackers, doom bittorrent

[Tezkah]

Bittorrent already has a standardized port range, 6881 to 6891. This is simply a new way to get torrent files, not a radical shift for the bittorrent protocal. You'll still connect to seeds and peers, but you'll get the .torrent files on a P2P basis, instead of a centralized tracker.

However, that doesn't change the fact that eXeem is adware.

Re:eliminate trackers, doom bittorrent

[sbma44]

Yes, I'm aware of the standardized port range. However, you can specify any other range you'd like and the tracker will make sure it works. The tracker can also be set up to run on an arbitrary port as specified in the .torrent file.

So while a lot of BT users can be found by the ??AA, smart users have changed their default port range and can only be identified by going to the tracker. Even if the BT portion of this app remains port-agnostic, the .torrent distribution and peer discovery portion of it is almost certain to run on a specific port.

Re:eliminate trackers, doom bittorrent

[sbma44]

see the IPs of everyone downloading that torrent for as long as you're connected, you mean. Build a client that takes advantage of the Exeem network and see the IPs of everyone downloading any torrent over as long a time period as you'd like.

Re:eliminate trackers, doom bittorrent

[squall14716]

The only problem with that is that it still has a single point of failure.

eXeem and emule

[huwnet]

I'll wait for a new version of eXeem lite and then an OSS implementation for emule

whoops

[sbma44]

edit the above: "prosecute" BitTorrent use. Persecute certainly does imply a moral judgment. Sorry for the malapropism.

it's not opensource

[kard]

from the exeem-faq:
How can eXeem(TM) be free?
eXeem(TM) is supported only by ad revenue. This allows the developers to continue making upgrades to the network and enhancing the eXeem client for you.

bittorent-faq:
BitTorrent is great! How can I help?
You can give a donation.

see the difference?

exeem-faq:
Is eXeem(TM) open source?
No, eXeem(TM) is not open source.

bittorrent-faq:
What license is BitTorrent released under?
MIT License, which basically lets you do anything you want with it so long as you leave the license notification in the source.

bittorent is there, it's widespread, does not contain any ads, the source code is available, runs on anything that runs python (means mac/win/linux and a lot more)

and btw the author lives from the paypal donations he receives from the happy users.

somehow the suprnova people do not understand these things...

Re:it's not opensource

[kard]

to reply to my own post..

from the exeem-faq:

eXeem(TM) is supported only by ad revenue. This allows the developers to continue making upgrades to the network ....

WHAT network?

are they running some dedicated servers? or what?

Re:it's not opensource

[MaineCoon]

That is because they (exeem, suprnova) are/were merely trying to profit from promoting software piracy.

Anyone who says P2P shared content is mostly legit is either outright lying, lying to themselves, or blind and ignorant.

Re:it's not opensource

[derrickh]

Doesnt the author actually live on the check he receives from Valve for working on the Steam project?

D

Re:it's not opensource

[Jherek Carnelian]

Actually...Bram Cohen isn't living off of paypal donations... he's happily employed by VALVe.

Yeah, but Valve still pays him via paypal donations.

Re:Oh NO! This is TERRIBLE NEWS!!!

[ivan256]

There is still a centralized server to connect to the network.

Expect the publicity they've managed to recieve to cause eXeem to cease to exist within a few months. I'm sure that MPAA lawyers are waiting with an ambush the day this is released publically and the first movie is posted.

Cydoor Spyware, Ads, Toolbar

[Alien Venom]

If you are really interested in downloading it, you can download it from FileForum as the main site is down.

But please beware. It does constain spyware!

As stated in their privacy policy:
The ads appearing on the Exeem.com Web site and within eXeem(TM) application are delivered by our web advertising partner, Cydoor. Information about users of eXeem(TM) and Exeem.com, such as the number of times they have viewed an ad (but not user name, address, or other personal information), is used to serve ads to users. If you would like more information about Cydoor, please visit. Ads that might appear outside Exeem.com and eXeem(TM) application are Opt-out ads, that you have a chance to uninstall. Outside Exeem.com and eXeem(TM) application is eXeem's Toolbar LookSmart.

Re:Cydoor Spyware, Ads, Toolbar

[Alien Venom]

Wow, this is indeed a sad day for the p2p community.

I went into #suprnova.org on irc.suprnova.org and mentioned the fact that eXeem contained spyware. The first time, I just inquired about it. I was "warned" (kicked) and told to "keep my thoughts to myself." The second time I spoke in all caps, telling users to read the privacy policy if they didn't believe me. I was then banned.

Re:Cydoor Spyware, Ads, Toolbar

[FerretFrottage]

just went in there and posted the same thing...I was then disconnected. They could be a fun game to play :)

Re:Cydoor Spyware, Ads, Toolbar

[GreyWolf3000]

I just logged in and did the same thing...got banned :)

I only hope more of us join in.

Re:Cydoor Spyware, Ads, Toolbar

[duffahtolla]

I just installed it and it was there.

Found with updated spybot.

Naw. . .

[Sialagogue]

Thanks, but I'll wait for eXeem E++

Torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the torrent: http://www.lokitorrent.com/download.php?id=104617

Re:Oh NO! This is TERRIBLE NEWS!!!

[secolactico]

Heh, meant to write "who will the *AA's sue now". Freudian slip.

Anybody seeding/leeching in the swarm. I've seen letters of complains for users sharing with bittorrent, not hosting the .torrent nor the tracker.

still needs help

[mohrt]

Decentralization may be a good step, but this still doesn't stop folks from plaguing the network with spyware/fakes/decoys/etc. There needs to be a karma system built in so files/users can be scored by the decentralized user community, and filtered on those scores.

lite client

[Lukano]

http://www.exlite.net for the "lite" spyware/adware free version (I had sumbitted this story too with this included - but no, it got rejected *sigh*).

It's the 0.18 beta which asks for a key, but until a lite of 0.20 is released, if you close the window asking for a beta key, the program will work.

The official 0.20 client is confirmed to include Cydoor and SearchSquire right out of the box.

Re:lite client

[Stop Error]

I so loathe Spyware, I may look into the "lite" version. I am interested to know how the eXeem network plans on protecting itself from poisoning? When you went to Suprnova.org you knew that the posted torrents had been screened my moderators. With this new network the **AA's can simply poison the network the same way they have FastTrack.

Re:lite client

[LoneGunner]

I posted a story early this morning as well.. which was rejected too.. *sigh*

It's now been about 7 hours since i found the exeem lite program, and only 40 minutes since slashdot listed the launch of exeem.com website. When i was first able to connect with the exeem lite program there was only about 2000 users total. That slowly rose to about 4000 over the course of the day. Then exeem.com launched and the slashdot story was posted within minutes. The current count of users is up to 30k. 25k joined within 30 minutes of it reaching a major news source. Thats a major jump in traffic. And so far it has been fast and responsive.

I created a site for discusion about the program and bittorrent in general. If anyone wants to check it out you can find it here http://www.exeem-torrents.com

Re:lite client

[Jugalator]

The current count of users is up to 30k. 25k joined within 30 minutes of it reaching a major news source.

Haha, what a grand victory for Cydoor and their partners. :-)
The funny thing is that there are tons of huge regular BT sites still available.

Re:Woohoo

[grub]

Give it time. :) eDonkey is closed source but some good people reverse engineered the protocol and we now have eMule.

Libtorrent

[Rangsk]

Exeem uses libtorrent as its codebase, with extra coding for the decentralized tracker. Libtorrent is an open source GPL'd C++ implementation of the bittorrent protocol. The only requirements for compiling it are support for STL and the latest Boost. This means it works in Windows, Linux, Mac OSX... even cygwin! It's also a library, so it can be plugged into any application.

I've had many communications with the creator, and he's a very cool guy and quite dedicated to the work. I helped a little with debugging, etc, but my main interest at the time was using it to in my own graphical interface. I never completed the project, but I still feel a good connection to libtorrent.

Re:Libtorrent

[mackstann]

Exeem is using a GPL library? Doesn't that mean they're violating the GPL?

Re:Libtorrent

[yeremein]

Libtorrent is an open source GPL'd C++ implementation of the bittorrent protocol.

You're right--it is GPL. Not LGPL.

This means eXeem needs to release the source code of their client, rather than shipping a spyware-encrusted binary, or they're infringing libtorrent's copyright.

Then again, why would I expect the authors of eXeem to respect anyone's copyright?

Re:Libtorrent

[elendril]

libtorrent is released under the BSD-license.

See: http://libtorrent.sourceforge.net/manual.html

If GPL'ed, it probably would not have been used in eXeem (it's probably quite difficult to make a spyware ridden application from a GPL'ed app...).

Re:Libtorrent

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Libtorrent has a BSD license, not GPL (otherwise Exeem couldn't use it in a non-free program)

Re:Libtorrent

[mackstann]

They should fix their freshmeat page.

Re:Libtorrent

[cortana]

And their COPYING file!

Re:Libtorrent

[cortana]

Where's this information come from? Their COPYING file states that their code is released under GPL version 2.

Re:Libtorrent

[fcrick]

This is what appears at the top of the source files in the CVS repository. It does NOT look like GPL to me... /*

Copyright (c) 2003, Arvid Norberg, Magnus Jonsson
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* Neither the name of the author nor the names of its
contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

*/

Re:Libtorrent

[slavemowgli]

Rubbish. Look at the libtorrent project page; it clearly states that it's BSD-licensed, which makes it OK to include it in closed-source software.

Definitely Has Spyware

[gbulmash]

From the site's privacy statement....

"The ads appearing on the Exeem.com Web site and within eXeem(TM) application are delivered by our web advertising partner, Cydoor. Information about users of eXeem(TM) and Exeem.com, such as the number of times they have viewed an ad (but not user name, address, or other personal information), is used to serve ads to users."

Cydoor is given a 7/10 Threat Assessment level by lavasoft.de, makers of AdAware.

Re:Definitely Has Spyware

[digitalgimpus]

Though most people don't seem to mind it.

It's amazing. When news comes out that spyware is in a program.... it has no impact on it's usage.

IMHO I avoid this crap. You know exactly what your getting:

1. It includes spyware (a real sign of a legitimate company).
2. Allegedly bought rights to suprnova name, so it can call itself the successor
3. How is this change legality? Now rather than attack 1 site, and a handful of people, lawyers will be able to easily go after a giant web of users in a P2P network. This doesn't give anyone immunity. If anything it makes more people share liability.

IMHO this product is a bit bogus. It smells foul.

I'd caution people to think twice on this one, and consider what they are getting into.

Re:Definitely Has Spyware

[cortana]

How about: they are distributing a derivative work of Libtorrent, without releasing their source code as the GPL requires them to do so?

Re:Definitely Has Spyware

[aero2600-5]

" I scanned my machine with AdAware 6 (fully updated) and there is no spyware in eXeem beta. "

Perhaps AdAware isn't recent enough to pick up on the spyware in Exeem. The Exeem FAQ states that it does indeed contain adware/spyware. They fail to tell the user what it's doing or collecting. As I don't see any visible ads in Exeem, I can only assume they're data mining.

Aero

Re:Definitely Has Spyware

[eht]

That's funny, but according to the manual libtorrent is under a BSD license, so no source code required.

For some reason freshmeat lists it as GPL, but that contradicts the sourceforge home page and their own manual.

Re:Definitely Has Spyware

[cortana]

Just because some random web page says it is, doesn't make it so.

The actual files you download from Sourceforce say that the project is GPL.

Re:Definitely Has Spyware

[eht]

you mean like this file, looks like BSD style license to me. Or maybe this one, which also looks like BSD style license.

And those random web pages are their official pages that they refer to themselves.

Re:Definitely Has Spyware

[cortana]

Neither of those files are present in the released version of the software.

$ head libtorrent-0.4.7/COPYING
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991

Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

Preamble

Re:Definitely Has Spyware

[eht]

Who said they're using release software.

Not suprnova

[Lord_Dweomer]

I don't care how often the press releases state this is the next version of Suprnova....it is NOT.

The company behind Exeem (there is indeed a company, and they are going to be profiting, which raises some interesting legal questions) basically paid the creator of Suprnova for the rights to use his name and to basically say that Exeem is the next Suprnova. In layman's terms: They bought his credibility and userbase.

Personally, that doesn't matter that much to me. If it works, and gets as large as Suprnova with more protection and overall improvements...well, what do I care if they make money off of it. However, I will NOT tolerate any spyware/adware (a banner ad in the window is fine) bundled with it. Thankfully the makers of Exeemlite have taken care of this. I wonder how aggressively the folks at Exeem will handle this. The folks over at Sharman Networks (Kazaa) basically cut off everybody else on Kazaalite from their existing network.

So, in conclusion, I don't care if they make money as long as it helps protect me, and gives me more value than Suprnova did, and I will not tolerate any spyware/adware. If they screw that up, they've just screwed themselves.

Re:Not suprnova

[Kethinov]

Mod parent up, I entirely agree.

Strike 1, exeem is not open source. Strike 2, it contains spyware/adware. Strike 3, they attempted to buy credibility.

I'll stick to googling for the torrents I need.

Re:Not suprnova

[Kethinov]

Wouldn't that be libel?

Re:Not suprnova

[Lord_Dweomer]

If Exeem does not have spyware, why is it that there already exists a "lite" version of it that claims to have removed the spyware?

It has.

[Spy der Mann]

From TFA:

Third Party Advertising
The ads appearing on the Exeem.com Web site and within eXeem(TM) application are delivered by our web advertising partner, Cydoor. Information about users of eXeem(TM) and Exeem.com, such as the number of times they have viewed an ad (but not user name, address, or other personal information), is used to serve ads to users. If you would like more information about Cydoor, please visit: http://www.cydoor.com/Cydoor/Company/CompanyPrivac y.htm

Ads that might appear outside Exeem.com and eXeem(TM) application are Opt-out ads, that you have a chance to uninstall. Outside Exeem.com and eXeem(TM) application is eXeem's Toolbar LookSmart.

And from elsewhere:

Spyware: Cydoor

NUISANCE LEVEL *****
THREAT LEVEL *****

Cydoor

This technology can be activated both in online and offline modes. The technology's architecture can be integrated into any software program. Cydoor can update or rotate banner ads not only when users are online, but also when they are offline. Upon installation of a software application integrated with their advertising technology, Cydoor Technologies sets a numerical identifier on your computer.

The following files are used:

In C:\Windows\System: cd_clint.dll, cd_gif.dll, cd_swf.dll and cd_load.exe.

Removal:

You can delete the C:\Windows\System\Adcache directory. Then remove all instances from the Registry. Look in HKLM\Software, HKCU\Software. Look also for entries in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run and in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Shareddlls.

If you wish to KaZaa without the Cydoor spyware, copy the cd_clint.dll, remove the Cydoor agents with a spyware cleaner, and place the cd_clint.dll back in the Windows System folder.

OK, I think I'll pass.

Re:It has.

[k-hell]

How typical spyware. Does not install in the usual Program Files directory so it's more difficult to find, and of course, provides no easy way of uninstalling if I read the above correctly... except using regedit....

Wow

[Lullabye_Muse]

24,000 users and only 11 hits for porn

Re:Wow

[Doctor Crumb]

The kids are spelling it "pr0n" these days.

Re:Wow

[imsabbel]

Per default, adult content is filtered.
There is TONS of porn.

Bah

[Ryokos_boytoy]

"supported by ad revenue ..." I stopped reading right there.

Re:hmm...

[mogrify]

I have to say this is an exceptionally coherent and well-considered post. However, it happens to be mine, from a previous Exeem article...

"Linux users can run it too"

[jaakko]

Shouldn't this be "wine can run it too"? Wine, you know, works also under other operating systems than linux. Oh, you didn't care about them, sorry.

Re:"Linux users can run it too"

[LuSiDe]

A native binary is indeed something way different than just the fact its running under WINE and Linux != Linux/x86. And lets be honest: if you were running FreeBSD/x86 you'd rather have a native x86 binary for Linux than a Windows binary you'd run through WINE. Besides, BitTorrent ran just fine in Bash. Try that with Exeem...

They have the source, they can compile it under *NIX. Or they could give the community the source, to port it, or to understand the protocol and eventually writing an own implementation... but thats not what they want. They want to issue control. The spyware will be get rid of by the smarter users. The clueless ones won't run the Lite version just like with KaZaA. Just like with KaZaA and other proprietary protocols, it'll be reverse engineered.

Its not from Suprnova either. The Suprnova guys got paid by this corporation to basically sell their popularity to this 'new' technology. I hope it won't get popular though. Why not? Because 1) its tightly controlled / closed technology / adware, spyware 2) its not really revolutionary nor doesn't solve the anonomity problem; its just more decentralized in an easy manner 3) because they use Suprnova.org's name. Call me a wanker, but i oppose such abusive way of 'lifting' on someone else his popularity.

No way would I go near this

[Zed2K]

Forget it. Bittorrent as we have all come to know and love is not dead. It is just moved around a bit. Its still quite easy to find plenty of torrent files out there.

Exeem is a money making scheme and thats about it. Its not to be trusted.

How can it be easier?

[Chuck Chunder]

With bittorrent everyone's IPs are in plain sight on a plainly visible central tracker. No matter what Exeem does I can't see how it could make it "much easier" to track people down.

That said I don't think the nominal point of Exseem is to "reduce the ability of copyright owners to sue pirates". Individual pirates will probably be as attackable as ever (you simply can't offer something to the public without them knowing it came from you in an efficient manner otherwise). It just aims to remove the risk of a central point of failure, the tracker, being attacked (legally or otherwise).

It's possible that Exeem could make users open to more prosecution though. Typically Bittorrent users can be seen uploading/downloading one piece of content at a time. If Exeem decentralises in such a way that their computers are also taking part in indexing and tracking downloads then arguably they are involving themselves with more copyright violation than with Bittorrent.

Re:How can it be easier?

[sbma44]

Honeypots are admittedly a concern with the BT system. But setting up a honeypot and collecting IPs isn't the industry's preferred method -- you have to give away content, and you only get evidence of infringements one torrent at a time. This is a very serial procedure, without a great return in prosecutions for the effort it takes.

By contrast, if there's a well-defined port or ports, the industry can just monitor traffic on it for a period of weeks or months using either legal pressure on an ISP or a custom client, collect tons of infringements per IP and start back up the subpoena factory.

You're right that the industry will always go after pirates, but the Exeem architecture makes it much easier to automate the process. There'll be no super-sites to get sued, but the legal exposure gets shifted to the user.

Re:hmm...

[m50d]

Speed and anonymity are mutually exclusive, because the only way to get anonymity is by having people proxy for each other.

Spyware

[g00z]

If you want to install Cydoor, by all means try this beta. If you'd rather not install not spyware, stay away from this one folks.

The ./ editors should have included this in the article summary before they posted this one. Now Cydoor just got a bunch of new sucke^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers.

Exeem is adware ridden

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to check out this FAQ, particularly point 2.

Say, are those popups jumping on your desktop?

Re:Exeem is adware ridden

[Anonymous Coward]

I always run things like keygens under Virtual PC. It can install all the adware, trojans, and malware it wants, and once the key is generated, I just say "buh-bye" and discard changes to the virtual hard-disk image.

Sounds like the same strategy would be handy for running Exeem.

Bah... "linux" version

[stratjakt]

Wine isn't an option. I was used to running my .torrents on a "gruntwork" box, I'd copy .torrent files I wanted to a public share on that box, which would be running a "screen btlaunchmanycurses.py ~", a console-mode version of bittorrent that continuously scans the folder (my home folder ~) for .torrents, and downloads them.

I'd check up on it by ssh'ing in and doing a "screen -x".

So, what's I to do now? Install all the bloat of X and Wine? Because frankly, Win98 runs better on this old box I use for the task (an old P200/MMX)

It's an outside shot, but any chances of an ncurses based exeem client in the mix?

Or, can I get .torrents from exeem and then export them to oldschool bittorrent?

Anyone? Beuller?

the profiling they do for adverts would help RIAA

[CdBee]

a P2P company is going to be profiling its users - and you;re worried about spyware?

Can you imagine the legal field-day if the RIAA got hold of Exeem's user profiles, with records of everything they downloaded?

of mlDonkey

[DrYak]

eDonkey is closed source but some good people reverse engineered the protocol and we now have eMule.

...or mlDonkey, one of the best client available out there :
- it's multi protocol (Web + Donkey + Torrent + Gnutella + G2 + etc...)
- it has a client/server design, were you can let mlDonkey core run on your home Linux server 24/24, and remotly connect (with GUI, or with a webbrowser) to control downloads from your workstation.
- it written in a managed language (NO WAY to do buffer overruns : very secure)

It's my favorite and that what I run on my home linux server.

Re:of mlDonkey

[Transdimentia]

You are aware that humans coded your managed language right?

No torrent?

[El_Muerte_TDS]

What no bittorrent download?

from the FAQ

[i41Overlord]

3. Do I need a serial? No, you DO NOT need a serial to use eXlite, simply close the serial window that pops up on startup

Spyware infested filth!

[i41Overlord]

Everyone was hoping that this would replace Suprnova.

Sad news- it doesn't.

The dead memory of Suprnova has been replaced by a spyware infested program that is marketed under the guise of being a Suprnova replacement.

If you like clogging your system up with programs such as Cydoor, be my guest. But if not, reject this filth.

And The Aggregator?

[Beautyon]

So, now that the trackers and torrents are distributed, the first person to cobble together an aggregating site wtih categories will be shut down for what reason exactly?

The eXeem links work:

Kylie_Minogue_no_underwear_clip.mpg

You could easily build a community around them. Will bloggers be 'cease and deceased' for posting eXeem links? Will Google filter out all exeem links that it crawls?

License Violation

[tweakt]

Confirmed!

The Sourceforge page incorrectly lists the license as BSD. The COPYING file in the archive contains the GPL2 license. Unfortunately, none of the source files contain a license header.

Does anyone know if this is a problem?

Re:License Violation

[Sarev0k]

Copyleft licenses like the GPL are used to grant people rights they wouldn't normally have.

By no means does not having that license header in the source files grant people any aditional rights.

Re:License Violation

[interJ]

You are wrong.

From the libtorrent documentation: libtorrent is released under the BSD-license.

I don't see any COPYING file in the archive, and the source files contain the following:

Copyright (c) 2003, Arvid Norberg, Daniel Wallin
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* Neither the name of the author nor the names of its
contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Re:License Violation

[JohnyDog]

Mod parent up, from the sources files it's clear that it's BSD-style licence.

Re:License Violation

[yeremein]

Mod parent up, from the sources files it's clear that it's BSD-style licence.

Go to the libtorrent home page. In the first paragraph, we read:

"LibTorrent is a BitTorrent library written in C++ for *nix. It is designed to avoid redundant copying and storing of data that other clients and libraries suffer from. Licensed under the GPL."

Then download the source. There is a file named COPYING in the root directory of the archive, which contains (surprise) the GPL, version 2.

And here's an irony....

[Xtifr]

The Grateful Dead and a couple of thousand other bands (including, as of a couple of years ago, the estate of Jimi Hendrix) allow non-commercial distribution of their concert recordings. Non-commercial! But by making this an ad-driven product, the bozos behind eXeem have ensured that it can't even be used to legally distribute most music that can ordinarily be legally traded on the Internet. Thanks but no thanks. I'll stick with ordinary bittorrent, which at least has some measurable legal uses. :)

Re:And here's an irony....

[tftp]

allow non-commercial distribution

Come back when Exeem team starts charging you per album downloaded.

What they do is no different from charging for your Internet access, or for the computer that you use. They charge for the tool, but not for the content. The content is still free, and as long as neither eXeem nor you charge your peers for each download you should be OK.

Re:And here's an irony....

[Xtifr]

The Dead's license for their concert recordings specifically forbids using it to attract ad revenue.

From http://www.dead.net/hotline_info/NEW_DOCUMENTS/mp3 .html

STATEMENT TO MP3 SITE OPERATORS
The Grateful Dead and our managing organizations have long encouraged the purely non-commercial exchange of music taped at our concerts and those of our individual members. That a new medium of distribution has arisen - digital audio files being traded over the Internet - does not change our policy in this regard. Our stipulations regarding digital distribution are merely extensions of those long-standing principles and they are as follow:

• No commercial gain may be sought by websites offering digital files of our music, whether through advertising, exploiting databases compiled from their traffic, or any other means.
• All participants in such digital exchange acknowledge and respect the copyrights of the performers, writers and publishers of the music.
• This notice should be clearly posted on all sites engaged in this activity.
• We reserve the ability to withdraw our sanction of non-commercial digital music should circumstances arise that compromise our ability to protect and steward the integrity of our work.

(Emphasis mine.) This license has been adopted/adapted by many other bands as well. And the fact that it refers to "websites" is the reason that I emphasised the parts about how this is all part of their longstanding policy. The fact that a new form of digital distribution (peer-to-peer, rather than on a fixed website) has arisen does not change their policy neither.

More than a little skeptical...

[XeRXeS-TCN]

Well firstly, it's already been said in previous Slashdot posts that it's a company responsible for this, who the former owner of Suprnova has some sort of agreement with, which gives them credibility that they don't necessarily deserve (yet.)

But in the grand scheme of things, the client isn't open source, so you really don't know what's going on in there. And what's worse, the EULA revokes your right to disassemble / reverse-engineer the software, so they may well crack down on anyone trying to distribute an open source version:

b.In addition to those prohibitions contained elsewhere herein, you agree you will not: ... (iv) modify, alter, decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer or emulate the functionality, reverse compile or otherwise reduce to human readable form, or create derivative works of the Software without the prior written consent of Swarm or its licensors, as applicable

Secondly, from the privacy policy:

Personal Data Collection and Use The collection of personally identifiable data on this site by Exeem.com is only gathered from information that has been submitted to Exeem.com freely and deliberately by site users. Exeem.com reserves the right to use this data in the following ways:

...

Third Party Advertising
The ads appearing on the Exeem.com Web site and within eXeem(TM) application are delivered by our web advertising partner, Cydoor. Information about users of eXeem(TM) and Exeem.com, such as the number of times they have viewed an ad (but not user name, address, or other personal information), is used to serve ads to users.

So the app spams you with ads, and what's worse, Wikipedia has this to say about Cydoor:

Cydoor is a spyware program that causes popup and pop-under ads to be displayed while you are browsing the Internet. It also re-routes your web requests through third-party servers for the purpose of capturing your web surfing habits.

So you're not only spammed with ads, you're installing spyware. This is confirmed by eXeem Lite's FAQ:

2. Does eXlite contain spyware?
eXlite was sorely made to take out the spyware from eXeem so to make it clear eXlite does not contain spyware.

A closed source, advert spamming, spyware installing pile of crap that you are expressly forbidden from reverse engineering... sounds like a whole barrel of laughs.

As far as I'm concerned, eXeem can go and fornicate itself with an iron stick.

Re:More than a little skeptical...

[DanMc]

You don't have to license the application to reverse engineer the protocol.

I have a big network and a strict usage policy. If my network users want to license the software and use it on my network, I peek at the traffic on my wires, and even compare that with screenshots of the licensed user's desktops.

They're distributing the app to the public, and intentionally sending the traffic over the public Internet. They have no expectation that non-licensed users will not look at the traffic and figure out what it's doing.

We won't tolerate spyware

[GweeDo]

In response to their lame inclusion of spyware in this application everyone should post this link (or one like it): http://www.spywareguide.com/product_show.php?id=7 in: irc://irc.suprnova.org/suprnova.org Enjoy...it is too bad suprnova is dead :(

Linux console version on the way

[Guspaz]

From within the program: "Future updates will include bug fixes, more customizable program, skinning program, linux console version, and additional functions to ease the use of the program! "

So there you have it, your headless linux version is on the way. And of course there is always WINE.

Summary

[UlfGabe]

Has cydoor apps - a spyware company.

Relies on ad revenues, is NOT open-source, uses a non-bittorrent-compatible file format, runs in Linux on an emulator..... two words, -> NOT GOOD.

eXeem and the selling out of the BT community

[ilf]

http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8875

Not by SuprNova.org

[BobPaul]

This program is NOT written by the guys at SuprNova.org. It is simply endorsed by the guys at SuprNova.org. Listen to the radio interviews with for verification.

eMule?

[starm_]

Please can someone tell me what is the difference with this and eMule

Re:eMule?

[pin0]

speed?

A honeypot isn't needed

[Chuck Chunder]

a)You don't need to set up a honeypot. Any public tracker will just tell you the IP addresses of anyone connected to it. It would be effortless to gather that data over a period of time and identify some heavy users (particularly seeders) to pursue seriously.
b)For all intents and purposes Bittorrent operates over well defined ports anyway.

I simply can't see how Exeem can make it easier to automate the process of suing people. Everything with bittorrent happens in plain sight at a well known address.

Re:A honeypot isn't needed

[sbma44]

a) For an individual torrent, yes. But that's just one infringement. With Exeem you can plausibly identify all users over a large section of network at once. That'll make the process much easier, instead of the serial, torrent-by-torrent approach that would be required in the past.

b) Not for my intents and purposes

P2P requires standardization, and standardization allows for tracking. Yes, an aspect of BT is centralized, but on a per-torrent basis. So I still think the existing setup is better -- not for the people running the trackers, I suppose, but for the users.

In any case, it sounds like Exeem is an adware-riddled piece of junk, so the point is somewhat moot.

Re:Oh NO! This is TERRIBLE NEWS!!!

[Guspaz]

The company that created Exeem is located in the carribean. The MPAA/RIAA can't touch them.

The site/servers seem to be hosted in the netherlands. The RIAA/MPAA might be able to get something done there, but that won't stop Swarm Systems from moving their servers to another country, even the carribean.

Yeah, but what if...

[DrYak]

There's a big probleme with commercial application going to linux. For most enterprises : "Linux" = "A windows compatible x86 machine running Linux instead of Windows". I bet their linux console version will be just a x86 binary, compiled on a Fedora Core machine (a that could run maybe on SuSE Linux if you fix a couple of missing libraries). Hello ! There a lot of other architectures on which Linux runs ! And this specially important for internet related software, because there's a lot of MIPS-powered hardware hacked to run Linux. (I'm not speaking about the Linksys WT54G - it doesn't have a harddisc. I'm speaking about a lot of Linux+MIPS based file servers running Samba. They are good candidate to run p2p downloaders). And I won't even mention Wine : It requires a X11 server and it's everything but what is needed for a headless server.

Re:Yeah, but what if...

[akb]

Asus, Belkin and other manufacturers are selling units based off of the same design as the WRT54G that include a USB port. Some of the vendors support attaching storage, a USB hard drive, flash drive, etc. Of course putting linux on it allows you to do whatever one wants.

The custom firmwares that I've seen are not at the level of what is available for the WRT54G but they will likely be soon.

Re:Yeah, but what if...

[Guspaz]

The difference is in market share. Of the percentage of users running Linux on a desktop, I'm sure the percentage that run on non-x86 is inconsequential.

Come on now, be reasonable. Any company releasing desktop software for linux is already catering to what, 1% of the desktop market? Less? Asking them to support 1% of that 1% is insane. There's no point expending the resources for something a handful of people will use.

Re:Yeah, but what if...

[Bert64]

Not to mention those of us with sparc or alpha hardware hooked up to huge fibrechannel disk arrays, which are absoloutely perfect for downloading files onto. That's exactly what i do anyway, on solaris irix and linux.

Re:Yeah, but what if...

[DrYak]

Asking them to support 1% of that 1% is insane.

Look on the grand-parent poster :
- The question wasn't : "We need the commercial software to support every last single CPU on which Linux could run, even ARM powered GBA, or IBM/Citizen's Linux-on-a-Watch (tm), or Korg's synth, or..." -(which is completly impossible)
- The question was that we STILL need an open-source implementation of Exeem, EVEN if they make a Linux console one and even if the windows client runs perfectly under wine.
Because it's very likely that *their specific application* will be Linux-x86 only (even if they have good reasons to do so as you pointed out), and because we need an open-source one for portability reasons, especially in a field (webPC, servers, routers, ...) were there's much more chance to find a unusual CPU as with other (Desktop PC).

And about the market share myth :
- These days with globalisation and such, even the smallest market share is significant.
Want an example ?
- In China only 0.1% of population is interested in European soccer. Guess what ? That still makes several hunderd thousand of chineese customers !
And the ad providers where very happy to know that so much chineese where watching their ads.

- If compagnies are neglecting so much Linux, IT'S NOT BECAUSE OF THE SMALL %. Even with a small %, there's still a lot of people to do business with, specially if it's on-line. (Think : There are still compagnies dealing with AmigaOS softwares !!!)
No. The only reason is that most enterprise prefer to concentrate their effort on 1 single concurrent. That's it. Even if Linux was 30% of market they won't support it, because easier to think just aboute the 65% Windows users. Linux will only get interest from compagnie if it could manage to get past 60%.
- Meanwhile, the current 5%-10% people using linux are far more than enough. It's a community big enough to do open-source development, and we've got everything we need. No need for commercial compagnies. (Hell ! If AmigaOS or DreamCast users can survive by them-self why won't we ?)

Yes, sir.

[DrYak]

You are aware that humans coded your managed language right?

Yes I do.
As I do know that buffer overruns aren't the only available way to compromise a system.

The first thing that came to mind...

[BelDion]

Suprnova.. Torrent happiness right?

RIAA/MPAA: Close Suprnova!
Suprnova: No! Fair use! Fair use!
RIAA/MPAA: We'll sue your pants off in court.
Suprnova: ...Fair use. You leave us alone.
RIAA/MPAA: Even if we lose, you'll be bankrupt.
Suprnova: Ok. We give up.
RIAA/MPAA: Good. Now, produce a "decentralized" P2P program that lets us find all the old ladies and 9 year olds who are trading mp3s and movies and destroy their souls forever with our blade of lawsuits +5!
Suprnova: But... Damn... Pwned...

Slow

[ZeroExistenZ]

I hope their new trackerfree bittorrent network will be faster it takes to download their program...

/P[riv]+acy/

[Pan T. Hose]

How well does it protect the person sharing or seeding the file?

It doesn't. But fortunately it is irrelevant for us, for we only use torrent to download Knoppix ISOs and Linux kernels in the first place, right?

Bit torrent 2 will crush this

[Nmcsween]

eXeem has nothing going for it except for the de-centralized tack on. Theres also the fact that the network is NOT opensource meaning only eXeem can connect to the eXeem network. My personal opinion: Waste of time and effort.

Torrent?

[Pan T. Hose]

official torrent download link ...

Torrent is so 2004. Don't you have an eXeem download link?

Re:Torrent?

[yahyamf]

of course you meant
In Korea, only old people use .torrent files

suprnova replacement

[smash]

OK, so its not quite so basic... but...

1. Fire up google
2. Type in
   "stuff i am looking for" filetype:torrent
3. THis will go find "stuff i am looking for torrents

smash.

hm

[DoktorTomoe]

hmmm ... windows only hmmmmm ... source unavailible hmmmmmmmmm ... ADWARE *peeks over to azureus* hm, does the thing just as good. And why would I want decentralized bittorent when I'm just downloading distribution ISO files?

Runs Great In VPC On OS X

[lordDallan]

eXeem Lite 0.18

Giving it a spin in VPC7/Win2ksp4 on 10.3(Panther) and it seems to run great, even in the background.

And since it's a virtual machine, I don't really care if it gets mucked up.

Re: Torrent sites

[alphageek101]

Somebody posted this link yesterday. It contains a list of close to 100 links to currently operating torrent sites. Definately worth bookmarking!!

http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8690/

Re:Woohoo

[wojci2]

I saw this post on the libtorrent mailing list a while ago.
If its true, the authors of Exeem modified libtorrent and used it in their application. I am sure that the authors of libtorrent are quite happy that some people can earn money by advertising using some of their work.

I'm Looking for somethine like WASTE

[mesach]

I wish it was easier to find something that can be controled like WASTE.

I'm trying to setup a private network between me and a couple of friends, but it needs to be cross platform because some have mac's and some use linux. the problem is WASTE's Mac client sucks and none of the people who use Mac's can get it to work it just crashes constantly.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Re:I'm Looking for somethine like WASTE

[zootm]

Traditional filesharing apps over a VPN of some type might work here? I've never had to use VPNs on Macs so I'm not sure of the details, to be completely honest. It would be nice to have a cross-platform WASTE client, I agree - I like that system.

horrible program

[Punker22]

how is this better than KaZaA i mean the creator even said it's going to be ad loaded? i'm definatly not installing this.

Use correct predicates please... 8-)

[IBitOBear]

No, the record industry's Nazis will come kicking down your door for distributing anything that can be mistaken for copyrighted music by title, size, or popularity; or for that matter anything that catches the eye of an untrained lawyer-drone awash with dreams of averice.

Why I like BitTorrent

[drigz]

I like BitTorrent because you can start a torrent, it runs at 50-100% of http speeds, and finishes quickly. I don't like other p2p apps, because downloads take ages to start, and when they do they go slowly, even for popular files (maybe because of my router, but the point remains). So, I start up eXeem (with wine). I try to download remove_cydoor_from_exeem.exe. I wait. I wait some more. Has the download started? No.

Not impressed.

The protocol

[br00tus]

With all this talk of spyware, open source and so forth I've taken a look at the protocol, using WINE and tcpdump. I might use a tool other than tcpdump later.

Anyhow, I've booted it up a few times. When I click refresh on new files, it starts making TCP/IP connections to port 4000 of various hosts. I then send the TCP/IP header plus the packet itself. In hexidecimal value, these packets usually begin "02-04-05". Then I send "b4-04-02-08-0a". Then I send "00-XX-XX-XX-00-00-00-00-01-03-03-00". The X's change each connection - they seem to be incrementing. So that's my handshake. The response also begins "02-04-05" with 9 bytes after that. Then I send 10 bytes. That's when the remote host starts sending me big packets.

Well, I just started looking at it so it's still a mystery although I think I've seen some patterns. Anyhow, anyone interested in this can discuss it here, or go on the usual Freenode IRC channels (#p2p-hackers, #bittorrent etc.)

Re:The protocol

[phreakuencies]

Hey, I've read some posts that said that Exeem prohibited the dissasemble or reverse-ingeneering. I'm not protecting Exeem, I'm just saying that I'd be careful about publishing this info. Well... after all I'm just a(nother) paranoid

Re:The protocol

[br00tus]

I did a strings on the exe and client.dll. In the DLL I found what appeared to be Crypto++. It appears to be using Blowfish.

I also found calls to Cybergold, Cydoor and the like.

Re:The protocol

[Troncek]

Try to reinstall the program and to a New files refresh search. The first time the event log should say something like "sending node request to the network". Try to check out the packets flow at that point. Once you do the first file search the program already has node information from users. The first time is critical IMHO.

Re:Oh NO! This is TERRIBLE NEWS!!!

[Jugalator]

The company that created Exeem is located in the carribean. The MPAA/RIAA can't touch them.

It would help if you explained why? :-)

You mean, as in no airport? lol, just kidding ;-)

I mean, they've managed to take international actions before, quite recently.

Re:What piracy? P2P is 100% legit!

[ryusen]

naaah.. everyone HERE uses p2p for perfectly legal stuff

it's the people on other sites that use P2P for illegal activities.

Or Not...

[DarkTempes]

As far as i can tell (and adaware can tell), there isn't any spyware installed, at least no outside of the exeem executable itself. No such DLLs exist... no such registry addresses exist... of course i don't care much about my windows partition anyway i figure they just use said company for ads, and maybe when they're out of beta they'll add that nice spyware, but so far no ads even show up so i don't think they've even integerated anything from CyDoor yet

Looks promising

[__aailob1448]

I admit, I was very skeptical about eXeem but after giving it a quick try, i'm pleasantly surprised. Of course, I'm going to uninstall it immediately and clean my computer from the filth that is cydoor but i'm getting eXeem lite as soon as it comes out.

If people flock to it, this'll be the greatest p2p app yet.

SHHHHH!

[Japong]

ON'T-DAY ENTIONMAY IRATEPAY BAYAY! Now repeat after me: "With Suprnova gone I don't even know where to go to get my .torrent files. I can't seem to find them after the **AA shut down all my favorite copyright-infringing sites. Instead of downloading Elektra and Ashlee Simpson's new album, I purchased them from a retail store at the manufacturer's suggested retail price. Thank you MPAA and RIAA for making the world a better place. You can rest easy knowing you've stopped piracy forever."

Re:Sloncek: A name to now be synonomous with L8m3.

[zerOnIne]

what the heck is "lateme"? that's the best conjure i could come up with for "L8me". surely you don't mean "lame", right?

Re:Woohoo

[Mind Booster Noori]

I don't believe: the day they did that, a fork would appear... without ads.

More, this doesn't give us anything more than the traditional p2p proggies, so why use it?

Hmm, let's see...
There are three generations of p2p protocols. The 1st are the centralized protocols. This isn't. The 2nd are descentralized. The 3rd gives us stuff like efficiency, reliability and anonymity. This doesn't.

I undertand why thy did this (I'm quite sure they'll win some good money with it...) but I don't understand why will people still use old-generation p2p proggies...

Take a look on GNUnet, Freenet, I2P, Entropy...

Ugh.

[FyberOptic]

I only have one word to describe this program: UGH.

Do I say this because the program itself is bad? Not really. I only ran it once, played around with it a little, and decided I might use it sometime if I had a hard time locating something on gnutella and such.

Now I generally use Avant as my browser, but by pure coincidence, I happened to open up IE this evening. After closing it, I got some kind of popup for some comedy place. An icon appeared in my system tray. Then another popup. I suddenly realized what had happened.

UGH is to describe the fact that eXeem is now classified as garbage software in my book. The very idea that they would include spyware and adware with it has tarnished their reputation with me forever. It's just plain wrong to distribute trash like that with an application.

I decided to give Microsoft's AntiSpyware a run for its money and started it up. LOW AND BEHOLD, the spyware and adware started being detected. I want to point out that I ran this very scan only a few days ago, with nothing found. Nothing has been installed since which would have installed this stuff. And since eXeem is known to install adware/spyware, I know that it's responsible for ALL of this garbage, as I'm very very careful as to what I put on here for that very reason.

I actually want to give kudos to Microsoft for it doing such a good job at finding and removing everything. They did some good work with this program it seems.

Just to note, one of the pieces of junk in particular is said to allow other software to be downloaded and installed. WTF? Who writes this garbage?

I'll tell you who. Greedy, greedy people. The internet is becoming overrun with ads by such people. Even television is being raped by ads, which appear all over your television shows while you're trying to watch'em. The same is happening with websites, where these Flash ads will appear all over the screen when you're trying to see something. It's pathetic. What has our media come to? But the worst evil of all of this is adware.

So, I say this to every person out there that sees this and writes adware/spyware. I'm anxious for the day when the laws come into place, which will send you all to jail. This is where you deserve to be, for writing this virus-like software. It's no less destructive than anything else any "hacker" puts together, with the exception of sticking ads in peoples faces. There's no excuse for it, and people won't tolerate it.

I suggest that everyone boycott eXeem in whatever way possible. Don't use it, don't mention it (at least in anything other than negative light), refuse advertisements on your sites for it, don't let people link to it on comments or forums (by editing the post to remove the url or something, or posting a follow-up about the adware), etc.

And I don't just mean this particular program. I'm talking about all the software of this nature which installs junk like this. If enough people spread the bad word about them and prevent anyone from possibly downloading it, these people will slowly get forced out of business. I have no problem with these people standing in the unemployment line to look for real jobs.

The fact of the matter is, if something isn't done about the explosion of advertising, there's just not going to be anything left BUT ads.

Re:Ugh.

[/dev/trash]

It isn't really nice for a thief to complain about other bad guys doing bad things to him when he's stealing shit. In other words, trust no one.

Cydoor removal/eXeem Review

[Prospero424]

While it indeed sucks that not only is this software not open source, but also includes spyware, at least it still seems to work just fine after removing Cydoor. While it holds promise, the lack of an open source project (especially when it includes GPL code, grrrr) will certainly hinder its progress. Now, if the authors actively moderated the network like they did Suprnova,org, I could see the justification for ad revenue, but this would open them up to legal liability, obviously, so that's not going to happen. We'll see how the peer review feature works. The implementation in eMule works fairly well (though far from perfect) so at least there's hope. eMule is still, IMO, the most technically impressive network, especially when considering the incredible success of Kademlia But it's just so much slower than Bittorrent and uses so many connections and ports that every single software firewall I have tried has caused speed problems with it and/or excessive CPU/memory usage. This is why I have high hopes for eXeem; the speed and leanness of the bittorrent protocol when compared with others if its generation.

Remove Spyware from eXeem...

[authenticgeek]

While installing eXeem, simply agree to the license agreement for the spyware and then on the next screen click 'cancel' - you continue with the config process without installing any spyware at all. I've done a searh and had it running for a few minutes now. No ads within the app and Ad-Aware confirms that my system lacks spyware. Somehow, I doubt this'll last very long.

Protocol?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Says based on bittorrent protocol: Not the case. It's based on the bittorrent IDEA.

What independent music?

[tepples]

I was under the impression that the only files being traded through P2P were research papers, Linux distributions, and independent music files.

Some would claim that "independent music files" are illegal, as the major music publishers have enough clout to talk a judge into believing that they own all possible melodies.

Chicken and egg

[tepples]

Torrent is so 2004.

And eDonkey is so 2003, but that's where all the (non-pornographic) amputee videos are.

Don't you have an eXeem download link [to get eXeem]?

Likewise, how do you compile your C compiler?

BitTorrent has been re-licensed

[tepples]

Elaborate, please. BitTorrent itself is released under the MIT license.

The license for BitTorrent 3.9.0 and later has changed to something called the "BitTorrent Open Source License". No, I don't know whether this new license is GPL compatible, because Google doesn't seem to find the text of the license anywhere on the web.

Re:BitTorrent has been re-licensed

[WWWWolf]

You can find the license from the beta tarball

The "BitTorrent Open Source License", in its own words, seems to be derived from the Jabber Open Source License.

Bram Cohen no longer works for Valve

[jensen404]

The parent is correct.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/bramcohen/7932.ht ml

"I don't work for Valve Software any more, and haven't for a while."

why?

"I suggest reading The Mythical Man-Month, in particular pay attention to what it says about adding people to troubled projects."

Re:of mlDonkey - Warning! Broken link/fake site

[Anonymous Coward]

The proper link:
mlDonkey

Repeat: Do not follow parent link!

Doesn't work worth shite.

[TitusC]

It may just be me... the fact that nobody else is complaining about it makes me think that it may just be me... but I can do searches, but never start a download. I can't see anything being blocked at my HW firewall.

The FAQ says it can take an hour or so to start a download... say WHAT? Why don't I just use Azureus? By the time Exeem starts the download, I'll have already downloaded 2 or 3 copies of the files using Az!

Yes, I've already removed the adware. And now goes the app...

Re:hmmm

[aero2600-5]

"I scanned with my Ad aware SE ( newest update) and it didnt pick up any spyware after installing Exeem.."

I love how all the posts in this thread claiming that there's no spyware in Exeem are made by that infamous Anonymous Coward.

A thought has just occurred to me. Do you know who will use Exeem? The idiots that have been using Kazaa and all the other spyware-laden p2p apps. The smarter ones that have been using BT, avoiding spyware and closed networks, will continue to use BT. The p2p community doesn't need Exeem. It's just another Kazaa, Bearshare, or Morpheus. Enjoy your spyware, folks. It's all yours.

Aero

Re:To everyone complaining about Cydoor

[aero2600-5]

"do a little research guys. Cydoor is actually a respecteble ADware comapny now. NOT spyware. If you don't want to use it because you choose not to believe, then fine. Anyone who visited suprnova.org before got ads from the EXACT same ad company."

Yet another AC defending Cydoor and Exeem. I wonder if he works for Exeem or Cydoor. My odds are on Exeem, as Cydoor doesn't much care what people think of them.

Aero

WARNING : MISSING DOT IN THE URL !!!!

[DrYak]

WARNIN :

I DIDN'T CHECK MY URLS !!!
There's a missing dot in the url :

it should be http://www.mldonkey.net/ !!!

Not wwwmldonkey.net

Thank you !!!

[DrYak]

Thank you for pointing me the error.

I missed the first dot.
The url should be :
http://www.mldonkey.net
wwwmldonkey.net is a fake/dialer site.

(To AC: Of course I don't use the dialer.)

BAD URL: Thank you

[DrYak]

Thank you for pointing the error :
I made a typo and missed the first dot.

The URL should be :
www.mldonkey.net

wwwmldonkey (no dot) is a FAKE/Dialer site.

Re:Oh NO! This is TERRIBLE NEWS!!!

[Atheraal]

The eXeem central server is located in a trap-ridden lair, below an active volcano. Routinely infiltrated by secret agents, of course.

SPYWARE ADWARE

[Da_Weasel]

Yea, the tool bar is spy ware. If they put it in the IE tool bar I wouldn't be at all suprised to find it tucked away in the application. Very disappointing coming from the people who gave us suprnova... *sign*

Re:SPYWARE ADWARE

[Da_Weasel]

*sigh* too... :P

Re:Oh NO! This is TERRIBLE NEWS!!!

[Guspaz]

So long as the blowers don't fail the service will stay up ;)

Re:To everyone complaining about Cydoor

[aero2600-5]

"I'm just smart enough to know what the dif between spyware and adware is. Just coz cydoor has been evil in the past doesn't mean they can't change. No1 likes ads, but no1 is forcing you to use this either. I was simply saying anyone saying it's spyware ridden has no clue. Any decent anti-spyware/adware utility will remove the cydoor parts that get installed anyhow."

First off, the odds of a company changing it's business practices are slim to none if the current practice is bringing in profits.


Second, you're absolutely right. No one is forcing me, or anyone else to use it.

Third, you say it has no spyware. It communicates with Cydoors servers while eXeem is running. I don't know what it's sending, but it could be anything. That may not be the official definition of spyware, but it certainly is in my book.

And finally, you also say that any decent anti-adware/spyware utility will remove it. You're right, it does, but it's promptly re-installed the next time you run eXeem. If that's not sneaky and underhanded, I don't know what is. Cydoor is not to be trusted, that is unless you're paying them for user data or advertising. Then I'm sure they're very nice to you.

Aero

Open mouth, insert foot...

[yeremein]

Apparently there are two libtorrent projects. One of them is GPL, and the other is BSD.