More on Kazaa and Brilliant Digital Spyware

Vertigo01 writes: "There is an interesting article from CNN.com on the current state of the Kazaa controversy, and Brilliant Digital's plans for the future. Interesting quotes from the article include a statement saying that 'Altnet's seeded software [will be] awakened some time in May' and that 'Brilliant is negotiating with music labels and movie studios to market their material as well. The files will be copy-protected in some way, using Microsoft's digital rights management encryption technology.'"

Kazaa lite!

[JustinMWard]

Just get Kazaa Lite and stop worrying about all this.

Where to get Kazaa Lite? Well, on Kazaa, of course.. or you could be a weenie and go to their web page [kazaalite.com].

Re:Kazaa lite!

[JPriest]

Not just Kazaa [kazaalite.tk] but others are availible or linked from CleanClients.tk [cleanclients.tk]

Re:I am stunned

[benjymous]

From what I understand, the altnet stuff comes (will come?) piggybacked on the "b3d projector" advert program that the KaZaA installer automatically installs for you (without prompting if this is ok). You can see it briefly at the end of the installer when it pops up its own installation window in the top left of the screen for about half a second.

KaZaA lite [kazaalite.com] doesn't install this (but it'll still be there if you haven't fully purged an old version of KaZaA from your system. Get adaware [lavasoft.nu] for that)

Re:How to remove kazaa spyware

[benjymous]

You need to download refupdate [lavasoft.nu] which will download the latest adaware datafiles for you. It's good practice to run this at least once a week to keep the datafiles up to date (and run adaware straight after, of course)

gift.sourceforge.net

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't already checked out giFT check it out. It is an open source fast track network implmentation. It is no longer able to connect to the Kazaa network because they changed their protocol to come encrypted stuff, but it still rocks.

Yes it is still under heavy development, and last I checked you still had to grab the code out of CVS.

Their network needs a lot of users to test the software etc... go head and grab that source!

Re:Spyware is bad, but...

[liquidsin]

My spare cpu cycles and bandwidth are being used to cure cancer [intel.com], which I think is a slightly better use of it than for some dipshit's piggyback trojan.

Re:How is this not terrorism???

[x0n]

Simply put, they are doing this because you gave them permission to do so when you clicked on 'Finish' without reading the EULA.

The 'hacker' who hacks into machines and destroys things etc. did NOT receive permission from the owner.

Of course, noone reads EULAs these days and that is what they took advantage of. Now, who's fault is that? It's not theirs. Perhaps this will go a little towards waking people up a little.

- Oisin

Sharman Networks wants a copyright tax on ISPs!

[musesoft]

Most worrisome part of the article: Nikki Hemming, chief executive of Sharman Networks, advocates a copyright tax on all ISPs. So all ISP users will be forced to pay the RIAA!


And on the copying and fair use front, Hemming is lobbying Congress for an Intellectual Property Use Fee to settle the quandary of responsibility for distributing copyrighted material. The proposal calls for charging ISPs a fee to compensate copyright holders.

The IPUF would be a "universal levy that would be applied to everyone in the value chain that benefited from the content available" on the KaZaA network, Hemming says.

In an open letter to Congress, Sharman Networks writes:

"We suggest that it is time for Congress to step in and halt the 'whack-a-mole' litigation excesses of the music and movie industries through new legislative initiatives that compel content availability, while establishing a compensation scheme that requires a contribution from all the many industry sectors beyond P2P [peer-to-peer] software that benefit from content availability."

Re:I am stunned

[psychofox]

Actually, what is says is when you are acting a super node, up to 10% of your CPU may be used by virtue of the fact that you are acting as a search engine type host for many of the nodes connected to you...

It does not imply that they can take 10% of your CPU and then use it to crack encryption codes or whatever...

Re:Microsoft's DRM?

[anonymous cupboard]

Microsoft's DRM V2 has already been reverse engineered [google.de] and an exploit [spinnaker.com] published. If they base this on DRM V2, then it shouldn't be a problem to tackle the specific case of an implementation by Kazaa.

Promote Gnutella!

[jawtheshark]

Proud user of GNUcleus. Really fine client. Don't need more, and about 80% of the stuff I want to find can be found quite easily.

Since GNUcleus is the standard P2P tool I chose for my home network, my sister has to use it instead of anything she ever heard of. (Bearshare, Morpheus, Kazaa and whatever she wanted...don't recall) She is into alternative music, and I though she might be disappointed. Well, she is *not*. She is very happy with what she can get. She never complains. So the more peope participate in Gnutella, the better! Promote it! :-))

And I'm *not* a communist linux type...

If you need help convincing people...

[TDScott]

Just a quick note - as I always do in these topics - I've written an under-600-word guide to the problem and how to fix it [thomasscott.net], designed for the uninitiated.

Pointing people there could save hours of explanation...

Re:Spyware is bad, but...

[GungaDan]

Or, on the cynical view, your spare CPU cycles are being used by some other faceless corporation to make money in a different field (i.e., medical research). Given that this is the field I work in, I feel comforable in asserting that "curing cancer" is the last thing on the pharmco investors' Borg-like mind. Finding new treatments... that's where the money is. Find the cure and the revenue stream dries up. This is the problem with research now being undertaken mostly by those with a stake in seeing that it never fully succeeds.

Anyway, I've drifted way offtopic here with my personal biases. The long story short part is that you shouldn't assume any more pure motive on the part of the people sucking your spare bandwidth "to cure cancer" than the people parasitically draining Kazaa users' bandwidth "to make money." The latter may just be more honest.

Re:I am stunned

[DaBunny]

Oh My God! File-sharing software is going to use my computer resources to share files?!

Look, many users (myself included) were pretty upset to find that Kazaa was installing a 3rd party software that would use my computers resources for their own purposes. But no one should be surprised that their computer (inclduing up to 10% of CPU power) will be used for the software's express purpose.

And if you don't want your machine to function as a super-node, they say:

If you do not want to serve as a SuperNode go to Tools->Options->Advanced and check Do not function as a SuperNode