Archive for the 'P2P' category

We never can get enough of them, but our computers are sometimes overflowing. Software applications are everywhere, but how to choose the right one for the task at hand? I built a real collection of pages where you will be able to find nearly all you can dream for nearly all computers:

• Five important security apps for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows
• Superior Alternatives to Crappy Windows Software
• The Windows Apps You Never Need To Install
• Battle of the Free Windows Software Firewalls; We have to admit that there is no longer any good reason to pay for your computer security under Windows.
• Top 100 of the Best (Useful) OpenSource Applications
• Logiciels gratuits from TutoWeb.
• Now, to look into the future, Sneak peek at OpenOffice.org 3.0
• And, last but not least, for old dinosaurs, let’s remind you that you can still use VAX-VMS on your Linux PC. If you don’t know what I am saying, either you’re too young, or you never received a hacker education. Or both.

While everybody is speaking about downloads under surveillance of law enforcement forces and **AA groups defending the copyrights of music and cinema, I wondered where the download addicts were going now to get their load of big files.

I looked into the P2P networks heavily protected by a strong encryption and supposed to guarantee the anonymity of their uses (often named darknets). this claim seems to be well defended, but the available contents are limited and strongly influenced by the fight for liberties (and sometimes against the most paranoid conspirations) and very marginal behaviours (pedophily is really more present there than in the more common Internet you and me use everyday).

But I was also directed toward the Usenet newsgroups. It is clear that a large number of users are living a free life far from the preening eyes of most external observers. As a matter of fact, if you download from your ISP’s news server, the data flow is only visible by yor ISP and yourself. Nothing goes into the open Internet. Of course, some ISP decided to limit access to some of the newsgroups, but choice is still quite large and your tranquility is much more preserved than on a P2P network (and less than on a fully anonymous darknet).

What tools do you need to browse the newsgroups? A little more technical attention than on the simplest P2P networks, for sure. But the tools are relatively easy to find:

• A Usenet reader able to correctly read the posts containing attached file. You have to remember that more of these files are actually cut in parts, attached one by one to different posts and encoded using standard but very specific protocols. The most convincing free tool -for me- was Grabit for Windows that seems able to decode nearly anything, grabbing parts from different messages and sticking them together in files or directories. Most important, it understands how to work with *.NZB files that describe all the parts, all their locations, etc. for one attached file set.
• A software tool able to work with *.PAR2 files that allow to run around the transmission errors (with the help of one sophisticated encoding, they can compensate for missing data or corrupted data, etc.) Here, I prefered QuickPar for Windows, one more free tool.

Note: Normally, Grabit doe sit all, but QuickPar for Windows still comes handy in case of failure.

The most impressive part of my tests has been download performance. 13 Mbit/s, I did not see this for a long time. The more because it was sustained for days (it goes down a little because of minor trafic jams at my ISP in the evening).

But you have to notice that if you look for a specific data content, newsgroups are not helping you. The way they are organized is favoring a lot the exploitation of very young content. If newsgroup search engines exist (Grabit has one that is partially submitted to subscriptions), the Usenet system will only host young data or data recently published.

Nothing is for sure, but Wired has an article about this issue: paying a monthly fee to have fully legal access to unlimited music download on P2P. Wired seems to believe that it would be a piracy levy on ISPs, but I think it would be a real license paid on a monthly basis.

If you want to do discreet (if not completely anonymous) P2P, Bittorrent and Gnutella or Kazaa are not your friends. With the advent of more attention from authorities, it is difficult to consider them as good opportunities.

I have been looking quickly at some of the possible solutions to protect your privacy while exchanging files over the Internet. I found the following ideas:

• Omemo is a recent Spanish development. I tried it and it is very obvious that the program is still in beta. Essentially, I was unable to download a file if it was not very small in size or to upload any. Let’s wait until it works.
• GigaTribe seems a good solution if you are willing to pay for the Premium package. It builds a closed network with your friends, but the standard (free) software is not able to grab files from multiple computers at the same time. So performance is very limited for the free version. GigaTribe3 is said to correct a number of issues some time later in 2008.
• Freenet is rather difficult to use at first, but if you run Thaw, one of the applications provided at installation, you will get a large choice of file downloads and performance while limited is not ridiculous: A few days for 2GB of video, it could be much worse. However, some may be troubled by the kind of data found there: While the common P2P data can be observed, you will also find conspiracy-related information and a quite significant load of pornography and child pornography (normally not found on the more open Internet).

I don’t know where the future of P2P lies, but it is certainly around some of these darknets (networks that are protected from external Peeping Toms). Freenet is supposed to be the best and most secured one, even if it is not perfect (it seems clear that some powerful agencies have setup some Freenet nodes in order to be able to spy the traffic).

It was about time! I had previously wrote here that Sony was now the last major music company not having announced any plan to offer its music catalog in MP3 format without DRM (without digital rights protection). This is about to change.

Sony, like the other disc producers/distributors, finally figured it out: Consumers are actually ready to pay MP3 files to Apple and Amazon if the protection is not included (or very limited). Instead of staying behind (and off the sales increase for online music) disc producers come back to reason.

About Sony, I don’t know yet if the move will immediately cover the full catalog or a part only, but this is already going far enough to say that this is only a matter of time.

The door is opening wide onto the online sales of legal MP3 files but without silly protection.

Source: Business Week.

We learned this week that Warner Music and AMazon are going to gang in in order to sell DRM-free MP3 files. This is the third music major to stop and listen to its customers who did not want to suffer the indignity and incovenience of this kind of digital rights protection.

EMI and Universal had already gone this way. The only big one missing is still Sony BMG (Do you remember? They were the authors of the famous rootkit installed on some of their CD to protect them and that breaking havoc on their customers’ PC machine).

Complementary information: With this annoncement, Amazon will reach nearly 3 million DRM-free MP3 files (up to now, the record was held by iTunes with -only- 2 millions).

What could be the use of network hard disk drive of one Tera-Byte which would strictly refuse to serve files because there may be a risk of breaching licensing agreement potentially applicable to them? This is the question that potential buyers should ask before purchasing the Western Digital disc drives using WD Anywhere Access: WD My Book World Edition.

There is a long list of file suffixes that cannot be shared on a network (even a local one) on this type of hard disc drive.

In my opinion, a WD My Book World Edition disc is defintely worthless. You cannot usefully put on it an MP3 file, and AVI file, a TMP file, a QuickTime video or a Windows Media video. Western Digital seems worried that you may not have the licensing rights for these. So they don’t want you to use them. Leave those Western Digital discs at he irresponsible stores which are selling them or bring them back.

If you are downloading a large number of movie files form the Internet, you know that dreaded moment when your media player announces that it does not know what codec to use to read the file. You’ll get either no sound or no image or both.

Here comes CodecInstaller.

“Despite the fact that BitTorrent has been around for a good 6 years now, the lightning fast file sharing protocol hasn’t completely taken off in the mainstream. Since we post a decent amount about BitTorrent around here, we figured it was just time we put out a beginner’s guide to BitTorrent. This is the guide you can send to your friend next time he gets that glassy look in his eyes when you mention BitTorrent and how quick and easy it makes downloading albums educational, public domain videos and other large files…”

UltraNewb: A beginner’s guide to BitTorrent

It has been quite some time that I did not write about the P2P news. They start popping up everywhere and it is time to talk about the wonderful things happening right under our eyes.

First, the Internet users start to find again -in Europe- some protection since a decision from the European Justice Court: the ISPs will not be obligated to deliver the name of Internet users associated to an IP address when merely requested by copyright owners like we see in the US of A (the case was opened when Telefonica denied this right to deliver the name and address of some of its subscribers accused by a Spanish copyright owner of using Kazaa to exchange MP3 files). It means that the legal actions to attack indelicate Internet users copying songs, music or videos will be limited far below the level reached in North America where tens of thousands of such actions have been started. There will be the need to open not only a civil case, but a criminal action.

Furthermore, BitTorrent, the most easily recognized software program running on the BitTorrent network, will no longer be free. This is most probably a consequence of the intent of its developers to entter a new phase where they want to reap benefits from more commercial activities (including less risks of legal actions, too). Nothing new under the sun, since many Internet users already prefered BitComet, Azureus or uTorrent.

You may also remember that AllOfMp3, a Russian web site distributing MP3 files without any trace of DRM protection, had to stop its activities a few months ago after police action and the beginnning of legal procedure. It appears that Denis Kvasov, founder of AllOfMp3, has been cleared by the Russian justice (he was insisting on the fact that his sales were including author’s right compensation even if some Euopean and American companies were after him for selling at low prices and without DRM).

In the spotlight: Sony Alpha 900 Canon EOS 5D Mk II Nikon D700 FX Download Nero for free

Add to it that PirateBay (BitTorrent files search site) have been authorized a few months ago by the Sweedish justice to restart their activity and that they now want to give a new life to the SuperNova web site that closed a couple of years ago, I would try to say that the pendulum is swinging back toward the side most favorable to the Internet users. During months, it seemed that the media producers would be able to force anything they wanted into our throats under the pretense of protecting artists rights. Now, they start experimenting with low-cost without-DRM legal alternatives for music download (even in always-easily-scared France, Neuf-Cegetel intends to start an ISP offer including that kind of possibility: unlimited music and triple-play (Internet+TV+telephone) for 29.90€). Even better, the development of Video on Demand should help film producers and distributors to think in a parallel line.

There is only to find a way to balance the ease of use (requested by Internet users) and artist earnings (naturally expected by the authors). We should find this middle way for the best of consumers and artists, even if it measn suffering for some producers and distributors.

And it does not even look illegal: Warner signed a partnership with imeem to share the adveertisment revenues from the web site when the North American users freely listen to the music freely available from the Warner catalog (including Madonna, Linkin Park, Green Day, Josh Groban, Faith Hill, My Chemical Romance, Big & Rich, John Adams, Shawn Colvin, Jaheim, Cher, Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., Seal, Blake Shelton, the Flaming Lips, Eric Clapton, Hot Hot Heat, Damien Rice, The Used, Joshua Redman, Michael Bublé, Chris Isaak, Robert Randolph, Steely Dan, Trapt, Fleetwood Mac, Emmylou Harris, Brad Mehldau, Goo Goo Dolls, Tom Petty, as well as Alanis Morissette, Michelle Branch & the Deftones).

OK, I know that I don’t have TV because I don’t want to be continuously force-fed with mindless junk. However, plenty of people would like to be able to have their TV on the Internet. Up to now, you were mostly depending on your ISP and possibly some subscription additional to your basic broadband Internet package.

Here come FreeTube, ChannelChooser, Hiveproductions, Tape it Off The Internet, Streamick, TV-links, PPStream, ABC, Sintonizate.tv, PeekVid, PPlive, TV-Video, TVU Player, allowing you to watch TV online for free without the need for any special software, hardware or subscription service. Better than cable televison.

You simply need the (quite usual) Apple QuickTime plugin on your web browser.

Even more freely available TV channels on:

• wwiTV
• BeelineTV