“I wonder if this version of KaZaA Lite is the real thing? Or is Sharman networks polluting the network with fake files?” In this day and age, companies such as Overpeer and others are out to prevent copyrighted works from being downloaded. Whether or not you feel that polluting networks is fair or perhaps legal is a different debate, which can be found here. Now Edonkey2000 has had it since its initial release. File hashing has been becoming more and more popular since fake files have been appearing more on popular file sharing networks. What exactly is hashing? My definition of hashing is a group of users sharing the same file with the same “URL” and “file code”(URL is not the proper term, but it is for our purposes.) Say five people have a file called “Zeropaid”. This is what it looks like without hashing:
- ZeRoPaId1.com
- zeropaiid23
- zErOpAiDDD57.netrealworkingversion!!!
- zzzpd
- myfavoritefiles
Now with a simple text search you would rarely get all those files. And most likely you wouldn’t get them multisource. That’s the beauty of hashing. Hashing looks at the bits itself. So although they are named differently, it sees the same. Sort of like a dog. The dog doesn’t realize the color of your skin but it sees you as a person. Same way with hashing, hashing doesn’t see zzzpd, it sees a file named Zeropaid. With hashing all the files would look like this:
urn:sha1:6BPSJ64A4W27PUJKYXP5TJGBYQUO4ZCI (actually that’s the exact hash for Sig2Dat)
Now the beauty of this system is you can create websites such as ShareReactor, FileNexus, ect… Now while the average P2P user is thinking “Hooray!!! An Easier way to get illegal content” a more advanced user is thinking of this as an opportunity to cash in on the p2p market. Why not share a persons homemade computer application on KaZaA and have a link so the person can download it on KaZaA. Therefore the person doesn’t have to pay expensive server fees. A band can inexpensivly share ALL their music if they desire. Sig2Dat, the program that allows people to share hashes and use hashes on FastTrack can be downloaded with this link:
sig2dat_3_10_a_setup.zip
(
Bitzi Ticket Info )
What are some disadvantages to hashing? Well, for one thing, hashing can be a very powerful tool for companies against the sharing of illegal content. One example could be the RIAA could create a bot to search Bitzi or ShareReactor and then visit the appropriate sharing applications and find all the users sharing that file. Then they can be 100% sure that they have the right file and person.
Now from a different standpoint that could be a good thing. Say a paid marketing representative went to Bitzi.com and found a user sharing the song “Until” by Truth or Dare (not a real band, all made up). Now the rep can search on Bitzi for Until + “Truth or Dare”. Bitzi would return the search and bring them to a page all about the file. Then the rep can go onto say Shareaza and text message (for now, later programs might make it easier) a person that has the file that they might like file “She’s So Fine”. Thus they are able to keep a client happy. KaZaA uses a similar form of advertising called “My Recommendations”. They look at the files you have downloaded and what you have in your library. They use a similar system as Amazon.com, in the sense that they make recommendations on what you have purchased/downloaded. Does this increase piracy? Or does it increase sales?
One might argue that giving people recommendations on what to download will just keep the cycle going. So instead of just downloading one song they have downloaded two. Now should KaZaA be held responsible if someone downloads a song that they have recommended?
Another argument could be that if I download song XYZ and that style of music is rock, and KaZaA recommends ABC which is another style of rock, and I get hooked, I’m now a consumer of ABC’s music. Now if the persone buys both cds then the idea was successful, but if they don’t, then it just creates more of a breeding ground for piracy.
Does hashing provide more reliable results? If hashing were to reach its full potential, and people were able to actually contribute positivly, then hashing should be an amazing feature. Moodlogic is a perfect example of what hashing is/could be. Moodlogic uses their own type of hashing to distinguish files from each other. Then they provide you with lyrics, dates, artists, correct titles, and lots of other things. That is because the network relies on users getting involved. So if users don’t get involved, there is no Moodlogic network.
That’s basically the ins and outs of hashing. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to post them underneath here! -Matt
