Patent for P2P Spoofing

A computer science professor and graduate student have been awarded a patent for a method of thwarting illegal file sharing on peer-to-peer networks by flooding the network with bogus files that look like pirated music.

The software creates bogus files with attributes -- such as file names and description tags -- that make them look like the real thing, but they are in fact white noise, low-quality recordings or advertisements to buy the song. What's more, the software sends out thousands of decoys to frustrate P2P users with fruitless downloads.

University of Tulsa professor John Hale and doctoral student Gavin Manes are working with the university to commercialize the invention and market it to record labels, movie studios and software companies.

"It's built off the basic idea of injecting alternative content or decoy media into peer-to-peer networks as a way of hiding pirated media that's being shared illegally," Hale said. "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Artists who want to share their music on P2P networks wouldn't be affected, he said. The content owners could designate only particular files for spoofing.

Individual record companies and movie studios are already working with software companies like Overpeer and MediaDefender to flood P2P networks with bogus files. Hale said it's possible that the content-protection companies are using similar methods to frustrate users, but he doesn't know exactly how their technologies differ from his, since the companies are secretive. "It's something we'll have to evaluate."

He said his technology is a less-intrusive approach to piracy than interdiction -- a method in which content owners flood the request queues of would-be file sharers so they are unable to share anything, even legitimate files.

Hale and Manes filed their patent in 2000 and it was awarded earlier this week.