The US Patent Office has warned against the use of p2p filesharing applications that it claims could result in users inadvertently sharing personal and sensitive data.
The USPTO’s report on ‘Filesharing Programs and Technological Features to Induce Others to Share’ was prompted by the indictment of a gang that has used the LimeWire p2p software to ‘access names and account information from personal and business accounts across the country, and then use that information to open new bank accounts in the Denver area’.
Prosecutors allege that the gang intended to obtain methamphetamines and steal money and merchandise.
The report found that the five filesharing applications it studied – BearShare, eDonkey, KaZaA, LimeWire, and Morpheus – ‘repeatedly deployed features that they knew or should have known could cause users to share files inadvertently’.
It concluded that all five programs, by default, caused users to share every file that they would subsequently download from the Internet, whether they meant to share it or not.
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Then don’t be a dumbass and share person files that’s your own fault.
Agreed. The USER is responsible for his saftey in using p2p programs like this and if he does not watch out for himself…nobody else will. It is not up to Limewire or any other app to protect YOU….you have to protect yourself.
Same thing goes with people getting sued for being stupid enough to share hundreds of music files in a p2p programs shared folder! It is not the p2p program that held a gun to their head and said “do it”….they did it either out of ignorance( which a judge is not very likely to excuse) or a “don’t care it will never happen to me…I’llnever get sued” attitude. Either wayit is the person using the p2p programthat is also responsible for the possible consequences.