UC Riverside researchers examined the Gnutella P2P file-sharing network to find out how many "bad guys" are out there watching you at any given time.
In a paper called “P2P: Is Big Brother Watching You?” three University of California, Riverside researchers show that approximately 15% of users connected to the Gnutella file-sharing network are there to troll for illegal file sharing activity on behalf of the RIAA or the federal government.
UC Riverside graduate student Anirban Banerjee, and computer science professors Michalis Faloutsos and Laxmi Bhuyan, decided to find out whether file-sharers are always being observed by recording file-sharing traffic on Gnutella over 90 days in mid-2006.
“We found that a naive user has no chance of staying anonymous,” said Banerjee. “One hundred percent of the time, unprotected file-sharing was tracked by people there to look for copyright infringement.”
However, the research showed that “blocklist” software like Peer Guardian are fairly effective at reducing the risks of being observed down to about 1 percent.
“Of course no one is suggesting that illegal downloading is a good idea,” Faloutsos said. “But the P2P technology is here to stay and these industries would be better off trying to find ways to provide affordable and convenient alternatives that would allow computer users to download their products legally,” said Faloutsos.
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Hmm… I think I had better turn on Peer Guardian the next time I use Limewire.
Interesting I always took peerguardian as being a waste of time but maybe I was wrong.
Peer Guardian is like a condom for file sharing!
doesnt surprise me. so many people have switched to torrents and yet i still hear of the lawsuits going after the network users.