NitnayLion
01-22-2005, 12:52 PM
Source: Methlabs.org (http://methlabs.org/forums/showthread.php?p=55662#post55662)
written by Joseph Farthing and Taliban/Eremini
From the early days of peer-to-peer (p2p) networking, most of the interest in the p2p scene was centred around Napster. However, this network had a fatal flaw.
In one of the most famous technology lawsuits of recent times, various recording companies managed to shut Napster down in the courts. Their argument was that the Napster network was centralised – totally dependant upon the central Napster servers to transfer files. Thus, Napster themselves were party to the copyright infringement that occurred on the networks, since if these servers were turned off no copyright infringement could happen.
The next step in peer-to-peer networking, at least the type of network that tried to evade censorship, either politically or through civil means, was to decentralise the network. If the system could exist without a central server, at least in part, then it would be harder for the operators of the network to be sued. This worked, and soon networks like the FastTrack (used by KaZaA) and Gnutella2 were capable of operating without anything more centralised than a list of currently connected users.
This tactic worked, at least from the point of view of network developers. The lawsuits against decentralised networks dried up, and it was ruled that users, not operators were responsible for activity on decentralised networks.
However, Bittorrent is now the most popular peer-to-peer system, purportedly accounting for 35% of Internet traffic. Certainly not all Bittorrent traffic is illegal – a large portion of Bittorrent use is used to transfer large legitimate files such as Linux distributions. However, for those who wished to use Bittorrent to download more “questionable� material the network was just too centralised – the network depends upon a central tracker, as well as a source for downloads.
This means that, just like Napster, Bittorrent sites could be taken down by attacking the source – a series of lawsuits and raids by organisations such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), who's former chairman described people who infringe copyright as “Terrorists�, has targeted a number of Bittorrent sites, such as Lokitorrent and, ostensibly, Suprnova, one of the most popular torrent “link� sites.
However, Suprnova closed only after a number of other Bittorrent sites had closed, and it is in this article that we will examine exactly what the reason for the closure of Suprnova was, and will look into the history and existence of eXeem, the new “Suprnova� application.
The majority of torrent sites that were closed were Bittorrent trackers, hosts of the servers that work like the Napster servers used to and are required for downloads to work. Suprnova, on the other hand, was merely a link site, it didn't host a tracker itself, and so any legal argument against it would be difficult to use in court. As such, it is unlikely that Suprnova was legally attacked by the MPAA.
So, why was Suprnova closed? The website now advertises eXeem, and eXeem was hyped prior to the closure of Suprnova. Is it not possible that the closure of Suprnova was as much to do with eXeem as the MPAA? Didn't the developers perhaps wait until a large number of other torrent websites were closed down in order to remove suspicion?
Suprnova was a website populated by many adverts, which were in theory used to pay for the bandwidth costs of the Suprnova website. A website that was as large and popular as Suprnova would have had very high hosting costs, and as such any profit made via the adverts would have been quite small.
However, as a distributed, decentralised application eXeem does not cost the developers much to run at all. Any adverts displayed in this program wouldn't cost anything to produce, but would generate a constant revenue.
The truth is that, for all its hype, eXeem is a closed source, windows only application that is integrated with Cydoor, the spyware application that is rated as high risk by Microsoft and numerous other anti-spyware products, and described, in the case of one client, by the antivirus firm Kaspersky as a “Trojan Downloader�.
On our test machine (Windows XP Professional) we tried installing the new open beta of eXeem. The installation process asked us if we wanted to install an IE toolbar, which we were able to decline. However, it's licence agreement asks the user to agree too install third party applications, and includes a clause that the licence agreement can be changed without notice.
Can we really trust the eXeem developers? Who are they anyway? What is clear is that they are not directly connected to Suprnova. The Suprnova founder is more of a PR guy than a developer of the application. Isn't what this is all about – money? Compared to Suprnova, eXeem has the potential to make a far higher profit margin than a tracker website, and combined with the connection to Suprnova it is possible that many people will try this application, if only to see what all the fuss is about over this Suprnova “replacement�.
We used several major anti-spyware applications, including Microsoft's new anti-spyware system, on our test system, ensuring it was registered clean prior to the eXeem installation. After the install a number of spyware elements were found (15 in the case of Microsoft's scanner, although we are not sure how it classifies these elements). The key factor was the Cydoor dlls and adcache, which are rated as a “high threat� by Microsoft, and as critical by other companies.
Full Story HERE (http://methlabs.org/forums/showthread.php?p=55662#post55662)
written by Joseph Farthing and Taliban/Eremini
From the early days of peer-to-peer (p2p) networking, most of the interest in the p2p scene was centred around Napster. However, this network had a fatal flaw.
In one of the most famous technology lawsuits of recent times, various recording companies managed to shut Napster down in the courts. Their argument was that the Napster network was centralised – totally dependant upon the central Napster servers to transfer files. Thus, Napster themselves were party to the copyright infringement that occurred on the networks, since if these servers were turned off no copyright infringement could happen.
The next step in peer-to-peer networking, at least the type of network that tried to evade censorship, either politically or through civil means, was to decentralise the network. If the system could exist without a central server, at least in part, then it would be harder for the operators of the network to be sued. This worked, and soon networks like the FastTrack (used by KaZaA) and Gnutella2 were capable of operating without anything more centralised than a list of currently connected users.
This tactic worked, at least from the point of view of network developers. The lawsuits against decentralised networks dried up, and it was ruled that users, not operators were responsible for activity on decentralised networks.
However, Bittorrent is now the most popular peer-to-peer system, purportedly accounting for 35% of Internet traffic. Certainly not all Bittorrent traffic is illegal – a large portion of Bittorrent use is used to transfer large legitimate files such as Linux distributions. However, for those who wished to use Bittorrent to download more “questionable� material the network was just too centralised – the network depends upon a central tracker, as well as a source for downloads.
This means that, just like Napster, Bittorrent sites could be taken down by attacking the source – a series of lawsuits and raids by organisations such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), who's former chairman described people who infringe copyright as “Terrorists�, has targeted a number of Bittorrent sites, such as Lokitorrent and, ostensibly, Suprnova, one of the most popular torrent “link� sites.
However, Suprnova closed only after a number of other Bittorrent sites had closed, and it is in this article that we will examine exactly what the reason for the closure of Suprnova was, and will look into the history and existence of eXeem, the new “Suprnova� application.
The majority of torrent sites that were closed were Bittorrent trackers, hosts of the servers that work like the Napster servers used to and are required for downloads to work. Suprnova, on the other hand, was merely a link site, it didn't host a tracker itself, and so any legal argument against it would be difficult to use in court. As such, it is unlikely that Suprnova was legally attacked by the MPAA.
So, why was Suprnova closed? The website now advertises eXeem, and eXeem was hyped prior to the closure of Suprnova. Is it not possible that the closure of Suprnova was as much to do with eXeem as the MPAA? Didn't the developers perhaps wait until a large number of other torrent websites were closed down in order to remove suspicion?
Suprnova was a website populated by many adverts, which were in theory used to pay for the bandwidth costs of the Suprnova website. A website that was as large and popular as Suprnova would have had very high hosting costs, and as such any profit made via the adverts would have been quite small.
However, as a distributed, decentralised application eXeem does not cost the developers much to run at all. Any adverts displayed in this program wouldn't cost anything to produce, but would generate a constant revenue.
The truth is that, for all its hype, eXeem is a closed source, windows only application that is integrated with Cydoor, the spyware application that is rated as high risk by Microsoft and numerous other anti-spyware products, and described, in the case of one client, by the antivirus firm Kaspersky as a “Trojan Downloader�.
On our test machine (Windows XP Professional) we tried installing the new open beta of eXeem. The installation process asked us if we wanted to install an IE toolbar, which we were able to decline. However, it's licence agreement asks the user to agree too install third party applications, and includes a clause that the licence agreement can be changed without notice.
Can we really trust the eXeem developers? Who are they anyway? What is clear is that they are not directly connected to Suprnova. The Suprnova founder is more of a PR guy than a developer of the application. Isn't what this is all about – money? Compared to Suprnova, eXeem has the potential to make a far higher profit margin than a tracker website, and combined with the connection to Suprnova it is possible that many people will try this application, if only to see what all the fuss is about over this Suprnova “replacement�.
We used several major anti-spyware applications, including Microsoft's new anti-spyware system, on our test system, ensuring it was registered clean prior to the eXeem installation. After the install a number of spyware elements were found (15 in the case of Microsoft's scanner, although we are not sure how it classifies these elements). The key factor was the Cydoor dlls and adcache, which are rated as a “high threat� by Microsoft, and as critical by other companies.
Full Story HERE (http://methlabs.org/forums/showthread.php?p=55662#post55662)