peer to peer networks

Remember that green round slice of lime? There was once a time when I saw it every day when I turned my computer on, but if I remember correctly, those days were short-lived. For some users, Limewire probably played a larger part in their lives.

Yesterday, the longstanding battle between Limewire and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) came to a halt. After four long years of battling it out in the courts, the two parties now face the end to their squabbling – to the detriment of the file sharing site. A judge from the US district court in New York has issued an injunction that forces Limewire’s features to be shut down. These are searching, downloading, uploading, and file sharing. For sure, those who still use Limewire are going to feel a sense of sadness and loss if they go to the site right now. Try visiting the site (Limewire), and you will be greeted by this image.

The RIAA has been the object of many a file sharer’s ire in the recent years as the group has been actively seeking out copyright violators. This injunction is indeed a victory for them.

Limewire is not going to totally disappear from the scene, though. While the “free stuff” cannot be accessed anymore, the people behind Limewire do have plans to come up with a system that will adhere to the law while they continue with their operations. The question is this: will this new system make it as attractive as it was when file sharing (as we used to know it) was the main selling point?

You guys who already miss the old Limewire, I feel for you.

The Pirate Bay is arguably the best known file sharing web site today. This group has risen to fame over the years due to their service of providing millions of users around the world with all sorts of files – many of them considered to be illegally shared. There was a time when The Pirate Bay was taken down and was temporarily “closed.”

Recently, it has been quite active again, with users continuing their file sharing activities. This time, though, The Pirate Bay came under attack – from a different source. A group of researchers from Argentina took it upon themselves to show the vulnerability of the site.

What they did was to hack into the system, compromising the data of more than 4 million registered users of The Pirate Bay. The group announced its “feat” in their blog, Insilence.biz, and went one step further by outlining the specific details of how they did it. This is what they have to say:

As any other website, as any other system or mechanism, www.thepiratebay.org has robust parts and soft spots. We [believe] that the people behind this [community] always acted with the local laws on their side, and so have we. The community caused problems to huge companies and corporations[,] which turned into threats between this companies and them. What we have done, we did not do it with anger, or for commercial value. As always, we saw the change, the moment and decided to take it. The protocol or procedure done to achieve this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary…

Just like many of the commenters in their blog, I do not totally understand why they hacked the site. Perhaps it was out of a twisted sense of justice? What do you think about this move? Is it justified or is it a mere publicity stunt?