File-sharing Programs Research Articles

Mapping Real-World Use of the Onion Router

Since its inception, The Onion Router (TOR) has been discussed as an anonymizing tool used for nefarious purposes. Past scholarship has focused on publicly available lists of onion URLs containing illicit or illegal content. The current study is an attempt to move past these surface-level explanations and into a discussion of actual use data; a multi-tiered system to identify real-world TOR traffic was developed for the task. The researcher configured and deployed a fully functioning TOR “exit” node for public use. A Wireshark instance was placed between the node and the “naked” internet to collect usage data (destination URLs, length of visit, etc.), but not to deanonymize or otherwise unmask TOR users. For 6 months, the node ran and collected data 24 hr per day, which produced a data set of over 4.5 terabytes. Using Python, the researcher developed a custom tool to filter the URLs into human-readable form and to produce descriptive data. All URLs were coded and categorized into a variety of classifications, including e-commerce, banking, social networking, pornography, and cryptocurrency. Findings reveal that most TOR usage is rather benign, with users spending much more time on social networking and e-commerce sites than on those with illegal drug or pornographic content. Likewise, visits to legal sites vastly outnumber visits to illegal ones. Although most URLs collected were for English-language websites, there were a sizable amount for Russian and Chinese sites, which may demonstrate the utilization of TOR in countries where internet access is censored or monitored by government actors. Akin to other new technologies which have earned bad reputations, such as file-sharing program BitTorrent and intellectual property theft or cryptocurrency Bitcoin and online drug sales, this study demonstrates that TOR is utilized by offenders and non-offenders alike.

Be Telepractical

Be Telepractical

The Decreasing Excludability of Digital Music: Implications for Copyright Law

Since the advent of the file-sharing program Napster in June of 1999, copyright infringement has plagued the recorded music industry. We review the evidence on piracy and its effect on record industry profits. We then model the behavior of file sharers and music producers under different remuneration and legal regimes using a stage game. We find that under certain conditions, the removal of copyright laws for recorded music is welfare improving. There is also a parameter space where public sector music distribution combined with a tax-payer funded subsidy of music production is welfare dominant.

Developing Mobile Biomedical Apps

The use of mobile devices is becoming more significant than ever within the medical engineering community. Mobile devices such as smartphones and iPads help biomedical equipment technicians (BMETs) and clinical engineers (CEs) on the job, and reduce organizational waste—an added healthcare cost savings. How many useful biomedical apps are already on the market, and what the realistic uses for mobile devices and apps within healthcare technology management (HTM) departments? In this article, we will review some mobile applications pertaining to essential BMET/CE education, some of which make for promising medical devices, and also some basic terminology to give the reader insight into the development of mobile applications. Although there are many platforms that can be used to develop apps, notably Apple, this article focuses on developing biomedical apps for the flexible Android operating system. It includes aspects from several applications we are working on, to give an idea of what the development process can entail, including: • A mobile preventive maintenance procedure and checklist application • A mobile file-sharing program for reference documents, hazard recalls, and technical manuals that can be stored in a central repository • A clinical engineering encyclopedia that includes biomedical terms, pertinent scientific mathematical equations, calculators, abbreviations, acronyms, and jargon; (as well as listing institutions, projects, and other external databases) • A mobile computerized maintenance-management system

Investigating Cybercrimes that Occur on Documented P2P Networks

The popularity of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Internet communication technologies being exploited to aid cybercrime is ever increasing. P2P systems can be used or exploited to aid in the execution of a large number of online criminal activities, e.g., copyright infringement, fraud, malware and virus distribution, botnet creation, and control. P2P technology is perhaps most famous for the unauthorised distribution of copyrighted materials since the late 1990’s, with the popularity of file-sharing programs such as Napster. In 2004, P2P traffic accounted for 80% of all Internet traffic and in 2005, specifically BitTorrent traffic accounted for over 60% of the world’s P2P bandwidth usage. This paper outlines a methodology for investigating a documented P2P network, BitTorrent, using a sample investigation for reference throughout. The sample investigation outlined was conducted on the top 100 most popular BitTorrent swarms over the course of a one week period.

Inadvertent File Sharing Over Peer-to-Peer Networks: How it Endangers Citizens and Jeopardizes National Security, Testimony Before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Certain distributors of popular file-sharing programs have repeatedly failed to prevent, and may have knowingly caused and perpetuated, inadvertent file-sharing,Inadvertent sharing cannot be remediated by self-regulation by distributors of file-sharing programs because certain distributors have repeatedly violated every set of self-regulations proposed - including a Code of Conduct and a set of Volutary Best Practices that they drafted. Three critical defects are present in every released version of the LimeWire 5 file-sharing program: (1) every version is dangerously unpredictable and can share all of a user's personal document, image, video, and audio files just by being installed, (2) every version violates critical provisions of the LimeWire's own Voluntary Best Practices, (3) every version contains a feature that LimeWire itself knew to be a needlessly dangerous of means of ensuring that one reasonable mistake by a child could inadvertently share thousands of a family's most sensitive personal files.In short, the problem of inadvertent sharing has persisted for nine years because distributors of file-sharing programs like LimeWire LLC have repeatedly responded to even the most serious and well-documented concerns about inadvertent sharing with half-measures, misrepresentations, whitewash, and other conduct that, considered in its entirety, could strongly suggest bad faith - an intent to cause and perpetuate inadvertent sharing. Consequently, the widespread, well-documented breaches of national, military, corporate, and family security caused by inadvertent sharing may be nothing more - or less - than the acceptable 'collateral damage' of schemes intended to trick users into sharing popular music and movies.Congress should pursue a two-pronged remedial strategy. First, this issue should be formally referred to law-enforcement agencies possessing relevant civil and criminal enforcement authority. And Congress should support efforts to amend H.R. 1319, The Informed P2P User Act, in order to grant the Federal Trade Commission additional targeted enforcement powers.

The Informed P2P User Act

(Testimony of Thomas Sydnor before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, Committee on Energy and Commerce) Although voluntary self-regulation should always be an option of first resort, the narrowly-tailored Informed P2P User Act would successfully supplement existing law. Popular programs continue to contain features that perpetuate inadvertent file-sharing, illustrating a failure of the voluntary best practices adopted by distributors of peer-to-peer software. Congress should not rely on continued self-regulation by distributors file-sharing programs because certain companies have repeatedly proven themselves to be untrustworthy -- specifically, the deployment of a search wizard upon a new installation of the LimeWire file-sharing program, which recommends users share all or almost all files in their My Documents folders and subfolders. Since first time users of file-sharing programs tend to be teens or preteens, the addition of this feature is deliberate and an intent to deploy a known means of directing absurdly dangerous guidance towards a program's most vulnerable users in order to cause them to share files inadvertently. Since the search wizard function was deployed after a Code of Conduct was agreed upon by distributors of file-sharing software, the actions of LimeWire has illustrated self-regulation will not work in this instance. The Informed P2P User Act complements existing law without needlessly burdening legitimate, law-abiding uses of such technology, because it narrowly and rather gently targets critical root causes of inadvertent sharing.

Balancing intellectual property and the privacy of users – the case of Promusicae

On 29 January 2008, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued one of the most awaited judgements in the case of Productores de Musica de Espana (Promusicae) v Telefonica de Espana SAU. Telefonica is the Spanish Internet Service Provider (ISP) who refused to disclose to Promusicae the personal data of its users who shared files through the Kazaa Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network. The ECJ's ruling clearly shows how difficult it is to adjudicate cases where both parties rely on conflicting legal principles, namely, the high protection of intellectual property and the extensive protection of personal data. It is to be regretted that the final verdict does not bring much clarity to the tension between the rightholders, internet access providers and the users of file-sharing programs, as it permits member states to adopt diverging legal solutions in this regard.

Inadvertent Filesharing Revisited: Assessing LimeWire's Responses to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

This report on inadvertent filesharing was released by the authors of Filesharing Programs and Technological Features to Induce Users to Share, a groundbreaking analysis published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in March of 2007. This new report seeks to enhance understanding of the causes of inadvertent sharing by analyzing (1) recently released data that the distributors of the program LimeWire gave to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform before its July 24, 2007 hearing on inadvertent sharing, and (2) the efficacy of efforts to improve the LimeWire program since the Committee's hearing. The authors conclude that law enforcement should investigate whether filesharing programs deliberately perpetuate inadvertent filesharing.The paper concludes that LimeWire's Response neither identifies material deficiencies in the analysis and conclusions of the USPTO Report nor offers credible, good-faith explanations of why LimeWire deployed five features that were known to cause users to share infringing and sensitive files inadvertently.The authors also conclude that LimeWire has implemented potentially meaningful changes in ways that repeat past errors and will tend to perpetuate inadvertent sharing by both new and existing users of the LimeWire program.The results of these two analyses lead the authors to renew the conclusion that they drew in the USPTO Report. State and federal law-enforcement agencies should aggressively investigate to determine whether distributors of popular filesharing programs intended to blunt the deterrent effects of copyright-enforcement lawsuits by duping users of their program into sharing files inadvertently.

Amazon Noir

Amazon Noir

Unwanted and Wanted Exposure to Online Pornography in a National Sample of Youth Internet Users

The goal was to assess the extent of unwanted and wanted exposure to online pornography among youth Internet users and associated risk factors. A telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 1500 youth Internet users aged 10 to 17 years was conducted between March and June 2005. Forty-two percent of youth Internet users had been exposed to online pornography in the past year. Of those, 66% reported only unwanted exposure. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to compare youth with unwanted exposure only or any wanted exposure with those with no exposure. Unwanted exposure was related to only 1 Internet activity, namely, using file-sharing programs to download images. Filtering and blocking software reduced the risk of unwanted exposure, as did attending an Internet safety presentation by law enforcement personnel. Unwanted exposure rates were higher for teens, youth who reported being harassed or sexually solicited online or interpersonally victimized offline, and youth who scored in the borderline or clinically significant range on the Child Behavior Checklist subscale for depression. Wanted exposure rates were higher for teens, boys, and youth who used file-sharing programs to download images, talked online to unknown persons about sex, used the Internet at friends' homes, or scored in the borderline or clinically significant range on the Child Behavior Checklist subscale for rule-breaking. Depression also could be a risk factor for some youth. Youth who used filtering and blocking software had lower odds of wanted exposure. More research concerning the potential impact of Internet pornography on youth is warranted, given the high rate of exposure, the fact that much exposure is unwanted, and the fact that youth with certain vulnerabilities, such as depression, interpersonal victimization, and delinquent tendencies, have more exposure.

Hong Kong's first criminal file-sharing conviction

On appeal, the High Court of Hong Kong affirmed the defendant's conviction on three charges of attempting to distribute an infringing copy of a copyright work via a peer-to-peer online file-sharing program (BitTorrent).

The Effect of Recording Industry Lawsuits on the Market for Recorded Music

The origination and rapid growth in popularity of file sharing technology at the end of the twentieth century created the potential for a fundamental market shift for any private good that is reduced to information. Through a new exploration of this recent phenomenon within the context of peer-to-peer file sharing technology for music downloads, this article examines the relative importance of various economic factors in determining the national level of file sharing. After employing basic theoretical models and econometric methods, the author finds that file sharing behavior is most responsive to the number of lawsuits brought against consumers, the relative value and amount of leisure time for consumers, household disposable income, and the prevalence of computer virus threats among file-sharing program users. These new findings are discussed in the context of microeconomic expectations that predict a different set of empirical trends in file sharing technology.

Higher-ed networks begin circling the wagons [college network security

Ever since peer-to-peer file-sharing programs became popular in the late 1990s, college campuses have been perceived as a Wild West of profligate bandwidth use and lax security - a perfect digital incubator for viruses, spyware, and illegal downloads of copyright-protected material. Yet little hard data is available to help campus officials or their prospective government and enterprise partners pinpoint the scope and origins of possible attacks on college networks. To address this lack, a team of networking researchers is undertaking the first distributed intrusion-detection project to compile network traffic data specific to the higher-education sector.

Bandwidth-On-Demand Networks — A Solution to Peer-To-Peer File Sharing

An important driver for the take-up of broadband services has been peer-to-peer file-sharing programs like Napster, which enables users to freely share around music and now video files. This is putting network operators and service providers in an awkward position as they are under pressure to shut down or limit access to such applications, as the majority are operating illegally since the content owner does not get any revenue. Current activities to protect copyright focuses on either keeping the contents secure (digital rights management) or tackling the distribution mechanisms via the courts. Neither of these are complete solutions. This paper describes a third way which utilises bandwidth-on-demand network capabilities to make content sharing more controllable. Although this will not prevent video piracy completely, it should discourage it sufficiently to minimise the problem. This should also appeal to network operators as bandwidth is still relatively expensive. The network solutions developed to prove the concept build on the capabilities in the current ATM-based ADSL network, but an option for an all-IP network is also described.

Napster: Infinite Digital Jukebox or Pirate Bazaar?

This paper considers the copyright litigation over the file-sharing program, Napster. The first section examines the culture of collecting at work in Napster. The next part examines the litigation by the major record companies and Metallica against Napster. The final section considers the future of file-sharing, looking at alternatives to Napster, such as Filetopia, Freenet, Gnutella, MP3board.com and streaming media.