h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

With the freedom of half term stretching in front of me, I have set foot inside the dubious world of P2P and am currently making good use assorted MP3s, sheet music and other stuff which is no doubt highly illegal.

So, my questions:

1) What exactly _is_ and is not legal? I'm not exactly worried about the legality of what I'm doing, but it'd be nice to know what I can and cannot freely distribute. For my own reference.

2) Any recommendations for good P2P software? I'm currently using eMule, which seems to be very efficient, after Morpheus crashed my system about 8 times.

3) Viruses. Obviously a big concern. Will my resident anti-virus software (AVG) be enough, or should I be getting something more hefty?

B

It is illegal because most music is subject to copyright. By freely distributing music you are depriving the composer/writer of royalties.

Legal implications aside, I don't use P2P and never would. Nobodies getting access to my computer without me knowing about it. P2P is a prime route for the distribution of virus, Trojans, worms, spy ware and other nasties that some twisted individuals take pleasure in distributing.

While AVG is a good Anti Virus application, it is not enough on its own. You will also need a Spyware blocker. Microsoft a have recently release a Spyware Blocker "AntiSpyware". It will only run on Windows XP though. Do a search on Google for Anti Spyware, there are many to chose from. Most people run at least two Anti Spyware applications because no single application will catch everything.

You also need a firewall. The Windows XP Firewall is adequate but a better option is Zone Alarm from Zone Labs. There is a free version available. The paid version is better as it allows you to fine tune your firewall to suit your requirements.

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp

Most P2P user end up binning Zone Alarm because in order to allow P2P to work, you have to open so many holes in the firewall it becomes next to useless.

Don't even think of using on-line banking on a computer that is also configured for P2P. You could end up sharing a lot more than your MP3s.

Donald

I've got the free firewall - seems to be OK.

The online banking is a bit of a concern, though. I've been online banking for several months. Should I be wiping off my P2P software now?

B

1) The software is legal and so is using it.
Illegal is distributing files to which you do not have the copyright permissions to.

Legal example of filesharing over p2p is the source and executable cd images of the GPL fedora OS.

"Most P2P user end up binning Zone Alarm because in order to allow P2P to work, you have to open so many holes in the firewall it becomes next to useless."

How many holes do these programs need? I have only ever used bittorrent and all it needs is ports 6881-6889.


Then again, most p2p software is made by companies that want to make a profit and offer a free spywared version and a paid for verison. Funny is when the paid for version is avalible for free over there own network. Where as the bittorrent protocol is open and anyone can make a program to use it if they want, ie does the job without the bloat.

2) recommendations, none, don't know much about any of the ones that most people use to get their music.

Don't do it :-p. get someone else you know to do it and have them pass on the already virus checked files on cd That way you reduce the risk and can check everything on the disc before using it.

3) always a risk. what would be sensible is assesing your ability to recover your pc should anything bad happen to it. What data would you lose, how long would it take you to get working again?

Are your backups stored somewhere that viruses and trojans can't get at them?

"Microsoft...Spyware Blocker "AntiSpyware"."

Which has already been compromised. There are several nasties out there that turn it off but don't, obviously, tell you so. Thus they can go about their happy business. For anti spyware, AdAware from Lavasoft is pretty good and compliment that with the SpyBot Search and Destroy. One anti spyware is never enough!

Well thanks to you guys I feel more secure but also a lot more paranoid.

B

As for software, I use winmx which is good. I've never had any problems with viruses, and I've been using p2p for around 6 years, although I don't use it very much - and I would never under any circumstances consider online banking, so that's probably wise advice from the people above not to mix the two.

Some p2p stuff is copyright free, or the owners don't mind sharing it, but if you are talking about music or movies, then unless you are paying for it, it's more likely to be illegal than not.

Well, I'll listen to them but feel guilty, how's that?

B

Why not? Everyone else seems to. I don't like albums and no-one seems to sell singles anymore, so I don't have much choice! (ignores fact that you can buy single mps).

I'm only using it for bits-and-pieces that I can't get commercially. Have you any idea how hard it is to get Snooker Loopy on MP3?

B

I can't say I've tried I must admit. I use it for getting old songs that I want, I can't keep buying compilation albums for one song!

**grins at the number of albums he bought for one song only**

B