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| The Scoop On File-Sharing Services |
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Computers & Electronics December 2000 • Vol.11 Issue 12 Page(s) 30-33 in print issue |
The Scoop On File-Sharing Services Get By With A Little Help From Your Peers | ||
 Whenever a new idea simultaneously causes cash-poor college students to jump for joy while entertainment industry executives speed-dial their corporate attorneys, you can be sure of two things: the idea is destined to make a splash, and there are going to be lawsuits before the water stops dripping. Does the name "Napster" ring a bell? If so, you've already caught wind of one of the hottest, and most hotly contested, digital ideas of the moment. Peer-to-peer file sharing is a type of network exchange by which one computer, or peer, shares files directly with another through a one-on-one connection. Neither idea is new, but often a new spin can make an old idea splash-worthy again. And for the past several months, companies such as Napster and a host of similar startups have been doing cannonballs off the collective high diving board with new applications for an old technology.  From Napster's Ashes Shall They Rise The burgeoning P-to-P (peer-to-peer) revolution began by surprise. In January 1999, a Northeastern University freshman named Shawn Fanning developed a software program to give users a way to find and swap MP3 music files via the P-to-P network model. Fanning's original version was so popular as a free Internet download that he decided to pursue the application in a more entrepreneurial fashion. In May 1999, Napster the company was born. Napster has attracted more than 20 million users and a heaping helping of heat from music industry executives who are seething over the potential copyright infringements. Among Napster's most fervent supporters are the millions of music lovers who have embraced MP3 as a way of obtaining and trading CD-quality music over the Internet. Many new and/or struggling artists view MP3 as the ideal way to find audiences. Even some commercially successful recording artists, such as The Offspring and the-artist-once-again-known-as-Prince, believe that MP3 and its distribution services may be the antidote to a modern recording establishment that has applied a stranglehold upon artists and consumers alike. On the other side, artists such as heavy-hitting megaband Metallica have taken up the charge against Napster, claiming it jeopardizes the livelihood of musicians who have worked hard to obtain, and are entitled to keep, commercial control over their product. In July 2000, a copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) resulted in an injunction from a federal court judge mandating that Napster remove all copyrighted materials from its service pending trial. Less than 24 hours later, a U.S. District Court of Appeals in San Francisco stayed the injunction against Napster, allowing the company to maintain business as usual, at least temporarily. A host of companies have followed Napster, hoping to leverage P-to-P into a copyright-friendly, moneymaking business model. As with controversial technologies, the nuts and bolts of P-to-P technology may be the stuff of which "killer apps" are made or every killer app's Achilles' heel. The ABC's Of P-to-P Most office networks, and the World Wide Web, are based on architecture known as client/server. In a client /server network, multiple computers (the clients) access information stored on one or more dedicated central computers (the servers). For example, when you visit a Web page, you are a client obtaining information from the server where the Web page is stored. When you download music files from Internet sites such as MP3.com, a remote machine is "serving" that file across the network to you, the client machine. In a P-to-P network, on the other hand, all computers are equal; any computer on the network can function as both client and server, making the contents of its hard drive available to all other network peers, and vice versa. In theory, a P-to-P network could be far more diverse in terms of content than the same group of computers in a client/server arrangement because all peers can trade information with all peers rather than existing as clients tied to the same server (and being, therefore, limited to the information contained on that server). This promise of diversity, and the theoretical efficiency of a distributed network where many computers share the workload otherwise handled by a smaller number of servers, has propelled P-to-P services like Napster from college research projects into one of the year's hottest products, and ultimately into federal court. Let's take a look at how a P-to-P service works, using Napster as an example. First, you download the Napster software program (http:// www.napster.com/download ) and install it on your computer. Using the software, you then log on to the Napster service, where you become a peer with the other users logged on to the service. The MP3 files on your hard drive are available to all of your network peers, and the MP3 files on their hard drives are available to you. Different P-to-P services use differing methods to inventory the network. Napster uses a master catalog, where users' collections of MP3 files are automatically entered at logon. When you search for a song, the Napster software searches the master catalog. If it finds a title, Napster informs you that Computer X has song X, and you can download it from that user's hard drive. The beauty of P-to-P is that users have direct access to many thousands of types of files: the content of any P-to-P service is limited only by the number of users logged on. Of course, every beauty has its beast. Copyright law aside, P-to-P has specific potential drawbacks. Size Matters One of P-to-P's obstacles is the same issue that plagues all computer networks: bandwidth (or how much data a network connection or "pipe" can transfer at a time). One of P-to-P's strengths, a large number of users, can also be a significant weakness. Although you have access to an enormous selection of files, the number of users downloading files from your system can drastically reduce your bandwidth. Broadband services, such as cable modems and DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), promise to ameliorate the bandwidth problem for all who subscribe. Until such services become the norm among mainstream Internet users, the problem bears consideration from P-to-P providers of any stripe. Low-bandwidth connections also provide natural protection by making it difficult for software pirates to download very large files. Some industry analysts believe that broadband connections naturally provide opportunities for unfair users to steal downloads while at the same time letting legitimate users download large files more quickly. Herein lies one of many reasons why a P-to-P service may only be as good as the security it provides.
Risks If you log on to a P-to-P service to trade MP3 files, it's safe to assume that you don't want other users to access your Quicken files. But what's to stop other users from rummaging through your hard drive? P-to-P services, like Internet shopping sites and any other online service that requires a layer or three of security for user protection, employ techniques such as encryption to keep private information private. Napster's software is designed so that other users can "see" only the MP3 files stored on your computer, and vice-versa. It's wise to assume that for every security measure, somebody somewhere eventually will find a way to circumvent it. For example, Napster itself has fallen prey to a program called Wrapster. Wrapster tricks Napster's software into thinking all files on a PC's hard drive are MP3 files, making it possible for Wrapster users to trade everything from video games to operating systems. And encryption alone, while a strong security method, is not necessarily foolproof. Witness the Stephen King novella "Riding the Bullet," released amidst ample buzz in March 2000 as a pay-per-download e-book event. King's publisher, Simon & Schuster, encrypted the book to prevent unauthorized copying. Hackers quickly cracked the encryption and posted the author's text elsewhere on the Internet. Security breaches in the downloadable media arena should be a warning for P-to-P services and those who use them. When CPU giant Intel announced, just before press time, a corporate initiative to promote Napster-style P-to-P networking for business applications, the company identified security as a primary challenge. "We need to initiate, lead, and as an industry come together to put these key components in place, the common protocols, driving the ease of use, addressing very valid issues in the area of security," said Patrick Geslinger, Intel's chief technology officer, in a keynote address to the Intel Developer Forum in August 2000. The Resurgence Based on the Napster phenomenon, there's little argument that P-to-P technology has a waiting audience. It remains to be seen whether P-to-P service providers can overcome issues of bandwidth, security, and copyright law and figure out a way to actually make money. We can only recommend that all participants attempt, whenever possible, to avoid direct confrontation with the members of an angry heavy-metal band.  by Sean Doolittle
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