Seems Fasttrack is not entirely happy with gIFT, following comes from the gIFT homepage :

Synopsis

The latest version of Kazaa and Morpehus, version 1.3.3 has broken giFT. We can no longer connect to the network and communicate with other supernodes or nodes. We believe that the protocol was changed in such a way that you must now log into a central server to get a new "key" for generating the cipher state for encryption and decryption. This was a bad move by FastTrack, as it now makes it's network reliant on a centralized server, and possibly puts them in a situation similar to Napster.

History of giFT

The giFT project was originally set up to create a means to connect to the FastTrack network in an open source manner. While Kazaa originally stated that they were interested in working with the open source community we quickly discovered that it was not the case. They asked us to develop a closed source Linux client, however we decided to go the open source route and start on our own.

What entailed was a long, complicated process consisting reverse engineering of the official clients in oder to create a compatible product. Eventually, with the help of some anonymous donors known as "The Givers" we reached a stage where we could connect to the network, and later query, download, and share files.

Kazaa/Morpheus v1.3.3

Unfortunately, as of Kazaa/Morpehus versions 1.3.3 (deemed a "security update") FastTrack has been trying to shutdown our open source implementation by changing various parts of the protocol. Originally 1.3.3 only changed a few minor things in regards to our "cipher state" generation algorithm, which allowed us to figure out how the encryption was being done between the supernodes and the clients. Today, (Sept. 29, 2001) FastTrack unveiled another added "feature" in their "security update" - changing how the official clients communicate, and how they develop the cipher state for encryption/decryption (this is possibly done by an "auto-update", we will be uncertain until we perform a further analysis.) It is still unconfirmed as to the extent that these new modifications, however we are working hard to figure out what the problem is and how we can most easily fix it.

-The giFT Development Team



(RaaF)