The RIAA employs a number of strategies to monitor activity on the net. Some of these are of borderline legality but, because many of those who use Gnutella are also breaking the law, it is difficult to object to a copyright policing function that intrudes into your private files (it is the old argument: if you have nothing to fear, why do you object?) I note that you have not indicated which machine you have so I shall assume that it is a PC. Did you, for example, know that Windows Media Player (after version 7) automatically reports to Microsoft all the music and dvds you play? In your licensing agreement with Microsoft (that long document you never actually read), you actually gave Microsoft the right to routinely sweep your machine to ensure that there are no non-approved packages, modifications or additions to your licensed system. Every Microsoft OS after Windows 98 has a backdoor that permits entry for this purpose. In fact Microsoft boasts of this as a valuable aspect of its Palladium strategy. A detailed explanation of this situation would take us too far off-topic for this forum but you might consider installing something like Zone Alarm available at http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp