I read an article in CNET that the RIAA is talking to ISPs to shut down Napster like services. I'm fairly technical but I do not know if Gnutella can be shut down/blocked trough an ISP.

What are your thoughts?

There is not an IP that controls Gnutella. We are all host/users/clients so we are called Servants. You COULD connect two IP's to each other and nobody else. Share files between them and how would "THEY" ever find out????

There may not be an IP that controls........, but here is what my IP told me today :
"On the 25 of February, we recorded unauthorized attempts to probe out
networks originating from an IP address of 64.19x.yyy.zzz Our records show
that this IP address belongs to your DSL connection.
We are obligated to contact you and warn you that this type of action is
strictly against the terms of service that you agreed to when signing up for
service."
My agreement with them forbids direct or indirect violation of 3rd party intelectual propertiy rights.!! So they say....stop or they pull the plug. As of today, I don't do audio downloading, nor do I share audio or other proprietary files without previous authorization. DSL has opened up the internet for me.! I am very reluctant to return to my 56K modem.

[This message has been edited by sayhu (edited 03-02-2001).]

Before they pull the plug, don't you think you should ask them why they are WIRE TAPPING your private calls?

These ISP's want the protection of being a COMMON CARRIER (not responsible for your packets as is the phone company, SAME SAME, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE!)

So why are they allowed to TAP YOUR PHONE/NET CONVERSATIONS?

Ask them for proof, detailed proof, and then SUE THE CRAP OUT OF THEM for invasion of privacy, wire tapping and who knows what else (contact a real lawyer would you?)

This is SERIOUS stuff here. You can always get another DSL provider, YOUR PRIVACY IS AT STAKE (again)

WAKE UP PEOPLE!

I am AWAKE ! I am also 79 years old; and just want to enjoy my final days, learning / discovering, on my computer. on the internet. I have no energy for crusades and, heaven knows, I have had enough confrontation in my life. I will digitize my private collection of music. Can anyone who can point me to the best software for converting / editing my audio cassette collection. Darn, I really enjoyed this forum and the Limewire Client was impressive. Many thanks for the help, particularly from Lightstone,

[This message has been edited by sayhu (edited 03-02-2001).]

You said it worthless! Hell yah!

i think its simple as this:

napster is not illegal. Only trading copyrighted material is illegal. The problem with napster is that it is a centralized operation with its own legal entity becuase it is a corporation.

Gnutella on the other hand is in loose terms a bunch of people trading files directly with each other. There is no way to shut down gnutella because it is not a corporation and nor does it have a legal entity. To shut it down you have to sue every single user, which is pretty much impossible.

Hope this helps.

This site is for recording LP to CD, but it should help you.

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/lp-cdr.htm

From the FAQ:
How do I record from cassette tape to hard disk?
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abco...aq.htm#rectape

[This message has been edited by MrAlaska (edited 03-04-2001).]

Ummm ... actually, no. Wiretapping and sniffing internet packets are not the same thing. Time after time, the (United States) courts have backed up those doing the sniffing, sadly. That's because TCP/IP is an inherently insecure protocol, and one can (and has) effectively argue that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when sending and receiving information via unencrypted TCP or UDP packets. That's what Napster uses, and it's what Gnutella uses. Operation Carnivore is a good example of this. The courts ruled it was okay for the FBI to eavesdrop on emails because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of the sender and/or recipients.

Face facts, and wake up yourself before you start instructing others on the law. There is no way to ensure privacy on the internet. But that's nothing new. There's no way to ensure privacy anywhere. The key is being smart. Use encryption when transmittting sensitive information. Be careful about what information you chose to send via the internet, as opposed to other media. Don't send anything via email, web form transmission, or other insecure formats (including gnutella and napster) that you wouldn't send via a postcard with no envelope.

But this is really besides the point. Fact is, all the RIAA has to do is connect to the Gnutella network and start downloading songs. If they find people sharing their copyrighted material, they can go after the users they downloaded the material from. Your internet addy is prominently displayed in the servents, and even if it wasn't, anyone with any knowledge of internet protocols can determine the ip addy in a matter of 5 seconds.

The question of whether or not they will actually go after individual users in an effort to discourage the larger population of gnutella users remains to be seen, but there's really nothing to stop them from trying.

Three issues here you should be aware of.

First, what they're yelling at you for isn't sharing copyrighted material. They're mad because your gnutella servent was probing a domain for possible connections. While your activity was innocent, this activity can also be the work of a hacker trying to find vulnerable systems to compromise. Therefore most ISP's explicitly forbid "scanning" of this nature.

Second, despite the bogus advice you've received, it *is* legal for an ISP to monitor your internet traffic. The courts are ruling fairly consistently that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to unencrypted internet communication.

Third, your ISP would be fairly hard pressed to prove you were sharing copyrighted material, and i doubt they independently try to find customers engaged in such behavior. This would require enormous resources on their part. They would have to log every packet of every customer, then reassemble those packets on the other end, *and* then deal with the encoding inserted by various softwares. Lots of disk space, lots of cpu time, lots of bandwidth, no noticable payoff.

However, a third party, say the record labels, *could* very easily call them up and say "we downloaded copyrighted material from this ip address and we demand you pull the plug!" They probably couldn't use legal means to force the ISP to unplug you, but if your TOS explicitly forbids such activities, your ISP could do it simply to maintain their image as "good net citizens," and in fact, many ISP's do just that.

All that said, you still have a problem. Your isp is ticked off because you're scanning domains for gnutella servers. That activity continues regardless of whether you're uploading, or simply downloading, material. So their complaint will be repeated unless you find a way to either convince them that your scans are innocent, or find a way to run your client without scanning entire domains for servents.

Good luck.