fom the perspective of a file sharer I'd be very happy to share lots of dodgy files but I dont want my IP to be traceable. What I'd like is a Freenet type system that could be used used with Limewire to protect me from all the nasty types out there.

yup particulary in view of what the riaa etc are trying to so to morpheus and kazaa et.. Whats needed is a way to share files so "supernodes cant be traced". no kiddie-porn filters/copyright filters etc etc.

I agree; currently the only way to not have your IP address reported with query results is to put yourself behind a NAT router. If you do that, Limewire only returns your private IP address (in red) and pirate hunters can't do a thing with it. But I haven't had any luck setting up BrowseGate or WinGate software and a don't really want to spend $89 for a hardware router. (I know the hardware solution works because I was behind one at my last apartment with our DSL line.)

I have no idea what the creators of Limewire were thinking when they designed it to return IP addresses with query results. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Not only does it make you vulnerable to pirate hunters, but also to all the hackers and script kiddies out there. As soon as I connect to Limewire, I get hundreds of sequential port scans hitting my firewall. There is absolutely no reason that the end-user needs to see the IP address of the person they want to download from.

My favorite to this day is the Audiogalaxy Satellite, because it doesn't return IP addresses OR usernames with query results...you never have any idea who you're downloading from or who's sharing what, or even how many users are logged in. I think that's why the RIAA has left AG alone so far, even though it would be incredibly easy to shut AG down if they ever wanted to go after them.

I agree with both you guys. Limewire said, implicitly, that they are aware of these issues and that they are a long term goal but not a short term one. Which is kinda disappointing maybe whats needed is the ability to set up some kind of anonymous proxying ability in super-peers: with a sort of pseudo nat, perhaps with added encryption between them to frustrate the riaa/mpaa/government snoops.

Long term goal? Geez. How hard would it be for them to make their program return 213.43.210.xxx instead of 213.43.210.100? Hiding the last octet is all we need to evade the pirate hunters. Without that last octet they can't pinpoint a single user on the network to write a complaint letter to their ISP.

I saw the following under the wishlist from the CEO:

"http://www.limewire.org/project/www/wishlist.html

* User Identity through dynamic dns or similar technique
* Network monitoring and patrol tools to route out offenders"


What exactly is meant by "User identify" and routing out offenders? It strikes me that this may targetted at those sharing kiddie-porn but equally it could enable filtering on content - exactly the route that the RIAA are using to try and nail fastrack. Potentially such a project could be very dangerous to Limewire and infringe users rights to anonymity and the viability of Limewire. No doubt the RIAA would like a content controlled licensed copy protection mechanism installed.
Can someone from Limewire comment?

Check out GNATBOX at http://www.gnatbox.com. The GNAT Box lite product is free, gives you full firewalling and NAT functions, and runs off a floppy in a 486 W/ 16MB of RAM. Hard Drive not required. Heck, after the setup it runs completely headless.