Smokey
May 16th, 2003, 11:14 AM
"Peer-To-Peer Systems Can Create Privacy Risks"
Internet users who download music and movies through free "peer to peer" networks like Kazaa may be unwittingly exposing their divorce letters and tax returns to strangers, computer experts told Congress on Thursday.
Peer-to-peer users who do not set up the software properly can easily open up their entire hard drives to the Internet, enabling others to sift through their e-mail inboxes and dig up password lists, legal documents and other sensitive information, computer scientists told the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee.
The committee is holding a series if hearings to look into the controversial networks.
Kazaa and other peer-to-peer services like LimeWire and Morpheus allow users to share digital music and other files directly with each other, bypassing the powerful, centralized server computers that underpin much of the Internet.
Several of these services are battling lawsuits from the recording and motion-picture industries, which say they encourage users to download movies and music for free rather than paying for them.
While many peer-to-peer users intend only to share music files in the MP3 format, the systems are often set up in a way that exposes much more of their hard drives to others, several computer scientists on an expert witness panel explained.
"If you had a MP3 in your My Documents folder, and you also had a tax return in the My Documents folder, I'd bet even money that both of those are going to be shared," said Jeffrey Schiller, a network manager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kazaa and some other peer-to-peer services also carry hidden "spyware" to track a user's Internet habits, creating additional privacy risks, said University of Tulsa computer-science professor John Hale. Recent computer viruses such as Fizzer and Duload have spread through Kazaa as well, he said.
Damage from these security risks has been minimal so far, witnesses said, and in most cases users can fix the problem themselves by carefully limiting what material they choose to share on the networks.
"People shouldn't get the feeling that if they use one of these things that they're automatically sharing everything on their hard drive," said Alan Davidson, an associate director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil-liberties group. Consumers can find helpful tips on how to protect themselves at www.getnetwise.org, he said.
Sharman Networks said it includes antivirus software with its popular Kazaa software, which has been downloaded more than 220 million times.
"Sharman Networks takes every opportunity to encourage responsible and safe peer-to-peer usage through user education as well as via the default configuration of the software," the company said in a prepared statement.
Source: Reuters
Internet users who download music and movies through free "peer to peer" networks like Kazaa may be unwittingly exposing their divorce letters and tax returns to strangers, computer experts told Congress on Thursday.
Peer-to-peer users who do not set up the software properly can easily open up their entire hard drives to the Internet, enabling others to sift through their e-mail inboxes and dig up password lists, legal documents and other sensitive information, computer scientists told the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee.
The committee is holding a series if hearings to look into the controversial networks.
Kazaa and other peer-to-peer services like LimeWire and Morpheus allow users to share digital music and other files directly with each other, bypassing the powerful, centralized server computers that underpin much of the Internet.
Several of these services are battling lawsuits from the recording and motion-picture industries, which say they encourage users to download movies and music for free rather than paying for them.
While many peer-to-peer users intend only to share music files in the MP3 format, the systems are often set up in a way that exposes much more of their hard drives to others, several computer scientists on an expert witness panel explained.
"If you had a MP3 in your My Documents folder, and you also had a tax return in the My Documents folder, I'd bet even money that both of those are going to be shared," said Jeffrey Schiller, a network manager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kazaa and some other peer-to-peer services also carry hidden "spyware" to track a user's Internet habits, creating additional privacy risks, said University of Tulsa computer-science professor John Hale. Recent computer viruses such as Fizzer and Duload have spread through Kazaa as well, he said.
Damage from these security risks has been minimal so far, witnesses said, and in most cases users can fix the problem themselves by carefully limiting what material they choose to share on the networks.
"People shouldn't get the feeling that if they use one of these things that they're automatically sharing everything on their hard drive," said Alan Davidson, an associate director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil-liberties group. Consumers can find helpful tips on how to protect themselves at www.getnetwise.org, he said.
Sharman Networks said it includes antivirus software with its popular Kazaa software, which has been downloaded more than 220 million times.
"Sharman Networks takes every opportunity to encourage responsible and safe peer-to-peer usage through user education as well as via the default configuration of the software," the company said in a prepared statement.
Source: Reuters