Program Lets P2P Users Roam Free

from the countermeasures dept

I'm somewhat surprised that it took this long for someone to come up with something like this, but some programmers have built an application that blocks the IP address of certain companies and organizations, like the RIAA, on file sharing networks to make you less at risk from RIAA-built trojan horses and spam IMs. If you use the software, people from the "blocked" IPs can still see what you're sharing, but can't actually download it to see if it's an infringing work. Of course, I doubt the system works all that well, since blocked companies just need to find an open IP address that hasn't been blocked yet, and use that. As the article points out at the end, collaborative reputation systems seem to make a lot more sense in sniffing out who is sharing real files, and who is there to call you a criminal.
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