Cleaning spam from swapping networks

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would-be copyright infringers from downloading the real versions.

A study performed in May 2004 by researchers at the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, N.Y., found that more than half the copies of many popular songs found on the Kazaa file-swapping network were decoys, damaged or junk files.

Gossiping over digital fences
Peer-to-peer developers have long focused on the idea of "trust" on their networks. Because any computer can join and become an instant equal in a network, researchers have looked for ways to prevent attackers who want to disrupt data traffic or spread corrupted information.

Many modern peer-to-peer networks include basic file integrity ratings, which simply allow people to rate whether a file is good or not. This has been easily evaded or abused, however--indeed, the Polytechnic study called Kazaa's file rating system so flawed that it was "meaningless."

"It's an ever-escalating arms race."

--Marc Morgenstern, general manager, Overpeer

A popular idea in universities has been establishing a "reputation" system, which would give different computers a way to know how much to trust each other. But these have typically been difficult to implement.

The Cornell researchers' open-source Credence system also starts with users giving ratings to files. But from there, the software "gossips" with other computers to see how other people have rated the same files, looking for evaluations that are similar. When searching for files, the software then gives precedence to results that have been rated highly by this "trusted" community of people whose ratings have matched.

The idea is to filter out spammers who rate their own files as genuine, by simply isolating them outside these communities of computers with good reputations.

While aimed at unwanted advertising, the reputation-based filtering system could also serve to filter out the decoy files propagated by Overpeer and other piracy fighters, unless they too spend time rating files to become part of trusted communities. That company's executives say they're not worried, however.

"It's an ever-escalating arms race," said Marc Morgenstern, general manager of Overpeer, a division of Loudeye. "We've tackled various types of filters successfully, and we feel very confident that we will continue to do so."

[bobby_brady]

This sounds like a good program

eom

Pretty Soon, they will get sued

If the program works as well as they claim it does, they will undoubtably be sued by the RIAA and MPAA. Just another victim of corporate America waiting to be silenced. This sadly will become just another example of intellectual property rights trumping and stifling inovation.

Stop Overpeer

Protowall and Blocklist Manager are pretty effective at stopping Overpeer and similiar idiots. Edonkey also can detect most fakes by comparing the users filename to the file hash. If there is a different filename on the same hash, the file is possibly fake. Fakes on edonkey are usually porn and all you have to do is open the sources to see the different filenames. It's pretty easy.

We should get our ISP's to block Overpeers IP addresses, now THAT would solve a lot of problems.