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Comment Re:Yeah, but... (Score 1) 126

by sameb (#27086999) Attached to: LimeWire Brings Darknets To All

LimeWire's FOSS too. It's also a popular program, and other viruses out there have been known to piggyback on it. LimeWire certainly doesn't download anything without the user's permission. If you're concerned, just build it from the source (available at limewire.org).

Comment Re:I wonder... (Score 1) 126

by sameb (#27079141) Attached to: LimeWire Brings Darknets To All

The article didn't mention it, but LW5 doesn't let the user share or download programs unless he/she explicitly allows it (by changing some scary looking settings). So virus complaints with LimeWire should go way down.
Social Networks

LimeWire Brings Darknets To All 126

Posted by samzenpus from the yes-have-some dept.
An anonymous reader writes "LimeWire's new version lets people create private darknets with contacts on any Jabber server (like GMail or LiveJournal). It's different than the recent p2p darknet announcement because it doesn't use onion routing. Sharing with a friend connects directly to that friend. If you're worried about exposing personal information, LW5 doesn't share documents with the p2p network by default."
Social Networks

Submission + - LimeWire Brings Darknets to All (limewire.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: LimeWire's new version lets people create private darknets with contacts on any Jabber server (like GMail or LiveJournal). It's different than the recent p2p darknet announcement because it doesn't use onion routing. Sharing with a friend connects directly to that friend. Wired and CNET have some reviews of it. If you're worried about exposing personal information, LW5 doesn't share documents with the p2p network by default.
Privacy

Submission + - White House ditches YouTube (cnet.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Responding to complaints by privacy activists, the White House has quietly abandoned YouTube as the provider of the embedded videos on the president's official home page. With the release of the latest weekly video address, the White House has shifted to a Flash-based video solution using Akamai's content delivery network. The White House's decision to move away from the Google-owned video-sharing site will likely be met with praise by privacy activists and could mark the beginning of a real backlash in response to Google's insatiable thirst for detailed data on the browsing habits of Web surfers. Ironically, the decision by the White House comes days after YouTube began to roll out its own new policies to better protect the privacy of visitors who view videos embedded into federal government Web sites. The move by YouTube may prove to be too little, too late.
Government

Sun's McNealy Wants Obama to Push Open Source 176

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fighting-against-years-of-ingrained-ignorance dept.
CWmike writes to tell us that Sun's Scott McNealy is pushing for the Obama administration to adopt a much more open-source friendly policy similar to what has been done in Denmark, the UK, and other countries. "Although open-source platforms are widely used today in the federal government -- particularly Linux and Sun's own products, Solaris and Java -- McNealy believes many government officials don't understand it, fear it and even oppose it for ideological reasons. McNealy cited an open-source development project that Sun worked on with the US Department of Health and Human Services, during which a federal official said 'that open source was anti-capitalist.' That sentiment, McNealy fears, is not unusual or isolated."

Wikipedia Used To Spread Virus 116

Posted by Zonk from the ware-the-internets dept.
eldavojohn writes "The German Wikipedia has recently been used to launch a virus attack. Hackers posted a link to an all alleged fix for a new version of the blaster worm. Instead, it was a link to download malicious software. They then sent e-mails advising people to update their computers and directed them to the Wikipedia article. Since Wikipedia has been gaining more trust & credibility, I can see how this would work in some cases. The page has, of course, been fixed but this is nevertheless a valuable lesson for Wikipedia users."

Microsoft or Google? 490

Posted by Cliff from the better-working-environment dept.
Undecided asks: "I will be graduating next April, and I have been fortunate enough to receive job offers from both Microsoft and Google. This has left me with a bit of a conundrum, however — I'm having real difficulty deciding which offer to accept. Putting aside compensation and other personal circumstances that will factor into my decision, what is the Slashdot community's take on this? Am I crazy not to go with Google? I am especially interested in the insight of others working in the computer science industry, in particular those who may have experienced what it's like to work at both companies."

Canadian Record Industry Disputes Own P2P Claims 174

Posted by Zonk from the talking-crazy dept.
CRIAWatch writes "The Canadian Recording Industry Association has quietly issued a new study that contradicts many of its own claims about the impact of P2P usage on the music industry. Michael Geist summarizes the 144 page study by noting that the research 'concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders' computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services.'"

Comment Rumours Breed Truth (or Truth Breeds Rumours?) (Score 1) 1259

by sameb (#14436036) Attached to: On the Matter of Slashdot Story Selection
Whichever way it is -- some conspiracy theories do have hints of truth. Sure, the depths that the rumours tend to evolve to are essentially false, but they started somewhere.

About a year ago I submitted a story on "P2P through Firewalls" -- I wrote up the article and explicitly included "(link to Dijjer omitted at author's request)". I found that when it was posted on Slashdot, Michael had changed the article to make the word Dijjer link through to their page. This, despite flashing blinking red text on the Dijjer page that said "DO NOT LINK TO US". Stuff like that breeds conspiracy theories.

Comment Re:How? (Score 5, Informative) 220

by GregBildson (#10901126) Attached to: P2P Through Firewalls
Having written most of the udpconnect code in LimeWire, the basic idea works fairly simply. The downloader starts pinging the desired uploader with UDP SYN messages. At the same time it uses what we call a PushProxy in Gnutella to tell the uploader to start doing the same thing. So then both computers are sending UDP SYNs. This makes the NAT/firewall open up to this traffic and the LimeWire hosts on both end respond to the UDP SYNs with UDP ACKs in order to identify their connection ID.

After receiving the ACKs, the connections can send UDP data messages in both direction safely. The only trick is you need to ensure that a message is sent every so often so the NAT/firewall doesn't close. If nothing else is sent, a special KEEPALIVE message is sent. Beyond this, the communication is somewhat similar to TCP with a FIN message shutting things down at the end.

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