K-Lite alive and well - for now... - [P2P News]
Submitted by HWB on 12/7/2003 11:27:34 AM Add Comment
Reports that the free K-Lite has been shutdown by Sharman Networks, owner of the trashy $29.95 Kazaa p2p app, appear to be erroneous - for the moment, at least.
The post below appeared on SlashDot here:
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Kazaa-lite Shut Down
Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday December 07, @11:10AM
from the no-surprise-there dept.
atari2600 writes "Finally it has happened. Zeropaid is reporting that the Kazaalite K++ project has been shutdown by Sharman Networks. The project, which had been set up to block spy and ad ware within the Kazaa Media Desktop Program has achieved notoriety within the P2p world through its simplistic approach and success in reverse engineering the Kazaa application."
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Yesterday, Slyck was also carrying news of K-Lite's demise here, saying Kazaa Lite K++ fans discovered "that virtually every download mirror of this client has been eliminated, including links on its home page. Sharman went to the ISP of every website that hosted Kazaa Lite K++ and ordered its removal via the DMCA. Any mention of Kazaa Lite K++ on the homepage has been ominously replaced with links to eMule, BitTorrent and SoulSeek."
As RatFaced, a Kazaa Lite K++ forum mod, says here, it's ironic "that Kazaa is complaining about copyright issues, especially as K-Lite ++ stands for everything that Kazaa CLAIMS to stand for ... but fails to deliver."
Be all of the above as it may, K-Lite users were reporting business as usual at 9:20 am Pacific Time.
"This is a gradual process," Slyck's Tom Mennecke told p2pnet. "It'll be at least a few weeks before the breakdown is complete."
Back to the Slyck report, "A representative of Sharman Networks spoke to us on the condition of anonymity regarding their current campaign to vanquish Kazaa Lite K++," it says. "Not only has Sharman Networks succeeded in eliminating nearly every major resource of Kazaa Lite K++, they are systematically forcing it off the network. How you ask?
"Recent upgrades to Kazaa clients (2.5 and higher) make them less tolerant with outdated or non official clients such as Kazaa Lite K++. Kazaa Lite is based on a version prior to 2.5, therefore a current supernode will not accept its shares. Although this will cause network headaches in terms of traffic, the client will not be able to participate or download off the main FastTrack network. This will effectively cluster and isolate all modified Kazaa clients from FastTrack.
"Well, won't Kazaa Lite clients simply form their own sub-FastTrack network?
"Sounds nice, but no. Unfortunately, the developers of Kazaa Lite helped Sharman out tremendously by disabling the supernode function. Very few users who run this client are acting as supernodes. A decentralized P2P network with all clients and no supernodes cannot exist. The effects of this extermination is already taking place, as search times and connection times are deteriorating compared to K+ (the legitimate spyware/adware free version of Kazaa.)
"As time progresses, the Kazaa Lite K++ client will become so unusable that its populace will be driven off the network. This latest act from Sharman punctuates a long history of hypocrisy that involves the protection of their own intellectual property rights, yet blatantly ignoring the copyrights of others."
