Sharman Wants To End Kazaa Hacks

[asmithz]

I download K-plus just to see what the hell it can do (dumbass thing to do), it wount even load. It just sat there waht piece of crap.

[N£MO]

Originally posted by random nut@7 September 2003 - 04:29
Go to their forum (click the link at the bottom of the article) and read my reply to their CTO, who doesn't even know what features his own Kazaa Plus has.

Very well put RN,respect.

[Supernatural]

Random Nut:

First let me say that I deeply appreciate all the work you've put into K-Lite K++, making it the best P2P file sharing program in the world. For FREE! Hats off to you.

Your response to Phil Morle's post was great, and I hope he learned from it.

But I noticed that you said you could change K-Lite's GUI and add other netwoks to it. Why don't you?! I think those are great idea that would make this program even greater. I'm not making any demands though. Your past and continuous work on K++ is outstanding. I just know I'll love whatever you choose to do with K-Lite in the future.

Cheers. :beerchug:

[Switeck]

Originally posted by RedDevil10@9 September 2003 - 04:33
kazaa gave me a virus

So out of the probably 10+ million Kazaa/Kazaa Lite/Grokster/Imesh users that have EVER used the program, you managed to find someone sharing a virus, download it, run it, and it messed your computer up ...and you blame the NETWORK and program for letting you find the virus in the first place?

How in the world is any software to protect millions of idiots from themselves?

If they're not running antivirus software, that's probably ALL the more reason for you to keep yours up-to-date and even run more than 1 brand of antivirus software.

It won't protect you 100%, but life's no fun without at least a tiny amount of risk.

[random nut]

But I noticed that you said you could change K-Lite's GUI and add other netwoks to it. Why don't you?! I think those are great idea that would make this program even greater. I'm not making any demands though. Your past and continuous work on K++ is outstanding. I just know I'll love whatever you choose to do with K-Lite in the future.

Cheers.  :beerchug:

There are at least two reasons why I haven't done that, which I also mentioned in slyck.com's forum: I don't have enough time, and I don't use the FastTrack network.

[4play]

i cant get onto the site

i was lookign forward to see Rn roast the sharman cto.

[random nut]

Try again. I just checked and it was working.

[balamm]

RN's post >> http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?...er=asc&start=15

And the entire thread >>

http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1935

The prick from RIAA was on CNN with Erin Brown speaking about some of this last night.

[sharedholder]

Random Nut Rocks!

This is in reply to the original post made by the CTO of Sharman Networks.

Quote:
· Make the application as safe as possible, protecting users from viruses, accidental sharing and minors from inappropriate files. 


You forget a very important thing, protecting your users, and now paying customers, from getting sued by various organizations. You have no protection for that, because you either can't do it or don't want to do it. You may have a deal with the RIAA/MPAA not to add such a feature to your program, or your lawyers said that adding such a feature wouldn't be good for the company when in court.

Quote:

· Provide access to great licensed content and files. This is a huge job that can’t be rolled out over night, but day by day, you’ll see more and more high quality DRM protected files and original content. 


The only reason you add DRM content to Kazaa is to try to legitimize Kazaa and make it a pay-to-use p2p program. There's a lot of money in it for you and you want to do it. In a couple of years, if Kazaa and the FastTrack network are still alive, Kazaa will only have DRM content, and there will be no other files on the network.

Quote:
Now let's talk about Kazaa Lite and other mods to our software. These applications are:
· Anti-p2p. The ones that concern me most are the various 'Participation Level Hacks'. Participation Level was created to strengthen the very concept of P2P. Some users responded by hacking the software so that they did not need to give in order to take. This, in my view, is the most anti-p2p manoeuvre I have seen. Each PL Hack out there just diminishes the P2P experience for others. There are similar issues with 'Download Accelerators' that lets users with hacked versions use more than their fair share of network resources. Again, each one of these that is out there diminishes the experience for others. P2P is a two way street.



OK, one thing at a time:

Download accelerators

You say you don't like these download accelerators, but how come Kazaa Plus, the program you love so much, has one itself? You're the CTO of Sharman Networks and you don't even know the features of your own application!

Participation Level

The Participation Level (PL) is clearly anti-p2p for several reasons:

1. Kazaa isn't the only P2P program using the FastTrack network. The only purpose of your PL is to make downloads faster for your Kazaa users and slower for iMesh and Grokster users. They always have a PL equal to 0 in Kazaa, and thus they're at the bottom and will have to wait the longest. Even if a Kazaa user has PL=1, they can cut in line and stop the iMesh and Grokster user from downloading. Since 90-95% of all FastTrack users are using Kazaa, iMesh and Grokster users will be lucky if they can finish one small mp3 song.

2. The PL algorithm isn't good. The PL decreases too fast meaning that once the user has paused all his downloads just so he can get a higher PL and get a chance to steal someone else's place in the download queue, his PL will shortly be too low again and he will be kicked out and have to wait until his PL is high enough for him to cut in line again.

What does this mean? Let's say 15 people are trying to download a 600MB movie from someone with one open slot, and it will take them 3.5 hours for them to download the full movie at their maximum speed of 50kByte/s and all of them having the same PL from the start. It would look like this:

User1: Downloads 5kB
User2: Cuts in line because User1's PL is now too low
User2: Downloads 5kB
User3: Cuts in line because User2's PL is now too low
User3: Downloads 5kB
User4: Cuts in line because User3's PL is now too low
...etc etc etc...

Instead of taking 3.5 hours to download the 600MB movie file, it will take all of these 15 people 15*3.5 hours = 52.5 hours to download the file. That's more than 2 days! Now Kazaa doesn't support partial filesharing, which allows a user who has downloaded a part of the file, even if it's not all of the file, to start sharing the part he or she has downloaded. So not supporting partial filesharing and allowing users to cut in line is clearly anti-p2p. This example alone shows that Sharman Networks doesn't even understand how their own program functions, and they also don't understand how K++ functions:

There's an option in K++ where a user can disable this "cut-in-line" feature of Kazaa. The PL of the client downloading the file will be ignored if the option is enabled, or if the user sharing the file has enabled the PL=1000 option. This means that even a Grokster and an iMesh user, as well as a Kazaa user, can start the download and have the download finished in 3.5 hours instead of in 52.5 hours. This is clearly a good thing. K++ helps the FastTrack network get files out quicker; Kazaa slows things down.

So how long would it take for all these 15 people to download the file from the original source if they use K++? Here's what would happen if they all use K++:

Source: The original source of the file

User1: downloads all of the file from Source
Time : Time is now T+3.5 hours
User2: downloads all of the file from Source
User3: downloads all of the file from User1
Time : Time is now T+7 hours
User4: downloads all of the file from Source
User5: downloads all of the file from User1
User6: downloads all of the file from User2
User7: downloads all of the file from User3
Time : Time is now T+10.5 hours
User8: downloads all of the file from Source
User9: downloads all of the file from User1
User10: downloads all of the file from User2
User11: downloads all of the file from User3
User12: downloads all of the file from User4
User13: downloads all of the file from User5
User14: downloads all of the file from User6
User15: downloads all of the file from User7
Time : Time is now T+14 hours

A little comparison between K++ and Kazaa, and assuming the above example with 15 people downloading a 600MB file at 50kB/s:

There's a 0% chance of getting the file in 3.5 hours if you use Kazaa
There's a 7% chance of getting the file in 3.5 hours if you use K++

There's a 0% chance of getting the file in 7 hours if you use Kazaa
There's a 20% chance of getting the file in 7 hours if you use K++

There's a 0% chance of getting the file in 10.5 hours if you use Kazaa
There's a 47% chance of getting the file in 10.5 hours if you use K++

There's a 0% chance of getting the file in 14 hours if you use Kazaa
There's a 100% chance of getting the file in 14 hours if you use K++

...2 days later...

There's a 100% chance of getting the file in 52.5 hours if you use Kazaa
There's a 100% chance that the user has already watched the movie twice if he used K++

Quote:
· Unstable. These applications hack the software, not at the source code level, but by performing dangerous modifications, often while various values are in memory. This software crashes frequently and creates instabilities on a user’s computer. Often users then try to re-install the certified Kazaa Media Desktop to find they can’t because registry settings and host files have been mangled without respect for the user's PC. 


This is a lie, and I could sue you if you had mentioned K++ in that quote. You didn't do that because you know you're lying.

I will only talk about K++ since that's the software I wrote, I won't talk about other Kazaa add-on tools available.

Unstable: K++ has actually fixed numerous bugs in your Kazaa Media Desktop software, including the serious vulnerability in your FastTrack network core that I discovered.

Not using source: You're not a programmer, and you haven't even reverse engineered an app, so you don't know how easy it is without using the source code. If I had more time I could even rip out your GUI and replace it with my own GUI. I could also add more networks to it. Unfortunately I don't have time to do that, nor do I use the FastTrack network since January this year.

Crashes frequently: K++ doesn't crash, it's Kazaa that crashes. Kazaa doesn't crash because of add-on tools, Kazaa crashes because you don't hire good programmers who can write software that doesn't crash.

Let me now add some stuff about your certified program:

Kazaa Media Desktop require the user to have a lot more memory and a lot faster processor than K++ requires because KMD installs software such as Altnet and P2P Networking, and various other adware and spyware programs that all insist on having to be running at the same time as Kazaa Media Desktop or Kazaa Media Desktop won't run.

You force your users to install extra software that they don't need. By forcing these users to install all kinds of Internet applications such as Altnet and P2P Networking, you're exposing them to more risks. Software has bugs, and Internet apps such as your adware/spyware that is installed with Kazaa Media Desktop, only increases the risk of your users getting hacked because of serious bugs in your software and the installed spyware and adware that are required to run while KMD is running.

K++ doesn't install adware, spyware, or other Internet applications the users don't need. All K++ users can choose which program they want to use and aren't forced to use a certain program because I want them to, like you do. So using Kazaa Media Desktop can get your computer hacked because of all the bugs in your adware, spyware, Altnet, and P2P Networking apps that are required to be installed and run all the time.

Quote:
· Short-sighted. As long as these applications remove the capacity for Kazaa to display licensed content to its users, it is helping to prolong the legal ambiguities of p2p. Is this what you really want? Have you listened to some of the bands that release their stuff through Altnet? The more you guys interact with this stuff, the faster we will prove the model. 


You don't like it because Sharman Networks owns Altnet. You prefer Altnet and would rather have Kazaa only use Altnet instead of the FastTrack network. It's all about the money.

Quote:
· Often sold by Scam Artists. Do a search for Kazaa and go to one of the many sponsored links. Imagine you are a p2p novice and navigate these sites. On many of these sites, people are being misled into paying for free applications and in many cases believe that they are buying these applications from Sharman or that the applications are real Kazaa Media Desktops. We know this because we get their email complaints. This damages the users’ view of p2p generally. 


That's ridiculous. You don't like K++ because there are people (possibly Sharman Networks employees) who sell it? They also sell your program, and I don't hear you wanting to ban your own program.

And you can remove these scam companies easily. You have the money. So far you haven't even tried which makes me think that you don't want to for some reason. What could that be?

Quote:
Sharman has just licensed the release of Kazaa Plus (www.kazaaplus.com) so that users have the opportunity to use Kazaa without ads and adware by choosing to pay to use the application directly. Not only are there no ads in this application, but it has more powerful features on board as well. 


I know, because I was the one who originally wrote them. You see, you took some of the features of K++, put them in your app, and sell it. What makes you think people will buy Kazaa Plus (which BTW, uses poor protection from crackers) when K++ can do everything Kazaa Plus do, and more, and is free?

Quote:
Much of what we’ve been working on since starting our work with Kazaa is only just coming to fruition after a year and half. I hope that you will not abandon us, but learn to trust that we are moving mountains across difficult terrain to make sure that p2p is here forever. 


You live in your own little fantasy world. You don't get it. People don't like companies who go after their own users. That's exactly what you're doing. Sharman Networks is acting more and more like a company who thinks it can rule the world and force people to do exactly what Sharman Networks wants. You know what happens to companies like that don't you? Learn from history.

[4play]

thanks i managed to get on and it was very interesting reading.

one question @ random nut. Can the network be shutdown?

Im guessing no since it is run by the actual supernodes. so why are people sticking up for sharman if they went out of business the riaa have no one to sue and the network goes on.