With the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee taking a fresh look at the privacy and security risks posed by using LimeWire and other peer-to-peer file-sharing applications, now is a good time for both home and office users of these services to reassess the safety of their own sensitive data. Committee members last month directed Mark Gorton, chairman of The Lime Group, which owns LimeWire; U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; and Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, to prepare for new hearings on peer network security.
Jack - I wish tech reporters like you could check facts a little rather than peddle industry propaganda:
"Peer networks such as ...BitTorrent, ... The software catalogs available data on the users' hard drives and then allows other network members to download copies of those files."
As a matter of fact the BitTorrent protocol does no such thing. The only communication between peers is in the context of a piece of content that the user has explicitly chosen to download. Pieces of that content are also uploaded while it is being downloaded. With BitTorrent there is no cataloging or sharing of content on a users hard-drive.
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You Could Be File-Sharing More Than You Think
Posted by: Jack M. Germain May 14, 2009 04:00 AMWith the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee taking a fresh look at the privacy and security risks posed by using LimeWire and other peer-to-peer file-sharing applications, now is a good time for both home and office users of these services to reassess the safety of their own sensitive data. Committee members last month directed Mark Gorton, chairman of The Lime Group, which owns LimeWire; U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; and Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, to prepare for new hearings on peer network security.
"Peer networks such as ...BitTorrent, ... The software catalogs available data on the users' hard drives and then allows other network members to download copies of those files."
As a matter of fact the BitTorrent protocol does no such thing. The only communication between peers is in the context of a piece of content that the user has explicitly chosen to download. Pieces of that content are also uploaded while it is being downloaded. With BitTorrent there is no cataloging or sharing of content on a users hard-drive.