Nonetheless, it is important to us here at OfficialAres.com to provide help whenever you need it, so if you’ve been experiencing difficulties getting your downloads, read on for some helpful solutions.

Selecting the Best Program to Suit Your Free Music Downloads

The first thing you need to take into consideration when utilizing the Ares network to get your free music downloads is which version of Ares you are using. Some of the older versions of the program have been recently causing conflicts for certain users, so we recommend that you only download the most updated versions of the Ares program.

In particular, if you are running Windows Vista on your computer, you need to be using the Ares Vista program, which is specially designed to avoid conflicts with that operating system. Additionally, if you are wanting to download very large files frequently, you should be using Ares Ultra, which was designed to support BitTorrent protocol to facilitate downloading large files quickly and easily.

If you have questions about which version of Ares you should be using, contact our friendly technical support staff for advice.

Joining a Community That Helps You Find the Best Free Music Downloads

One of the greatest strengths of being a part of the Ares network is the fact that you are joining a community of over 30 million people from around the world. These people, your peers, are a phenomenal resource when it comes to finding the latest and greatest free music downloads. Hop over to the chat room to get helpful advice about the best free music files to add to your collection.

Contacting Customer Support for Questions About Your Free Music Downloads

OfficialAres.com provides 24/7 technical support for every user that is a part of its network. This means that if you ever run into a problem with your free music downloads which you can’t find an answer for, you can rest easy knowing that you’ve always got someone to call to your aid.

At OfficialAres.com, we’re here for you, and we want your experience finding free music downloads to be as stress-free as possible!

Select Free Music Downloads in Compatible Formats

There is nothing more disappointing than waiting and waiting for your free music downloads to finish, only to discover that you can’t listen to them because they are not in the proper file format for your machine. Take the time to find out what types of files your audio players and CD-burning software supports and then make sure that anything you download off the network is formatted accordingly.

This simple step alone will save you a lot of frustration and do wonders for ensuring that the quality of your music collection is top notch.

Make Sure Free Music Downloads are Free of Malware

While Ares strives to eliminate any file that is bundled with malware which exists on its network, it is very easy for these hidden programs to slip by. You can do a lot to ensure that you don’t have to deal with these malicious programs by simply doing two things every time you want to acquire free music downloads: Keep your anti-malware programs running and read the user reviews on the file in question.

Anti-malware programs which root out spyware, viruses and other annoying programming bugs should be running on your computer at all times, even if you’re not looking for free music downloads.

The user review section of the files is handy because if other people have experienced problems or gotten a bug from a file, it is usually noted there – thus, saving you the headache of making the same mistake.

Only Share Free Music Downloads Which are Not Corrupt

As a part of the Ares community, it is your responsibility to help make sure that only the highest quality files are available for free music downloads to others. Make a point of testing the files in your shared library to ensure that they are functioning properly and are free of hidden malware. When every user does their part, everyone getting free music downloads benefits!

1) On Friday we had some unpleasantness from a reader

2) On Saturday I posted a story headed up New p2pnet advertiser, a now-deleted write-up on the Pinball Publisher Network’s Platrium games offerings.

1) My post on Platrium started, “As I’ve said a couple of times, I have no problem with advertising per se. I just don’t like the kind of garbage purpose-built to hijack user information. Can you says Fa$ebook? And can you think of any other names?

“To keep on keeping on, sites such as p2pnet have to find advertising which fits — nothing tricky, no spyware, easy to install and uninstall, all of which apply to Platrium Games which makes ad-supported – note ad supported — playware.”

And I thought I’d found a good ad partner with Pinball Publisher. The idea was: every time someone installed one of the company’s Platrium games, I’d get between $1.45 and 24 cents, depending where in the world the person was.

I had its ad and link up for the first offering, Bubbleburst, for three or four hours — until I saw a comment post from Jay, a fellow Vancouver Islander, and had a chance to read a couple of emails. They sure burst my bubble because ad supported is one thing, but tracking is another.

Jay’s comment post pretty much sums up the contents of the emails >>>

I wont be installing this game. I dont like that it is targeted ads for what I search for on the net. I wouldnt mind if it was a random ad for a random company but I dont like when programs keep track of what I search for and then use those search terms for ads. Im sure Google or other websites may use cookie information to track my comings and goings but I have cookies deleted on browser closer. But to have a program I install keep track of that info? Nope. I read through the EULA and it also says it becomes the default search browser. Im sure for some people this may help pass some time playing games and bring in ad revenue to p2pnet. But Id rather just send you the buck lol.

I emailed the company when I took its ads down and I’ll let you know how it responds.

Why didn’t I see this before I even began? I’m a writer and my ability to suss out things like that is zero. I apologise. But from now on, I’ll make sure ads are just ads.

p2pnet as a free service

2) On the nastiness, basically, a comment poster was suggesting I’m a) looking for hand-outs, and b) being completely irresponsible by taking out a loan to support myself and my family while we get p2pnet onto a firm financial footing.

I’ve been providing  p2pnet as a free service since 2002, but last December virtually all of my income disappeared at the same time. So I asked for help from p2pnet readers.

“In his original reply to [a] poster, Jon mentions that he has received $450 some odd in donations,” says my wife, Liz, in a response.  [I did the addition in my head and got it wrong. Actually, it was less than $400 at the time.]

There was a second Reader’s Write, but it was virtually the same as the first, except, as Liz points out, it also suggested I was looking for free hand-outs. So I deleted it.

Liz goes on >>>

I don’t know how those people who did contribute financially – and thank you to you all – feel about their contributions but I believe ‘donations’ is not exactly the right word to use. Jon has been publishing p2pnet for close to 10 years and he has provided this service free to readers, thanks to a changing roster of sponsors and advertisers.

Due to the financial meltdown in the US, as of this January, that situation has changed and in reality what Jon has been doing is to see if the readers of the site were willing to pay for the service they are getting in order to keep it going.

He has even offered extra incentives in the form of music tracks of his own and tracks contributed by musician friends.

Lots of people are having to shift gears with the recession and that is what we are doing here.

The Rupert Murdochs of this world seem to be able to monetize their projects but then their projects are not of the same spirit as p2pnet. So if you are a reader who thinks p2pnet might be worth something to you, again, thank you.

But it is insulting to Jon to say he is asking for hand-outs.

I’m not usually bothered by negative comments, but this really got to me.

But what started out as something unpleasant suggested another track which might help bring in some money while I get sorted.

My friend Crosbie Fitch has been developing a payment system for quite some time. It’s called 1p2u – one pence to you. It’s the orange icon at the bottom of the page and the service isn’t finished yet. But when it is …

Meanwhile, he had several ideas about how readers who want to see the site continue might pay for their reads.

Here’s part of what he posted >>>

Right hand column – sponsored by. Let’s say it’s available for a group purchase at $3,000 CAD.

A kickstarter sale is available at $3,000 for 100 shares at $30 per head. As soon as (and only if) there are 100 pledgers (when the kickstarter completes), the following month then fills that RH column with “This month sponsored by” and a list of names, URLs and 24×24 pixel icons to those 100 sponsors.

What you could then do is price it differently. Top of column large font: $200. Next 9 names medium font $90. Remaining 40 std font: $50. If no-one buys the higher priced options, you wait until the $3,000 is made up by more $50 sponsors, i.e. up to 60.

When the month’s over the right hand column describes the sponsorship offer and gives details of how to become a sponsor. Moreover at the foot the previous top ten names can be listed as some of those who sponsored the previously sponsored month. Sponsors are listed in order of signing up (not alphabetical).

I’m going to try to get something organised along those lines. Will that work, do you think?

For now, on the right you’ll see where things are at for the moment.

Cheers! And thanks …

Cheers! And thanks …

Jon

February, 2010

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

February, 2010

Microsoft to patch 17-year-old computer bug BBC
A 17-year-old bug in Windows will be patched by Microsoft in its latest security update. The February update for Windows will close the loophole that dates from the time of the DOS operating system. First appearing in Windows NT 3.1, the vulnerability has been carried over into almost every version of Windows that has appeared since. The monthly security update will also tackle a further 25 holes in Windows, five of which are rated as “critical”. The ancient bug was discovered by Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy in January 2010 and involves a utility that allows newer versions of Windows to run very old programs.

Vodafone suspends employee over obscene Twitter Telegraph
The explicit update made disparaging reference to homosexuals and indicated that the author planned to spend their evening pursuing women.The tweet provoked dozens of complaints from other users of the micro-blogging site and was taken down within minutes of being posted this afternoon. Initial speculation suggested the @VodafoneUK account, which has more than 8,800 followers, had been hacked. But the firm later released a statement indicating the message was the work of a rogue member of staff.

Chinese Internet Video Rivals Join Forces On Copyright Issues China Tech News
According to local media reports, rival Chinese video websites Youku.com and Tudou.com have formed an alliance and jointly launched a new online video joint broadcast model, sharing the copyright of each other’s exclusive videos. The two parties said they hope to expand the cooperative range of this new model. Apart from the sharing of exclusive videos, they are looking forward to cooperating in areas surrounding copyright production. And as the beginning of their joint broadcast model, Youku.com and Tudou.com have exchanged two exclusive TV series, and they have the rights to resell and broadcast these videos.

Arctic ice melting faster than feared: study CBC
The head of the largest climate change study ever undertaken in Canada says the Arctic sea ice is thinning faster than expected. “It’s happening much faster than our most pessimistic projections,” said University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead study. A flaw lead is the term for open water between pack ice and coastal ice. The study aboard the Canadian Coast Guard research ship Amundsen began in July 2007 and involved 370 scientists from around the world.

Your Comments Are Safe With Us TechCrunch
[...] a post that was published on the Digital Inspiration blog hit Techmeme. The title of that post left little to the imagination: it read ‘TechCrunch Removes Reader Comments From All Older Blog Posts’. That allegation in itself is inaccurate, as is most of the rest of the article, so I felt compelled to respond quickly and offer our side of the story. Which, on a sidenote, we weren’t asked for by the person or people behind the blog (at least not to my knowledge). I’ll start with the part that checks out: yes, comments on older blog posts are not being displayed at the moment, although they are still stored in the database on our side. But no, we did not remove them because we were looking to decrease our page load time – although we’re constantly looking for ways to do so – and there’s no big search engine optimization conspiracy behind it either. This also has nothing to do with the fact that we actively moderate comments on posts around here – we’ve always welcomed civil discussion and that hasn’t changed. Criticism and disagreement is fine, but we want to keep the comment section a nice place to come for everyone, and those who keep that from happening – spammers, anonymous trolls directing personal attacks, etc. – will see their comments occasionally get moderated out of sight (read: deleted).

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

February, 2010

—- and the Internet.

So says the Associated Press.

“As the submission deadline for the coveted award closed, the Nobel Committee maintained its tradition of giving no hints — the contenders are kept secret for 50 years. But some nominations were announced by those who made them,” says the story, adding:

“The Internet was proposed by the Italian version of Wired magazine, which cited its use as a tool to advance ‘dialogue, debate and consensus through communication’ and to promote democracy.

“Organizers said signatories to its petition backing the nomination include 2003 peace laureate and exiled Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi — which would make it a legitimate entry.”

(Cheers, IA)

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Associated Press – Internet among Nobel Peace Prize nominees, February 2, 2010

Wow! That’s a lot a lot of boodle!

At today’s prices, that’s about $3,012,441,629 Canadian.

And 78 cents.

Guess we’d all better dig into our pockets, then, eh?

Two years back, “EMI, a member of the Big 4 organised music cartel, was, spending $400,000 a year on party favors (booze, drugs, women, whatever) for its talent”, p2pnet quoted Silicon Insider as saying.

Now, times are hard for EMI, the broke and busted member of the Big 4 Music Mafia.

The others are Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and Sony Music, and they’re all being sued for price-fixing.

Are things coming unglued at EMI / Terra Firma? – p2pnet wondered in 2007, going on >>>

Now, “Citigroup Inc. rejected a request from Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd. to reduce EMI Group Ltd.’s debt by 40 percent in return for a 1 billion-pound ($1.7 billion) cash injection, two people familiar with the talks said,” says Bloomberg News, going on:

“Guy Hands’s private equity firm offered to provide the extra money if Citigroup agreed to reduce the record label’s 2.5 billion-pound debt by a similar amount, said the people, who declined to be named because the talks are private. Citigroup spurned the offer because it would have forced it to write off some of the debt just as EMI’s profit rises, one person said.”

And that’s left EMI “to be run by its own executives, although Hands-appointed non-executives like Lord Birt and former Northern Foods chief executive Pat O’Driscoll remain in place,” says the London Evening Standard, adding:

“Since the takeover, EMI has suffered along with its rivals from the downturn in the music industry and the growth of online piracy.

“It has also been hit by feuding with a string of stars unwilling to be managed by ’suits’, with Joss Stone the latest to hit out at her own recording label.”

So, things have finally come unglued at EMI / Terra Firma.

Adds the Telegraph:

“Mr Hands will now have to persuade investors in Terra Firma to sign over another £120m which would give the group sufficient equity headroom to last until March 2011 or face losing their £2.2bn investment altogether.”

Expect to soon see a puff piece from EMI saying this is a temporary setback and really, things are just peachy.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Telegraph – EMI runs up loss of £1.8bn, February 5, 2010
p2pnet – EMI: goodby sex ‘n’ drugs for rock’n’roll, January 14, 2008
Silicon Insider – EMI’s $400,000 Coke And Hookers Budget, January 12, 2008
broke and busted – Can Santa save EMI?, December 22, 2009
sued for price-fixing – Big Music in price fixing lawsuit. Again, January 14, 2010
p2pnet – Terra Firma, EMI: out of tune? -  October 29, 2007
Bloomberg News – Hands`s Bid to Cut EMI`s Debt Said to Be Rejected by Citigroup, November 16, 2009
London Evening Standard – Citi snub for EMI plan, November 16, 2009

It was one of, if not the, first companies to introduce spyware, and it’s front and centre in the vast majority of phony copyright infringement cases brought by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA against the Big 4’s own customers.

Now a “Symantec security program apparently identified the Kazaa desktop client as high-risk, flagging the software as adware”, says TechCrunch, going on, “This prompted Brilliant Digital Entertainment, the company that operates Kazaa, to issue a special notice / consumer alert to its customers.”

In the ‘alert’ Kazaa says it’s “been compelled to issue a Global Consumer Alert and special notice to its own customers” thanks to Symantec identifying it as “high risk,” going on >>>

As a result some Kazaa users with Symantec software installed were unable to use their music service because Symantec’s security software flagged the Kazaa software as adware. While users of the service had never seen advertising on Kazaa, some of those who contacted us with their concerns were sufficiently spooked by Symantec’s unilateral action that they followed Symantec’s advice to remove the software.

Kazaa is a licensed music download and streaming service with over one million tracks licensed from the major record companies available to customers.

Symantec had justified turning off the music for some of Kazaa customers by flagging files in the Kazaa music plug in application as high risk due to the files being used for serving advertisements. As a result Kazaa customers or subscribers running Norton AV are having these files stripped from the application which prevents them from using the service.

StopBadware.org once said Sharman’s Kazaa, “misleadingly advertises itself as spyware-free,” and didn’t, “completely remove all components during the uninstall process, interferes with computer use, and makes undisclosed modifications to other software”.

The company’s claim that it’s “one of the world’s fastest growing digital music services” is open to considerable doubt.

‘95% of the cases have to do with Kazaa’

Below is a re-run of p2pnet’s Kazaa, the RIAA and Jammie Thomas feature >>>

Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) can be quite properly described as hate organisations.

They hate anything which even looks remotely like competition.

They hate independents and independence.

They hate anything which interferes with what they see as their God-given right to control how, and by whom, music is distributed online.

They even hate the people who keep them in drugs and booze and who pay their bills.

But there’s one commercial outfit that’s central to the vast majority of the RIAA hate lawsuits, but which has nonetheless escaped virtually unscathed: Australia’s Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa, the P2P file sharing application used by almost every RIAA victim.

Currently, the highest profile Kazaa case centres on Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota mother ordered to pay the corporate music industry almost a quarter of a million dollars for allegedly infringing music copyrights.

Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA thought they’d finally scored when judge Michael Davis told jurors that simply making songs available in a shared folder written to her computer hard drive by Kazaa amounted to infringement, even if actual distribution hadn’t been proved.

Davis has since admitted his instructions were wrong and as things stand, the RIAA is desperately trying to salvage the only case it’s ever managed to bring to court.

Meanwhile, thousands of people continue to use the application.

“Its presence in these cases is ubiquitous,” says Ray Beckerman, the New York lawyer who runs Recording Industry vs The People, the famous online archive of RIAA cases and associated documents, and who himself represents people singled out as RIAA targets.

“It’s shameful.”

The question is – when will Sharman Networks share the same fate as the people who, having used its software, wound up on the wrong end of a lawsuit?

‘95% of the cases have to do with Kazaa’

Sharman Networks, Kazaa’s owner, boasts it’s ‘Fast, safe’.

Fast it may be, but safe it isn’t, as many thousands of people who’ve used it in all innocence have found to their cost. They’re named in RIAA subpoenas with threats of court cases they can’t possibly afford to adequately defend hanging over their heads.

There are no statistics detailing exactly how many Big 4 victims were identified because they were using Kazaa. But it’s safe to bet the vast bulk would fall into that category.

“Anecdotally, I would guess that 95% of the cases have to do with Kazaa,” Beckerman told p2pnet. “It’s rather suspicious.

“Kazaa made a deal for itself which left its customers to hang in the wind.”

He’s referring to the agreement to secretly settle a class action brought against Kazaa owner Sharman Networks by former user Catherine Lewan.

However, before the deal was struck — and it included, presumably, a requirement that details wouldn’t be disclosed — a court document outlining her claim had already been made public. Named in it are »»»

Sharman Networks Ltd aka
Sharman Networks Ltd, Sharman License Holdings Ltd, Geoffrey R.Gee, Global Nominees and Credit Facilities Ltd

Kazaa designed its software, “in such a manner as to create a shared files folder and make that folder available to anyone using Kazaa, while at the same time failing to make the user aware that it had done so,” said Lewan, going on »»»

The Sharman Defendants marketed KaZaA as the P2P service that allowed individuals to share files.

The Sharman Defendants deceptively marketed the KaZaA Product as allowing ‘free’ downloads.

The Sharman Defendants deceptively marketed the use of the KaZaA Product as legal.

The Sharman Defendants deceptively knew that most users of the KaZaA Product would use the KaZaA Product to catalog and store digital copies of copyrighted sound recordings and films.

The Sharman Defendants encouraged, invited and solicited such conduct from the public, its customers, and users of the KaZaA Product.

Kazaa FastTrack network

Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis and Priit Kasesalu launched the Kazaa FastTrack network through their Dutch firm, Consumer Empowerment, aka Kazaa BV, in March, 2001, soon after Napster, which had paved the way for online music distribution, was shut down by the corporate music companies who, instead of embracing peer-to-peer as the means of distributing products in the 21st digital century, fearfully condemned it.

Napster had used centralised servers to hold lists of systems plugged into the network, together with their files.

What made it peer-to-peer was: traffic moved directly computer to computer, allowing users to share with each other quickly and efficiently.

Kazaa BV — decentralised – and KaZaA.com were bought by Australia’s Sharman Networks for an undisclosed sum.

It became one of the first – if not the first – software applications to arrive on users’ systems loaded to the gills with spyware and other forms of badware. It was impossible for the average person to remove it without expert help.

“The company seemingly came out of nowhere,” said CNET News at the time, going on:

“After a silent first month, Sharman has emerged as a key player in an increasingly bizarre triangle with Morpheus’ parent company, StreamCast Networks, and Kazaa BV, in which accusations of unpaid bills, user-poaching and technical sabotage are flying back and forth.”

Morpheus had the users — millions of them — and Kazaa had the network. The two arrived at what was supposed to have been a mutually beneficial deal, but it fell through and Kazaa ultimately cut Morpheus out of the loop, accusing it of having failed to pay licensing fees.

The dispute lead to a long and bitter legal battle.

Australian watchdogs

Initially, Sharman’s only contact with the outside world was through a press agent in California, “who would not comment on the company,”said CNET, adding:

“The management at Sharman also raises questions. Nikki Hemming (right), the CEO, was formerly chief executive of failed Sydney theme park ‘Sega World’. ‘Sega World’ had been billed as Australia’s first indoor theme park, with a massive facility, but customers did not appear, and the business flopped.

“Hemming’s move to buy KaZaA has caught the attention of Australian watchdogs. The Australian Performing Right Association Limited (APRA), which monitors that country’s copyrights for musicians has begun to investigate Sharman.”

What made you decide to buy Kazaa? – CNET asked Hemming in another story. “What are your plans for Sharman?”

“I’ve been around the technology of entertainment for quite a bit of time,” she answered. “Basically, the opportunity was initially put to me by (Brilliant Digital Entertainment CEO) Kevin Bermeister, who I’d known for quite awhile.”

Under Hemming, Kazaa purported to be one with P2P community. But in fact, it cynically did everything it could to persuade the corporate music industry to pick it up as a distribution vehicle.

Not all incidentally, associate company Altnet was simultaneously trying to make its way in the corporate entertainment world as the supplier of a DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control application.

However, the companies shunned Sharman and Kazaa and eventually launched a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against them in Australia with Michael Speck, the ex-detective sergeant who used to run the Big Four’s Australian MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Investigations) but who the last we heard was working for Altnet, leading the way.

In 2005, “Will Mark Dyne Step Forward as Owner of Sharman, FastTrack?” – asked an Online Reporter headline, going on »»»

Speculation continues about who is the ultimate owner of Sharman Networks and who actually owns the FastTrack network that Sharman’s Kazaa software uses for file swapping.

The latest rumbling is that a shadowy figure named Mark Dyne (right) owns both Sharman the company and FastTrack the network. Mark Dyne was once a partner in the —- operation with Kevin Burmeister who operates Brilliant Digital and Altnet and is a defendant in the Sydney trial against Sharman Networks.

Nikki Hemming calls herself the Sharman CEO but there have been suspicions that another power pulls Hemming’s strings because of Sharman’s complex legal incorporation in the remote South Sea island of Vanuatu.

Sharman lawyers have fought tooth-and-nail in the Sydney case to keep hidden the actual identity of Sharman’s owner. Dyne’s public facing these days seems to be his California-based companies EuroCapital and EuroPlay.

Dyne owns over 25 million shares of Bermeister’s Brilliant Digital and was issued eight million options for his service as Brilliant’s CEO. The US-based Brilliant was formed by merging the Australian-based Brilliant Interactive Ideas and Sega Australia New Developments.” [Our paragraph breaks.]

Nuisance score well into the red

Ultimately, Sharman ’settled’ with the corporate music industry for a reported $115 million and Kazaa made the transition from one side of the tracks to the other to become an approved corporate good guy, with Hemming still at the controls, and NO SPYWARE displayed prominently on its Net ad.

But that’s not the way it is, says McAfee SiteAdvisor, although it must be said its services aren’t of the best.

With a nuisance score well into the red, “Kazaa (kazaa_setup.exe) installed the following programs on our PC,” says McAfee, to wit:

• Adware-RXBar Search Threat Library
• Adware-Instafinder Search Threat Library
• Adware-Need2Find Search Threat Library
• Adware-P2PNet Search Threat Library (othing to do with p2pnet.net)
• Adware-TopSearch Search Threat Library
• Adware-Altnet Search Threat Library
• Adware-FlashGet Search Threat Library
• Adware-BDE Search Threat Library

McAfee goes on, “When we installed and ran Kazaa (kazaa_setup.exe), the following network servers which may may be associated with spyware, adware, or other unwanted programs were contacted.

64.93.77.208
instafinder.com
r.instafinder.com
qklinkserver.com
tss.altnet.com

“When we installed and ran Kazaa (kazaa_setup.exe), the following network servers were contacted.

64.93.77.208
instafinder.com
barcfg.need2find.com
r.instafinder.com
qklinkserver.com
tss.altnet.com
24-205-175-95.dhcp.wsco.ca.charter.com
c-24-23-2-85.hsd1.mn.comcast.net
cable-84-44-252-55.netcologne.de
cm18196.red91-117.mundo-r.com
cetn-04-0641.dsl.iowatelecom.net
static-17-12-224-77.ipcom.comunitel.net
a207093.upc-a.chello.nl
VA1-RAS-2-u-0019.du.onolab.com
ool-4355e615.dyn.optonline.net
cpe-24-195-106-40.nycap.res.rr.com
static-62-233-185-82.devs.futuro.pl
165.194.147.211
20129078172.user.veloxzone.com.br
rommel.gate.uni-erlangen.de

‘Kazaa … misleadingly advertises itself as spywarefree’

If McAfee’s SiteAdvisor might leave something to be desired, you can’t say the same about StopBadware.org.

It’s coordinated by Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and supported by companies including AOL, Google, Lenovo, PayPal, Trend Micro and VeriSign, and Consumer Reports WebWatch serves as an unpaid special advisor.

StopBadware.org is directed by Harvard Law School professors and Berkman Center for Internet & Society co-directors Jonathan Zittrain and John Palfrey, with the support of a policy-oriented advisory board and a technical working group, which is composed of top experts in the field like Internet pioneers Esther Dyson and Vint Cerf.

So it’s opinions are gold and Kazaa has been continually on its BadWare list since at least 2006.

Now, in 2008, StopBadware states unequivocally, “We find that Kazaa is badware because it misleadingly advertises itself as spywarefree, does not completely remove all components during the uninstall process, interferes with computer use, and makes undisclosed modifications to other software,” says StopBadware, going on:

• One bundled application cannot be closed. (Interferes with Computer Use)
  
• Claims to have “no spyware”, but is bundled with software that is considered spyware. (Deceptive Installation)
  
• Fails to uninstall certain executables and system components. (Unacceptable Uninstallation)
  
• Adds new links to the Windows Desktop. (Modifies Other Software)
  
• Changes the default 404 and DNS error pages in Internet Explorer (Modifies Other Software)
  
• Installs programs that modify Internet Explorer (Deceptive installation, Modifies other software)

High-security peer-to-peer network

Meanwhile, said an August, 2006, p2pnet story »»»

1) Bermeister heralds his plan for world Consumer Control on a page hosted by no lesser body than Big Four ‘trade’ organization the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industries) ;

2) Speck joins Altnet, claiming I’d be working away from my moral position if I didn’t support a technology that I believe is a quantum leap forward against unauthorised infringing activity, says ZDNet Australia.

3) With indecent haste after Sharman’s ‘defeat’ by the cartels, BDE disinters a plan first mooted in 2003 under which Kazaa and Altnet jointly released a bundle of file-swapping software apps, complete with a new high-security peer-to-peer network and a program that will pay users to be a part of it, as CNET News wrote at the time.

Bermeister was instrumental in creating the modern version of Kazaa, introducing Sharman Networks CEO Nicola Hemming to the original creators of Kazaa in the Netherlands, it said. Hemming’s original plan for the file-swapping service was long intertwined with Bermeister’s vision of using it to distribute authorized conent [sic], although Bermeister denies being one of Sharman’s as-yet-undisclosed investors.

The Altnet CEO has spent a year talking to executives at the large content companies and claims to have won some friendly ears among new media executives. However, concerns about litigation and Kazaa’s ultimate legality blocked any deals.

Not any more.

Altnet says its Global File Registry, stands ready to provide online content management and protection for all responsible participants in the digital marketplace.

And the company’s newest employee, Michael Speck, states, Global File Registry will improve online distribution channels for content owners, while empowering consumers by increasing the number of legitimate access points to the content they choose.

Empowering consumers? Not while Sharman and the cartels are on the earth.

According to Altnet [read Sharman], Global File Registry is the cornerstone of its, online content protection and digital crime prevention strategy. Developed by experts in online distribution, content protection and anti piracy activity, Global File Registry (GFR) is a giant leap forward for content owners and law enforcement agencies to control piracy and criminal activity on the Internet,

Anti-piracy?

GFR is a consolidator of infringing file intelligence, enabling co-operating participants to electronically defend the legal rights of copyright owners and law enforcement authorities without impacting the privacy of users, says Altnet, going on, GFR leverages the Altnet TrueNames patent portfolio by locating TrueNames (unique identifiers) in a centralized database so that known infringing files can be acted upon.

TruenNames was once described by Freenet creator Ian Clarke as a lame duck.

GFR will work its magic by protecting users from inadvertent or spontaneous criminal or civil digital infringements by preventing downloading of known illicit files.

This is extremely interesting given that most of the approximately 19,000 men, women and children currently being victimized by the Big Four’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) were Kazaa users. And many of them say they had no idea that, when they were using Kazaa, they were also enabling the inadvertent or spontaneous criminal or civil digital infringements because they hadn’t closed off the Kazaa download directory.

And they hadn’t done that, they say, because Sharman/Kazaa failed to provide clear information that this was essential to prevent inadvertent infringement. Nor did Sharman/Kazaa provide clear, easily understandable instructions on how to take the directory offline.

Be that as it may, even with the corporate entertainment cartels implicitly backing Sharman and Altnet’s most recent lame duck, GFR, the chances of it and/or and Kazaa suddenly gaining credibility are zero.

And with Sharman and its friends now close to the cartels, which have been single-mindedly attacking their own customers, we haven’t seen reports, anywhere, of what will happen to the huge amount of personal and other information Kazaa holds on its users and former users.

Kazaa in 2008

Said Catherine Lewan’s now disenfranchised court document »»»

To use the KaZaA Product, an individual user would download the KaZaA software and install it on their computer.

The user could then use the KaZaA Product to catalog files on the individual’s computer. These files would be contained within a ’share folder’.

To increase the sound recordings and films available on the KaZaA network, the Sharman Defendants designed the KaZaA software to create the shared folder and make the share folder accessible to anyone using the KaZaA software on the KaZaA network. They did so such that neither the KaZaA software nor the individual user’s computer would inform the user that this had occurred.

In other words, the Sharman Defendants designed the KaZaA software to share the contents of the individual users ’share folder’ without letting the user of the KaZaA software know that he or she made such content available to others on the KaZaA network.

Further on, the class action document says »»»

The Sharman defendants designed the KaZaA software to install a number of additional programmes (’spyware’) on an individual user’s computer for nefarious purposes. They did so such that neither the KaZaA software nor the individual user’s computer would inform the user had this had occurred.

The spyware employed by the KaZaA software affected computers adversely.

The Sharman Defendants designed the KaZaA software to be nearly impossible to fully eradicate from a user’s computer. [Our emphasis.] Consequently, an individual’s shared folder would remain accessible to the KaZaA Network after the KaZaA software had been removed from the individual’s computer.

By automatically sharing files in the shared folder, KaZaA exposed its users to claims of copyright infringement by making such files accessible to other users of the KaZaA network to download.

The Sharman Defendants knew and continue to know that the use of the KaZaA Product exposes its users to claims of copyright infringement.

Kevin Bermeister – the ’secret weapon’

Sharman can never suffer the anguish experienced by 40,000 or so American men women and children who became RIAA victims because they’d used Kazaa.

But fair play demands the company and its executives in some way be held accountable.

Meanwhile, “Financed by a controversial Sydney businessman, the Israeli computer game designer Yaron Dotan will this month launch what he believes could be the war to end all wars in the Middle East,” says the Sydney Morning Herald, going on:

“Set in the Palestinian territory of Gaza in the year 2040, the game is called Rising Eagle – Gaza and simulates an infantry battle between the elite Israeli Golani Brigade and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Or, as Mr Dotan prefers to call them, ‘the Waffen SS of today’.”

The key to future success, the story has Dotan saying, “is that high quality games can be produced in Israel at a fraction of what it would cost in the US or Europe.

“The other secret weapon, he said, is the company’s financial backer – the Sydney businessman Kevin Burmeister [sic], who made a fortune during the 1980s and 1990s through his company Sega-OziSoft and was Australia’s biggest distributor of video games titles. In recent years Mr Burmeister has made news as the man behind the internet song-swapping program Kazaa, which made him the target of several lawsuits brought by the global music industry.”

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

TechCrunch – Kazaa Takes A Swing At Symantec After Adware Accusations, February 6, 2010
Kazaa – Kazaa Consumer Alert – Symantec Gets It Wrong Again, February 6, 2010
misleadingly advertises itself – Spyware Kazaa slammed, March 22, 2006

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Spyware Kazaa slammed

And ’staged’ is the right word.

Because the games are turning into  a farcical embarrassment.

Check out >>>

• Olympic blogs OK for Vancouver – May 15, 2009
  
• Olympics bosses get nasty over Flickr pix – October 9, 2009
  
• Liberties group condemns Olympics ‘jail’ law – October 12, 2009
• Border guards grill Goodman on 2010 Olympics – November 28, 2009
• Vancouver censors anti-Olympic art – December 12, 2009
• 2010 Olympics. Watching the watchers – December 14, 2009
• Vancouver’s latest Olympics debacle – December 17, 2009

Now, “Wha’tcha doin’ to me Canada?” – asks Andrew aka Comeoncomcast in an email.

“I was excited about Vancouver 2010 but this has dampened the Start ” – he says.

Andrew lives in Oz.

There’s a huge flag hanging down for two storeys in the building where Australian athletes are staying.

“The IOC believed the flag represented an inappropriate commercial trademark,” the Sydney Morning Herald has Australian Olympic Committee spokesman Mike Tancred stating.

”We put it up about three days ago and the next morning the IOC told us to take it down”, he says.

The flag became famous in 1983 “when used by Alan Bond and his crew when they won the America’s Cup, although in his new book Great Moments in Australian History, historian Jonathan King says the image first graced RAAF P40 Kittyhawk fighters in Africa in World War II,” says the story.

“The AOC bought the registered trademark of the flag from Bond when he later got into financial trouble.”

But, ”If the IOC send us a formal letter telling us to take it down, then we probably will,” says Tancred in the story.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Sydney Morning Herald – Australians defy IOC request over boxing kangaroo, February 6, 2010

And it’s great for movies. Music. Anything else. You name it.

If you can’t find something on The Pirate Bay or isoHunt, or some of the other smaller sites, give it a whirl.

It’s Google the Untouchable.

“The Pirate Bay guys may soon be on their uppers, and the feral entertainment cartels are also going after … indexing sites like there’s no tomorrow,” I said last time around“, going on:

“Which for them, of course, is true.  Indexing sites are exactly that. Sites that index. They don’t actually host anything.  They merely point to where something may be.  Or not.

“But it doesn’t really matter because the P2P networks are only where it’s at only for a limited number of file sharers, although Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels would like the world to believe they believe that’s the whole ballgame as they try to pretend the Light Nets, as I’m going to call darknets from now on, don’t exist.”

She Began to Lie

I was was re-watching The General’s Daughter, a thriller, last night and I’d forgotten I really liked a couple of tunes from Carter Burwell’s soundtrack — in particular Sea Lion Woman at the front end and She Began to Lie at the back, and Rachel Rocket and Gonna Rise and Fly in between.

And other pieces.

I live in Canada where it’s safe  to download music as long as it’s for your own use.

I couldn’t find the soundtrack in any of the usual places — or, rather, I could only find one example, and it was totally static.

So I tried Google and Lo! as I write this I’m listening to Rachel Rocket.

Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures take no prisoners when it comes to indexing sites.

The money they’ve spent destroying search sites which specialised in entertainment would keep Somalia, or similar nations, supplied with food for years.

And yet somehow, Google is ignored.

No need to stay tuned.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

last time around – Cartel-proof P2P indexing site, July 29, 2009

February, 2010

Perhaps the most exciting of these is the fact that you can download HD and DVD quality movies off of your Ares network, burn them to discs and have them for your viewing pleasure forever more.

What Kind of Movies Can I Get When I Download Ares Free?

The Ares network is over 30 million people strong. When you factor in that these people are situated all over the world, you can imagine what that means in terms of the kind of movies that are available to you on the network. Your options are virtually unlimited, and the downloads are fast too.

Whether you want to watch a spaghetti western to get some laughs with your buddies or are more in the mood for a horror movie, which will give you an excuse to cuddle close to your honey, it’s there. You can have whatever you want in the time it takes you to make dinner and hop in the shower to get ready for the night.

How Many Movies Can I Get When I Download Ares Free?

There are over 100 million files available on the Ares file-sharing network. The number of movies you can download from this inexhaustible source is limited only by the size of your hard drive and the speed of your Internet connection. If you buy a storage device such as an external hard drive and increase your downloading bandwidth, the number of movies you can download through the Ares network is virtually unlimited.

Will My Computer Be Safe When I Download Ares Free Movies?

When you download Ares free through OfficialAres.com, you can rest easy knowing that your Ares program will be completely free from spyware, viruses and other types of malware. Of course, you should still always have updated anti-virus and anti-malware programs running at all times, but it will feel good to know that if you ever run into trouble when you download Ares free, the Ares team from OfficialAres.com has got your back!