[ALUmnus]

Just think, if this stuff is found on LimeWire, what other stuff is out there on the other p2p networks? I can't believe these employees are allowed to download these programs. I can't do anything to my pc at work.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... xonomyId=1

Details on presidential motorcades, safe house for First Family, leak via P2P
Lawmakers eye bill to ban P2P use on government, contractor networks
Jaikumar Vijayan


Details about a U.S. Secret Service safe house for the First Family -- to be used in a national emergency -- were found to have leaked out on a LimeWire file-sharing network recently, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were told this morning.

Also unearthed on LimeWire networks in recent days were presidential motorcade routes and a sensitive but unclassified document listing details on every nuclear facility in the country, Robert Boback, CEO of Tiversa Inc. told committee members.

The disclosures prompted the chairman of the committee, Rep. Edolphus Towns, (D-N.Y.), to call for a ban on the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) software on all government and contractor computers and networks. "For our sensitive government information, the risk is simply too great to ignore," said Towns who plans to introduce a bill to enforce just such a P2P ban.

Tiversa is a Cranberry Township, Pa.-based provider of P2P monitoring services. In the past, it has served up dramatic examples of highly sensitive information found on file-sharing networks. In January for instance, the company disclosed how it had discovered sensitive details about the President's helicopter, Marine One, on an Iranian computer after a document leaked out over a P2P network.

Today's hearing continued in that vein, with Tiversa providing new sensational examples of leaked information. Boback showed off a document, apparently from a senior executive of a Fortune 500 company, listing every acquisition the company planned to make -- along with how much it was willing to pay. Also included in the document were still-private details about the company's financial performance. Boback also showed numerous documents listing Social Security numbers and other personal details on 24,000 patients at a health care system, as well as FBI files, including surveillance photos of an alleged Mafia hit man that were leaked while he was on trial. He demonstrated to members of the committee how pedophile predators troll file-sharing networks looking for images and data.

Speaking with Computerworld before the hearing, Boback said that all of the information was readily available on LimeWire's file-sharing network after apparently being leaked. The data on the nuclear sites was found on computers associated with four IP addresses in France, though it is not immediately clear where the data came from. The files containing information about the president and his family had Barack Obama's seal on it and a July date.

Though the information was not classified, it was sensitive enough that under normal circumstances it would not have been available even via a Freedom of Information Act request, he said.

This is the third time that the House Oversight committee has held a hearing on the topic of data leaks on P2P networks. The last hearing was two years ago and featured similar revelations from Tiversa and others.

[Kolzilla41]

I need to start down loading some new stuff

[El Scorcho]

I need to start down loading some new stuff

I would do just about anything to avoid downloading this stuff. I do not want to get involved with folks trying to lock down classified or sensitive material.

[JeanW]

I would stay *away* from Limewire! It can do some really bad stuff to your computer.

[ATrain]

I would stay *away* from Limewire! It can do some really bad stuff to your computer.

Yeah, a dude that was in my dorm a few years back had Limewire, and it messed his up pretty bad. Mine had issues with Kazaa, so I switched to Ares of my desktop and didn't have a ton of problems.

[flamesbball84]

i just use bittorrent. haven't had any problems with that.

[adam42381]

i just use bittorrent. haven't had any problems with that.

µTorrent is your friend. You're pretty safe using mininova or Pirate Bay as long as you make sure you're running Peer Guardian as well.

[flames1971]

I was told in computer (technology) class this past year to stay away from limewire because it could harm your computer and somone even said it is illegal...

[Hold My Own]

1. There is nothing illegal about Limewire. There are certain things that can be downloaded on there that could be illegal though.

2. The only thing harmful about limewire is some of the files you may download. That's why its important to be smart about it.

3. Limewire is a thing of the past. Utorrent is where it is at now.

[flamesbball84]

1. There is nothing illegal about Limewire. There are certain things that can be downloaded on there that could be illegal though.

2. The only thing harmful about limewire is some of the files you may download. That's why its important to be smart about it.

3. Limewire is a thing of the past. Utorrent is where it is at now.

Very true, very true. It's a heck of a lot easier to find and download stuff through the multiple bittorent sites these days.

[LUconn]

I thought pirate bay was going legit.

[El Scorcho]

1. There is nothing illegal about Limewire. There are certain things that can be downloaded on there that could be illegal though.

Not illegal, but also not a very good business model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studio ... kster,_Ltd.

Also see the note about the Limewire user agreement at the end of that article. They moved the legal liability for what you download onto you. At least, they're hoping that's how it'll work.

Agreed that Gnutella-based P2P clients are in the past. Sharing over BitTorrent is the way to go, whether you're trading legal or illegal files.

[El Scorcho]

I thought pirate bay was going legit.

Nah. Someone is trying to buy them. The announcement about it was premature.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/0 ... irate-bay/

[Liberty4Life]

My problem whenever I used one of the Torrents was it took forever to download something. I'm talking like a week.

I would say that I had the most success with Kazaa Lite, but the last time I went to use it (like two years ago), hardly anyone was on it, so you couldn't locate anything. Oh well.

[Hold My Own]

I thought pirate bay was going legit.

Nah. Someone is trying to buy them. The announcement about it was premature.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/0 ... irate-bay/

Thanks BTW, I've been able to use PB on Liberty networks for years and come last week it was blocked....the nerve of someone

[flamesbball84]

My problem whenever I used one of the Torrents was it took forever to download something. I'm talking like a week.

I would say that I had the most success with Kazaa Lite, but the last time I went to use it (like two years ago), hardly anyone was on it, so you couldn't locate anything. Oh well.

All depends on how many people are sharing the file and what you have your download speed set to. If only one person is sharing (aka seeding in bittorrent terminology), it's going to be slow. If a bunch of people are sharing the file it can download blazingly fast. I hae to say with bittorrent the top download speeds you'll get will be better than they were on old school napster or anything else like that. Not once on napster was I ever able to download something at over 500 kbps but it's happened many times on bittorrent.