Every now and then, we have a discussion over on the Annoyances boards about Kazaa. Now, Annoyances isn't exactly Kazaa-friendly territory, so the posters of problems with Kazaa generally are in for a rough ride. I'm afraid this isn't going to help any, since I have my own reasons for being against P2P programs.
Security is a big problem these days, and I'm reasonably sure everybody and their brother has heard by now that opening email attachments indiscriminately is a bad idea, sure to get your machine infected sooner or later. Along the same lines, sharing files with strange computers strikes me as one of the quickest ways of downloading a virus yet found. You're downloading files from strange computers, probably on poorly protected systems since music thieves seem to be hesitant about installing firewalls and anti-virus software. That means you risk picking up whatever their machine has as well as your "free" music.
Let's not forget spyware/adware. This stuff loads up with most of the popular P2P programs, running in the background to serve up ads or rat on your Internet travels. It runs at start-up, consuming valuable resources. This isn't so important with the Windows NT type systems, but it can be terrible with the 9X systems because of the way they allocate resources. Much of this stuff is hard-coded into your favorite P2P program and can't be removed without crippling Kazaa/Grokster/Morpheus/insert favorite program here.
Throw in another fun thing these days. Hackers have started subscribing to Kazaa and other such services for their own nefarious schemes. They get you to download a file you want, and surreptitiously slip in a back door Trojan. Later, they come into your system through the convenient back door, and use your system to spam everybody with an inbox, or perhaps they host a porn site on your machine. They make the money and your ISP gets angry at you for spamming or spreading pictures of strange animal husbandry.
Should we deal with the stealing aspect? So many seem to think it's ok to steal music or e-books or movies that it's getting to the point that the talent will quit, and find something more profitable to do. Then, all that will be left will be those garage bands that sound like a truck full of empty barrels crashing into a burglar alarm factory. Gee, maybe I can make money selling earplugs.
Michael McMillan
