U.S. cable and media companies are still revving up the so-called "six-strikes" Copyright Alert system - even after a prototype model of the system is closing down in France.

The Copyright Alert system, also known as the "six strikes" warning system, is designed to create a mechanism where Internet Service Providers will inform subscribers that someone with their IP address appears to be downloading copyrighted material, such as music and movies. After six such notices, subscribers could face sanctions - such as throttling of their Internet connections.

The new system was supposed to start in 2011 and then again in August of 2012, but has been delayed by reported deployment issues.

Formed as part of an agreement with five major U.S. Internet providers (AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the six-strikes system would enable third-party monitoring companies (so-called "media defenders") to report illegal downloading to the ISP of the offender.

At that point, according to Don Bowman of Sandvine, ISPs will "notify their subscribers who have been identified as downloading infringing content on behalf of the media defender, but not to provide the identity of the subscriber to the media defender or attempt to determine what content is potentially being infringed."

The idea is that once subscribers receive one or two of these notifications, which will presumably escalate in tone, they will take action and cease the illegal downloading.

Well, that's the idea.

Not-So-Gay Paris

In France this summer, Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti condemned a similar system called Hadopi as being ineffective, particularly in light of how much it cost.

"In financial terms, [spending] €12 million and 60 agents - that's expensive to send a million e-mails," Filippetti told Le Nouvel Observateur in July.

Besides being expensive, Hadopi's ultimate punishment (which comes after three strikes, not six), exclusion from the Internet for anywhere from three months to one year, was looked upon by French and other European lawmakers as too harsh. Even third-strike Hadopi offenders never had the trigger pulled on this final punishment.

In the U.S., the Center For Copyright Information, the coalition that will be responsible for managing the Copyright Alert system, has been very careful to emphasize the educational rather than the punitive aspects of the new system. Executive Director Jill Lesser took great pains to make this point in a recent op-ed on CNN.

"Our work at CCI is about educating consumers about how to legally and ethically enjoy the movies and music they love," Lesser wrote.

Is There a Point?

My ReadWriteWeb colleague John Paul Titlow has already explained very well why the new Copyright Alert system is toothless. Habitual offenders of copyright violations will hardly care about the new system, when it is put in place.

So why bother? After all, even the CCI acknowledges that even though ISPs will not be identifying offenders it notifies, copyright holders and their media defender proxies will still be working to identify copyright offenders the way they used to, by formally requesting the identity of Internet subscribers so legal action can be pursued.

There are a couple of reasons why the Copyright Alert system is likely to still move forward, barring an unexpected snafu.

• Chase Off the Amateurs. This is the big bet that the MPAA and the RIAA are making: scare off the small-time abusers who could comprise most of the violations. A missed episode of TV here, a movie there… the kind of every-so-often casual infringement that keeps the demand for downloaded media high and steady. Reduce the traffic enough, and then maybe the illicit download sites will start to fade from lack of traffic.

  P2P traffic on BitTorrent, though, should only benefit from fewer leeches downloading files and not seeding them back, but casual Internet users probably aren't using BitTorrent anyway.

• Reconnect the Cord. Remember, the six-strikes system is supposed to be about education. Not only will it try to educate subscribers why downloading content is naughty, but notices will also make a concerted effort to steer them towards legitimate media sources. And what better source than the ISP's own cable television service? Every one of the participants in the Copyright Alert system has a companion television offering, and this could be the selling point to get the ISPs on board. By offering the appropriate cable service to downloaders trying to get content that's available on cable TV, there is a chance that cable providers could see a little more revenue coming their way.

  This is a small side benefit for the ISPs, but they're likley to look kindly on any opportunity to reduce cord-cutting.

For the average user, the new alert system will not seriously affect their Internet habits. If you are predisposed to downloading illegal content, then you'll still find a way. But as long as the RIAA and MPAA remain committed to stopping piracy through any means necessary, PR-based campaigns like this will continue to be a weapon in their anti-piracy arsenals.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

You might think your existing broadband Internet connection is fast enough. It’s not. When it comes to Internet speeds, more is always better. That’s why we all owe some sincere gratitude to the intrepid men and women who bring truly high-speed Internet into our homes.

This post is a message of sincere appreciation - a love letter if you will - to the cable guy who recently upgraded the Internet connection in my San Francisco home. Whether you know it or not, you’ve made my life better in so many ways.

I’ve had broadband access at my home since DSL came to San Francisco in the 1990s. So I didn’t think getting faster service would make all that much of a difference in my life. Boy was I wrong.

My family and I just upgraded our cable Internet service from about 10 Mbps to 50 Mbps. And then we bought a new Wi-Fi router to extend that service to all our wireless devices. Now, 10Mbps isn’t that slow, and 50Mbps is far from the fastest service around (heck, ReadWriteWeb’s headquarters clocks in at an awesome 100Mbps). But I am still stunned at how much the change is affecting how we all use the Internet. And how much I want to hug the Astound cable guy who brought it to us.

Easy Upgrade

Compared to the early days of broadband, the process was amazingly simple. The Astound technician came out to our 115-year-old Victorian with a new Cisco DPC3010 cable modem (actually showing up in the first half hour of the promised 4-hour window!) The tech replaced our old unit and checked out the cabling in less than an hour. Bam, the speed of our hardwired connections instantly quintupled! No fuss, no muss.

Except that the increase was only visible on wired connection, not the fleet of smartphones, tablets, laptops and other devices where we do most of our work (and play). They got a bump to about 20Mbps. Faster, but suddenly pokey next to the wired connections.

Even though we had a relatively recent Belkin router using the modern 802.11n Wi-Fi specification, it simply couldn’t keep up. The tech - remember how much I love him? - recommended getting a new router that supported the DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) 3.0 standard. And because we have a mix of Apple, Windows and other devices in the house, my spouse decided to choose simplicity over economy and we splurged for an Apple AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi router.

Although its $179 price is almost double that of competing devices with similar specs, it was by far the easiest router to install and configure that I’ve ever used. Everything was up and running within five minutes, with none of the false starts and geeky questions I’ve encountered setting up other wireless systems over the years. I wouldn’t have chosen it, but I can’t say I missed the headaches.

More importantly, though, suddenly every device in the house was testing out at 50Mbps downloads. 

Faster Everything

The conventional wisdom holds that just about any broadband connection is sufficient for browsing the Web, and that faster connections don’t really provide much benefit in this regard.

Thanks to our cable guy, I can confidently state that conventional wisdom is dead wrong.

Web browsing at 50Mbps is noticeably faster and less annoying than browsing at 10Mbps. In most cases, pages begin loading faster and images show up along with the text, not a second or two later. Downloading large files, from software applications to data sets to high-resolution images is now something we do in real time, rather than a process we start and let run in the background. 

If general browsing got a mild boost from the faster speeds, working with Software as a Service (SaaS) applications delivered over the Internet enjoyed a serious kick in the pants. Gmail and Google Docs suddenly seemed almost as fast as email or productivity software running on a local machine.

Better Streaming

Perhaps the biggest, most noticeable improvement came when consuming streaming content. At 50Mbps, YouTube and other online videos leap into action, instantly jumping ahead with plenty of buffer room. Nice to see on the desktop, but positively intoxicating on an iPad or other tablet, which now seems seamlessly connected to the entire Internet. (I murmur soft words of thanks to the cable guy every time I watch anything on a tablet.)

I now find that I want to have the iPad close at hand at all times, because it’s just so darn easy to watch anything online as soon as I can type it in. Just as important, I’m now wondering why I need a tablet with 64GB of storage space when I can grab stuff from the Net just as quickly. (That makes my new Google Nexus 7 tablet seem more inviting.)

Not surprisingly, that holds true when using streaming media services - whether on a computer, iPad or big-screen TV. Services such as Hulu or HBO Go perform almost as well as our satellite TV service - and our Apple TV box delivers a more TV-like experience than ever before. If it weren’t for live sports, I’d already be considering cutting the cord. (I worry that the cable guy wouldn't like that, though.)

Better Backups and Sharing

All of the members of my household rely on Dropbox to sync and share files, and some of us even pay for extra space. And one of us relies on Apple’s iCloud to sync huge chunks of data among many devices. But syncing all that data to new devices used to take hours, and it churned through much of our 100GB per month data cap. No more. At 50Mbps down and 6Mbps up, those syncs and backups happen much faster. Syncing and backing up to the cloud now seems like a much more reasonable option than it used to.

Upload speeds are often the Achilles' heel of cloud services, but 6Mbps is fast enough to help ease the bottleneck. Still, if the cable guy wants me to buy him chocolates, it would be nice to have upload speeds closer to the downloads.

Bigger Data Limits

When you add up all this stuff, it’s pretty clear that my family is likely to churn through a lot more bandwidth every month - and we were already incurring fees by exceeding our old plan’s limit of 100GB per month. The new plan ups our data transfer limit to 300GB per month, but with the extra speed encouraging all these new uses, we’re actually worried we may blow past that figure as well!

We made the switch because we cycle through a lot of data in our house, and it seemed to make sense. But I think we were all surprised at how much a five-times boost in speed changed the quality and quantity of our Internet usage. I’ve become an instant convert to the idea that the future of the Internet requires that everyone get not just broadband, but really fast broadband.

I hear that Verizon FiOS now offers up to 300Mbps. A week ago, I would have said that’s ridiculous. Now I’m wondering if those speeds will ever be available in San Francisco (if not from FiOS, which apparently won't be built out any more than it already has been, then from another provider). Sorry cable guy, I appreciate how much you’ve done for me, but if the phone company guy shows up with six times faster service, I’m going with him.

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock.

How extensive is the alleged book piracy? Demonoid.me users are said to have swapped copies of Photoshop CS5 All-In-One For Dummies more than 74,000 times, according to the lawsuit.

The defendants, all of whom reside in New York state, are being sued for copyright and trademark infringement, as well as trademark counterfeiting, which the company claims may dilute the quality of its brand and thus incur even further costs.

This is a first for the publishing industry, who are following in the footsteps of Hollywood. Most famously, tens of thousands of users who used BitTorrent to download the widely-acclaimed and award-winning film The Hurt Locker were sued by the film's producers. Many of those defendants settled out of court, as is common in cases like these.

Despite the popularity of legitimate e-book marketplaces like Amazon's Kindle Store and Apple's iBooks, digital book piracy has grown in recent years, with some best-sellers being illegally downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

It remains to be seen how this case unfolds, or if other book publishers follow Wiley in the practice of suing BitTorrent users for copyright infringement.

True to its word, Comcast has indeed backed off from throttling Bit Torrent traffic, as new data from Measurement Lab demonstrates. Three years ago, the company interfered with about half of all Bit Torrent traffic on its networks. Today, that number is down to 3%.

Most other American ISPs are largely steering clear of the practice as well, for the most part. The most egregious offender in the data set was Clearwire, who was found to be throttling about 17% of Bit Torrent traffic in the first quarter of 2010.

This type of network traffic management is apparently much more common in Canada, where most major ISPs do it, sometimes blocking as much as 78% of the traffic, which is far more than Comcast was ever caught doing. In Britain, things are a bit more mixed. BT Group throttled about 27% of Bit Torrent traffic, while another big ISP, BSkyB, only blocked 3% of it.

ISPs in France and Sweden allow their customers to exchange files via Bit Torrent without limitations.

The compete data set, complete with interactive charts is available for your curious perusal here.

The TDL-4 botnet is 4.5 million PCs strong. It has some unique features that make it difficult to remove such as a powerful rootlet exploitation and the ability to disable other malware that is installed on a computer. Those features make it difficult to detect and remove the malware, but that is not what makes the botnet indestructible. The way TDL-4 communicates with its command-and-control center and other infected computers is what makes it unique.

Using Encryption to Hide

Users usually think using encryption to transfer data and messages is a good thing on the Internet. In general, it is (despite the headaches associated with implementing and maintaining HTTPS). TDL-4 uses encryption against security defenders by swapping the table created for outgoing HTTP requests and eventually converting it to HTTPS using Secure Socket Layers (SSL) to connect to the command-and-control server.

Here is how the Kaspersky team describes the process:

"This table is activated with two keys: the domain name of the botnet command and control server, and the bsh parameter. The source request is encrypted and then converted to base64. Random strings in base64 are prepended and appended to the received message. Once ready, the request is sent to the server using HTTPS."

Here is Kaspersky's breakdown of the 4.5 million infected computers:

Essentially, TDL-4 uses peer-to-peer networking that enables it to hide the command-and-control center and also move the server so that it does not have one centrally-identifiable location. It encrypts the P2P communication, making it nearly impossible to track.

The Malware That Kills Malware

In the wild, only the strong survive. TDL-4 recognizes that it is stronger than its competitors, but also the fact that its competitors' behavior provides a threat to detection.

Botnet malware doesn't want the user to know that it is hiding in the hard drive. That means digging deep into the rootkit and kernel of the machine and tricking the rest of the system that everything is just fine. Yet, less sophisticated malware has tell-tale signs that it has infected a user's device such as unusual packet bursts, slowing of the machine and general odd performance issues.

So, TDL-4 kills the competing malware. The malware is a bootkit that accesses a computer's MBR (master boot record). It does this to hide from security programs and increase the life-cycle of the malware. The TDL-4 code, known as TDSS, has the ability to delete the most common viruses found on a computer, such as Zeus. It then downloads its own malware, such as "fake antivirus programs, adware and the Pushdo spambot," according to Kaspersky.

Unique Behavior

P2P botnets are increasing and the evolution is making it harder to track and destroy the networks. TDL-4 uses a unique method - it uses a public KAD P2P network to send and receive queries. This helps the botnet stay decentralized while also acquiring new devices that are using KAD to share files and applications.

TDSS also works to "poison" search engine results and advertising networks, creating proxy affiliates that can help download the malware to computers. We will have more on malware using P2P and "search engine poisoning" next week.

Although as we reported yesterday, Netflix now surpasses P2P Internet traffic - in North America at least - but this doesn't mean that this isn't a popular avenue by which many people access movie entertainment. Rather than fighting BitTorrent, the makers of The Tunnel are embracing it.

The film may be unique for its P2P distribution strategy, but it's also taken a different tactic in financing as well. The filmmakers Julian Harvey and Enzo Tedeschi crowdfunded the production, selling supporters individual frames of the film. DVDs are also on sale, but the BitTorrent of the film is available for free with the filmmakers' full permission.

The plot of The Tunnel, according to the film's website:

In 2007 the New South Wales government suddenly scrapped a plan to utilise the water in the disused underground train tunnels beneath Sydney's St James Train Station.

In 2008, chasing rumours of a government coverup and urban legends surrounding the sudden backflip, investigative journalist Natasha Warner led a crew of four into the underground labyrinth.

They went down into the tunnels looking for a story - until the story found them.

This is the film of their harrowing ordeal. With unprecedented access to the recently declassified tapes they shot in the claustrophobic subway tunnels, as well as a series of candid interviews with the survivors, we come face to face with the terrifying truth.

This never before seen footage takes us deep inside the tunnels bringing the darkness to life and capturing the raw fear that threatens to tear the crew apart, leaving each one of them fighting for their lives.

Eek.

You can download the official torrent or find the film in the BitTorrent's new App Studio.

The research is being undertaken by the Cybernorms group at Sweden's Lund University. The sociologists are interested in how the Internet shapes norms - both social and legal - and this study looks more closely on how those norms play out vis-a-vis file-sharing. "With your help," reads the survey's introduction, "we hope to create a knowledge base that will influence new laws and law enforcement related to the Internet."

The survey is very simple, and you can fill it out in just a couple of minutes. Because the sensitive (and potentially illegal) nature of the responses, everything in the survey is confidential and no personally identifiable information will be tracked.

The Cybernorms group made headlines with its research several years ago that analyzed users' behavioral changes when file-sharing became illegal. That research found that there were no social norms that inhibited people from file-sharing.

Moreover, it also found that making file-sharing illegal would do little to stop the practice: "There are strong indications that neither the law in itself nor new legal attempts at enforcing copyright will change the social norm on illegal file sharing. To the opposite, there is a documented willingness of paying for anonymity, keeping the internet flow of content, rather than return to a system of payment for each product."

As one of the most popular BitTorrent sites in the world, The Pirate Bay has a clear interest in supporting this research. And in turn, by collaborating with The Pirate Bay, researchers now have access to a sizable population of active file-sharers. We'll keep you posted on the results.

According to a study released today by the market research company NPD Group, a market research group, it is. The company contends that since a federal judge ordered that the peer-to-peer site Limewire shut its doors in the fall of last year, that the peer-to-peer filesharing of music - both the number of files downloaded and the number of users of the P2P sites - has declined.

The NPD reports that the percentage of Internet users in the U.S. that are using P2P services for music has fallen from a high of 16% in the fourth quarter of 2007 to just 9% in the fourth quarter of 2010. The average number of files downloaded declined from 35 tracks per person to 18 tracks per person over the same time period. There are now roughly 16 million P2P users downloading music, 12 million fewer than in 2007.

"LimeWire was so popular for music file trading, and for so long, that its closure has had a powerful and immediate effect on the number of people downloading music files from peer-to-peer services and curtailed the amount being swapped," says Russ Crupnick, NPD's entertainment industry analyst.

While the NPD statistics make the actions against LimeWire seem like a win for the music industry, but it's worth scrutinizing the argument closely. LimeWire was used by about 56% of those using P2P services, NPD reports, but that doesn't mean that those users simply stopped file-sharing. After all, while Limewire was shuttered, other P2P sites reported an increased usage.

Furthermore, over that same time period studied in the report - from 2007 to 2010 - a number of new options have become available for Internet users to get their music. Streaming and subscription services like Spotify and Pandora have changed the way that music is consumed online.

The NPD study was gathered from self-reported data, which also makes its findings a little difficult to say much about. But no matter the origin of the data here, it's a bit of a stretch to contend that LimeWire's closure means less piracy. Less file-sharing? Maybe. Less piracy? I'm not sure. Regardless of the accuracy, it's likely we'll see these statistics invoked by those that argue that going after P2P websites is a good move for the music industry.

In December, Google said it was taking steps towards "making copyright work better online." Among other things, it promised that "terms that are closely associated with piracy" would no longer appear in autocompletes.

Although it may be seen as an effort to crack down on illegal file sharing, the move is a troubling one, particularly for those who provide BitTorrent services. No surprise, these companies are quick to point out that there are many legitimate uses for torrents.

Forbidden from Autocomplete Arbitrarily?

Part of the problem with this new implementation, as TorrentFreak noted when it broke the story, the list of banned terms is "seemingly arbitrary." No version of the word "torrent" will work for instant search - neither the software "uTorrent," nor "BitTorrent," the name of a protocol and a San Francisco-based company. But while the cyberlockers RapidShare and Megaupload are now forbidden, other sites like HotFile and MediaFire are not. Furthermore, you can still find the names of other popular torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay.

TorrentFreak cites a response from RapidShare, who say that "We knew about Google's plans for quite a few weeks now. We embrace that certain search suggestions will not put a wrong complexion on RapidShare anymore, but we are concerned that at the same time the legitimate interests of our users will also be affected."

The company adds that "RapidShare is one of the most popular websites worldwide. Every day hundreds of thousands of users rely on our services to pursue their perfectly legitimate interests. That is why Google has obviously gone too far with censoring the results of its suggest algorithm. A search engine's results should reflect the users' interests and not Google's or anybody else's."

For now, you can still search for torrent information. While your search queries won't autocomplete, the results aren't censored. Yet.

Image credits: TorrentFreak

So rumors that The Pirate Bay is launching a music project may strike fear - or at least disconcertment - in the hearts of industry execs. It's apt, perhaps, that a new project - fear.themusicbay.org - is supposedly in the works.

According to a report this weekend at Torrent Freak, folks at the Pirate Bay have registered the Music Bay domain and "the major record labels have good reason to be afraid, very afraid." The site no longer displays the "comming soon" [sic] announcement, but Torrent Bay says that something is in the works in the next few months.

Torrent Freak wasn't able to secure more details about the project, other than it's set to coincide with an April anniversary of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

Even if it's just an MP3 file that jumps out of a large birthday cake at the IFPI's celebration - or, a bit more likely, just a nice domain name, news that The Pirate Bay is plotting something may be enough to make the industry worry, particularly having just released details that the industry's overall worth has declined a downward spiral.

Flattr lets users "Like" websites and content, but that action is backed with real money. Before this new donation feature was added, the money in your Flattr account was split evenly each month among all the sites you've "flattred." And while you can still use the service that way, you'll also be able to donate a specific amount - a minimum of €2, up to €50. "We think this will take the system to a whole other level beyond just tips," says Flattr's Eileen Burbidge.

On every user-profile page, you will now find a "Donate" button. Click it and you can give some of your available means away. This donation can be made anonymously.

As we suggested last month, Flattr's new feature will likely benefit WikiLeaks, as Flattr remains one of the only ways to make a donation to the site now that PayPal, Visa and MasterCard have closed those paths to funding. Beyond the support for WikiLeaks, Flattr has developed a small but thriving network of users: since opening its beta, it has gained 46,056 registered users and has passed more than €114,057 through its peer-to-peer payment system.

If you're still looking for more ways and more things to Flattr, a developer has taken Flattr's API and built Flattr4Android, a tool that will let users scan a QR code off-line. This code is tied to a Flattr account, making it easy for you to submit and flattr content via your mobile phone.

With these changes, Flattr address two things poised to be big trends this year: the growth of mobile money and expansion of peer-to-peer networks.

These clients use the BitTorrent protocol, a peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol that's used to distribute large amounts of data. Rather than downloading a file from a single source, BitTorrent allows users to join a "swarm" of hosts that can upload and download files in pieces.

BitTorrent (the company) is just one of many that offers the client software to handle BitTorrent (the protocol).

The company has released additional statistics about the usage of its clients: There are over 20 million daily active users, and the client is downloaded an average of 400,000 times per day. The software is available in 52 languages, and the clients check in from over 220 countries every day.

Although the P2P protocol has long been associated with digital piracy, BitTorrent made a number of agreements with content creators such as Pioneer One and the Yes Men in order to distribute their works.

It's not a complete picture of all torrents, of course, but KickassTorrents is one of the top 10 torrent sites in terms of visitors, and the searches are probably fairly indicative of what people are searching for on BitTorrent.

Clearly, it's movies. Or at least, searches for movies seem to dominate the zeitgeist. 5 of the top 10 search terms are movie titles. At the top of the list was Inception, with Iron Man 2, Avatar, Despicable Me, and Clash of the Titans also in the top 10. Not surprisingly, these films also showed up on an earlier TorrentFreak list: the most pirated movies of the year. Avatar, it's worth pointing out, has the distinction of being the top grossing film of all time and the most pirated film of the year.

Also among the top 10 search terms: porn and xxx. Windows 7 is the first software-related search term in the list, in 20th place. Despite music industry brouhaha about filesharing, music searches do not rank highly. Eminem is the first music mention, at number 47.

Here's the top 20, but you can find the full list of 100 here:

1. inception
2. iron man 2
3. 2010
4. xxx
5. french
6. avatar
7. dvdrip
8. despicable me
9. porn
10. clash of the titans
11. toy story 3
12. glee
13. salt
14. twilight eclipse
15. dexter
16. the sorcerer's apprentice
17. axxo
18. robin hood
19. prince of persia
20. windows 7

The news wasn't good for LimeWire back in October when a U.S. District Court judge issued an injunction, forcing the P2P filesharing site to close down both the website and its client. And arguably, things went from bad to worse when a figure named MetaPirate took advantage of the open-source code for the client and recreated a Pirate Edition of LimeWire, causing both the RIAA as well as LimeWire to scramble to track him down. Those meddling kids.

But according to Peter Kafka, other parts of the company are now closing shop as well. The home page of the LimeWire store announces that it's no longer accepting customers. And the company has told vendors that the store will close on Dec. 31. Kafka surmises that the company is trying to eliminate some of its remaining assets before the court decides early next year exactly how much it owes the music industry for copyright violations.

The company had long indicated it planned to launch a music subscription service, but those plans now seem unlikely as well. Considering such a project would require licensing agreements with the very businesses that have sought to shut LimeWire down, that's not really a surprise. Once the world's most-installed filesharing application, this looks to really be the end of LimeWire.

The DNS, or Domain Name System, is one of the foundational elements of the Internet, responsible for translating the numbers in IP addresses to the more human-friendly names. And ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a nonprofit organization tasked with managing both the IPv4 and IPv6 Internet Protocol address spaces, maintaining the registries of IP identifiers, and managing top-level domain names.

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde recently tweeted that he long ago lost his trust in ICANN, arguing that the "core of the DNS problem is not ICANN. It's that governments and companies can control ICANN (i.e. it's centralised)." Indeed, it appears as though the U.S. government has ordered ICANN to remove the names of copyright infringing websites from the global DNS. So in response, Sunde has called for an alternative - and most importantly, distributed - domain name system.

A Distributed Alternative to the Domain Name System

Arguing that "we want the internet to be uncensored," Sunde has formed a group to work on the project, a DNS that would not utilize a centralized root but would instead take advantage of peer-to-peer technology. He writes, "By using existing technology for de-centralisation together with already having a crew with skilled programmers, communicators and network specialists, an alternative system is not far away. We're not going to re-invent the wheel, we're going to build on existing technology as much as possible."

The technology may exist to make a BitTorrent-based alternative possible, but such a system would face a massive uphill battle to provide a viable alternative - in terms of delivering speed and performance, but also in terms of gaining widespread adoption. And as Ars Technica notes, one of the biggest problems will be around the ownership of domain names. "The stakes are high," writes Iljitsch van Beijnum, "even a small fraction of the traffic of a popular site, or even just an interesting search term, can be worth a lot of money. It's hard to imagine that with such high stakes there wouldn't be any abuse of such an open system, or at the very least, widely diverging points of view of what's best."

Despite these obstacles, Sunde's proposal has been met enthusiastically in some circles, which considering the intersection of politics and web technologies over this past week, is hardly a surprise.

The Pirate Bay never actually hosted copyrighted materials, instead providing a means to search for as well as links to the torrent files. Nonetheless the court said that "The Pirate Bay has facilitated illegal file-sharing in a way that results in criminal liability for those who run the service. For the three defendants the court of appeal believes it is proven that they participated in these activities in different ways and to varying degrees." This translates into a varying prison sentence ranging from 4 to 10 months for the three, who will share equally the total damages of 46 million kroner.

In justifying the increase in damages in this ruling, the appeals court said that it had "to a greater extent than the district court, accepted the plaintiff companies' evidence of its losses as a result of file-sharing."

A fourth defendant from the original conviction, Gottfrid Svartholm, was not included in today's verdict as he was absent at the court hearings due to medical circumstances. His case is still pending.

While awarding large damages in these sorts of cases has become common, sentencing people to prison is unusual. Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak that ""They're giving us jail even though it's not the right thing for the 'crime.' It's just to scare people. That's what you did in the 1600s." He indicated that the group intends to appeal today's decision to the Swedish Supreme Court.

One of the entertainment industry lawyers, Monique Wadsted, is quoted in the New York Times as saying "My assessment is that in two years this type of piracy activity will be completely dead." However the court battles, including today's ruling, have yet to impact the ability of The Pirate Bay to stay online.

A New York district judge last Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order, demanding that LimeWire immediately close its doors. And while LimeWire has said it has plans to institute a redesigned service, based on legal and licensed music subscriptions, it seems like many of the site's users may have gone elsewhere for their torrents, rather than waiting for a revised version of what was once the most popular file-sharing app.

TorrentFreak reports that it has spoken with a number of developers from P2P services, all of whom have seen a "huge boost in download numbers following Tuesday's verdict." No developers were willing to go on the record and give TorrentFreak the raw data - for fear, no doubt, of incurring the same wrath of the courts that LimeWire has received.

The exception is BearShare. Much like LimeWire, BearShare was once a Gnutella-based application. But in May 2006, BearShare was ordered to pay $30 million in settlement with the RIAA. Following that decision, BearShare altered its offerings via the Gnutella framework, limiting file-sharing. And its current iteration is, as the site proclaims "100% legal."

Despite these restrictions, BearShare has seen a 780% increase in US downloads since Tuesday. And it reports its daily US downloads went up from 8000 to 62,400. The company does not say, however, whether or not these new sers are actually paying for their downloads. (That is, I believe, what the RIAA believes will save all those poor suffering record labels.)

Even though the LimeWire alternatives have seen an influx of traffic over the past week, the fallout from last week's decision - and the still-to-come decision regarding the dollar figure attached to the judgement - remains to be seen as to how it will impact file-sharing services and users.

The attack was part of Operation Payback, a campaign that over the past few weeks has been targeting organizations who legislate and litigate in support of copyright laws. Loosely organized by Anonymous, a group of Internet "vigilantes" has launched a series of denial-of-service attacks against the likes of the MPAA, the RIAA, the UK Intellectual Property Office, as well as against the KISS bassman.

The direct action campaign has effectively shut down sites that have been most vocal (and litigious) about their pro-copyright and anti-piracy stances. It has also targeted law offices that have been deemed to be part of a what TorrentFreak has called "pay-up-or-else" schemes, threats of legal action aimed at alleged file-sharers. Anonymous's DDoS attacks have targeted well over a dozen sites over the past few weeks.

According to TorrentFreak, the attacks against Gene Simmons were controversial among those associated with Anonymous, some arguing that it's better to target the legal mechanisms of the film and music industry, rather than artist themselves. But Simmons has painted a fairly large target on himself (or on his site, at least), by speaking out in recent weeks against file-sharing, arguing that the music industry should be suing more people: "Make sure your brand is protected, be litigious, sue anybody - take their homes, their cars, Don't let anybody cross that line."

Simmons's site is down at the time of publishing (Update: as of Monday morning, the website now redirects to the BitTorrent site Pirate Bay), but Slyck posted a copy of the response to the DDoS attack that was posted there yesterday:

Some of you may have heard a few popcorn farts re: our sites being threatened by hackers.

Stay tuned

As Slyck notes, the ability to identify those who are participating in a distributed denial-of-service attack would be pretty challenging, if not impossible. But Simmons's threats and attitude (not to mention his lack of understanding of "hackers") echoes his misunderstanding that everyone who participates in peer-to-peer file-sharing is a criminal who needs to have their pants sued off or end up in jail.

Better round up the KISS Army, Gene. This battle could be brutal.

That's what Lokast, the self-described "disposable" social network lets you do - carry your throw-away lifestyle over into the digital world.

The LoKast iPhone app was released earlier this week at the South By South West festival in Austin and is the perfect app for finding yourself among throbbing masses of the technologically inclined. But what is this disposable thing? From the email we received this week on the app's release:

Disposable? Yes. That means unlike Facebook which is friends and family, this app is about finding random people in close range and being able to share and see parts of their public digital profile including downloading their public-share videos, music and pictures. The best part, is that after you're in that close range, you may never see them again. IE: Disposable.

According to the press release, the name is short for "local casting", as opposed to broadcasting, and "aims to eliminate the need for physical media sharing, thereby eradicating physical CDs, plastic cases, video DVDs or waiting to get back to a PC computer to share and experience content."

We have to agree that SXSW seems like the perfect venue for this type of app and we'd say why not give it a shot? We haven't made it all the way downtown yet to be close enough to give it a full whirl, but it looks more than capable from toying with it.

Now, the thing is, we can't see a lot of people using this outside of big, hi-tech cities or conferences. Where does this fit into our day to day life? Are we really going to run around town staring at my screen trying to see if someone else with the same app is nearby? We don't think so. For now, though, we'd say give it an install and run around collecting some demos and see what people are listening to.

In our reporting on P2P issues, it's rare these days to get wind of some good news; today, we've learned that this plan to ban would not, in fact, apply to most file-sharing fiends. After one ISP stood up to the government's proposals by circulating a petition, the government responded favorably, saying, "We are not requiring ISPs to monitor for unlawful file-sharing. Nor are we proposing that ISPs look at what users download in order to combat piracy... We will not terminate the accounts of infringers."

The fear, uncertainty and doubt about the UK's policy on illegal file-sharing stems from the introduction of the Digital Economy Bill, published on November 20, 2009. The bill "sets out in detail our proposed legislation to tackle on-line copyright infringement, including unlawful peer to peer file-sharing," according to the government.

However, UK ISP TalkTalk vigorously objected to some of the measures laid out in the bill and drafted and circulated an e-petition to abandon the idea that illegal P2P file-sharing should result in a permanent ban from the Internet for guilty users.

"If citizens are innocent until proven guilty," the petition reads, "ISPs would be forced to monitor internet usage to ensure that no copyrighted material is being transferred. This flagrant disregard for privacy is comparable to forcing the Post Office to search through parcels for photocopied documents or mixtape cassettes. Such requirements would place enormous strain on ISPs whilst failing to prevent the distribution of copyrighted material...

"Who is punished in the case of shared family connections? The increasing role of the Internet in access to society should not be underestimated. Cutting off households deprives families of education, government services and freedom of speech. We do not see this as a fitting punishment, nor do we believe the breaches in privacy involved to be justifiable under copyright law."

The government's full response states that officials are working with rights holders and media companies to find a balanced and equitable solution to illegal file-sharing - one that includes attractive, legal options for end users to access content, as well.

The Digital Economy Bill will require ISPs to notify users whose accounts had been flagged by a copyright holder as having been used for illegal file-sharing. "In the cases of the most serious infringers," reads the response, "if a rights holder obtains a court order, the ISP would have to provide information so that the rights holder can take targeted court action." As a last resort, the Bill provides for ISPs' taking technical measures to stop illegal downloading, ranging from bandwidth restriction, daily downloading limits and temporary Internet account suspension.

All in all, the government hopes to see a 70 percent reduction in illegal P2P downloads.

It'll be interesting to see how various national laws and regulations hold up if something like ACTA ends up being passed. In a nutshell, a U.S.-drafted chapter of this treaty on Internet use would require ISPs to police user-generated content, to cut off Internet access for copyright violators and to remove content that is accused of copyright violation without any proof of actual violation - a far cry from the more lenient proposals we're reading from the UK.

Let us know what you think in the comments.