RSSFirefox Extension Promises Private P2P
By Ed Oswald | Published August 24, 2006, 5:00 PM
AllPeers released a beta Thursday of what it called the most ambitious Firefox extension to date, a peer-to-peer application that would allow friends and family to share files and content between one another in a private setting.
Unlike the major P2P networks, AllPeers allows the sharing of files securely and privately.
The application has been released on Firefox's extensions Web site, and is compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The AllPeers backend uses BitTorrent in combination with what is calls a "darknet," where the computer user will remain anonymous while transferring files.
Its decentralized nature, however, will likely give the RIAA and MPAA fits, as the two groups have spent much of the last several years focusing on shutting down P2P networks. Without a centralized server on which to target, it could be near impossible to track what is being traded via AllPeers unless the groups infiltrate the small networks of individuals.
AllPeers project head and CEO Cedric Maloux stressed that the application was for private transfer only. "AllPeers is for sharing privately with friends and family; not for massively distributing files amongst strangers," he said.
The beta version still has several features missing that would make it into the final release of the software, including chat, comments, tagging, and support for external torrents. Maloux said bugs may be found across the service, which the developers would work out before the official launch.
"I am using AllPeers everyday and have stopped attaching files to email (this is soooo 2005)," Maloux wrote in a blog post describing the product. "I also love our ability to drag and share any picture off the web but my favorite feature has to be the ability to send a webpage to my friends just by drag and drop."
Those interested in the product can learn more by taking a product tour on the AllPeers Web site.
FIREFOX RULES!!!!!
YEAH!!!!!
KICKASS!!!!!
BEAT THAT YOU OPERA GEEKS!!!!!
FIERFOX!!!! FIREFOX!!!! FIREFOX!!!!
YEAH!!!!! ALL OTHER BROWSERS SUCK!!!!!!
FIREFOX!!!!!!!! KICKASS!!!!!
UNBEATABLE!!!!!!
sorry:D
Kinda felt summit like this was missing.
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|GOOD, this is nice!
But if there's IP, there's identity.
Unless theey use lots of IP proxy hacks to trick them.
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|Trick who? You're only at risk if you let the RIAA or equivalent into your closed network. Sure they might see your IP from the outside, but the data is encrypted, so they have no idea what data you're sharing.
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|I am amused by those whose entire world view consists only of ripping and trading music files!
If ignorance is bliss, we have some very happy folks here!
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|just stealing OPERA their show.
and - btw - there is no way to be anonymous on the internet - not if someone REALLY wants your ID. full stop.
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|En. Cryp. Tion.
Full stop.
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|When a producer makes a movie with new music, he has to pay a royalty to the artist, which royalty is recovered from the price of the ticket we pay to see the movie. So, indirectly, everyone of us pay a small royalty to listen to the music. Likewise, if we watch a beer advertisement, which happens to use the same music, we're paying again to listen to the same music whenever we buy that brand of beer, because the brewery has to pay a royalty for the commercial, too. So, what you are saying is that we should pay again if we want to listen to the music on a computer. Where does it end? The way some of you are talking, you want us to pay a fee every damn time we listen to the same music. Those b****ing that we are stealing are probably starving artists, unable to make a living without making us pay every time we listen to their music. Suggestion: write more music! We're not ripping you off. You're ripping us off because we're already paying too many times to listen to your music. Quit trying to be a greedy scavenger!!!
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|Excellent to share vacation photos and videos among friends and family. perfect.
Whats all this talk about illegal this and that?
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|Like most tools, it provides users an opportunity for legitimate use as well as illegitimate use!
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|I have heard that Internet Explorer will slowly become a p2p program (v. IE8??). Hovewer, it will allow for exchanging viruses and trojans only. Actually some functions of the Microsoft p2p already work with flying colours. The search engine will be integrated soon till then only random viruses can be downloaded right to your machine.
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|Ha. Ha. Ha. :/
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|Ooh. Clever.
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|creative joke - like it - °__°
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|Oi. As if people who use Firefox, use P2P, and want to avoid litigation from the RIAA and their international equivalents will find this extension very useful. Believe me.
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|...
Prisons are full of people who thought
they had committed the 'perfect crime'.
You may smirk like Scott Peterson today,
but you'll end up in the cell next to his
tomorrow.
...
The Computer Rodent
...
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|lmao...
Yeah. put 'em in prison for sharing music. That's rich.
You gonna foot the bill? If they put every music downloader in prison, we'd have to conquer South America....just for use as a prison colony. (And it'd still be crowded)
Brilliant.
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|...
"Yeah. put 'em
in prison for
sharing music"
...
No. For ~stealing~ what belongs to others.
So much for you being the big defender
of property rights !
But, your fav rodent would be open to
alternative sentencing schemes for
file-sharing crooks ...like public flogging,
deportation to a Third World Nation, or
having to spend the night at Neverland Ranch
with Michael Jackson.
...
The Computer Rodent
...
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|Property rights?
Nah. Here we're talking about Copyright. Two different entirely beasts unless you are trying confuse the issue....then it's always helpful to pull in similar yet different situations and comparisons.
Kinda like you just did.
Violation of copyright is wrong. Sure. But would you rather spend $1000 a month keeping the murderer locked up or the IP thief locked up...because $1000 is all you get.
Simple economics and application of scale, my friend.
...to anyone who bothers to actually think about it.
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|Of course.. i certainly want to ensure that the DoJ is spending it's time and effort to encourage the criminlization of a violation that has yet to be proven to cause signifigant harm, rather than violent criminals...
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|That's a brilliant idea. Then the next case an old and incapable driver kills another road user - $750 fine.
Our laws make sense, don't they? :P
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|I think Pando is better for the following reasons:
1. The sender and receiver does not have to be online at the same time.
2. With Allpeers, you will be limited by the upload speed of the sender. With Pando, you can download at full speed your connection can handle because the file comes from Pando servers and not from sender's computer. It can certainly make a difference if you are downloading files larger than 100 MB.
3. Pando works independent of the browser. Allpeers works only with Firefox.
Having said that, Allpeers is a welcome addition and adds a new dimension to P2P sharing but at the moment, Pando clearly has an advantage. Pando just needs to implement more of a "sharing" approach too in addition to the "sending" approach that it already has.
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|Pando has servers though, and thus is 'centralised'. If trading copyrighted files became serious on Pando, it would be shutdown, and likely any of it's users would be compromised.
AllPeers does not have this risk.
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|sweet.
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|and the blood sucking lawyers start swarming.
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|Firefox is teh stuff!
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|talking about LEGAL proposes seems to be very handy
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|Doesn't support Firefox 2. I'll see what happens when I override the compatibility check...
Also I don't think this is new. I recall an older beta of this or something like this being available. It was the same concept... you share files with PEOPLE YOU KNOW, not with anyone over the Internet. That is what will keep this program safe, I think.
OK It appears to work with Firefox 2 but does not:
- Registration does not work.
Some other critiques:
- Adds too much bloat. There is a main toolbar button that CANNOT BE MOVED OR REMOVED. WTF. What were they thinking?
- An additional useless toolbar. Fortunately THIS can be hidden.
- Additional status bar field that can't be removed or hidden.
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|Sounds like this will be useful only on the 'social networking' version of Firefox. ;)
http://www.flock.com/
...yech...
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|The registration thing is definately a pain right now. Hopefully the servers will clear up after a while.
The main toolbar button can be removed. Right-click on the toolbar, click customize and drag the button to the resulting icon box. All gone.
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|Sweet.
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|If they can pull this off, it will be a major coup!
And the RIAA is the least of the parties they are going to receive opposition from!
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|Care to enlighten us as to who will oppose this more than the RIAA?
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|Start with the Department of Homeland security! And the line forms here...
Look into the history of PGP and other effective public crypto products!
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|They can pull it off.. there is no way for anyone to find out what or who your shareing with unless you let them into your circle of shared people. How can get opposition when they have no clue who you are. once the program goes public, its over, there is nothing they can do. What can RIAA do if im shareing with 10 of my friends? Nothing, because they cant monitor anything, cant see anything - they are not part of the people I share with. They would have to look at every log of every user of every ISP to notice anything - good luck with that.
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|Dude, this is P2P via blind BitTorrent, not crypto.
...just sayin'.
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|Let's see... email privacy has been compromised in the form of public servers with Yahoo, not to mention the 'never private - no expectation of privacy per policy' privately held server based email, etc...
So the idea of zipping files and sending communiques via effectively encrypted and anonymous P2P and perhaps, if they are really swooft, adding public or private key encryption to the messages themselves as well....nevermind...no one would ever think of such a workaround to eavesdroppable email potentially available on such a wide scale!
I can say that if an enterprise is concerned about infosec and their intellectual property, it is valid grounds for policy to keep such a tool out of the workplace per SOX, HIPPA, ISO17799 or FISMA best practice guidlines.
Other then that, it is a pretty neat personal tool.
It all depends on whether you are 'buying' or 'selling' and where your interests lie!
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|Wow.
Privacy concerns such as HIPPA have nothing to do with P2P unless they're sending out personal data...which is a no-no regardless of the method used.
You seem to like those acronyms. You use them constantly.
You do realize, that even *without* bringing them up, it would be *obvious* to *anyone* in IT that such a tool should be kept *out* of the workplace, right?
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|Not only that, but sharing copyrighted files with a small groups of friends... is LEGAL. Under the NET act, you are allowed to distribute up to $1000 worth of copyrighted works every six moneths as long as there is no profit involed.
Just in case anyone wants to use that to justify P2P networks, that loophole is closed.
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|Darn, there go my plans of secretly sending out all the intellectual IP of my company... Now, I'll have to resort to the ol' USB drive again... ;-)
Ya know, if this were to go unchecked and really catches on, I bet you in a year or so IT departments will start doing one of two things; a) banning firefox in it's entirety, or b) finding a way to block extensions.
~dnc
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|That exactly is a possibility.
The irony is that I get to deal with the realities behind the acronyms every day.
And I only wish the above synopsis of HIPAA was correct, as not only is authorized and authenticated secure access a requirement of data, but secure transmissal of data is also a requirement.
But I guess it is a surprise to some that P2P tools can be used for purposes other than downloading music, or that others here just might have reason to be interested in capabilities and ramifications that extend beyond the downloading of music or simple benign file sharing.
My point was that, like most technologies, each tool has a positive and a negative side, and these are determined by your application and concerns. And the potential availability of a widely available default capability such as this is reason for concern many environments.
So yes, it has the potential to cause many legitimate operational concerns over its potential for abuse.
Oh, and in an aside, available software tools already provide the ability to prevent unauthorized USB devices from being used. ;-)
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|sweet!
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|P2P Strikes again! I love the idea of the anonymous private P2P. Now they need to make an anonymous World Wide P2P hosted off the coast of some country that isnt bound by american law, and we would be in business.
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|eXeem tried that, but as with this one you can still be tracked by your ISP to a certain extent, and your IP is visible.
If you want to use P2P without that risk, you need a proxy - or better still, a VPN. The Pirate Bay has just started offering such a service, called Relakks. You do need to pay for it, but I would have no qualms about doing so - it's a great offering.
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