An interesting computer Risks article

The following is from RISKS issue 25.20. (sri.com). Be sure and visit the URL at the end and read the paper.


Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:30:49 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <[email protected]>
Subject: Tracking the Trackers: Piatek et al.

Michael Piatek, Tadayoshi Kohno, Arvind Krishnamurthy
University of Washington, Department of Computer Science & Engineering

Overview

As people increasingly rely on the Internet to deliver downloadable music,
movies, and television, content producers are faced with the problem of
increasing Internet piracy. To protect their content, copyright holders
police the Internet, searching for unauthorized distribution of their work
on websites like YouTube or peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent. When
infringement is (allegedly) discovered, formal complaints are issued to
network operators that may result in websites being taken down or home
Internet connections being disabled.

Although the implications of being accused of copyright infringement
are significant, very little is known about the methods used by
enforcement agencies to detect it, particularly in P2P networks. We
have conducted the first scientific, experimental study of monitoring
and copyright enforcement on P2P networks and have made several
discoveries which we find surprising. ...

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