I've used Limewire and Kazaa in the past and there are tons of virus' everywhere, but most are pretty easy to identify without downloading. Most of them are "dummy" files that have the same file size 856kb (something like that). So, if your dling something that should be more or less than that file size, be weary.

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Well, Public P2P networks are very vunerable, Limewire, Kazaa, Bearshare, Ares etc.

BUT, Private networks are alot safer. You need to be invited to join them, and in alot of cases, you need to share at least 20GB of data. Most servers are run using software called "SlavaNap". You can use over 50 different clients to connect to the servers. The most popular being WinMX 2.6-PATCHED (Reason: V2.6 is safer as it does not connect to the winmx site at all, and the patch stops all misc connections.) However, V2.6 does not support milti-sourcing.

All of the hardcore file-sharers use private networks, and they share about 4TB. Anyone sharing that on a public network is going to get gaught.

There are alot of private networks out there, but only a handfull of good ones. Im not going to mention any as thet would be stupid, and there will be an influx of kiddies begging to join them.

"<OpenNap 743 users 2141480 files 347490 gigs from 6 serv>"
There are so many files the word "servers" does not fit...

 

 

 

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Personally I don't really think your statistics are especially acurate. I've been using Peer-to-Peer networks for about five years now, and have yet to get a virus as a result from it. Then again, I'm fairly careful about what i download.

Most of the spyware you'll get from P2P is in your program itself--not files that you download with it. A good example of that is Kazaa.

As far as getting in legal trouble...if you're worried then just download using bittorrent (which happens to be the fastest network advailable anyways) as there has yet to be any bittorrent user who as been sued (they're just going after the people hosting the trackers). That, and they can't prove that you have an illigal file unless they download the entire thing from you--which is pretty damn hard to do concidering how the bittorrent network is setup. Ofcourse, I'm not encouraging you to partake in illigal activies...but if you are anyways you mind as well protect yourself.

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As long as you NEVER download any exe, rar, zip or other archive file you will be ok. On private networks, almost every file is safe. As the user checks each file usually...

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That removes about 99.99% of the files worth downloading right there. You don't have to be quite that paranoid, but if something looks supicious then investigate more before downloading it.

Oh, and I love your avatar cragllo

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Ok then, don't download programs like exe, rar, zip or other archive file that you know should be about 100MB+ and are only about 1MB...

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Wow thanks for the warning guys but i use Shareaza sure its free and public but it has faster speeds basically no viruses and better search results. I dont know but im pretty sure that its faster speeds and seems to be private but it also has a built in chat feature.

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Almost all P2P programs have chat, But by private I mean you have to be invited to join the servers/networks and need to be registered by an admin..

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OH sorry i guess i miss understood what you meant, sorry about that.

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Yeah direct connect (DC++) is really good for that sorta thing. Unfortunatly it basicly only runs within schools or on WWW2. Used to get crazy speeds on that when i was at RIT. Could download a full movie in ~5minutes. Even had to cap my upload because it was lagging the crap outa my computer going at 10mb a second.

Alas, i no longer have the benifit of an ungodly fast network. So bittorent is now my friend. Works fairly fast, just not at a mindblowing rate.

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