P2P companies fight back

A SOMEWHAT MIFFED RIAA has recently gotten very heavy-handed with peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, such as Kazaa and Morpheus. But now it seems the peersters are fighting back.

The idea is that P2P companies will increase the privacy shields on their programs, making it more difficult for record companies - and the RIAA - to identify individual users. There are several possible solutions, one of which is encrypting P2P traffic. P2P companies also say that if they use a different protocol for users' computers to communicate, then their identity will be obscured.

However, according to copyright protection organizations, it will still be possible to farm information on users, because, after all, for a P2P client to work, it needs two users to be directly connected, which "ultimately makes the activity traceable and enforceable."

Blubster, a smaller, lesser known P2P client has already announced improved security, and has promised "private, anonymous accounts." µ