I wrote a story for Wired News today about increased interest in filesharing tools that provide users with anonymity, in the wake of last Wednesday's RIAA announcement that it plans to sue hundreds of uploaders:
Blubster developer Pablo Soto of Madrid said his music-swapping service relaunched today as a secure, decentralized system providing users with anonymous accounts. The MP2P network (short for Manolito Peer-to-Peer) on which Blubster is based consists of more than 200,000 users sharing over 52 million files, according to Soto. The update is also said to include a new, streamlined file-distribution method that disassociates transfers from specific users.
"The biggest privacy weakness of our previous version was the ability to query a list of shared songs for any user — now that can be disabled," Soto said. "It may be possible to gather IP addresses from the network, but not data about what content specific users are sharing." (…)
Developer sources told Wired News that pro-P2P coalitions are forming in the United States and Europe to centralize lobbying and public relations efforts. Coalition members are said to include Grokster, LimeWire, Blubster and others. Public announcements are expected in July.
Link to Wired News story, Discuss
