Winmx??? [Archive] - Radiowaves Forums

Ivan Eego

11th January 2005, 04:43

Exact same problems myself,even though it was a while ago, I still would be weary of Limewire after reading this :

"Spyware threat for MP3 users
January 7, 2002
Claire Woffenden

Makers of popular file-sharing software, including Grokster and LimeWire, have admitted distributing "spyware" software in their products.

Grokster, LimeWire and KaZaA, used for exchanging MP3s and other files, came bundled with advertising software called ClickTillUWin, which harvested information about users without their consent.

According to security software vendors, this advertising software contained a Trojan horse program, called W32.DIDer. The advertising software was installed even if a user opted not to.

Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at F-Secure, said: "This is a suspicious and unethical Trojan. There are tens of thousands of people who could be running malicious intrusive programs even when they chose not to."

However, anti-virus company Symantec has dismissed fears and said the ClickTillUWin software, although "Trojan-like", is not a Trojan.

"The software has similarities to coding in a Trojan but we have stopped detecting it as a Trojan. We want to reassure users that if they have used this software they have not been exposed to any internet security risk," said Richard Saunders at Symantec.

LimeWire and Grokster have issued statements on their websites and have provided users with a program to remove the code."

Klypso

11th January 2005, 18:51

use bearshare - http://www.bearshare.com

just stared using it this week and it's the best ive used

Ivan Eego

11th January 2005, 19:48

From download.com (Checkout 2nd Editor's Note)

"Software Publisher's Description
advertisement

BearShare has implemented partial file sharing which enables users to get the files they want faster. This version also detects when users aren't using their CPU and automatically boosts the power dedicated to downloading while the computer remains on. Bearshare lets you search for, download, and share files with everyone on the global Gnutella peer-to-peer information network. This program works with MP3, MPEG, AVI, ASF, MOV, JPEG, GIF, OGG, and all other file types. It features full documentation (installed with the program), slick graphics, and a user interface that makes searching, downloading, and file sharing easy. It also features upload bandwidth controls, enhanced connection management, and improved downloading. Version 2.6.0 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

Editor's note: Using this product to make copies of copyrighted material may be illegal. CNET does not encourage or condone the illegal copying of copyrighted material.

Editor's note: This download includes adware. Adware may record your surfing habits, deliver advertising, collect private information, or modify your system settings. Pay close attention to the end user license agreement and installation options. For more information on adware and spyware, please visit our Spyware Center."

Fr. Dougal

12th January 2005, 23:14

Each P2P client uses its own or several protocols (protocols are essentially communication rules to allow exchange of information), the larger the community means a greater selection. As regards music selection the biggest networks are Edonkey2k, Fastrack, Gnutella, Overnet and Winmx (estimated to be over a million users each)
Bittorrent is also another protocol favoured by people downloading movies, tv shows and very large files,but finding files may not be easy as you have to locate the tracker files first.

Gnutella network clients = BearShare, LimeWire, XoloX, SHAREAZA (spyware free)
Fasttrack network = Kazaa, Grokster
Edonkey2k network = Edonkey, Emule (spyware free), SHAREAZA (spyware free)
WinMX = WinMX (spyware free)
Bittorrent = Azureus (spyware free), SHAREAZA (spyware free)
Ares = Ares galaxy

For ease of use and all round connectivity plus being spyware & adware free Shareaza has to be the best P2P client available currently. If you are searching for rare files, albums and movies the Edonkey network is probably the best place to locate them. Winmx tends to score on ease of use, stability of the network and availabilty of the latest releases. Each network has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Now to address the question of winMX over the last few months the network has increasingly become flooded by fakes. There is a good chance if you downloaded the U2 album on winMX around the time of release that you may have downloaded it from a record company or agent of theirs, in which case your ip address has been logged for further consideration. You may notice that you get in queue and time out on popular releases. Furthermore to complicate things, anyone who shared small files started getting requests from some of the fake file sharers. They would try any file that was small enough to jump the queue system, but they would never connect, always timing out. In the UK some WinMX users are being chased by the BPI through the courts..
Furthermore Windows XP SP2 limits the number of possible TCP connection attempts per second to 10 from an unlimited number in SP1. This can affect performance on P2P programs that need to open many outbound connections at the same time.

PeerGuardian (http://www.methlabs.org/) is one tool that can be used to block known fake file agents and record companies. There are several blocklists available depending who you want to block from accessing your computer.

As always if you can't be good be careful.

mattbrat24

17th January 2005, 07:25

I would back-up the claim that Shareaza (www.shareaza.com) is the best file-sharing client available at the moment. There is no spyware in it whatsoever, and it is fast at searching and downloading. It is open-source (the progamming code can be obtained for free by anyone) and so has fast development of features, and includes features such as multi-source downloading, media player, advanced search, etc.

Well worth the download :)

matt ;)

DarrenByrne

17th January 2005, 12:39

So, to sum up how safe are we using p2p networks? i use win mx
and am on broadband..So have a fixed ip address. I've downloaded software music, some video. what user identifiable info can be detected, and how would you maximise anonymity, if you know what i mean..

Fr. Dougal

17th January 2005, 22:30

So, to sum up how safe are we using p2p networks?

The three main risks using P2P are virus/spyware invasion, risk of being sued if you make copyrighted material available for upload and if you share business or personal data you are open to identity theft or fraud.

Fixed IP address or not, that address is allocated from your ISP's allocated range. Your ISP will maintain a record of the time & date of that lease to you.
The only thing that stands between you and discovery is the Data Protection Act.

You can substantially reduce the first threat by using up to date Anti-Virus software and a firewall and avoiding use of vulnerable software like Kazaa and others that that install spyware.

You can avoid being sued by not sharing copyrighted data, however, networks like Bitorrent and Edonkey discriminate against "leeches" and, if everybody did that the networks would collapse.

An important point to realise is when you connect to the internet, you cannot be anonymous. Every IP packet has a source and a destination and the data you send can be captured and analysed.
Given the vast numbers using P2P it is logisticaly impossible for the record companies and their agents to sue everyone. The RIAA in the US have so far tried to sue about 7,000 people (out of several million P2P users in the US alone), most users settle out of court, some users are biting back and these cases have either been dropped or are progressing through the court system.
Bear in mind these agents are well able to use the media to exxagerate the impact of any success they might have.

Do not make personaly identifiable information such as your email address, name, company details, address or documents available for upload. (Hint: check what you are sharing and your registration information)

It's estimated that 15% of users keep the networks viable with the amount of data they make available, these are the primary targets at the moment (reduce the amout of data you share, like under a thousand files). They also tend to target people sharing material from high profile acts e.g. U2, the Eagles, Neil Diamond, Britney & Enimem

New P2P networks such as AnTS and MUTE are beginning to appear that use distributed proxies and encrypted data to disguise the data being shared, thus making it harder and resource intensive to track and monitor people using them and no doubt this trend will continue as other P2P networks evolve.

dj-jono

17th January 2005, 23:01

I have shared files of over 2500, am i likely to be targeted? (I mean i know someone who has over 2500 shared files on their comp!) They're not all in one folder though? and i have my max uploads set to 2???

Fr. Dougal

17th January 2005, 23:57

I outlined three possible risks to using P2P , the question should really be am I prepared to accept the consequences of those?
At the moment all IRMA and the record companies have done is issue threats through the media and sent letters to various educational and business establishments. We shall see this year what action they might take against file sharers in Ireland. I would say keep an eye on how the BPI in the UK and BREIN in the Netherlands conduct their raids and you have a good idea what will happen.

In truth we just have to wait and see.

dj-jono

18th January 2005, 00:06

I am prepared to accept the consequences of those? Hmmm, well ive been downloading music since i was about 12, back in the days of dial up modems and nothing hashappened me yet so i'll say yes. Those fake files flooding win mx of late are really a pain!

26th January 2005, 10:28

Think I'll give this SHAREAZA a whirl, WINMX is refusing to find me a clean version of the new Xzibit tune.

If my PC should suffer a meltdown I'll be barking at your door Ivan ;)

Fr. Dougal

30th January 2005, 01:22

One factor affecting WinMX is people are becoming more security concious and installing firewalls, but they don't always know how to configure them to accept winMX or other P2P traffic, however, the major reason is because there is a concerted effort by certain groups to disrupt the network. They are running software that pretends to be a winmx secondary source.
One thing (as well as the My Shared Folder issue - see below) which gives them away is that the same username will appear to host several hits for a given file, of diferent sizes. Attempting to download one of these fakes seems to result in your IP being bombarded with UDP packets, which messes up the running of Winmx.

Fakes

If you're looking for new releases you are more likely to encounter fakes.
Try a new search using your current criteria, but this time also put
"-Shared -Music" (without the quotes) in the lower search box to filter them.
This should weed out most if not all fakes from the results since they are usually shared from C:\My Shared Folder and c:\My Music.
You can also try to avoid the fakes by showing the full paths and putting '-my' or '-folder' in the lower search box
Of course this will weed out some legitimate files and sources, but it will also save you from some frustration.
Alternatively, you can show full paths and order the result by filename - this puts the fakes in the middle and the real ones above and below in the result.

Blocklists

You can also use an IP blocklist if your firewall allows as a way to prevent known IP's from accessing your computer. Firewalls like Protowall, Peerguardian, BlackICE Defender
ZoneAlarm & Sygate allow you to prevent specific IP ranges from accessing your system.

You can get a good introduction to the subject at http://bluetack.co.uk/index.php

If you run a primary connection, chances are you'll have at least some of these addresses connected into you.

209.11.134.*
209.10.143.*
38.113.214.*
38.118.151.*
38.118.154.*
209.10.143.*
212.71.252.*
68.120.137.*
216.100.136.93
204.9.117.*
204.193.136.104
64.105.76.207
66.134.249.226
64.248.219.196
220.255.48.212
213.219.9.203
64.248.219.226
64.248.57.130
69.110.5.211
68.165.91.118
66.125.88.63
63.200.51.249
64.145.117.162
64.145.117.226
66.166.198.203

For the more technically inclined check your Netstat (or better, TCPView http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/tcpview.shtml ) for unusual entries, for instance 2 similar IP addresses connecting to your WinMX.
Close these connections and block them in your firewall.

dj-jono

30th January 2005, 18:28

Thanks dougal, There are a lot of (with newish releases Kanye West etc) files that are the same size as say a 4 minute audio mp3 with a bitrate of 192kbps but the are usually about 30 minutes of silence and have a bitrate of 32kbps. I dont know who puts these files on but what are they for? to annoy us? Any one else know what I'm on about?

dj-jono

30th January 2005, 22:20

Originally posted by Fr. Dougal

Fakes

If you're looking for new releases you are more likely to encounter fakes.
Try a new search using your current criteria, but this time also put
"-Shared -Music" (without the quotes) in the lower search box to filter them.
This should weed out most if not all fakes from the results since they are usually shared from C:\My Shared Folder and c:\My Music.
You can also try to avoid the fakes by showing the full paths and putting '-my' or '-folder' in the lower search box
Of course this will weed out some legitimate files and sources, but it will also save you from some frustration.
Alternatively, you can show full paths and order the result by filename - this puts the fakes in the middle and the real ones above and below in the result.

That actually works wonders!!(so i hear)

Ivan Eego

5th February 2005, 17:01

If my PC should suffer a meltdown I'll be barking at your door Ivan ;)

Well Kelly I haven't heard any barking so I presume your PC in working order :lol:

All jokes aside, 'Shareaza' seems to be the way to go for anybody havin problems with WinMX

Dane Bowers

6th February 2005, 18:37

I use winmx too. Fakes are annoying but has anyone else noticed that a lot of stuff refuses to download - especially in the last few days. I can get some stuff, other stuff, even with like 50 users just stays on "waiting for incoming connection" and then fails. it's doing my head in

Fr. Dougal

6th February 2005, 20:52

There is a very determined effort by the record industry and its agents to cripple the WinMX network (and other P2P networks) at the moment.. Even Coldplay have been caught out - http://www.sky.com/showbiz/article/0,,50001-1168923,00.html

What were they doing using WinMX in the first place? :innocent:

In the WinMX search window click the button "Show Full Paths" ; if the path to the file shows as C:\My Shared Folder then its a fake and its setup to waste your time.

dj-jono

7th February 2005, 00:52

Originally posted by Fr. Dougal
There is a very determined effort by the record industry and its agents to cripple the WinMX network (and other P2P networks) at the moment.. Even Coldplay have been caught out - http://www.sky.com/showbiz/article/0,,50001-1168923,00.html

What were they doing using WinMX in the first place? :innocent:

In the WinMX search window click the button "Show Full Paths" ; if the path to the file shows as C:\My Shared Folder then its a fake and its setup to waste your time.

Will they be successful in their attempts?? It would be an awful shame to see it happen!

Fr. Dougal

7th February 2005, 23:09

Despite the laws concerning copyright infringement, P2P applications are here to stay, and will continue to evolve into more secure, reliable and user friendly applications.
Technically the current fakes flooding winmx can be stopped relatively easy, by installing an IP blocker(e.g. protowall) on the primary nodes so the known fakes can't connect, once enough people realise this the fakes will eventually get filtered out.
Already you can see how people are working around the problem by filtering the results and organising how the search results are displayed so the fakes are plain to see.
People are also using other P2P networks, so despite the efforts (and funds) of the record companies people persist. Note, no law or agency in Ireland, Britain or the US has totally eradicated pirate radio, why will it be any different for p2p?

What record companies fear the most about P2P is the loss of control of music distribution and with it the revenue streams that accrue from that.
Imagine artists being able to create, produce, market and distribute their material without the need for record companies. This is the ultimate nightmare for record company shareholders and its already happening, albeit on a small scale.
Fortunately for record companies most artists are not very good business people, thats why the record companies are able to offload costs on them and why they also get suckered into selling their copyrights in exchange for pittance royalty payments and because they control the distribution chain they also control prices.

At the moment the record companies make mega-profits which allow them to conduct their campaign with vigour, eventually the sheer weight of numbers and versatitity of p2p users coupled with a consumer backlash will bite them. The record companies current tactics can be compared to those of a shark cutting though a large shoal of fish, some fish are eaten, but the shoal moves in another direction and avoids the next pass.

Remember initially people started sharing files on FTP sites, then Napster came along and p2p sharing started to really take off. Once Napster was closed down WinMX, Audiogalaxy, Kazaa and others stepped in. Audiogalaxy was curtailed and then other networks developed such as GNUtella & Overnet, which lead to the development of Limewire, Shareazaa and EMule. The Bittorrent protocol has also been developed to allow fast downloading of large files. So to answer your question winMX may be hampered for a while but will evolve, in the meantime try not to be one of the little fishes caught by the shark. ;)

dj-jono

7th February 2005, 23:28

I've heard( I repeat, I've heard) that some stuff just wont download in the past day or two, even when I type in "my documents " in the lower search bar, and select show full paths most of the files wont download. I dont know if I'm alowed to name specific songs(apologies admin) but one for example ,that just wont download is "Delta Goodrem Almost here"? I read earlier in the post that files which showed C:\my shared folder are fakes but all these files showed C:\my documents and settings but would still not download?
Also Is there anything else people should be using other than peerguardian at the moment?

Fr. Dougal

7th February 2005, 23:54

Two things you should know about IP blockers. i.) They need to be updated to block the latest "known bad" IP addresses, and you can get an updated list from http://www.bluetack.co.uk

ii.) IP addresses also change so do not lull yourself into false sense of security that they cannot touch you.

Version 2 of Peerguardian from http://www.methlabs.org will be relased soon, so keep an eye out.

Other progams such as protowall and zone alarm & sygate require some technical knowledge to get them properly installed and configured to do what you want. There are easy step X step guides available on google.

Gizmo

8th February 2005, 23:51

i prefer to use limewire or bear share myself i find it gets fewer virus and alot more reliable!!!

Fr. Dougal

9th February 2005, 20:05

FYI - the same companies that flood winMX with fakes are also on the GNUtella network.
GNUtella clients like limewire and bearshare contain spyware, and as already discussed elsewhere on the board this is a bad thing.

From experience it takes me two to three hours to clean a machine thats infected with virus & spyware and secure it against further attacks. So having wasted several weekend afternoons doing this my advice is consider spyware free alternatives.

Fr. Dougal

15th February 2005, 22:15

Here is the latest list of known fakers anyone who runs as a winmx primary should block these IP's. More news when I get confirmation.

209.11.134.0-209.11.134.255 --Globix
209.10.143.64-209.10.143.95 --Macrovision
212.71.224.0-212.71.255.255 --Globix SpA
213.219.9.192-213.219.9.255 --Xworks
64.248.57.130 --DSLNet client
64.248.219.226 --DSLNet client
220.255.48.212 --SingNet client
64.105.76.207 --Covad client
66.134.249.226 --Covad client
204.193.136.48-204.193.136.63 --SmokeBlower
204.193.136.96-204.193.136.127 --SmokeBlower
38.113.214.0-38.113.214.255 --PSI
204.9.116.0-204.9.119.255 --Fuzion
209.12.22.0-209.12.22.255 --Full Scale Media

gangstatear

16th February 2005, 18:46

Originally posted by Fr. Dougal
Here is the latest list of known fakers anyone who runs as a winmx primary should block these IP's. More news when I get confirmation.

good stuff my boy, how does one do that?

Fr. Dougal

17th February 2005, 21:59

Checkout protowall - http://www.bluetack.co.uk or firewalls like Sygate & Kerio that can be configured to block these ranges.

Other Tips
In the search window click on the "Show Full Paths" button this will expand to show the full path to the file that is supposedly being shared out.

Currently most fake files are located in one of the following folders

C:\My Shared Folder\"name of track.mp3"
C:\Documents and Settings\"ficticious username"\My Documents\My Music\"name
of track.mp3"

There tend to be multiple copies of "name of track.mp3" shared by the same user with the same bitrate but with different filesizes. If you right click on the file in question and choose Whois from the context menu the number of files shared is always set at 3000.

The transfer status reported also seems not to match the Status/Server e.g. Transfer Status: 3 of 5 available When Status/Server in WinMX shows 3
of 6 available.

If you enter "-My" w/o quotes in the second search box you will filter out the fakes, but you will also filter out some valid results as well.

Anyone who runs a primary network connection should use an IP blocker to prevent the addresses listed above from connecting.

Fr. Dougal

17th February 2005, 22:13

n Italian DJ is being slapped with a record fine of �1.4 million (US$1.8 million) after being caught with what are believed to be thousands of pirated MP3 music files and hundreds of illegally downloaded video clips, an international recording industry group said Thursday.

Italian police discovered the DJ playing the allegedly pirated music in nightclubs near Rome. It ordered the fine against the individual, whose identity was not revealed, after a raid of the suspect's home turned up none of the originally purchased music, a spokeswoman for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said. The DJ may also be subject to further criminal sanctions, the industry group said.

The suspect was caught with more than 2,000 allegedly pirated MP3s and 500 video clips. The fine imposed by Italian police is the largest in Europe against an individual for MP3 piracy, the IFPI said.

The recording industry group said it was pleased with the amount of fine since the DJ was making money touring clubs with the music, while the original artists had not been properly compensated.

The DJ was discovered as part of a police operation targeting radio stations and clubs around Rome, the IFPI said

http://www.repubblica.it/2005/b/sezioni/scienza_e_tecnologia/djrieti/djrieti/djrieti.html

Note: The press release has been published by the music industry it has not been independently confirmed.

rhythmIRL

18th February 2005, 17:35

Was speaking to a friend of mine in canada, and he said there doing a new thing over there now. There charging extra taxes on Blank media (CDR's Etc) to compensate pirated internet music downloads. Well what about the people (like me!) who pay for there music downloads on stores like Itunes etc. Will I have to pay extra to buy a box of CDRS???

Is this the future ???

Boston Barney

18th February 2005, 19:55

There was talk years ago about bringing in a charge on Blank video tapes, Blank audio tapes, Mini Disc's and CDR's so as to compansate the artists who recorded the music or the films! The hasn't been much since.

Lets face it, if you get your tunes from itunes etc your paying for them, what about the other sites, can anybody hold there hands up and say that they have never played a pirated piece of audio or never watched a pirate video or dvd? I know i can't!

Barney

dj-jono

22nd February 2005, 02:14

Protowall is impossible to install!!!! "protowall.sys driver not installed"

even though it is, it wont fcuking recognise it is. I have tried everything to get this heap of crap to work but no joy, and the help page is in another language!

Can anyone explain in simple english whats wrong???

Fr. Dougal

22nd February 2005, 22:25

Jono, the only proper way for you to share music is to buy the cd, play it for a friend and then encourage them to purchase their own copy should they like it. That way the recording artists get some fruit from their labours (how would you like it if 7/8 of your wage was stolen before it reached you every month??), and the record companies make a small amount of money that allows them to plough funds back into finding and encouraging new talent. Without the profits from cd sales we wouldnt get such fine artistes as Britney Spears, Shakira and that bird with the big tits.

Its people like you that are directly responsible for the breakdown of civil responsibility and evils of drug abuse. Shame on you all.

Incidentally, protowall you say,, that does require some technical knowledge to configure, I'll see what I can do for you. :cool:

Ivan Eego

23rd February 2005, 14:48

Jono try this, there's no easy way to explain it :lol:

" Protowall.sys is not installed / loaded

This is probably due to spaces in the directory names under the default install path.

C:\Program Files\Dudez\ProtoWall\xp_driver

'program files' has a space in it. They are working on resolving this but in the meantime you can fix it as follows:

Install Protowall

Make a directory at the root of c: called protowall (windows explorer ,c : \ create new folder and call it protowall)

Copy the contents of the previous install directory into it. found in c:\program files\dudez\protowall\xp_driver..(protow all.inf, protowall.sys etc..)

Unistall Protowall, go to program files\ and make sure the "dudez" folder does not exist.

Now, Install protowall again, but this time, do not install the XP Driver

Go to: http://www.bluetack.co.uk/pwhelp/

Protowall 1.42 (5300)/ Installing Protowall 1.42

Scroll down untill you see the section about installing the driver ( starts with "At this Point you will need to install the driver manually. ")

Follow those steps using the new location of the driver files (C:\Protowall)... click "Continue Anyway" untill it stops doing it

Reboot

Open Protowall, and it works...

(Make sure you allow protowall access to the internet) "

Worked for me !! :confused: