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Wrapster Allows Napster To Distribute Any File 203

Posted by CmdrTaco from the it's-not-about-the-music-anymore-man dept.
An anonymous reader sent us a bit that's running over at CNet and talking about a wrapper for napster called Wrapster that allows distribution of files besides just the MP3s for which the software is known. Now suddenly it's a distributable filesystem... Wild.
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Wrapster Allows Napster To Distribute Any File More

Wrapster Allows Napster To Distribute Any File

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  • OpenNap [sourceforge.net] allows clients such as BWap [bitchx.com] and gnapster [gotlinux.org] to share any type of media without the need for this sort of hack. You can search specifically for files in categories like audio, video, image, text, application.

  • Re:why not just use ftp? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Scenario : I run an FTP server and publicize it by having a search engine index the content

    Result : Once the user limit is reached, people wanting files on the FTP server will POUND mercilessly until they're BANNED. Auto-banning FTP software is available, but it's still nasty to get pounded all the time. As a user, it stinks that I may have to wait days as a nice, non-pounding user, to get on to the site. Once I do - hey, it's ratio UL/DL! *Sigh*

    With Napster, you hop into a queue, and you don't have to pound mercilessly if you're not first in line. There are other advantages, but I'm tired...

  • Every time I see something here about Napster, I like to plug OFSI, mostly because I'm partly in charge of the project now ;)

    OFSI is an open source, open protocol project that will function like Napster, but do all types of files/media. Unlike Napster of course, it is open source and will eventually be far superior ;)

    We're thinking of a system like Gnutella's, but it occurred to me that when the network becomes popular and gigantic, how fast will the searches be, and how much bandwidth are all those search packets going to consume on a 33.6 or 56k connection?

    So have a look at OFSI [ofsi.net] and maybe even help out!
  • The setup.exe file redirects to a setup.htm file, ad infinitum. If you check the C|Net site [cnet.com], it says "0 downloads" - basically, it ain't there!

    --
    Barry de la Rosa,
    public[at]bpdlr.orgASM,
    tel. +44 (0)7092 005700

  • Yes. The latest version of gnutella is here:
    http://gnutella.nerdherd.net/ [nerdherd.net]
    BEWARE! There is apparently a trojan floating around. .50c is the latest version of gnutella. As of yet, there is NO source available. Though that page lists a number of projects that are in the works.

    ** Martin

  • am, napster does require a server, you have to connect to it first...

  • I have no sympathy for the media syndicates. There is simply NO way that they could NOT have realized that the internet would introduce an entirely new paradigm. If they didn't realize it, well they deserve what they're getting for being so stupid and unadaptable.
    [...]
    I'm sure the original creators of the internet, of TCP/IP, the guy who started the Gutenburg project, were aware of the enormous potential and paradigm shift the internet would introduce.
    I think you overestimate people's ability to see into the future. Computer and networking technology is moving very fast compared to traditional industries.

    It is also probably more accurate to say the creators of the Internet were thinking of connecting military computers and keeping the network alive in the event of war. I'm sure they were not envisioning your grandmother trading stocks over the network that they were creating.

    Hindsight is always 20/20...

  • Can't do it that way as Napster READS the MP3 to extract the ID3. I'm guess Wrapster fakes that ID info so that it will work through Napster.
    Time flies like an arrow;

  • Isn't that what Gnutella [nerdherd.net] is for??
  • These concerns are baseless:

    1) Very little content can be served effectively over dialup. Any SERIOUS pirate is not going to use dialup.

    2) If they keep tying up your modems, then kick them off every 12 hours. That will force their IP address to change. If they go through the trouble of making their computer log on to napster again when disconnected, then they're probably becoming a serious pirate and won't want to use dialup.

    3) Make a policy that a computer can only be connected through dialup 20 out of the 24 hours each day. This way, you can tell what machines keep being rejected but keep calling anyways. Then disable those accounts until you can talk to the owners.

    4) Sooner or later, people are going to make proxies to get around this stuff.
  • Without admitting guilt or anything, I have to say that I did once play with Macster and was completely disappointed. It completely ignores ID3 tags, searching only on the file name. Therefore you could put an artist name in the song name field and vice versa and searches would return identical results. I always assumed that Macster and Napster shared a common code base, and hence, Napster only searched on file name, not MP3's.

    As an experiment, it'd be nice if Macster would allow logging... Just make up a song that sounds like it's by back street boys or brittney spears or something, say it's by them, but have it only be an mp3 ranting about thievery... The only people that'd get it are the ones who obviously don't have it...

    Rather than just jumping to defend napster by saying it's not used for piracy, people really should try to study the usage of it and be honest about their own usage.
  • The only problem now is, how do you know what you get is what you want?

    I can name my wrapped file anything. and if the size is somewhat close the the name of a sound file to which I named it. you could download some warez and think it was a real mp3.

    Yeah, this wrapping stuff to m3u files was my idea months ago. nothing special, I hope that nobody gets too funny with it though.
  • For crying out loud.. Napster has done nothing new in the world.

    I disagree. Napster is the first warez/mp3z trading tool that anyone can easily learn to use. Most people don't know what a DCC transfers is, let alone know how perform it. And you still have to find the right chanels. With Napster you just install the client and start up/downloading.

  • Napster: Share the code, share the bloat
    --
  • Ahhh, finally...I'm glad someone brought up Cute...if I remember right, in addition to being nicer and more powerful than Napster, there was only one server to log into (no more jumping from server to server) and it was actually in development *before* Napster...

    CuteMX was still in beta testing last I knew, but when it's done it might be the first "Cute" product I'd use :>

    Plus, the people actually chat on CuteMX...not that I need a whole lot of babble along with mp3s, but it's nice to see something other than requests in a chat room!

  • Hi,
    Well I think it's finally about time that organisations such as the MPAA accept that you cannot keep widely available information secret in this day and age.

    Now not only do we have people embedding the css_descramble code in png images, DNS NS records, but they can now share such files using technologies such as Wrapster.

    Actually I hope this is as positive as I believe it appears. Hopefully people will realise that our modern society is just as restrictive as it ever was, just more subtlely than it ever was before.

    I will always pay to go to a concert to watch my favourite artist performing, but in the future I may not have to pay to listen to thier music - mp3s aren't CD quality, nobody complains that people record music from radio or TV broadcasts, why are they suddenly so paranoid about mp3 technology?

    In a similar fashion to the open source software industry, people will adapt, companies will change and discover new revenue models. Perhaps downloading music won't be the "sin" it is now, perhaps the industry will capitalise on the format and encourage its growth to promote their artists.

    Personally, I still buy all of my music on CD and encode from CD because I feel that the artists are the ones loosing out from the current situation - record companies can simply threaten and sue the little people and claim damages to recover lost renue, little of which the artists themselves will get to see.

    I also feel that there are disadvantages in downloading music from the internet. "You don't know where it's been" - it could have been modified, doctored, or encoded using the poorest quality encoder available. I would welcome the music industry pushing to distribute music from artists websites in mp3 format for a small royalty.

    How about a system where we download music in mp3 format and artists make money through performances, concerts, promotional material, etc?

    As far as the DVD Forum and other groups/companies are concerned, this should be viewed as beneficial. Let's all be more open about everything that goes on - there will always be the odd one or two people who wish to abuse technology, and millions of us who look at the css code and think "if only they'd been more open about this, we could have made the security much stronger for them. Everyone knows how rc5 works, it doesn't make it less secure, any security system which safegaurds security through obscurity isn't secure at all.

    People will always make money, although the method employed will change considerably over the course of time.

    Enough random musings from me for know. It's late so none of this made any sense, I guess.

    --
    periscope
    slashdot-contact@easypenguin.co.uk

  • Yeah, I definitely noticed the obvious slant of the article towards piracy. I guess C-Net doesn't think the article will be interesting enough on it's own merits, so why not throw in something a little more sensational.
    It isn't that C-Net is incorrect. No doubt those are things that people out there are going to use Wrapster for. But, they don't bother to acknowledge that there are legitimate uses for it as well. How many times has some new software release come out that you can't grab because the server is clogged? Wrapster would make a great and easy way to mirror files.
    If you think about it, there are a lot of sites that would hate to see this happen. Think about all the major download sites with all their advertising banners. (And isn't it interesting that C-Net owns download.com?) If something like Wrapster became really popular, it could redirect traffic away from these sites, and this would result in a loss of advertising revenue.
    Which I think begs another question. Where would you rather download files from? A handful of sites with a lot of bandwidth, bloat, and advertising, which may be clogged, or from a potentially much larger set of users with less bandwidth, but no advertising or bloat, and more likely to not be clogged at any particular time.
  • whoever marked this comment 'funny' is remarkably naive. i suppose journalism is objective, capitalism is a system of free markets, and the united states is a free country too.
  • Dude, It's called a web browser

    --dave
  • Anyone care to write this?

    Books are expensive! Really! A distributed model would enable the free distribution of copyrighted works, a good thing considering the insane duration of corporate copyrights - something which greatly impedes the progress of such efforts as the Gutenberg project.

    Imagine your favorite book. Now imagine hundreds of millions of people having that book right at their fingertips...
  • Well, I believe CNet is primarily owned by Microsoft, so, uh, yeah, they have something going with them.

    - u
  • The story makes out that distribution of copyright
    material over the net is a new threat caused by
    these programs.

    What the hell?

    Last time I checked, FTP could do that too, ohh,
    and that little thing called http, but that'll
    never catch on....

    Duh!
  • Almost as nice as the WWFS [wide.ad.jp], which is an NFS server which can use any FTP site. An advantage of Napster is it can be used on more MS systems.
  • It's really nice! A great way to bypass port restrictions. Congratullations!
  • I'm not sure how on-topic this is to Wrapster, but hey. The official un-official hoomepage for Gnutella is now here:

    Gnutella homepage [nerdherd.net]

    This contains links to server lists, official clients, protocol information, and all the unofficial clients that are currently in development. The only really usable ones are for Windows at the moment, but there is a Linux console version coming on very well.

    Now, Napster does what it does (mp3's) very well, but I'm not sure cludging it via Wrapster is that good an idea. Programs like cuteMX, iMesh and Gnutella have been designed for all types of files, so why not use those instead?

  • There should be any easy way to encode page info as XML. RadioSpy [radiospy.com] (and quakespy before it) uses active pinging technology pretty good. Is this something that could be wrapped around Mozilla?

    --
  • I always view these protocols as a way that in the short term will increase access to information, including the really early adopters, warez.

    But if everything is sent out in a really public manner, it's not too hard to just make a bot with "files <-> ip" and then use that information for law enforcement. Whereas once you had to ask for logs or packetsniff, now you can just download at will and then send a bill to the owner of the IP.

    Visa Versa would be a fun situation too.

  • And now watch the internet come to a screeching halt as thousands of 3733+ w453z d00dz spread their pirated software.

  • 01111001 y
    01011111 -
    01110101 u

    01100001 a
    01111001 y
    01100101 e

    01100100 d
    01110101 u
    01101101 m
    01100010 b

    ??

    __

  • Just continuing the brainstorm...

    Surely it would be something you could turn on and off like Java or Javascript or cookies. You could specify how many levels down the "pingbot" should go, e.g. "stay in this domain" or "only go to the top level of other sites" or "don't visit CGI scripts", etc.

    Considering how little bandwidth a ping takes, and how willing people have become to let Napster sends bursts of them in the name of pirating music, I'm pretty sure it would be feasible.

    Even if browsers didn't do it, it would be neat if search engine sites did. On most of them, you're only looking at about 10 results at a time, so it would be cool if they would return an "availability code" with each result in exchange for slightly slower search time. I'd rather their bot "click" on the potential results instead of me.

    Admittedly, there's something to be said for simplicity. But I really like knowing that I can log onto Napster and look at files that are there *now*. If I could do this with the web, it's increasing lack of integrity wouldn't be such a problem.

    Okay, I think this conversation should probably only continue with someone who knows something about building browsers...

  • Hotline is crap. It needs foreplay which bore me. Napster is going in a bar and pick up whatever you can find.

    So I was still moral struggling if I should rip off Mr. Miyazake, the hotline guy tell me he doesn't interested in A Clockwork Orange's soundtrack. What? These guys are nuts. You can never find anyone fit your taste. I much rather dig a used copy in ebay, which is legal.

    CY


    /_____\
    vvvvvvv../|__/|
    ...I../O,O....|
    ...I./. .......|
    ..J|/^.^.^ \..|.._//|
    ...|^.^.^.^.|W|./oo.|
  • I meant that the server serves up files where as napster just gives the users IP and you take the files off their machine. Hotline requires the server to be fast - while a basic 56k machine could be a napster server as long as the client and the machine the client was pulling the file from was fast.

    There exists no banner trackers for hotline also - simply visit one of the tracker websites and get their ip. freedownload.dhs.org is an example of a no banner tracker..
  • heh. : Here is an example of how Wrapster can be used to share ANY files you choose on the Napster network: Let's say a friend of yours has a copy of Win2K still zipped up from when (s)he first downloaded it from an IRC server. It's probably about 44 files in total, each of them being about 5 megs in size. Your friend simply runs Wrapster and creates a new archive with it. Then (s)he adds the 40-something or so files to the Wrapster archive and places it in their shared MP3 folder. You connect to the Napster network and search for either "Win2K" or the special bitrate that Wrapster uses to "encode" its files and low and behold it will appear in your search window. All you have to do now to get your copy of Win2K is download it just like any other legitimate MP3 file and when it's finally saved to your harddrive, just load up a copy of Wrapster and extract that operating system goodness.:
  • Who is the They you are reffering to? Wrapster was not created by the author of Napster. Just some one who wanted to expand the capabilities of Napster.
  • I'm converting a DeCSS as we speak. Would this be a good example of file sharing?
  • I don't think its fair to give C-Net flack for reporting what is on the Wrapster authors website, and I quote: "The software creates archives that can contain anything from movies, full albums and the latest warez releases to just plain old images and perl scripts." If thats what the author wants to get draw the attention of the MPAA and other groups like that its his choice. I bet he would be perfectly happy with the way C-Net reported that story.

    ================================================ ========
  • Evidence?
    It was already sitting on my hard drive before /. got around to making it's announcement.

    Contrary to popular opinion, there are news sources that (from time to time) are faster on the draw than the holy slashdot. I think I remember reading this first on either Wired or ZDnet.

    BTW, don't bother trying www.wrapster.com (not there) or searching google. You can download it from c|net downloads @ http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10080-100-158 1508.html?tag=st.cn.sr.dl.1
    Also, for an update on the Napster-Indiana University thingie, you might want to take a look at http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2472 439,00.html?chkpt=zdhpnews01 .
  • <I>That strikes me as kind of dumb, undermining the legitimizing effect of Wrapster, or maybe he really does intend it as a new-and-improved "piracy" tool, but even his saying it does not make it true or change the fact that the "it's a legitimate file-sharing tool" defense has gained some credibility. </I>

    I agree with this statement, but if Octavian wanted this to be viewed as a legitimate file-sharing tool, he wouldn't have put in the suggestion to trade programs such as W2K. The fact that he suggests this will cause the big corps. to view this as a piracy tool and they will treat it like the do all other tools of the sort.


    -- Bucket
  • "Online tools -- such as ping, traceroute, and whois which also tend to attract traffic."

    Wow, they're including ping? That's so much more than I get with...uhmm...any other OS distro...pfft...
  • Merge an IRC client with an FTP client/server for specified files.
    Kind of like Fserve, but built in with a GUI.
  • ...goes out and pings the pages that are linked to

    I tried this with mozilla, before I realized that pinging requires sending of ICMP_ECHO_REQUESTs through a raw, open socket, and doing that (at least on *nix) requires root access. (if you do a ls -l `which ping` you'll see that its suid root.) so you're stuck with setting mozilla +s, or forking a 'ping', both suck.

    (windows might work fine though, but I dont care about windows :)

  • Why not just use a standard like FTP for it? I mean, if you want to distribute yer stuff, register yer FTP server on something like scour or some other indexing engine. Why reinvent the wheel?
  • Try this [slashdot.org].

    No source available though...hmmm some opensource project.
  • no now it's for pirate music, warez and porn!
  • Nobody has mentioned cutemx. It is way nicer and more powerful than Napster. It has had the muliple file type searching facility in it for ages. I always wondered why napster only did one file type.

    http://www.cuteftp.com/products/cutemx/
  • that was a beta4 bug, fixed in beta5 (or beta5a, I forget). At any rate, its fixed.
  • Is there a Windows client that can do that? What makes napster so successful is the huge numbers of users, and you need a windows userbase to get those numbers.

    I've heard tons about opennap, but have never seen a windows client for it (except maybe napster itself, and napster can't normally send around other types of files, which is what this wrapper is for).
  • Evidence! Let's find out if it _really_ exists. _Then_ we can talk about how cool it _might_ be.
  • Um, in case you people haven't noticed, Gnutella has been capable of distributing files of any kind from it's release, it isn't exactly being used for applications, but more along the lines of an underground porn-movie emporium (every 10th search term is *.mpg, *.avi, etc). Looks like Napster napped this one, it's old technology... with a new face. I would have to say, this 'new' functionaly reminds me of tactics of Microsoft.
  • More importantly for me, does the ID3 file identification have enough room to allow for a meta-Napster?

    I.e., why choose? Couldn't a Gnutella or Freenet client gateway into the other networks, thereby allowing one to participate in all of the other distributed filesharing systems?

    The big issue that I see is creating a generalized file properties schema.
  • Like Napster was not a big enough debate already, now they had to add "all files" to the debate. I am wondering what kind of files besides porn and games that this will be used for? -L_T
  • Silly you. It is not WRONG to transfer files.

    And BSD licenced files are copywrited, yet they can be transfered.

    It depends on the LICENCE for the data contained in the file.

    The only way Napster/MP3/piracy of M$ software will stop/be driven underground is if they actually take the time to sue actual pirates. And not just the 'big ones'...people who have 10 MP3's that are not legal.

    (In the US this is not very practical, because the legal system is not 'loser pays winners legal bills')

  • Checksums and file comparison are very necessary.

    I can't count the number of files I've downloaded via Napster that were recieved truncated by 2-20KB, just barely truncated enough to be annoying.

    If Napster can identify identical files on different servers, this would provide the ability to 'resume' a download from a different server than the one from which it was started.

  • or not...
    i think it was them.
    my reasoning? well, none, but if gnutella was about to put me out of the game, i would do something about it. they are just smart enough to not put their name on it, knowing that it would be lawsuit bait.

    sorry for the no caps post, i am typeing w/ one finger

    The UberNerd [ubernerd.org]
  • I think you misspelled your URL. http://www.warez.com/fs :-)
  • The sure way to make good use of Napster's search engine on various kinds of files is to wrap the file with "Id3" information (i.e. song name, artist, etc. on an mp3 file)

    Would it mean anyone who want to temper with id3 tags will be able to falsify files and fool Wrapster pretty easily.

    It would create another bunch of script-kiddie-wannabes...I have always been wondering...things have become easier and easier to hack and screw up over time (in this case, the only "h4x0R t00l" you need to modify id3 tags is WinAmp). THIS worries me.

    I have no complaint from hacks by "professionals" - first I'm not their target and second good hacks are often admirable technical feats.

    But by your 3l33t wanna-be neighbor??
    "Hey, I've found the door to hackordom using WinAmp!!" Yikes.
  • Or a Napsterfs translator for HURD?

    Also, don't forget FreeNet [sourceforge.net].

    ----

  • One would think that that interpretation was obvious, but the article seems to have it completely backwards:

    Wrapster joins a growing list of programs allowing the quick, free and wide distribution of illegally copied files. The trend is bad news for record companies, movie studios and software companies that have fought hard to keep their wares from being pirated online.

    How hard would it have been for them to say "...of files (incuding illegally copied ones)" instead of "...of illegally copied files"? Care to imagine how many people will get the strange notion that the specific ability to copy files "illegally" is some special feature of the program? (Or, rather, that something like that could possibly be a special feature rather than a side-effect of the way it is used?) By saying something so misleading, they seem to be encouraging people to buy the industries' claims that things like this (not just [N|Wr]apster, but MP3, DeCSS, and, heck, why not mention FTP) are inherently "pirate" or "hacker" tools.

    They have extended the "piracy" stigma to cover all of the program's functions, choosing to see this as a bolder move to make the thing even more "dangerous", rather than a retroactive hedge to create new perfectly legitimate uses that can be used to justify its existence as a legitimate tool.

    Of course, it doesn't help that

    Its author, identified as "Octavian" in the program's "about" file, suggests using the software as a means for trading programs such as Windows 2000. Octavian could not be reached for comment.

    That strikes me as kind of dumb, undermining the legitimizing effect of Wrapster, or maybe he really does intend it as a new-and-improved "piracy" tool, but even his saying it does not make it true or change the fact that the "it's a legitimate file-sharing tool" defense has gained some credibility.


    David Gould

  • That's what I meant -- by putting that suggestion in there, he made himself sound like some warez kiddie. I have no idea who he is or whether that description is in fact accurate, but either way, he seriously undermined the good that this could have done, since it also made it sound like something specifically for other warez kiddies, when in fact it could be very useful for a variety of purposes. If he'd been just a little bit smarter about it, he could have spun this so as to make it an argument for the legitimacy of Napster, but instead, he chose to slap the industries in the face with it, just begging them to turn it into another argument for their side instead.

    My other point, though, when I said "...even his saying it does not make it true...", is that despite what he said, this does still open up new legitimate uses for the software, which can be used to strengthen the defense. A program's author is not the final authority on what the program's uses are -- if he were, the MPAA would be forced to agree that DeCSS is not for copying DVDs, simply because Jon Johansen says so. (Yes, I know he's not the actual author, but anyway.)

    By the way, you probably used "Extrans" when what you wanted was "Plain Old Text", which is why your italics didn't work. The meanings of those two modes seem to be counter-intuitive to a lot of people -- they are actually the exact opposites of what you might expect.


    David Gould
  • What happened to perlfs? I'm sure that would have been a fairly painless way to do things, if there is a Napster library for Perl.
  • I can think of two reasons: 1. The average Joe becomes frightened when someone tells him "people can see your files." 2. An obvious use would be for piracy. Since napster will ultimatly be advertisement driven, this could pose a problem. Many of napster's sponsers would presumably be software companies. They are not going to pay to advertise in a community where their software is readily available for free in it's full form.

    --

  • The more things change, the more they stay the same. Reinventing protocols where there are already standards... *sigh*


    ---
  • From the article:
    "Programs such as Wrapster and Nullsoft's Gnutella, which mimic and expand on Napster, are quickly speeding the erosion of copyright protections online, leaving copyright holders scrambling to keep up. "

    Oh, and like I haven't been seeing downloads for pirated software for the last 10 years on EFNet?

    For crying out loud.. Napster has done nothing new in the world. All it has done is grabbed media attention. Sheesh.

    ---
  • Okay, what I'd like to see....

    I'd like to see some sort of file comparison feature on Napster. Have each file have an MD5 or some other file describing string. Each client lists that in addition to the filename and size and connection and the like. Then when you request a file your computer can not only try the one you requested, but also identical copies on other locations. This could serve to make the Napster protocol far more robust in the case of individual server overload or failure.
  • Now I know how it works, you are probably right.
  • Hotline? This type of file sharing system has been around for quite some time. It's amazing how journalists do NO research, and say things like "It's the first of its kind!", and don't even bother to verify that.
  • HL is still around - in fact its up to version 1.8 now. Hotline, though requires a server and can require a l/p, while naspter/wrapster simply goes from ip to ip. That is what makes napster different.

    I still prefer Hotline though.... better interface easier to use and you can preview files.
    You can get Hotline off download.com - simply ad tracked.group.org as a tracker and you're off...
  • "What would be really cool is if you could define ID3 tag information to be saved as part of the archive, because Napster would be able to search through that information, and it would make things a ton easier."

    Is that "meta-data" I hear? Content-based associative database-like organization? I'm saying one-dimensional hierarchical filesystems should give way to associative database-driven "resource systems". That's what Wrapster and Gnutella are essentially.

  • Wow...I guess using "paradigm" and "fat cat" in a post leads to a score of 5 :)
  • There's a Napster plug-in for Winamp. Still has some functions that aren't supported, and in some ways it ruins the point--since you only log on when you're looking for something, there's no reason to share your files. Still, it's a good sight more convenient than firing up Napster every time you want to find a song.

    Whether this technology will make it into, say, IE, off-hand I'd be extremely surprised, just because big companies like MS are far too much in bed with the IP fascists. As for the Netscape branded Mozilla, I think we know the answer there, seeing as how their parent company *is* the IP fascists. The real Mozilla? I bet (I hope!) there's a module within a couple weeks.
  • What about the bug in napster that always seems to stop a file transfer with 500-600 bytes to go?

    It's allright for mp3's because all you loose is the ID3 tag... But what about a zip, or self-extracting exe?

    If you loose the last few bites of a zip, that where the headers are stored, listing all the files in the archive.

    Anyone else think of that?
  • As good as Cryptonomicon was, I get more and more convinced that a bunker-style data haven is the wrong way to go.

    Why not make the data haven nuke-proof like the internet itself?

    Anyway, if you're interested in this paradigm, check out the following projects:

    Intermemory [intermemory.org]
    The Eternity Service [cam.ac.uk]
    FreeNet [sourceforge.net]

    And try cypherspace [cypherspace.org] for a nice collection of related links.

    Mojotoad
  • Yeah, Hotline is still around. The problem is, all the sites are either: a: Click on these seven porn banners to get the password or: b: Upload a ton of crap and you'll get an account when I feel like it.
    ---
  • I had no trouble downloading Wrapster from it's tripod website:

    wrapster [tripod.com]

  • Last I checked, transferring files was legal regardless of the means you use to transfer them.
  • I don't know about you but this seems like a virus writer's dream. Imagine how much faster Melissa would have proliferated if instead of being a download from an alt.sex.* newsgroup masquerading as porn (which it wasn't) it was available via a Napster or Wrapster type program as an .exe or part of an .exe that everybody wanted. Does anyone see how this scenario can be averted or is this going to open a virus plague the likes of which we haven't seen since MSFT inserted macros into their Office Suite?
  • Wrapster joins a growing list of programs allowing the quick, free and wide distribution of illegally copied files.

    It seems as though you missed this section of the article. Also, here is the reason it's a "threat"

    Napster's ease of use and the huge selection of music available through the system have made it a favorite among college students and other communities with high-speed Internet connections. Thousands of people can frequently be found on the network in the evenings, often sharing nearly a million songs with their peers.

    You really don't see a lot of warez on the web, and if you do find some it's usually broken into 50 .zip files and doesn't work most of the time. FTP takes some brains to use. The "threat" is that programs such as this are so damn easy to use. In the past, it was only the geeks and tech-savvy folks pirating stuff. Now, almost every college student with a computer and high speed connection can do it without a drop of knowledge.

    I don't agreed with what the corporations are saying, however I thought I would at least explain to you what they're trying to say since you seem to have some misinterpertations.
  • I've been thinking a lot about Napster, the idea behind it, and the potential such things hold for free speech. I just found a free software project which looks very cool: FreeNet [sourceforge.net]

    Maybe this is old news to some of you, but it was new to me, so I thought I'd point it out.

  • The killer combo:

    napster. you know where that is.
    wrapster. [tripod.com] you know what it does.
    napigator. [napigator.com] In case you don't know what this does, it allows you to logon to a napster server of your choosing.

    So, with these three things, you can: find whoever you need to find, exchange whatever file you want to exchange. Feel like a spy yet?

  • http://notoctavian.tripod.com/ there you go
  • Oh...This is creepy.

    I guess now that they allow any files to flow into Napster, there would be nothing to stop the warez traders from jumping abroad from the depths of IRC. Once the BSA hears about this, they'll go through the roof. I'm pretty sure the boys at Redmond are already powering up the lawyers for this attempt to weasel thousands off the evil empre's multi-million profits.

    I wonder how long is it going to take before some smartass post an ISO Rip of a DVD and the MPAA gets word of this.

    Oooh! Even better! Maybe some malicious moron would finally write the most virulent O2K Macro known to man and physically MELT every Wintel machine out there using Napster!

  • There's also the issue of viruses and trojans. How long before somebody has an army of Netbus'ed machines because the owners wanted Quake 3 for free?

    I can think of two ways of handling this. A trusted site could list md5 checksums of the various warez, and i don't think that would be illegal. The software could be configured to automatically check the site whenever it got a file.

    Alternatively, warez groups could pgp-sign all their releases, and again, the application could have a list of which warez groups were to be trusted. A lot of them really care about reputation, and so would keep their stuff virus- and trojan-free.
    --

  • Napster trojans/viruses, anyone? (Score:3)

    by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @05:09AM (#1180600) Homepage
    I wonder how long do we have to wait for the first Napster-enabled trojans/viruses: on execution copy oneself to a napsterized directory, rename to something like new_pamela_anderson_mpg.exe and wait for others to pull it in...

    This is only one reason why getting executables from unknown sources is a bad idea. More have been pointed out in other posts around here.

    However, I don't expect the (unwashed :-) masses to realize that before something reformats their hard drive for the n-th time, where n is inversely correlated with IQ.

    On the other hand, sharing data files over WrapGnapNapster is very interesting idea. I see some parallels to Usenet and to things like Eternity service (which aims to make it impossible to unpublish stuff).

    Kaa

  • Just what every ISP needs! (Score:3)

    by Jason Straight ( 58248 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:46AM (#1180601) Homepage
    Dialup users totally violoating the acceptible use policy by running server systems on dialup accounts keeping their connection live while they are on vaction in the netherlands. So people who don't violate the policy can't get online.

    Not to mention the amount of bandwidth consumption put on an ISP by this activity.

    I am all for the use of distributed filesystems like this, but until someone comes out with a way for me to firewall my users ability to be a server for this stuff , I am afraid I have to firewall them all out from napster all together. I would love to allow them download ability on personal connections, and not server, but there's no way to do that.

    So until that happens only my business accounts have full Inet access.

  • Re:How does it recognise files? (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23, 2000 @05:19AM (#1180602)
    I know you all are hardcore geeks and all, but I don't think the majority of people are going to use this to download Windows 2000. I think there will be 2 main uses for this: Music and Porno, neither of which needs to be an executable file. That porno option was sorely lacking from the original napster.

  • Let's expand on this... (Score:4)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @05:31AM (#1180603) Homepage Journal

    Hey, maybe this tool could even be used for things other than w4r3z. How about .. oh, I don't know ... um, how about hypertext documents? You could use this to share hypertext documents. Even modify the software to automatically display the hypertext documents instead of just downloading and storing. Then, when someone clicks on a link to another document, it would automatically retrieve it.

    That would be revolutionary!


    ---

  • Wrapster, Napster, Gnutella (Score:4)

    by nabucco ( 24057 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:22AM (#1180604)
    These hacked on functions are very cool...I've put up a page at http://www.wheres.com/fs (fs standing for Internet file sharing) about these Internet file sharers such as Napster, Gnutella - and the programs that have evolved around them like OpenNAP, Gnugnutella etc.

    One thing my page has which is cool is a web interface to Gnutella! You can download files from the Gnutella network right over the web...hopefully I will hack up some better stuff as time allows

  • And the universities thought they had... (Score:4)

    by I R A Aggie ( 32996 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:33AM (#1180605)
    ...bandwidth problems before? *snork* Warez, pr0n, CD-ROM images, everything.

    We live in amusing times. :)

    James

  • Napster-like technology for browsers (Score:4)

    by Silas ( 35023 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:22AM (#1180606) Homepage
    It would be neat, I think, if in addition to sort of re-building or re-creating the way files are shared and transferred over the Internet, there was also some integration of this method into existing software and protocols.

    Imagine, for example, a browser that, while a given page is loading, goes out and pings the pages that are linked to, checks their existence and the time it takes to get to them, and displays this information when you roll over the link. Suddenly, a user's experience of the "web" becomes much more reliable: they follow the links that they know to exist and be available at that moment, instead of floundering around hitting pages that went away a long time ago.

    Napster's success has been largely because of the reliability (and therefore time-saving) that it promises someone looking for a given resource. That's also why it's being extended to include additional media times. It would be great if we could build this reliability into existing technology.

  • Hmmm a distributed filesystem... (Score:4)

    by captaineo ( 87164 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:26AM (#1180607)
    insmod napsterfs.o
    mount /dev/napsterfs /nap

    cp /nap/MP3/By_Group/Korn/*.mp3 ~/mp3s
    cp /nap/hollywood/1999/The_Matrix.mpg.gz ~/vids
    tar zxvf /nap/SURPRESSED/DeCSS.tar.gz...

    OK who's gonna write napsterfs.o?

  • Link to Wrapster (Score:4)

    by jpatokal ( 96361 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:24AM (#1180608) Homepage
    Get yours at download.com while you still can:

    http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10080-100-158 1508.html?tag=st.dl.10001_103_1.lst.td [cnet.com]

    Cheers,
    -j.

  • Location (Score:4)

    by pevets ( 159755 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:28AM (#1180609) Homepage
    Click here [tripod.com] for the website for wrapster.

  • Finally, (Score:4)

    by Ruler Zig-Zag Allah ( 166114 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:19AM (#1180610) Homepage
    Now I can start distributing a postscript version of my manifesto, not just the 20Mb mp3 of me reading it.

  • Where does it stop? (Score:5)

    by Mr. Neutron ( 3115 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:27AM (#1180611) Homepage Journal
    Users on the Internet being able to share files? Next thing you know, they'll be able to send "messages" to one another - even, *gasp* encrypted ones!

    We obviously need to put a stop to this before we have another Oklahoma City on our hands!

    --

  • Basically, how it works... (Score:5)

    by suqur ( 28061 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @05:34AM (#1180612) Homepage
    Wrapster simply wraps valid MP3 header information around the binary file you're Wrapping, and saves it with a .mp3 extension.

    It gives it values of 32KB/s bit rate, and 32K Frequency. So, in Napster, you simply set your Advanced Search fields to look for only files equal to those values, and do a search on whatever term you're looking for. I have yet to actually find any Wrapster files on Napster.

    What would be really cool is if you could define ID3 tag information to be saved as part of the archive, because Napster would be able to search through that information, and it would make things a ton easier. Does Napster support ID3v2? This would allow complete descriptions of the archive to be searched through.

    Very creative hack, though.

  • How does it recognise files? (Score:5)

    by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @04:28AM (#1180613)
    I have not been following Napster and it's clones in the past, but this seems different. How does it recognise a file? Does it just use the filename?

    So I take linux-2.0.10.tar.gz, rename it linux-2.2.14.tar.gz somewhere and watch people fall into very large holes? Rebranding Win 3.11 as Win98TE would be even more fun, and no-one would even be able to sue without admitting that they were pirating software.

    I like to have control over where my downloads come from and this program looks like a license to self-destruct for it's users.

  • New paradigm (Score:5)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @05:10AM (#1180614)
    I really thought Gnutella was going to be cool. I know the guys at Nullsoft can kick out some really tight code. They know what they're doing. It doesn't take long to realize that Napster is just a special case of a much more general case of distributed file sharing.

    I have no sympathy for the media syndicates. There is simply NO way that they could NOT have realized that the internet would introduce an entirely new paradigm. If they didn't realize it, well they deserve what they're getting for being so stupid and unadaptable. I'm sure the original creators of the internet, of TCP/IP, the guy who started the Gutenburg project, were aware of the enormous potential and paradigm shift the internet would introduce. It introduces cheap and ubiquitous exchange of information. Media fat cats have long lived on /control/ of information. The internet is completely contrary to their whole foundation. And they will /have/ to adapt. Period. Once the dam of information control bursts you can't put the put the water back in...

  • Win 2K & Hollywood movies??? (Score:5)

    by Carnage4Life ( 106069 ) on Thursday March 23, 2000 @05:01AM (#1180615) Homepage Journal
    Anyone notice how the examples for what kind of software can be traded with Wrapster are sure to make it seem controversial?
    The article actually states "Hey now we can go out and download Hollywood movies and Windows 2000". This seems to be an indirect attempt to get the software as much flack as possible so just in case the RIAA doesn't bite the MPAA and BSA should. I wonder what C|Net's ulterior motive is?
  • I thought this would be a cool thing to do, too. Sure makes it a whole lot easier than Hotline, but I wonder about security...especially in light of the way Napster gives drive paths to the files it transfers. How many Windows registries could I download?

    I know you can configure Napster to only share specific directories, but there are plenty of people who don't bother with those things.

    There's also the issue of viruses and trojans. How long before somebody has an army of Netbus'ed machines because the owners wanted Quake 3 for free?

    I'm not sure, but this could be a bad thing in the end. If sysadmins need a reason to block Napster, the "Evil Hacker" threat is always good for instant credibility.

    I think I'll wait for a little more security before going this route. On the other hand, maybe I should download Back Orifice....

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