Should you trust P2P Networking?

[AnthonyRomesh]

Recently my friend has used P2P networks such as Kazaa and it has worked him fine, as he loves downloading MP3 files and Movies off the net. (Even though it is illegal). However recently he has realised that stuff on this home computer started going missing, also his saved games seem to be corrupted or missing, it freezes on loading.

I investigated on his system. He has not got a decent firewall, that is out-of-date. So therefore he may be being hacked from a P2P network, which I believe is possible. From what I have seen. If you ever have used Kazaa for anything, you may see the Upload frame, which appears below your downloads. When someone wishes to have a copy of that awesome movie, MP3, image or doc.

It seems that the uploaded files are not taken from the main Kazaa "Shared Folder". It seems that other directories are being uploaded from the on his PC. Which was rather worrying. And three quarter of those Uploaded files then were never found again. Which was quite a surprise. I checked the main P2P application's option menu, top-to-bottom, in-case there was such an option as "Allow Kazaa to upload files from other location". Which there was not.

So heres some Advice :Never Trust a P2P Network again, unless you are a risk taker, or have\willing to purchase a decent firewall like Mc affe and Symnatec. Which I hope you all do have.

Anthony Romesh

[Coco]

I don't know how hard you looked but Kazaa entirely supports uploading files from other directorys and with a default install will scan for other media to share and share it automaticly. ANd although kazaa may have many faults this is not something they hide from the user at all. It is very well broadcast to you when installing and when it is searching for other media.

As for the actually problems with his computer, it could be he downloaded a virus off of kazaa, but kazaa didn't just do anything itself. You really shouldn't ever download an executable file off kazaa as there are a lot of viruses.

Also as for sharing out other files on the computer simply go under options and click "find media to share". From there you control which folders are shared out. It's almost the only thing it has under options I really have no idea how you missed it.