How to be Safe and Secure in Peer to Peer

Peer to Peer file sharing is kind of like a game of Russian roulette. You're never sure when you're going to get shot. There are some easy measures you can take to protect yourself when downloading on a Peer to Peer network.

Virus Scanner
This is a no-brainer, or so I've always thought. People, if you're reading this, you should have a virus scanner already. Always keep it up to date (you can set it to automatically do this). Before you open any - ANY - file you download, scan it with your virus scanner. The Gnutella network (You Limewire users) is particularly dodgy, and should be treated with extra caution!

Peer Guardian 2
This is a very, very handy tool to have. The problem with Peer to Peer networks is that you are connected to an essentially anonymous party. They can, with relatively little effort, get your IP address, which is what identifies your computer on the internet. That's all they need to try to make trouble for you. If you happen to be downloading something illegal, like music or movies, and someone from the RIAA happens to be on and sniffs out your IP address, you're looking at a lawsuit and thousands in expenses. What Peer Guardian attempts to do is keep a database of all the known "bad" sharers, and stop you from connecting to them, and stop them from being able to figure out who you are. It's easy to install, and runs quietly in the background. However, it isn't foolproof, so don't consider it the only defense you need! It can be downloaded from Phoenix Labs.

Network Selection
As I mentioned above, the Gnutella Network, which is the largest p2p network, isn't very safe. It's convenient, yes, but riddled with falsely-labeled files, viruses, trojan horses, spyware etc, etc. If you can stand it, stay off of it. It's filled with mostly illegal content anyway. If you're going to download music, try Rhapsody! It's inexpensive, convenient, and legal. They have a huge song database, and you don't need an iPod to use it. Of course, if you do have an iPod, use iTunes.

A non-P2P option that I highly recommend is Rapidshare. You can get an account for $10.00 a month. People upload a file to the Rapidshare servers, and Rapidshare simply holds on to it. You only need to find the link to the particular file, and you can download it for free. Rapidshare is fast, reliable, cheap, and simple to use.
To find these files, I recommend using Shareminer.

For the more technically inclined, try a site like Searchhacker. What this does is use Google to search for sites that have whatever it is you're looking for available for download. Kind of risky, because if you're downloading things illegally, and someone sues Google for their data, you're going to get caught. Unlikely, but worth mentioning!

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