Advanced Searching for Copyrighted Content - Part II - ‘Crack’ Sites

January 31, 2008 by sharky

« Part 2 of a 7-part series on Advanced Searching for Copyrighted Content »

Part 2. Search for a ‘Crack/Keygen’ for it.

There are only so many ways in which you can exhaust all avenues in the search for a tiny computer program that charges $50 to register it. You’ve checked BitTorrent - no, not there. IRC? maybe - but the IRC websites aren’t giving any hits. Limewire? - fahgettaboutit. The newsgroups? - very likely, but not everyone has Usenet access.

One solution to this problem is to download the original release from the official software publisher’s website. Haha, almost got you there!! No, but seriously folks - download the original …and then apply a ‘crack, patch or keygen’ to it.

The trick is, though, is to make sure you have the crack, serial or keygen FIRST before deciding which legal software you need to use. There’s not much point in downloading the software beforehand and then search for the crack afterwards (you may not find it). The good thing about software development is that it’s extremely competitive - so you’ll likely find 5 different similar programs all created to do the same job. This tip can be applied from a couple of different angles.

First, do some research on what type of software you need, and see if there are available substitutions to suit your needs. If the software is something totally specific, such as “RSS Submit v2.36″ then this will also work - but it helps if you have a second (or third) similar option in case you can’t find a ‘crack’ for the first one. And an older version of the same software does count as another option - you’ll likely run into this scenario some time down the line if you practice this tip often enough.

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Advanced Searching for Copyrighted Content - Part I - BitTorrent

January 30, 2008 by sharky

A ‘7-Step Guide’ to finding anything and everything.

Part I	Introduction & BitTorrent.
Part II	“Crack” websites.
Part III	“Proper” releases with NFO websites.
Part IV	“Warez” / DDL websites.
Part V	IRC for illegal content.
Part VI	Usenet / Newsgroups.
Part VII	Advanced Searching/Search Tips.

In search of the illicit, illegal or copyrighted? Good! So are we! The Internet is a vast place with many teeming possibilities - copyrighted material is distributed freely everywhere. This article doesn’t necessarily pertain to where one should look for pirated content; rather, more of a how to look for it. The following guide candidly demonstrates a non-exhaustive list of strategies for procuring just about anything. However; if you’re looking for a specific ‘cookie recipe’ or ‘cross-stitching’ chart, (copyrighted or not) this guide likely won’t be of any service.

Without a doubt you’ll have employed some of these methods before - and you may even know of a few that aren’t listed. Private FTP sites (& TopSites), FXP Boards, BBSes, F2F networks, etc. were all overlooked. Our attempt is to fine-tune and elaborate on the existing publicly accessible schemata for the attainment of all things copyrighted.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for with these procedures - then it probably just doesn’t exist on a public level.

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VPN Tunneling for Private P2P Connections

January 27, 2008 by sharky

Free VPN software solutions for anonymous connections & transfers.

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) works by ‘tunneling’ over an existing network (for instance, the Internet) for secure and private connections. VPN is notably similar to tunneling networks such as Tor and I2P, with the main difference being that VPN users typically need to create a new network (and add users running the same software) or join existing ones. VPNs allow for secure remote access to the network from wherever there’s an Internet connection.

Technically VPNs have nothing to do with P2P filesharing in the general sense of the phrase. Having said that, some VPN software allow users to establish their own private networks consisting of friends from contact lists, and directly support many existing IM protocols such as MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk and even support secure chat rooms. So if you’re concerned about big brother peeping in on your MSN or Yahoo transfers, VPN software may be the solution.

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Warez Hosting Websites (DDL Sites)

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Bad P2P Websites

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Open-Search BitTorrent plugins for Firefox & Explorer

January 09, 2008 by sharky

Adding BitTorrent Websites to the Search bar.

Open Search plugins can speed up the process of searching for torrents without having to actually visit the Bittorrent websites first in order to do the torrent searching. Simply put, these are little additions to the search bar services that can be selected from within the browser. For example, you can add Mininova.org or BTJunkie.org to your list of available search criteria in your browser, and select them from the dropdown menu when entering a search string.

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The WinXP TCPIP.SYS 3244 Update

January 09, 2008 by sharky

Jan 09/2008

Hello fellow WinXP users.

If you are a fellow Windows XP user (specifically Service Pack 2) and you’ve obtained the copy legally, I repeat - legally, then you’ve recently qualified for the latest CRITICAL RELEASE updates from Microsoft that were sent out on Jan 8th, 2008.

Did you install these new updates? You did? Well, I know what you’re thinking: It’s hard not to when they keep nagging about it in the taskbar. Notice anything different now in regards to your Internet speed? We sure did - browsing and P2P programs just got a whole lot slower, as of about three hours ago. “Why’s that?”, you may ask.

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Computer Vulnerabilities

January 08, 2008 by sharky

Other solutions to vulnerabilities

MS Windows (all versions) is extremely susceptible to security breaches, backdoors and other unwanted entry. This leaves the door open to a number of identity theft scams via keylogger programs, password hacking and cached browser accessing to get at your personal data. Here’s a few solutions to close those holes and unwanted programs that run in the background.

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OpenNap for P2P File Sharing

January 04, 2008 by sharky

AudioGnome
JLop
Lopster
Napster
SunshineUN
Utatane
WinMX
XNap
OUR PICKS

OpenNap is a peer-to-peer (P2P) service server. It was created as an ‘open source‘ Napster server, extending the Napster protocol to allow sharing of any media type (instead of just *.mp3 files), and adds the ability to link servers together. Today, OpenNap is still used the same way - all shared files are kept on each client’s machine but searching and indexing must pass through a central server (known as a centralized server) or group of servers. This is in direct contrast to Limewire and other second or third generation P2P services that are decentralized (and are much more difficult to shut down).

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The iPod Music Money Scam

January 04, 2008 by sharky

Getting media files for your iPod

Technically there are only three (online) ways to get media for your iPod or MP3 player. ‘Media’ being music, movies, tv shows, videos, audiobooks or any other files in support of an iPod.

— First, you could purchase it (legally) from iTunes, walmart.com, emusic.com or any other popular online music store. Prices generally range from 79 and 99 cents per song and $10 - $15 per full album. iTunes alone has sold over 3 billion songs as of August 2007 - obviously a popular choice among iPod users.

— Second, you could simply download it for free (illegally) using any P2P program such as Limewire, BitTorrent or any other free file sharing program. Then just import the MP3s, AVIs and whatnot into your iTunes application and transfer to your iPod. Without question, an even more popular choice!

— Third, you can pay a one-time or monthly/yearly fee to download it (illegally, still) from any number of websites that offer this service. All downloading is still done through a “free” P2P program and has nothing to do with the website, with the price attached firmly to the service or support. We don’t know how popular this is, but we’d like to stomp it out anyways!

It’s this third option that we want to go into some detail about:

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A List of P2P File Sharing Programs

January 02, 2008 by sharky

Aimini
Allpeers
aMule
Cabos
Clickster
Deepnet
eMule Plus
ExoSee
FileCroc
Fusteeno
Gnucleus
Jubster
Manolito
MasterMax
MLDonkey
Mp3Rocket
OFF System
OpenNap
ourTunes
P2P Muzic
Phex
Ruckus
Sigster
Speedy P2P
Swapper.net
TED
Tribler
WinMX
OUR PICKS

FileShareFreak is doing what no other website will do: We are actually testing various P2P programs under WinXP, and giving a personal review in our own words - not just some ‘cut/paste’ from the software publisher’s website. All programs were tested to be functional* in Nov./Dec. 2007, all are ‘Freeware’, and all are free of adware/spyware (unless otherwise noted). *Functional being that they connect to a network (with other users) and generate search results.

Also, we don’t include everything on this list. There’s only so many clones of Limewire and eMule we can handle! (Open source software often gets a minuscule makeover, bundled with third party adware, toolbar addons etc. and viola! a new product is born! - most of which we don’t include here). If you really want a complete list of available P2P software, visit www.download.com and search for “P2P program” or “MP3 finders” - you’ll be inundated with clones and the like. Know a good P2P program that’s not on the list? Try our Top Ten P2P page, or add one in the comments at the bottom.

Additionally, we wanted a list of P2P programs that contained variety. Most of these programs connect to their own network, or to multiple networks, thus diversifying the search results available in P2P. What point would it serve if we only included a bunch of programs that connected solely to the Gnutella network? - all of the search results would be the same.

NOTE: Keep checking back at this page, we add new P2P File Sharing programs regularly! Although these programs are adware/spyware free, most of these applications are not considered P2P safe (i.e. “anonymous” or “encrypted traffic” type programs), unless they are properly configured via the Proxy (SOCKS) settings internally.

BitTorrent clients are not listed here, since there are only about three BT clients that should be used anyways (see here). Moreover, the BTclient is not at all indicative of good search queries - this quality is ordained by the BitTorrent website hosting the .torrent files.

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P2P Programs That Don’t Connect

January 02, 2008 by sharky

P2P Programs that don’t connect (and other things to avoid)

In our unabated drive to find P2P networks that people are using to share files (old and new, big or small), we’ve searched high and low for every and all networks that people could possibly be using to swap files. Many of our sources for these P2P programs, and the working ones, came from the SourceForge website. We conducted searches for “file sharing” and “P2P” software - and shoveled through the massive list of 620 different results. From these results we tossed out all the ’source code only’ queries (we’re not about to start compiling code, and likely neither are you - so we only tested things that contained an executable *.EXE file) although we did test some *.JAR/class files under Java.

It should be noted that these aren’t bad P2P programs - they simply don’t connect to a viable network or people using them (as is). We tried our best to get these apps to connect through various tweaked settings and system requirements, but to no avail. We even resorted to search engines to try and find users/forums that lay out special instructions, database files of users, or IP network addresses to import. Perhaps we’re wrong about some of them - there’s a chance they’ve turned into elusive darknets that we couldn’t circumvent. However you slice it, these are time-wasters for most general filesharers! (most links are included if you want to have a go for yourself).

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P2P Programs That Contain Adware

January 02, 2008 by sharky

P2P programs that contain adware/spyware. (and worse)

This is a list of some of the P2P programs that contain adware - and there are others - especially newer P2P programs with flashy names. Note that some of these P2P applications contain adware/spyware that cannot be de-selected during the installation (i.e. ‘opted out of’) and some can be. Both types are categorized in this list. Read the description of each for more information.

We include the version of the infracting software, but don’t assume all other versions of the same software are safe. Usually when a company decides to place adware/spyware in software - they’ll do it for all versions. It is the program itself that should be avoided, not a specific version of it.

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A List of File Sharing Networks

January 02, 2008 by sharky

A list of P2P Networks and Clients

A P2P Network is a network consisting of other connected users, implemented for file sharing and transfers. To access a P2P network, users simply download and install a suitable P2P client application. P2P clients require a network to connect to, in order to join all of the users to each other that are using the same client (or other network-compatible clients). A common example would be Limewire - when you run the Limewire program, it connects to the Gnutella network. It is through the Gnutella network that all Limewire users are connected and thus all available files and searching. It would be fair to say that the network is actually more important than the client program - remove the network and the client has nothing to connect to.

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P2P Programs That Cost Money (Avoid These)

January 01, 2008 by sharky

Avoid These Fee-based P2P clients/services. (Re-branding)

On the P2P scene, re-branding is regarded as a scam when certain stealth operating companies have cloned an ‘open source‘ brand and use advertisements that generally consist of deceptive search engine ads and inexpensive ‘google adsense’-style ads. In hopes of making money, they charge for “support” that is often just a copy of the wiki or other documentation from the original program’s website - all under the pretext of providing customer service. Combine all this with a slightly-modified GUI and *presto* - a new monetizing program is born - one that was completely free in the first place.

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