P2P Spoofing Patented

A computer science professor and graduate student have been awarded a patent for a method of thwarting illegal file sharing on peer-to-peer networks by flooding the network with bogus files that look like pirated music.

The software creates bogus files with attributes -- such as file names and description tags -- that make them look like the real thing, but they are in fact white noise, low-quality recordings or advertisements to buy the song. What's more, the software sends out thousands of decoys to frustrate P2P users with fruitless downloads.

University of Tulsa professor John Hale and doctoral student Gavin Manes are working with the university to commercialize the invention and market it to record labels, movie studios and software companies.

"It's built off the basic idea of injecting alternative content or decoy media into peer-to-peer networks as a way of hiding pirated media that's being shared illegally," Hale said. "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Artists who want to share their music on P2P networks wouldn't be affected, he said. The content owners could designate only particular files for spoofing.

Individual record companies and movie studios are already working with software companies like Overpeer and MediaDefender to flood P2P networks with bogus files. Hale said it's possible that the content-protection companies are using similar methods to frustrate users, but he doesn't know exactly how their technologies differ from his, since the companies are secretive. "It's something we'll have to evaluate."

He said his technology is a less-intrusive approach to piracy than interdiction -- a method in which content owners flood the request queues of would-be file sharers so they are unable to share anything, even legitimate files.

Hale and Manes filed their patent in 2000 and it was awarded earlier this week.

Whether the patent will hold up is an open question.

"We haven't looked at the specifics of his patent," said Marc Morgenstern, general manager of Overpeer, which works with entertainment companies, record labels and game publishers. "What makes for a successful invention is what's under the hood. It requires significant software, hardware and bandwidth commitments to succeed at protecting content."

He said Overpeer holds two patents in Korea and one in Germany, and three are pending in the United States.

The Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry's main trade group, said it's up to the individual record labels to determine whether they will use spoofing techniques.

Hale said the technology could be applied to protect all sorts of sensitive or confidential material.

"If you have a secret that gets out there, how do you get the genie back in the bottle?" Hale said. "You make millions of clones of genies and hope that they won't find the right one."

Story source: wired.com.