Gene Kan
Founder, InfraSearch

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When the history of the Media Revolution is recorded-then beamed wirelessly to millions of PDAs — Napster, the wildly popular music-trading service, will be remembered as the start of something big. File-sharing networks like Napster allow a world of strangers to search one another's hard drives for information and entertainment — including the red-hot music files known as MP3s.

But Napster requires a centralized computer to administer its global swap meet. That means there's someone to hold accountable for copyright violations; hence Napster's ferocious legal battle with the recording industry.

Enter Gene Kan, a 23-year-old programmer who has taken the concept of file sharing a giant step forward with InfraSearch, a search engine that can find a spectacular array of files the moment they're created or updated. He's building it around yet another kind of file-sharing system called Gnutella, which has no server to track what you download. Instead, each user's PC queries others in the network until the desired file is located. There's no central authority, so how will media giants or Metallica know who to sue?

InfraSearch could become a research tool of unprecedented power. Computers on the network would respond only when they have what you need. If you want news about your local police force, you won't get MP3s of Sting's old band, the Police.

Make no mistake, InfraSearch will also make it easier for bootleggers to stay under the radar. That won't please the entertainment industry, but it doesn't faze Kan. "It's no good to look at the possible ills of a new technology and say, 'Let's not do that,'" he says. Apparently, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen agrees: he's an InfraSearch investor.

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