|
TIME MAGAZINE, JUNE 4, 2001, VOL.157 NO.22
File It Under Sharing
Unlike Napster, the latest peer-to-peer innovations can access anything without giving foes a target to shut down or sue
By DAFFYD RODERICK San Francisco
|
 |
|
William Mercer McLeod for TIME.
|
Kan's system, which he sold to Sun, could change how you search.
|
Gene Kan isn't a scary guy. He weighs maybe 60 kg soaking wet, has an easy laugh, a Mazda RX-7 fetish and a taste for writing twisted haiku. But the entertainment industry is terrified of him. Why? Kan and his team have given the idea of file sharing popularized by Napster a great leap forward with a search engine called InfraSearch. Still in development, it will be able to run down a huge array of files from any computer connected to a network—small or large—without going through a digital dating service like Napster. Dubbed peer-to-peer (P2P in geekspeak) because it eliminates the hierarchical structure of the Internet, it scares the leather pants off record execs because there is no central server like Napster to sue or shut down.
"It's like being able to walk across the hall and borrow a book from a friend," says Kan. Except your friend won't know your name or location. And while this gives big media companies like AOL Time Warner (parent company of the publisher of this magazine) copyright conniptions, proponents of the technology believe it will rewire the neural pathways of the Internet and make searching its vaults a much more rewarding experience. It's such an interesting idea that Sun Microsystems bought Kan's company in March for around $10 million. Kan is characteristically modest about the deal: "That's about one square of toilet paper for Sun."
So what did Sun get for its square? The search engine software Kan & Co. (he stayed on as a consultant) are working on promises to directly connect any computer—maybe every computer—to a network of other computers. Download the software once it's available and you'll be able to search deep, real deep. We're talking way beyond up-to-the-second news, real-time stock prices or even MP3s.
Consider how other search enginges work. Lycos, Google and the rest constantly use crawlers (programs that troll the Web for new pages) and then create an index from what they find. When you search with Google, you get back info that its crawlers dug up the day before, not what's available right now. P2P software allows you to look into other users' hard drives—or at least the portions that they permit you to view. It also allows you to work on files saved on their hard drives as well as download their files. Instead of being limited to static information posted on the Web, you will be able to poke into files of thousands of other computer users to find more telling information.
Using InfraSearch is like sending out your own army of crawlers who report back immediately. It drills into every computer on its network—whoever has agreed to allow it to search their hard drive, the way people sign up for Napster—and shoots back real-time results. The search engine Kan and his team are developing—originally based on a popular file-sharing program called Gnutella—allows each computer to ask every other computer in the matrix what it knows about a subject. So if you search for police brutality and a professor connected to the system has an unpublished paper on the topic in his active folder, you'll be able to read it.
While the media has been hyping P2P technology beyond sense and sensibility—let's face it, even in its prime Napster was about as stable as a glue-sniffing rottweiler—file sharing represents a step back to the good old days of what the Internet was all about. The Net's progenitor, the U.S. Department of Defense's Arpanet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), actually allowed much greater sharing and communication among users in the network. The system was raw and navigable only by computer science experts, but security was frowned upon because it got in the way of sharing information. When the browser appeared years later, users were at once plugged into the big system and isolated from one another. Community was out, commerce was in.
By backing InfraSearch, Sun is betting that peer networking is about to graduate from music thief to killer app. For this to become big business, however, someone has to assuage copyright-infringement concerns. The industry is counting on the development of digital rights management software that could "fingerprint" audio and video files—communicating with the originators to let them know when and where unauthorized copies are being used. "It's not productive to look at the possible problems of a technology and decide to hide from it," says Kan. "The guys who win are the ones that make technology their friend." Now that sounds scary.
Related Sites
InfraSearch
Sun Microsystems
FreeNet
Open Source Initiative
Pandango
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by Time Inc.
More Technology Stories
The Best of the Web
A guide to intelligent interaction, featuring 40 sites you've (probably) never heard of 
Watch and Wear
What's smaller than a hat, heavier than a revolver and poses no danger to Armani? A computer that gives new meaning to gear head 
Brain Power
In the brave new world of technology, we may soon be able to control distant objects just by thought
File It Under Sharing
Unlike Napster, the latest peer-to-peer innovations can access anything without giving foes a target to shut down or sue
High Fidelity
The latest digital enhancements in the audio lab are setting a new tone for sound
Speak Up
Your computer is listening
Hands On
You may be able to feel it but that doesn't mean it's real
Sniff-N-Scratch
Stop and smell the virtual gunpowder
Kenyan Company Creates Native Language Email Services
On a continent that speaks hundreds of different languages, working with email and other computer applications written mostly in English can be difficult
Talk Is Cheap and Coming to Gadgets Near You
Houses talk to computers. Magazines talk to wireless phones. Cars talk to the Internet
Around the World in 18 Days: Part 2
TIME's Aparisim Ghosh finds innovation in strange places
Around the World in 18 Days
How Wired is the Valley? TIME's Aparisim Ghosh reports from Silicon Valley
Vending the Rules
Japan's New Economy vending machines have got boxers, breakfast, beer--and a brand-new business model on tap
|
advertisement
|
|
Libraries
Full Contents: all of the stories in one simple list
Multimedia:  the home of our video, audio and interactive features
Video: CNN circles the globe for how technology is changing our lives
Toolbox: software you may need for this site
|
|
|
Subscribe to TIME
Magazine
Stories from this week's issue
Ethics
Big Brother is watching the Net. Do you care?
Living
Talk to your thermostat, surf from the toilet, phone your fridge
Entertainment
Music mixing as easy as logging on to a website and typing on a keyboard
|
|
Specials
CNN's hour-long special program on Our Interactive World, hosted by Michael Holmes and Tumi Makgabo, featuring luminaries from the world of information technology
Brian Bennett, reporter for TIME magazine, interviews MTV Asia's LiLi, a virtual veejay
Lili on her life and work: chat transcript from May 31, 2001
|
|
|
U.S. | Asia | Europe | Current Issue
U.S. | Asia | Europe | Sci-Tech
[an error occurred while processing this directive] | You are