Neowin.net - Japan police arrest two for file sharing

Japan police arrest two for file sharing

Posted by Daniel Fleshbourne on 08 December 2003 - 17:01 · 24 comments & 1368 views

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- In a rare police crackdown on Internet file-sharing, two Japanese men were arrested for allegedly disseminating movies and games with software that claimed to protect users' identities. The arrests -- only the second such case in Japan -- could signal a shift toward harsh penalties for anyone caught trading copyright material online. The entertainment industry had encouraged the crackdown. Software that allows anonymous file sharing gained attention this year as the U.S. recording industry shifted from trying to shut down the creators and promoters of file-sharing software to suits against the users.

The Japanese case demonstrates how difficult it can be to stay anonymous on the Internet. The two suspects, a 41-year-old man who runs a business and an unemployed 19-year-old, were detained November 27 for alleged copyright violations using a "peer-to-peer" program called Winny that is available on the Internet for free. The program allows users to trade files without revealing their Internet Protocol address, the Internet's equivalent of a phone number.

Kyoto police spokesman Yukinori Kumamoto didn't say how police identified the suspects. Winny is partly based on Freenet, a freely distributed program intended to bypass Internet censorship by making users anonymous.

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News source: CNN

Critical to the United States and some other developed countries is keeping control of the internet in the private sector and not handing it off to a new United Nations agency as proposed by nations such as China and Brazil.

"We think it's extraordinarily important that it continue to be private sector-led," Mr Gross said, noting that the existing, semi-private US-created Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was already capable of managing the worldwide web.

"We think that ICANN has in place opportunities for input from governments" who have concerns about internet technical issues, he said.

Control of the internet is one of the thorniest points of contention in the leadup to the summit which is intended to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor and is to be attended by at least 62 heads of state.

Last month, the executive director of the summit's secretariat said he was disappointed at the lack of progress being made by negotiators, and said it would be a "miracle" if a draft declaration could be reached before the meeting.

According to Mr Gross, the United States, at least is not willing to compromise on its positions - particularly on ensuring that freedom of speech and expression is endorsed by the summiteers.

"We believe that is extraordinarily important," he said, affirming that free speech as a fundamental principle of the internet.

Advocacy groups have claimed that nations like China, Egypt, Pakistan, Tunisia and Vietnam are hoping to use the summit to gain power to censure the dissemination of information.

"We are always concerned about statements that might be misunderstood as sanctioning restrictions, either of freedom of expression or on the freedom of the press," Mr Gross said.

On US opposition to the "digital solidarity fund" proposed by Senegal, he noted that the United States already had in place a program - the "digital freedom initiative" - to assist developing nations with internet technology.

"We don't think that the case has been made for the creation of a new international fund focusing on these issues in the way in which it's been described so far," Mr Gross said.

Washington has concerns about how the money would be collected, who would administer the fund, and what countries would benefit from it, he said.

"We do not endorse it right now, even in its voluntary form, because we're concerned about how these things play out," Mr Gross said.

He said the United States believed that developing nations needed to focus first on improving rule of law and their commitment to free market economies before launching into internet projects.

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(3 replies) #1 Posted by raid517 on 08 Dec 2003 - 17:19: Sh*t - and I thought Freenet was secure... It seems to me that Governments can pretty much snoop on anything these days...

Q

#2 Posted by plasticparadox on 08 Dec 2003 - 17:20: Yikes... good thing I went legit a few months ago. Now all they have to do is bring iTunes Music Store to Japan (which has already been announced) and I'll be set.

#3 Posted by JSemple3 on 08 Dec 2003 - 17:54: Good thing I only download and don't fileshare (and I only don't share as I am on a dialup modem)

(2 replies) #4 Posted by Chineseyes on 08 Dec 2003 - 18:03: Whats with the posting of news thats a couple of days old, this has been on other sites for a little while now along with a couple of other articles that have appeared recently I'm not complaining just observing.

(1 reply) #5 Posted by mlauzon on 08 Dec 2003 - 19:13: I would have tried Winny, the problem is that it's not in English....

Michael Lauzon, Founder
The Quill Society
http://www.quillsociety.org/
mlauzon@quillsociety.org

#6 Posted by cesardrgn on 08 Dec 2003 - 20:08: No one is safe...

(7 replies) #7 Posted by Tech_8356 on 08 Dec 2003 - 20:51: So, theoretically, if one never uploads or actually shares files...only downloads them, then they're pretty much undetectable?

(1 reply) #8 Posted by orphic on 08 Dec 2003 - 22:30: One word...USENET

#9 Posted by Coolme on 08 Dec 2003 - 22:38: Yikes! I would rather have a law suit.

#10 Posted by Ev1lg0at on 09 Dec 2003 - 00:32: i cant believe this... "why share when u can leech heheheh" oh ye.. keep doing this and we'll see how far the sharing will go... pfft
its just retards like you who will get these sharing apps closed down, not the gay IRAA.

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