P2P: Family PC security flaw

It has been fixed, but this PC security flaw alerts parents of file-sharers to a key potential risk of P2P activity to the family PC: the privacy one. Researchers at Cornell University found that the flaw in the very popular LimeWire P2P service "could allow an intruder to read any file on the hard drive of a person running LimeWire, whether or not it has been deliberately shared with others using the software," CNET reports. (File-sharers do have to download LimeWire's latest version to get the fix.) This is just the latest heads-up on the PC security issue. A 2002 study of Kazaa at HP Labs in California found "the majority of the users in our study were unable to tell what files they were sharing, and sometimes incorrectly assumed they were not sharing any files when in fact they were sharing *all* files on their hard drive." After that study was released, the US Congress held hearings on this problem to get the word out (see "Overexposed: The Threats to Privacy and Security on the File-Sharing Networks"). The bottom line is, if kids' file-sharing is allowed, parents need to be involved and at the very least need to configure the software's preferences with their children after it's installed on the family PC. Other P2P issues are the widely reported legal risks, the spyware that comes bundled with some of the services (not LimeWire, incidentally), viruses that can be downloaded, and the pornography (both legal adult content and illegal child pornography) that's all over the networks. Some files on the networks with descriptors, or labels, as innocuous as "Winnie the Pooh" turn out to be pornographic, so children can download them inadvertently. For more, see "File-sharing realities for families" and "A tech-literate dad on file-sharing."