Steal This File Sharing Book: What They Won't Tell You About File Sharing

Steal This File Sharing Book: What They Won't Tell You About File Sharing was written by Wallace Wang. In brief this book, pretty much, teaches you how to illegally download files, such as, music, videos, or private documents and the pros and cons of doing so. The group who presented this book mentioned trying out the steps, in which, Wallace Wang noted in his book, to see if the book really offered legit information on downloading things for free. Well, I believe, they were surprised to find out that the steps in which they followed were good because by following them they were able to download this book for free. I thought that was hilarious.


The definition of file sharing is being able to publicly or privately download files. Napster is a good example of this. Napster was the first real file share that was found out and shut down. There were 26 million users in Febuary 2001, however, the original date of Napster was in the previous years of 1999. Shawn Fanning was the creator of this very popular file share which allowed people to download music for free. File sharing effects sales because the artists do not get their full royalties, however there are some definite "ups" to file sharing. People can check out music that they normally wouldn't which may even cause that particle consumer to purchase the CD or download the songs from iTunes to put on their iPods. Another form of file share that came out of wood work is known as Gnutella. Gnutella allowed people to share more than just music. This is just a little on the scary side because, so far, only you know the information that you store on your computer, so it's frightening to think that others across the world are going to know as well.

The Art of Deception

One of the groups that presented on Wednesday did two books instead of one, like the rest of the class (over achiever's...just kidding). But one of the books that was presented was called The Art of Deception by Kevin D. Mitnick. This book describes ways of getting into someones computer system and "crackering" it (I just learned that hacking into a computer is used in the wrong sense, but instead should be called crackering because hackers were known as good people in yester years). Obviously, by illegally getting into someones computer system can cause harm to that individual in many ways, depending on what kind of information can be found. Kevin Mitnick pulled a trick, such as this, and because of his actions he was held in jail for 4 and a 1/2 years waiting for his trial. He may even be the reason why many crimes that are committed today are even considered a crime. Mr. Mitnick committed crimes before they even became crimes, according to the presenters, and was once the FBI's most wanted hacker. One of the key points that this group discussed (and we briefly discussed it in our presentation) was "you can protect yourself with all the security but still not be safe". This is a scary thing to think about because no matter what, if a person whats to find you then they will some how make it possible.

A couple ways to keep yourself as safe as possible would be to make sure everyone who may come into contact with your computers, whether it be a business computer or at school even, that they are safe. DO NOT give out your password, and make sure to track all individuals you may deal with on a regular basis, for example, delivery workers or employees.