Chapter 5: Finding Files on Web and FTP Sites

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Overview

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.

—John Cage

In the early days of the Internet, people didn’t have file sharing networks for swapping files with each other. Instead, if you wanted to share files over the Internet, you had to use File Transfer Protocol—FTP for short. FTP is just a standard method for transferring files from one computer to another.

Before the file sharing networks took over, many people used to share files (legal and otherwise) through websites and FTP sites. Websites that offer FTP transfer simply display a list of files available, and you click the file you want to copy, as shown in Figure 5-1.

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Figure 5-1: The graphical nature of a web page lets you point and click on the files you want to copy, such as the movie The Matrix Revolutions or Microsoft Office XP.

FTP sites, on the other hand, don’t have the luxury of displaying graphics or point-and-click interfaces (FTP sites were around long before the World Wide Web popped up); they simply display lists of files within a cryptic hierarchy of directories and subdirectories, as shown in Figure 5-2. Essentially, you can think of an FTP site as a website without the pretty graphical appearance.

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Figure 5-2: An FTP site displays files organized in directories and subdirectories.

Web and FTP sites often contain freeware or shareware programs, software drivers, and scientific papers. Of course, many people also use web and FTP sites to share copyrighted information, including MP3 music files, pornographic photographs, full-length videos, and the latest versions of popular programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office, or Macromedia Dreamweaver.

Setting up a website to distribute illegal material can be risky, but many people use free web hosting services, such as GeoCities (http://geocities.yahoo. com) or Tripod (http://www.tripod.lycos.com), which they can operate anonymously. Still others don’t mind taking the risk of setting up a web or FTP site to distribute copyrighted files, because the authorities don’t have time to examine every web or FTP site on the Internet to search for illegally distributed files. To avoid prosecution, many of these web and FTP sites are located in countries like Russia, Germany, or India, which protects them to a large extent from prosecution by American companies and authorities.

If you’re willing to take some time and do a little more work, you can often find most any file you want on various web and FTP sites around the Internet with little legal risk to yourself (unless, of course, you start sharing your copyrighted files with others).



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Steal This File Sharing Book
Steal This File Sharing Book: What They Wont Tell You About File Sharing
ISBN: 159327050X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 98
Authors: Wallace Wang

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