The most popular of the hacked file-swapping programs, Kazaa Lite, has already attracted legal threats from Sharman Networks, the Australian company that owns the Kazaa software. "We mean to stamp it out," said Sharman chief executive Nikki Hemming in a conference call on Tuesday. Kazaa Lite was allegedly created by a Moscow resident who uses the name "Yuri." Few in the file-swapping community will admit to knowing how to reach this figure, and some have even speculated that he's an invention to protect the actual creators of Kazaa Lite. However, the software has been floating in various places around the Net for at least two months. A manifesto allegedly written by Yuri, posted on one of the original distribution sites, describes the creator's motivation. In the message, he thanks Kazaa for creating good software, but says its bundling policy is misleading. "The real workings of these third party software is not sufficiently explained to the end users," the message attributed to Yuri reads. "The legal notice is very long and difficult to understand, particularly for those whose native language is not English. Fact is that most users of KaZaA don't even know that there were some third party software installed by KaZaA, or more important what that software does." One of the most popular distribution points for the software is KazaaLite.com, a site run by 18-year-old Scottish university student Shaun Garriock. He says he started the site in late February and receives software updates by anonymous email from Yuri. Other people around the world have started emailing him versions of the software in other languages, he says. Sharman Networks is fighting back. They've successfully had the Kazaa Lite software taken out of Download.com, a popular software aggregation site operated by ZDNet UK publisher CNET Networks. In a conference call on Wednesday, Sharman's Hemming said the company was in the process of seeking cease-and-desist orders against everyone in the KazaaLite distribution chain -- "the Muscovite and everybody," she said. "They're essentially hackers and rippers," Hemming said. "Basically our brand name is being damaged quite significantly by these activities." Not all file-swapping companies are as sensitive to the issue. "I'm personally aware of it," said Michael Merhej, chief executive of AudioGalaxy. "Have I thought about it for a second? No." According to Dr Damn, the "cleaned" versions of the software aren't hard to create. He says he just looked at what the official Grokster and iMesh installation programs were putting on his computer, and then built his own installer, and put only the ordinary Grokster and iMesh files inside. The advertising software built by Cydoor is built more deeply into Grokster, Kazaa and several other software programs. But a "dummy" version of their software has been created by CounterExploitation, a pair of college students who have become online privacy activists. Their work is used in several of the hacked file-swapping programs. The hacked software is just one thread of the Net's technological response to the explosion of bundled software. Lavasoft's Ad-Aware, a piece of software that can strip out adware and spyware components from other programs, has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. But as the hacked software movement grows, it is being forced more deeply underground. Already Dr Damn's ISP has told him it will no longer host his files. He's looking for another provider. KazaaLite.com's Garriock says he's thinking of emailing Sharman Networks in hopes of repairing any damage done. "Even if they take the site down the program will survive somehow," he wrote in an IM interview. "But I don't want to go to jail yet for the people."
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