Winny
| Winny | |
|---|---|
| Basic data
|
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| developer | Isamu Kaneko |
| Current version | v2.0β7.1 (November 11, 2003) |
| operating system | Windows |
| programming language | C ++ |
| category | peer to peer |
| License | Freeware |
| German speaking | No |
| www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley/2949/ | |
Winny (alias WinNY ) is a Japanese peer-to-peer - file sharing program that claims by the design principles behind the Freenet to have been inspired -Netz and keep user identities anonymous. While Freenet was implemented in Java , Winny was implemented as a C ++ application for Windows .
The name of the software is derived from WinMX , where M and X are raised by one letter in the Latin alphabet to N and Y. As of September 2003, there were 250,000 users of the program according to the Association of Copyright for Computer Software in Tokyo. According to P2Pnet , it is the most popular exchange program in Japan, with WinMX in second place.
The software was developed by Isamu Kaneko, who was a research assistant in a master’s degree in computer engineering at the University of Tokyo in Japan. He was also a researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute . Kaneko originally announced his intention to develop Winny on the "Download Software" board of the popular Japanese forum 2channel . Since 2channel users often refer to anonymous users by their posting number, Kaneko became known as 47-shi ( Japanese 47 氏 'Mr 47' ), or just "47".
On November 28, 2003, two users of Winny, Yoshihiro Inoue 1 , a 41-year-old self-employed businessman from Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, and a 19-year-old unemployed man from Matsuyama, were arrested by Kyoto police. They were accused of distributing copyrighted material via Winny and confessed to their actions. Soon after the arrests of these two users, Kaneko's apartment was searched and the Winny source code was confiscated by the Kyoto police. Kaneko was arrested on "suspicion of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement".
Kaneko's arrest sparked an uproar in internet communities including 2channel, and the arrest was labeled unjustified. A website specifically designed to raise funds for its defense has seen donations of over 11 million yen in just two weeks.
Kaneko was released on bail on June 1, 2004. The court hearing started in September 2004 at the Kyoto District Court.
On December 13, 2006, Kaneko was convicted of "aiding and abetting copyright infringement" and fined 1.5 million yen. The verdict was hotly debated in the Japanese daily newspapers. In October 2009, Kaneko was acquitted in the second instance.
Isamu Kaneko died on July 6, 2013 as a result of a heart attack. He was 42 years old.
After Winny's development was stopped, an anonymous Japanese developer created Share to pick up where Winny left off.
Winny's anonymity
When the two users of Winny were arrested at the time, the Kyoto police claimed to have "analyzed Winny's anonymization abilities" in order to track down the users, but never disclosed the exact method. Later, when the details of the methods used were given on Kaneko's first day of trial, it turned out that this statement was not entirely accurate. The police searched for users in features of the program for which Winny does not offer any anonymity.
After being unable to break Winny's encrypted communications into its file-sharing feature, the Kyoto police switched to another method, namely to track down users through Winny's built-in forum. In contrast to the file-sharing feature, the forum only offered anonymity for visitors to message threads, but not for those who created a thread. Users who called a thread could easily find out the IP address of the thread creator.
The Kyoto police had first searched for threads whose creators gave the filenames of the copyrighted material and recorded their IP addresses. Then they had configured their firewall so that only connections from the IP address of these users were allowed. In the end, they then confirmed that they could indeed download the files that the thread creators had posted to distribute.
Debate about Winny's purpose
Kaneko's critics claim that Winny's primary purpose is to violate copyright law, unlike Freenet, which Winny is often compared to and which claims to protect freedom of expression . These critics consequently claim that 2ch's Download Software Board, on which the software was first announced, is a haven for copyright infringers and quote from several communications from Kaneko that Winny's aim is to build a world full of copyright infringements.
In a notice on the 2ch Download Software Board, "47" indicated that & # 132; & # 133; beta 8.1 [by Winny] has a security flaw and does not offer anonymity. "Do not exchange illegal files [with]." 2 Critics see this as evidence of Kaneko's malicious intent, as "47" instructed users not to exchange any copyrighted material with Beta 8.1 because it does not provide anonymity and copyright infringers could be tracked down .
Others, however, do not describe Kaneko's actions as a criminal offense, as he himself did not commit any copyright infringement, but only produced software that could be used for this purpose. In addition, the allegations of Kaneko's critics are not provable (some even describe them as simply false), since his noted statements are far too vague for illegal intentions to be proven. According to the Free Kaneko website, he reportedly warned against exchanging copyrighted material using the software.
Winny in the present
Winny was nearly overrun by western users. The network is riddled with so-called fakes (e.g. porn films disguised as Linux ISO) as well as files infected by viruses and Trojans. The scene says that the " Gaijins " (Japanese for 'foreigners') destroyed the Winny network. Despite the fakes and contaminated files, Winny is still popular, especially in the western Japan (fan) scene.
It is feared that Share , Winny's successor, will suffer the same fate if the number of western users increases here too.
Perfect Dark (P2P) has been developed as a successor program.
Remarks
- Yoshihiro Inoue first used the code name "Katsuhiko Kimoto", but his true identity was found out. Inoue said she used the code name Kimoto often.
- The quote was translated from the Japanese original, which can be found here: http://winny.info/2ch/main/1021057195.html#526 .
- The last version released by Kaneko himself is 2.0b7.1.
- b7.26 is a version that a hacker added some new features to. It is hardly used.
Bibliography
- Kaneko Isamu: The Technology of Winny ASCII 2005, ISBN 4-7561-4548-5 (Japanese)
Web links
- Website with link for download (Japanese)
- Japanese police arrest developers of file sharing software from Heise.de
- Professor responsible 'for the development of P2P software' from the Sydney Morning Herald (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jiji Press: OBITUARY / Isamu Kaneko / Winny software developer. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The Yomiuri Shimbun, July 9, 2013 (English)
