Lawmakers Relaunch P2P Probe
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns and ranking member Darrell Issa are reopening their committee's investigation of inadvertent file sharing on peer-to-peer networks, including LimeWire. The pair wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting a briefing on the agency's role in protecting Americans from the dangers associated with P2P networks. They want to know which federal law enforcement actions may be taken to protect individuals, commercial entities and agencies from security risks associated with programs such as LimeWire. They also wrote to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz requesting an update on his commission's work on the P2P front. A third letter went to LimeWire Chairman Mark Gorton, who testified before the committee in 2007.
At that hearing, witnesses said they were able to easily obtain bank records, health records, military files, tax returns, corporate documents, and other highly sensitive private files via the LimeWire network. Two years later, it appears that LimeWire and other P2P providers have not taken adequate steps to address the problem, the lawmakers said, citing a recent string of news reports indicating the continued availability of such information on LimeWire. Towns and Issa asked Gorton to provide information about LimeWire's services and software involved in any of the incidents that have been documented. They also asked what measures the firm has taken to fix security loopholes and identify and eliminate illegal activities associated with the software. Gorton's answers are due May 4.
"The emerging P2P industry takes the safety of consumers very seriously," said Marty Lafferty, executive director of the Distributed Computing Industry Association, which represents file-sharing services. "Our best advice now - to parents and children alike - is similar to that given by other Internet software distributors: please upgrade to the latest version for the best performance and the safest experience." LimeWire spokeswoman Linda Lipman told the AP that LimeWire's newest version does not share any file or directory without explicit permission from the user. Lafferty also pointed to principles released recently by the Inadvertent Sharing Protection Working Group, which can be found here.
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