Japanese police have arrested two people suspected of distributing pirated films and computer games through a supposedly anonymous file-sharing network.
Police also raided the home of the programmer who created the program used to connect to the network. His program, called 鈥淲inny鈥�, is meant to hide the identity of a user from everyone else on the network. So far he has only been identified by his online pseudonym 鈥�47鈥�.
It is unclear how the two suspects were traced but their arrests have raised concerns about the security of the Winny network. According to the Japanese Association of Copyright for Computer Software around 250,000 regularly use it to trade files.
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Interest in anonymous file sharing networks has grown rapidly since the US music industry began taking legal action against individual users as part of a controversial attempt to stamp out illicit online music trading.
This is the first time anyone has been arrested in relation to use of this type of secretive trading network. The most popular file-sharing networks provide little or no secrecy for users who can easily be traced through their computer鈥檚 internet protocol (IP) address.
Secret sharing
According to the Mainichi Daily News the suspects are Katsuhiko Kimotoa, a 41-year-old man from Takasaki, 100 kilometres north of Tokyo, and a 19-year-old from Matsuyama in southern Japan who cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Winny is reportedly based on probably the best-known anonymous file-sharing application Freenet. This network provides anonymous untraceable sharing by dividing up files and distributing them across different computers. The network is also cryptographically secured.
However, Freenet鈥檚 creator, Ian Clarke, has questioned any close connection. 鈥淔rom what I have seen of Winny (which isn鈥檛 much) it is more likely that they have borrowed a few ideas from Freenet,鈥� Clarke writes in an online posting. 鈥淏ut it is unclear whether Winny uses a Freenet-style routing algorithm, or implements any of Freenet鈥檚 crypto.鈥�
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents the five biggest record companies in the world, announced plans to take legal measures against online file-sharing pirates in June this year. Since then hundreds of individuals have been taken to court in the US over alleged piracy.