CAN I BORROW YOUR COMPUTER WHILE YOU'RE ASLEEP, PLEASE? - ALTNET
http://www.musicdish.com/mag/?id=6781
By: Jon Newton (News Features Editor)
2002-10-16
"Altnet is the first wholesale, peer-to-peer network created to provide easy
search access for consumers to secure content distributed from content owners
with cost-effective bandwidth functions for the enterprise customers and content
owners. Altnet greatly reduces bandwidth and storage costs for enterprise
customers by leveraging the computing and storage resources of a massive network
of Qualified PCs. Further, it provides a secure P2P network that puts content
owners in control of the online distribution of their content."
Does this load of old cobblers make your heart go pity-pat?
That's what you'll see if you go to the Altnet site which, via a deal with Kazaa
partner Brilliant Digital Entertainment, wants to see if online music lovers
will fork out $4.95 to download a video, or 25 cents for one song.
But that's only the thin edge of a very large wedge, to be polite about it.
Altnet is a joint venture between Brilliant and Niklas Zennström's new company
Joltid, the latter being developers of, "the world's most popular P2P
technology," as its puff-stuff says modestly (Zennström was one of the original
Kazaa/FastTrack founders).
Put another way, Kazaa users, who presently hook and swap free digital files,
will now also be offered links to songs hawked by the labels - both in the form
of links on kazaa's home page and results with gold icons that are displayed
with normal search results - for which they'll have to pay. And this, it goes
almost without saying, represents an attempt by the Fulsome Five record labels
to sneak into p2p through the back door, having repeatedly bolloxed up
legitimate entry.
It's ironic that Kazaa should be the means by which they try to squeeze in.
But there's more and now it gets REALLY scary.
Users will also be asked to let Brilliant and Joltid roam around loose in their
home computers so Brilliant and Joltid can make millions of dollars.
Say what?
"Altnet will compensate consumers who opt in to the network with Altnet resource
dollars, exclusive entertainment content and other redeemable goods and
services. Of the entire customer base, only a small core will operate as network
hubs and will be proactively approached by Altnet for permission to use their
PC’s resources."
Do that mean what it seem to mean?
Yep. It do.
If you've got a P4, Altnet wants it, "for about 8 hours a day".
It says, "You might choose to allow Altnet to use your processing power and
bandwidth during the night to render movies for an animation studio. Altnet will
install a tiny application on your machine and each night will send you a
package or raw data to process into video. While you sleep, your computer
renders the video, deletes the raw data and sends the video back to Altnet. At
any time you can enquire into the reward value you have earned and you will be
able to redeem according to your agreement with Altnet for this service."
Riiiiight.
Altnet's idea of a typical user?
It goes on, "We're pioneering. This is a hugely exciting world where millions of
independent computers join together to work on scientific research by way of
distributed processing, bandwidth cost reduction, distributed storage, and more
[for us]. Altnet hopes to reduce serving costs making streaming video and many
other new services possible [so we can milk them dry]. Of course the distributed
processor applications and distributed downloads and distributed storage need to
run somewhere - and that's where you get to contribute, and get rewarded."
And shafted, perhaps?
But perish the thought. The nice folks at Altnet say in a statement from
Brilliant Digital Entertainment, "Regarding Altnet: Much of the press and
public's attention has focused on Brilliant Digital's SecureInstall technology,
which is being downloaded along with the Digital Projector, as part of Sharman
Networks' KaZaA Media Desktop. ALTNET WILL NEVER USE YOUR PC'S RESOURCES WITHOUT
YOUR EXPRESS ACCEPTANCE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
"We understand that not all users will choose to be a part of the Altnet program
but we also understand that many users will want to be a part of the program in
which case those users who elect to participate will receive non-cash
compensation that will be announced at that time."
But what's truly mind-boggling is that Brilliant Digital will probably get
people to actually sign up for this. They're no doubt already floating this
scheme to ignorant investors who don't know p2p is already under way without the
"tiny application" on peoples' systems. And no doubt they're advised by many of
the same clueless venture capitalists who've already lost their clients' shorts
trying to get rich from (cough, cough) dot.com and e-commerce.
Subscribe to MusicDish's Free Newsletter
http://www.musicdish.co
---------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Mistral WebMail.
http://www.mistral.co.uk/
----------------------------------------------------
Rumori, the Detritus.net Discussion List
to unsubscribe, send mail to majordomoATdetritus.net
with "unsubscribe rumori" in the message body.
----------------------------------------------------
Rumori list archives & other information are at
http://detritus.net/contact/rumori
----------------------------------------------------
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
N© Detritus.net. Sharerights extended to all.