Exeem, From Suprnova

January 21, 2005 9:18 PM

eXeem Lite, the spyware free version of eXeem! Violate eXeem's copyright for fun and profit.
posted by Iax (40 comments total)

eXeem contains spyware?
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 9:27 PM on January 21, 2005

From here:

Third Party Advertising
The ads appearing on the Exeem.com Web site and within eXeem™ application are delivered by our web advertising partner, Cydoor. Information about users of eXeem™ and Exeem.com, such as the number of times they have viewed an ad (but not user name, address, or other personal information), is used to serve ads to users. If you would like more information about Cydoor, please visit: http://www.cydoor.com/Cydoor/Company/CompanyPrivacy.htm

Ads that might appear outside Exeem.com and eXeem™ application are Opt-out ads, that you have a chance to uninstall. Outside Exeem.com and eXeem™ application is eXeem's Toolbar LookSmart .

Mmmmm...cydoor.
posted by m0nm0n at 9:32 PM on January 21, 2005

A similar thread was just deleted... anyway i'd stay away, the slashdot thread on exeem today has quite a few links to some still existing torrent sites, check that out instead.
posted by bobo123 at 9:32 PM on January 21, 2005

According to the Slashdot story, eXeem installs cyDoor. I was about to install it when I came across this post.
Thanks, Iax.
posted by sanko at 9:33 PM on January 21, 2005

uh, we need a key to activate it?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:36 PM on January 21, 2005

From a Slashdot comment:

It's the 0.18 beta which asks for a key, but until a lite of 0.20 is released, if you close the window asking for a beta key, the program will work.
posted by muckster at 10:16 PM on January 21, 2005

It sounds awful, though. I'm staying away.
posted by muckster at 10:19 PM on January 21, 2005

thanks, m0nm0m

(and I thought my nick was hard to write...)
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 10:52 PM on January 21, 2005

As for exeem, it's just trading on the suprnova identity. It seems like a rather sleazy, cheap move.

Actually I've noticed a sort of "bait and switch" with a lot of file sharing programs, like a lot of them will start off pretty good and spyware free (Morpheus, Bearshare) then after they get some good word of mouth they release a new version with spyware.
posted by bobo123 at 10:53 PM on January 21, 2005

Honor among thieves and all that.
(+1 Troll)
posted by PissOnYourParade at 11:37 PM on January 21, 2005

This program seems to have a lot of detractors for various reasons. I think another site I was on grumbled about how they needlessly stripped the torrent format to make it only work with their tracker or something. BAH.
posted by jmccorm at 11:40 PM on January 21, 2005

Isn't exeem based on a gpl'd application (bittorrent)? I should think it would be required to be open source as well?
posted by Manjusri at 11:42 PM on January 21, 2005

thanks, m0nm0m

(and I thought my nick was hard to write...)

That's m0nm0n! And np. =)
posted by m0nm0n at 11:51 PM on January 21, 2005

Doesn't seem to have a lot of files yet, but I will keep looking.
posted by Hildago at 11:59 PM on January 21, 2005

Uh...mine don't work. When I start it a window asking for a serial pops up:

This program is currently in beta stage and is not ready for public release....

Anyone get this to work? How?
posted by zardoz at 12:09 AM on January 22, 2005

The problem is this: "safe" P2P would be completely anonymous. Making money out of pretty much anything requires at least some degree of identification of the buyer. So, any technical solution that advances anonymity, harms the marketing potential.

Safe P2P will come from someone who despises marketers as a group, or else honestly doesn't give a damn about getting rich, like the guy who wrote BitTorrent. I think it's a given that anyone who wants to get rich out of P2P will write a program, or pay for the writing of a program, with holes in the anonymity, and people who want the anonymity to be stronger will hack those programs.

In the meantime, solutions like eMule and BitTorrent are still "sufficiently safe" for the casual user, especially if they're not downloading music, movies, or software. Porn copyright seems to be a non-issue, but I think this is because the porn industry lacks a copyright lobby group. Or perhaps they're smart enough to realize that P2P will kill the entertainment industry the same way the VCR killed the movie industry.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 12:10 AM on January 22, 2005

Anyone get this to work? How?

Close. The. Fucking. Window. It's been mentioned in this thread, the last thread, and in every other thread about this thing, everywhere on the internet.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:43 AM on January 22, 2005

stavros:

I know, my question was sooo 10 hours ago, back in ExeemLite's infancy. Got anger issues?

Regardless of stavros' puzzling tone, I do kinda feel like a n00b.
posted by zardoz at 12:50 AM on January 22, 2005

Got anger issues?

Not really. But I do get impatient with the slow.

It's not being a 'n00b' to anything that is the problem, it's an apparent lack of reading skills. Perhaps you might make it a habit to read what people have said already before commenting. It could serve you well.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:11 AM on January 22, 2005

I think its funny that the eXeem people are going nuts over eXeem Lite.

Like its ok to make a program to infringe on other peoples copyrights, but if you infringe on theirs its against god,,,
posted by Iax at 2:51 AM on January 22, 2005

Truly anonymous p2p? Like,with what, randomized connection proxying and opaque encrypted file storage? Man you hippies get yourselves in a lather over freenet.

Always leaving out the insignificant details, like, exactly what makes a p2p system anonymous (if such a thing is really possible with people attempting to poison the nodes and sophisticated man in the middle attacks) would make it incompatible with the high-bandwidth stealing (err sorry infringement, err fair use, err, whatever excuse your using today for not paying $29 for Lord of the Rings) of large files.

The data has to come from somewhere, and you need to get them from someone. If you make a completely opaque system ala freenet, you get something that might work well for small slow ultra-encrypted communication. Something that maybe a chinese dissident might want to use for propagating some anti-government information.

A system based on that architecture is fundamentally at odds with the ability to find and download large files at high speeds reliably. Good luck proxying your download through my 'supernode' at the ass end of a roadrunner pipe.

Every time I see a discussion on something like Exeem being anonymous or having 'IP masking', I die a little inside. You connect to someone with your freaking IP address. For anybody with 2 years of paralegal training, you might as well sign it with your social security number. And no half ass relay-proxy system is going to a) work at hiding who's downloading from who and b) have any download speed worth shit.

Just play the odds people, or change the laws, or admit its stealing and paying th $5k when they come a-knocking. Just make sure you stole $5k in movies, music and porn so that you can at least break even.
posted by PissOnYourParade at 3:01 AM on January 22, 2005

So they shut down SuprNova to spread some Cydoor infested crap? Why is everyone so excited about that?
posted by Harry at 3:54 AM on January 22, 2005

PissOnYourParade, are you advocating shoplifting now? I admit that p2p is mostly used for copyright violation, that copyright violation is illegal but unless the p2p file you're downloading is a file that's part of a conspiracy to converge on WalMart and shoplift there is no theft.
posted by substrate at 4:39 AM on January 22, 2005

substrate, I think he's saying, "If you do the crime, pay the dime." He's not advocating the crime. And I am not entering an opinion on what the crime is or isn't.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:52 AM on January 22, 2005

No Kirth, he's doing more than that. I agree with "If you do the crime, pay the dime". He's accusing people of unrelated crimes. Copyright violation isn't theft.

...would make it incompatible with the high-bandwidth stealing (err sorry infringement, err fair use, err, whatever excuse your using today for not paying $29 for Lord of the Rings) of large files.

posted by substrate at 5:23 AM on January 22, 2005

Porn copyright seems to be a non-issue, but I think this is because the porn industry lacks a copyright lobby group i know that at least two man on man bittorrent websites have been shut down by lawyers for posting for example falcon videos
this website dicusses the ongoing "attacks" on man on man bittorrent websites
posted by halekon at 5:39 AM on January 22, 2005

This version dosn't actually install cydoor as far as i can tell fyi..... Its the versions after the public beta that will
posted by sourbrew at 6:26 AM on January 22, 2005

This version dosn't actually install cydoor as far as i can tell

From what I've read, it does. It just doesn't tell you. In fact, disabling the CyDoor spyware is a breach of contract. From the EULA:

In exchange for downloading the Software at no cost, you expressly agree that you accept the Embedded Third Party Software and that so long as you have not entirely deleted the Software from your computer you will not take any action, including downloading other software which modifies, is intended to modify or permits others to modify registry or other settings on your computer to, disable, remove, block, prevent the functioning of, or otherwise interfere with any of the Embedded Third Party Software.

...which is kind of like saying, "By installing this software, you allow us to come into your home and eat your children. Neener, neener!"
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:40 AM on January 22, 2005

ncluding downloading other software which modifies, is intended to modify or permits others to modify registry or other settings on your computer to, disable, remove, block, prevent the functioning of, or otherwise interfere with any of the Embedded Third Party Software.

yeah that is pretty ugly

that seems to state that i can't even download adaware or spybot... or the new ms anti spyware software.
posted by sourbrew at 7:01 AM on January 22, 2005

Honor among thieves and all that.

This reminds me of this nfo file I recently saw.

³³ p.s a msg to AG who stole our keygen without having any permission : ³³
³³ newbies think what u do..woudl u like others steal your work and release ³³
³³ wihtout your ok?

Honor, indeed.
posted by jeffmik at 8:00 AM on January 22, 2005

Manjusri: eXeem is based on libtorrent, which is under the BSD license. The Bittorrent protocol is open for any use.
posted by sonofsamiam at 9:28 AM on January 22, 2005

I really hope the "powers that be" continue to ignore this.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 10:28 AM on January 22, 2005

Any vendor that deals with spyware deserves to have their business crushed and a good kick in the nuts. End of story.
posted by 2sheets at 10:32 AM on January 22, 2005

For anybody with 2 years of paralegal training, you might as well sign it with your social security number.

Actually, not true. Liken an IP to physical address and you would be correct but never in a million years could you tie an IP to a particular person using a program. You sure squeak is typing this or just some friend who happened to pop over and visit metafilter? Matt's logs would show the same IP and my ISP logs the traffic but they don't indicate who was at the keyboard. Connecting to the net via wireless has it's own problems and people can tap into an unsecured network further clouding who is using the IP.

That is what bothers me about these law suits, they (RIAA et al) are going after an account holder with an IP of 12.34.56.78 not the actual people who are doing the downloading. In Canada this was the information they used in court to try and get the names of individuals to sue: "Geekboy@kazaa at 12:45AM with an IP of 24.x.x.x". The company hired to get this information didn't even bother to check that Geekboy had any files that violated copyright, for them he was guilty of being on kazaa and that was all they needed to know in order to try and sue him for thousands of dollars. They (RIAA et al) don't care so long as they get a chance to squeeze some money out of some poor S.O.B. to fund they next round of 'attacks'.

This version dosn't actually install cydoor as far as i can tell

It does. I installed and ran the the spyware version. From my spybot S&D log: Cydoor: Cache for ads (Directory, fixed) C:\WINDOWS\System32\AdCache\
posted by squeak at 12:55 PM on January 22, 2005

Paranoid me, I have a fear that Exeem is the *AA's attempt to screw us.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:11 PM on January 22, 2005

Paranoid me, I have a fear that Exeem is the *AA's attempt to screw us.

I think the whole suprnova thing was a ploy to get people to use exeem when it came out. You have potentially millions of users relying on one place for all their BT needs and suddenly it is gone. Couple of weeks later and, "Look! a program from the suprnova people, let's all use that. Yay!!!"
posted by squeak at 1:32 PM on January 22, 2005

That's a thought, squeak. Some of the sites that shit and ran after Suprnova disappeared are re-appearing now. (Demonoid returned yesterday, for example).
posted by punilux at 1:43 PM on January 22, 2005

I actually don't download very much [1], BitTorrent or otherwise, but somehow eXeem makes me squeamish and I've felt that way since I saw suprnova down and an announcement about eXeem a few days later. You've got this closed source application which extends upon the protocol behind the open source BitTorrent. That's probably fine, because Bram Cohen published the spec anyway. So using bits and pieces of his BitTorrent code would be a violation of the GPL but using his specification isn't. From what I've seen about eXeem it's only real purpose is to get rid of the need for a centralized tracker which is a weak point about the BitTorrent protocol if you're going to engage in copyright violation or publishing speech that others want to surpress.

But eXeem is a closed source application (their choice, I don't do religion about anything, or at least I try not to) that apparently embeds spyware. Allowing spyware to be part of your code is seriously out of character for somebody who's planning on decentralizing a p2p application. It just doesn't make sense, there's too many ways to use the spyware company to get at your users.
posted by substrate at 1:55 PM on January 22, 2005

it's only real purpose is to get rid of the need for a centralized tracker which is a weak point about the BitTorrent protocol

Not really. It's precisely the kind of centralized quality-control of sites like SuprNova that made them so popular. eXeem's going to be like Kazaa--flooded with fake files and viruses.

It's the same reason why BBS's were cooler than the Internets. :)
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:02 PM on January 22, 2005

Just an update: the lastest public beta version of exeem is spyware-free.
posted by amarynth at 7:02 PM on February 12, 2005