The Underground Internet

Abstract

Around the time the Recording Industry Assn. of America said this spring it would start tracking down individuals who were trading pirated music on the Internet, Trader X, a 17-year-old U.S. high school senior who declined to provide a name to avoid prosecution, hightailed it over to a service for swapping music and other digital files called Direct Connect (DC). Trader X had used other file-sharing services in the past, but chose DC for two simple reasons: privacy and plenty of movies. In most file-sharing services, millions of computers swap files with millions of others openly online, in plain view of the RIAA and others. DC's free software lets individuals set up a password-protected, members-only network that relays music and movies among a closed group of people. "Frankly, as long as the Internet exists, file trading can't be stopped," says Trader X.