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Hack KaZaA - Part 2
Why this is legal
You wouldn't think that using KaZaA to download personal files containing extremely sensitive information would be legal... but I think it is. I am not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt and read on.
Also, please keep in mind that this is ENTIRELY a work of FICTION. Anything I explain that I have done here is for illustrative purposes only and was never actually done by me. This tutorial is strictly for educational and entertainment purposes, and to help show others security issues they may have by running P2P software or allowing other to use them on shared/work computers.
Of course it is highly illegal and wrong to downloads someone's credit report and go take out a line of credit on their name, but I don't see a problem with downloading the same information, looking through it out of curiosity, then just deleting or archiving it. It might actually be a good thing... I mean, maybe they will look at KaZaA and realize that someone has downloaded their personal files, start taking general security precautions to prevent it from happening again, and thus prevent an unscrupulous individual from DLing it in the future and stealing their identity.
I happen to believe most people are good at heart, and very few given the chance to perpetrate this type of fraud ever would due to the risk involved, which is the only reason I feel comfortable in releasing this. The more GOOD PEOPLE we have out there exposing the security flaws others have, the more people will correct these flaws, the less fraud there will be, and less damage will be done.
Back to the legal issues involved. By their nature, KaZaA and the other P2P filesharing clients like Gnutella, MusicCity Morpheus, Crapster, and WinMX are used for illegal purposes... namely copyright infringement. It is generally understood and accepted by everyone but Metallica and a few other greedy multi-millionaires that P2P software exists exclusively for the sharing of illegal media files... ripped mp3s, movies and trailers, and illegal copies of software AKA "warez."
But then, why are these companies allowed to operate and distribute their filesharing software?
Well, I am sure if you read the Terms of Service Agreement for your P2P software, it would say it is intended for distributing files you own, things that you created yourself or otherwise own the rights to that you wish to distribute into the public domain.
Conversely, these are just about the only types of files you may legally download; files that others have created and are sharing with the world... knowingly or unknowingly. If someone makes a list of usernames and passwords for all their online accounts in MS Word, they are the copyright owner of that document. If they then share the entire contents of their computer while running KaZaA, they are giving you permission to download and store that file, end of question.
Morality is relative, I won't discuss that at length here. But is it my belief that downloading others' personal files as described here is one of the few things you can do on KaZaA that actually adheres to their TOS and the law. You should be liable if you misuse that information and perpetrate fraud, but up to that point the only crime you are guilty of is curiosity, which is no crime at all.
Now we have that all behind us. You can think for yourself, I am not making or even suggesting you do anything I describe here, and I am not liable if you are a jerk and misuse this knowledge. Read on to get to the guts of this tutorial...
CONTINUED
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