In September 2001 the RIAA conducted research into how FastTrack operates and found that FastTrack had a server that list the location of supernodes. Kazaa Media desktop contacted this server if their were problems with a list of supernodes that came with the application.

This was backed up by research by Mark Ishikawa who said Kazaa software shows signs of "calling home" when it cannot find a supernode, or a regional directory running off users' computers.

Janus Friis, the co-creator of kazaa and FastTrack has since got in contact with me to take issue with aspects of the research. He surprisingly admitted to the existence of a supernode server. However he stressed that FastTrack is only partially reliant on the Supernode server.

He told me FastTrack has a "supernode server to fetch seed IP addresses when not available locally" but the supernode server is only used by "Older versions of Kazaa Media Desktop". He added "Let me also direct your attention to the fact that Grokster is an older customized version of KMD/FT".

So does this mean that if the supernode server was shut down then there would be severe disruption to users of Grokster and users of older KMD versions? Friis said "draw your own conclusions :)".

The US court that is currently debating the FastTrack case is involved in litigation in Estonia against those connected with BlueMoon (the software company that has coded much of FastTrack) to try and get Bluemoon to revealed the FastTrack code. The level of control that those connected with FastTrack can exercise is likely to be key to any ultimate decision in the lawsuit.

This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
P2P Clients :: FastTrack
File-Sharing/P2P Related :: Software

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