Western Digital to ban P2P file sharing

[viking777]

I just came across this news item which, although it doesn't go into much detail, in principle is absolutely staggering:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7136069.stm

Briefly it says that Western Digital are going to prevent all P2P file sharing taking place from their hard drives! It doesn't say how it is going to achieve this and also it uses the term 'networked' hard drives, and it doesn't explain what that means either (home networks? , commercial networks?).

Whatever the details, the principle is appalling. What future torrent downloads of your favourite distro if this takes hold? Not only that but there are lots of other legitimate uses like Joost's internet tv that use the technology. What it does make clear is that it won't matter whether you legitimately own the content or not , neither will it matter if it is already drm protected by other means, it will all be blocked!!

Do drm lawyers have so much power these days that they can force respectable companies into committing commercial suicide?

Or have I just got hold of the wrong end of the stick? (it wouldn't be the first time!)

[grim192]

meh..it now just means you got a choice of seagate, maxtor and hitachi ;)

grim

[viking777]

meh..it now just means you got a choice of seagate, maxtor and hitachi ;)

grim

Until the drm vultures nobble them as well.:(

[KhaaL]

This is extremly silly and easily bypassed. If people want to do something, things like this can't stop them. Besides, this assumes that you're a criminal and are sharing illegally downloaded files.

Wake up WD, the world does not only consist of criminals

[OffHand]

Only if you use their sharing application. Otherwise it just is and acts like a generic HD. I got one and I have no problem sharing files over P2P.

[grim192]

i dout it will stop many people as all other anti-piracy measures have failed

grim

[mozetti]

Did you even read the article, viking777? There is plenty of detail. Basically, if you use the WD network-attached-storage (NAS) hard drives, and their Windows-only software for accessing your data remotely, and are trying to share audio files, then it will be blocked.

So, to answer your question about how it will affect your downloads of Linux distro ISO? It won't affect it at all. And if you're a Linux user, it won't affect you because the software is for Windows.

And, if you have the MyBook World Edition you can actually hack it to run it's own torrent client to download anything with minimal user-intervention.

Bottom line: Non-story

[n3tfury]

wow, talk about yet another knee jerk reaction.

[PriceChild]

wow, talk about yet another knee jerk reaction.I think this is excusable as that is what the article seems to have been written to imply.

[Rhubarb]

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/06/2119240

You can share media files with it, it's just that it will only share media files with the correct user name + password.
Anonymous logins will not be able to get media files.

Still, I won't be buying any WD HDDs (and certainly not their network ones) because of this.

[n3tfury]

I think this is excusable as that is what the article seems to have been written to imply.

not really:


Western Digital has blocked users from sharing more than 30 different file types, if they are using the company's software, called Anywhere Access.

if that wasn't included, sure, i can totally see the OMG factor.