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SafeMedia Corp. Tells House Hearing "There Is a Smokescreen of Misinformation About How Contaminated P2P Networks Operate"
I Applaud Your Committee for Taking a Hard Look at How the Redistribution and Search Features of Many Popular P2P File Sharing Networks Pose Serious Privacy and Security Threats to Consumers, Students, Businesses and the GOVERNMENT," Said SafeMedia CEO & Chairman Safwat Fahmy
Boca Raton, Fla. July 24,
2007 -- SafeMedia Corporation CEO
and Founder, Safwat Fahmy, outlined the dangers and risks of contaminated
P2P networks today (Tuesday, July 24, 2007) in his written testimony before
the U.S. House Of Representatives Committee On Oversight and Government
Reform, at the "Inadvertent Filesharing Over Peer-To-Peer Networks"
hearing.
The SafeMedia Chairman focused how P2P networks operate, the features and
characteristics of "contaminated" P2P networks. Fahmy also explained in his
written testimony how SafeMedia's technology was developed to address
illegal sharing of copyrighted materials on contaminated P2P networks and
how it will help to protect consumers, students, businesses and our
national security from the serious privacy, identity theft and security
risks.
"In layman's terms, Peer to Peer networking (P2P) allows individual users
to transfer files directly to each other without going through a central
server," Fahmy said. "In the traditional Client/Server model, the client
sends requests to the server and the server responds to these requests and
acts on them. This is how the popular downloading service 'iTunes'
operates and this is how 'MySpace' and 'YouTube' work as well. In
contrast, with P2P networks, each computer serves as a peer and functions
as a client with a layer of server functionality -- the individual peers
communicate and exchange files directly with no controls."
"Historically," Fahmy told the House hearing, "P2P networks were developed
to overcome limitations on bandwidth and processing/storage so arguably
there were some benefits to using P2P networking as opposed to the
client-server model. But frankly, the historic reasons for developing P2P
networks do not exist in today's world: limitations on bandwidth and
processing/storage are easily remedied by clustering many low-cost servers
and the deployment of wideband fiber to deliver even more powerful
performance than P2P networks."
"P2P technology is clearly a usable, freely available tool for research and
education and we support the lawful use of uncontaminated P2P networks," he
said. "The legal and innovative uses of P2P technology highlight the
importance of being able to differentiate between legitimate uses of P2P
and 'contaminated' P2P networks."
Fahmy also said, "It is no secret that in order to avoid liability for the
creation and distribution of a network that allows users to illegally
transfer copyrighted material, most popular filesharing networks have no
accountability of ownership, contents or participants." He pointed to an
accurate, in-depth and "no smokescreens" U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
(USTPO) report, published in March, which said, "That file sharing programs
pose a real and documented threat to the security of personal, corporate,
and government data."
In his closing testimony Fahmy said, "As an experienced computer
technologist (35 years), I would never recommend that Congress mandate the
adoption of a particular technology to address the vital issues you are
examining today. However, I do believe that the only way to protect
individuals, companies and the U.S. economy from the dangers of
contaminated P2P, including identity theft, is for Congress to act
decisively on recommending that technical solutions be adopted that
eliminate the threat of contaminated P2P."
SafeMedia has developed patent pending business solutions combining P2P
Disaggregator technology (P2PD) and a Digital Internet Distribution
Solution (DIDS) that prevents contaminated P2P networks from
indiscriminately accessing users' computers. P2PD is based on many advanced
technologies created specifically for network operations, resulting in far
higher, scalable processing capacity than the network bandwidth it serves.
It utilizes the following technologies:
-- Adaptive Fingerprinting and DNA markers: The P2PD library of all P2P
clients and protocols is the world's largest and most current library of
fingerprints and DNA markers and is updated every 3 hours.
-- Adaptive network patterns: Not all protocols can be easily identified
with a single set of packets. As such, P2PD is set to monitor packet flows
and adapt its technique based on what it has already seen and what it sees
now.
-- Intelligent libraries: SafeMedia's experience libraries are knowledge-
based, created from the actual operations of the subnet, and include
specific logic markers in addition to the derived adaptive network pattern
analyses.
-- Remote update and self-healing: All maintenance actions-updates,
integrity checks, sanity validations, system housekeeping, and self-defense
are remotely performed through SafeMedia's servers with no delay in network
operation.
-- No Invasion of User Privacy: P2PD detection does not invade user
privacy, does not record and track user IP's, does not decrypt any traffic,
and allows the execution of all current security techniques (Tunneling,
SSH, etc.).
-- Accuracy: P2PD is fully effective at forensically discriminating
between contaminated and non-contaminated P2P traffic with no false
positives (i.e., identifying another protocol as the targeted protocol)
whether encrypted or not.
-- Speed: P2PD operates at network speed with little or no latency.
Fahmy also insisted that such solutions would best be achieved without
putting any additional burdens on people who use the internet. "At
SafeMedia, we believe we have such a solution and I am confident that, in
time, the marketplace will show that we have the best technological
solution," he said.
[Editors note: For media interviews contact George McQuade, MAYO
Communications, 818-340-5300. For more information about SafeMedia
Corporation product line visit www.SafeMedia.com or call 561-989-1934.] ### |
