1) Vendors Want A Piece Of Your CPU

A lot of people are up in arms, outraged by the new business practices
described in "Peer-To-Peer's Dark Side" at
http://www.byte.com/column/BYT20010222S0004 .That article is about Juno
(the giant ISP) inventing and implementing a new kind of business model
whereby they can take over their customers' CPUs in an aggressive and
stealthy manner (using a kind of "peer to peer," or "P2P" technology), and
sell their users's aggregate computing power to third parties.

You might be tempted to blow this off with the thought "Hey, Juno's a free
ISP, and people who use it deserve what they get."

Or you might say: "I don't use Juno. Why does this affect me?"

Here's why: Think about how many software updates you routinely install
over the course of a year. Worse, think of the auto-updaters you probably
use for your OS, your office suite, your anti-virus definitions. It would
be incredibly simple for ANY software vendor to add a Juno-like P2P
component into its next update download. The thinking might go like this:
"Let's see. If we slip a P2P component into our next software update,
adjust our Terms of Service to make it--- like Juno's--- all retroactively
mandatory, legal and risk-free for us, then we can build a distributed
supercomputing network at our customers' risk and expense."

And you might not even know that P2P software had been installed on your
system ... until your system maintenance no longer worked (because there
were no idle times when it would kick in); or when your or your business'
own P2P projects got derailed because something else was already sopping
up all the spare CPU cycles. Then there's the extra wear and tear on the
system, the electricity consumed by systems that never go into sleep mode.
... Well, you get the idea.

Your firewall won't help, because the P2P component will be part of some
other trusted app that you normally allow to have internet access: You
can't block one without the other.

People, this is a Bad Thing, with capital B and T. Today, it's Juno.
Tomorrow it could be ANY software vendor.

I'm getting a ton of email on this; readers have started posting in the
discussion area; and other web sites have started picking up on the
thread, expanding the circle of information.  Stealth/forced P2P is a
*spectacularly* bad idea: You need to know about it, and soon! Please
click over to http://www.byte.com/column/BYT20010222S0004 for the full
scoop.
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i just got rid of net-zero. the banner adds didn't bother me. but they just started putting up a start page where you CAN'T close it or access your desktop !!! and sometimes it just jumps up. i think they were starting to take over my comp to force their adds down my throat.

[b]BURN IN HELL NET-ZERO !!![/b]

anyway, thanx for the info

I dumped Juno, and Netzero, finally had to pay.
I still use juno email accounts.

I wonder if this is crap...  hard to believe this can be done legally...  Some of my Family are on Juno.  I hesitate to send them this info if it's not on the level...  Anyone got any news story links to this ?

Thanks for the info on Juno. They're GONE! The sad part is, others will soon try the same stuff. SamC

Hey realist, it's on the up and up.  I was on Juno and they released a press release about it.  I think I read it on Yahoo.  

Do a search at Yahoo on Juno and you should be able to get it.

People in the Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi (I think) area, Everyone's Internet can't be beat.  $10.83 a month.

Bill

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