Without getting into the quagmire that is the debate over P2P, fronted on one side by sane technologically able people and on the other by a dying breed of middlemen with an outdated business model (ok, so I dipped a toe into the marsh), the use of the technology aptly includes both legitimate claims of copyright infringement and illegitimate claims that this is all the technology is good for. In fact, P2P is rapidly becoming the de-facto mechanism distribution of all sorts of content on the Internet.But I digress — if you use P2P software, and this can include programs that use it for distribution (which may not be immediately apparent to you), whether you like it or not you’re putting your IP address and machine on the global invitation list. It doesn’t matter that you’ve got a firewall — for while it does its job at the protocol and port level, it can’t protect you from the applications you run that openly share information about you or your machine.

Such as P2P software.

While there are as many legitimate uses of P2P software as there are free, community produced, and non-commercial files on the networks there are just as many illegal transfers happening as well. Transfers organisations like the RIAA and MPAA would like to put a stop to. And irrespective of whether such actions are justified, the RIAA litigation engine gets its endless source of defendants to sue by logging the contents of and exploring the systems of those users who run P2P software. It doesn’t matter whether you are or are not sharing copyrighted material, your machine will be logged none the less.