After Jon Dudas, director of the US Patent & Trademark Office, read this study, he decided to send out an official USPTO report because so many file-sharers (or parents of file-sharers) who think they’re just downloading free music are actually jeopardizing the security of very personal info on their computers. He was also motivated to because, he says in the Foreward, he’s a dad who “manages a home computer.” Two key takeaways from this 80-page report (press release here): 1) research has found that 45% of popular downloaded files contained malicious software code, and 2) “At least four of the [five popular P2P file-sharing programs the study analyzed] have deployed partial-uninstall features: If users uninstall one of these programs from their computers, the process will leave behind a file that will cause any subsequent installation of any version of the same program to share all folders shared by the ‘uninstalled’ copy of the program. Whenever a computer is used by more than one person, this feature ensures that users cannot know which files and folders these programs will share by default.” In other words, parents of file-sharers need to look at the preferences or options of any P2P software on the family PCs to see what folders are designated for sharing the files in them. See this on the FTC’s thorough P2P study.
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