Kim Dotcom announced on Friday plans for Mega, a service which will replace the file-sharing site MegaUpload.

Mega is expected to use encryption methods which will mean only users will know what they are uploading. The former site, MegaUpload, was seized on January 19, 2012 and followed by indictment and arrests of the owners for allegedly operating a site dedicated to copyright infringement.

The relaunch is timed with the arrest of the 38-year-old Germany-born Mr Dotcom in New Zealand. He is free on bail, but battling extradition to the U.S. after a raid on his house in Auckland on Jan 20.

Mr Dotcom disclosed that the Mega teaser Web site has received millions of hits in just a few hours.

MegaUpload is not the only sharing site out there and not the only kind of sharing site to be used in downloading data, original or not. These kinds of sharing sites are subject to anti-piracy laws because a lot of downloadable files are original or ripped from original sources. Another issue is the destructive effects of viruses, malwares, and illegal codes that can be downloaded with the files.

The common term for this kind of method is peer-to-peer files sharing or P2P which allows users to download media files such as music, movies, games using P2P software client.

There are three generations of P2P so far existed:

First Generation

Peer to peer sharing begun with reliance on a central directory of files available for download. A connection is established by a peer finding another peer to connect to. Each peer exchanges active peer and their addresses. When a connection has been established, the user can then search for files. When a search has been submitted, it connects to all nodes on its connection list. The results are then displayed and a connection is made. An example of this is Napster which has also been shut down.

Second Generation

After the demise of Napster, few clients made use of decentralized file listing. This is highly risky because of copyright abuse which P2P networks in this generation do not filter out copyrighted content. The path here has to connect to a supernode which acts like a hub. This supernode connects to other supernodes allowing the search requests to move through the network very quickly. Peers then establish a direct connection to a client after a file has been found. The advantage with this is anyone can be a supernode and the disadvantage is file corruption happens often. Example for kind of generation are Kazaa, Gnutella and iMesh.

Third Generation

Torrent is common now when downloading media files and applications in the web. The difference between the former systems and using Torrent is that it creates a new network for every set of files instead of trying to create one big network of files using SuperNodes, web caches, or servers. This generation are built upon optimised versions of generations, retaining or incorporating the features that made such networks reliable and efficient. Two types of this generation exist:

  • Friend to friend: the network is defined by degrees familiarity or relationships between users. The closer the users are the better.
  • Anonymous: Similar to the 1st and 2nd generations of P2P, file-sharing is primarily based on the availability of files.

Examples of third generation clients are BitTorrent, uTorrent, Metanet, WASTE, MUTE, GNUnet, Entropy, and FreeNet.

Peer-to-peer file sharing may be a great way to get free files and software to download , but it is not a great thing to the creators of these files because for sure, no sale means no update anymore.

Another thing is the danger to the system, if unfortunate; a malware may penetrate the system that is enough to shut it down. If that's the case, reformat is the only answer.

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