Buisiness Scareware

[GhostShip]

It seem some folks will do or say anything to sell buisinesses their latest offering.

http://p2p.weblogsinc.com/2006/06/20/p2p-fear-mongering-or-vaild-business-concern/

Former White House security advisor Howard Schmidt, turned private-sector president of R&H Security Consulting warned corporations they need to address a "new generation" of security weaknesses enabled by peer-to-peer (P2P) networks on the systems of third-party contractors and business partners.

"It's a very important and emerging issue," Schmidt said. "We [talk a lot] about intrusion detection and antivirus...but one thing we're not paying enough attention to is P2P file sharing networks and how much data we're really exposing inadvertently, which we have no control over."

This is an excellent example of a security "expert" using the spooky acronym P2P to sell security audits. This is the equivalent of telling you how dangerous your neighborhood is while trying to sell you an alarm system.

I suppose his concern is valid but when someone is selling something that could be avoided by common sense and existing work-place polices, you do have to question why they are making the effort.

[SamSeeSam]

From what I read, his concern is that when we share, we might share our whole harddrive and that may expose sensitive files to the whole world.

But so far, all the P2P's that I have ever tried
E mule
Bittorrent
Imesh
Ares
and of course WINMX

all have the options that enable you to control the content that is shared, both in terms of folders and file types. If I have confidential data, on my computer, then shouldn't I take care that it isn't shared? I can't make out how you can see files that other person has not share.
Plus, I don't think that people just share their harddrives to the world... They must know that they are sharing and so consequently, what they are sharing. If they do not, then they must not share their harddrives
I don't think there are many technical details in cases where you have to select what you are sharing... Mostly, these tings ar pretty straightforward, or mentioned clearly in any help files that may be there

His concern is valid, but then I am the one responsible if I share confidential files. It isn't like a virus. I am not responsible if a virus came on my computer... unless i want it to come

[KM]

some programs have a "scan for media files" type button that will scan for all audio/video files and share them, but i've yet to hear of one sharing anything else

only one i have seen that didn't specifically ask me what to share was ares, that automatically shared some files i didn't want it to, and refused to unshare it