That was always one of my objections to software such as this. Leaving aside the copyright issues, I was just leery of installing something that intentionally gave other people access to the files on my hard drive. Just seemed like a potential security nightmare to me.
Oh THANK YOU for this article!
My sister is dead set on downloading a file sharing program when we eventually get a burner (I want one to keep picture files on).
I do NOT want that shit on my computer…sigh But since we share it, it would be hard to manage, and my mother doesn’t buy the whole legalities thing, since to her, it’s no different than taping a song off of the radio.
But yes, now I have a good argument that they may listen to!
Ummmm… correct me if I’m wrong, but…
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With Kazaa you specify the folder that is shared. You don’t share your entire hard drive. I have a folder called “Share” shared, and that’s it. If you don’t trust it, have someone browse what you’re sharing and see what they see.
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How is this backend software getting loaded? If I only download, say, PDF files and MP# files, there’s nothing executable there, just files that are played by winamp or Acrobat. How is this installation supposedly being done?
Go back and read the article again. The installation is done when you install Kazaa.
The backend software is part of Kazaa’s software itself. Download and install the program, and it comes with this extra ‘bonus’.
From the article:
Meh, we’ll see what happens. For me the benefits still outweigh the risks.
(emphasis mine)
Sure, it’s devious and shady, but it’s not the end of the world and it’s not an open door to any and all hackers that might happen by. If you’re truly the worried, get a firewall program that tracks and set permissions for incoming/outgoing data. ZoneAlarm offers a free copy of their “basic, ‘no frills’ firewall protection” that should be sufficient.
Like Legomancer, I think the beni’s out weight the risks, especially with a little precaution.
Wouldn’t bother me any; if I was running Kazaa (I currently use AudioGalaxy instead), it’d be running in my emulated Windows 98 space, and the only files on that are the standard Windows installation. There’s no way Kazaa would be able to breach the interface and access my important stuff on the Mac. 
Personally I love Kazaa because it will search for all types of media. I deleted all the Brilliant software right away though with no problems. I did have it ask once if I wanted to function as a supernode. I had no idea what that was but I didn’t like the sound of it so I just said no.
I used to have it download straight into My Music but most of the time I will want to rename to file because I like all of my music files to read the same.
Now I use the My Shared Folder for all downloads. This way I can scan for viruses, rename it if needed and then put the file where I want it. Lately I burned all my setups to a CD (just finalize the session not the disc). If I DL something new I just burn it to the CD straight from the Shared folder.
After reading the before mentioned article, I installed and ran Ad Aware and was kind of suprised to find that there were 75 spyware files on my computer–none of them were associated with Kazaa though.
Legomancer and thinksnow nailed it- this doesn’t open up your computer to anything. They’re not going to secretly turn on your computer one day to scan and distribute everything you own (Or should I say, “rent”) on it, despite what the article implies.
It’s still cheesy what they’re up to, but it isn’t anything like it’s being portrayed in that article.
If you want to avoid all that crap that piggy-backs with Kazaa, you should check out this article- A clean Kazaa.
I’m not sure who led me to that site, it might have been someone from here, but if you’re really worried about all that added junk (And you should be) check it out.