2010: Things to Look Forward to, Things to Be Aware of

First of all, the crew here at P2PON would like to thank all its readers and supporters and wish them a Happy New & Exciting Year, and, of course, loaded with fabulous uploads and downloads! .

So, here we are now, after a short break, ready to resume our p2p & file sharing news, guides and tips posting for all of you guys out there for whom ‘sharing’ means more than giving a friend a bite from your lunchtime sandwich. Now, let’s take a look at some of the predictions, speculations and hopes related to p2p for the year that’s just begun.

We're kicking off with a warning coming from Kaspersky Labs whose researchers predict that while the wave of malicious apps, such as fake antivirus software, will drop in 2010, malware attacks over P2P will increase, with cybercriminals turning more and more to scams via mobile platforms.

The famous net security company explains in its 2010 Cyberthreat Forecast, that we should look out for a massive boost of malware epidemics over P2Pfile sharing networks which have become a very popular way to “spread notorious threats such as TDSS and Virut as well as the first backdoor for Mac OS X.”

With respect to cyberattacks targeting mobile platforms the Kaspersky researchers believe they will increase this year together with the increase in popularity of the respective mobile platforms:”The only iPhone users currently at risk are those with compromised devices; however the same is not true for Android users who are all vulnerable to attack.” said Kaspersky.

Next, let’s move on to some BitTorrent predictions posted by the guys at TorrentFreak for 2010. Some of them will only be enumerated as you can probably figure out for yourself the hows and whys behind them. 1 The Pirate Bay will cease to offer torrent links, (magnet links will be used instead) 2. A BitTorrent client will be dragged to court (while in 2009 BitTorrent users and lots of file sharing or file hosting services were the main targets of the entertainment industry and governments, in 2010 the latter may include BitTorrent clients on their top priority [get rid of] list); 3. More people will use BitTorrent anonymously (no need to tell you why); 4. BitTorrent (live) streaming will take off [see this P2PON post]; 5. uTorrent will become a resource hog (the program will see a major change – from a lightweight p2p client it will rise as a media portal [just like Vuze] but don’t worry – it will still remain loyal to its conservative users at the same time.)

Finally, let’s not forget social networking and real time searching issue. With regard to the latter, the focus will probably be to bring together realtime search with realtime filters in order to offer users besides the most recent info, the most relevant and legit as well. Following licensing realtime data streams from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and others, Google and Bing are increasingly supplementing their efforts to deliver a feasible realtime search.

OK, so we’ve made a short encounter with some predictions for 2010. Let’s hope all the best for p2p communities and file sharers altogether this year, and the same for artists all over the world. Respect their work!