Out of Control (review)

Takushi Otani, Out of Control Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2008, Xvi+231 pp., 15 pp. references Muneo Kaigo Received: 30 October 2008 /Accepted: 30 October 2008 /Published online: 8 May 2009 # National Science Council, Taiwan 2009 Out of Control: Information Sharing, Security and Anonymity in the Internet (original title:アウト・オブ・コントロール ネットにおける情報共有・セキュリティ・匿 名性) by Takushi Otani(大谷卓史), is a comprehensive review of the current problems and possibilities in the Japanese Internet environment, written in relation to the development and incidents encompassing the Japanese file-sharing software known as Winny. To fully understand the value of this book, one needs to know and understand what “Winny” is and why it is of any significance. As documented in the book, Winny has been a popular peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing platform in Japan that operates on the Microsoft Windows OS environment. The software was initially distributed in the 2Ch (Channel2) forum and was developed by a former University of Tokyo assistant named Isamu Kaneko. Winny does not require a central server, and is therefore a “pure” peer-to-peer system. Therefore, the network is robust and resilient, making it difficult to terminate. The data communication encoding uses a forwarding function in each computer’s cache, in addition to an anonymous bulletin board function, and the design of the system allows each personal user to remain anonymous. The anonymity of Winny has been convenient for file sharing, so the Winny user population increased dramatically since its introduction in May 2002. The increase and popularity of its use prompted authorities to react within the following year. In November 27, 2003, two people who were determined to be using Winny were arrested in violation of copyright laws. As Winny allows the user to remain anonymous, the Japanese National Police Agency needed to make these arrests on circumstantial evidence. On May 10, 2004, the developer Isamu Kaneko was arrested for assisting copyright infringement. The legal basis for his arrest was in his conduct that resulted in copyright infringement propagation. In 2005, Winny regained media attention and has prominence still today, as being a major vehicle for transferring computer viruses, especially malicious worms like Trojan horses over the Internet. Malicious worms that include exposure viruses, East Asian Science, Technology and Society: an International Journal (2009) 3:157–160 DOI 10.1007/s12280-009-9079-4 M. Kaigo (*) Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan e-mail: mkaigo@sakura.cc.tsukuba.ac.jp utilizes the Winny network to maliciously distribute personal chat logs, email data, digital camera pictures, screenshots, password memos, and etc. The worm begins sharing data on the desktop of the user’s computer without the knowledge of the user, so usually when the victim realizes his computer has been infected, the situation for recovery is too late, because all the victim’s files are already being shared on the Internet by then. The most malicious worms convert the computer into an HTTP server and begin exposing all data in the computer over the Internet and HTTP links merge the infected computers together. The unintentional distribution of sensitive and private information has been continuously reported throughout 2005 to the present: confidential customer information owned by various prestigious companies, police records of the National Police Agency, confidential prison records and judiciary information, and even sensitive information about nuclear power plants and military secrets of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force, Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, and Japanese Air Self-Defense Force have all been exposed over the Winny network. Such is the magnitude of impact this specific file-sharing software has had in Japan. Out of Control first focuses on the social impact of Winny, conducting a journalistic style investigation of the involved parties that have been affected by the introduction of this file-sharing software. One original aspect of Otani’s investigation is how he probes the possible technological and ideological motivation of the developer of Winny. Otani questions the adequacy of how the developer was arrested by the Japanese National Police Agency based on the Japanese legal system and copyright regulations. Otani next explains peer-to-peer technology and Winny—in relation to the advances in Internet technology. He discusses whether Winny itself should be...