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Winny is Japanese
peer-to-peer (P2P)
file-sharing program which claims to be loosely inspired by the design
principles behind the
Freenet network and which also claimed to keep user identities
untraceable. It was developed by a person calling himself "Mr. 47"
("47-Shi", or 47氏 in Japanese). The software takes it's name from WinMX,
where the M and the X are raised one letter in the Latin Alphabet to N abd
Y. As of
September, 2003, there were 250,000 users of the program according to
the Tokyo-based
Association of Copyright for Computer Software. According to P2pnet,
it is the most popular file-sharing program in Japan, with
eDonkey and
WinMX in seconds and third place respectively.
On
November 28, 2003, two Japanese users of Winny, Katsuhiko Kimoto, a 41
year-old self-employed businessman from Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, and an
unemployed 19-year-old from Matsuyama, were arrested. They were accused of
sharing copyrighted material via Winny.
The devloper had his home searched by police and that two users ,
althought the method the police used to track down the users is not known.
The two users admitted to the crimes.
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