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Coming to an audio file near you: Popup Ads

Overpeer, the firm that floods P2P networks with bogus files, is corrupting files even more by placing popups and (potentially) adware in some WMA and WMV files.

The company gained it's notoriety in 2002 by working with record companies to flood P2P networks with bogus files that matched commonly searched songs. These bogus files made it difficult to find true song copies and made life difficult for many using the more popular networks targetted by the company.

Overpeer plans on selling advertisements based on key word searches. An advertiser could purchase, say, U2, and not only will the user get a bogus file, the bogus file could prompt a number of popup advertisement windows to popup on the user's machine.

It's not a stretch to think that this "feature" could be used for more malicious means, pointing instead to a server that would download malware onto a users machine.

Overpeer has long been a friend of the industry, but will this put them on the industry's bad side? The RIAA doesn't like to see people profiting from illegal file-sharing, which Overpeer will most certainly be doing.

Contributed by
Tinfoil Music - Digital Media and Music News