How can the government stop p2p networks?

Question

I'm doing a research paper and I need to know the problem on stopping p2p networks.

Answer 1

Legally, they can't, it's a form of censorship.  That's why Comcast is in a little bit trouble right now for admittedly throttling torrent traffic.  The RIAA and MPAA use cease and desist and lawsuits... but they aren't the government.  You might want to read up on Net Neutrality as well.  The tiered internet idea would probably put an end to p2p networks, or at least slow them to the point of being useless.

Answer 2

The problem is just because people use P2P doesnt mean they are stealing.  It could be 2 people exchanging files the way everyone used to do back in the day with Cute FTP.  If they were going to stop it, they would have done it already.  Remember Napster?  Remember when that was all of the news?  They shut it down and brought it back as a paysite.  They will never stop p****y.  Its been going on since the beginning of time.

Answer 3

I watched a movie and I think when cyber thieves download illegally, cyber cops get the thief's IP address. The information the IP address gives you is where the thief lives. So they can catch them by that.

Answer 4

The problem with a true peer 2 peer is that there is no central server to shut down.  It links peers in to a network and uses the bandwidth of each to transfer information.  If the gov tried to shut down this type of network they would need to stop all of the peers from linking to the network.  This type of network is all but impossible to stop because of the latius work of people that make up the structur of the network.

The server based network is a lot easier to stop.  All they need to do is shut down the central server and the structure of the network collapses.

Then you have the old IRC channels, yup they still work and they are even harder to stop because they arn't as used by the average public.

Then you have the old News groups, yes they still work as well.

And yup torrents, again this is a peer to peer.

If you stop one form then people will just move to the next, gov will just spend all kinds of money chasing people around cyber space.  

If you add in the fact that all of these networks span world wide with different laws in each country it will be impossible to stop.

Even if your ISP blocks certian locations and shapes your traffic you can always use proxies to hide the location.

Hope this helps