p2p news view / p2pnet: With stories about the dangers of Winny flying around, japan.internet.com jumped on the bandwagon (see previous stories on Winny usage and the greatest security threats of 2005), publishing a survey carried out in conjuction with goo Research to find out about people`s use of file sharing software.

They interviewed 1,071 people from their internet monitor group. 41.6% of the respondents were male, 23.2% in their twenties, 44.1% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, and 7.5% in their fifties.

This survey talks about confidential data leakage due to Winny viruses, but I have not seen any information that confirms it is due to viruses, and not just down to people sharing their whole hard disk or the like.

I did once or twice use Winny, but gave up as first the download rate was unbelievably slow, second the selection of material was pretty poor (or my understanding of Japanese was), and third it was, as is much Japanese user interface design, incredibly cluttered and unintuitive for me to use.

Q1: Have you used file sharing software like Winny? (Sample size=1,071)

• Currently use one 11.3%
• Used to use one 11.1%
• Never used one 68.2%
• Don’t know what file sharing software is 9.4%

This comes to 121 current users, and 119 ex-users. These 240 people were asked about the machine that they used the file sharing software on, and 40.4% reported that that machine contained confidential information, but as confidential information could cover everything from an email program`s address book to top secret Navy codes, this figure is rather open to interpretation.

When asked if they’d got a virus from file sharing, 16.7% of file sharers reported that they had. This figure is roughly in line with my previously-translated survey, although the previous survey had around 30% versus 22% here of the sample size indulging in P2P. This perhaps reflects the different user base of the two research companies, but it also illustrates that the seemingly more geeky Club BBQ members are not necessarily more careful users. In addition, 70.0% reported they had never got a virus, and 13.3% didn`t know. Only 4.5% of Club BBQ users didn`t know, which seems to back up my suspicion that the previous survey group is more computer-literate.

Q2: What do you think regarding the recent news about Winny-borne viruses? (Sample size=240)

• I feel it’s a risk, but continue to share file 15.4%
• I feel it’s a risk, so I quit file sharing 64.6%
• Don’t feel it’s a particular risk 20.0%

Q3: What do you think about the recent news regarding information leaks due to Winny-borne viruses? (Sample size=970, non P2P users, multiple answer)

• I think it’s the user’s fault 715 73.7%
• I think it’s Winny’s fault 490 50.5%
• I think it’s the fault of companies’ lack of risk management 451 46.5%
• I think it’s the news media’s fault 114 11.8%
• I think it’s the ISP’s fault 90 9.3%
• Other cause 12 1.2%

Ken Y-N – What Japan Thinks
[Software engineer Ken Nicolson, aka Yasumoto-Nicolson, married into a Japanese family, hence the double-barrel, but, "I`m genetically 100% Scottish, and a latecomer to Japan and the language. I`ve spent seven years or so in Japan, some of the time attending night classes for Japanese, but the majority of my Japanese has been self-taught."]

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