After several months of declining service which has produced plummeting traffic levels and a mass exodus to other file-swapping networks, the decision to pull the plug completely on file transfers is the last nail in the coffin.

Of course Napster has been operating on borrowed time right from the very day it launched. How on earth they expected to be able to survive by aiding and abetting the illegal trading in copyrighted material escapes me.

Whether you believe that the recording industry are a bunch of bastards who deserve to be cut down to size or not, it must be acknowledged that trading copyrighted material without the owner's consent is just plain illegal. If you don't like that fact then lobby to have the law changed.

I'm surprised that it took the RIAA as long as it did to get an enforceable court decision in their favor -- but I'm also surprised that Napster didn't think ahead and have a new strategy in place for that fateful day.

Unfortunately for the file swapping company, it seems that they're now just floundering around, grasping at straws and making lots of promises that they simply aren't in a position to honour.

Even if/when they manage to sort out their database woes and get the service back online it will be too late to recover from the death dive they're now in.

The vast majority of those who want to trade music online have already jumped-ship to gnutella, Aimster or other networks. Napster has nothing but its brandname -- and that has now been tarnished beyond redemption.

To quote "bones" McCoy: "It's dead Jim!"

Get A Virus, Spam A Friend
Yesterday I received a email from someone who I'd corresponded with several times in the past -- nothing unusual about that -- except that the email was an unsolicited commercial email promoting a list of porno sites.

Readers Say (updated hourly) Getting the law changed... - Matt From Yesterday... when to trade up... - RobK Homeuse... - James State of the chip business... - Christopher Upgrading... - Richard Have Your Say

It appears as if their PC has been hit by a new trojan that turns infected machines into robotic spamhauses. Coincidentally I spotted this story on today's wires which kind of confirms this. The headers indicate that the email did in fact originate from his machine -- but he didn't send it (on purpose).

Since the trojan appears to be currently unrecognised by any of the standard anti-virus programs he had no option but to wipe and rebuild the contents of his hard disk. He also promises to install Zone Alarm and be far more vigilant about accepting emails with unrecognised attachments.

Is this the start of a new wave? I surely hope not.

Most of us get enough spam without a group of evil sods tricking the PCs of our friends and colleagues into spamming us as well.

Remember -- if you don't have a personal firewall -- get one now!

And, if your company doesn't have a policy for the handling of email attachments then formulate a safe one and make sure it's adhered to.

27.7 grams of prevention is worth 444 grams of cure and all that...

Add Aardvark To Your Own Website!
Got a moment? Want a little extra fresh content for your own website or page?

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!

There is 2 Vacancies Last added 2 July In The Job Centre

There are 14 Domain Names for sale

There are 3 Events/Seminars listed