Sunday 14 March 2004

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The final eeyore for Share Reactor?

Last month we witnessed the closure of eDonkey hash indexing site, File Nexus, owing to the imposition of legal pressure from anti-piracy authorities. Speculations that Share Reactor may now have befallen a similar fate are rampant throughout file sharing news resource sites. Insiders seem to be as much in the dark as Joe Public.

Share Reactor, the web site which served as a guiding beacon for file sharers daring to venture into the eDonkey network minefield, has been unreachable for days, and no explanation has been forthcoming from owner, Simon Moon. For many months, immense popularity has plagued the site's ability to maintain functional operation. Recently in a do-or-die announcement from Simon, it was claimed that without an insurgence of donations, the site would cease to exist.

The response was impressive; it is believed that a sum of $15,000 was raised to pay for new hardware and cover spiralling bandwidth costs. The targets were met, yet the upgrades failed to materialize. Understandably this has led many SR regulars to brood over the prospect that Simon is now lying on a sun-soaked beach in the Bahamas sipping pina coladas at their expense.

The more plausible explanation, that anti-piracy groups have taken the site out of the file sharing equation, has been almost universally dismissed. This level of certainty is derived from the belief that the Switzerland-based site is immune to action taken by the RIAA et al. My take on the matter is to never say never where the Powers That Be are concerned. For now I'll remain perched on the fence awaiting further information.

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