When we reported that Morpheus users were vulnerable, MusicCity vehemently denied any such possibility. Following 2 days during which the Morpheus site was down however, an official announcement from Steve Griffin, StreamCast/Morpheus CEO claims: "This week MusicCity and Morpheus users suffered dual attacks. First, early this week MusicCity's servers were hit by a massive Denial of Service attack. Soon thereafter, Morpheus users found that a separate attack had been launched on their computers and their Morpheus software programs." The most worrying part of the letter though is the following: "It appears that the attacks included an encrypted message being repeatedly sent directly to your computers that changed registry settings in your computer." So according to the company, the attack enabled access to a Morpheus users registry when that user attempted to log-on to the FastTrack network.
Scenarios
The reasons behind the attack are not yet clear but many possible scenarios have surfaced. A popular interpretation of the hacks claims that MusicCity themselves, riding on the recent vulnerability stories, carried out this "attack" in order to dicredit the FastTrack network and find their way out of it. Rumours of Morpheus leaving the troubled network and moving to Gnutella had already been spreading and such an attack would offer a great excuse. MusicCity is officially denying any involvement and in an official statement claims "Lastly, we want to address some of the misinformation we've seen recently. There have been many comments that we caused these problems intentionally. Let me assure you that we would NEVER treat the Morpheus users in this fashion. Others have said we would re-launch with a paid subscription model, again, not true."
Another scenario claims that the RIAA is behind the attacks. In this way the credibility of the most popular filesharing program would be shaken and as an added bonus the FastTrack network would also be hit. Although such an act is not inconsistent to the RIAA's M.O., proving such a scenario is extremely difficult and no proof is likely to be found.
FastTrack
These events are bound to damage FastTrack. Firstly questions are raised about the safety and credibility of the network and secondly by abandoning it MusicCity are depriving it from its most profitable customer. The enormous loss of users is bound to affect FastTrack and to further isolate them in their current legal battle with the RIAA.
What Next Morpheus Preview Edition has already been released and although still rough around the edges, the company claims that it offers a decent alternative to other filesharing programs. The official announcement reads:
"Morpheus Preview Edition, which is based on the very large network of Gnutella users. The new software will provide you with the ability for faster searches, the display of more search results, and many more new and exciting features. KEEP IN MIND that this is only our preview edition. Any time change occurs, many object and think the old version was better. Our objective is to create a new and exciting software product."
Considering that most gnutella users have already settled for a client i.e. Limewire or Bearshare Morpheus will have to work hard to regain its title as the most popular download on the net.
Morpheus Says Kazaa did it