Morpheus, one of the most popular file sharing services at Syracuse University, has a new look.

Eliot Van Buskirk, a senior editor at CNET.com, said that the file sharing service, which became wildly popular after Napster was forced out of operation, has recently underwent major changes including taking steps to making the program itself more legal. The upgrades came at the cost of a mysterious shut down Feb. 26 and a subsequent update offered the following Friday.

The difference between the two versions, Van Buskirk said, is that the first version ran off the Fast Track system, like similar services Grokster and KaZaA, while newer releases such as LimeWire and BearShare utilize the Gnutella network.

Van Buskirk said that Fast Track would be easier to shut down in the face of legal pressure by the music and movie industry because the majority of their trading takes place through “super nodes” or voluntary users of the service with powerful computers that index all of the available content. Gnutella, though, is completely peer-to-peer communication, making it nearly impossible to shut down without erasing the program from every computer that uses it.

“This was done very much for legal reasons,” Van Buskirk said.

The new version, although one of the top downloads from CNET.com during the weekend, is still grossly underused compared to the old version.

At SU, June Quackenbush, a system programmer and administrator for Computing and Media Services, said that although Morpheus caused major problems for the university’s server at the beginning of the year with an overload of traffic, things have since leveled out. She said she does not expect this to change even with the latest turn of events.

“My suspicion is that (downloads) did not drop,” Quakenbush said.

She added that students have a habit of finding new services with little delay.

Matthew McCloskey, a Morpheus user, said he has downloaded but not yet made a judgement about the new version.

“It is kind of unfair to compare since no one is on the service yet,” said McCloskey, a senior computer science and political philosophy major.

McCloskey said that although he is not really bothered by the change to the Gnutella service, he said that Morpheus shot themselves in the foot by not making the transition smoother. He added that if the switch was made to keep the service up and running, then he can understand why such a drastic move was needed.

“Anything that they can do to keep themselves solvent and legal is a step in the right direction,” McClosky said.

Published on March 4, 2002 at 12:00 pm