Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe and others are calling on people not to use Winny, but is Winny really to blame?
No.
Saying that Winny is bad because information leaked through it is equivalent to saying email is bad because information leaks through email. It is complete nonsense.
In the first place, recent information leaks have presumably been caused by:
(1) Human error
People actively disclosed the information themselves and caused it to leak
(2) Viruses, typified by the Kintama virus
(1) can also happen through email.
(2) can also happen through email. The user simply had not installed antivirus software. After all, the Kintama virus cannot infect a computer unless an .exe file is launched.
Idiotic.
Blaming Winny for this is grossly unfair.
That said, this does not mean Winny has no unique problems.
One is that there is no way to identify the same file collectively across the network. (Well, the same is true of email.) Therefore, once a leak occurs, it is The End. The difference is that email does not forward files automatically, so by tracing messages carefully, the spread can be stopped to some extent. (Though one might say the difference is marginal.) A desirable approach would probably be to assign a unique number—a file’s Digital Identity—when a file enters the Winny or SMTP network from outside, so that it can be identified and managed.
This is probably something that Winny (and email) should improve. However, current discussions in the media and elsewhere are completely off the mark and do nothing but proclaim that Winny is dangerous. They must be said to distract attention from the essence of the problem.
What a mess.