Earth Station 5 – A Closer Look

[JackSpratts]

After more than a year and a million plus in development, the file sharing and messaging system known as Earth Station 5 (ES 5) is said to be ready for its first public users. In beta for months and officially released just days ago this new product may or may not rewrite the rules of filesharing, but no argument can be made about the scope of its founders’ ambitions - they want it all. According to ES 5 spokesman Steve Taylor, six international owners with deep pockets and stakes in ventures ranging from software to satellites preside over some 70 full time developers responsible for creating and maintaining an operation that incorporates a complex decentralized peer-to-peer system, centralized chat, personal web-server and the ability to allow users to stream their own content over a new and proprietary network.

“They looked at Gnutella initially” says Taylor, referring to the open source file sharing system, “but weren’t satisfied. The developers felt they had to create their own network from scratch if they were going to have any hope of achieving the goals they’d set for themselves.” In what is certainly a bold and attention grabbing maneuver they’ve already “used it to stream the Matrix Reloaded over their high speed lines” to the amazement of over 11,000 viewers so far, and have plans for doing much more. “This network will include a world of features unheard of in present P2P’s”, continues Taylor, “as a matter of fact calling it a P2P may actually be too limiting, there’s so much more to it.” Upcoming versions are slated to include an Internet portal, a worldwide eBay type auction service, a sports gambling site and versions in twenty six different languages.


Welcome to the Neighborhood - Earth Station 5 HQ as seen from space.

The main office is in the Palestinian refugee camp Jenin, chosen as much for defensive purposes as for practicality (several founders are Palestinians). Legally they’re operating out of what’s essentially a no man’s land of chaos, where according to Taylor enforcement resources aren’t usually extended to cover intellectual policy disputes and even if they are, copyrights don’t extend to non-Palestinian owned content. The owners are confident the physical location alone protects them from distracting and expensive legal assaults but they claim they’ve incorporated robust defenses in the software as well. Features are said to include encryption, resistance to line sniffing, random ports and even proxy serving to block Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from sharing partners.

Many of the features announced for ES5 have aroused if not hostility at least a fair amount of skepticism in the P2P community, with outright rejection reserved for any claims of proxying. That feature is said to be critical for the future of peer-to-peer systems if users are to be insulated from subpoenas, court challenges and nuisance suits from rights claimants, legitimate or otherwise. To date the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has had its only real success attacking individual users through their open IP’s but huge bandwidth costs have prevented the widespread use of IP masking in other P2P’s so far. Interestingly it’s here that the confident bluster of official statements and Taylor’s own boosterism part ways. He’s unwilling to commit to the heady guarantee of “complete anonymity” promised in a recent press release, allowing only that the client has powerful protection, but it’s “not infallible.”

While accurate counts are hard to come by Taylor says the network is already “seeing worldwide user numbers in the 190,000 range.” An extraordinary claim that if true would make ES 5 one of the fastest growing file sharing systems in history.

As for business plans, nobody’s talking just yet. All anyone will allow is that money is not a priority at the moment. “These guys are all very well off,” says Taylor, “and they’ve got plenty of cash to carry them through the initial phases of the start-up - and then some.” Since the developers insist the application is adware and spyware free, there doesn’t seem to be a way for an income stream to start flowing anyway, but that’s not a problem with Taylor. “They’re looking way down the road", he says, "way down. They expect to be here when the others have left the stage. You’ve got to remember, not having to pay $1,000,000 a month in legal fees is a huge advantage in this business.”

Jack Spratts