WinMX Dead?

Apparently over the weekend the RIAA struck trying to shut down 7 peer to peer networks sites including WinMX and eDonkey, which if go to doesn't bring up anything even up. This move is a result of a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the music industry and their fight to protect the bottom line. However, this rules only apply to the United States which means that P2P sites home-based outside of the US are techinically safe from prosecution. I say techinically because we are talking about the law and nothing is stable in that arena. Its possible that the US government, with monetary encouragement of the RIAA could decide to touch base with other government offcials and enforce the law elsewhere. So far that hasn't happened fortunatly. Besides, you all know, kill one network, 10 will rise in its place.

An example of this is WinMX. P2PZone has posted instructions on how to connect your WinMX browser back to the P2P network by updating your hosts file on your PC. The solution is technically correct, after all the hosts file is a nifty tool. For example you could add this entry to the hosts file: 64.236.24.4 www.foxnews.com, 64.236.24.4 is the IP address of www.cnn.com. Now as a result of this entry, anytime someone on that computer tries to go to foxnews.com, Windows checks the hosts file, sees that entry and automatically redirects to that IP address...the result is always going to cnn.com. Much fun can be had on the computer illiterate with that.

Anycase, just be aware that updating your hosts files will redirect winmx to connect to unknown and possibly malicious servers. Use at your own risk and maybe be careful on the folders you are sharing until get an idea on things. As always, never share your personal information.

Update:
Found out the above suggested method didn't work for me with WinMX but then Slyck News found this site that did work. So try this if other doesn't work but again at your own risk but so far all seems good but then I don't really care that much.

Also Slyck has an article called Top 10 WinMX Alternatives that may be worth noting along with news that eDonkey is also still up and running...at least for now.