Anyone have experience with akami net session

[Toadem]

Wall of text incoming so bear with me .

I was having a look through task manager the other day trying to problem solve something else when I came across akami net session client running.
I couldn't think where it came from or what it had been installed with or as part of so I used my super sleuth abilities and hit google (yes I know, I used google so everything I found must be true ).

It seems there is kind of split feelings on this client with regards to do we need it on our systems and what exactly does it do.

One response on a Microsoft forum for it was this

Akamai does not come right out and say it, but the reason NetSession is installed on your computer is to allow them to use your computer to "upstream" content to other users. By installing NetSession, you are allowing Akamai to use your idle bandwidth to upload files to other Akamai users.

Untangling some of the statements from: http://www.akamai.com/html/solutions...rinciples.html

"The information that Akamai does capture is similar to a web server and that information is utilized for troubleshooting and network performance monitoring only." That means that NetSession continually sends information about your computer to Akamai.

They say that NetSession will only use your computer when it is "idle or utilizing minimal network resources." That means that NetSession is constantly monitoring your network use, and sending that information to Akamai. And since bandwidth usage varies from second to second, that info must be sent up to Akamai a lot. Wait a minute, didn't they just say they only captured the sort of info that web servers capture? Web servers don't capture info on bandwidth use. What other information does Akamai capture? I could not find any specifics on their site.

So if you install NetSession, you will be joining a peer-to-peer network, and allowing Akamai to deliver files from your computer at times when Akamai deems you to be utilizing your bandwidth minimally.

I also have a security concern about the files I am receiving from NetSession. It seems like it would not be difficult to download a file using NetSession, modify it to carry a virus payload, and then leave that computer idle, and wait for NetSession to transmit the infected file to other NetSession users.

I did my usual and took this with a pinch of salt and carried on searching and found a lot of similar comments regarding this so then decided to have a look directly at the akami website.

On the akami website it all seems fairly innocent and they offer very nice explanations as to why you should have this running on your system, still nothing about where it actually came from but just a general assumption that it is a streaming tool to allow easier sharing of files between groups, that it automatically monitors your network and that it decides when it will use your network for it own means, so , I decided to take a look through their customer list that they so proudly published on their site and to my surprise find the U.S Army, the U.S Airforce, the U.S department of Defence, United States Census and the U.S Department of State, to name a few, listed there as their clients.

Do we really need a file sharing client that has free reign over your network, runs in ghost mode and is connected to so many U.S government agencies running freely on our systems? or is it all a lot more innocent than it appears?

Either way I have removed it and will look more closely at what I have running in future.

[stevie lee]

its essentially a type of torrent software. whatever file you downloaded with it, people can download it from you instead of a central server.

I had it as part of Lord of the rings online, and dungeon dragons online. when I downloaded them about 5 years ago.
uninstalled as soon as it was downloaded and never needed it again since.

happycloud is another one Turbine uses, but if you uninstall happycloud the gam gets uninstalled aswell.

that's my experience with it and where I got it from.