Muffin Man has more than 2，000 songs on his hard drive， and he’s happy to share them. He’s a big fan of bands like Pearl Jam and the White Stripes， so there’s plenty of hard rock in his collection.

But chances are you’ll never get to it. The 21-year-old pizza cook， who asked to be identified by his online nickname， makes his songs available only through private file-sharing networks known as darknets. Unlike such public networks as Kazaa or Morpheus， which let you share songs with anyone， private networks operate more like underground nightclubs or secret societies. To gain access， you need to know the name of the group and a password. And the only way to get that information is from another member who invites you in. Some darknets even encrypt files and mask your identity within a group to keep eavesdroppers from finding out who you are and what you are sharing.

It’s a handy invention now that the recording industry has taken to suing kids who share music online. But darknets are not just for digital music files. Carving out a bit of privacy online has wide appeal; students， community groups and even political dissidents can use these hidden networks to share projects， papers and information. One part of the allure is anonymity; the other is exclusivity. Since participation is limited， file searches don’t turn up a lot of junk or pornography. Darknets offer the convenience of the Web without a lot of the bad stuff.

You need special software to start a darknet of your own. The two most popular programs are Direct Connect by NeoModus (at neomodus.com) and an open-source variation of it called DC++， available at sourceforge.net. More than 800，000 copies of DC++ have been downloaded since mid-July. A third program， called Waste (also at sourceforge.net)， automatically encrypts files but is much harder to use.

There are no good estimates of how many people use darknets. Lowtec， a college sophomore studying computer engineering， figures that 10% of the students at his school (which he declined to name) share files through Direct Connect. “It’s much faster than Kazaa，” he says. That’s because private networks typically link small， close-knit communities in which all members have superfast connections.

The recording industry so far hasn’t put much effort into combatting the secret networks， but its neglect might not last long. If networks like Kazaa become too risky， darknets could quickly rise to take their place. And if that happens， the music industry could find itself chasing users who are that much harder to catch.

注(1)：本文选自Time;9/29/2003， p78-78， 2/3p， 1c;

注(2)：本文习题命题模仿对象2002年真题text 4第1、2题(1，2)，text 2第2 题(3)和text 3第4、5题(4，5);

1. From the first two paragraphs， we learn that__________.

[A] Muffin Man‘s songs will be available if you know his online nickname

[B] Outsiders can not visit darknets without the invitation from a member

[C] Kazaa is to darknets what police is to underground world

[D] It‘s impossible for people to find out your true identity on the darknets

2. Which of the following statements is true according to the text?

[A] Darknets are being accused by the recording industry of allowing kids to share music online.

[B] People use darknets to share music mainly.

[C] One advantage of darknets is that people can avoid reading unwanted information.

[D] Users of private networks are mostly students.

3. The word “allure” (Line 4， Paragraph 3) most probably means____________.

[A] advantage

[B] achievement

[C] feature

[D] appeal

4. We can draw a conclusion from the text that ___________.

[A] darknets may become a headache of the music industry

[B] the age of darknets is within reach

[C] darknets may excel Kazaa in the number of its users very soon

[D] the music industry will lose the battle against darknets

5. From the text we can see that the write seems__________.

[A] positive

[B] negative

[C] doubtful

[D] uncertain

答案：BCDAA