I'm going to write this tutorial because there is a lot of confusion regarding RIAA's investigative techniques and what to do to keep free from getting a subpoena.

Firstly, don't share! That’s the only way to truly avoid being caught, but that’s not the way that I agree with so here it goes.

The RIAA is focusing its investigations on the major file sharing networks like Kazaa, Limewire, Morpheus. If you have a significant amount of music shared they will find your username and subpoena your ISP for your contact information.

One way to avoid this and to keep file sharing alive is to only share your high demand mp3s. Through all the articles that I've read the magic number seems to be around 200 songs. So don't share much more than that. Most of the people getting sued currently seem to have around 1000+ available for share. This is not necessary. Half of the crap people share is pointless. Only share the most popular/high demand songs.

Next...Don't use the traditional file sharing programs. www.zeropaid.com is a good resource for new file sharing news and programs.

Some programs that are exceptionally good:

E-mule www.emule-project.com == Uses a different network that is not currently being investigated, although the queue times are somewhat long, the product is usually high quality and worth the wait.

Kazaa-Lite www.k-lite.tk == Uses one of the investigated networks but has the option to disable sharing. I wouldn't recommend this b/c w/o shares there will be no P2P. But if you’re going to use Kazaa then at least use this version.

Earthstation 5 www.earthstation5.com == Somewhat difficult to use and not many users yet b/c of it being new. But supposedly this program has the solution to anonymity b/c it is in a country that doesn't support our file sharing laws and will not co-operate with US agencies. article

Nextly, If you simply want music and don't want to deal with file sharing programs there is some good 0-day sites out there. The links only usually work for a few days and the pop-ups are kind of excessive but the product is quality:
www.mp3-2003.com
www.simplemp3s.com
www.21century-mp3.nu
www.quickmusic.org
www.musiclines.com

Now, once you have the product on your computer you have officially violated copyright laws. Recently a lady was sued and went to court with the argument that she owned the cd's for the music. This would've worked, but some basic investigation proved that her claims were untrue. They used the id3 tags from the mp3 files to prove that they were from file sharing programs and not ripped from original cd's. I recently found a utility to remove all id3 tag information in bulk.
ID3Remover program Link
ID3 Remover Program Download (Direct)

Now that you have clean mp3s on your computer you may, at some point in time, wish to remove them. By simply deleting them or shift-del them they will still be on your hard drive and will be fully accessible with basic forensic utilities. To successfully remove the mp3s or any other file from your computer I'd suggest using this utility. It is called Eraser 5.3. It uses a deletion process created by Gutmann, which overwrites the place on your hard drive 35times. This process is beyond DOD standards and ensures that the files are fully deleted.
Eraser 5.3 Download (Direct)

Furthermore, I believe that soon most artists will decide to offer their music in digital format online for inexpensive prices. The RIAA will inevitably hurt itself and the artists already do not support the RIAA's tactics article. If the artists utilize this route we will be able to purchase mp3s straight from the artist w/o shoveling money into the RIAA, MPAA, etc... pocket.

I hope some of this info helps you get your anonymity back.

PS...If you truly want to clean your drive w/o having to re-format then there are a couple options. Firstly you can use Eraser 5.3(see above) to secure the slack space on your drive. This will use the Gutmann process to ensure that anything you have there is cleaned. Then you'll have to probably purchase some kind of software like Evidence Eliminator to perform an underwrite. This feature temporarily moves your information and writes randon information to that area, then puts your information back on that area. This feature ensures that any data hidden under your data will not be recoverable by forensic software. I'm still looking for software that performs underwriting free, but until I find one I'm stuck using EE.

Your friend for freedom
-neta1o-