The source of his angst is Napster and other controversial file-sharing programs like Gnutella, which allow computer users to share music files on the Internet. He's not concerned about copyright violations like those in the music business. He's worried about what Napster and Gnutella's underlying technology mean for how his employees use Intel's computer network. In such a setup, all communications go through a central point. With file sharing, the exact opposite happens.
Users bypass the center and communicate directly with one another.
Universities around the country, where music file sharing has exploded, are experiencing such problems firsthand. As students enthusiastically embraced Napster, networks slowed to a crawl. That's because Napster is to bandwidth what grease is to a kitchen sink trap. A single Britney Spears song can be more than 5 megabytes. Internet experts are working on ways to make the system prioritize traffic.