The Crimson reports that the eminent Mark Zuckerberg, author of thefacebook.com, has a new project, a file-sharing site entitled "Wirehog:"

The Wirehog software will be downloadable to a personal computer from the website www.wirehog.com. When the software is initially launched, it will search the user?s computer and upload certain default files like music to a user?s Wirehog page on the internet, Zuckerberg said. Users will be able [to] choose to upload other files.

Zuckerberg notes that while Wirehog could be used to spread copyrighted files (although I assume it would be slower than traditional file-sharing networks, if the transfers were from only one computer to another), this is not its intent. Since "Wirehog" will rely on a central server for each user's file listing, it seems similar to Napster, as opposed to the more distributed model of a true peer-to-peer system like Gnutella. However, it seems to have inherent disadvantages as a platform for trading large files like music, software, and movies. In the rare chance that Wirehog does become the hot new file-sharing network du jour, like Napster and Kazaa before it, I am sure the record companies will find a way to rain on the copyright-infringing parade.

Wirehog.com states a release date of August 25. If there is a Linux client (which, with the Linux support of past Zuckerberg-affiliated applications, is an big if), I will give it a whirl.