Currently, most usually will not.

It is possible these days to perform packet analysis to see what data is been sent to a from a particular computer.

If the government in question is particularly draconian, then it is possible that they might instruct the ISP's in the country to report/analyze known P2P traffic, i.e. in Gnutella's case, traffic flowing to and from port 6346 (although a Gnutella client can sit on any port).

It may be the case then that traffic to these ports is checked to see if they are part of an illegal file transfer.

However, this is worse case scenario. Possible, but for most countries it is highly unlikely.

I would imagine that the only countries affected would be perhaps some Middle-Eastern or countries with a strict government (some dictatorship and communist countries) control.

With most countries have too many users and the ISP's are like telephone companies; not responsible for the data that flows through their computers so they will only take action when it either interferes with the well being on their network or if forced to by an outside enforcement agency. Besides, with the sheer number of users most ISP's deal with, constant monitoring would be a hugely expensive exercise.

However, at the end of the day, the choice is yours. There is always a chance, however small, that you may get 'picked up'.
Take a look at http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...&threadid=5015 for one such report.

However, if you are sharing files, then the risk jumps up considerably: Another risk are the copyright holders/representatives. Since any Gnutella client can see any other Gnutella client, there is noting stopping copyright holders/or their representatives from doing searches for any file and having found the files in question, harvest the IP addresses and inform the ISP's or law enforcement officials in question. From that point who knows...

Rachel