the answer to this question has been posted on one of the other threads relating to this topic.

supposedly it is a feature built in to limewire to allow private networks for places like schools and businesses or something like that, but it was a feature that was never put into use. it is ALSO supposed to be a disabled feature by default. apparently somebody got into the code and activated it.

now supposedly this problem has been fixed on the latest version of limewire (8.something), but i read something on one of the threads written by someone running 8.6 (i think it was) who is having the same problem. so: ATTENTION LIMEWIRE PEOPLE: PLEASE DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR CODE!

what this means is that we will continue to be annoyed, and our computers slowed down and/or frozen by these annoying things, until limewire either makes a patch for those of us not willing to upgrade to newer versions just yet, or we upgrade (which supposedly fixes the problem), or we get frustrated enough to quit using the service.