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Beware of that. They have a special way of spotting their own spoofs that we know about thanks to the Media Defender leaks. Specifically, Media-Defender spoofs had hashes that were divisible by 137, while MediaSentry had file sizes that were divisible by some large prime (for multi-file archives, though, only the last file was made divisible). I'm sure that they've changed some parts of their scheme after the leak (it's been very well known for a long time now and I've seen all this info brought up before), but I don't doubt that they still have sneaky tricks they use to identify their own fakes.

Still, you have a point that they haven't tested the files very well. Especially because of the way MediaSentry/SafeNet modified only the LAST file of multiple file sets, well, who knows? But they probably do have a database with all the hashes of all the spoofs they ever made. What would be more fun, though, would be to ask them how they know they're not someone *else's* spoofs. After all, that same archive I linked to mentions that SafeNet & MediaDefender had trouble interfering with each other at times...

> The jury saw through it and punished them for it.

You're giving that jury a bit too much credit. One of the jurors was bragging about how he'd never used the internet before. All the rest wanted to give her the maximum fine, except for one who gave the minimum.

Kazaa isn't easy to understand, and the only evidence she used it at all was her email. Given the evidence collection "practices" discussed in the MediaDefender leaks, and the fact that they listed the wrong shared files the first time, I'm not overly inclined to trust that that was never added or manipulated to their "evidence." If you examine how fly-by-night these folks are via the above link, you'd understand my worry. And yes, I know that MediaDefender isn't MediaSentry, but I've yet to see how they're different in practice, especially given the information on the collaboration between the two which is mentioned in the above leak. But don't take my word for it, read it yourself. If you have any interest in these things at all, it's NOT boring.

The only thing that made her look guilty, IMHO, was listing the wrong year for the date her hard drive died. It died before they sent her any legal threats and she had the guy who replaced it testify that it really was replaced because it was dead.

I don't think someone deserves to have their life ruined to the tune of $222,000 over that. But that's why I donated to her legal defense fund.

Well the guy's data is from July, so it seems you're right on that last point.

I'm not a soldier, but I arrived at essentially the same conclusions on my own, right down to writing passwords on a card in your wallet. In fact, I used to teach people that in a local basic computer security awareness class a local library held.

One important thing to note is that you have to be careful about password reuse. Oh, and email, no matter what, should NOT be considered "low security" no matter how boring your private life is because it can often be used as leverage to get more sensitive data. Look at this leak if you want to see the harm losing a simple Gmail account via password reuse can do.

As for the military issues, you have my sympathy. I sincerely wish we had leaders who would tell us "the only thing you have to fear is fear itself" and who would try to calm the public instead of using fear mongering tactics to consolidate political power. Unfortunately, from the responses we've seen over in Boston, I think that the public has been so irrationally terrified at this point that they won't listen any more. Not that I've heard many voices of reason speaking out to begin with, at least on TV.

What really sickens me is that this unrealistic threat evaluation is likely to get nice guys like you killed. I don't envy you :/

@Jugulator If you go to http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/ you will find a list of Mediadefender owned IP addresses that were used in the DDoS attack on the Mediadefender-defenders website.

There are also some interesting statistics created from the leaked tracking databases. The statistics include what times of the day and week are most popular for P2P pirates and which fake files have been uploaded the most.

More updates, leaks and news at:
http://mediadefender-defenders.com/

There are also some interesting statistics created from the leaked tracking databases. The statistics include what times of the day and week are most popular for P2P pirates and which fake files have been uploaded the most.

More updates, leaks and news at:
http://mediadefender-defenders.com/

...for those of you haven't already downloaded them.
http://thepiratebay.org/search/mediadefender/0/3/0

And the unofficial MediaDefender-Defender website.
http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/

#MediaDefender-Defenders @ EFNet