Slashdot Mirror
Spoofing P2P Networks as Marketing Plot
prostoalex writes "Salon's technology section talks about major music labels spoofing the peer-to-peer networks. The users of AudioGalaxy, Gnutella or KaZaa have probably seen a surge of fake MP3 files when conducting a search on a popular title. The MP3 looks legit, but contains a 20 second clip played over and over. Such promotional tracks were especially popular with newest releases, such as Eminem and No Doubt, as pointed out in the article. Who posted the fake tracks to the p2p networks? Could it be, as Salon suggests, a suburban mom, who does not agree with controversial lyrics, or would it be the label, trying to prevent piracy and promote the new album at the same time?"
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal officials captured a U.S. citizen with suspected ties to al Qaeda who allegedly planned to build and explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States, the Justice Department announced Monday.
U.S. officials said Washington was the probable target of the plot. FBI Director Robert Mueller said the plot was in the "discussion stage" when the suspect, Abdullah Al Muhajir, was arrested. Mueller said the plot had not gone any further, to the knowledge of U.S. authorities.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said Al Muhajir -- who was born Jose Padilla -- was captured May 8 as he flew into O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, from Pakistan. Officials said that in the weeks before he flew to Chicago, Al Muhajir was tracked flying between Pakistan, Egypt and Switzerland.
U.S. officials later said an "associate" of Al Muhajir had been arrested in Pakistan, prior to May 8. It wasn't clear whether this was the "associate" Ashcroft referred to when, in announcing Al Muhajir's capture, he said Al Muhajir was working with someone in Pakistan on plans to build a dirty bomb. (Full story)
A dirty bomb is a conventional bomb equipped with radioactive material designed to spread over a wide area. Depending on the circumstances of the explosion, the number of deaths and injuries from a dirty bomb might not be substantially greater than from a conventional bomb explosion. But panic over radioactivity and evacuation measures could snarl a city, and the area struck would be off-limits for at least several months during cleanup efforts. (More on dirty bombs)
Ashcroft said Al Muhajir, 31, would be treated as an "enemy combatant" of the United States, a move that means he has fewer legal rights than an ordinary defendant in a criminal case.
President Bush signed off Sunday night on the decision to treat Al Muhajir as an enemy combatant, senior U.S. officials said, adding that the government faced a Tuesday deadline to decide whether to charge Al Muhajir in the federal court system or turn him over to the Defense Department.
Bush accepted the recommendations of Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the officials said, and the transfer from Justice Department to Defense Department custody was made Monday morning.
Suspect 'trained with the enemy'The Justice Department said that Al Muhajir, who was born in New York, served time in prison in the United States in the early 1990s, when he took on his new name. After his release, he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and met with senior al Qaeda officials, Ashcroft said.
"While in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al Muhajir trained with the enemy, including studying how to wire explosive devices and researching radiological dispersion devices," Ashcroft said. "Al Qaeda officials knew that as a citizen of the United States, as a citizen of the United States holding a valid U.S. passport, Al Muhajir would be able to travel freely in the United States without drawing attention to himself."
U.S. officials said the primary information about Al Muhajir came from Abu Zubaydah, the most senior al Qaeda figure captured by U.S. authorities.
Al Muhajir is being held at the Consolidated Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, according to Pentagon officials. They said the suspect was being held separate from the regular brig population.
"We have acted under the laws of war and under the clear Supreme Court precedent which established that the military may detain a United States citizen who has joined the enemy and has entered our country to carry out hostile acts," Ashcroft said.
Ashcroft made the announcement in Moscow, Russia, where he is meeting with Russian officials to discuss the war on terrorism. (Read transcript)
"To our enemies, I say we will continue to be vigilant against all threats, whether they come from overseas or at home in America," he said.
-- National Security Correspondent David Ensor, Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena, Senior White House Correspondent John King and terrorism consultant Peter Bergen contributed to this report.
No matter where you go on the internet, you'll find people trying to fuck stuff up.
Agreed. It also represents a lot of possibilities for Free Software, as filtering out these bogus files is not the kind of thing that will take place behind the closed doors of Kazaa or LimeWire.
I expect we'll see the popularity of tools such as gtk-gnutella skyrocket, and Linux along with it. Once again, Open Source will save the day.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Suburban moms won't touch a computer. They're evil, they're Hal 9000, besides, what if they screw them up? Most women are so technophobic that if they had run the world from the start, humanity would still be in caves if we even had survived. They wouldn't have let us have any stupid gadgets like fire and the wheel.
How ya like dat?
n-t
Male: whatz up my nigga...
Female: Oh Boy.. oh boy... boy
Male: you my bitch, get on your knees and lick ho
Oh come on. Do you use your CDs as coasters or something? It's funny how people use new technology as an excuse to award themselves rights that never previously existed. Back in the olden days, if you forgot your book on the bus you just went out and bought a new one. You didn't bitch and moan and write the publisher, demanding a new copy. When tapes came along, people started making backups of their LPs. This led to some piracy, but well within manageable levels. But now people have gotten the idea that the rights of the copyright owner must come second to their the inalienable right to access any song whenever and whereever they want.
I've got news for you, buddy. Our society is not optimized for fringe cases, nor should it be. If you want a backup copy of a CD then make it yourself. The right of the music owners to not have their works freely pirated is more important than the odd chance that you might be walking down the street with your mobile-iPod and you suddenly want to connect to a server in Finland and download this song that you used to own (well actually you borrowed the CD from your brother-in-law and never gave it back) but was destroyed in a freak accident when you actually dropped it down an elevator chute.
Maybe in the future, you will be able to purchase an individual license to a song. In return for giving up some freedoms (e.g. the anonymity of buying a CD), you can become a registered "user" of a particular song. In that case, you can download the song from whereever you want, but you probably won't be able to resell it later, like you can with a CD.
-a
The advantage of the GPL is that your customers can maintain and upgrade your software, even after you go bankrupt.
How to rationalize theft.