How The DMCA Is Enforced

Hank Scorpio writes "Bob Cringley's latest column talks about a company, BayTSP, that performs most of the enforcement of the DMCA on the Internet. This is the company that collects data about who is sharing music or movies online, and this is the company to go after when you get busted! They claim to "go to the same places any user could go, look at the same files anyone else could look at, and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public." Interesting."

Comments

Mirror please.

[fire-eyes]

Ahem. Mirror please.

PLEASE think about this when submitting.

Re:Mirror please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop bitching. You know that all the karma whores will fall over themselves to post a mirror, and you'll wind up with 5 copies in half an hour's time.

Re:Mirror please.

[cadillactux]

Why Mirror them. We just took out the company that collects data about who is sharing music or movies online . What fun it is. We did the RIAA once, care to hit this one while you are at it.

Well, We only probe(d) the ports on your computer that you have made public.. .i.e, port 80.

Okay, you can mod me down now.

Re:Mirror please.

[Qrlx]

You don't think that maybe they have two connections, one for their web page and another that they snoop on? Because if they didn't, wouldn't it be too easy to firewall 209.204.138.224?

(We should all probably firewall at least the /24, or maybe their isp's whole netblock which accoring to arin is 208.224.128/18 if I can still do binary)

By the way, did anyone else notice that their DNS server is snitch.production.baytsp.com.? At least they're honest!

Re:Mirror please.

[Anonymous Coward]

while [ 1 ]
do
wget -m --delete-after http://www.baytsp.com
done

Re:Mirror please.

[vsprintf]

Hmmm... Either people aren't using the link, or the RIAA has pumped up their server. C'mon people, what's one more tab, just to show 'em we still think about 'em?

Re:Mirror please.

[Anonymous Coward]

here's a mirror.

Re:Mirror please.

[sn00perz]

According to netcraft their site runs on win2k and has an average uptime of a whopping 6 days. Way to go DMCA worshipping M$ lovers.

FIX THE FLAG ICON

[geekoid]

please.

r,w,r,w,r,w,r,w,r,w,r,w,r

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[ImaLamer]

Look closer, it's all there.

That first white is kinda cut.

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[Anonymous Coward]

13 Stripes to signify the number of colonies.

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm... Look at a real flag and then make your statement again. It's not all there.

13 stripes != 12 stripes
Real Flag starts and ends with Red.

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[Anonymous Coward]

7 socialist,
6 White?

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[geekoid]

now, if only the flag icon had 13 stripes.

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they're bitching about, Eisenstien!

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is Eisenstien?

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[Loligo]

>Who is Eisenstien?

Made movies. Dead now.

-l

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it that you just simply have nothing else to obsess over?

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[gandalf23atwork]

The American flag starts it's stripes with a red stripe, and it ends with a red stripe. It does not start with a white stripe, as the icon on slashdot does, nor does it contain only 12 stripes. The American flag contains 13 stripes: 7 red, 6 white. The slashdot icon contains 6 stripes of each color.

Picture of a correct American flag

-Gandalf23@work

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[kalidasa]

More precisely, Sergei Eisenstein, pioneering Russian filmmaker; did Aleksandr Nevsky, Battleship Potemkin, other famous films. If you've seen the steps sequence from Untouchables, that's an allusion/homage to the famous steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin. In Aleksandr Nevsky there's a famous ice battle scene that has influenced nearly all later depictions of battle in film.

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[sillydragon]

Maybe CmdrTaco wanted to avoid getting sued by Uncle Sam for using a copy of the US flag? }:) IP rights and all that... };)

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[Anonymous Coward]

Nawww...

7 indian,
6 white.

Re:FIX THE FLAG ICON

[Anonymous Coward]

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Pokemon?

Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[oval_pants]

1.) Post company website link on Slashdot.
Step 1 complete.

Excellent

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[grumpygrodyguy]

Could someone post the following please:

1) Street Address
2) Phone Number
3) Names of directors and affiliates.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[baskil]

1)15466 Los Gatos Blvd. Suite 109-368 2)408.979.7900 Fax: 408.979.7969 3)Mark Ishikawa - CEO
The cached stuff is moving really slow for me on this.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[rworne]

According to the article above, "Los Gatos" is a mail drop, not the actual address. Suite numbers are used when you have a private company supply "PO Boxes", since only the US Post Office can supply PO Boxes.

Getting info on the company would be way easier if they were public. This one appears to be privately held.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[balloonhead]

A correction:

1. Post company website link on Slashdot
2. ????
3. Profit!!!

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[DEBEDb]

That would be good for Akamai's sales :)

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[balloonhead]

I know this got modded down as offtopic, but that's because the original poster is about a page above it so you don't see it in context. He just put point 1 up.

It's actually a very funny post. One of the best ever on Slashdot.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[koh]

Maybe you have a point here (would it be so easy ??)

However,
"We have 100 percent coverage of peer-to-peer file sharing," Ishikawa claims. "If you are illegally sharing copyrighted materials, we know who you are."
is the most stupid thing I read in years. Maybe they really think we're fools.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[blochsound]

Suite numbers are generallly illegal for private companies to use, I know that it is in New Orleans, and since the mail is Federal, uniformity should apply. The exception being unless it's a physical address. Mailboxes typically use the designation pmb (private mail box) (postal mail box) or the # symbol.

I work for a private mail receiving place.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[number11]

>Suite numbers are used when you have a private company supply "PO Boxes", since only the US Post Office can supply PO Boxes

Actually, the PO does not permit suite numbers to be used for private boxes (the practice used to be widespread, and a lot of fraud accompanied it). You're supposed to use "P.M.B. nnn" (for "Private Mail Box")

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[Rader]

I thought the same thing. But considering how brilliant interviewers can be... he might have meant he could FIND someone specific on all [major] peer-to-peer file sharing. Or the biggest stockpiles, etc.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[rworne]

I stand corrected. I was aware of the practice, but not that they (USPO) put a stop to it.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys don't know dick about this. If the practice was illegal, places like Mail Boxes Etc. would be out of business. I use a MBE box for my company and another for myself; the address is xxx blah-blah way SUITE yyyy. You clueless fucks need to get a life.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[dbrutus]

Actually it is illegal and generally viewed as the Post Office trying to cream its competition by putting onerous restrictions on them.

Its a regulation that is generally ignored.

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company

[Anonymous Coward]

here's their address from here 3150 almaden Expressway #234 San Jose CA,95118 US

ACK!

[jflash]

Time for me to get a list of all their IPs, so when they portscan me I can file a lawsuit against them.

It's time to put these wannabe hax0rz outta business.

Re:ACK!

[lostPackets]

Can someone publicise the IPs so that we can all "do our civic duty" and reject all their packets?

Interesting....

[penguin_punk]

We only probe the ports on your sister that she has made public too.

Break and Enter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I only go into houses that have left their doors unlocked....

What do you mean I can't be here? The door was open?

ZP

Re:Break and Enter?

[perljon]

I think this comparison is poor. Not only is the door unlocked in this case, but sitting on the other side of the door is a functioning service that allows the public to view and download files. This is the equivalent of putting a sign in your front yard that says, 'Ruths Antiques' and a now open sign, and unlocking your door.

If you start providing a service to the public (paid or free), anyone may walk in, take a look around and even sample the free goods. (Unless you specifically ban them.)

This is exactly what they are doing... stepping into your front door to interact with your service to find out information about your activities. When there is a public access to your property, you can't turn around and claim privacy... you can, it just isn't going to work.

If they took the next step and took advantage of a flaw in your service to do damage to your computer or goods, this would be the equivalent of taking a baseball bat to a china shop, which is the wrong thing. If you crack in your store window or on your store shelves, you can't seriously claim your rights were violated when you get nailed.

One way to fix it...

[Error-404NotFound]

and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public.

Here is an easy fix, just go to www.zonealarm.com to close all your ports, and then if they somehow hack into your computer and find evidence after that then they are in violation of the current "you hack, you get life" law, so don't think it's a huge deal.

Re:One way to fix it...

[jerkychew]

Explain to me how you're going to share files with all your ports blocked?

Re:One way to fix it...

[fmaxwell]

Explain to me how you're going to share files with all your ports blocked?

Send him an e-mail. Tell him the files you want, and he'll FTP them back to you. Just one of many ways that someone could supply files without having an open port.

Re:One way to fix it...

[ctxspy]

oh, yeah... that's convenient.

Re:One way to fix it...

[WinPimp2K]

Gee, that kind of makes it difficult to share thse 30,000+ MP3 files with just a few million "close personal friends"

Oh, wait, you can automate the whole e-mail and ftp setup...

But then how are you making sure you are only serving up files to those "close personal friends"?

Re:One way to fix it...

[fmaxwell]

oh, yeah... that's convenient.

There are already programs that accept file requests via e-mail and reply with an attachment containing the file. They also e-mail back directories, accept files sent to them, etc. That I gave a manual example for simplicity is no reason to assume that it could not be automated.

Re:One way to fix it...

[ctxspy]

Touché! (sp.)

But it's still not as convenient as Kazaa or some other spyware ridden software for mass public consumption.

Re:One way to fix it...

[fmaxwell]

But it's still not as convenient as Kazaa or some other spyware ridden software for mass public consumption.

But it will punch through corporate firewalls when Kazaa, Morpheus, etc. are blocked. Very handy when you work somewhere that has a seriously anal network security guy that sets up the firewall.

Re:One way to fix it...

[Rader]

There's nothing stopping this company from emailing you their requests and you replying with an attachment containing the file. Evidence.

if you automate it, then you'll automatically give out your evidence to anyone, including them.

Re:One way to fix it...

[crucini]

Problem is, once you standardize this protocol and publish an email address that supports it, people like BayTSP can connect. If you don't standardize and publish, you won't share with very many people, and you are no concern to the "intellectual property" industry.

Re:One way to fix it...

[fmaxwell]

I never said that this was a way to defeat companies like BayTSP. I said that it was a way that files could be shared with no open ports.

Probing port 80

[Anonymous Coward]

They claim to "go to the same places any user could go, look at the same files anyone else could look at, and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public."

I'd say it's a shame that they made port 80 public on their web server. A quarter of a million Slashdot readers are probing it right now... ;)

not this argument again

[Anonymous Coward]

"There seems to be an increase in child abductions and murders in the U.S.," says Ishikawa, "and when the abductors are caught and you look on their home computers, you inevitably find kiddy porn. So it is a precursor to this bad behavior, and just as the Internet makes it easy to distribute child pornography, it effectively encourages these criminals. We are working to end that."

Did you check their refrigerators for orange juice? I bet that's a more solid indicator. In fact I'd say over 99% of child molestors have orange juice in their fridge.

Re:not this argument again

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that there is actually a DECREASE in child abductions in the US. The only thing that has increased, is media attention, and thereby our awareness of the abductions.

Re:not this argument again

[MoneyT]

100% of all child molestors have consumed bread at one point in theri life, it is therefore imperative that we lock up all people you have consumed bread before they harm an innocent child.

Re:not this argument again

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Look kids, there is a fallacy here, but you're bread analogy's got nothing to do with it, because there is no correllation between bread and molestors (a molestor is not MORE likely to eat bread. He is more likely to have kiddy porn, supposedly). Can any of you find the true fallacy?

Re:not this argument again

[Imperial Tacohead]

Oooh! Oooh! Me! Finally, a philosophy major comes in handy...

Just because there's a correlation between kiddie porn and child molestation, doesn't mean that there's any sort of causual link between the two.

Now, time to sit back and wait another few years for philosophy to come in handy again...

Only the ports you make public?

[cfinegan]

I think they'd feel a little bit different if we were to "only probe the ports on [their] computer that [they] have made public".

mirror

[natefanaro]

here ya go, straight from google: http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:eTm4KN-KJxgC: www.baytsp.com/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Re:mirror

[doofsmack]

http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:eTm4KN-KJxgC: www.baytsp.com/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Why don't we be nice to him

[bsharitt]

Let's all be nice to this guy. When he sees us as friends, we can invite him to a big Slashdot party, then we beat the crap out of him while we're playing our pirated music.

Slashdot's doing their own probing...

[Lothsahn]

"We only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public."

Yeah, well, they just got a huge amount of users that decided to probe their public ports, namely, 80.

Looks like they're going slow already...

Re:Slashdot's doing their own probing...

[PerfectWorld]

while true; do wget -b --output-document=/dev/null http://www.baytsp.com/; done

You might want to CTRL-C it after a bit before you run out of VM ... someone want to improve on that?

Re:Slashdot's doing their own probing...

[Hater's Leaving, The]

lynx --source
does the job for me.

How is this not illegal?

[Phosphor3k]

and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public

This is illegal, at least in Maryland. Article 27, Sections 45A and 146 of the Annotated Code of Maryland prohibit "illegal access and the unauthorized manipulation of data using computer resources". Thus, in order for this to be legal, I'd have to give them permission first.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Error-404NotFound]

I'd have to give them permission first.

...and if you downloaded the latest Windows Media player than you already have, that is if they are in association with Microsoft in any way.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[SirSlud]

So it's illegal to probe the HTTP port on computers in Maryland with robots because you didn't get permission from the guy who admins the web site?

Isn't a public port part and parcel with permission to access said port?

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you are walking down the street and see someones house, dosnt mean you have permission to walk on that property and knock on that persons door.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus, in order for this to be legal, I'd have to give them permission first.

I'd say you implicitly gave them permission by opening the port to begin with, and not having it firewalled.

Before anyone starts with the "but do you go around testing peoples' doorknobs?" drivel: Having a computer connected to the internet is not the same owning a house with a driveway into the street. Accessing a public-facing service on a machine is not the same as walking into someone's house just because the door was unlocked.

Running a server available to the public is more akin to hanging an "OPEN" sign above your front door and then wondering why people keep trying to come inside.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[ianaverage]

Ok...I have a question....Say I have https running on my server with some legal mp3s sitting behind it that i download remotely to listen to occasionally. my https port is public, but the stuff behind it is protected by encrypted passwords. to be in legal compliance, would i have to take such things down, or is that perfectly legal?

Re:How is this not illegal?

[EvanED]

Actually, the hanging of the open sign is still a very poor analogy because you don't have to stop your car, get out, and walk up to each house to see if there's a sign. Perhaps a better analogy would be if you put a note above your doorknob that said "come in", but was only readable if you came up to it.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[tongue]

Just because you are walking down the street and see someones house, dosnt mean you have permission to walk on that property and knock on that persons door.

Uh, yeah, actually it does, if they don't have it posted no trespassing or make obvious attempts to deter people from coming on the property.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[stuartkahler]

If you connect to a filesharing network or host a web server that is publicly linked to, you are effectively inviting the public to inspect your offered files. It's just as if you go to a trade show and get a dealer booth. You can't bitch when someone comes by and catches you selling something illegal.
The aren't saying that they probe your Windows box for all of the various insecurities and start downloading copies of any .jpgs or .mp3s to see if any of them are 'illegal'.
Anyone who publicly makes 40k mp3s available to anyone strolling by is a crackhead anyway. Never offer more than a small portion of your collection to strangers. Who needs 5 MONTHS of music on their hard drive anyway? And why would they want to buy enough bandwidth to share all of that?

Re:How is this not illegal?

[BabyP]

If you have publicly accessable ports on your computer, I would say that you HAVE given them permission.

Really it sounds like they're doing the same thing that web crawlers do...or a p2p client for that matter. They just takes what they find and run it through a database to see if you're infringing on someone's copyright.

Sheesh.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure you do, as long as there is isn't a prominently posted No Tresspassing sign and the owner hasn't informed you that you are not welcome on his property.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[narftrek]

The main reason someone would want to do this is because you are on a file SHARING network. What good is it gonna do to get some great mp3's and then hoard them to myself? The point is to get these things circulated around so they are on tap anytime someone needs them. How many times have you tried to DL something and the things just keeps saying More Sources Needed? If we didn't hoard this shit we would be getting these messages. When I got the urge to hear a song I could have it DL'd in about a minute. It'd be like music-on-demand and I look forward to the day it will be like that.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

His robot does not identify itself as such, and it ignores the server's robots.txt file. Thus, he is accessing my server (and those of many others no doubt) without authorization.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Sparks23]

IANAL, but I think it's a grey area.

I.e., it probably breaks some laws, but as long as you ARE keeping it encrypted and locked away, a) they're not going to find you, and b) it's not a public trading site so I doubt anyone would bother enforcing it.

From what I read in that article, they're only going after the public file trader sorts. I.e. folks who are on Gnutella or Grokster or WinMX all day long sharing material which the copyright holder has paid them to protect, or who have that material up on various websites or are posting the material to newsgroups, etc.

Again, though, IANAL.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, yeah, actually it does, if they don't have it posted no trespassing or make obvious attempts to deter people from coming on the property. Uh oh--maybe I should apologize to all those Mormons that I ... er, lets just say mistakes were made.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[SirSlud]

ROFL? but i can't access robots.txt because according to the parent poster, **I'm not allowed to connect over his public port without his preauthorized permission**

am I the only one who sees the futility in this argument? define permission as it applies to the legality of ones actions ...

Re:How is this not illegal?

[reallocate]

I suspect the "urge to hear a song" "in about a minute" will go away once your out of puberty. Everything changes; you will, too.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[JivanMukti]

Running a server available to the public is more akin to hanging an "OPEN" sign above your front door and then wondering why people keep trying to come inside.

My friend and I once snagged a For Sale/Open House sign one night and put it in another friend's front yard. The next morning he got out of the shower and wondered why people were looking through his house. It was quite hilarious. (Well, at least for us.)

Re:How is this not illegal?

[ianaverage]

i understand that they are not going to come after me for it...i too read the article :)

i am just curious as to whether the could legally come after me if they so desired. say i flamed one of them here on /. and they decided to get back at me :)....

Re:How is this not illegal?

[penguin_dance]

Except that this isn't just going up to the door and knocking. This is opening the door and peeking around to see if you have stolen goods in your house.

Basically this is a third party company being able to violate the 4th amendment against illegal search.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[narftrek]

How do I put this.....GO FUCK YOURSELF. I'm a 25 year old engineer and I get laid on a regular basis asshole. Just because I want something CONVIENIENT WHEN I WANT IT does not mean I am immature. People get urges all the time just like you had the urge to be a smartass. Does that mean your "urge to be an asshole""in about a sentence" will go away once to pull your head out of your ass. Everything changes; I doubt you will

As I said before--GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[DrSkwid]

In the UK it has to be shown that the person making the attempts to connect had knowledge that their attempt was unauthorised.

Computer Misuse Act 1990

1.--(1) A person is guilty of an offence if--

(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;

(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and

(c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.

(2) The intent a person has to have to commit an offence under this section need not be directed at--

(a) any particular program or data;

(b) a program or data of any particular kind; or

(c) a program or data held in any particular computer.

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to both.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[kasparov]

I think what they are talking about as far as examining "ports you have made public," is if you are running a website (on port 80) they access the web site. If you are sharing files using gnutella on port 6346, they use the gnutella client (or one that they programmed themseleves) to look at the files you are sharing. Then they log your IP and subponea your ISPs log files (under the DMCA) in case it is a dynamically assigned IP.

I don't work for the company (or even know anything about them), but this is how I assume that they are doing it--it's how I would do it (if I were a sell-out, low-life, rat-fink, evil bastard that is).

Re:How is this not illegal?

[peg0cjs]

Actually, think of it more as having a garage sale on your lawn and having people come up & inspect your stuff looking for stolen goods.

What bothers me most is how this third party is able to obtain a subpeona of ISP logs so easily. They are not a law enforcement agency; what checks and balances are in place to ensure due process, probable cause, etc?

Re:How is this not illegal?

[great_flaming_foo]

Am I the only one who thinks that law by analogy is a bad idea? The last time I checked doorknobs and TCP stacks don't have much in common. If you try to fit cyberspace to some real world model you won't like what you end up with. (think RIAA)

Re:How is this not illegal?

[gmhowell]

Who gives a fuck? I'm already screwed in Maryland, since we passed that bullshit law making shrinkwrap licenses okay.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[mbogosian]

Isn't a public port part and parcel with permission to access said port?

I postulate that this post probably prevents precise pronunciation due to the poster's propensity to push the "p" key.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, somebody's defensive!

But a couple points:

-An MCSE is not an engineer.
-"Getting laid" usually implies "with a MOTOS", not a farm animal.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbass. Listen carefully please. If you are sharing files on a public network you have implicitly allowed access to anyone else using the service. How you were modded to +5 is beyond me.

You may also want to read your state's Code again. Start with illegal access and continue to unauthorized manipulation of data and maybe you will understand why you are so damn wrong on this it hurts. Hint: they are not hacking your computer when you share resources on a public network using a public service! There is no illegal access. As for data manipulation, no where does it state that the bastards are manipulating or even downloading data. They are just looking to see what you have, which you have made publicly known.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doh. No, what we has saying was not that what makes sense, but what is the law in Maryland. Whatever you (and many others for that matter) think is right and wrong is pretty much irrelevant when discussing laws related to computer access these days.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was not trying to make a common sense argument but pointing out the local law in one US state. And that's different from "most logical" definition of legal access. So you are comparing apples and oranges, missing his point entirely.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[kingOFgEEEks]

no offense, but i had to jab at this one:
try not moving your lips while reading, unless, of course, you're reading the post to someone else, in which case, you should move your lips

Re:How is this not illegal?

[aardvarkjoe]

So, if you're a socially adept 25-year-old engineer, how come your defense and insults are textbook elementary school playground style?

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Gooba42]

Are they keeping a record of who they checked on and who was cleared? I'm curious to see if this develops into a system like a credit record where merely checking the record counts against you.

Am I going to be considered a likely suspect in the future because at one time someone saw that I had a particular port open, despite not sharing any files?

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like it when they do it with these "stealth" bots
that some shit agencies are using now, that feed
nmap style ack-first probes at your service.
Snort goes absolutely apeshit.
Thank goodness for netfilter and stateful PF.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another fucking clueless lawyer-wannabe. So, what you're stating is that if I have a website in Maryland using port 80 (or any other port), people need my permission to access it first. What a fucking moron.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Sylver Dragon]

If you have publicly accessable ports on your computer, I would say that you HAVE given them permission.

So to take this to its logical extreme, if a person has 139 open and the guest accout enabled on an NT based machine, is it ok for me to browse the files on thier hard drives? They have, afterall, left the door wide open for anyone to connect to thier system and view all of thier files.
I personally disagree with this. Just because the port is open, doesn't make it right to use it. If we start allowing people to hack systems, and get away with it, because the system was not properly secured, we are going to end up with a lot of problems.
Consider it from another angle, if I install IIS, and don't download any of the updates for it, it has numerous well know security holes. If I don't patch it, does that make it ok to hack my server? No, admitadly I would be an idiot to do this, but I should still have an expectation of privacy. And I feel that this open ports problem is the same type of thing, just beacuse you can connect to a port and look at a person's files, doesn't give you the right to do so. Sure, they should take better care, but it still is not right.

Really it sounds like they're doing the same thing that web crawlers do...or a p2p client for that matter. They just takes what they find and run it through a database to see if you're infringing on someone's copyright.

I guess it depends on how far they are going with it. When you install most p2p clients you accept the fact that you will have a publicly accessable area, you have given up your expectation of privacy, for that portion of your system. However, I should still be able to expect that the rest of my system is still private. If I publish a web site, again, I have willfully given up my privacy in that location, and on that port. However, If I buy a Dell and it comes with port 21 open, and I don't know it, then I didn't willfully give up my expectation of privacy. For many users they don't even know what a port is, let alone, what port is for what. Are we now to enforce upon every person that buys a computer that they must be a networking expert? That is simply ridiculious. This sort of thing has got to be stopped, just because they are hacking to enforce the current laws, doesn't mean it should be allowed.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[AKnightCowboy]

Isn't a public port part and parcel with permission to access said port?

No no no no no no no no no no no no no!!!!!

Just because a port is listening on a machine doesn't mean it's "public" anymore than me bending over in the shower in the locker room is an invitation for you to insert your junk into my anus.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[aaarrrgggh]

I understand the potential for it being legal if they are looking for items which are the intellectual property of their clients. Furthermore, I can imagine them having the "responsibility" to make a citizen complaint to the government on things like kiddy porn.

If they were investigating copyright violations (or any civil issue, in response to their client's requests), I can see how they could subpeona ISP logs... but not for the kiddy porn or any criminally illegal activity.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[Nicolai Haehnle]

So to take this to its logical extreme, if a person has 139 open and the guest accout enabled on an NT based machine, is it ok for me to browse the files on thier hard drives? They have, afterall, left the door wide open for anyone to connect to thier system and view all of thier files.

I'd say it's okay for you to browse the files. It's not okay for you to exploit other security holes (or a Guest account which, for some stupid reason, has write access to files) to change the contents of the hard disk.

The real problem is that
a) most computer users are not educated enough. We're trained from our very childhood that you must always close the door of the house (or lock the car, and so on), but we aren't trained to firewall computers, and
b) it is not possible to determine whether a port has been opened on accident or on purpose without connecting to it and looking around

Obviously, this is assuming that you know in advance that the given port is open.

The question is, of course, _how_ you got the information that the port is open.
a) Someone tells you it is open. This could happen via a link from another website, but it could also be via a peer-to-peer network or a friend informing you on IRC.
b) You portscan the machine.

I'd say that in case of a), connecting to the port and having a look around is perfectly legitimate (unless you were told that the port is supposed to be closed). In the case of b) it isn't. But that's just my opinion.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[arkanes]

They probably do it the same way the BSA does, which is to say over and over and over again that they have the legal right to it, and they'll sue anyone who argues the point. The vast majority of people will cave. After all, it's just some logs, right? And they wouldn't be there if the guy hadn't done something wrong, right?

Re:How is this not illegal?

[narftrek]

Because they are short, simple, easy to understand, and convey my message efficiently. There is no reason to attempt use big words to dazzle somebody who is bent on general insults. It is a waste of energy. Besides Fuck Yourself has a certain ring that seems to push alot of peoples buttons. As you stated they are "textbook elementary school playground style" Well last time I checked if they were good enough for a textbook then they're good enough for most people. No need to reinvent the wheel as they say. Perhaps you could tell me which textbook I SHOULD be reading hmmmm?

Re:How is this not illegal?

[aardvarkjoe]

Yes. It conveys that, rather than a 25-year-old engineer, you're probably a 15-year-old nerd who doesn't have the verbal skills to engage in real discussion, and are using an alternate persona because you believe that it will improve the reception of your comments. And I think that you'll find that the only reason why profanity 'pushes people's buttons' is because they're seeing it used as a crutch, for people who can't actually communicate otherwise. Most of the slashdot trolls use profanity, but many of them are far better at hurling insults than you.

Re:How is this not illegal?

[narftrek]

Well there AardavrkJoe I wasn't attempting to hurl insults, I was conveying my annoyance with his stupid remark. And if you read the original post I'm far from trolling. Seeing as how you continue to try to annoy me as well, I would say that you are the one who is a 15 year old with no social life so to drop down on your level...

I'm rubber You're glue everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you....

Oh and GO FUCK YOURSELF

Flame on asshat FLAME ON!!!!!!!!

Re:How is this not illegal?

[stuartkahler]

My point is, that by connecting to a public filesharing server, and giving blanket permission for ANYONE to download from you, you are implicitly giving permission for THEM to connect to your PC and examine the files that you are offering for ANYONE to download.
If you want to run a public FTP server, you need to put a message in the opening along the lines of 'This is a private server for downloading use only by Stuart Kahler. All others are considered to be trespassing and ordered to disconnect immediately per federal statute XXXXX.'. You then give out the IP address for people to connect to. At this point, anything obtained is done so illegally.
The real problem here is that a private investigation firm is doing all of the legwork instead of government authorities, so you have to get a better-than-average lawyer to fight the illegally obtained evidence.

click at your own risk ...

[Bartacus]

..."and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public"

... so follow that link at your own risk.

their fate is sealed

[Anonymous Coward]

hmmm. maybe if we can keep them /.ed they don't be any hard for a while.

go get em boys

peace

neotrantor

Where do I start?

[GigsVT]

"and when the abductors are caught and you look on their home computers, you inevitably find kiddy porn. So it is a precursor to this bad behavior, and just as the Internet makes it easy to distribute child pornography, it effectively encourages these criminals. We are working to end that."

Hmmm, So we go after people for crimes they have yet to commit, is what he is arguing. Someone should make a movie about that.

Ishikawa, the FBI thinks terrorists are sharing information by hiding it in images posted on eBay using a process called steganography.

What a penis. I guess he doesn't keep up on research.

If you look at Mark Ishikawa's business card, you'll notice that it lists no street address for his company, BayTSP, just [...] a post office box in Los Gatos, CA, but could really be anywhere in the Bay Area.

Or it could be located here: BayTsp (BAYTSP-DOM) 3150 almaden Expressway #234 San Jose CA,95118 US

Just publicly available information, Right Ishikawa?

Re:Where do I start?

[GigsVT]

and when the abductors are caught and you look on their home computers, you inevitably find kiddy porn. So it is a precursor to this bad behavior

Argh, I just can't stop thinking about how stupid this logic is. Let me give you an example my stats professor gave.

Nearly 100% of people who do drugs as adults drank milk as kids, at least once. Therefore, drinking milk is a "precursor" to drug use.

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

ARIN:

OrgName: BayTSP.Com
OrgID: BAYTSP
Address: 19020 Skyline Blvd Los Gatos, CA 95033
Country: US
Comment:
RegDate: 1999-12-20
Updated: 1999-12-20

Re:Where do I start?

[LordNimon]

Here is a satellite picture. Now we really know where he works!

(You'll need an AOL/Netscape "screen name" in order to view the image)

Re:Where do I start?

[Tsali]

hahahahahaha....

Now he can get spammed as well. :-)

Re:Where do I start?

[moonbender]

Or it could be located here: BayTsp (BAYTSP-DOM) 3150 almaden Expressway #234 San Jose CA,95118 US Just publicly available information, Right Ishikawa?

Ahahaha. Owned etc. :)

Re:Where do I start?

[wowbagger]

and when the abductors are caught and you look on their home computers, you inevitably find kiddy porn. So it is a precursor to this bad behavior....

Logic error (as others have pointed out). Allow me to demonstrate:

and when the abductors are caught and you look in their homes, you inevitably find air. So air is a precursor to this bad behavior....

Correlation is not causation.

However, that said I think people who ar turned on by kiddie porn have a problem, and people who DISTRIBUTE kiddie porn are criminals.

But let us not go down the slippery slope of incorrectly reasoning to justify our actions, 'mkay?

Re:Where do I start?

[GigsVT]

Mod parent AC up, he seems to have another address that may be more correct than my original post.

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

your milk and drugs analogy is a famous one. more can be found in a book called Innumeracy...very enlightening about statistics in general.

as a side note, making, owning, and distributing child porn should be illegal however, these new get tough on pedophiles before they are pedophiles laws that give extreme sentences for anyone who sees so much as one picture on their local pr0n news group is stupid. I'm not a big porn fan in general and I think it's corrosive to the society as a whole but I am a big Free Speech (for the adult versions) and I am a big Free Will fan and I think the current cures are as bad as the disease in this arena.

Re:Where do I start?

[Monkelectric]

However, that said I think people who ar turned on by kiddie porn have a problem, and people who DISTRIBUTE kiddie porn are criminals.

You seem to be having trouble typing, both hands are on the keyboard, right? :)

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

"and when the abductors are caught and you look on their home computers, you inevitably find kiddy porn. So it is a precursor to this bad behavior, and just as the Internet makes it easy to distribute child pornography, it effectively encourages these criminals. We are working to end that."

Hmmm, So we go after people for crimes they have yet to commit, is what he is arguing.

Yep, and following that logic, I suppose that before the evil Internet came around and made child porn so easy to get, there was no such thing as kidnapping...

Not only is his statement stupid, it's just plain wrong. Someone should remind this guy that the rate of kidnapping has steadily gone down over the last decade (hasn't he been watching the news?) as the internet was improving its fundamental porn-transferring capabilities. So while more and more people are accessing dirty pictures than ever before, fewer and fewer of them are actually going out and abducting kids. While I'm not about to defend child porn, a more logical conclusion would be that it's keeping people busy at home instead of driving by the playground looking for a "date." Of course the obvious conclusion is that correlation is not cause, etc.

The scary part is that this sort of twisted "logic" is soaked up and believed by the masses. We'll all be thinking of the children while we're kissing our rights, freedoms, anonymity, and our internet goodbye.

Re:Where do I start?

[phorm]

Hmmm, So we go after people for crimes they have yet to commit, is what he is arguing. Someone should make a movie about that

>Hmmm, So we go after people for crimes they have yet to commit
Collecting Kiddy Porn is illegal in most states though, so there's still a crime.

Can't somebody just embed a virus in an image that mails the personal info of these perverts to the FBI or something? - phorm

Re:Where do I start?

[perljon]

I think the bigger issue is that you are encouraging people to take naked sexual pictures of children who are not mentally capable of making rational decisions about such things. To support a child porn industry, you need to victimize children.

Re:Where do I start?

[SquadBoy]

I am *not* defending this guy. And I think that many kiddy porn laws have nothing to do with protecting children but are motivated by other things. Having said that.

Driking milk is not a crime.

Under current US law having kiddy porn is a crime.

Therefore they are not going after people who may commit a crime they are going after people who *have* commited a crime. He is merely stating that in his opinion this crime can predict another , IMO worse, crime.

Now if you want to argue about whether it should be a crime or not that is another discussion. But for purposes of what he said they are going after people who have commited a crime and as a result he thinks may commit more crimes.

This guy is still scum but at least go after him in the areas where he is wrong rather than making up something he did not say.

Re:Where do I start?

[GigsVT]

Collecting Kiddy Porn is illegal in most states though, so there's still a crime.

It is illegal federally in any case, if you are transmitting it over state lines.

That's not the point, the point is that he is justifying his actions with this dubious logic about crimes that have yet to happen.

Re:Where do I start?

[Schnapple]

Well, nearly 100% of people who don't do drugs as adults also drank milk as kids, so the "precursor" argument is null since the cause/effect reasoning is invalid.

Let's say they start searching the computers of all criminals they arrest, regardless of their crime. I bet the percentage of non-pedophile criminals with kiddie porn is down in the single digits. Same goes for non-criminals

The main reason child pornography is illegal (as I follow it, IANAL), is that children are not only considerably younger than the legal age (18), but also because they don't possess the mental maturity to make any decisions involving their involvement in pornography, much less what it really is. Therefore, the trick is to go after the perpretrators of the child porn, but since there would be no child porn were there no demand, simply make the demand illegal.

It doesn't take too many "BARELY LEGAL!!" websites and magazines to realize that were possession and distribution of child pornography not illegal, it would surely be a huge market.

Re:Where do I start?

[umask077]

> Can't somebody just embed a virus in an image that mails the personal info of these perverts to the FBI or something? - phorm

In an image no. Viruses imbedded in images are pretty pictures. I think I can find a picture of ebola for you. Good news. The picture wont make you sick.

In an mpeg file however is another story. You can force someone to automaticly load a website from an mpeg file. Easy way for the feds to log whos looking at the kiddie porn. This is not a virus but part of the mpeg standard so not illegal.

Also it was a while ago but there was a virus released that was imbedded in in a "kiddie porn" executable which sent personal information from the machine infected to, and dont quote me on this, scottland yard, it was to the brits im pretty sure at any rate. Because it infected the machine with a virus that collected data and sent it out it didnt make any friends with the cops it informed either and the virus scanners scan for it.

I used to work for a large usenet provider. One day they decided to shut down the known kiddie porn newsgroups which I cant argue with. Beyond being deplorable if you know about it and dont do anything about it you lose your common carrier status protections. for the next few weeks we would get calls about how "I cant access one of the newsgroups I used to read". We'd eventually get out of them which newsgroup and which point they would happily give us there username and there address for verification. This was popular with the feds. Morons.

Ok, all humor aside this Mike fellows a major dick IMHO. He doesnt agree with the law but he'll make a quick buck off it. Sounds like he and the law get along splendly. He gets lots of death threats? Thats the problem with todays kids, no follow through.

If he doesnt agree with the law thats fine. But to say you dont agree with it and then act on its behalf makes your an immoral sellout.

Re:Where do I start?

[micromoog]

Driking milk is not a crime. Under current US law having kiddy porn is a crime.

OK, here's another one. Nearly 100% of people who commit grand theft auto were at some point cited for speeding. Therefore, speeding is a precursor to more serious car-related crimes.

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, I wish I had mod points today.... (up, dude, up).

I vaguely remember a study refuting the conventional (read: opinion) that pornography leads to sex crimes. I believe Japan was the source of the data, you know the place where pornography can be purchased in vending machines in public places.

I'm glad a bunch of people caught that logic error in the article. I wonder why Cringely let it pass... he's a pretty logical dude, it seems.

Re:Where do I start?

[rtscts]

that said I think people who ar turned on by kiddie porn have a problem

Says he who has a thing for monkeys (and parrots? Arrrrr).

Re:Where do I start?

[MaximusPrime]

The issue is whether thing like this keep happening:

Caught in the Kid Porn Crusade

From the article:
"One click, you're guilty," says an FBI agent. "A federal offense is that easy"

it shouldn't be that easy you know - I'm all for going for the masterminds and traders, but going after one image in your browsers cache ? c'mon

what's next, having ISP's block objectionable/illegal content ?

Re:Where do I start?

[nortcele]

Logic error (as others have pointed out). Allow me to demonstrate:

and when the abductors are caught and you look in their homes, you inevitably find air. So air is a precursor to this bad behavior....

Breathing air is definately a precursor to bad behavior. Without air, there would be no bad behavior. It just so happens that all child abductors breath air, and most child abductors have kiddy porn.

You cannot claim someone is making a logic error by establishing a profile and trend. Ted Bundy indicated that porn leads down the path of sexual crime. http://serial-killers.virtualave.net/bundy.htm

Or do you have more knowledge about this than Ted Bundy?

Re:Where do I start?

[SquadBoy]

You will of course notice that I said the guy was an idiot and that I thought he was wrong. But yes that is the logic that the cops do use. My point is go after him by arguing that the kiddy porn laws are bad laws just as most speeding laws are bad laws. Not that he is going after people for "future crime" which is *not* what he is doing. Even if he is trying to make the crime he is going after them for seem worse by linking it to another crime.

Re:Where do I start?

[phorm]

I've seen these groups available on my local ISP. Makes me sick, why the hell would they even include these newgroups. Don't they know which newsgroups they're posting available?

Filtering things at an ISP isn't a great idea, but not provided it in their public content doesn't seem bad to me. Do ISP's pick what goes into the newgroup, or is it added by a default list or some other odd means of populating. I've noticed different ISP's having different newsgroups available, many seem to allow the illegal ones though?

Re:Where do I start?

[nortcele]

A link that better makes the point than the one posted above would be:
www.pureintimacy.org/online1/bundy.html

Re:Where do I start?

[Otter]

Argh, I just can't stop thinking about how stupid this logic is. Let me give you an example my stats professor gave.

Nearly 100% of people who do drugs as adults drank milk as kids, at least once. Therefore, drinking milk is a "precursor" to drug use.

You're expected to provide the context that Ishikawa and Cringeley thought was implicit:

Almost all pedophiles have child porn in their posession. The overwhelming majority of individuals do not.

That's termed 'association'. The fact that someone is sharing kiddie porn on his FTP server significantly increases the likelihood that he is pedophile. That says nothing about causality, but no one was claiming causality.

Also, note that posession and distribution are crimes themselves, which you seem to be ignoring to argue about causality.

Re:Where do I start?

[lunk]

Search results for: ! BAYTSP

OrgName: BayTSP.Com
OrgID: BAYTSP
Address: 19020 Skyline Blvd Los Gatos, CA 95033
Country: US
Comment:
RegDate: 1999-12-20
Updated: 1999-12-20

Their network is 209.204.128.0/19
AS Number 14478 (according to arin, can't find in bgp)

Re:Where do I start?

[nanojath]

"Correlation is not causation."

Balls. All these arguments are full of it. This guy is not attempting to create logically perfect syllogism. He is simply giving his view on the reasoning behind seeking to interfere with the distribution of child pronography. And he's perfectly correct. Your "argument" is lame because while you find air in EVERYONE's home, you do not find child pornography on everyone's computer. You're on crack if you believe there is not a causal correlation between the desire to own child pornography and the propensity to sexually abuse children. It is not of course a 1 to 1 correlation. But it is sufficient to justify continued and constant efforts to track down the distribution of this filth and jump on the people who trade it with both feet.

More to the point, if it is real child pornography is produced through the abuse of children and I would argue that anyone supporting shares the guilt of this abuse.

Anyway, this guy hardly needs to "justify" his actions. He is working on behalf of law enforcement and as long as his methods of searching are legal he has all the justification he needs. Because when "people who ar[e] turned on by kiddie porn" start owning kiddie porn then they no longer simply "have a problem," - they have criminal material in their possession and deserve to be arrested.

You people baffle me. I am liberal as they come (well, maybe not as they come...) and a huge advocate of privacy, first amendment, and the bill of rights (have you written an enraged letter to your representatives about the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act yet? If not, get the hell off Slashdot and do something worthwhile yah little yapper!), but when there are so many who deserve to have their abused freedoms defended, why weaken my public case by jumping on the least defensible example I can find? There's a difference between being zealous for freedom and just picking stupid battles. Y'all are just being contrary for the sake of it. Focus, people, focus!

Re:Where do I start?

[rkanodia]

Ahoy! 'Tis talk like a pirate day!

Re:Where do I start?

[shumacher]

Do ISP's pick what goes into the newgroup, or is it added by a default list or some other odd means of populating.

Short version: sort of.
Long version:
So you want to start a newsgroup?

Re:Where do I start?

[Skim123]

Therefore, the trick is to go after the perpretrators of the child porn, but since there would be no child porn were there no demand, simply make the demand illegal

I think they do both. Just like with an illegal substance like meth amphetamine - it is both illegal to own it and to produce/sell/distribute it, the latter being a more serious crime than the first.

Re:Where do I start?

[base3]

Assuming he posted from there, that ISP was Supernews (a.k.a. CriticalPath)

Now there are two uses for a "premium" news server: warez and porn, so I suspect it wouldn't be the smartest business practice for them to rat people out to the feds, so this guy may be blowing smoke.

But something to keep in mind: if they'll rat out a customer for downloading illegal porn, who's to say they won't someday do it for downloading MP3s or a copy of Photoshop?

It's worth considering avoiding Supernews for premium news service if they or a (possibly rogue) employee would give anyone up for any reason without being presented with an airtight subpoena.

Re:Where do I start?

[Wedge1024]

Wow. I feel like we should do something really nice for such a great guy... I know! How about we give him 1025 hours FREE from AOL? You can go here to send him a free cd. ::evil grin::

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a map to their location:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US& ad dtohistory=&address=3150+almaden+expressway+suite+ %23234&city=&state=&zipcode=95118&homesubmit.x=22& homesubmit.y=7

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it's right to throw the occasional innocent person in prison where they will be sexually abused for the sake of stopping what we personally find objectionable?

I haven't seen any research on whether early exposure to sex leaves children unharmed, and I suspect if any research of the sort WERE done, it would be drowned out by all the 'morally correct' offended people. Not only that, not all kiddie porn is genuine - should the IMAGES be illegal simply because you find them distasteful?

[I derive no pleasure from child pornography, but I admit that not everyone is like me]

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

So are you actually saying that people, who like me and most of the other guys here on slashdot, who have and enjoy, regular, non-child porn are going to be serial killers? I think your argument actually refutes itself: we have one serial killer who looked at porn and fifty million non-serial killers who look at porn. There's a trend for you.

Second, you are making a logical error. It's called 'extrapolation beyond region of known fit.' You can estimate based on a trend; you can say there's a high probability of an event occuring based on the trend, but you are committing a fallacy if you say something is certain to happen based on a trend.

Third, most children are abducted by their own parents, not by strangers. Parents are more likely to harm their children than anyone else.

Fourth, child pornography is sick and, thankfully, illegal. Jail child pornographers for snapping pictures, but don't jail them for being child abductors/murderers until they actually commit one of those particular crimes.

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite a jump from 'pornography' to 'violent sexual images'. The guy had some misaligned pleasure neurons, and found objectionable material arousing. Thanks for painting that with a nice wide brush to include all pornography, which we can assume you personally don't care for.

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, maybe you don't know this, but wowbagger lost a hand in car wreck a couple of years ago. Pretty rude of you make a joke of it.

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately your argument is even more dangerous then just being flawed. You see, it is dangerous because on the surface it makes sense and is something that sounds good as a sound-bide in a mouth of a politician or some other securocracy zealot. When one puts a bit more thought into it, one quickly discovers that the devil is in the details.

Your assumption: mere presence child pornography in one's PC is a sure sign of crime and punishment has to be rendered for supporting such wretched abuse of children, and moreover the person in question needs to be socially destroyed since he will likely commit more serious crimes in the future

Reality: Extreme ease of placing such material on the computer by mistake (you click on the link in your e-mail promising HOT BABES and you end up with pictures of 10year olds in your browser cache and most people are not knowledgabe enough to know the cache exists), add to it extreme potential for abuse either by hackers, your enemies hiring hackers or crooked police techincians with a "mission from God" and bingo - you just produced a very convenient way of controlling people you do not like. No WAY you will dig yourself out from under the accusing finger of a self-richeous prosecutor screaming "pedofile - pictures on the computer PROVED it" at the top if his/her lungs on the 5 o'clock news and holding your photo and address.

This is not the kind of law and order that I wish to be associated with. Witch burnings and Spanish Inquisition are somewhere in the ancestry of your naive reasoning.

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

In an mpeg file however is another story. You can force someone to automaticly load a website from an mpeg file. Easy way for the feds to log whos looking at the kiddie porn. This is not a virus but part of the mpeg standard so not illegal.

How to Turn Off the Processing of HTML Scripts That Are Contained in Windows Media Files

Or use mplayer :).

~~~

Re:Where do I start?

[alan6101]

I think this guy's real motivation is to become the porn king of CA. Judging from all the porn he used to push, I think he's using this as a cover so he can confiscate as much porn as possible and revive his old sites. Talk about skeletons in your closet...and how smart was bragging about not having a published address?

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ted Bundy indicated that porn leads down the path of sexual crime.

All that proves is that Ted Bundy claims porn made him rape and murder. Thus, if he is telling the truth, you can assert that porn has, in fact, been a precursor to sexual crime in one person.

Not to go out too far on a pro-porn limb, but hundreds of millions of people consume pornography. There is nothing to indicate that these hundreds of millions of people are all engaging in sexual crime. Furthermore, there is reason to doubt his statement. He wants you to think that poor little Ted was made into a monster by porn.

Re:Where do I start?

[Gooba42]

In this case the kiddie crap that got posted to whatever group your harvesting bot grabbed makes you a criminal for unwittingly being in posession of contraband.

My interpretation of the "BARELY LEGAL!!" stuff is that there is a demand for women on the young end of being biologically an adult which are legally considered children under US law. 18 years old is an entirely arbitrary number, if it were 16 or 21 or 35 the same debate over whether the limit were set properly would happen. If the limit was 16 we'd still see a demand for a particularly appealing group of 15 year olds. If it was 35 you could expect vast numbers of the population to be in violation of the law because their biology tells them that women beneath that limit are still viable mates.

I wouldn't always interpret the "child bride" as a victim either. It is worthwhile to note that there are cultures where taboos regarding pedophilia are not based on age but on maturity of the persons involved. If you are attracted to women who are biologically/tribally still children, you're in for a world of hurt. If she's a "woman" (has her first period) at 9 years old, that could well make her marriage/mating material at 9 with marriage being *the* significant achievement for a woman. She fulfills her purpose at 9 when others won't until they're 16. I can't say this is right or wrong only that it is considerably different from our "at 18 you're an adult, ready or not" situation.

And of course psychology has something to do with it, we can't ignore that typically a younger person has it ingrained to defer to an older person's judgement. This means that in a "pedophilial" relationship that the older person may be getting a sort of power trip out of it and often this is the case. We can't however judge all people on the same subjective criteria and expect the model to fit all cases.

We should not allow people to be victimized at any age. If I turn 18 before my girlfriend but we maintain sexual contact in the gap between our birthdays, that means I'm a pedophile? Or if I consider women a couple of years younger than myself sexually attractive makes me a sexual predator?

The law as it is defined now has it's flaws. Among them is the fact that the 18th birthday has no instinctual significance to the human populace it governs. When law is at odds with instinct or biology there is no question that it will be broken.

Re:Where do I start?

[AKnightCowboy]

Their network is 209.204.128.0/19 AS Number 14478 (according to arin, can't find in bgp) Drop 'em at the border folks.

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the intent was pretty clear. Let wowbagger speak up for himself if he didn't immediately see that it was a joke entirely unrelated to any accident involving his hand.

Some people on slashdot just don't seem to have a humerus >:(

Sorry you've already posted anonymously 10 times today. But if you'll login, you can post anonymously as many times as you like!

Re:Where do I start?

[dbrutus]

OK, Baytsp.net (registered by the same Mark Ishikada) has 4 NS entries.

Two of them are in an IP range owned by garageband.com and two of them are in a range owned by SuperBusiness NET, Inc., a Nevada corporation. The nameservers for SuperBusiness Net's ARIN range are... the identical ones for baytsp.net and the tech email is noc@baytsp.com.

A google search for "SuperBusiness Net, Inc" yields a link to an ISP who claims credit for the sbusiness.net domain. The sbusiness.net whois record yields... the same Nevada PO Box as the superbusiness Net, Inc. IP range.

The NS records for sbusiness.net point to web1000.com, a "free hosting service with no ads" that seems to have a strong presence in the porn serving arena.

What, exactly, is the relationship between SuperBusiness Net, Inc. and web1000.com is unclear but they share phone numbers on their whois addresses, though their PO Boxes are different.

So, boys and girls, what have we learned?

Mike Ishikawa is running at least:
BayTSP.com
BayTSP.net
SBusiness.net
and is probably running
web1000.com

His BayTSP.net seems to be more substantial than his BayTSP.com presence but the web1000 infrastructure is truly massive and if, in fact, he runs that corporation, it's via there that he's likely running his scans.

Re:Where do I start?

[Catbeller]

Ted Bundy was a manipulative liar who told his questioner what he wanted to hear. Any "facts" from Bundy are from a vicious sociopath who was playing with his audience -- ergo, nonsense.

Re:Where do I start?

[dbrutus]

Who says he's out of the porn business?

baytsp.com->baytsp.net->sbusiness.net->web1000.c om which redirects 404 traffic to porn adverts. I fished it out of the records and explained it higher in the thread.

Re:Where do I start?

[dvdeug]

Ted Bundy indicated that porn leads down the path of sexual crime. [...] Or do you have more knowledge about this than Ted Bundy?

Ted Bundy was frequently willing to say whatever the people who was talking to wanted to hear, especially if he thought it could delay his execution. Also, Ted Bundy was unique, and what happened to him doesn't seem to cause others to do the same thing. Ted Bundy said he couldn't understand why people wanted to kill him; if he really didn't understand that simple fact, then he didn't understand others well enough to say what would lead them to do anything. If he did understand, it's just another example of that he was willing to lie and say what would get the right reaction out of others.

Re:Where do I start?

[GigsVT]

You are arguing in different directions from my original point, but I will bite.

The fact that someone is sharing kiddie porn on his FTP server significantly increases the likelihood that he is pedophile

How does that imply that the person is any more or less likely to commit a serious violent crime like abduction?

Also, note that posession and distribution are crimes themselves, which you seem to be ignoring to argue about causality.

As someone else pointed out, nearly all people convicted of car theft have had previous speeding tickets... Should that relationship be used to justify actions related to speeding ticket enforcement? Of course not.

Re:Where do I start?

[MoneyT]

It wouldn't suprise me if it came out of Japan. THey seem to have things pretty well figured out. A high sense of respect among people and an openness about life in general.

Re:Where do I start?

[Schnapple]

There's also the fact that women are biologically designed to be their most fertile between the ages of 18 (or 16) and 25 - thus Nature makes them look their best - to attract a mate. Of course, society says that nowadays people go to College and generally don't graduate until 23/24 and therefore miss most of those years. Women who give birth at 18 are often considered bad or have screwed up.

Re:Where do I start?

[Otter]

By "pedophile", I meant someone who actively molests children. That was an inaccuracy in my part. Most sexual abuse of young children doesn't involve abduction or overt violence, but most of us still consider it a serious matter.

Beyond that, you've completely missed my point. It's not that child pornography causes abuse (it may or may not, but I'm not arguing that) but that it's a powerful predictor of abusers. Speeding tickets and milk and all your other analogies have an enormous rate of false negatives that make them entirely different issues. (Did your stat class cover Type I and Type II errors?)

Re:Where do I start?

[Gooba42]

I can't wait for the follow-up contention from the foaming-at-the-mouth variety of feminist who's going to come screaming about how all of academia, biology and medicine has been so male dominated from the beginning of time as to invalidate any and all assumptions or observations of gender issues.

Bottom line is that we're going on what we know and when you can prove differently with a robust argument not based on simple denial of all pre-existing data is when I will change my view of the situation. Maybe everything we know is based on how it is and not on how it should be, but we can hardly be blamed for that can we?

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's right the *porn* made him do it.

Conservatives all over America complain that people aren't taking responsibility for their own actions, only until it's pornography, and then they're all ears.

The fact is somewhere inbetween one of two things, either a)porn really did make him do it, or b)his porn addiction was an indicator of something worse. B is kinda like how over eating isn't the problem in young children, it's a symptom of something worse, low self-esteem, sexual abuse, etc.

In either case, it's funny to see how Dr. James Dobson began to immortalize Bundy. I don't think Dobson ever thought enough to wonder if Bundy was using him.

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Ted Bundy said Jesus told him to do it, would you have posted that link?

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the same sense of logic, you're on crack if you believe there is not a causal correlation between the desire to own ordinary pornography or seeing your wife naked and the propensity to rape a woman. It is not of course a 1 to 1 correlation. But it is sufficient to justify continued and constant efforts to track down the distribution of porn and jump on the people who get married with both feet.

Re:Where do I start?

[glesga_kiss]

Someone should remind this guy that the rate of kidnapping has steadily gone down over the last decade (hasn't he been watching the news?)

It's not the impression that the layman gets. Going by the volume of media reporting of child abductions, many people think it is actually going up, especially here in the UK. Why do you think so many parents drive their kids to school?

It worries me. The developed world is becoming safer all the time but thanks to the media's desire to have more sales/viewers and humans morbid facination with these things, it's so in your face that you have to remind yourself that it is extremely rare. The whole facination with this stuff is similar to slowing down to look at a road accident, or watching soap operas. It appears to be human nature to be facinated by this stuff. Perhaps society has become so safe we look for ways to become scared, e.g. rollercoasters, scary movies, extreme sports and so on...

Re:Where do I start?

[GigsVT]

Did your stat class cover Type I and Type II errors?

Yes

So you mean there is a correlation.. my problem with the article is that is seemed to imply causation with flawed logic; Post hoc ergo prompter hoc.

Re:Where do I start?

[Sherloqq]

The half the Canadians living in Ontario are criminals :) Have you ever seen how many of them get pulled over for speeding in New York State?

And they told me Canada was safer than the States... :)

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

Logic error (as others have pointed out). Allow me to demonstrate:

and when the abductors are caught and you look in their homes, you inevitably find air. So air is a precursor to this bad behavior....

Correlation is not causation.

Not only that, but the first sentence of this paragraph from the article:

"There seems to be an increase in child abductions and murders in the U.S.," says Ishikawa, "and when the abductors are caught and you look on their home computers, you inevitably find kiddy porn. So it is a precursor to this bad behavior, and just as the Internet makes it easy to distribute child pornography, it effectively encourages these criminals. We are working to end that."

is a trifle disingenuous. The reason there "seems" to be an increase in child abductions and murders isn't that there's actually been an increase, it's that the media have for whatever reason decided to cover child abduction more than they usually do. It's just like how last year the media made it seem like there was a "summer of shark attacks" by covering every shark attack extensively, even though there were actually fewer shark attacks than in most summers.

Re:Where do I start?

[pod]

They don't pretend to fight any future crimes; possession of kiddie porn is already illegal by itself.

Re:Where do I start?

[pod]

It doesn't take too many "BARELY LEGAL!!" websites and magazines to realize that were possession and distribution of child pornography not illegal, it would surely be a huge market.

"Barely Legal" and "Kiddie Porn" are completely different things. There's a difference between a sexually developed 16 year old (barely legal) and a 10 year old virtualyl indistinguishable from a boy (kiddie porn). Demand and enjoyment of one is quite normal and understandable, of the other, it's sick IMO.

Re:Where do I start?

[Schnapple]

I'm not sure what country you're in but here in the U.S. the age is 18. Ergo, 18 is "barely legal" and 17 is "kiddie porn". If 17 were the cutoff then there would be 17 year olds in magazines. Same goes for any age you throw out there. At the age of 18 in the U.S. you're considered an adult (your parents are even cut off from your records), so that's the legal age.

Consequently if you go on a shooting spree when you're an 18 year old you're a "crazy person". If you do the same thing when you're 17 then you're "disturbed" and "tainted by the media".

Once you turn 18 no one cares anymore.

Re:Where do I start?

[BitterOak]

You cannot claim someone is making a logic error by establishing a profile and trend.

Ah, but two things are required to establish this profile and trend:

• A) Most child molesters have kiddy porn on their computers.
• B) Most people who aren't child molesters don't have kiddy porn on their computers.

Simply demonstrating (A) isn't sufficient: you need a control group to establish a corelation. I think this is what the person who gave the air example was trying to point out.

Given how loose current legal definitions of "child pornography" are, and given the fact that in many states, 17 year olds can be considered minors, I think people would be shocked at just how large a percentage of the population actually has viewed child pornography on their computer.

Re:Where do I start?

[God! Awful]

How does crap like this get modified as insightful? The argument may incomplete, but Ishikawa is at least nice enough to credit his audience with the ability to make simple assumptions, such as the vast majority of people don't have kiddie porn on their harddrive.

If you want to use this logical argument, at least save it for a topic where it might be relevant. E.g. "police claim 60% of traffic accidents are caused by speeders". Where I live, at least 60% of cars on the road appear to be speeding.

look in their homes, you inevitably find air. So air is a precursor to this bad behavior... blah blah blah... Correlation is not causation.

A dumb statement, since you didn't even show a correlation. Try looking it up in a dictionary:

Correlate: to establish a mutual or reciprocal relation between

Kiddie porn may imply air, but air does not imply kiddie porn.

But let us not go down the slippery slope of incorrectly reasoning to justify our actions, 'mkay?

Those who resort to slippery slope arguments really shouldn't be lecturing others on the use of logic...

-a

Re:Where do I start?

[Anonymous Coward]

A dumb statement, since you didn't even show a correlation.

I really don't think you understand at all. He showed as much correlation as the original statement from the article did.

Child abuse implies kiddie porn, but kiddie porn does not imply child abuse.

huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

how do they know which ports on my computer i've made public? what if i'm infected with a worm which uses the gnotella port to form a p2p network? what if i've been sub-7'd? what about all the people who've had net access denied just for running tools like nmap?

it'd be fun to dig up their netblock from ARIN and create snort rules to look for sweeps on their part, then publish them.

OrgName: BayTSP.Com
OrgID: BAYTSP

ASNumber: 14478
ASName: BAYTSP
ASHandle: AS14478
Comment:
RegDate: 1999-12-20
Updated: 1999-12-20

TechHandle: MI70-ARIN
TechName: Ishikawa, Mark
TechPhone: +1-408-399-0600
TechEmail: marki@baytsp.com


interestingly, their netblock isn't easily available, and their website is externally hosted at sonic.net. anyone got some better clues on where these guys are attacking from?

PATCRP

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm assuming 408-979-7969 is his cell phone #, because it isnt listed on the company site as a contact #.

enjoy ;) ,..

Re:huh?

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

OrgName: BayTSP.Com
OrgID: BAYTSP
Address: 19020 Skyline Blvd Los Gatos, CA 95033
Country: US
Comment:
RegDate: 1999-12-20
Updated: 1999-12-20

# ARIN Whois database, last updated 2002-09-18 19:05
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's Whois database.

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, but, WHAT IS THEIR NETBLOCK? arin doesn't say. you're just being redundant.

Re:huh?

[EZmagz]

From the parent: what about all the people who've had net access denied just for running tools like nmap?

I've gotten into trouble for this. The first thing I did when I hooked up with RoadRunner was nmap people on my subnet, just out of curiousity, to see what kind of computers people were running. My intention was never to break into someone's box, mind you. Just to see if people were running webservers, etc.

Is this illegal? In some places. Is this unethical? Some would say "yes", although I say "no". Is this against RR's TOS? As I found out, undeniably yes. So I can't nmap people. I still get scanned hourly by Nimda, Code Red, SubSeven, and every other worm/virus under the sun, and it's always by the same people. Yet they haven't been threated to have their plug pulled...go figure.

So if I get in trouble for seeing what's "publicly available" (e.g., if a webserver's running), why can this fucking company do it without fear of consequence? Because they have a lame m.o. to hide behind? Because it's their "job" to check up on me?

All I can say is it's actually a GOOD THING in a sense that there's so many ignorant users out there today. If the internet was like how it was back in the BBS days (or even pre-AOL), everytime someone got scanned by these assholes retribution would be interesting, to say the least.

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

try source-faking it to one of your neighbors, and see if your NIC picks it up.

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are using sub7 compromised hosts and open proxies all over the internet, this orchestrated from ishikawa's Free BSD workstation in his parents basement.

Re:huh?

[Rader]

Because they have lawyers.

Welcome to my firewall!

[Bonker]

BayTSP's website IP address is 209.204.138.224

Assuming they have a class C netblock, this means you can block 209.204.138.* and eliminate most probing from them.

Anyone else know of any other netblocks or IPs that belong to them?

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Kenja]

Why would I need to do that? You can't even ping my home network through my firewall much less probe ports.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[GigsVT]

Their nameserver is running on the same IP as their web site, it's probably some cheesy single IP DSL.

He probably has multiple ISPs, so good luck blocking him, you would have to block every ISP that gives DSL or higher service to the bay area.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[SphynxSR]

that site uses Sonic net, but I doubt that is even using that network for their attacks.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Anonymous Coward]

Find out who they buy bandwidth from and block them.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[faster]

this means you can block 209.204.138.* and eliminate most probing from them

Um, no.

Their web site is hosted by sonic.net. Blocking that only means their web server can't probe your systems.

I'd bet they're using a variety of cable modems and DSL connections with dynamic IPs to do the probing.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[KelsoLundeen]

Surely, they're smart enough to do most of their searching from other IP addresses, right?

This may be their business address, but no self-respecting enforcement company is gonna do all their searching and spying from their business IP.

In fact, I'd wager you'd have better luck blocking *all* of AOL, Verizon -- and any other big ISP you can name.

I suspect they, too, tend to overthink their anonymous abilities and probably figure that they can blend in much easier if they get some big-name ISP account (maybe even off-shore) and hit you with what looks like just another script-kiddie attack from just-another big-name ISP IP block. They're probably right in doing it this way, but I bet they leave some pretty tell-tale signs that -- once folks figure it out -- will make them easier to block.

Of course, I might be wrong. Maybe the anonymity sniffers are really closer to 'anonymous' than the people who think they're surfing anonymously.

Maybe this outfit does indeed have some kickass, wicked spycraft that they're pulling.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[zmooc]

Um that netblock belongs to Sonic.net and looking at their rdns, they appear to be ADSL-addresses.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Anonymous Coward]

dear sir,
baytsp is run by a former cracker. they have externally hosted their web presence at sonic.net. they have not disclosed their netblock to ARIN. your post and the actions it endorses are futile.

try harder.

PATCRP

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[moonbender]

Well, that means you're not sharing any files over the internet, much less copyrighted ones. You have no reason to protect yourself against them. People who do share files might be safe if they do block that net mask. OTOH, maybe they're too smart for that.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Anonymous Coward]

Their web site is hosted by sonic.net, an independant local ISP in Sonoma County that also hosts O'Reilly and Associates, among others.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says BayTSP's CEO, Mark Ishikawa, does not have his address on his business card because he receives death threats.

I guess he shouldn't have listed his address with ARIN:

OrgName: BayTSP.Com
OrgID: BAYTSP
Address: 19020 Skyline Blvd Los Gatos, CA 95033
Country: US
Comment:
RegDate: 1999-12-20
Updated: 1999-12-20

Anyone care to sign him up for snailmail spam?

NetSol provided the following additional info:

Registrant:
BayTsp (BAYTSP-DOM)
3150 almaden Expressway #234
San Jose
CA,95118
US

Domain Name: BAYTSP.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Ishikawa, Mark M (MI70)
marki@BAYTSP.COM
Ishikawa,Mark
PO Box 1314
Los Gatos, CA 95031-1314
US
408-399-0600 408-979-7969

Record expires on 11-Jun-2004.
Record created on 11-Jun-1999.
Database last updated on 19-Sep-2002 16:48:43 EDT.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.BAYTSP.COM 209.204.138.224
NS1.NAMESYSTEMS.NET 63.209.20.18
NS2.NAMESYSTEMS.NET 64.94.85.130

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Anonymous Coward]

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
baytsp.com. 58m12s IN SOA snitch.production.baytsp.com. noc\@baytsp.com. (

At least he's aware what he is.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Wedge1024]

Anyone care to sign him up for snailmail spam?


here

::evil grin::

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, they sure do.
It's called nmap-3.00-1.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually sonic.net does seem to have dsl clients and a few of those DSL connections have been implicated in at least some attacks according to Dshield.org.

209.204.130.152 5 Attacks
209.204.130.140 (port 4661) 14 attacks
209.204.130.192 (port 1214) 2 Attacks

Of course by itself this does not mean much...

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[Lumpy]

Basically, all you need to do is watch for a portscan and then ipchains them in the block file.. nice and simple.

I block 99.997% of all ATTBI portscanners that way.

Re:Welcome to my firewall!

[glesga_kiss]

here [aol.com]

I don't care what they have done, signing them up for AOL is just plain evil!...

Silly slashbot

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for me to get a list of all their IPs, so when they portscan me I can file a lawsuit against them.

It's time to put these wannabe hax0rz outta business.


That is a great idea, until you realize that your "basis" for a lawsuit has been fundamentally flawed for almost two years.

This is a private company?

[jweb]

So let me get this straight.... a PRIVATE (non-govmt) company is basically doing the dirty work for the FBI and *AA's?

Shouldn't investigating and collecting evidence for criminal cases (which is what their doing, the DMCA is the law of the land whether we like it or not) be the responsibility of a government law enforcement agency?

Re:This is a private company?

[Atzanteol]

Government resources aren't always up to the task for things like this. There are many private companies that perform duties for government entities.

Also, private institutions can get around some of the restraints on government law enforcement (search/seizure, entering without a warrent, etc). This is why bounty hunters can be very useful at times.

NOTE: Freedom of speech is the same way. A private institution can prohibit what you say (your boss can fire you for saying things he/she doesn't like), but the government can't (you can't be arrested for saying things against the government).

Re:This is a private company?

[Myco]

If the end is the same, I'd just as soon have the money come out of the *AAs' pockets than the tax coffers.

Re:This is a private company?

[jweb]

If the end is the same, I'd just as soon have the money come out of the *AAs' pockets than the tax coffers.

I agree. However, it seems slimy at best and possibly illegal at worst for a private entity to gather evidence that can later be used by the government in a criminal trial. In my mind, a private entity can certainly gather evidence for a civil court case, but should not be allowed to for a criminal one. Criminal cases are (should be) a government matter.

Personally, I feel that copyright infringement should be considered a civil matter, not a criminal one, hence the *AA's should be forced to bear the brunt of the investigative cost and have infringers charged in civil court.

Re:This is a private company?

[len_harms]

yes but the if the goverment hires a company to do work for them. The company is working on behalf of the goverment. Technicaly getting around illegal search and seizure. However a judge could rule against the procecution.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"

It does not specify that it would just be the goverment doing this. So if I wanted to come on over and riffle through your house. By your logic and the logic the goverment is currently using, I could. If I just maybe thought you were doing something wrong. This is effectivly what they do if they port scan for it. Also remember it is by law wrong for ME to break into something. But somehow the goverment is above that?

Now if a person connects to a network p2p app. They are in effect advertising that it is 'ok' to come through that port and use the system for what I shared. Not to go rummaging through my HD (unless its the pourpous of the share). It is NOT ok without a propper warrent to reverse back to me and rummage through my stuff through a different port.

Now for my rant. WHY does everyone treat the internet as if it is some other world? Its the same world we live in. The laws are just as easy to break and uphold there. Yet we treat it as some sort of wild west. We do not need MORE law to tell us it is wrong to copy crap. It already is. Its on every dvd/cd/vhs copy I have. Its in my face EVERY time I start a dvd. Can not even skip by it. Maybe I am tired of by default being treated as a criminal.

Re:This is a private company?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think For Yourself. Question Authority.

Duh, okay. If you say so.

Re:This is a private company?

[james_underscore]

Yeah, but the probing techniques are patented, so the FBI can't use them without permission anyway. So long as BayTSP are charging a reasonable fee (which is, whatever the FBI is prepared to pay), they don't really have an option ;)

I do find it very peculiar how the DMCA is a part of criminal law, when AFAIK the rest of copyright law is traditionally civil law, so prior to the DMCA you could be sued for damages but not put in prison for breaching a copyright. (Usual IANAL disclaimer)

Re:This is a private company?

[Myco]

I see your point, but I can't agree with your conclusions. The category of actions which constitute "gathering evidence" is just far too broad and difficult to classify, and there are too many circumstances when it makes plenty of sense for a private individual to seek out evidence on their own. For example, violent crime is a criminal matter, but you wouldn't argue that it should be illegal for the victim of such a crime (or his or her agent) to seek out evidence in order to help bring the perpetrator to justice. As long as criminal cases involve private interests, there will be many cases where it makes sense for private individuals to perform their own investigations.

I do agree with your second point, though. I hadn't really considered the question of whether copyright infringement was civil or criminal before, but if it's as you describe (and I guess it is, now that I think about it) then that's quite an absurd state of affairs. But what isn't, in this particular legal realm?

Re:This is a private company?

[mbcbvn]

"...whatever the FBI is prepared to pay..."

From the article:
BayTSP is paid anywhere from $200 to $50,000 per month by owners of intellectual property -- primarily software companies, movie studios, and record companies -- to find who is illegally copying, distributing, or helping to distribute without permission their intellectual property.

Bold emphasis mine.
So it's not the FBI footing the bill, at least to this company.

Re:This is a private company?

[umask077]

> Also, private institutions can get around some of the restraints on government law enforcement (search/seizure, entering without a warrent, etc). This is why bounty hunters can be very useful at times.

True, but 99.9% of the usage of bounty hunters is not by law enforcement. Sure there are nice price tags on folks on the top 10 but the feds encourage people not to go after them.

Bounty hunters are generally employeed by Bail agents. When someone fails to appear in court the bail agent offers a percentage of ammount in return for the apprehension of the individual and the return of the bond.

sorry, watched a cool special on TLC a few weeks ago about bounty hunters.

Re:This is a private company?

[testadicazzo]

which is what their doing, the DMCA is the law of the land whether we like it or not

The whether we like it or not part bothers me. Since we don't like and shouldn't like it, what are we doing about it? Me, I've written my congressman and given bucks to EFF. But if anyone has further suggestions, lets get it moving.

Just cuz a law has been pasesd doesn't mean it can't be recalled.

Re:This is a private company?

[MoneyT]

WHY does everyone treat the internet as if it is some other world? Its the same world we live in. The laws are just as easy to break and uphold there. Yet we treat it as some sort of wild west. We do not need MORE law to tell us it is wrong to copy crap.

I've been saying that for a long long time. Problem is, to the rest of the world, the net is still a magical thing.

Re:This is a private company?

[MoneyT]

I still say we should take the subscription money from slashdot and buy ourselves a senator or two. I would definately subscribe for that.

Re:This is a private company?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does not specify that it would just be the goverment doing this. So if I wanted to come on over and riffle through your house. By your logic and the logic the goverment is currently using, I could. If I just maybe thought you were doing something wrong. This is effectivly what they do if they port scan for it. Also remember it is by law wrong for ME to break into something. But somehow the goverment is above that? Breaking and entering would be part of the crime here; the house is private property. Now if a person connects to a network p2p app. They are in effect advertising that it is 'ok' to come through that port and use the system for what I shared. Not to go rummaging through my HD (unless its the pourpous of the share). It is NOT ok without a propper warrent to reverse back to me and rummage through my stuff through a different port. If you read the article, you'd see this isn't what they are doing. They are only looking at what you share. If you don't want them to find it, then don't share it (duh). Note this includes using NT's Administrator account with no password on an ISP that doesn't block 137/139.

Re:This is a private company?

[testadicazzo]

That's a really cool idea.

But what senator? Pick one from say, Alaska, who may not get bribd that much, or I dunno Kansas?

Can we buy a senator, and have him tell everyone that senators can be bought? that would be great.

Re:This is a private company?

[MoneyT]

Has the california and texas senators been bought yet?

It looks like we slashdotted them.

[shren]

We should have a story about them every day!

I wonder if they have any job openings. Evil is fun.

mod this up!!!

[Unknown Poltroon]

i mean it.

you would think that ISP's would cut them out

[johnjones]

you would think that ISP's would just remove them

after all Acceptable Use means that I cant go port scanning why the hell should they ?

and they use all the bandwidth and after all if your a telco you PAY for the amount of data

regards

John Jones

Fear of turnabout?

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

They probe the Internet for people doing what they or their customer's don't like, so they can incarcerate people in the real world. Do they not fear they shall be brought into harm in the real world for doing what people don't like on the Internet?

Surely, if vigilante/mob justice (well-known to be the least corruptable justice system of all) is to retain any respect, THIS COMPANY MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE! I plead to the Vigilante Security Council and all member nations of the United Mob to hold BayTSP accountable for flouting our prudent resolutions on the DMCA issue!

Made Public?

[ACNeal]

How do they know what I have made public before they probe them?

The federal law says that they have to cause damage via unauthorized, or under-authorized access, or intend to cause damage to be guilty of federal computer fraud crimes.

My question is, does intending to make me spend money defending myself constitute intending to cause damage?

Re:Made Public?

[Planesdragon]

My question is, does intending to make me spend money defending myself constitute intending to cause damage?

Yes and no. (IANAL)

If they don't have even the barest inklings of a case, and file a suit anyway that they know they're going to lose, then probably yes.

If they do have even the slightest inkling that there's something untoward about you, and believe that you have probably committeed a tort against them (or a crime), then defending yourself is just part and parcel of how life works.

Re:Made Public?

[buss_error]

If they don't have even the barest inklings of a case, and file a suit anyway that they know they're going to lose, then probably yes.

IANAL:
Yes, that's an actionable cause. It's called Barratry in the past, now I think they use Harrisment by Process, or maybe "Corporate Attack Dog".

Re:Made Public?

[umask077]

>The federal law says that they have to cause damage via unauthorized, or under-authorized access, or intend to cause damage to be guilty of federal computer fraud crimes.

Oh the irony of conflicting articles. If these folks arent causing damage by stealing bandwidth then perhaps the earlier today article about warchalking has had a determination made as well.

Unless you are a lawyer you cant have your cake and eat it too. These guys are stealing bandwidth by probing, so are the war chalkers. So either they are all criminal or they are all not.

Only probing the address he made public...

[futuresheep]

BayTsp (BAYTSP-DOM)
3150 almaden Expressway #234
San Jose
CA,95118
US

Domain Name: BAYTSP.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Ishikawa, Mark M (MI70) marki@BAYTSP.COM
Ishikawa,Mark
PO Box 1314
Los Gatos, CA 95031-1314
US
408-399-0600 408-979-7969

Record expires on 11-Jun-2004.
Record created on 11-Jun-1999.
Database last updated on 19-Sep-2002 16:19:51 EDT.

Re:Only probing the address he made public...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the Infospace entry says for Bay TSP as well...

Let's pay a visit!

Bay TSP

Re:Only probing the address he made public...

[SamSpectre]

I wonder if Ted Kaczynski reads Slashdot. Probably not with that whole anti-tech thing, huh.

Re:Only probing the address he made public...

[Anonymous Coward]

He doesn't sound all that nasty on the phone.

Re:Only probing the address he made public...

[dbrutus]

Maybe somebody else noted it but I don't see it in the thread.

Baytsp.com and baytsp.net are both registered by the same nic handle...

We only probe public ports...

[AtariDatacenter]

> ...we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public...

A number of people have pointed this out. However, if this was a valid legal/ethical statement, then that would be the perfect justification for any electronic crime. A hacker says, "I wasn't doing anything illegal! I was only probing the ports that they made public!"

I like the argument in a way. It says, "Hey, I didn't go beyond my authorization to do this. Their site already had the authorization wide open for me to do this!" On the other hand, it can be used to justify anything.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[Anonymous Coward]

this is why there should be some legal standard for defining unauthorised access. if you have a building, you simply lock the door. even if your lock is trivially defeated, the crime is breaking and entering. unfortunately the internet equivalent seems to be sending some english text in ascii and then requiring a plaintext password. this is obviously not secure or reliable. certainly no one would want a law stating that all computer systems must present ascii text, either :)

Re:We only probe public ports...

[stubear]

'However, if this was a valid legal/ethical statement, then that would be the perfect justification for any electronic crime. A hacker says, "I wasn't doing anything illegal! I was only probing the ports that they made public!"'

The differenc being that when one leaves a port opened unintentionally they are not explicetely or implicitely inviting in unwanted "guests".

By using Napster, Gnutella or a slew of other P2P apps which open ports on your computer for sharing files, you are explicitely inviting guests, wheher wanted (other P2P file sharers) or unwanted (BayTSP spiders, FBI). You have knowingly opened ports on your system and allowed files to be shared. Even if you don't understand how P2P applications and networks actually work you aren't shielded from the responsibilities of having the files available to be illegally copied.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[thatguywhoiam]

I like the argument in a way. It says, "Hey, I didn't go beyond my authorization to do this. Their site already had the authorization wide open for me to do this!" On the other hand, it can be used to justify anything.

No kidding. Somebody should tell that to the wireless guys at Nokia.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't doing anything illegal! I was just going in the door they left open!

Re:We only probe public ports...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, these P2P ports are, essentially, broadcast out.

It's one thing to scan random IPs for P2P ports, but it's quite another to fire up Gnutella, and then gets it's list of known IPs. That list is a public invitation.

They can then take that list, make common P2P requests of each of those IPs, and get a list of potentially questionnable files. There's nothing nefarious here going on.

As a private organization, this information can be used by public authorities to build a warrant for a more formal search, if they even need to go that far.

If anyone (me or Joe Friday) can go to P2P server and download obvious kiddie porn or Mettalica songs, then I would think that alone would be probable cause for further action, warrant or no warrant.

The whole point of P2P software is to make is easy for "anyone" to have access to files, sanctioned by the owner or not.

This will be interesting to watch and see what comes out of it, IMHO.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[mindstrm]

And they do.
If I find a url somewhere that says you have port 80 open, and I go and LOOK at what is there, am I doing something illegal?

How is this different?

They find the address of the port used to share files on the file sharing service, by using it... and then, using custom software, find out what you have to share.

They did not break in, did not guess passwords, and did not do anything wrong.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[AtariDatacenter]

By using Napster, Gnutella or a slew of other P2P apps which open ports on your computer for sharing files, you are explicitely inviting guests, wheher wanted (other P2P file sharers) or unwanted (BayTSP spiders, FBI). You have knowingly opened ports on your system and allowed files to be shared.

Let me give that a slight twist...
By using Microsoft, Solaris, or a Linux operationg system, which open ports on your computer (for whatever reason the deemed necessary), you are explicitly inviting guests, whether wanted or unwanted. You have knowingly opened ports on your system and allowed (God knows what) to be shared.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[AtariDatacenter]

They find the address of the port used to share files on the file sharing service, by using it... and then, using custom software, find out what you have to share.

And I find that if I send a nice little binary to your mail reader that causes a buffer overflow, which executes the code I created, well, I was just accessing a publicly available feature of your mail reader.

Really, I see both sides of this issue, so don't mark me as a zealot. I can argue your side, too. It is surprising how unclear this all actually can be.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[stubear]

But the purpose of an OS is NOT to broadcast open ports, the purpose of P2P apps is. If you had said web server, perhaps but even then you have explicitly allowed guests through a single doorway. If they choose to use the backdoor, they have illegally entered your system, regardless of whether or not the front door is open. If an OS does this it is an unintended result and is not implicitly or explicitly inviting unwanted "guests". If you knowingly fail to patch a system you might not get to throw the proverbial book at the hacker but there is the possibility of some punishment being imposed.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[MoneyT]

So let's try this one on for size then. Person A has timbuktu or other remote desktop app open on their machine so that they can access the machine from work. Person B finds this computer and notices that the Timbuktu port is open. If they access Person A's computer and go through the files etc etc etc, can person B still be charged with hacking? By your logic they can't.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[stubear]

No, I never said that. In your example Person A never granted Person B access, explicitly or implicitly. They left a particular port open for the reason of Person A being able to access their system remotely, not for the entire world to be able to rifle through their files and establish the system as a DoS zombie.

Re:We only probe public ports...

[MoneyT]

Alright, so say I leave an FTP server running. I use this to distribute files back and forth between myself and other college people for the normal purpose of class materials. I also leave guest access on so that I don't have to deal with log ins etc. Does that give them the right to scan my port and computer?

Re:We only probe public ports...

[mindstrm]

Okay, I won't take you as a zealot.

Sorry, buffer overflows and exploits are obvious as to their intent. The intent is to keep poeple out. Trying to argue in court that the admins failure to patch a security hole constituted granting authorized public access to a resource won't hold up.

having your machine return search results, including url's for accessing files, in gnutella, can very EASILY be taken to mean you have files to share on said URL, and that looking at them would be okay.

People are twisting this aorund to make it sound liek they are going to try to hack your box if you are sharing. They aren't. They are merely going to look at WHAT you are sharing, using whatever sharing mechanism you are using, and then use it later, maybe.

Now, if the sharing mechansim you use is private, apssword protectged, and between freinds, you don't have much to worry about becaues a) they won't find out about it and b) accessing it would be clearly illegal.

What a numbnut

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mark Ishikawa came to the data security business from the Dark Side"

Came from the Dark Side? Sold out to it more like

"So it is a precursor to this bad behavior"

So, by this logic, is owning a computer.

what happened to the Constritution?

[LinuxWoman]

Thought we had a right to be considered innocent till proven guilty and a right to not be subjected to unreasonable search and seizures? Guess the DMCA somehow retracted important parts of the Constitution.

They read sites to check for possible coded messages. They scan computers for useful info and turn it over to corporations for suits and to law enforcement for arrest. Would have thought for sure to get those kinds of searches you'd need a warrant.

Oddly enough, on a related note, many of the tickets from the cameras at intersections have been thrown out because the systems were overseen/administered by private companies. Wouldn't this same tactic work against most legal actions based on info from BayTSP?

Re:what happened to the Constritution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, there is nothing in the constitution that restricts a private citizen or organization from collecting information (in a questionably legal manner obviously) and turning that information over to law enforcement. There is already legal precedent to accept evidence in a court that would have been thrown out had it been collected by a government policing organization.

Since this is a private organization they should also have no special exemptions to the laws making illegal the procurement and/or storage of illegal pornography (in this case child pornography). However, thanks to selective enforcement of our laws they get around this issue too.

I wonder how many employees they have working for them that make archival "backups" of the company pr0n collection.

Re:what happened to the Constritution?

[jnd3]

Thought we had a right to be considered innocent till proven guilty and a right to not be subjected to unreasonable search and seizures?

How, pray tell, can this be considered unreasonable search or seizure? They (or I, or anyone else, for that matter) are simply using P2P techniques to discover who's violating their clients' copyrighted material. They could just as easily load up any number of file sharing software packages and browse away.

Unreasonable search or seizure would be cracking into your computer, scanning its hard drives, and clearing out whatever's illegal.

They read sites to check for possible coded messages. They scan computers for useful info and turn it over to corporations for suits and to law enforcement for arrest. Would have thought for sure to get those kinds of searches you'd need a warrant.

Why? They're publicly accessible. Anyone can do the same thing. Do you think if I posted a nice hand-written notice on the company corkboard that I was going to blow up the building that they'd be violating my rights if they did something about it (like arrest me)? Come on!

Re:what happened to the Constritution?

[kalidasa]

Thought we had a right to be considered innocent till proven guilty and a right to not be subjected to unreasonable search and seizures?

IANAL, but I'm guessing it's some kind of open door principle - e.g., that the police can arrest you if they can see a dead body in your house through an open door. If you're file sharing, you are by definition inviting people to examine the files you're sharing, and so don't have much right to say "but I didn't mean for BayTSP to see what files I was sharing, only everyone else on the planet."

Anybody who is a lawyer, please feel free to correct if I'm mistaken.

Re:what happened to the Constritution?

[MoneyT]

Do you realize one of the provisions in the law (if I recall correctly from my political science class) is that while a cop or other law enforcement person could attend or visit any public meeting or gathering, they can not "gather evidence" with out a warent. The only thing they can do explicity is make an arrest for a crime that they witness being commited, not for one that has the potential to be commited.

Re:what happened to the Constritution?

[Anonymous Coward]

aaah but thanks to Mr. Ashcroft, you now have
forfeited that right if you are deemed an MP3
combatant or music terrorist.

Maybe I'm just being silly but...

[Java Pimp]

"Our algorithms are adaptive," claims Ishikawa. "You can cut a picture in half and we'll still find it, matching the cut-down version against a database of originals, effectively matching the electronic DNA of the target."

Shouldn't they be getting in trouble themselves for either 1, downloading kiddie pr0n, or 2, compairing the images to a database collection of kiddie pr0n the've collected over the years?

I know, they are doing it for the greater good and are not redistributing kiddie pr0n but it still sounds funny...

Re:Maybe I'm just being silly but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when you read this

Re:Maybe I'm just being silly but...

[SwissCheese]

They only search for images that copyright holders have contracted them to look for. I highly doubt any kiddie pr0n vendors have contacted them for this service since it is illegal to produce this material in the first place. Maybe you meant to post this in the previous news item.

Re:Maybe I'm just being silly but...

[Anonymous Coward]

"BayTSP's business falls into two areas -- law enforcement and anti-piracy -- and it uses the same tools for both businesses. These tools are spider programs that scour the most traveled parts of the Internet looking for users who are offering to others files that are either illegal to even own or at least illegal to share. An example of the former is child pornography. BayTSP tracks for the FBI the global carriage of kiddy porn. When a big child pornography bust takes place, it is generally on the basis of evidence gathered by BayTSP."

RTFA

Re:Maybe I'm just being silly but...

[damiangerous]

Maybe you meant to post this in the previous news item

Maybe you meant to read the article?

"BayTSP tracks for the FBI the global carriage of kiddy porn. When a big child pornography bust takes place, it is generally on the basis of evidence gathered by BayTSP."

So, at some point, they need to possess child pornography. While the FBI cannot grant permission for a non-sworn officer to commit a crime (and even in those cases they have limited discretion, usually simple possession of controlled substances and the like), they most likely just have an understanding with the relevant District Attorney. The FBI chooses whom to arrest, and the DA decides which cases to prosecute, and they simply won't arrest or prosecute BayTSP because it's not in their best interests.

Re:Maybe I'm just being silly but...

[Java Pimp]

I highly doubt any kiddie pr0n vendors have contacted them...

The previous paragraph to what I quoted was talking about them fighting kiddie pr0n. There was nothing in the article that said their "algorithms" weren't used for that purpose as well. (it of course didn't specifically say they actually were used for that purpose either, I guess that wass something we are left to infer for ourselves.)

More interesting though, who appointed them kiddie pr0n police? What makes it ok for them to download a file to see if it is kiddie pr0n? Can we all now download kiddie pr0n as long as we claim we are self appointed kiddie pr0n police?

I guess this comment could fit either topic. :-)

Re:Maybe I'm just being silly but...

[swm]

they most likely just have an understanding with the relevant District Attorney. The FBI chooses whom to arrest, and the DA decides which cases to prosecute

Here in Boston, we just sent an FBI agent--name of Connolly--up the river for having "understandings" like that with some of the local wise guys.

Granted, they were into kneecaps, not kiddy porn, but I'm hard pressed to see the difference in principle--or law.

Re:Maybe I'm just being silly but...

[umask077]

>Shouldn't they be getting in trouble themselves for either 1, downloading kiddie pr0n, or 2, compairing the images to a database collection of kiddie pr0n the've collected over the years?

You forgot intellectal property laws. Someone took that picture. It might by copyrighted. If you cut it in half you have altered the artists original work. Thats illegal too.

Re:Maybe I'm just being silly but...

[SwissCheese]

Maybe you meant to read the article?

My bad, I got caught up in the copyright aspects of the article. I missed the part about the fbi contracting through them as well.

Re:I think they should collect data

[Anonymous Coward]

That site's got a wide open vulnerability on one of its ports!




ahhhhh, goatse, truly a classic for the ages.

BayTSP is small potatoes

[-=OmegaMan=-]

The big boy is MediaForce lead by the ever-pleasant Mark "The Tool" Weaver. Their complaint level dwarfs BayTSP's. Their complaint accuracy level, though, leaves much to be desired.

Re:BayTSP is small potatoes

[Drunken Buddhist]

Phew, I sure am glad that MediaForce is around...if they weren't, I'd never get my works off of KaZaA, iMesh, and Aimster. All six people who still use those programs would have full access to everything I've ever done, that belongs to me. It sure is a good thing that no other peer to peer programs have cropped up in the recent past to replace them, or I might be out of BIG BUCKS.

Re:BayTSP is small potatoes

[-=OmegaMan=-]

You'd be suprised at how many people still use the FastTrak family of P2P programs.

They also look for Gnutella N Friends and Hotwire.

Re:BayTSP is small potatoes

[Anonymous Coward]

currently:
2,823,937 users on the FastTrack network.

sharing 454,746,307 files
for 3,146,752GB

I think that's a little bit more than the 6 people you mentioned ... but only a little bit more.

Re:BayTSP is small potatoes

[Drunken Buddhist]

Sure is annoying when that little doesn't preserve to my actual post. ^_^

Re:Step 1 to Solve Problem Company (posting anon d

[Anonymous Coward]

which you would get off the website...

well,

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm assuming 408-979-7969 is his cell phone #, because it isnt listed on the company site as a contact #.

enjoy ;)

Re:well,

[ehudokai]

a simple query on google will show that it is a fax # just put in the phone number

"We have 100 percent coverage of ......

[Anonymous Coward]

...peer-to-peer file sharing," Probably means that they basically track people using p2p prgrams like kazaa, etc... "All we do is go to the same places any user could go, look at the same files anyone else could look at, and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public." Probably means that they check the folders that are shared shared, easily accessed through the p2p program.

im not going to comment on this

[C_nemo]

>One thing BayTSP's spider programs don't do is sit >at the Internet peering points sniffing all packets >as they go by. "That would be wiretapping, which is >illegal," he says. "All we do is go to the same >places any user could go, look at the same files >anyone else could look at, and we only probe the >ports on your computer that you have made public."

WTF? Awh come on?
the logic is not strong in this one.

Re:im not going to comment on this

[mindstrm]

The logic is very strong.

You go on to, say, gnutella. By searching gnutella, your computer reveals to other computers that your computer has something speaking http running on port 80 that is likely sharing files.
They go and look at those files.

They have not 'hacked' into anything.

They go and search for files the same way every other file searcher does, though perhaps they use some custom software, and then they keep a record.

IT makes perfect sense.

Re:im not going to comment on this

[C_nemo]

yes ill agre to that,
but if im not running gnutella or some other p2p app, but i have ports open on my comp. they probe my computer/ports trying to get info. how is that any different from me running nmap and portsurfing on other peoples machines? (which could easily lead to problems with my ISP)

alot of home users with cabe/dsl don't have a firewall and are sharing folders with other machines on thire LAN. wouldn't probing(and possibly mounting) theire smb-shares in fact be to gain illegal access to data/resources ?

Re:im not going to comment on this

[Cubeman]

No they wouldn't probe. They are searching through Gnutella (or other p2p app), the same way you would. If you aren't sharing, then your host isn't in the P2P network, and thus they won't find you.

Re:im not going to comment on this

[eatdave13]

I'd say the logic is about as strong as turning that guy in to the police that stands on the street corner selling crack.

ha-ha!

[SethJohnson]

I'll bring the beer to that slashdot party! Of course, I'll have to wahoo it from a 7-Eleven on the way there...

D.O.S.

[_crunge]

So does slashdotting the page count as a massive denial of service attack?

Re:D.O.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not, we're only accessing his publicly available ports after all.

Sounds like he should go wardriving.

[BoomerSooner]

I guess just probing what is open is okay there too.

Right. Land of the hypocrites.

corporate/government sell out?

[ejaw5]

from the article, Ishikawa is quoted "It's a very flawed piece of legislation" and in the very next paragraph states his company is paid "$200 to $50,000 per month by owners of intellectual property -- primarily software companies, movie studios, and record companies"

Doesn't he qualify for being a sellout since he doesn't believe that the law that he is upholding/enforcing is right?

Re:corporate/government sell out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Selling out pays well, he lives or has an office on Skyline Blvd. above Los Gatos. (info upthread)

Re:corporate/government sell out?

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on whether or not he disagrees with the whole thing or just critical parts, and whether he enforces the whole thing or just certain parts he happens to have no problems with.

And, indeed, this happens to be the case. His criticisms are that the DMCA makes it illegal to describe how to circumvent a access control method (actually, I don't think that's correct, otherwise the Gallery of CSS descramblers would be offline by now), but there's little suggestion he enforces that part - the only hint is that he may have supplied information to Adobe in the Sklyarov case, but that could just as easily have been because a representative of an offending company was in the US as it was that he was about to talk about anything.

So, I don't necessarily think he's the sellout you paint him as.

Posted as an AC because correcting a potential missaprehension about someone doing stuff we don't like is the surest way to get yourself modded a troll...

Re:corporate/government sell out?

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote Ulysses S. Grant:

The best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it.

Re:corporate/government sell out?

[Anonymous Coward]

He enforces the whole thing.

See this article:

Response Time: Why BayTSP won't compromise privacy

By Mark Ishikawa

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-523693.html?legacy= zd nn

where it says:

"BayTSP's technology was created to protect intellectual property and help those who lawfully own content receive maximum protection under the recently passed Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)."

Driving Directions from SJC

[Anonymous Coward]

Starting from:
SJC, San Jose, CA
Arriving at:
star 3150 Almaden Expy Ste 234, San Jose, CA 95118-1250
Distance:
7.9 miles
Approximate Travel Time:
12 mins

Directions
Miles 1. Start going towards the AIRPORT EXIT on AIRPORT PKY 0.0 2. Turn Right on GUADALUPE PKY 2.6 3. Continue on CA-87 SOUTH 2.7 4. Take the ALMADEN EXPRESSWAY exit 0.4 5. Continue on ALMADEN EXPY 1.8 6. Continue towards CAPITOL EXPWY/AUTO MALL 0.1 7. Continue on a local road 0.0 8. Turn Right on NEWBERRY DR 0.2 9. Turn Right on HILLSDALE AVE 0.1

how to block baytsp

[reflector]

run shareaza (gnutella) and install the shareaza security update, get the magnet: link here:
http://bitzi.com/lookup/ZYNHYUHEI3VQHUJTTT5 UOZZMUZ 7ADXKA.B3GVXM74XKME5FPIREMVW3YKTW42JSN6FYQO2HI

or, if you want to do this yourself, here's the info:
209.204.130.0 netmask 255.255.132.0 (baytsp)
209.122.130.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 (baytsp)

the first block (209.204)seems to be the one they're using, my security manager shows 58 hits
there with none on the second block.

Re:how to block baytsp

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got an even better idea! Don't participate in the illegal distribution of copyrighted material or just be a leech.

Re:how to block baytsp

[rowanxmas]

Thanks for putting this up, since we are not going to stop sharing copyrighted stuff, we might as well not get caught. Thanks again.

Re:how to block baytsp

[Anonymous Coward]

That first netmask is invalid. No wonder yuor "security manager" isn't getting hits, it's not a usable address/mask combination.

Re:how to block baytsp

[vla1den]

I wonder if somebody can explain what "netmask 255.255.132.0" is? May be it's suppose to be: 209.204.130.0 - 209.204.132.0 ? Or may be 209.204.130.0 - 209.204.132.255 ? ... and why ARIN shows SONIC.NET and RCN Corporation as owners of those IPs?
http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinp ut=209 .204.130.0
http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?qu eryinput=209 .122.130.0

Re:how to block baytsp

[reflector]

you're welcome.

Re:how to block baytsp

[nurightshu]

The netmask (or subnet mask) is what tells routing systems what bits of the IP address are network address and what bits are host address.

Picture, if you will, an IP address. Not as aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd, but as a computer sees it: a string of binary digits. For instance, my computer's hypothetical address is 10.18.42.171. To the computer, that's:

00001010 00010010 00101010 10101011

I've inserted spaces between octets for clarity, but the computer only sees one long number there. It has to have some way to know what network it's sending to, and what host it's sending to on that network, which is where your netmask comes in. A netmask uses binary ones to represent network bits, and binary zeroes to represent host bits.

For the example above, my subnet mask is 255.255.248.0, which works out as follows:

00001010 00010010 00101010 10101011 <== My IP address
11111111 11111111 11111000 00000000 <== My netmask

Everything represented by ones in the netmask is network, so I'm in the 10.18.40.0 network. The zeroes are host bits, so my host address is 683.

As for why Sonic.net is listed as the netblock owner, it stands to reason that the folks who set this little monstrosity up would never host their website from the same netblock that they use to scan your personal information, so they've contracted hosting services out.

Re:how to block baytsp

[Ambush]

Interesting. I got scanned on port 137 from an address within the first block.

I wonder if he's been hit by a Windows worm? That'd be funny.

Re:how to block baytsp

[vla1den]

I kind of knew that, and my question is still:
what "netmask 255.255.132.0" is?
If you put it in binary, it'll be
11111111 11111111 10000100 00000000
I haven't seen such a mask before :-) Isn't mask suppose to be - all 1's on the left and 0's on the right?
As for why Sonic.net is listed as the netblock owner, you are probably right that he contracted somebody out. However ARIN information has nothing to do with his domain name/website, it's just ownership of the IP addresses.
I would neet to rephrase my question about IPs: technically how somebody could find out what IPs this guy is using for scanning, if even ARIN does not show it?

Blacklist

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a big fan of spam black lists. But this actually sounds like a good reason to use one. Submit baytsp.com as a spammer to several blacklists. Come tommorrow morning they can no longer contact most of their clients because the email is blocked. Getting removed from the list is a fairly involved process also. If this invalidates the use of blacklists, the more the merrier.

Another Address

[Anonymous Coward]

http://ypng.infospace.com/info/ypv3/list.htm?qb=73 74BF277A4&xmlurl=http%3A%2F%2Fyp110.superpages.com %2Fxml%2FspPage.phtml%3FCID%3D7374BF277A4%26PG%3DL %26R%3DN%26SRC%3DInfospace%26A%3D408%26P%3D0600%26 X%3D399%26MC%3D1%26PI%3D1&kcfg=ypus&ypinsp=0&searc htype=all&fromform=revphone&qb=7374BF277A4&qh=On+L ine+Access+Providers&qp=4083990600&qpa=408&qpx=399 &qpp=0600&qk=15&recid=On%20Line%20Access%20Provide rs

InfoSpace Lookup on BayTSP telephone #:

Bay TSP Inc
19020 Skyline Boulevard
Los Gatos, CA 95033

More IP# Google is your friend

[Anonymous Coward]

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=baytsp.com&hl=en &lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&selm=pan.2002.08. 26.09.41.04.480.6854%40cox.net&rnum=1

Here's my bill...Due upon receipt!

[OrbNobz]

I wonder if I can bill them for every attempt to access my firewall since it is consuming my bandwidth... ...Theft of service anyone?

This is not the sig you are looking for...

Re:Here's my bill...Due upon receipt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if Nokia say so :-)

No wonder the site was /.ed

[SphynxSR]

It is running Windo$2k

Probe only public ports?

[grahammm]

How do they identify which ports the user has made public without probing to see which ports respond?

More 'dig'ging...

[Anonymous Coward]

;; QUESTION SECTION: ;baytsp.com. IN MX ;; ANSWER SECTION:
baytsp.com. 3600 IN MX 10 mail.baytsp.com. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
baytsp.com. 3600 IN NS na2.baysurf.net.
baytsp.com. 3600 IN NS ns1.baytsp.com.
baytsp.com. 3600 IN NS ns1.namesystems.net.
baytsp.com. 3600 IN NS ns2.namesystems.net. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mail.baytsp.com. 3600 IN A 209.204.138.224
ns1.baytsp.com. 3600 IN A 209.204.138.224
ns1.namesystems.net. 86400 IN A 63.209.20.18
ns2.namesystems.net. 86400 IN A 64.94.85.130

Still looks like mostly sonic hosting for the email as well.

BGP has no enrties for as # 14478.

Skyline Blvd.

[Anonymous Coward]

That badguy-tracking sure pays good money!

Oh shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the closest non-extraditable country?

eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's that now, BayTSP has been flouting UN directives for sixteen years?

Re:eh?

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

TRACK-YOUR-POSITION has never sponsored the BayTSP regime!!!

Re:CmdrTaco - US Flag desecrator and anti-Delawari

[raisch]

Obviously flamebait since we all know Delaware doesn't really exist.

Is it just me?

[IsoRashi]

Am I the only one who takes a sort of sick pleasure in seeing sites slashdotted? Hmmm...

Open Ports

[Ozor]

I left my front door open does that mean they can come in and check that too. I dont know if you noticed or not but we have no rights in America anymore. The only people that have rights are politicians and CEO's.

Re:Open Ports

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, they can come in. If you live in Texas (or other states with similar laws) you can legally kill them for entering your home... all you'd have to do is prove that you felt they were a threat to you, your property, or anyone else on your property.

A few years back a guy shot and killed a couple of teens breaking into his car in his driveway. Wasn't even charged with a crime.

Re:Open Ports

[phorm]

Nope. But they *can* look in through the door, and if they see something going on that's illegal through that open door they can take appropriate action.

So that's what those odd animal noises were from - phorm

Re:Open Ports

[Wiseazz]

I dont know if you noticed or not but we have no rights in America anymore

I did notice, however, that you have the right to say what you just said. The pertinant question here is, what rights do we have and what rights don't we have compared to 10 years ago? Now, of the later, what rights shouldn't we have lost? I think you could write a book on the subject, and I'm not advocating any particular stance here.

I do advocate taking a step back and making a rational evaluation or our condition before blindly whining about "we don't have rights anymore and our government sucks ass and only rich people are treated fairly". That may or may not be true, but God knows I've heard enough of that on /. to know that a lot of people aren't putting a great deal of thought behind that sentiment.

Re:Open Ports

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking hippie collaborator..you free thinking
lazy intellectual..you non-conforming non-conformist.
You just suck.

Re:Open Ports

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes - if you leave your front door open anyone can come into your house and that includes cops. If the cop sees something illegal in your house and arrests you for it you are screwed.

If you are sharing copyrighted material and the police use the standard tools that everyone else in the world could use to get the material off you how are they doing anything wrong? Think about your rights for a minute before you spout off about how they are being abused.

Sounds like a good reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

.... to put a honeypot up somewhere. Download a bunch of FREE/Legal MP3s and images, rename the puppies to match copywritten work, change CRC values of the files to match copywritten works, sit back and watch the hits.

I'd be curious to know how many times a particular system got scanned.

Corps != people

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, I don't see any mention of artists in that list of holders of intellectual property (sic: rights).

I wonder why that is?



I killed Netpliance just to watch it die...

Locales

[Anonymous Coward]

The following addresses are attributed to BayTSP by ARIN, Network Solutions and InfoSpace

19020 Skyline Boulevard
Los Gatos, CA 95033

3150 almaden Expressway #234
San Jose
CA,95118
US

With Mark I.'s contact information being:

Ishikawa,Mark
PO Box 1314
Los Gatos, CA 95031-1314

Given that Mark's PO Box share's the same address as one of BayTSP's addresses it would seem the Los Gatos address is more probable to be the real address.

Afterall whose going to travel to/from San Jose to pick up mail from a box in Los Gatos?

Reload

[Anonymous Coward]

Reload, wait, Reload, wait, Reload, Reload, Reload, Reload, Reload

Easy to solve

[Anonymous Coward]

just print a notice on each port for every connect:

"BayTSP and dogs not allowed"

How does their ISP feel about their activities?

[skippy5066]

My ISP (and most others, I believe) look down upon their customers employing port scanners and other snoopnig devices over their lines.

Maybe we should talk to their ISP and have their accounts revoked. ;)

Jeff

Re:their fate is sealed - yeah, right....

[stuartkahler]

As if a company whose primary business appears to be surfing for warez, movies, mp3s and kiddie pr0n isn't going to have multiple fat pipes to the net... Also, anyone as hated as them isn't going to have their website hosted off the same network as they surf from. I bet they get DoS attacks all the time on their website.

Misunderstanding of "the web"

[doorbot.com]

When BayTSP finds an IP address that appears to be the source of child pornography or pirated music or video files, under the DMCA, it can subpoena ISP logs. These logs can directly connect even dynamic IP addresses to user accounts, making it clear very quickly who owns the offending account. Every ISP keeps these http logs, and even products for so-called anonymous surfing aren't effective in circumventing the technique.

"We have 100 percent coverage of peer-to-peer file sharing," Ishikawa claims. "If you are illegally sharing copyrighted materials, we know who you are."

I still don't understand how ISPs log P2P file sharing... that's usually not taking place over port 80. Do they log every packet? Probably not (although if so, it'd be fun to generate a lot of bogus packets with your extra bandwidth).

Re:Misunderstanding of "the web"

[victorvodka]

Presumably homeslice at BayTSP is able to get IP addresses and times from monitoring his Kazaa traffic. He then presents this data to Earthlink with a subpoena. Meanwhile Earthlink logs every subscriber with their dynamic IP and time, so they can match IP addresses to actual people. If there's any justice in the world, Earthlink tells homeslice "screw you" when he comes with the subpoena.

Re:Misunderstanding of "the web"

[victorvodka]

Of course, there will probably be a strong demand for ISPs that advertise NOT logging subscriber times and IP addresses once the shit goes down in October (or whenever - probably timed to coincide with the invasion of Iraq so as not to draw much press attention).

Re:Misunderstanding of "the web"

[Anonymous Coward]

Only on /. could anyone think that an 'event' such as taking down notorious movie and music file sharers needs to be hushed up and distracted with a war.

Just bend over, and take it like a man.

Off topic: Your Sig. 2 Skinny J's reference?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We are not the J's you are looking for"

This is from a San Diego band called 2 Skinny J's

BayTSP IP Blocks

[LordChaos]

BayTSP is known to operate on:
209.204.128.0 to 204.204.191.255
209.204.130.0 to 209.204.130.255

BayTSP breaking the DMCA?

[toupsie]

"Our algorithms are adaptive," claims Ishikawa. "You can cut a picture in half and we'll still find it, matching the cut-down version against a database of originals, effectively matching the electronic DNA of the target."

It sounds like Ishikawa is trying to circumvent encryption by piecing a message back together into its original form against the wishes of the orginal owner and storing originals without persmission from the owner.

And what is this guy doing with this massive database of kiddie pr0n? Protecting the public? Yea, that's the ticket. Not buying any used keyboards from this guy. Yeech!

Re:BayTSP breaking the DMCA?

[dbrutus]

So if you use your fair use rights to take a bunch of copyrighted works to make a collage BayTSP's robots are going to kick your file as a multiple copyright violator.

Oh gooood.

oh yeah... two can play

[ufpdom]

Resolving host www.baytsp.com ...

Resolved as : 209.204.138.224
NETBIOS discovery ...
Done sending, waiting for responses ...
SNMP discovery ...
Community string : public
Done sending, waiting for responses ...
ICMP sweep ... (PING!)
Done sending, waiting for responses ...
- Timestamp Reply (209.204.138.224)
Ready
1 Computer(s) found.

[209.204.138.224]
Resolving 209.204.138.224...

UDP scanning thread started ...
TCP scanning started ...
Resolved as : adsl-209-204-138-224.sonic.net
2 open port(s).
Gathering banners ...
79 - finger

not to mention TFTP :)

Re:oh yeah... two can play

[r00tdenied]

What is even more hillarious here is that they are running the webserver on an adsl connection and got /.'d they reap what they sew.

r00tdenied

Re:oh yeah... two can play

[Anonymous Coward]

You believe that fucker is running finger?
Honeypottamus.

SPAMMERS please spam me

[Anonymous Coward]

My email address is

marki@baytsp.com

Thanks.

I really like spam. please send lots.

Forget tresspassing, try a DMCA violation

[oldmacdonald]

Shouldn't there be a way to post a EULA for the open ports on your file sharing machine, or for filesharing software itself, that says "this is only for the use of users distributing files, any use in the service of law enforcement is prohibited" and then suing the violators?

Re:Forget tresspassing, try a DMCA violation

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that defense works on meth labs with "No Tresspassing" signs.

Port scanning? -- Not!

[vrmlguy]

There's already a hue and cry over the words, "we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public". Note that he doesn't say how the ports are scanned. BayTSP could easily be using a windoze macro-bot to run, say WinMX, looking for all files containing the letter "a", then capturing the results. Repeat for other letters and digits. Then repeat for IRC clients, etc.

Re:Port scanning? -- Not!

[beebware]

Or, they could run something like Kazaa for a few days as a supernode, kill it and then start a nifty easy to write Perl script to listen on port 1214 for connections. Nodes will then try to connect to your 'ex-supernode' for quite a few days - and they'll give you their IP address and their closest supernode address. Simply do a "GET / HTTP/1.1" on each of those IP addresses to get a list of files they are sharing (complete with checksum identifiers) and then do the same to any more supernode ids given to you.

Out of interest, I knocked up a similar script (in Perl) earlier today - and I snarfed over a dozen IP address in under 2 minutes just by emulating the Kazaa server and not making any outgoing connections...

Wisdom from my idiot landlady.

[sam_handelman]

"The FBI has us looking for certain specific things,"[terrorist steganography] says Ishikawa, "but we haven't found anything yet."

Gosh, maybe that's because they aren't there?

This one landlady we had when I was a kid told my Mom, "every time I bring groceries home, I turn the bags upside down over the sink and shake them to get the roaches out, and we've never had roaches!"

My Mom said "have you ever found a roach in a grocery bag?"

And the landlady said "No."

Deep wisdom there.

Corpse == soylent green!

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon we will close the loop. And you will pay us for the privelege!

Tarpit

[forsetti]

Maybe we should all Tarpit our networks, and implement a port level equivalent for Kazaa, Gnutella, etc ports.? This would really tie up their system.....

pool

[phriedom]

I'd like to start a pool for bets on how long it will be before /. gets a subpoena in regards to these threatening statements, but I'm sure /. won't be able to tell us when it arrives. Too bad, it would be fun to watch this unfold. Good luck with "It was just a joke."

Re:pool

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Yeah it's not like it's ridiculous or anything!

Re:pool

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Oh and don't worry I'll let you know.

Today it's kiddie porn, tomorrow it's anything

[Anonymous Coward]

It's getting worse.

Only a few years ago

[killmenow]

Gee, only a few years ago, it looks like Mr. Ishikawa was hosting some porn sites and contributing to the spam problem...

Received: from out2.ibm.net [165.87.194.229] by in7.ibm.net id 935310503.141204-1 ; Sun, 22 Aug 1999 08:28:23 +0000
Received: from slip202-135-81-145.bg.th.ibm.net (slip202-135-81-145.bg.th.ibm.net [202.135.81.145]) by out2.ibm.net (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id IAA12758; Sun, 22 Aug 1999 08:28:16 GMT
Message-Id: <199908220828.IAA12758@out2.ibm.net>
From: (victim)
To: "marki@SBUSINESS.NET" <marki@SBUSINESS.NET>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 99 15:28:12 +0700
Subject: You provide connectivity to criminal marketing fraud

TO: Mark Ishikawa, Coordinator, SuperBusiness

Dear Mark,

According to traceroute below, you provide connectivity to web1000.com, which operates a system of pornographic internet marketing frauds criminalized under the recent Virginia statute on UCE. They even advertise their webhosting service on the same webpage with the pornography. (I have record copies with me for future use.)

You are now on notice that you are a witting accomplice to web1000's criminal actions.

Please shut off connectivity to this fraud. If you continue to provide connectivity, the Virginia Attorney General can have your California corporate registration revoked for operating contrary to your charter (which is to conduct only legal businesses).

Kind regards,

(victim's signature block)

C:\>tracerte 216.49.10.14
0 bang1br1-tok1.ba.th.ibm.net (152.158.213.46) 187 ms 157 ms 187 ms
1 bang1br1-tok1.ba.th.ibm.net (152.158.213.46) 156 ms 157 ms 218 ms
2 sydn1br1.nz.ibm.net (152.158.248.2) 375 ms 313 ms 312 ms
3 lang1sr1-2-0-1.ca.us.ibm.net (165.87.224.14) 594 ms 500 ms 468 ms
4 lang1br2-ge-6-0-0-0.ca.us.ibm.net (165.87.32.181) 594 ms 468 ms 469 ms
5 sfra1br1-so-0-1-2-0.ca.us.ibm.net (165.87.232.41) 531 ms 500 ms 875 ms
6 sfra1sr2-5-0-0.ca.us.ibm.net (165.87.13.13) 531 ms 500 ms 500 ms
7 165.87.160.225 (165.87.160.225) 500 ms 500 ms 500 ms
8 12.123.12.222 (12.123.12.222) 500 ms 593 ms 500 ms
9 ar3-a3120s1.sffca.ip.att.net (12.127.1.149) 500 ms 562 ms 563 ms
10 12.127.196.94 (12.127.196.94) 593 ms 531 ms 532 ms
11 216.49.0.117 (216.49.0.117) 524 ms 532 ms 531 ms
12 www.webjump.com (216.49.10.14) 523 ms 532 ms 500 ms

C:\>whois -h whois.geektools.com 216.49.10.14
SuperBusiness NET, Inc. (NETBLK-SBN)
150 Almaden Blvd, Suite 500
San Jose, CA 95113
US

Netname: SBN
Netblock: 216.49.0.0 - 216.49.63.255
Maintainer: SBIZ

Coordinator:
Ishikawa, Mark (MI70-ARIN) marki@SBUSINESS.NET
+1 (408) 278-4400 (FAX) +1 408 346-0661

Maybe he got burned and that's why he's so anti-pr0n now.

See here for some of his congressional testimony.

Re:Only a few years ago

[killmenow]

Mark Ishikawa used to work for SBUSINESS.NET (an ISP). Some (or at least one) of the sites they hosted were pornographic. Some (or at least one) of the sites they hosted were sending spam. He received this e-mail. He probably didn't want to lose his license and perhaps took action against the offending site. I don't know. My source is google. search for "Mark Ishikawa" and see what you get.

EULA for Connections

[Sturm]

We need to have some sort of click-thu, shrink wrap (whatever), sort of EULA that prevents people like this from looking at our data. Kind of like the old BBS days when you had to "swear" that you weren't law enforcement or something similar.

I've been thinking about the DMCA and

[SquadBoy]

I can see at least one good thing coming of it. That would be the increased use of strong crypto. And it has the addedd advantage of pissing off guys like this. Since those of you who know what I'm talking about and agree with me already agree with me I'm not going to go on and on. For anyone who does not know what I'm talking about but hates the DMCA I'm simply going to post a few URLs and you can educate yourselves.

http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
http://www.rubb erhose.org/
http://www.gnupg.org/
http://www.goo gle.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&safe=off&q=crypto&btnG=Google+Searc h
Also research on the SSL enabled IM clients and servers out there could lead to SSL enabled P2P. Good stuff.

Re:I've been thinking about the DMCA and

[ralphus]

umm, SSL protects against information in transit being captured (unless you are an idiot and using unpatched IE). It does nothing to hide your IP address. using SSL in a P2P would protect against a carnivore type device capturing what you are doing, but will do nothing to stop what BayTSP is doing.

Freenet is much better, but not perfect, nothing is. Like Bruce likes to say, "If you think encryption will solve your problem, you don't understand encryption and you don't understand your problem"

Re:I've been thinking about the DMCA and

[Tracy Reed]

Also check out GNUnet which is similar to freenet but is searchable and written in C instead of Java. I think GNUnet has more long term potential than Freenet.

Crypto won't hide your IP address but relaying the information through a number of proxies sure will.

Is this a thought?

[Anonymous Coward]

I take a pic of myself, scan it, add the text "Copyright 2002 Anon Coward" to the bottom of it and share it on WinMX with the filename "naked 10 yo girl". BayTSP download it and I sue them under copyright law.

BayTSP Down?

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears /. has DoS'd BayTSP by linking to them... I can't get there...

Ha Ha!

They'd like you to believe they are that good

[cuberat]

It's in the best interests of the snoops to make you think that they know who you are and every little naughty thing you do, and you're only getting away with it because you're a small fish. For example:

"We have 100 percent coverage of peer-to-peer file sharing," Ishikawa claims. "If you are illegally sharing copyrighted materials, we know who you are."

Now, I'm not an internet guru, but I think a more accurate statement would be to amend that last part to say "...and we can find out who you are." I suppose it's possible to screen all of the information on the internet, but only if you had infinite resources.

There's a big gap between what is technically possible and what is, in fact, practical. For example, the article makes it seem like 'subpoenaing ISP logs' is a trivial thing. I don't think it is. The sheer size of the data pool they are swimming in is the most formidable obstacle, no matter what 'algorithm' they are using.

'Course this doesn't make it right. And if you have 30,000 mp3s shared you probably stick out like a sore thumb and are therefore asking for trouble. For most of us, though, the 'thin blue line' applies: we are not deterred from breaking the law so much because we will get caught, but because we might get caught.

Re:They'd like you to believe they are that good

[Anonymous Coward]

Also "We have 100 percent coverage of peer-to-peer file sharing" sounds like balls too.

I have ocean front property in Arizona...

[person-0.9a]

Mark Ishikawa said:
"We have 100 percent coverage of peer-to-peer file sharing," Ishikawa claims. "If you are illegally sharing copyrighted materials, we know who you are."

Uh-uh. Absolute marketing speak. I'll put BayTSP's 100% coverage in the same category as ZeroSync, and Cryptico.

While I suspect BayTSP might have an effective spider, 100 percent coverage is impossible (DUH!). They don't know if the file sharing is illegal or not. Please, if you represent an organization that thinks the DMCA is a good idea, sink lots of capital into BayTSP.

They don't have a handle on who Jane DeeAchSeePea DialUp is. If they did, they could make far more money by direct marketing than they could being a DMCA tattletale.

They don't know if the web server that just happend to have a gaggle of Ogg files on it is just being used by one bloke who wants to listen his music via the internet at work (instead of slogging CD's around), or is being used to distribute to a wider audience. If they did, then they would be capturing packets which as Mr. Ishikawa stated is wiretapping.

They don't know of the file sharing service they detected is intentional or not - the sharer might not even know that t0rn is installed on their system and they've become a popular source of Britney Spears and N'Sync mp3's. That is, unless they themselves took advantage of a backdoor, which would probably be highly unethical if not illegal.

evil

[makoffee]

So it looks as if I'll be getting my firewall up and running tonight.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me

[Wraithlyn]

I see a lot of arguments on here about how he shouldn't be able to find out what stuff you're sharing by probing your ports.

This is so stupid.

You're illegally sharing files (I'm not here to debate whether it's right or wrong.. merely that it IS illegal), making them available to be downloaded by complete strangers anywhere in the world. And then you complain that it's possible for someone to find out that you're sharing them!? Get a grip people.. what did you expect was going to happen? Whining about "port probing"... what do you think the file sharing software does when it queries your computer? They probably just reverse engineered the query protocols.

There will be some high profile arrests, and it will probably cut down on some of the most flagrant sharers. People will still share files, and if the environment becomes more hostile to them, it will simply drive file sharing underground, to private FTP sites and the like, where it has always been, and always will be.

--
They said FUD was bad, so I started spreading DUF.

Re:Sounds perfectly reasonable to me

[stryc9]

What?? I don't think anyone is debating whether or not the sharing of copywritten files or kiddie-porn is legal. The fact of the matter here is that the government has given lisence to anyone to get a start-up going that probes people computers *looking* for said files and passes it's findings onto the authorities. This is just totally farked!!

• Reason for Farked-upedness #1: As mentioned in a previous post the work here is not being done by a government agency, a fact that I find truly troubling.

How are these people paid?? Don't tell me with our tax money!! These people stand to make a hell of a lot of money... maybe I should start randomly hacking computers and looking for criminal evidence and reporting it to the police for cash!!

• Reason for farked-upedness #2: I liken this whole deal to Big Brother putting cameras and microphones in your home, car, under your bed, at work, etc. and recording everything that you say and do just in case you are a bad person.

This is shite... utter complete shite... And another issue: Who does this effect? What if you are in a country that doesn't give a shit about the DMCA?? Where does BayTSP's juristiction extend? Anyone want to start up a private ISP?? Then when companies like this come to us asking for our logs we tell them to Fark off!! Or better yet we reply: "Logs? We no need no stiiinking Logs!!" Argh!!

Re:Sounds perfectly reasonable to me

[cpuenvy]

Well, they have you fooled. You are like the kind of person who would let a cop search your car because you "have nothing to hide". Well, friend, other people do not share your views. I am? How did you come to that conclusion? Port scanning is port scanning, however you try to justify it. As a matter of fact, http://www.sonic.net/support/docs/policy.shtml#aup , this jerks netblock owner, clearly states that Port Scanning from or to their network is against their "Acceptable Use Policy". Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Re:Sounds perfectly reasonable to me

[cpuenvy]

Well, they have you fooled. You are like the kind of person who would let a cop search your car because you "have nothing to hide". Well, friend, other people do not share your views.

I am? How did you come to that conclusion? Port scanning is port scanning, however you try to justify it. As a matter of fact, http://www.sonic.net/support/docs/policy.shtml#aup , this jerks netblock owner, clearly states that Port Scanning from or to their network is against their "Acceptable Use Policy". Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Re:Sounds perfectly reasonable to me

[Wraithlyn]

OK there's like 4 replies to this that all say the same thing... STAY AWAY FROM MY PORT, YOU UNREGULATED SCOUNDREL! :)

So I'll just reply here instead of each one...

While I agree in spirit, you're missing the point...

What if they were to use the same file sharing software you're using, download files from your computer, use software ON THEIR END to figure out what IP you are, and use that to bust ya?

He can do that, right? Nothing to stop him? The point is anyone can find out what you're sharing. In fact, it's rather intrinsic to the nature of sharing something! Getting upset because someone decided to track it won't change anything. It was bound to happen.. the very same technology that enables file sharing enables it to be tracked. IF their methods proves illegal (which is debateable), they will find a legal way. The end result will be the same. That's the heart of the issue, IMHO.

I'm not against file-sharing... in fact I've written file sharing software.

Step 2 to Solve Problem Company

[cheeseSource]

There aren't many countries left that care more about freedom thatn opression and the all-mighty buck so I suggest:
A) we pick a state, one that's comfy and not to small
B) Take it over
c) Start over with compotent people
and
D) Watch the rest of the world imprison itself in stupidity
---Darn, sounds a bit too much like Atlas Shrugged.

Re:Step 2 to Solve Problem Company

[slackergod]

Let's call it "Outside the Asylum"

Re:Step 2 to Solve Problem Company

[OneEyedApe]

That was a good book

Re:Step 2 to Solve Problem Company

[carlos_benj]

c) Start over with compotent people

Would these people be able to spell?

Re:Step 2 to Solve Problem Company

[cheeseSource]

Hopefully they would, but sometimes even the smallest details are passed over. That's why criticism is a good thing.
Thank you...

(sponsored by cheeseSource for President '04)

Re:Step 2 to Solve Problem Company

[Snarph]

c) Start over with compotent people

Would these people be able to spell?

I'd expect so, but do you think maybe he was referring to someone who could cook a fruit based dessert?

Re:Step 2 to Solve Problem Company

[paganizer]

Most likely, adequate spelling skills would be helpful for a well informed society.
However, I would like to request that anyone who insists on perfect spelling, when perfect spelling is not a requirement or even neccesary to communicate the ideas involved, be taken out and shot.
Anal Retentive People Suck.

Can someone please explain why...

[Zenjive]

a private company is enforcing federal law? Does anyone else have as big a problem as I do with this?

I think this is a perfect example of who is really in charge here:

For the Corporations, by the Corporations... the rest of us are just taxpayers.

Could they use Ishikawa's former private ISP?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article mentions that Mr. Ishikawa had an ISP and hosting business that he sold out for a profit. Could he be using it now for some scanning of his own?

Without cooperation from ISP his actions are as illegal as his targets' .

Re:Could they use Ishikawa's former private ISP?

[dbrutus]

He likely is.

He was COO of Superbusiness Net, Inc. which got merged in with Infonent. The ARIN block for sbusiness.net has as its tech email noc@baytsp.com

So there is some sort of relationship that is ongoing.

Hi Mark

[garyrich]

Let's see ... what do we know about Mark from publicly available sources. He's 37. He has an unlisted phone number (no surprise). He has another business phone of 408-979-7900. He knows a little about sqlserver, but is hardly a guru. Used to be CEO of the now defunct valuserve ISP in the bay area. May or may not have taken glider lessons a few years ago.

anyone else?

Re:Hi Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, there is one more thing. Google the email address and check out the YNOT link - looks like this guy runs a porn web site.

Re:Hi Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, well, he frequently used to post on YNOT News - an adult webmaster information board.

Doesn't mean he was one, of course. He definitely used to be 'chief operating officer' of Infonent.com, Inc. His current fax is (408)979-7969... and an example of his current work is here.

Of course, he also gets mentioned in Sex Tracker press releases. He claims to be an 'anti-porn advocate', which is interesting, given the work he does protecting the valuable intellectual property of Cinnamonbunz, 'the largest collection of sexy, erotic models!' and Suze Randall the erotic photographer.

I wondered if this had anything to do with him (if it does, he's got some nerve 'I hope you don't mind me taking a graphic from your homepage!') particularly given the reference to driving and the Skyline Blvd. address again. He works for an erotic photographer, amongst others.

Let's see what else; if that is him, he has a web page on AOL of all places
. Plugging that new information into Google we also get maki177@aol.com as a potential address; if you search Google for maki177, you discover 'makiboy' is an alias apparently used by whichever Mark Ishikawa this one is, and taking this chain of improbability to its logical conclusion we discover makiboy@hotmail.com, NYC Jock/Ballet Sissy, and, last but not least, In Search Of... Men Seeking Men. The last includes the interesting blurb, "would like to hear from or meet other trim, athletic guys, 18 - 30s, who enjoy footed nylon or lycra tights. Shiny lycra is best, but nylon is okay too, as long as the tights are footed."

Oh, and he lies to his ballet-loving pals about his age :-)

Hey, makiboy, it's all publicly available information. Now you see why people don't go snooping - they might come to the wrong conclusion - if this is wrong?

Answers on a postcard please to:

"We lurve those tights!",
19020 Skyline Blvd.
Los Gatos, CA 95033

The small print: Half of this information is speculative, uncertain, and totally devoid of context. Don't think of it as fact. But it's a similar style to the information he'll use to report you to the cops - therefore, I would consider it to be poetic justice of a sort.

Re:Hi Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

That was fun.

Re:Hi Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

If this information is correct, I shudder to think of what he means by "probe open ports"

Re:Hi Mark

[alan6101]

I bet this guy is wishing his name was John Smith or anything a little more common.

Eight or nine years????!!

[Newer Guy]

But many people -- including, oddly, Mark Ishikawa -- think the DMCA goes too far by making it illegal for me to even tell you how to circumvent encryption or copy protection technologies. It makes the very passing of knowledge against the law whether or not that knowledge is ever used. "It's a very flawed piece of legislation," says Ishikawa, who predicts that the government will rewrite the copyright law again "in eight or nine years" to correct the mistakes in the DMCA. But until then, the DMCA is the law of the land, and Mark Ishikawa is the Internet's top cop. If this law is as bad a piece of legislation, why not fix it next week? Eight or nine years is way too late! Already there are laws on the horizon that make this one look positively liberal! If Congress can propose these laws, why can't they fix bad laws they've already passed first? Oh wait..I know the answer already! MONEY!

HuuuuuuuuuuHHHHH?

[GeneralEmergency]

.

BayTSP tracks for the FBI the global carriage of kiddy porn. When a big child pornography bust takes place, it is generally on the basis of evidence gathered by BayTSP.

HUH? What, EXACTLY, is the legal basis for BayTSP to search for and to hold Kiddie Porn? How is it that they are exempt from these laws?

Only sworn law enforcement officers should be permitted to perform this evidence search and digital duplication(collection). Contractor personnel are not subject to that very necessary body of laws that deal with "Abuse Under Color of Authority".

flag desecration - my favorite flavor

[cheeseSource]

Oh no, the flag is missing a stripe. Big deal the country is missing its freedom. ASFAIC the flag of be bleached and altered to fit the real ideals of the USA. Murder, Money, Greed, and a blatant disregard for logic as shown clearly by George "kill'em all" Bush.

Did they move in, or move out?

[Animats]

As of July 9th, that space was available for rent:

• For Rent

  3150 Almaden Expressway, Suite 234
  San Jose, CA
  Office, 4,537 square feet
  $1.95 FS
  6 privates, 2 conference room, kitchen, open area, divisible

  1,882-2,655 sq. ft., monument sign, PLUG N PLAY
  Avail. Now

where is Martin Luther King when you need him?

[Chris Canfield]

The DMCA, which was put in effect in 2000, was an attempt by the U.S. Government to bring copyright law into the cyber age. But many people -- including, oddly, Mark Ishikawa -- think the DMCA goes too far by making it illegal for me to even tell you how to circumvent encryption or copy protection technologies. It makes the very passing of knowledge against the law whether or not that knowledge is ever used.

"It's a very flawed piece of legislation," says Ishikawa, who predicts that the government will rewrite the copyright law again "in eight or nine years" to correct the mistakes in the DMCA. But until then, the DMCA is the law of the land, and Mark Ishikawa is the Internet's top cop.

Mark Ishikawa feels that the DMCA is flawed wrt the conveyance of encryption information. Yet his company helped put Dimitry behind bars for many months, keeping him from his family and threatening to put him away for the rest of his life.

If he didn't do it because he believes in the legislation, then Ishikawa's motivation for helping Skylarov arrested must have been purely money. Ishikawa took half of a year of a man's life for simple cash.

I was going to feel bad that this copyright-enforcer was recieving death threats, until I realized what he had done to a foreign family soley in the interest of money. Where is the heroism? Where is the spine? "Oh, that part will be fixed later, I'm sure." Nothing happens on it's own, buddy. You of all people are in the best position for a little... nonviolent protest.

Of course he won't do that: money and success are demanding mistresses. We just shouldn't feel bad for this person, whatever reprocussions his actions bring down upon him.

-C

Re:where is Martin Luther King when you need him?

[cliffiecee]

Mark Ishikawa came to the data security business from the Dark Side, having been busted years ago for breaking into the network at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Preferring employment to jail time, he became a security consultant for the Lab and a lot of other places.

That's why he can't protest. The government already has the goods on him; if he slips up, he's in the pokey for sure. He's as trapped as those he's busted- Worse, because the threat of going to jail is always there, and he has to keep running away from it

Re:where is Martin Luther King when you need him?

[neoThoth]

He's was also supposidly convicted at some point and time so he ended up on that side of the line to reduce his sentence. Can't say I blame him, geeks don't fair well in prison.

I don't feel sorry for him in anyway either, he is a paid network hall monitor who snitches on folks trading media. All arguements aside he's a paid fink. He knows there is a price to pay for the position he put himself in. He could have told the judge to stick the gavel where the sun don't shine and served his term. At least he wasn't a whiney brat about it.

Now if he is enjoying a large collection himself (eg viewing his database of child porn and other 'evidence') then he is also a huge hypocrite. And for that he should burn, but aside from that he isn't doing anything considered unethical or in bad taste.

If one wants to enjoy the privledge of illegal media (movies released to the net before the stores) there is a huge price to be paid. Paranoia, scheming and a little adrenaline. Don't like it? Don't download, it's that simple. The game has been going on for as long as I've had my fingers on a keyboard... the stakes have just gotten a lot higher.

ne0

Re:where is Martin Luther King when you need him?

[bshanks]

I don't know the legal details behind the Skylarov case, but i'm not sure that the article implies that Mr. Ishikawa disagrees with the parts of the DMCA that put Mr. Skylarov away. There is a distinction between the act of communicating how to circumvent copy protection, and actually performing the circumvention, and perhaps Mr. Ishikawa thinks the former action should be legal but the latter illegal.

Anyway, it's hard to condemn the man without hearing in his own words exactly which parts of the legislation he disagrees with. We can't say on the basis of available evidence whether he is really hypocritical or not, so let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume not.

We should keep clicking refresh...

[Fembot]

Until the page loads, (which if we do keep clicking referesh will be never). That way their bandwith for port scanning is presumably all used up by us, end of company :-)

Wisdom from my idiot landlady == to play the FBI?

[EZmagz]

Just a thought, but wouldn't it be kinda fun to post a bunch of .jpgs or whatever all over the 'net with a message steganographically hidden saying something to the effect of ESOD, FBI/MPAA/RIAA/DMCA chickenshits!!!? I'd do it, but the Simpsons is coming on in a minute and I DO have priorities!

An analogy

[RobinH]

we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public

Isn't that like saying, "we only searched houses of people who left their front door open"?

Where I'm from, leaving your front door open is a public invitation for neighbours and friends to knock and come in, but police and investigators still don't have the right to come in and search my house without an invitation or a warrant. Also, if someone came in and stole my TV while I was busy in the kitchen, they would still be a criminal. Of course, if they just listened to a few of my CDs and left, that probably wouldn't bother me too much.

Re:An analogy

[fungus]

This is not a good analogy.

Let me explain my point of view:

Entering in a house where the door is unlocked is more like getting unauthorized access to a server.

Sharing copyrighted materials on a P2P network is more like having a website distributing warez. Sure, you can say "hey I never authorized you to probe my port 80 for illegal http content", but you willingly let the door open for everyone. It's not like if they hacked into your computer system.

If you give the opportunity to everyone on the internet to open the door and take stuff (like sharing on a P2P network), your analogy doesnt work anymore.

Re:An analogy

[rdslater596]

In Oregon the Supreme court recently ruled that even if your Home security system goes off, the polics have no right to eneter your home unless they see specific criminal activity. This stemmed from an incident where cops found drugs (openly on a table in plain view) when responding to a security call from an NBA player's system.

Of course doing drugs doesn't anger the MPAA or RIAA so privacy here is ok. But had the bastard been file sharing we should of sent him to the big house for good!

Re:An analogy

[navster]

Not a valid analogy. The act of putting up a webserver, say, is an implicit invitation to all and sundry to talk to your server thru port 80. I guess thats purely a convention though - if networks had adopted the convention that only friends&family are allowed to check out what your webserver has to offer from the start, that might've been the only acceptable thing to do. But thats not how the internet came to exist, me thinks

What I'd like...

[mmol_6453]

Is for the EFF(or ACLU) to turn around and sue them for viewing copyrighted material, and giving P2P a bad name.

Now watch carefully to see if they download anything from your computer. In particular, make your P2P server a honeypot with bogus MP3s. :)

I think that already exists...

[cyb3r0ptx]

Some other folks had the same idea and decided to call it the Free State Project.
Their numbers are growing, you can check out more about it here.

Re:I think that already exists...

[Sabalon]

Yeah...I live in Georgia and we tried this back in the 1800's. Turns out the feds weren't none to happy about it.

On a Publicly Accessible Server, It's Public

[reallocate]

If you post something -- anything -- on a publicly accessible server, it's public, fair game, and not private. No one needs to probe you PC to get at it. Put copies of Sony's finest CD's on a file-sharing network that you can get to via a URL? That's just as l public as opening a store called "I Sell Stolen CD's".

Re:On a Publicly Accessible Server, It's Public

[cHiphead]

my ip address is like my physical 'domain', its the space I am occupying at the moment. scanning and probing my ports is the equivalent of reaching into my pants pockets. if you are SEARCHING for a specific law breaking item (such as DMCA violating data) without my permission or a court order, you are violating my constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, be you a government official, representative of a corporation, or a private citizen.

Re:On a Publicly Accessible Server, It's Public

[reallocate]

No. If someone with Internet access can get to your files via a URL, those files are, by definition, publicly accessible. (That's how search engines can crawl the Internet without negotiating separate deals with every site.) No one needs to probe your ports to access files on your FTP server or your web site. The issue of unreasonable search and seizure doesn't come into it, because you have already placed your files in open view of the world. Your IP address isn't anything like a physical domain, no more than a driver's license number is anything like a car; it's just a unique -- and public -- network address.

I don't like your analogy either

[ACNeal]

His was weak, but so is yours.

I can talk to people. I sit behind a door. You do not have the right to walk in and talk to me. I can give friends explicit permission to enter without knocking. You may see them just walk in, and think you have that right, but you don't.

Stated differently, I might have a nice fountain soda machine in my house. I can provide that service to myself for when I am working outside. I can also provide an FTP server to myself for transfering work to home, etc. In neither of these situations is it even remotly reasonable to assume that is a public service, even though the public could easily access either one.

Just because I don't lock my door, or my ftp server, doesn't make it public.

Now, p2p networks tend not to be based on explicit permission, so you may have some sort of argument, except he has no reason to believe that I am running p2p software until he in fact probes the port. And just because I am running p2p software doesn't mean I intend it for public consumption. This argument starts to get hard to make, but not impossible, and not any less reasonable. I would be stupid to use something like a p2p server for sending work home, but that is certainly my right.

As to why his analogy was weak, it isn't breaking and entering unless, in fact, I have broken some lock. Unlawful entry is a lot different, and burglary different still. Bringing the two analogies together, you can walk into my house if the door is unlocked. You don't have the right to be there, but you haven't broken a law yet. When I ask you to leave, you have to immediately, or you are guilty of trespassing. If I tell you never to come back, it is trespassing, and possibly unlawful entry. We simply don't go walking into people's houses based on social contract, not wanting to get shot, and not wanting to get arrested, and the crime established after the fact.

Re:I don't like your analogy either

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be stupid to use something like a p2p server for sending work home, but that is certainly my right.

Actually, if you use GNUnet or similar, you can simply insert it into the network with a keyword such as 'WFa2i1YneT1GjKFrW1S8Z14ULsaEbCxhH6V'. That will effectively be the password to access that file (and if you really need to make sure it's secure you can GPG it before inserting, etc). :) Ah, the joys of a good P2P network. ;)

Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[GroundBounce]

In the past, whenever a story about the DMCA came up, by far one of the most common responses was:

"Why not go after the violators instead of taking away everyone's fair use rights?"

This is a reasonable response. Clearly the DMCA is bad because it takes away both fair use and certain forms of free speech that have never previously been banned. On the other hand, widely distributing copies of copyrighted material without the owner's permission is also not right in most people's minds (I realize that there are those who disagree with this).

So, we have an entity who is trying to go after the offenders (and primarily just the big ones), and many people here are criticizing it as some kind of evil activity. This seems pretty hypocritical.

In the past, the coexistence of copyright and fair use has worked because of the balance that existed between the allowing of petty violations (things like making a tape of a record for a friend) and the enforcement of big time content pirates.

The popularizing of the internet has allowed the many petty violations to become far-ranging, and hence the balance has been upset to some degree. As a result, the content providers' response has been to enact the DMCA, which has been bad all around because it attempts to eliminate fair use and petty violations but does little to stop big time piracy.

This company (BayTSP) is attempting to restore the balance by helping to ferret out larger pirates on the internet. If this works, it could actually provide justification for softening the overreaching DMCA by restoring the balance of petty and big time copyright infringement that existed under traditional copyright law.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[JordoCrouse]

So, we have an entity who is trying to go after the offenders (and primarily just the big ones), and many people here are criticizing it as some kind of evil activity. This seems pretty hypocritical.

This guy is obviously not just in the business of going after people who illegally distribute music or movies. That has nothing to do with the DCMA, its a copyright crime, and if he can make a buck off of it, thats great.

The problem with this guy is that he is going after people like Dmitry Sklyarov and others who are breaking the DCMA, and by doing so he is contributing to the indocrination of that law, which is bad for all. Basically, he's back for more cash - taking advantage of an unjust law while it lasts.

As a result, the content providers' response has been to enact the DMCA, which has been bad all around because it attempts to eliminate fair use and petty violations but does little to stop big time piracy.

The DMCA is *not* about priacy. It is about breaking security. Napster and its friends are not about encryption or security, they are about copyrighted materials. Two very different things. Like I said, if this guy wants to go after copyright pirates, he can do it, with my blessing even. I'm pissed about him going after people that do nothing more than talk about security concepts for any number of reasons: academic knowlege, improvement of security, etc..

Everyone seems to forget that copyright piracy was on the books long ago. The DCMA is the new evil that threatens to put any one of us in jail for describing how to watch our own DVDs on our own laptops.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[gmhowell]

Probing my ports (hehe, not as fun as it sounds) is not quite legal. It doesn't matter that he is a private person/company (at least as far as criminal prosecutions go). There is no probable cause to search my 'premises'. An analogy (which you or someone else will rip to shreds):

You can't just go poking into my mailbox to see what is in there. Further, if you find a package to/from O.B. Laden, you can't confiscate it. The police can't do much with it unless there is reason to believe it may be evidence of a crime. There's a good chance it's just some candy.

Similarly, you can't see what ports I have open on my machine. Other cases, and various DA's and Attorneys General have said that I can't, so why can he? If he finds an open or communicating port, he's not allowed to see what's there.

But, the biggest flaw with my argument is that if I'm running Kazaa (or similar) I have essentially said: "Hey, come look what's in my mailbox. Want a piece of candy?"

You're probably right. And I'm almost ready to disconnect Kazaa anyone, due to the shit quality of mp3's people are sharing.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[msaavedra]

In the past, whenever a story about the DMCA came up, by far one of the most common responses was: "Why not go after the violators instead of taking away everyone's fair use rights?"...many people here are criticizing it as some kind of evil activity. This seems pretty hypocritical.

You are making the ridiculous, but all-too-common assumption that everyone on slashdot believes exactly the same things. Don't you think it is more likely that some people think targeting individual copyright violators is the correct action, while other people think it is bad? And that people who hold either opinion are likely to post here? Sheesh.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[fungus]

The thing is, it is not like opening your mailbox.

Its more like walking in spawn shops to see if they are selling anything illegal.

You are INVITING people to come and look at your stuff when you share it on Kazaa. It's not like if they, without your consent, used a security bug to look in your private data. A pawn shop could not say "I never authorized policemen in my pawn shop to look at my stuff for sale" if there is a big sign outside and welcome everyone.

You cannot sell drugs in a bar and put a sign outside saying "anyone but cops can get inside", and then when they bust you say something like "I never authorized them to get in!". If me, mister internet citizen no name you've never heard about, is authorized to look at your stuff, then everyone is. Including law enforcement people.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[Anonymous Coward]

So in the end /. is just one big messed up anything goes at any minute group of people eh? Then what the hell is the point of it all? If on any day 50% of the people will be either for or against the same subject, that pretty much trivializes the existance or the need for /. doesn't it? What's to be gained here? What's to be learned? Answer... Nothing at all. Just a bunch of hot wind a blowin.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[Anonymous Coward]

Its more like walking in spawn shops to see if they are selling anything illegal.
I'm pretty sure mutant undead armies from hell are illegal.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[GroundBounce]

You're right. The DMCA and copyright violation in general tend to have their distinction blurred but they are really different things. While I approve of them going after mass copyright violators, I disapprove of them going after Skylarov. Good point. Unfortunately, the article drifted into talking primarily about catching copyright violaters, and that's what I had in mind when I was making my point.

I still think that if the amount of widely distributed copyright violation on the net can be reduced, that it will take some of the wind out of the sails of the DMCA.

Perhaps if Mr. Ishikawa really does disaprove of the DMCA as he says, then he could concentrate mainly on the general copyright violation portion of his business rather than catching specifically DMCA violators.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[commodoresloat]

Not true.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[MoneyT]

But if a cop is comming in to investigate whether or not your are selling illegal goods, they have to state that. And more often than not, they need probable cause to get a warrent to conduct the search to begin with.

Re:Pegging the Hypocracy Meter

[reflector]

Probing my ports (hehe, not as fun as it sounds) is not quite legal. It doesn't matter that he is a private person/company (at least as far as criminal prosecutions go). There is no probable cause to search my 'premises'.

you seem to go by the naive notion that the police uphold the law. typically, once they've decided they don't like you, they will make up some creative interpretation as to why they really do have probable cause. but don't worry, they're the police. they're here to help.


You're probably right. And I'm almost ready to disconnect Kazaa anyone, due to the shit quality of mp3's people are sharing.


suggestion: use gnutella instead of kazaa. share .ogg instead of .mp3.

Perhaps Time to Use Filetopia?

[penguin_dance]

I never understood why Filetopia didn't rise to the top of downloaders. It reminded me of the now defunct Scour, but it has privacy checks and encryption. It's only drawback it it doesn't have as many users. I suspect this is more out of the fact that they just didn't promote it enough because it worked very well.

It's primarily for Windows, but can also be run with WINE.

Re:Perhaps Time to Use Filetopia?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's primarily for Windows, but can also be run with WINE.

Still can't understand why it's not widely used? Looks like you answered your own question, buddy.

A better way of doing it?

[bashibazouk]

Would it be possible to redirect bayTSP to a different directory rather than blocking them? It seems to me that by blocking, you are just initiating a battle of blocking/moving to different ip address space and/or advanced techniques of getting past the block. If you can fool bayTSP with a trojan directory, it will return no copyright infringement here rather than blocked from access. This could slow down the implementation of counter-measures that are sure to happen.

Re:A better way of doing it?

[shepd]

>If you can fool bayTSP with a trojan directory, it will return no copyright infringement here rather than blocked from access.

Better yet, set up a server with zero copyrighted material on it, and set up a trojan directory with hundreds of Gigabytes of seemingly copyrighted material (that just returns /dev/urandom when downloaded). Let's waste their time!

[ Isn't there a law against unlawful prosecution? :-) ]

Re:A better way of doing it?

[G00F]

Let's waste their time!

. . . and our bandwith?

Re:A better way of doing it?

[reflector]

the way shareaza is currently implemented, there are
2 security options, accept connexion or deny connexion.

they don't necessarily know that they are being blocked,
however. on gnutella, many clients don't have the option
of letting you browse a host's files like you can on kazaa.
even the clients that do let you do this (like shareaza),
it's configurable, so the user might simply have allow
host browsing turned off.

Re:A better way of doing it?

[Reece400]

Meh, I think it would be worth it, if they get stuck looking thru all of that, they will find less legit copyright infringers, making RIAA think they're wasting money hiring them :),

Mwahaha, lol :)

Reece,

Open doors or just unlocked?

[ElectricMayhem]

Should we think of these ports as open or just unlocked? I can see a ton of doors driving down the street, but I don't use them until I try to walk through them.

If the ports are merely unlocked, then they should have no right to enter. If I go down my street trying to open every door and I find one that happens to be unlocked, should I be able to enter it? I don't think so.

This business is a little sketchy if you ask me.

"Probing His Open Ports...."

[Anonymous Coward]

The following is public information culled from
public websites :

Public information - Mark Ishikawa

http://www.toyotaatlantic.com/Team.asp?ID=43 - toyota racing team same cell #
Ishikawa, Mark M (MI70) marki@BAYTSP.COM
Ishikawa,Mark PO Box 1314
Los Gatos, CA 95031-1314
US 408-399-0600 408-979-7969

BaySpider BayTSP.com
Contact: Mark Ishikawa (CEO)
3150 Almaden Expressway #234
San Jose, CA 95118 USA
Phone: +1(408)979-7900
Fax: +1(408)979-7969
E-mail: sales@baytsp.com
World Wide Web: http://www.baytsp.com/

BayTSP.com Intellectual property protection: About BayTSP: Contact Us
15466 Los Gatos Blvd. Suite 109-368 Front Desk Fax Toll Free 1.877.9BAYTSP
Information Career Opportunities Investment Opportunities Sales Information Your
Thoughts spiderbites@baytsp.com

Phone # listing for Ihsikawa in CA
Results:
MARK M ISHIKAWA
LOS GATOS CA 95030
(408) 399-4361
Results:
MARK M ISHIKAWA
LOS GATOS CA 95030
(408) 399-4391
Results:
MARK M ISHIKAWA
LOS GATOS CA 95030
(408) 399-4571

http://www.clerkrecordersearch.org/

16346860 07/08/2002 1 RELEASE LIEN ISHIKAWA, MARK M (E) COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA TAX COLLECTOR (R)
16147701 03/08/2002 1 CERT AMOUNT DUE ISHIKAWA, MARK M (R) STATE OF CALIFORNIA FRANCHISE TAX BOARD (E)
16088662 02/01/2002 1 CERT AMT DUE ISHIKAWA, MARK M (R) COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA TAX COLLECTOR (E)
16088661 02/01/2002 1 CERT AMT DUE ISHIKAWA, MARK M (R) COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA TAX COLLECTOR (E)
15957939 11/13/2001 8 DEED OF TRUST & ASSIGN RENT ISHIKAWA, MARK M (R)
HOUSEHOLD FINANCE CORP CA (E)
14624059 01/28/1999 1 RELEASE LIEN ISHIKAWA, MARK M (E) FRANCHISE TAX BOARD (R)
14595929 01/13/1999 1 REQUEST FOR NOTICE DEFAULT ISHIKAWA, MARK M (R)
BARRETT, JOHN C (R)
14595928 01/13/1999 1 RELS TAX LIEN ISHIKAWA, MARK M (E) UNITED STATES (R)
14595927 01/13/1999 1 RELS TAX LIEN ISHIKAWA, MARK M (E) UNITED STATES (R)
14595926 01/13/1999 4 DEED OF TRUST & ASSIGN RENT ISHIKAWA, MARK M (R)
BARRETT, JOHN C (E)

A possible alternate email address for
Mr Ishikawa.
Mark Ishikawa
Los Gatos, US
marki@valuserve.com

Now I am not saying The above are all the same
Mark Ishikawa, but at least some mark ishikawa lives in santa clara county and seems to not pay his taxes.....

Oh where, oh where has my privacy gone???

Re:"Probing His Open Ports...."

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd certainly be tragic if Mark showed up floating in the Bay face down. Great job on the research, I'm sure the psycho slashdot vigilante crew will take care of this. *sigh*

call me crazy, but....

[mr-moxie]

...doesn't it seem like them simply collecting information (presumably a file list or something along those lines) doesn't necessarily mean that your files are pirated, or in anyway illegal?

the obvious aside (i.e. having a directory called E:\####ZERAW4EVR#####\ _0DAY_ \GAMEZ\SHADOW WARRIOR - RAZOR) shared on your P2P share...) doesn't the crime not really take place until you actually transmit the file, or in the case of the DMCPA circumvent copy protection?

I don't see how they have enough serious evidence to really do much legally if all they are doing is "looking" at what you have "publicly available" because a file called Harold&Maude.divx doesn't mean that I used DeCSS to copy a DVD movie onto my hard drive that I don't own the rights to - short of actually downloading the file, and somehow verifying that the source actually does violate the DMCPA, and is not just fair use. (i.e. a digital copy made of a video cassette, to prevent quality degradation over time)

As far as I know, having open ports, and or running protocols on your machine is not yet a crime.

Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all the more reason for all you hot-shot programers to help the Freenet project get to 1.0. It will protect everyone against just this type of censorship.

allah u akhbar!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm looking forward to the day that the flag has a crescent moon in place of those god-awful stars...

Re:allah u akhbar!!!

[Gordonjcp]

You won't have to wait long. The Americans are just shitting themselves to have you guys in. Didn't you notice how they're making sure no-one has any freedom, just like the Taliban did? Pretty soon, Americans won't be allowed to listen to music, or use the Internet, and American women will have to cover their faces in public. Won't Dubya be happy then?

Like Utah?

[Stoutlimb]

I hear there that everyone there votes for a group agenda.

No increase

[Anonymous Coward]

"There seems to be an increase in child abductions and murders in the U.S.," says Ishikawa, "and when the abductors are caught and you look on their home computers, you inevitably find kiddy porn. So it is a precursor to this bad behavior, and just as the Internet makes it easy to distribute child pornography, it effectively encourages these criminals. We are working to end that."

There has been no increase in child abductions or murders, it is just that a few cases have gotten a lot of publicity. There has also been no increase in child sex molestation, in fact it has gone down 30% in the last decade. As disgusting as child pornography is, there is no evidence it causes people to become sex offenders.

Re:CmdrTaco - US Flag desecrator and anti-Delawari

[Anonymous Coward]

What is your favorite made-up insult you yell out when you're driving?

Mine is "bitchfuck"

Death Threats - how good can these guys be?

[Weaselmancer]

Quoth the article:

If you look at Mark Ishikawa's business card, you'll notice that it lists no street address for his company, BayTSP, just a post office box. This is for good reason, since Ishikawa is one of the few Silicon Valley CEOs who regularly receives death threats.

So, you're telling me that they're gonna find me and my MP3's, but that can't find who's sending them death threats?? And it takes the Slashdot community exactly 1 hour to figure out his whois and block the moron at the firewall???

That leads me to believe that these people are utterly harmless. "Can't find their asses using both hands" springs to mind.

Weaselmancer

Re:Death Threats - how good can these guys be?

[sethstorm]

All's you gotta do is wait for them to go to their po box. Ishitikawa's not gonna appear, but you're gonna see addresses if things come out of it... Heck, if you're really desperate, go invest in some money and go to some legal information storage company that's well known and do a search(you ought to get the clue on who).

Suppose this article was to set up a honeypot...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and all your probing of his address blocks are just filling in his logs for places to check...?

Could Encryption Help? Or Blocking IPs?

[Anonymous Coward]

So this dude is actually looking at content. Wonder if you could work out a trust system for P2P - your machine has to register with a server somewhere that simply maps ips to certs...provides a cert if the machine actually connects from the specified ip...then you can block ips from this BayTSP...and those banned ips would propagate through the network.

Good idea

[Eazy-N]

Even better, what about a video file named , for example, starwarsdivx.avi which actually contains a 10-minute still of Christmas Island's most infamous export accompanied by a maximum-volume 1kHz tone...?

Hillary Rosen

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a hugh DMCA cock!!! Where are you Hillary, baby!!

Or, traceroute back to every IP that tries to

[Anonymous Coward]

connect to your P2P client...see who it's coming from, maybe do a reverse DNS followed by a whois or something.

Fight the DMCA with... the DMCA?

[emac]

So can authors of P2P tools then specify that their code may not be used to look for copyright infringement? And then prosecute anyone who uses their client or reverse-engineers their protocols for that purpose?

Re:Fight the DMCA with... the DMCA?

[number11]

At least one Gnutella program (BearShare) has a EULA that does in fact prohibit such uses. But I bet the prohibition will be hard to enforce. OTOH, if it gets tossed out, maybe it will be a precedent against the validity of clickthrough EULAs.

Re:Fight the DMCA with... the DMCA?

[Gooba42]

How much relevance does this have though? So they can't use BearShare to search for copyrighted material, they can use any of a dozen other clients on the same network to do the same search. If they wanted to get ambitious, they'd go make their own client expressly for the purpose of finding copyrighted material.

I will sum up...

[AlexMax2742]

I will sum up my message to the DMCA supporters through my T-shirt...

SCAN MY NETWORK AND DIE!

Re:I will sum up...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing personal, but why are you worried about someone scanning your network? Granted, scanning is a precursor to actual penetration attempts, but the act of scanning is itself fairly harmless unless practiced to the point of a denial of service. Don't be such a scaredy cat with your network! Let the people scan, watch the logs, and retaliate when they get out of control. After all, if you put something on a public network, you must have intended for it to be available to the public rigth? If not, then appropriate filters should allow access to only those who you deem worthy to connect to your ports. Don't be such a pussy network admin!

What i dont get

[Anonymous Coward]

..."and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public"

What happens if you are an uneducated person, who uses the inernet and has no knowledge of what ports you have open / closed what the hell is public / not public.

Its kind of like a contract that can be thrown out of court because the makers of the contract wll probally have 20 lawyers in their corner and the signer of the contract signs it without any legal reprententation.

What it comes down to is these goons that are doing work they should not have the right to do that is illegal for other people to do who have many programmers / lawyers etc ..."and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public"

against people who have no clue

We only enter unlocked homes...

[KFury]

The problem, unlike what you probably expected after my trolling subject, is that just because someone left a port open and had DCMA-relevant content behind it, doesn't mean they broke the law.

If my mom flips a switch on OS X to allow personal web sharing, and doesn't understand that this means someone can traverse her iTunes library, then just because some guy can exploit that security breach doesn't mean that she violated the DCMA any more than someone who forgot their purse on a bench, and someone photocopied the book they found inside.

Re:We only enter unlocked homes...

[AtariDatacenter]

I like the way you think.
I've added you to my friends list. ;)

Back to what I said on some other reply somewhere... it is very strange how something like this can become so gray and murky.

84% of us are guilty.

[KFury]

The next time an IE glitch is found that renders your machine open to full directory access and, after a reasonable amount of time, you still haven't applied the patch (if Microsoft actually released one), then are you guilty of DCMA violations?

Of course not, but what if people intentionally didn't apply the patch, and others created handy software to exploit the hole, so by tacit agreement you share in this 'non-intentional' way. Now don't you think they'd go after everyone?

Because that's basically the same as leaving ftp access open...

Funny...

[CrazyDuke]

"and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public."

Funny, I remember the Sysadmin at Virginia Tech pleading to us computer geeks not to portscan dns servers because their sysadmins tend to call him up and demand that you be stripped of all access privilages because of your (with sarcasm)"hacking" attempt.

Whats good for the goose aparently isn't good for the gander.

Simply evil

[kingOFgEEEks]

i love it.

>:-)

Questionable Legality

[ogre2112]

He says in the interview that child pornagraphy is compared against a database of known "originals".

Couldn't we demand that this guy be busted for it? He is not a government agency, he should be able to be held liable for possession, am I wrong?

Re:Questionable Legality

[BigBadBri]

Great point - I've made the same point above, and then again - looks like the moderator is either asleep or dead.

Re:Questionable Legality

[number11]

P2P networks often identify files by a hash. The database could be of file hashes. Get a match and it's the same file, and you don't need a copy of the file to make the comparison.

Re:Questionable Legality

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah dude, that's the effbeeeyes totally legit
database of baaaaad stuff he's tapping.

The effbeeeye was buying ide hd's at a local shop I use as a source not so long ago like hotcakes for their uberleet collection.
F***ed me out of what I needed so they can get cheap thrills and support c***suckers like this ishikawa.

Re:Questionable Legality

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very suspicious anyway about how the government agency just happens to have a large database of the pictures that are circulating.

I read that the FBI ran a mailorder kiddyporn club called "Wonderland" back in the 70s or 80s, and most of the people that were busted for having the stuff had bought it from the FBI front. And when I heard recently (in the UK) that the UK police have been making arrests from FBI tipoffs about a Web-ring called "Wonderland", I begin to wonder....

Encouraging and providing people with the means to perform illegal acts, and prosecuting them when they do them, is a strange method of crime detection and prevention.... but apparently it's allowed in the US, and the UK Plod are happy to use such manufactured cases. How much of the "barely legal" spam actually comes from the FBI, I wonder?

Riiiiiigggghhhhhttt

[Anonymous Coward]

Some quotes from the article:

It is because BayTSP acts as the primary enforcer for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law that is widely reviled in the technical community.

---
Gee, I wonder why?
---

"It's a very flawed piece of legislation," says Ishikawa, who predicts that the government will rewrite the copyright law again "in eight or nine years" to correct the mistakes in the DMCA.

---
*snort* Get real, Mark. You don't know your history very well, do you?
---

But until then, the DMCA is the law of the land, and Mark Ishikawa is the Internet's top cop.

---
Top "Paid" Cop? Yah, so he owns a company that is profiting (hugely) off of a law he thinks is flawed (and by extension unethical and/or irrational). Can you say "hypocrite" boys and girls?
---

For example: Adobe Systems arranged to have Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov arrested at the 2001 DefCon security conference in Las Vegas for violating the DMCA by showing how to circumvent copy protection in Adobe's eBook software. The arrest was made on information supplied by BayTSP.

---
So now we know...who to add blame to for that particular piece of idiocy.
---

"There seems to be an increase in child abductions and murders in the U.S.," says Ishikawa, "and when the abductors are caught and you look on their home computers, you inevitably find kiddy porn. So it is a precursor to this bad behavior, and just as the Internet makes it easy to distribute child pornography, it effectively encourages these criminals. We are working to end that."

---
Yah, and child pornography and file sharing are so EQUIVALENT in terms of the REAL damage they cause. Jeeezzzzuzzzz....
---

One thing BayTSP's spider programs don't do is sit at the Internet peering points sniffing all packets as they go by. "That would be wiretapping, which is illegal," he says. "All we do is go to the same places any user could go, look at the same files anyone else could look at, and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public."

---
Probing the ports on a computer has just what to do with watching P2P filesharing program listings? What would be the point? Not to mention the fact that most sysadmins and ISPs don't particularly like people who are aggressively probing ports....as it's often the prelude to hacking attempts.
Funny, that: By request I keep an eye on the router logs of several friends who file-share - I have no time for such sillyness myself - and 99% of the probes I see are from places like Korea and China.
Hmmm....
---

"We have 100 percent coverage of peer-to-peer file sharing," Ishikawa claims. "If you are illegally sharing copyrighted materials, we know who you are."

---
Oh,Bullshit. Is he trying to say that they are keeping track of literally tens of millions of users of the various P2P programs worldwide? Sorry, I find that extremely hard to believe.
---

Then why aren't there more arrests?

---
Maybe because cops have better things to do, like prosecuting murder, rape, kidnapping, assault, etc?
---

For lesser offenders, under the DMCA an intellectual property holder can make your ISP remove the offending content from its servers.

---
News for Mark: ISPs most generally do not "host" shared files, users' computers do.
---

According to Ishikawa, we'll see major arrests in October of people who have been illegally (and flagrantly) sharing movies. With the evidence already gathered, the game is afoot, meaning this week is too late to stop sharing those movies and expect to get away with it. This might be a good time to get a lawyer.

---
Been hearing this sort of thing for years.....sounds like FUD to me.
---

Not even Osama bin Laden can escape the gaze of BayTSP. According to Ishikawa, the FBI thinks terrorists are sharing information by hiding it in images posted on eBay using a process called steganography.

---
Why would they bother when they can simply pick up the phone and talk around the issue, perhaps using pre-arranged ciphers (much, much easier btw than hiding it in images, which requires a piece of software to decrypt the image; while you can put a set of cipher codes on a piece of paper small enough to swallow, and easily memorizable)?
Note how Mr. Ishikawa manages to sneak the "terrorist" angle in here so adroitly. :)
---

"The FBI has us looking for certain specific things," says Ishikawa, "but we haven't found anything yet."

---
Probably because it's not there. I remember seeing an article shortly after 9/11 that stated that Al-Qaida members had stopped using blatantly public (read, non-encrypted possibly) email to exchange info, as I recall it ceased (or ceased being easily readable anyway) around 1998. Has something changed we haven't been told about? Or is the FBI simply blowing smoke up it's own ass? Given recent history, I know which viewpoint I lean toward...
---

Where there is money, there will always be someone willing to Hoover it up.......pun intended. :)
Thanks Bob for another wonderful piece pointing out the immense moron factor sucking our country down....

Anonymous Pissed-Off Coward

How the DMCA is enforced

[Anonymous Coward]

For an illustration of how the DMCA is enforced, first bend over, next grab your ankles, ...

Yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

How does BayTSP prove that you don't own CDs of all the songs you are sharing? Also, how do they prove that you aren't sharing the files as a resource to others who own the CDs can download the songs (maybe because it takes some people less time to download the songs than to rip them)? If they can't prove this, then how can they take you to court?

Your typical Anonymous Coward

what do you need a mirror for?

[commodoresloat]

I downloaded the article off kazaa.

Wired Article from Jan 2001

[KarlH420]

A
Wired article ( Pirates Beware: We're Watching ) from Jan 2001 covers this same topic.

Re:Wired Article from Jan 2001

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article you linked... "The system has three series of machines. The first houses a database of media which has been provided by content companies. The second brings content in from the Web. The third samples the incoming media and compares it with the database."

I wonder if BayTSP is still using the same setup? It might be worth exploring the possibility of poisoning the system that filters in content from the net and thus destroying the sytem housing the content provided by copyright holders. Just a though, way beyond my ability, but maybe not beyond someone elses. What kind of checks against suspect material would be required to verify the data? What kind of communication would have to exist between the systems? Maybe it would be possible to imbed some SQL commands in suspect data that would execute upon comparing files with the content provided system?

Ack...way over my head. Where is an uber hacker when you need them?

From the article -

[BigBadBri]

1. Mr Ishigawa works for the FBI to find kiddie fiddlers. Good - this needs to be stopped.

2. Mr Ishigawa also works for the *AA, which is bad.

3. Mr Ishigawa claims to have been responsible for Dimitri Skylarov's persecution, which is very bad.

4. As part of his kiddie porn search, he uses the following methodology:
BayTSP's spider programs use patented algorithms to scour public web sites looking for pictures, video, and music files. "Our algorithms are adaptive," claims Ishikawa. "You can cut a picture in half and we'll still find it, matching the cut-down version against a database of originals, effectively matching the electronic DNA of the target."

5. Am I wrong, or does this mean the guy has a very big collection of kiddie porn on his system?

Perhaps a /. reader in the Bay Area would like to alert the local police to this evil collection?

public ports

[Anonymous Coward]

The ports shouldn't be considered public, just because they are open.
If they are, then warChalking should be legal, too.

RIAA does the same thing

[crystalplague]

I got a cease and desist letter from the RIAA back when I ran a huge-ish FTP of music. They emailed my ISP, my ISP called me and a 20-something year old techie was like "uh, yeah, these people want you to stop serving music, so, uh, yeah, if you could stop that, um, that would be good." he obviously didn't care but when i told him about it being a passworded account (they actually logged in) he's like "yeah they're portscanning everybody now and using common login/pass combos to get in a look around." I promptly forwarded the message to the RIAA's anti-piracy email with a "fuck you" reply and accused them of breaking in. Wouldn't it be ironic if I sued them under the DMCA?

Re:RIAA does the same thing

[Anonymous Coward]

That seems like a reasonable solution to the problem. Password protect P2P applications, but everyone use common id/passwords. Then if someone (BayTSP, RIAA, MPAA, etc) accuses you of copyright violations, hit them back with the DMCA. Remember breaking poor security (CSS) is just as illegal under the DMCA as breaking good security.

Re:Suppose this article was to set up a honeypot..

[BigBadBri]

That's quite alright - I never use P2P stuff anyway.

But I do object to an arsehole who claims to have been involved in the persecution of Dimitri Skylarov.

My IP address is 81.86.161.107 - if he wants to probe that, then he's welcome.

That explains something.....

[AlistairGroves]

Where do you think the database of kiddie pr0n came from?

Why not send them a gift of appreciation?

[Wedge1024]

Wow. I feel like we should do something really nice for such a great guy... I know! How about we give him 1025 hours FREE from AOL? You can go here to send him a free cd.
::evil grin::
(if you look back through the posts you'll find multiple addresses you can try)

No you wouldn't

[tkrotchko]

If they have half a brain, they use some sort of distributed tool (something like Akamai) so that you'd need to know more about them. More than likely, the addresses they use belong to an ISP or multiple ISPs.

The netblock they advertise is their business network.

An even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold you head under a bucket of water until you lighten up.

Or whatever else.

You're welcome.

Didn't the federal courts just rule on that?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

However, that said I think people who ar turned on by kiddie porn have a problem, and people who DISTRIBUTE kiddie porn are criminals.

Actually (if I understand a recent Supreme Court ruling correctly) it's people who MAKE kiddy porn using ACTUAL KIDDIES, and the people who distribute THAT, who are criminals. People who make or distribute kiddie port that was NOT made using underage models are just publishers of erotica or pornography.

The crime is abusing the child and/or being an accessory to abusing the child - not making publcations depicting the abuse of a child, which (regardless of how revolting it might be) falls under the heading of "free press" and into the whole "community standards" morass.

Of course once the government procecutors established a precedent that kiddie porn (using underage models) COULD be banned (as the product of a criminal act - child abuse), they used it to bust tpeople possessing or distributing ALl forms of kiddie porn - including pictures of young-looking OVERage models (computer-processed or otherwise), drawings, and pure-text stories, none of which actually abused a child as a necessary part of their production. This worked for a while and a lot of people were convicted.

But the supremes recently ruled (if I understand it correctly from the little that hit the media) that the burden of proof to show that a child was actually abused in the process of making the porn is on the government.

(My tastes in erotica don't include underripe people [thank goodness]. So I'm afraid that I didn't pay too much attention to the case - other than to think "It's about time!" that the Supremes stomped this particular abuse of government power before it spread to other subjects - like security technology.)

Of course that won't stop them from TRYING AGAIN, probably with some minor variation. And kiddie porn (thanks to its association with child abuse) has few defenders. So people looking for a lucrative new carreer might want to avoid this one, despite the court decision.

(Obligatory caveat: IANAL. Obligatory contextual clarifiation: That doesn't mean I'm a back-door man. B-) )

Re:Didn't the federal courts just rule on that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course that won't stop them from TRYING AGAIN, probably with some minor variation. And kiddie porn (thanks to its association with child abuse) has few defenders. So people looking for a lucrative new carreer might want to avoid this one, despite the court decision.

Yep... they're at it again. They're trying to push the burden back on the individual. The House of Representatives was shocked, _shocked_, that they actually had to prove a picture was illegal before they could send someone to jail.

So they passed COPPA 2002.

The problem the supremes saw, and everyone else including the New York Times who filed a brief in that case, is that COPPA brings us yet another step closer to thought crimes.

And lord knows, if you want to start making thoughts illegal, a good place to start is with kiddie porn, because it *has* no defenders.

Re:Didn't the federal courts just rule on that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory caveat: IANAL. Obligatory contextual clarifiation: That doesn't mean I'm a back-door man.

Nothing to be ashames of...

I like Bob, but a small correction..

[wfrp01]

Now we get to the part I find especially interesting, and where I think there is a lot of confusion among users. When BayTSP finds an IP address ... it can subpoena ISP logs. These logs can directly connect even dynamic IP addresses to user accounts, making it clear very quickly who owns the offending account. Every ISP keeps these http logs, and even products for so-called anonymous surfing aren't effective in circumventing the technique.

The "technique" involves subpoenoeing log files. If you don't keep logs, there's nothing to subpeona. Here's an example. Put 1000 users behind a NAT box. Don't log NAT activity - which is pretty much the norm. Are you going to blame the NAT box operator for activity behind the box?! This goes beyond being an accomplice to the crime.

There are laws that allow for law enforcement agencies to subpoena connect logs. But as far as I know, there are no laws which require people to keep logs of all communication activity. That would be outlandish. If you thought Ashcroft's peeping goon squad idea was bad...

Bullshit

[FallLine]

While I'm not, never have been, nor ever will be a consumer of child pornography, I must disagree. I think these laws banning child pornography will eventually be overturned by the Supreme Court because they're unconstitutional.

Your "argument" is lame because while you find air in EVERYONE's home, you do not find child pornography on everyone's computer. You're on crack if you believe there is not a causal correlation between the desire to own child pornography and the propensity to sexually abuse children. It is not of course a 1 to 1 correlation. But it is sufficient to justify continued and constant efforts to track down the distribution of this filth and jump on the people who trade it with both feet.

This is wrong on multiple accounts. Firstly, where is your proof that even, say, 20% of people that watch child porn have EVER: paid for child pornography, helped produce it, or actually abused a child themselves (in any shape way or form)? I've yet to see anything concrete. If your argument is going to swing around this point, you should at least be able to back it up. Secondly, regardless of what that percentage is, these same claims can be asserted for many rights that we protect. Would you debate that the consumption of extreme racist magazines and newsletters also correlate strongly to some form of hate crime? Do we ban these magazines? NO. Do we even throw the readers in prison to be "reconditioned"? NO. Do we treat the consumption of these papers as being equivalent to actually DOING them? NO. I have absolutely no sympathy for these racists, but we're consistent on that and for good reason: it's a very slippery slope. I could give you further examples of more sympathetic consumers...but I lack the time.

More to the point, if it is real child pornography is produced through the abuse of children and I would argue that anyone supporting shares the guilt of this abuse.

This is not necessarily true, maybe not even in a large percentage of the cases. Does an image of a naked child harm them (especially when it is innocent (e.g., running around on the beach) and anonymous? The people that get sexual pleasure from it may be sick, but that does not mean that the child is harmed in any reasonable way. Furthermore, much of what we call child pornography is still legal in other developed countries and WAS in fact legal in our country in the not too distant past. In addition, with the growth of P2P and other internet technologies, the link between leaching a file and encouraging its production is extremely tenuous. The onus should be on law enforcement to prove that the person at least paid for or exchanged some other good or service for that pornography or at least make a reasonable case for "support." What's more, there are also questions to be raised about intentions. For instance, it's possible to innocently download a file under a given name (as it appears to said user), albeit in appropriately named, in Kazaa (and probably other p2P programs) and download something that bears no relationship to what you think you're downloading...and even have the NAME of that file be totally different (due to the way they handle checksums)....I might pick this up later. I've got to run.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Secondly, regardless of what that percentage is, these same claims can be asserted for many rights that we protect. Would you debate that the consumption of extreme racist magazines and newsletters also correlate strongly to some form of hate crime? Do we ban these magazines? NO. Do we even throw the readers in prison to be "reconditioned"? NO. Do we treat the consumption of these papers as being equivalent to actually DOING them? NO.

You're overlooking an important point. The production of racist literature does not violate the law. If people were being lynched and photographed for the purpose of putting in a magazine, you can bet there would be a similar backlash.

Behind every piece of child porn, there is a victimized child. Don't gloss over that with petty justifications.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Behind every piece of child porn, there is a victimized child. Don't gloss over that with petty justifications.

Don't make sweeping statements you can't back up.

At what point does a picture of a naked child become porn? At what point does a generated image become realistic enough to generate the same feelings in the viewer, without exploitation?

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

define child porn.

the other in the uk a man was reported to the police by a photo developer when he developed photos including a naked child.

the child was in the bath, is anyone taking photos of their kids having a bath guilty of engaging in child porn. was the child victimised.

Re:Bullshit

[FallLine]

You're overlooking an important point. The production of racist literature does not violate the law.

Firstly, I was responding to the assertion that these people should be locked up because the mere viewing supposedly (postively) correlates with and/or encourages the sexual abuse of children. Secondly, even in the case where the media depicts the actual abuse of a child, these same tenuous assertions of "purpose" can be made for the racist literature and other publications. For instance, the hate magazine may depict the burning of a synogogue or what have you, yet they almost certainly recieve the same protections. Now maybe the courts will intervene in particular cases whereby the perpetrators of the act were paid or otherwise encouraged to commit the act by the publisher, but that must be shown, it's not just a blanket law. Thirdly, you can't just dismiss a legal challenge like this on the grounds that it happens to be the law of the land now. We have SCOTUS for a reason.

Behind every piece of child porn, there is a victimized child. Don't gloss over that with petty justifications.

Again, this is not necessarily true. While I absolutely agree that we should vigorously prosecute those that commit the abuse (where the child is made to engage in sexual activity), not everything that is defined as child porn has this element. For instance, it is quite possible that a photographer may simply photograph nude children at the beach and other public places, without encouraging or having any active role in the child's exposure, and when these photographs are collected by the admittedly twisted people that enjoy it, it is deemed as child pornography and the people that merely happen to download it are treated, by the law (not to mention the media, society, etc), as if they raped a child, despite the fact that its viewership cannot be reasonably argued to have anything to do with the child's acts (even if you define that as abuse...which can be very much of a stretch).

Repugnant champions of deceit, lies....

[Anonymous Coward]

So, that convicted perjurer Bill Clinton is tops on your list of folks to hate?

Remind me to never piss off..........

[Sergeant Beavis]

The Slashdot community. Y'all some evil sonuvagun vigilantes.

They better be carefull...

[StArSkY]

If they inadvertantly do this to an Australian citizen, then they are breaking our privacy laws, and can be extradited and prosecuted in Australia.

Sentences include jail time. They may think what they are doing is nice and legal, and it may be for people in America, but how are they to know if I am in America or Australia? I bet they don't check the IP ranges and where they reside before running port scans.

Tut Tut you evil crackers of doom

The law can't be logical here

[wytcld]

If Joe Stupid sets up his Win box so that there are some public shares exposed to the Net, and everything in those shares is owned by Joe, then isn't it the case that there is no theft of IP until someone like Ishikawa comes along and steals a copy? Can we ask his ISP to shut him down for this pattern of theft? Doesn't the DMCA impell them to comply?

Is it really this case that I can't keep goods I own anywhere they might be stolen from, if those goods involve someone else's IP? There are buildings that are trademarked (the Space Needle in Seattle, for instance). You can't take commercial photos of them without the trademark owners' permissions. And they keep those buildings right out in the open, where anyone could just take a snapshot. But no-one blames the building owner who hasn't done a Cristo on his building for the theft of the IP when this happens.

So...

[cpuenvy]

1) If these bastards port scan me, am I authorized to port scan them?

2) If not, perhaps I need to set up mirroring with iptables.

3) Since their ISP (http://www.sonic.net) allows this behavior, maybe we should all sign up?

Office Locale

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy please contact BayTSP at:

Email: policy@baytsp.com
Phone: (408) 399-0600.

Or send your comments to:

15466 Los Gatos Blvd.
Suite 109-368
Los Gatos, CA 95032

Now, because of improper HTML formatting, I am

[cpuenvy]

throwing myself out as flamebait...

Well, they have you fooled. You are like the kind of person who would let a cop search your car because you "have nothing to hide". Well, friend, other people do not share your views.

" I see a lot of arguments on here about how he shouldn't be able to find out what stuff you're sharing by probing your ports.

This is so stupid.

You're illegally sharing files..."

I am? How did you come to that conclusion? Port scanning is port scanning, however you try to justify it. As a matter of fact, http://www.sonic.net/support/docs/policy.shtml#aup , this jerks netblock owner, clearly states that Port Scanning from or to their network is against their "Acceptable Use Policy". Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Just remember...

[Erpo]

...the cost to the *AA of a lawsuit is a lot more than the lost revenue from not selling two (or five or ten or twenty) DVDs/CDs. It doesn't make financial sense to take legal action unless they can get better value for their money, i.e. scare people into not participating in p2p networks.

Translation: If you don't stop sharing, they won't sue you.

Get the word out.

If you're running P2P software...

[Eric Damron]

"Thus, in order for this to be legal, I'd have to give them permission first."

By running P2P software and sharing files you have implied an invitation. He has every right to use the access that you have provided.

It would be different if your P2P software requested a password. However, most P2P software would not be covered by this law any more than a web server in Maryland.

What's the problem here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to say this in a place where people obviously feel different, but what's wrong with what BayTSP is doing? If they search the gnutella network for a client, and find that you are illegally sharing their copyrighted work, report the finding to the client and you get busted, then what did they do wrong?

The only argument I can see you would have is the lie that you were only sharing if for you own personal use from a remote location and didn't know it would be publically available. yeah right.

the /. community seems to think it's ok to give away others peoples work. This is fine if they allow it, but why can't you respect that some people make their living by creating thing like music, movies, books, software. Not everyone who does is Speilberg, or Gates, or the RIAA or Sony or AOL.

i'm not going to claim that i'm an angle and have never downloaded anything or copied a cd from a friend, but i'm not going to say that BayTSP is evil because their protecting peoples copyrights. if it's the game you're into then sure, find a way not to get busted, but giving out addresses publically like some vigilante right-to-lifer is rediculous.

Re:What's the problem here?

[Call it a n1ght]

but giving out addresses publically like some vigilante right-to-lifer is rediculous.

Yeah. It'd be a crying shame if um, something were to happen to him or someone in his company. I know I'd bawl like a little girl if that happened. Yeah.

But what if someone uses your wireless?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the poor sod who takes the fall because someone was using his wifi without his knowledge?

They do not have to scan your ports

[asador]

They only have to use kazaa or another peer to peer program and look for the people sharing and what they are sharing.

Security Companies?

[j_stirk]

Although I agree with your thoughts, hired security guards for buildings are technically not a govermental law enforcement agency, and yet they have the power to detain you under certain situations (such as waiting for police). Maybe I am missing the point, but how does this type of thing differ from a security guard company, or even a private investigator firm for that matter. I don't believe they should have the ability to "probe" a system.

Also, how do they distinguish public ports??? Do they mean unprotected ports, common ports, or what??? From what the way they seem to put it, it sounds like they consider ANY port to be public if they can get into it. If this is the case, I fail to see how it cannot be considered unauthorized access to a system, and hence hacking. Hell, even hits to port 80 can be considered hacking under certain circumstances, and that is probably one of the most common "public" ports on the internet.

As far as I can see, this company's actions are not in the realm of black and white... They are in a VERY murky shade of grey.

Useful information for interweb evildoers:

[Anonymous Coward]

from http://www.keelynet.com/interact/Arc_7_98-12_98/00 001970.htm

I would like to draw your attention to the following passage :

"There are some mailing list dedicated to this:

[Note you HAVE **NOT** BEEN ADDED TO ANY LIST's, these are
just what the original messages said when I subscribed to
these lists!]

{Also note that once you get on Charles Cosimano's list, it
is litterly impossible to get off. The unsubscribe command
does not work, and the moderator has not been heard from for
years to do it manually. So if you post all you get is
nasty complaints from the people who can't get off the
list.}"

I'm sorry

[greenrd]

You clearly need to go to a remedial logic class.

Congratulations, you missed the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to create their own client for a proprietary P2P network, they'd have to reverse engineer the client, which action you could presumably use the DMCA or a EULA to prohibit.

A strategy to deal with the port scanners

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out this post... it has a fairly lengthy list of IP addrs/ranges that are used by BayTSP and other groups to monitor p2p networks.

Perhaps the best way of dealing with these people is to get a well-known organization like the EFF to back an initiative to look into the potential legal issues of potentially unauthorized and illegal port scanning, to work as a community to encourage the effective blocking of those running these spybots, and ideally put pressure on ISPs that do not block such port scanners, while giving credit to ISPs that are willing to put the privacy of their users first.

I really like that argument that if BayTSP's "public" port scanning is legal, then so is warchalking. They can't have it both ways...

Try again...

[fmaxwell]

Problem is, once you standardize this protocol and publish an email address that supports it, people like BayTSP can connect.

I never said that this was a way to defeat companies like BayTSP. I said that it was a way that files could be shared with no open ports.

Well

[mindstrm]

Portscannign is not, in and of itself, illegal.

They are not portscanning, however, they are cataloging listings of files being openly shared by people.

And it would be arguable if it were illegal access.... what access controls did you have in place on your share? None? That's generally an indication that it's okay for anyone to attach to it.

That's why access controls exist.

Say hello to my little friend...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the question mark!

It looks like this: ?

And it goes at the end of a question. Do you see?

Good questions though, do you have a link for that story?