Slashdot Mirror
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."
1.) Post company website link on Slashdot.
Step 1 complete.
Excellent
"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?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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.
Is this thing on?
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?
Think For Yourself. Question Authority.
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
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.
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.
> ...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.
"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...
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
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.
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.
This sig is xenon coated, and will glow red when in the presence of aliens
run shareaza (gnutella) and install the shareaza security update, get the magnet: link here:5 UOZZMUZ 7ADXKA.B3GVXM74XKME5FPIREMVW3YKTW42JSN6FYQO2HI
http://bitzi.com/lookup/ZYNHYUHEI3VQHUJTTT
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.
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.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
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.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
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.
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.
b erhose.org/o gle.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&safe=off&q=crypto&btnG=Google+Searc h
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
http://www.rub
http://www.gnupg.org/
http://www.go
Also research on the SSL enabled IM clients and servers out there could lead to SSL enabled P2P. Good stuff.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
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.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
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.
(Sponsored by cheeseSource for President 2012)
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".
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
"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
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
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.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
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.
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.
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???
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.
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.
Kevin Fox
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...
Kevin Fox
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.
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
lounge around on the blue couch
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.