Slashdot Mirror
Gentoo Package Accused of Violating DMCA
cshields2 writes "A recent post to the Gentoo mirrors mailing list passes along a DMCA violation claim that one of the mirror admins recieved. Supposively their bot saw the words "Pac" and "Man" in the filename INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip and assumed it was an illegal copy of PAC-MAN. The file is actually for Unreal Tournament Infiltration. This is comical in one sense, but to be read by a hosting company who does not know any better can be frightening. Has anyone else ran into this with good (or even bad) outcomes?"
This is one of the major problems with the DMCA. By negating the need for a court order to be allowed to send these orders they have opened the door to thousands of frivolous and invalid claims. Companies that have made invalid claims such as this one should be punished. At least they should be held liable for any damages if an ISP removes contents that they claim are infringing. Are these letters totally automated? Didn't somebody actually try to download the file and see if it was indeed an unauthorized copy of pacman?
Also,
>Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the >person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential >and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, >dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, >this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient >is prohibited.
What is this all about? They are trying to hide the fact that they are sending out these letters?
Visualize the world of wine
I think a good faith effort should involve a little more than lame pattern matching.
If companies are you throwing out Cease and Desist letters at random by their bots.. How often do they ever actully follow up on them, or do they just send the letter in the hopes of scaring people off.
The Good Life
So if I've got a file called "HalfLifemappack.zip" on my server they are going to assume that I have an pirated version HL on my webspace/ISP?
What are the factors that decide if a file is really in violation of the DMCA? I can see lots of lameness coming from this type of system.
The note is just to make sure that if the letter gets to the wrong recipient, that recipient cannot disseminate the information in the letter. It does not restrict the right of the intended recipient to do whatever they wish with the information in the letter.
NMG
Simply replying to the letter/emaim they received, and providing a clear, simple-to-understand and short description of the file should be enough to clear any and all misunderstanding.
;-)
Don't turn anthills into mountains, people. I am sure even the dumber PHB can understand that this file has nothing to do with "Pac Man"... Ooops... There goes another DMCA violation!!
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
161MB for Pac Man, eh? Must be all fancy and stuff...
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
E-mail is the property of the sender and receiver, and both have the right to do with the text as they see fit. Thus, posting it is legit.
Anyone who says otherwise is merely trying to utilize scare tactics.
The bot is causing a false accusation. .. DO NOT USE IT. You cant go around automating an accusation lawsuit process if it doesnt even work properly.
You can't blame it on the program. If your bot is unreliable
21st century witch hunt is what this is.
At least in the 1600's they got the witches right. Somewhat.
i strongly support this kind of idiocy: there's no better way to discredit the DMCA than to let it do the work for you. in fact, developers should start naming their software after their favorite songs, movies, books -- the sky's the limit! any suggestions? :)
Does this mean that the Redhat Package Manager violates the DMCA? If so, I'm glad I use Portage :)
I kid because I love...
You know, if they want to use computers to help search for copyrighted material, I guess that's fine. But a *person* should actually *look* at the material before they start sending violation notices. What's next, computer lawyers, computer judges? It's the end of the world, I tells ya.
This reminds me of the Simpsons. Homer's car has been impounded by the city of NYC (at the World Trade Center actually), and he's on a pay phone with an automated system:
Pleasant Female Voice: Thank you for calling the Parking Violations Bureau. To plead 'Not Guilty' press one now.
(Homer presses one)
Pleasant Female Voice: Thank You. Your call has been...
Gruff Male Voice: Rejected.
Pleasant Female Voice: You will be assessed the full fine, plus a small...
Gruff Male Voice: Large lateness penalty.
Pleasant Female Voice: Please wait by your vehicle between the hours of nine A.M. and five P.M. for Parking Officer Steve...
Gruff Male Voice: Grabowski.
When spammers go really bad, a lot of us started generating fake email addresses so their bots would find them and get jammed up with crap.
I think its time the same thing happened with DMCA bots. If they are going to be snooping around everything, lets make A LOT of stuff for them to find! Imagine if all of us created web pages that appeared to hold copywrighted material, but don't. Even just a php or cgi page that generated links with *suspicious words* but nothing of interest. No actual person would use them, but the DMCA bots would see a jackpot. Then, when actual people followed up, they'd find absolutely nothing wrong. That would gum them up pretty badly.
So who wants to spearhead this?
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
What's next, automatic indictment by computer? "Sorry sir, the computer has ascertained that there is a 94% probability that you murdered your wife. The trial begins Wednesday."
It sounds like someone has a script checking filenames for certain words. How else would someone think that file contains Pac Man the game? What is the world coming to? Automated lawsuits?
Good Morning. Law Bot has found 2431 possible lawsuits today. Would you like to proceed with 2431 litigations? (Y/N)
Y
Thank you. Law Bot will now attempt to find an open relay to distribute litigations by email.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
ESA has a good faith belief that the Internet site found at {IPAddress} continues to infringe the rights of one or more ESA members by offering for download one or more unauthorized copies of one or more game products protected by copyright
"Sanctions: A form of financial 'punishment' where a Judge can order a party or attorney to pay for not following Court orders or not acting in good faith in a Court proceeding."
While it's all fun and games to laugh at this, what if AT&T had cut off his connection? What if that connection was vital to business?
I don't know how you go and get sanctions levied at organizations like this, but the ESA clearly violated good faith in this circumstance.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
and Desist letter citing the DMCA because we have a couple of large files
with the word "Junior" in their names. Junior-2.2-CD1.iso and
Junior-2.2-CD1.iso are in a directory called
which pretty much says that they are
Linux distributions in CD image to anyone vaguely clued.
But Vevendi (or
their funky infringement-seeking robot) thinks they might be the 1994
Arnold S bomb, Junior,
To respond to their completely bogus complaint, we have to grab the files
and install 'em and then report back. At our time and expense. I am not
full of love over this. It's their job to find a infringements -- not just
make a few guesses and then demand that we do the rest of the work for
them for free. Makes me wanna see a movie for free! (not Junior however).
Certified Black Helicopter Pilot *** Unwitting Dupe of One World Gov'ment
Similar to the way people have salted web pages with phony email addresses to poison robots that scrape web pages for email addresses an effective way to poison the DMCA robots is to salt your web site with nonsense files with names the robots will pick up. There is a procedure for contesting DMCA take down notices. http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~benjamin-chapman/c le/dmca_summary.htm
My brother and I run a online game called TFOS Mux (www.tfosmux.org). It's based on a roleplaying game by R Talasorian Games and we have permission.
Our game is set in the fictional city of Pebble Beach, in an undetermined state. We state on our web site that it is not affiliated with the original Pebble Beach Golf Course (which we learned about five years after we'd started playing), but jokingly make a comment about a mini golf course for wayward visitors.
In January we received a C&D letter from the lawyers of Pebble Beach Company, stating that our online site was causing confusion in the marketplace and that we must immediatly change our name.
TFOS stands for Teenagers From Outer Space. It's a roleplaying game based in anime, where aliens come to Earth, go to high school and such.
-Aliens
-High School
-Anime
-Statement that we aren't the REAL Pebble Beach
Pebble Beach Company
-Golf
-Florida (or is it CA?)
-Real
These corporations/DMCABots are sending out C&Ds without even looking at what they're sending it out. Five seconds on our web page would have saved them and us a lot of trouble.
Fortunatly, my brother contacted the EFF, and a lawyer wrote to them....and we haven't heard from PBC since.
Why hasn't anyone tried to take them to court for wrongful prosecution, or whatever violation they're committing?
It could be construed as harassment. The ESA has deep pockets, and they could get out of it fairly well. I still think that filing small claims for $5K would get their attention if everybody started doing it. You can represent yourself, and say that it caused emotional damage as well as technical time to validate their claim. On top of wasted bandwidth and time, at your contracted rate, you can get a decent damage claim.
"They said this file was infringing, I had to verify no files were actually part of what they were saying. It was unreasonable to assume they made the claim based purely on a filename. I spent 60 hours verifying no intellectual property violations where there, and expect to be compensated."
It would be funny, anyway.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
We get about 3-4 of these a day, roughly 1 per thousand accounts. It has gotten to the point were you have to review them, to live up to your end of the law. However out of the 90-120 I get per month usually 1 will have any merit at all and this is usually cleared up with all due haste when the webmaster is notified. The funniest one (or saddest depending on how you look at) was when someone tried to register techcomputerbay.com and was notified within 24 hours by ebay that this was copyright infringement because it had e and bay in the domain name. We of course notified the registrant, and told him that this was between him and ebay and we were going to stay out of the way unless ordered by a court to perform an action. Point being this is happening way more than most people realize, and it takes a lot of time to sort through the BS ones.
Gotta move
The more ridiculously-researched "good faith" letters like this go out, the better defense people will have when they simply throw them in the trash.
I don't recall the specifics about how the DMCA requires ISPs to investigate / respond to this kind of crap, but I think any sane judge would agree that it wasn't Congress' intent to force ISPs to spend all sorts of manpower (and, thus, $$) investigating every stupid letter that comes forth.
So bring it on! We need MORE lawyers sending out MORE useless crap so that ISPs can be justified in ignoring all of them, even the ones that actually are well-researched.
(or something like that)
On the part of the company sending that letter out. The DMCA may allow them to do that, but I wonder if it shields them from liability for doing so improperly? Seems like you could sue them for defamation, all the pieces are there. They've accused you of being a software pirate, someone else has seen the accusation and you had to spend time (and money) answering the complaint. I'll admit my knowledge on defamation suits is lacking, maybe someone with more legal background could comment. The real meat is punitive damages and I'm not sure what a court would see in this. Reputations are fragile things and to have yours slandered by someone not exercising a reasonable and appropriate level of care (ie looking at the file name before sending the notice) seems pretty serious. I'd probably at least have my lawyer call them. That gets their attention.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
They must have over 3000 copies of pacman! Damn, are they in trouble.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I thought part of the DMCA process is that the company making the claim has to swear (not the right word... what is it?) that they are the proper owner of the item, and they have the full right to ask for it to be taken down.
At which point, the hosting provider can take it down with immunity.
But if the initial claim is bogus, doesn't that open the door to damages to the person making the false DMCA claim? Obviously, they're at least demonstrating negligence and reckless disregard if they're going on the output of a bot.
>Filesize: 161,212k
That's got to be the first time I hear of a 160MB version of PacMan - does it include detailed 3D schematics of the arcade machine as well?
Seriously though, don't they have some filters on identifying infringing files? Like say the latest game is >100MB, an arcade ROM/old game quite a bit less. Otherwise I'd imagine they are getting far too many false positives (they seem to be searching for SEGMENTS of a name - how many files out there do you think include pac and man or sim and city?).
Indeed, what they need to do is call their bluff. Ignore the letter, let them take you to court. Then laugh when they get their ass handed to them by the judge. If they terminate your internet connection under the DMCA, sue. It's about time this BS saw a judge. It can't be overruled until it's challenged.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Somebody with a clueless ISP, host an ftp site sporting empty files with names like pacman.zip, archon.zip, loderunner.zip, etc.
When the ISP gets the DMCA notice and shuts you down, you sue the sender for disrupting your business. Of course you'll need some kind of front business on the same server.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I think we should make sure as many package names as possible contain words that will get picked up by their bot.
That would generate vast amounts of noise for them (and for us, yes), and it would really highlight the madness.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
May I suggest that someone put together a DMCAbot honeypot with loads of .zip filenames which contain words that appear in many popular games and other copyrighted materials.
If you could go to a court with, say, 100 of these ridiculous claims from a particular firm of lawyers for files in your honeypot, then maybe the courts would listen and do something about these claims?
It's an accusation to an ISP that the ISP's customer is committing a violation of a law and should be whacked, and under the DMCA it's much safer for the ISP to whack them first and apologize later if there's a mistake. There are various legal terms for doing this sort of thing - I'm not sure which of them are torts, which might become torts if the carrier acts on them, which might be crimes (they did say "under penalty of perjury"), and which are just insults.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
...should "actually *look* at the material before they" issue that patent. Good heavens, that would be like the Boston Strangler to the multibillion dollar sideways swinging industry.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
"Has anyone else ran into this with good (or even bad) outcomes?"
/. Interview withMichael O'Leary, Deputy Chief for Intellectual Property at the DoJ:
..." - by OWJones
Here's one example from earlier this month:
RIAA's scare tactics bound to backfire
We already saw this happen earlier this year, when the RIAA was forced to apologize to a Pennsylvania State University professor for sending him and dozens of other people legal warning saying that they were violating federal copyright law. The RIAA's automated program apparently confused two separate pieces of information--a legal MP3 file and a directory named "usher"--and concluded there was an illegal copy of a song by the musician Usher.
Also, from the
9) "... under penalty of perjury
In copyright law, 17 USC Section 512(c)(3)(vi) states that all notifications of copyright violations sent to ISPs must contain
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
(emphasis mine).
Do you know of any cases in which the sender of an invalid takedown notice -- such as the RIAA claiming Penn State University Emeritus Professor Peter Usher's lecture on radio-selected quasars was, in fact, an mp3 from the musician Usher -- has been successfully charged with perjury? Or do you allow copyright holders some "fudge factor" with the perjury aspect, since
1. It was an mp3.
2. It did have the name of an RIAA-represented artist in the title, and
3. It was at a university.
If copyright holders are allowed leeway, can we expect to see similarly loose definitions of perjury creep into the legal system? If the police are looking for a "Caucasian male, age 50-60, bald, 200-225 pounds," can I testify in a court of law that the 18 year-old caucasian male with a ponytail, weighing 140-150 pounds, is in fact the suspect since he is, after all, a caucasian male?
I realize that's more than one question and that they're slightly loaded, but I'd appreciate any comments on how seriously the DoJ takes the perjury clause of the takedown notices.
O'Leary:
Your question raises an important point. We feel strongly that everyone should comply with the requirements of all laws. Legal process under the DMCA or any other provision of law should be undertaken with the utmost care and good faith. Failure to do so undermines the credibility and effectiveness of our legal system.
Having said that, it appears your interpretation of the language in 512 (c)(3)(vi) is in error. The phrase "under penalty of perjury," applies to the representation that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner. It does not apply to the accuracy of the information about the alleged infringement. Quoting federal district Judge Bates in Verizon v. RIAA, The DMCA also requires a person seeking a subpoena to state, under penalty of perjury, that he is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner, 257 F. Supp.2d 244, at 262. In other words, the perjury clause may be violated if you seek a DMCA subpoena without the authorization of the copyright owner.
We are unaware of any prosecutions for violating this provision of the DMCA at this time.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Actually, from what I understand, the "under penalty of purjory" bit in the DMCA is that the lawyers submitting the notice are swearing that they are authorized by the Copyright holder to be doing it, NOT that they are swearing a given complaint is correct.
Personally I think the law should be changed to the later so we can prosecute these bone-heads as apropriate for using scripted code without real checks as to what they found.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I guess I'll have to find a new name for my latest project: BritneySpearsAVIMP3WarezSuperMarioBrosWindowsXPEpi sodeIII. (It turns Caps Lock on when you sneeze)
As I mentioned in the list post, yes, this is silly and amusing, but it still has to be treated seriously. I met with our company lawyer yesterday (who is pretty well-versed in the DMCA, and hence has slightly less than glowing praise about it). The basic response of course is to reply, explaining that they are in error and to consider the matter closed.
While I would like nothing better than to go after these people for gross abuse of the legal system, my company, like many other companies, cannot justify the costs associated with going to court over something like this. This is why you should donate to an organization like the EFF, and tell them you are concerned about the DMCA and its effects.
(Standard IANAL disclaimer for the following:) Also, check out this form if you are a mirror provider. It deals specifically with the DMCA, but does not necessarily provide protection against, but it may help. It is intended for transit providers/datacenters (which we are), but from reading its defintion of a "service provider", mirror sites MAY (again, IANAL) qualify in the same respect.
This letter was hysterical because apart from being in slightly broken English, it mentioned the name "Toho Co., Ltd" about every sentence, and was full of self-praise about how great and honorable Toho Co., Ltd was.
At first, he ignored it. Then the company came down on him because they got a letter from Toho Co., Ltd's lawyers. There was some debate, and the company decided that it wasn't worth their time to try and deal with this, so they dropped the issue.
The coworker *was* a Godzilla fan, so he wrote back to Toho Co., Ltd that "Godzilla" was not a trademark, but "Gojirra," the proper kanakata spelling was a trademark, and he did not have an account with that name, nor did he have the ability to open an account with that name unless they paid or company for the e-mail address.
They never replied. He had the letter posted on his door for a while, with a photoshop of Godzilla attacking our building. Then Godzilla 2000 ("Ferris Beuller vs. Godzilla") came out, and I think Toho Co., Ltd probably never wanted to deal with Americans again.
__________________________________________________ _
www.punkwalrus.com - As seen on "The Gong Show"
Lets assume you're not trolling,
When you run a red light, there is direct evidence that you have done so.
Even after that, you then have the opportunity to go to court and fight that evidence, either with mitigating circumstances (the truck barrelling down on you from behind that pushed you into the intersection) or conflicting evidence (your car was being driven by a different person, because it was stolen or simply because you lent it to your fiance).
So while the evidence is gathered by camera and processed by computer, the decision is still in the hands of a human.
In this case, the DMCA allows a company to order you to Cease and Desist, and moreover, require your ISP to shut you down, without a human review. The only humans involved are the victims (you) and the ISP, who probably won't make trouble for themselves by resisting the C&D.
The Computer is Your Friend!
Trust the Computer.
We had the same thing happen to us. One of our mirrors recieved a nasty gram about the OpenOffice file that was on their system. A little bit of digging found that their script was assuming ANYTHING with OFFICE in the name was a pirate copy of MS Office. It was rather entertaining.
Scott Carr
Come on folks, a few people have mentioned it already.
EVERY time that someone gets a completely frivolous complaint like this, they should:
1) research it (proving it's stupidity)
2) Bill for it, at consultant rates. Say $250/hr, 2hr minimum. Make sure you send a formal invoice, (explanation of services done, rates, etc.) and include a payment due date.
3) If they don't pay by that date, then either (a) call a collection agency, or (b) sue.
Doing a little bit of extra work now will hurt them enough to make them stop.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I wish I would get one of these. I think everybody should pick their favorite arcade game, zip up some random binary data, name the zip file after their favorite game, then put it up on their website with a hidden link such as a 1 pixel transparent gif or such.
As a Speakeasy customer, please allow me to tell you that you are the wind beneath my wings.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
This one is easily enough dealt with by a slight amendment to the DCMA.
What we have to due, is to introduce a requirement that any "violation notices" be based on a reasonable belief that IP is being infringed and then make the complaining party responsible for any legal expenses on the part of the accused party for an unreasonable violation notice.
It would be a bit like the British, loser pays system, that forces a party realy consider the strength of their case prior to bringing it or defending it at all costs. It helps prevent the kind of "litigation extorition" that we see all the times in the states.
A great example of "litigation extorition" happened to me and my wife shortly after we got married. We decided to install a gas stove (you need that for good Chinese cooking) and needed a gas line to do so. To install the gas line we needed access to the easement inside our neighbors yard (zero lot line). We requested it in writing heard nothing. Assuming that silence implies consent - an old Common Law Legal concept - we went forward with accessing the easement. The day of the installation in the evening a police officer shows up on our doorstep, after getting my wife's version of events he stated, "there is nothing here!" A week later we got a letter from an attorney from our neighbor asking for $1,000 or the name of our insurance company to "resolve this matter".
Well, my wife is a supervising paralegal and I am someone who has read a lot of law. We knew a shake down when we say it. So, we put together a little package (12 exhibits in total) informing them that we were willing to drop this matter at this point, but if they pursued it further that we would be counter-suing. We also dropped a line on the State Bar Association Office of Professional Conduct about this attorney. A few days later we got a note that the attorney in question was no longer representing this client and to forward any and all communications to our neighbor (a breach of Legal ethics, which we sent onto the Office of Professional Conduct).
The bottom line, needless litigation is like Spam: if we increase the cost just a little, it will dramatically reduce it. The problem is that in the US Legal system is doesn't (if you are in the right financial situation) cost you anything but your time and energy to force people to spend money responding to you. If we make people pay some of the cost of litigation.
I had some free time, so I wrote Mr. Hunter a letter regarding this matter.
The subject I used was "Re: Notice of Claimed Infringement"
I designed it to look like a legitimate response to one of these notices. If they receive enough of these protest letters, Mr. Hunter and others at ESA will get a taste of their own medicine
The text follows:
Dear Mr. Hunter,
I have read your notice of claimed infringement.
In your letter, you state "ESA hereby requests AT&T Worldnet Service to immediately remove or disable access to the Infringing Material at the URL address identified above."
The negligence of others is a foreseeable consequence in tort law. Should AT&T have granted your request, you might have been liable for any damages caused by that immediate removal of what you claim to be infringing material.
The file named "INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip" obviously has nothing to do with Pac Man.
You would do well to review the threatening letters that you send out, rather than cavalierly trampling on the rights of others.
Regards,
INSERT-NAME-HERE
concerned citizen
Everyone who runs a box on a cable modem or on a network should consider getting the LaBrea tarpit. For those who don't know, this software is used to slow down worm activity, however it can be used to hang DMCAbot as well.
:)
Have this listen to port 21 on your networks and watch DMCAbot hang indefinately (your mileage may very).
Also, just to cause lots of fun, try doing the following: dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1024 count=142 | gzip -c > (MSOffice|PacMan|Zelda|Matrix|.gz) and let DMCAbot spam ISPs with worthless crap until they add an SMTP deny rule.
Anyway, just some ideas.
What if there were more open-source packages that seemingly contain commercial material, so that they give up trying to keep track of these DMCA violations? Same principle as with an Emacs package (I believe it's called spooky) that inserts words like terrorist', 'bomb', and 'secret' in e-mail headers to 'slashdot' a reported NSA server checking all e-mails for illegal activities.
IANAL (although I did score 163 on the LSAT's and turned down a partial scholarship to law school), but this appears to me to be a case of Defamation, Tortious Interference, and Abuse of Process.
Note they claim a good faith belief. Based on what? It's based on insufficient investigation to found a "good faith belief", and is therefore negligent. Their reckless act has caused you, among other ills: personal distress, time lost in correcting the matter, and harm to your reputation.
You should definitely consult a lawyer about your rights to sue this law firm for their reckless and defamatory acts against you!
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
"...it would be pretty hard to prove it wasn't there."
and that's the problem with the DMCA and other laws like this. With a complex situation or structure you can't prove a negative. This is one of the fundamentals of science, in terms of hyoptheses becoming theories. If there is no way to test a hypothesis in such a way as to get a confirmed pass/fail test, then it's not a very good theory.
As for the 'encoding', read "Radio Free Ablemuth" by Philip K. Dick. It specifically addressed this kind of freakishness with coded messages. Or go see "A Beautiful Mind". Another example of why it's not feasible to go around accusing someone who can't prove a negative result. I feel that it should be criminal to accuse someone without having a verifiable positive first showing that they've actually done something wrong. Yeah, this puts the burden of proof on the accuser. Isn't that what the constitution says, with "Innocent until proven guilty"?
Not to give the media conglomerates any more work or anything...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Well, OK, not really. But that was my assumption when I saw the article -- that some anti-DMCA hacker was trying to draw attention to the silliness of it all. I mean, Pac Man? Come on ...
...
So I've seen suggestions on this board that we make honeypots to draw the bots into a world of false positives. Let's do them one better -- let's make our own bots to send cease and desist letters at random, and really discredit the whole concept. Send a letter for every file that contains the word 'Men' or 'Day' or 'Part 2'. Lots of copyrighted material with names like that
Something to remember about systems is that they have limitations. Something can only store or process so much information at any given point. If people determine the functional bounds of the system, they know how to break it or render it less useful.
Case in point: the idea of a national database on everyone alive
If one, hypothetically, saw the creation of a national database on people, it wouldn't be hard to 'fake' information on a decent scale that is patently false information. It would require some creativity, but it could probably be done in a way that isn't even illegal. It's called fiction. Create stories with names in them, create stories with numbers in them. Make up numbers. We all know that social security numbers are XXX-XX-XXXX format, so it wouldn't be hard to say that "Ol' Jim Houston" has 234-11-5532 for a social security number. So, the national database spidering software might pick up that number and note that the true owner of that number has an alias of "Ol' Jim Houston". Write a story about this character where he uses his 'number', so it comes up. Movies do it all of the time, if you've ever seen "FX", they used SSNs in determining information about bad guys. Create "likes" pages. Say someone likes guns, or rabbits, or construction, or water parks, or anything. Email it around. If there's something out there that we don't like, it'll collect the information. Email "bad" words around without context, in such a way that they trip Carnivore or similar systems but do such in a way to make it obvious that they're complete and utter bullshit.
Make the system have so much information to process, categorize, and store that it either has to ignore information entirely or that it fails in the middle of doing its job. Or, make it so that if it manages to process everything that it gets that it stores so much bad information that the 'record' for any given individual is useless. I'd love to see it store that I go dowhill skiing every Northern Hemisphere summer down in Australia, or that I frequent BDSM clubs, or that I helped design the rocket car "The Spirit of America", just so that there is no credibility to any of the information at all in the system, since nothing can be easily verified as being correct. This breaks the system at a use level.
If a million geeks decide to do this, the ability for any given system to work is very low. I'm sure that people will complain that we're endangering national security, but remember, terrorists that we've seen, Timothy McVeigh, the DC area snipers, the Abortion Clinic bombers, and the WTC/Pentagon attackers, didn't do what they did in a way that was detectable through the methods that they want to start using. They did it with a rental truck and farming fertilizer, or boxcutters, or a rifle and a sheetmetal-modified car. Does any of this revolve around computers? ANY of it?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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