Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MIT Releases Subpoenaed Student's Info

Posted by timothy on from the stories-are-at-odds dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "MIT has released the name of the alleged infringer whose information was subpoenaed by the RIAA. The student's position? He was (1) not in the country at the time of the infringement, (2) he does not own a computer, and (3) he is not, and has never been, associated with the username in question (crazyface@KaZaA). MIT initially opposed the subpeona, but the RIAA refiled with the proper court."

7 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Er...Dude... by jtev · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, it's about registering the MAC address to get an IP address with MIT. the KaZaA registration is a totaly different issue. It was the owner of the IP address that was subpeonaed, and he was out of the country.

    --
    That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
  2. Twisted by 4of12 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sounds like the guy in question had unofficially let someone else use his computer, account, etc.

    I kind of like the idea of RIAA making a big fuss and pursuing legal action and then turning out to be wrong.

    It helps shine a light on their gestapo tactics.

    It may not slow them down too much, but the publicity helps to make them look like ravenous wolves out to get "whoever".

    That kind of PR will erode their support from government.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
    1. Re:Twisted by rjw57 · · Score: 4, Informative
      Sounds like the guy in question had unofficially let someone else use his computer, account, etc.

      Not quite. From what I can gather MIT have a system whereby as soon as a un-recognised MAC-address hits the network, the machine is DHCP-d a temporary IP and a all web-traffic is relocated to a registration page.

      On this page, a valid MIT id and password is entered then the temporary IP becomes 'attached' to that MAC address with the MIT id used stored in a DB somewhere.

      Hence just having an IP registered to a particular user is just an indication that that guy/guyess was the first to use the machine, not that its theirs or that they even have an account on it.

      In fact, if all MIT students registered their machines under a common id (e.g. riaasuckmyballs) then there would suddenly seem to be one big pirate there :)

      The system as it stands will probably just match an IP to a person who once used the machine in question.

      --
      Rich
    2. Re:Twisted by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Informative

      as to freenet, it's main problem is the lack of users, and the public notion that it sucks because it is slow, things like frost and fuqid have made inserting files a lot easier.

      all the popular top ten hits would get very well spread i would say, even now you can get selected mp3's at ~10-30kbyte/s easily from freenet, i guess much faster if you run a permanent node with a big datastore(heck, run a big enough datastore and the chances are that those pop songs are in your store mostly already and you'll get them pretty darn fast when you decide to get them).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  3. Re:MIT and no computer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hey, I didn't have one for most of my time at MIT. There are computer clusters everywhere - not too much need to have one in your room.

    And I was course 6 (EECS).

  4. MAC address can be changed by narratorDan · · Score: 4, Informative

    The problem with using the MAC address is that it can be changed or covered up, and since this is MIT how many folks do you think now how to change it?

    And according to the article, he was out of town (way out, like Romania) and therefor could not be the person who set up the computer. Since he can prove that he was out of the US I don't think that he will have to make any deals to save his ass.

    NarratorDan

    --
    "If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
  5. It is possible by ScottyB · · Score: 2, Informative

    MIT's IP numbers in living groups (like fraternities, where the guy revealed lived) are assigned typically by a network admin at the house who registers the person's machine on the network.

    It is very possible, especially over the summer, for one of the temporary residents (females from other schools typically at the fraternities) to just pick an IP from the block assigned to the house and end up looking like the user who originally registered the IP. There are no network checks to verify a MAC address unless you are using DHCP.

    And if you registered a computer you borrowed under your account with DHCP, unless you specifically unregister it someone else could continue using the computer even though it's IP entries are registered to you (I even don't know how to do that on MIT's network, and I go to school there).

    So, long story short, this guy's claims are very possible, especially if he has people that back up his claim that he borrowed the computer. If this guy really was in Romania, I imagine someone else actually committed the infringement, but those records would be impossible to find since you don't have to log in with your MIT account every time you use MIT's Internet access.