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MIT Releases Subpoenaed Student's Info
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."
Yeah right..
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
The real question is how long this sort of trawling will be allowed. The student could get the case dismissed on summary judgement, and the RIAA seriously admonished about bringing frivolous lawsuits.
"In particular, on June 27, at the time of the alleged infringement, I was in Romania."
So that means he's actually under the authority of the Romanian Industry and Art Association right?
"I only speak the truth"
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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
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
The RIAA is suing people who are *sharing* files, not *downloading* files.
Get that through your head.
It's entirely conceivable that this guy left Kazaa running while going away to Romania, with all his stuff shared.
I dunno- that's kinda how the shit works when you've got a permanent connection.
To give back, you leave the stuff running even while you're not there.
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