Slashdot Mirror
Court Docs Reveal Kazaa Logging User Downloads
Dan Warne writes "The most explosive documents in the ongoing Kazaa court case have emerged today, including logs of discussions between parent company Sharman and the Estonian developer of the Kazaa Media Desktop. They include extraordinary admissions like: "Reporting will make Kazaa look like spyware, as soon as it becomes evident we record downloads and playbacks, users will flee to competitive networks" and then "One can argue that we have knowledge of copyrighted material being downloaded in our network and have to install filters. If we are reporting [gold] files, then technically we could do the same for every file." Finally, "RIAA [could] collect the IP addresses for everyone who has searched for or downloaded that file." Despite the Kazaa developer's concerns over these issues, Kazaa went ahead with the logging." (More below.)
Warne continues "APC Magazine journalist Garth Montgomery, who has covered every day of the trial in the Australian Federal Court, says: "In a nutshell, this has got to rate as the most explosive document revealed. It makes it damn near impossible to maintain the separation theory that Sharman and Altnet rely on in terms of business independence and technical infrastructure. The control they exercise over the system is complete." Montgomery has also scanned in all the documents and made them available in PDF format, including the confidential Kazaa purchase contract and technical specifications for the Kazaa Media Desktop."
It looks like bye-bye kazaa. It will soon join Napster (The real one, not roxio).
When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
...I am reminded of why I use a reputable, private bittorrent server and alternative (read: under-the-radar) means of P2P. Hasn't this been suspected about Kazaa for quite some time?
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
You mean that when I use an electronic network to transfer information, that information travels in orderly patterns that can be tracked? What happenned to the magical fairy of the internet that made all things miraculously anonymous?(/sarcasm)
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Kazaa has always been the seamy underbelly of the internet. While Napster at least had a little swagger as the slick pirate software, Kazaa has been plagued from the start with spyware and other malware.
Good riddance.
I think stuff like that shows you why closed source software can't be trusted. I bet bigger companies do similar sorts of things as well, as part of their "software updates" and all the other network traffic they generate.
... so dead.
And stupid. They knew that they were walking a very narrow path with respect to legality. They had to be like Caesar's Wife - not only pure but seen to be pure. But instead they took their behaviour well over the line into things that they knew were illegal. And then recorded the fact that they were doing it.
Breathtaking.
These people are stupid. Not only do they discuss matters as whether they're arguably criminal conspirators / facilitators -- but they do so in on the record documents, as opposed to quiet chats in the cafeteria.
That's Richard-Nixon-tastic.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
So does this mean that they can get the logs and go after people who have illegal downloaded media?
http://illhostit.com/ - Webhosting
Creepy stuff. Not that the logs are all the useful -- considering just how many people and IPs will be in them. That's like getting a list of 5 million people... you can't send them all to jail and/or fine them. Or... can they?
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Other contries to consider are Mexico and Argentina.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
I was assisting in installing KazaA once. It was like: "What do you think," the librarian asked me. "According to this EULA they could log our downloads," I said. "So? Is it good or is it bad?" (She's so cute!) "Bad. I do not authorise it. Remove it, add to the black list, never bother me again." Now, if anyone is screaming bloody murder because a program does something that was explained explicite or implicite during the installation, one is not the brightest individual under the Sun if you ask me.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
News Flash!
Management may at times ignore developer concerns, although developers can have insight into the customer base not obvious to management.
It's been that way at every company I've worked at...and usually ended up in tears.
Tears for customer support, that is.
Film at 11.
Seriously only internet newbies, grandmas & grandpas installed the Kazza Media Desktop. All other installed Kazza Lite (No Adware!) or eDonkey.
Later all eDonkey users switched to Overnet and later on to eMule and BitTorrent
An open source P2P application is more safe in use than a closed source application because clever people can read and understand the code.
Oh I forgot:
1) Idea
2-6) see above
7) ???
8) No Profit
9) Sued by RIAA/MPAA...
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
...if other "reputable" download services like soulseek are up to the same wrongdoings as kazaa. How can anyone know for sure?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Is it just KaZaa Media Desktop that is affected by this, or is it done on the server end, thereby logging downloads by ALL clients, such as giFT-Fastrack?
What strikes me as remarkable is that anyone thinks so-called "lawsuits" of this nature will in any way stem the Niagra-like flow of files being shared on computer networks.
As with the United States' ill-fated experiment with "Prohibition" back in the 1930s or whenever it was, attempts to pressure a legitimate society-wide demand with artifical "legal" constraints simple result in a Newtonian counterforce of equal strength
Mark these words it is only a matter of time before the RIAA and company unleash one legal sully too many and the citizenry responds with clandestine acts of violence and possibly even people and/or animals.
It is clear that the individuals behind Kazaa are just a bunch of crooks trying to get rich of bootlegged goods, but so were the rum-runners of yore, and in the end, after much bloodshed and suffering , it was seen that rum could indeed be run legally with out the "sky", as it were, "falling". Let us hope those in power today come to a similar realization soon.
If you read the article carefully, unlike the submitter, you will find that gold files (and all searches?) were logged while 'illegal' downloads *could* have been logged. But the article is very vague. Where are those scanned documents??
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Well, the recording part is the part that's really sad. It's such massive lack of clue, it's... well, come to think of it, probably standard for management.
And wth is with all these companies and collecting data about their users? Everyone must track you, profile you, and make you go through an intrusive registration just to (for example) download a patch to a product you've bought.
Now I _know_ that you're not really anonymous on the Internet, they can collect a ton of data about you, bla, bla, bla, Sure, they _can_. But do they even have a _legitimate_ use for that data? I.e., one that doesn't boil down to "we can sell the list to spammers later."
Most of the collected data nowadays (and again I don't only mean Kazaa) is plain useless for anything even resembling an aggregate statistic.
E.g., in Kazaa's case can they even do an automated aggregate statistic over the filenames? How? There must be hundreds of different ways to write the same filename, so good luck telling whether more people download Britney Spears or Eminem. Or which genre do people download more. And even if (ad absurdum) they could get an aggregate statistic, what would they do with that data?
E.g., in the case of some companies' intrusive registration forms and out-of-hand data collection, wth are they gonna do with such pieces of trivia as my house number or telephone number? _How_ does one use that in an agregate statistic?
I mean, "How many people bought our product in Europe vs USA?" is a statistic. "How many people with an even house number bought our product?" is at most useless trivia. There is _no_ useful information in there.
Dunno, reminds me of dogs chasing a car. They have no idea what they'd do with it if they caught one, but they just must do it anyway.
Sad.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Glad I only use Kazaa for porn!
Thats my story and I'm sticking with it. (That was a bad pun...)
They use encryption and promise you will be anonymous. "ES5 hides your IP address while you are uploading and downloading files"
;)
pS,
Folks, lelieve it when you see it. Make sure to read the caveat at the bottom of the page: Folks, take these ramblings as the virtually unedited observations from each day of the Kazaa trial. At best, it's anti journalism. The other side is going to misconsture everything in their favor and present it that way to be as damaging as possible.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
IF this sort of action was taken at KaZaa what decisions of a similar nature are being taken at Skype?
I know that I use it for personal calls with no inherrent value but there are compaanies who are starting to use it to cut inter-office and employee communications bills - they could very easily be concerned about this.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
I've had enough of /. lately, whats with the unchecked facts? I know it's claimed that its up to the users in comments to identify this, but when the site constantly posts such trashy and unsubstantiated nonsenese it's hard to keep the faith.
5 ECA256FA1000FB45F/$FILE/TopSearch%20specifications .pdf
For example, they're not actually logging file downloads, nor what you do. All they acknowledged is that they do this for Altnet, which you must have figured out (How can you buy a file from Altnet without the owner knowing about it?), and that they could potentially do this for Kazaa if they were so inclined and able:-
"Pritt: Posting stats to to 3rd party servers...."
it starts. But then, the fact of the matter follows:-
"Of course we won't know about downloads and playbacks of non-signed content, but it doesn't make a difference because:-
1) It's hard to communicate this to lawyers and users.
2) If we are reporting signed files [Ed: Altnet] then technically we can do the same for any file."
See for yourself, http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/2F22997D6933B1
Bottom of page 4.
In other words, they only logged what they said they would in the user agreement, but they didn't broadcast it because people who don't check their fucking facts will post it on large public forums for debate, and immediately leap to all the wrong conclusions.
It's not the dynamite people think it is. All it shows is that they can log, it means that the next few moves are foretold:-
1) The argument will be made that they can log, and therefore are complicity.
2) The counter-argument will be that logging on
such a scale is an invasion of privacy, illegal and out of the scope of the user agreement.
3) The argument will be made that the agreed upon logs with the users can be used as evidence against P2P users. It's not a serious logistical blow, but will be the *real* credibility damage Kazaa will face.
The endgame is either a Kazaa concession to log all activity, another sale to a different country or just a block on un-authorized files through a deliberately dis-incentivised weak version of Kazaa noone will want, and the winding down of the network will play to the Napster tune.
I may be mistaken here, but wasn't Skype created by the people who sold Kazaa to Sharman Networks? Sharman's the ones pulling the crap here.. I don't recall (Though I never used Kazaa back then) Kazaa being loaded with Spyware to begin with?
As I remember reading, Kazaa was such a hard legal target to bring down because of how decentralized the business is. Servers in one jurisdiction, employees in another, the company registered in a third, bank accounts in another, and onwards, etc.
While it offers an extraordinarily complex legal knot to untangle for anyone trying to bring a suit against them, once they do land in court, the company's internal workings will all be well documented because everyone communicates through email or IM. Oops.
Bottom line, if you want to download stuff illegaly, do it carefully and non-mainstream. One of these days there will be a sensable way to purchase music that you can burn to cd or otherwise do what you like for a fair price. Until that day comes, don't be a moron about it.
Well, don't be a moron then either.
Don't Tread on Me
Actually, it sounds more like a Server of Disrepute. One with a very good reputation ;-)
Hey, sweet, if no one can see my IP address, that means I can't communicate with them via tcp/ip, which means a return to IPX/SPX, just like playing starcraft on a lan pre-TCP patch. Hells yeah!
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
While a common technique, "argument by comparing your opponent to a child" really isn't particularly rigorous.
And complaining about those who object to calling infringment "stealing" twisting words is getting it entirely backwards. It's those who call infringement "stealing" who are trying to sidestep the entire question about what, if anything, is being done wrong.
If you want to say that copyright infringment is immoral behavior, you have to make that argument. Not declare the case closed by calling it "stealing" and ridiculing anyone who objects to the metaphor.
And the real reason the *AA are trying to get P2P banned is not because they're losing revenue (they're not, their profits are up) but because P2P threatens their distribution monopoly.
If P2P really kicks off then they're not going to be able to "push" their latest crap at people any more. Using P2P transfers everything to a "pull" model and, who knows, people may actually start looking for new interesting stuff on their own. Before too long independent artists/small time players will get equal access to "ear space".
And once their distribution monopoly is cracked they'll go the way of the dinosaurs. They know this, we know this. That's why they're after P2P.
"Illegal" downloads are the best free advertising the music "industry" ever had (just look at the relationship between CD sales and downloads from Napster and Audiogalaxy)
Their problem is that they just can't sell the same amount of crappy advertising or rig the playlists any more. Their payola funds will come to nothing and the "indutry" parasites will have to work for a living.
That's why they're crying.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
If you want to say that copyright infringment is immoral behavior, you have to make that argument. Not declare the case closed by calling it "stealing" and ridiculing anyone who objects to the metaphor.
Nobody defines it becuause it's brain-dead obvious. The fact you've clouded your own mindset to the point you feel it's not obvious is telling. For instance, taking Doom 3 without paying for it is immoral. A lot of people spent years working on that game to make a living, and you're taking it while not paying for it--that makes it immoral.
It's brain-dead obvious.
These are basic concepts of right and wrong taught when we're three years old. This moral relativism, pro-piracy spiel I sometimes see on Slashdot where "I'm so used to the convenience of downloading that I've justified it in my mind so that I'm not doing anything wrong" is pretty childish. Funny how this attitude disappears when Slashdot posts articles about companies using GPL source code. Not only is it referred to as "stolen" code, but the companies are dumped on for violating the GPL copyright! By your reasoning, why should anybody follow the GPL? What's wrong with breaking it?
This generation of computer users seems to be all about "Gimme that, it's mine! Gimme that, it's mine!" The sense of entitlement is amusing and creates these sorts of hypocritical situations.
You haven't countered the parent's argument. You just ignored the parent and gave the same argument again.
You're not saying why it's obvious (apparently it isn't obvious enough for the parent, or for me, or for most people for that matter). You're even using the language you're trying to defend in your argument, which is classical circular reasoning.
Also, you're attacking the person, not the argument, by calling him childish and stuffing words into his mouth.
As far as a counter-argument goes, you haven't even produced an cohesive argument, so why bother.