Slashdot Mirror
MPAA training Dogs to Sniff Out DVDs
LandownEyes writes "The dogs, Lucky and Flo, faced their first test at the FedEx UK hub at Stansted Airport.
"FedEx was glad to assist in Lucky and Flo's first live test in a working situation. They were amazingly successful at identifying packages containing DVDs, which were opened and checked by HM Customs' representatives. While all were legitimate shipments on the day, our message to anyone thinking about shipping counterfeit DVDs through the FedEx network is simple: you're going to get caught."
Kinda makes me thing twice about shipping anything through FedEX. Seriously, this is like training drug dogs to find plastic bags."
Is this real or just MPAA making false press releases to scare people off?
I wonder if FedEx will be so keen when this thing goes live and 80% of the packages have to be opened, inspected and sealed, and the number of phone calls from customers asking why.
Please stop entering code 2,2,7,6,6,4
This just means you'll need some better airtight packaging.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
According to the article they are going after big piraters, so presumably they are looking for a suitcase with a thousand DVDs or something.
I have to agree with you though, of all the things you could train a dog to look for, pirated DVDs is really a waste of a dog. Hope my tax dollars don't go to that. Of course, my tax dollars are wasted enough that it probably doesn't matter.
Qxe4
This owuld pretty much stop my company from using FedEx for any shipments if they do this in the USA. We ship burned CDs/DVDs all the time, and I don't want the shipments delayed or damaged because they're constantly being pulled out and opened up for inspection.
Even assuming they have 100% identification of illegal DVD copies vs false positives once they open them up, they're still providing nothing useful to customers, with serious potential for loss or damage of customers' materials, solely for the benefit of a third party. If the MPAA wants to pay for my Fedex shipping, then we can talk, but if I'm paying for it, you can bet your ass I'll be making life miserable for fedex employees when my shipment is delayed or damaged because of this crap.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Don't the Canadians have to pay a "piracy" tax on every blank dvd they buy? So doesn't that entitle them to import pirated copies?
Or an autostart function the checks if it is in a PC, and if it is, deletes everything.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Shipping them in unmarked cases is a start, but to really guarantee the items against confiscation, they'd just need to add a holographic "This is a DRM Anti-Piracy Copyright Protection Seal" label on the seam of each case. At that point, the mere discussion of how to circumvent said label & gain unauthorized access to the contents would be a class C felony.
Pi Ran Out
I don't ever ship with fedex, but I'm pretty sure the form you sign when you send a package states that your package may be inspected for ANY reason. I ship to Canada quite a bit and have had several packages delayed because of customs inspections. It's interesting that the MPAA can just walk into an airport and open up packages. Just shows you how much control they have on an international scale...
http://www.revmediaphotography.com
After the initial WTF?!?!, the first thought that popped into my head was of an incident that occured in W. Germany, 1979 while I was stationed there (US Army). ..."what if we melt the wax, crumble up oh, say about 10 grams of hash into the melted wax, then heavily wax the floors?"
:)
;)
We (us hash smokers) had a contact in the MP detatchment that would alert us when they were going to bring the dogs in the barracks for *surprise* drug sniffing ops. Usually we would just consume all substances before they got there. One time my team mate got an idea....
We used Johnson's Paste Wax (tm) on our barracks floors (as required) to keep it nice and shiny, the barracks used steam radiators for heat, which we would set the can of wax on to soften it for easier application.
Well, overkill being one of my team's trademarks, it ended up we mixed 30 grams of some really good "bubblegum black" hash into the wax, used the whole can on the entryway floor, and buffed.
The MP's and two dogs showed up about half an hour later- the dogs went NUTS!
They both went running around in little circles howling and whining for about 30 seconds, then bolted for the door trying to exit the barracks, the MP's could not gain control and had to let them out of the building.
Several of the remaining MP's made a search, but could not find anything.
Later on our contact told us that whatever we did totally burnt out the two dogs- they were worthless as "sniffing" dogs after that and were put on patrol duty. We never did tell him what we had done. (I use the term contact because he was one of our suppliers- we got most of our hash from such MP's!)
Now, off to my lab to synth some "Pirated DVD Smell" to spray on ALL of my mail/packages! Muuhahhaahhaaahhaa
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Was wondering something like that, considering that we ship CDs and DVDs very frequently from where I work... Anytime we make a video and we need materials from other city (like a client that wants a specific voice narrating their videos) we receive a lower quality version trough email (MP3 in my example above) and then a high quality version on CD or DVD depending on what material it is, and then we send the finished version of the video on DVD. (either as a final format, or as a preview version to be aproved before sending it in a more professional and expensive format). Most of the times we're very pressed for time and need the stuff to be here or there the very next day, tops... so any post service that did something like this, possibly causing a delay while they get sure the content is legal, would loose lots of business from us.
... you have to pay customs to watch your media.
In Chile it used to be so that if the customs people at the airport found a video tape or DVD in your luggage, it was retained for a couple of days so they could check it for illegal porn, or forbidden movies (like the last temptation of Christ). To recover your material you had to go pick it up at the customs office (which was a major pain in the ass if you planned on leaving the city where you entered the country in your first few days here), and pay a "viewing fee". In other words, they passed the cost of someone viewing your stuff onto you.
I don't know what the situation is now,though. I haven't heard of this being applied in the last few years.
Slashdot: news from nerds.
So if I ship my DVDs in a netflix enevelope wil they opne them. If they play them to see what they contain are they violating thr DRM? Do they he probable cause to perform this search?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
As tempting as it is to send DVDs that have firmware upgrades for players, etc. or just random noise there is a downside. The false positive insures an opened package and as I learned this Christmas sending a stuffed suitcase through customs, not all inside made it back in afer inspection, curiously the canned crab went missing, and they are not real smart. They opened the sealed package of dog treats in one bag. In another they punched a hole through the bag of coffee (coffee is often used to mask drugs, now the dogs sniff out coffee too) instead of just unfolding the top like a normal person who has seen a store ground coffee bag. And when they repacked the cases they didn't bother to pad the Christmas ornaments (small ones for a small tree) they packed a now unwrapped bottle of wine next to the now unpadded glass ornaments. Needless to say Christmas carnage ensued. So maybe think twice about just what packages you ship with a blank CD inside. Oh, and if you do, think about using hot melt glue to bond the disc to the box. "But you really shouldn't do that!"(TM)
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Every time you ship something by FedEx, drop in an old AOL CD or a CD that you burned that you don't need anymore, etc. I throw away a dozen burnable CDs every month. Save them for FedEx! Even better, burn a DVD of your favorite Open Source software, like OpenOffice, Firefox, etc, and give a free gift to everyone you send FedEx to.
On a related note, it would be a good idea for people to make up a "tincture of cannabis" type spray and use it on baggage, around customs areas, on packages, in mail boxes, on FedEx envelopes, etc. You would need to get some pot leaves (stuff that's not smokable would be fine), use it to infuse alcohol, and then dilute the alcohol with water, and you have a spray. It would not contain any active ingredient so it would be legal, and it's not a weapon, so there's really no problem with giving things a little "eau de pot".
Ha ha, my Captcha image for this post is "copied".
A younger friend told me of a similar monkeywrenching episode at his HS. When word got out that the drug dogs were coming through, a few of the more politically aware stoners got together and sprayed the hallways, lockers, and other areas with dirty bongwater. Special attention was paid to the teacher's lounge and the administrative offices. :)
:)
When the dogs came through, they went absolutely apeshit and had to be removed, with no actual drugs being found.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
The Constitution is, of course, a document limiting the power of the federal government. The Fourteenth Amendment applied those same provisions to the states.
You do not, however, have a Constitutional right for me, as a private citizen, not to go through your desk drawers. Might other laws apply? Yes, but it's not a Constitutional issue.*
What does that mean? It means if FedEx--a private company--and the MPAA--also a private group**--decide to open your packages, your only recourses are to find another carrier or try your hand at a civil suit. I'm not sure one would fly, but it's your Consitutional right to try.
It gets hairy about what they do if they find something. I am not a lawyer, and I am not sure if the police (or FBI or DEA or what have you) could use evidence obtained in this manner if it were illegal. I still do not think it is, however.
This would be vastly different if it were the MPAA and the USPO, which is a government entity. Then all of your Constitutional protections would unequivically apply.
* Interestingly, some courts seem to be extending privacy concepts, such as reasonable expectation of privacy, to personal situations--business in particular. I would support such laws or amendments, but I don't think they're there right now and I think extending the Fourth Amendment to private entities is a bit of a stretch.
** Since the movie industry seems to have special legal protections (what other form of copyright infringement is a federal crime enforcable by the FBI?), I would be curious to see it go to court as to whether or not they are truly a private entity.
Dogs really do have remarkably good noses, particularly the ones that are bred and trained for scent work. I'm not in the least surprised that they could be trained to find CDs or DVDs amongst other kinds of scents, including plastic.
Consider that dogs can follow ground trails left by humans that are several hours old. They can discover human corpses that are buried under tens of feet of earth, even if there are corpses of other animals buried in the same place. Some can smell the presence of cancer tumours within the bodies of patients. Some have been trained to alert epilepsy patients 30 minutes or more before they have a seizure.
Without a doubt, scent is the most dominant sense for dogs. Contrast this with humans, where sight tends to be dominant, followed by hearing.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Seriously, who came up with this idea. This goes to show what a crackpot organization the MPAA is. What for profit company has the cash to train animals to sniff out "pirates"? MPAA does. I can think of one prime example: the De Beers diamond cartel in Africa. Like MPAA, De Beers has also received prejudicial treatment from the current administration. It also holds nearly 80% of the global diamond market, and is the sole reason that diamonds are indeed so valuable. By stockpiling diamonds via its monopoly, De Beers inflates the price while simultaneously using its marketing (A Diamond is Forever) to drive up demand. Feel free to read how wonderful a citizen this company is and has been throughout its history. De Beers would kill and does kill to ensure its diamond monopoly is unhindered. De Beers diamond mines would rival the security at the prison Zacharias Mousaoui was sentenced to last week. To me there seems to be a clear parallel between De Beers and the MPAA (or RIAA). Inflate prices through monopoly, buy off the government, drown any possible competition in paperwork, and prevent legitimate competition from freely working (DRM for indie artists, anyone?). I'll choose to vote with my wallet. Of course, it is also quite easy to complain to the FTC about antitrust violations.
I'll divulge what I know...
First, coffee beans. Supposedly, if your cannabis, hard drugs or DVDs are wrapped in coffee, dogs can't distinguish it.
Second, airtight packaging seems a little impractical; at 35,000 AGL you're likely to pop whatever airtight container you're shipping. Tupperware I suppose? Human-occupied cabins are pressurized; I don't know about cargo compartments on FedEx planes. Even so, unless you can vacuum seal it, it's not worth risking a change in elevation (more a concern for drugs than your DVDs, but whatever).
You could ship it ground, but only from Mexico and Canada (not large purveyors of pirated content; I'm thinking China and the Middle East). You could ship it by boat, but it takes a long time (and it's hard to do if you don't have something ginormous like a car or the Statue of Liberty or something).
Lastly, even if you could seal it such that it was air tight and practical, you have to get the scent off the outside of the package. With drugs, this is huge, because most drugs are not cohesive like a DVD (they're either liquid, granular, or in the case of pot, 'crystally' and 'sticky' hehe). For a DVD... who knows what particles make up their scent or how 'sticky' they are.
If you actually found a way to do all of this airproofing on an economical scale, you're in business. Think of the stinkiest thing ever - a French person (no j/k) a can of garlic, vinegar, ammonia, chlorine (for pools/spas), a fart/turd, whatever. If you seal it well, you can't smell it, right? Now seal it 40x better, because dog's noses are that much more sensitive... and you're sniffing-dog-proof. I've never tried it; but it's not that complicated, really. Dog's don't have ESP; they have sensitive nostrils. The inside of a truly airtight container cannot be detected by scent alone.
Me, I'd go with the coffee bean idea, and no return address (they can't prosecute you because some guy in China sent you a bunch of DVDs, right? Especially if you're smart and don't have evidence at your house).
It might even be possible to improve the liklihood of a 'hit' if you include a fragment of a DVD. I'm sure we've all burned our share of 'coasters' - save 'em up, snap each one into 3 or 4 pieces and drop a piece into each package. If the dogs are sniffing the chemicals in recordable DVDs, a broken one should smell *really* good...
when i travel, i don't bring dvds with me. i rip them to .iso and mount them on my laptop for viewing. good luck sniffing my sectors.
Actually they're not at all interested in "cutting off piracy" (instead they're all interested in cutting off privacy which is what I just accidentally mistyped). They're happy to have another way to criminalize you and send you to jail for a couple of years right along with the kid next door smoking pot because you "pirated" one of their movies or songs. Since prisons have been privatized in the US you could even be sent to Sony Prison.
Rumor warning: I don't have a cite for this.
Supposedly, the dogs get a treat when they make a bust.
A coke-sniffing dog found a deeply buried shipment of cocaine. The dog got a treat. The contraband was inside a large shipment of coffee.
The dog got a treat the next time it alerted. It found another coke shipment. Unfortunately, this one was in another coffee shipment.
The poor dog, ever after, would alert on anything that smelled like coffee and would wait eagerly for a treat.