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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."
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.
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.
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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.
I think it would be more effective to write the name of a recently released movie on the DVD. Then they have to waste their time looking at it.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
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.
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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.
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...