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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."
I hope so.
There goes my plan to smuggle drugs by DVD.
"Dogs have been trained to sniff out potential downloaders from airport custom queues, more news at 11"
I wonder what would happen if I were to ship a burned DVD with Linux on it instead.
So what happens when they find that homemade video a friend is sending you from their trip overseas?
Unless they decide to actually play every DVD, or open the packaging to see what inside a case, how are they going to know?
All a pirate would have to do is ship them in unmarked cases, or ones marked "Vacation video" and mail them to the US, where their partner opens them up and puts them in the final packing material.
Sounds like a giant waste of time to me. And for what? DVD's. We can't even be bothered to search all of the crates coming into our ports, but hell, the MPAA has enough time and money to look for fake fucking DVD's.
Morons.
Is it any wonder that of all the illegal products that can be shipped through the mail, the ones with the largest number of political lobbyists are getting special measures to ensure they're legitimate? This is really a case of money being used to influence politics. This is a huge invasion of privacy, and a nonsensical one at that. There's no way for these dogs to differentiate between legitimate and copied DVD's, and illegal DVD copies and legal DVD copies. Another case of the RIAA treating customers as the enemy. Makes me have no pity for them when they complain about being stolen from. Maybe if they gave their customers (you know, the people paying them) a little respect they might be able to get some sympathy and work with people to solve this problem. As it is, I think they're just contributing to it.
I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
Apparently it's easy for the dogs to sniff out *only* the pirate DVDs because those are the ones that haven't washed in months and smell like salt-tack and grog.
Unfortunately they haven't figured out how to train the dogs to avoid catching their noses on the hooks when they open the package...
By what authority does the MPAA have to even do this? They are a PRESSURE GROUP, not government. They are NOT THE COPS, they are NOT federal agents.
Or is this just another example of the corporations saying "JUMP!" and the government saying "how high?"
I would be interested to know how the dog distinguishes between a DVD and any other mailed product which contains plastic wrapping. Perhaps they are operating on the assumption that plastic wrapping materials of the type used to shrink wrap DVDs are not common in other types of mail. One also wonders how much of a dent this will actually make in the amount counterfeit DVDs and movie piracy in general. It was my understanding that bootleggers generally sell on the street, at swap meets, and other spontaneous social gatherings where the counterfeit goods are priced as impulse purchases at 1-2 dollars apiece. The rest are probably file sharing downloads of DVD rips to divx and such so how many bootleg DVDs, not orders from Amazon.com or NetFlix, are actually making their way through the mail system? It is probably insignificant.
Who else suddenly has an urge to go buy a spindle of DVDs and slip a blank ( convienently labeled, "MI-III" ) with everything they ship?
Seriously, if you do a cost analysis, you'll find that the 10-20 bucks wasted on the spindle buys you the option to ship a real backup copy in the future.
And speaking of backups, isn't it still fair use to make backups?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Now wait a second. This is a test and they are opening real people's packages. WTF? (FTW?) I didn't know that shipping plastic optical media was a crime anywhere. Sure it's "customs" that's actually opening the packages, but the fact that it's plastic optical media is not probable cause. How many false positives have they had? Is it worth pissing off that many FedEx customers for the occasional actually pirated media (of which they've found zero)?
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Drugs, high-explosives, weapons, decaptitated heads, those bowling ball type bombs with the wicks sticking out, a map of Afghanistan with Osama's hidden location clearly marked with an X, Sadamm's WMD and a 1.44 floppy with future plans on blowing up the Capital Building all went through undetected.
What if you're FedEx'ing a home movie of your child's birth (including states of undress of the mother) to your mother-in-law who couldn't be there? Would the FedEx personnel be gawking at that?
It's analogous to the P2P crackdowns where the assumption is that consumers are incapable of authoring content and only Big Media can.
And, yes, I'm a bit surprised and quite alarmed that the tampering laws that apply to U.S. mail do not apply to FedEx.
Now when they train the dogs to sniff things out based on region code, that will be news.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
CDs and DVDs do indeed have a distinct scent. I know this is going to sound weird, but take the cover off of your spindle of cdrs and sniff.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
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.
The Press Release instructs you to contact the following people for more information. I invite anyone concerned about this to do so as soon as possible.
For further information:
Eddy Leviten, FACT Head of Communications: 020 8568 6646/ 07768 057464
eddy.leviten@fact-uk.org.uk
LA: Kori Bernards or Elizabeth Kaltman: (818) 995-6600
DC: John Feehery or Gayle Osterberg: (202) 293-1966
Reminds me of that April Fools announcement "The film and music associations announced today they are going to merge. The new organisations will be known as the Music And Film Industry Association".
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Right. So I did as you suggested. And I don't know whats weirder. That my DVD spindle _does_ have a scent. Or that it struck me as smelling like celery ..
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
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
Yeah, they smell like waffles. Someone please back me up on this...
I will forever be a student.
> slip a blank ( convienently labeled, "MI-III" ) with everything they ship
/dev/urandom onto the disk. They'll probably end up spending over $10,000 per package by calling in the MPAA, the RIAA, the NSA, the CIA, and the DHS. After a few dozen false alarms, maybe they'll learn to stop invading customer privacy.
Instead of sending a blank, why not just burn 9.4GB of
FedEx was glad to help out on the test, I'm sure, but there's no way FedEx is going to let these dogs sniff every package.
I worked at a FedEx sort facility as a package handler for a few months, and I'll tell you right now, those packages sit still for a total of 5 seconds once those trailers are opened. They go from the trailer to the belt, to the package handler, to the drivers, in the truck and out the door. No drivers are going to stand there and let a dog sniff out every package for a potential DVDs, especially if they have an appointment delivery to keep.
I can remember mornings when trailers were late in getting to the terminal by five minutes and those drivers were whining so much it wasn't even funny. Now, I suppose they could be sniffed at some other point, but any delay will smear FedEx's "The World on Time" image. They're not going to be willing to do that, nor any other shipping company.
Besides, if they do cooperate, just ship it through the mail, or UPS, or DHL.
Not that I condone in any way the illegal distribution of copied movies.
Not that I condone the invasion of privacy either.
It's just a lose-lose situation all around.
Or even moreso if it's a homemade video of a certain "business" that you'd rather not show to the entire terminal.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
... 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.
aye... everything has a scent except iocane poison.
I'd stake my life on it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I think the most effective strategy would be to burn actual movies whose copyright has expired from archive.org and labeling them something like btlegmovrip3241.avi. Imagine how much fun they would have trying to determine the copyright status of all these movies.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
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.
"You know, to some degree, I do agree with you but I was being literal with the name of the organization, which is "Federation Against Copyright Theft"."
Reminds me of a comment somebody made here a few years ago:
"I downloaded an MP3 once, and Metallica was no longer able to perform that song!"
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
I don't recall signing any contract with FedEx that says they can search my goods
Sigh. By handing your goods over to them, you agreed to exactly such a contract. See http://www.fedex.com/us/services/intl/ground.html and follow the link for FedEx Ground Tariff. Buried deep in the Customs area is this:
"Inspection of Shipments. FedEx Ground, or its agents or brokers, may open and inspect any or all packages in a shipment at any time. This action may be initiated by FedEx Ground or at the request of government authorities."
It's put there so people think it only applies to stuff going through customs, but the description doesn't restrict it like that so anything goes. You can be sure there are similar statements in all the other shipping services. The fact that people believe they have government mandated privacy rights when handing things over to a commerical 3rd party amuses me. FedEx can do whatever the hell they want with your package, and the worst you can do to them is try to get back your declared value by following their claim procedure. You have no guarantee of privacy whatsoever when sending things through them.
I know this from...a trainer, we'll leave it at that. They have ways to make dogs indicate a "hit", using body language or subtle hand movements, etc., that part varies. They use that "technique" all the time when they want to search a car for instance even when the dog doesn't have a legit "hit". Just one of the many ways they circumvent the real laws. Here's another, carrying a "throw away". They will have access to a confiscated firearm, if involved in "an unfortunate shooting when the perp made a threatening movement" they can stick the gun in his dead hands.
They do stuff like that all the time.
Anyway, I don't have a big problem with them finding legitimate counterfeit disks, indications of mass piracy for profit. There's an easier solution, a few nations specialise in that trade, the authorities know who they are. Stop trade with them, cut it off.
The US and UK have borked their manufacturing base so much now through "globalism and wonderful 'free' trade" that they can't do that very effectively.
The movie industry could cut "piracy" off overnight, they choose not to. Retail sell disks for a few dollars, which they could do. They would rather bitch, get new laws, and insist on a hugely jacked up artificial price that in no way reflects costs and a reasonable profit margin. They still want as much for a new release on disk as they charged for a new release on tape 10-15 years ago. I mean, c'mon now, it is MUCH cheaper to duplicate movies now, and the transportation/warehouse, etc costs are much lower, and cost of movie production has only gone up a little, nothing like what these prices represent compared to their past cost of actual physical production.
In short, they have brainwashed themselves into believing their own bullshit. They honestly believe that 20 or 25 bucks for a quarter disk is a deal to the drooling masses. At three bucks they would sell BILLIONS of freaking disks. 3$ is an impulse item charge, people would be grabbing handfuls of them, not even bothering with most file trading or looking up "CD Leroy" at the flea market.
People are just not that stupid or naieve about costs anymore, not when EVERYONE knows how cheap it is to make dupes. Cost of movie production today-not a lot different from ten years ago. It has gone up some, but not that much. They refuse to drop prices on their offerings though, flat out refuse. All they want is lock on advanced tech for themselves, they want you to keep paying like it's 1990 or something. THAT is what wrong with their current business model and why piracy and file sharing is so common now. People have little moral qualms over shafting the mafia if it looks like they can get away with it, and that's all the **AAs are, mafia goons masquerading as businessmen. The **AAs-the companies they represent-screw the talent, screw the customer, and screw each other, it is one of the most shameless corrupt and bogus industries out there.
It's a cartel,and if that NY prosecutor always in the news wants to investigate price fixing,collusion, etc, he could start there with the DVD movie selling industry.
Someone needs to smack the Hollywood dweebs with the reality cluestick and introduce them to the concept of "volume sales" and how "net" is more important than 'gross" and how "serve your customer" is a better idea than "gouge-shaft-screw and prosecute" your customer.
They are so used to being in a scumbag industry and dealing with fellow scumbags and being around scumbags all day long they just ass-ume everyone is like that. And they wonder why people have so little respect for them or could give a care about their profits now.
Is that not the default Windows configuration?
from the MPAA press release:
It's true.. I have experience with this iocane poison...
you got rid of the dogs, but what about all the bums licking your floor?
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.
While all were legitimate shipments on the day
Translation: physical piracy really doesn't happen much.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Well, fortunately, the MPAA can't actually train the dogs to recognise the scent of pirated DVDs without first posessing pirated DVDs. And if they had any pirated DVDs, they'd have to sue themselves for six billion dollars. Logically, these dogs can only recognise legitimate DVDs, so the MPAA just has to search every parcel that the dogs don't identify.
Badass Resumes
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...
Being a customs broker, i am amazed at the volume of reply's citing privacy rights. With packages entering the US each and every one is subject to customs search, which is not payed by taxes but paid by the consignee or ultimate recieving party. Also when you send a package internationally or domestically you agree that it may and probably will be inspected by either mechanical or human means. Read the fine print.... If you dont want to open yourself to a 4th party inspection, dont use a 3rd party courier.... Also, every container entering our ports IS inspected, by means of an x-ray machine "VICAS". Customs officers are employed to inspect shipments, they are not wasting time inspecting shipments personally. They are doing their job THOUROUGHLY. I bet you wouldnt complain if the same could be said for the DMV.
How can this even be legal? What bone head brainless piece of shit at FedEx allowed the MPAA to do this? If I ship a DVD to some one I expect it to only be opened by one person, the recipient. This would be like the RIAA going to the post office and opening everyones mail looking for lyrics. Un fucking believable! Well, the MPAA has pushed me into buying even FEWER DVDs this year.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
While all were legitimate shipments on the day
...unless it's just a form of power-play. "See, you peons, we can stick our noses in your luggage and shipments just like the FBI can. We're all-powerful. Bow to us."
Translation: physical piracy really doesn't happen much.
Mod parent up. He hit the nail right on. MPAA picked a random day at FedEX, picked a bunch of packages with DVD's and found nothing.
I'd have kept my mouth shut in their place until I found something. Would've made much better propaganda. This way it just sounds idiotic. "We have this new great way of detecting recordable DVD's in shipping. It turns out it's useless, but we have it."
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
There's been great concern and priority put to training dogs to sniff out drugs, bombs, weapons and illegal immigrants. I've heard CNN doom and gloom reports over the years concerning efficiency of the above activities being detected. In light of such "concerns" that would threaten a shipping network, FedEx train dogs to detect DVD's.
The "press release" pointed out the DVD's found were all in legal packaging. Message is clear alright, FedEx could have invested in x-ray equipment instead. So FedEx are going to tear apart every package sniffed out to contain DVD's and hold up these shipments to figure out which are MPAA approved? Must have taken many snausages to get Flo & Lucky to additionally detect region codes.
Next, I wonder how long it would take and how much money FedEx can additionally waste to train Flo and Lucky to sniff out counterfeit Rolex watches?
I work at a film production place. We send out about 150 screening DVDs a year. None of which are counterfeit, ALL of which are protected by copyright / licensing.
So an agent of our courier opening and viewing them would be illegal or at least a civil offense on their part. The person sending them doesn't have the power to sign a piece of paper giving our courier or their agent permission to watch the DVDs.
Finding a burned DVD inside a sealed envelope is not reasonable cause.
At least I know who not to recommend as a courier.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
... carrying a "throw away". They will have access to a confiscated firearm, if involved in "an unfortunate shooting when the perp made a threatening movement" they can stick the gun in his dead hands.
I don't have a lot of information on the rest of your claims, but I do know this one to be utter BS, at least where there is at least one honest forensic investigator.
A "throw-down" gun will generally only have prints on the grip and trigger. A gun owned by a human will have prints all over the place: internal parts (put there when cleaning), magazine/cylinder, even each individual round of ammunition. It would be extremely obvious to investigators if a "throw-down" gun was used.
With respect to DVD pricing and piracy... if you can find a double-sided DVD-R at a reasonable price, I'd like to know where, the pricing I've seen is in the >$5 range. It's either that or pick and choose tracks using DVD-shrink... while the disk may be 25 cents, my time is worth something.
While you may not like DVD pricing, DVD piracy is NOT a serious problem in the USA because DVD movies, unlike music CDs just aren't all that expensive if you don't insist on movies newly released on DVD.
The hysteria about piracy is mainly so the movie industry can plug all Internet distribution channels they don't control, in order to freeze independents out.
They know as well as we do that we're only a few years away from making movies technically equivalent to current Hollywood product (NO, I DON'T MEAN LOTR, that's another few years) on conventional desktop PCs.
It's about control. They want to be able to say to people who want to sell movies to the public "Do it our way or not at all."
Any resemblance between this and the record industry, of course, is purely coincidental.
Tech Public Policy stuff