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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"
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.
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?"
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!
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.
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
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
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.
If it goes through Customs, they can open & inspect it.
And, in a seldom-utilized provision of international law, they can then urinate on it.
> 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.
more so then their bullying of their actual customers is their crippling of the user experience. My favorites include:
-Buying a CD and finding the Security tag glued to the paper insert such that if I were to remove it it would ruin the picture
-Buying a DVD, popping it in and watching the mandatory "you wouldn't steal a car" anti-piracy add. You know the one that gets stripped out when they make pirate releases so the only person who sees it are the paying customers.
-Paying $30-$50 for a special edition DVD or box set and being forced to sit through 15minutes of advertisements before I can watch the film
-Paying $25 for an SACD because of it's "higher quality" and hearing a constant hum in the background caused intentionally by their anti-piracy measures (because people who rip MP3s really care about the higher bit-rate version of the disc, and doesn't intentionally ruining the quality defeat the purpose of a higher quality format? They wonder why more people aren' adopting it)
I can't wait to pay $600-$800 for an HD-DVD player, and $30 per disc only to have my resolution crippled because the HDTV I bought last year doesn't feature the latest Anti-Piracy tech... I can't wait for my Windows OS to do the same thing because I don't want to upgrade my expensive and recently bought hardware either.
When will they realize that pirates will get the content no matter what measures are in place. there are well documented ways to easily thwart everything I've mentioned above. In the end all it does is cripple the end user experience.
The MPAA and RIAA have plenty of numbers that show how much they think they're loosing to piracy but do they have any numbers that show these ridiculous measures actually helping?
Collector's Edition
Yes there is. If a dog finds a DVD (s)he watches it and checks the label to see if it's an original, before writing a report on the findings, and, if necessary, testifying in court.
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.
Or better yet, the DVD installs the Sony rootkit! If that's not poetic justice, nothing is!
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
It's true.. I have experience with this iocane poison...
Make sure that you and your clients put the words "CONTAINS CONFIDENTAL TRADE SECRETS," on both the DVD/CD and the box. Then put a seal on the case that would indicate tampering. If they tamper with it you can argue that they violated your trade secrets, which are protected by law, and then haul them into court.
Another tactic would be putting "UNRELEASED COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL," or for a combination, put both.
If you have illegal material, then it is your problem. But if the material actually contains legitimate material then you could have some serious fun in the courts.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
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...
Why not link to some credible sources, Mr. Anonymous? Sure, everybody has a friend who was fucked over because the cops bent or broke some law, but unless you can come up with some hard, documented evidence, your assertions here are baseless.
... 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.