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This is How We Catch You Downloading
marto writes "All over Europe thousands of people are being threatened with court action for allegedly sharing games like Dream Pinball 3D on P2P networks. Now, documents obtained by TorrentFreak show details of the anti-piracy company's techniques for identifying alleged file-sharers on the internet and the gathering of claimed 'forensic quality' evidence for use in court cases."
They seem to be very sure that an ISP keeps accurate IP address records. Why do I feel that this will result in a semi-technical employee of the ISP pulling up who the IP Address is currently leased to? I feel sorry for all of the people with a wireless network using a SSID of "Linksys". Expect a letter tommorrow.
Does anyone else feel that it doesn't matter to the RIAA/MPAA if their lawsuits are accurate or not? If you send intimidating letters to people, some of them will settle even if they are innocent. You can then claim X number of settlements and declare victory.
This is a great scam for someone who wants to commit fraud on a national scale. Send people letters claiming that they breached copyright law and demand a settlement. Offer an opportunity for settlement for $2000. If they get a lawyer, drop any claim. If they ignore it, write it off. If it costs you a dollar per letter and 0.1% of people accept your "offer", a million letters will net you a million dollars. Maybe this is the new business model for big media.
In an age of Wintel-virus created bot-farms, spoofs, and easily cracked WEP encrypted wireless home networks (among other easy hacks), the only tech-savvy response to such . . . an accusation . . . is, "You've got to be kidding."
'Nuff said. And thanks to Merl Ledford III. (Pardon my edit, by the way.)
I find it so hard to believe that these companies continue in the thought that they can make these cases work.
Galen
In your face, and always right!
Couple of problems with their system:
1. It doesn't download the whole file from your system. Which means that they can't really show that you have the file, just that you say that you have it. Some anti-piracy systems are known for responding to any search request with a positive result but full of junk or ads.
2. It doesn't really prove it was you, it just logs it to an IP address (even if it was your IP, you are running a wireless network, right?)
3. It currently doesn't do bit torrent, just other P2P systems.
And probably alot of other problems - just did a quick scan of TFA to produce this post.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
Great story. Thanks for the warning, the minute they decide to come over here I'm going to see how many thing I can have their entire marketing board arrested for. "Forensic-Quality Evidence"? Any IT tech can prove that one false in court, so that's fraud against everyone you sold your software to. The people using it really don't have *any* admissible evidence either, because unless it can be readily confirmed with ACTUALLY admissible quality by a law enforcement body, they've got nothing, and will likely get themselves arrested.
;)
Of course, that's if the damn cops weren't dirty. Better solution is to just sleaze the White House's external IP so they'll all start suing the American government.
how would it stand in court if you had a wireless access point that was open. Just claim that someone else used your network without authorisation to download the offending files (assume that the authorities did not find evidence on your storage mediums).
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
10:1 the agency responsible for that news article is also a client of whoever makes Dream Pinball 3D
Sounds to me like quite a few people need to create some word documents of the exact same size as the files searched for, name them accordingly, then orchestrate a file sharing orgy amongst themselves to create a rather large target for this fool proof system. Flood'em with bullshit, then see how credible they are...
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
If you get a letter, if you dont have a copy of the item in question then go out and buy a "license" for it. When it comes to court, wave your "license" and what can they sue you for? End of court case. Everybody should do this.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Section 1201 makes it illegal to (1) "circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work" Seriously, couldn't a modification of Shareza effectively be construded as a DMCA violation? In this case, they are associating additional information with the work, which is an effective change in access to the work.
... then there could be no claim to the owner of the IP actually being the one downloading, regardless of whether the P2P app was actually proxying at the time or not. If all client->proxy communication was encrypted, then even the ISP couldn't sniff it and know what's going on, should they be subpoenaed for such information. Then the only thing the user would be guilty of is running an open proxy on the ISP's network, as opposed to being sued for millions. And if the ISP doesn't give a rat's ass, then there is no problem. Just a formal "tut tut" letter from the ISP. Or am I being naive?
While I don't approve of these methods (nor do I support current DRM methods/programs) pirating of software or music/videos is WRONG. In the end you are not ripping off the wealthy CEO or rich mega-band - you're ripping off all the average Joe's who work at company xyz and whose comensation and jobs are impacted by loss of sales of products. But go ahead and keep telling yourself you're sticking it to the "big man".
I used to pirate as well - I then got a real engineering job and became aware of the true number of people it takes to crank out a product - from middle managers - engineers - techs - secretaries - all the way down to the guys / gals in shipping. Every product that you subvert by pirating is money that does not go to the company coffers to cover wages / healthcare of these average folks. That was the end of my pirate days (but I still like to talk like a pirate).
Technology and market pressures will force the RIAA to change eventually as well as software companies forced to price their products more realistically.
Some could argue that pirating adds pressure to make companies change - but thats just another arguement to mask the fact that you are sticking it to average folks. Besides there's enough pirating going on in Asia / China to perform that function - I don't need to get my hands dirty.
Go ahead and flame on - I've got a firewall
Its not the years, its the mileage