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Oklahoma Security Expert Attacks RIAA Claims
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A group of Oklahoma University students has made a motion to vacate the ex parte order the RIAA had obtained compelling the university to turn over their names and addresses. In support of their motion was the expert witness declaration (PDF) of a computer security and forensics expert who essentially attacked the entire premise of the RIAA's lawsuit, characterizing the declaration upon which the RIAA based its motion as 'factually erroneous' and 'misleading.' Among other things he pointed out that 'An individual cannot be uniquely identified by an IP address,' and that 'Many computers can be connected to the Internet with identical IP addresses as long as they remain behind control points.' The students are represented by the same Oklahoma lawyer who recently obtained a award for $68,000-plus in attorneys fees against the RIAA in Capitol v. Foster."
I think this is cool...I really do. It's neat that some Oklahoma students are standing up to this. But under no circumstances do I wish the state's flagship university (University of Oklahoma) to be confused with Oklahoma State University. Not even with regards to wrestling...it just isn't worth it.
chillax137
Personally, pedestrian rights in particular, I like traffic signal cameras. But a suit against the cameras was successful based on Minnesota law that they photograph the license plate but do not identify the driver. Same difference I would think.
I don't know about that- a PICTURE of a car running a red light is pretty good evidence that the crime actually took place. Which means someone is guilty of comitting that crime. Since they cannot I.D. the driver (Facial recognition's not that good. Yet.), but they CAN I.D. the car (thru the plates), they send the notification to the registered owner of the car. Since the drive should know who was driving their car*, the driver can then tell the court who is actually guilty.
*unless it was stolen.
It takes all of 90 seconds with two wifi cards working on the problem at the same time - it often works better if two separate machines are used, one for the attacking, the other in a passive role to recover the pass phrase. Most cards are singular, so it would more commonly take days, weeks, or months on an averagely loaded system. That is why it is not so trivial to add a button to do it automatically. The parent makes this seem like a simple task, it is far from it. The current set of tools mostly require a far deeper understanding of what they do than just the info provided in documents supplied with those tools. A good understanding of networking, and WiFi in general, is also handy if one is a complete novice with little computing experience.
Each vehicle is registered in one spouse's name, and driven by the other. If the husband runs a red light, the ticket gets mailed to his wife. She contests the ticket, pointing out that the picture clearly shows a man as the driver. When asked to identify the driver, she responds, "That's protected by privilege," as you cannot be forced to testify against your spouse.
The "expert" said it may or may not work, depending on state and local laws, so YMMV.
Redundancy is good And also good.