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TorrentSpy Must Preserve Data In RAM For MPAA
Transient writes "Reaffirming a magistrate's earlier decision, a federal judge has ordered TorrentSpy to begin keeping server logs as it defends itself against an MPAA lawsuit. In her opinion, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper interpreted federal discovery rules broadly. ' Judge Cooper took issue with TorrentSpy's argument that data in RAM is not "stored." She noted RAM's function as primary storage and that the storage of data in RAM — even if not permanently archived — makes it electronically stored information governed by federal discovery rules.' Given that TorrentSpy has limited access for users in the US, the ruling may be moot. But it does set a precedent for other, similar cases. 'Under this interpretation, any data stored in RAM could be subject to a subpoena, as at a basic level it is a "medium from which information can be obtained" just like a hard drive. '"
"Funny, the data was in there before I pulled it out of the server."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
...as the data that is put into RAM is read and erased, can they (Torrentspy) be charged with destruction of evidence?
Living With a Nerd
So can they convict me for destroying evidence because I turned off my computer?
Wouldn't that apply to streams also? They're also stored in RAM, after all..
From the PHP manual: "Also note that it is your responsibility to die() if necessary."
Does this mean that turning a computer off could be considered destruction of, or tampering with, evidence ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Does this mean they can subpoena the contents of the white board in conference nine at 7:23 AM on June the 13, 2005?
Why can't the court grasp the transient nature of the content of RAM?
-Peter
Sort of like the uncertainty principle. In order to "store" RAM to a permanent medium, RAM will change to write itself to the medium. This reminds me of when I testified and tried to explain that from a programs perspective, VM looks just like RAM, just slower. I never managed to convince the prosecutor. Clearly the legal system hasn't a clue about tech.
is what the Judge actually did to learn what RAM does and the suitable means to archive it. Was it the responsibility of the plantiff or TorrentSpy to educate her on what RAM actually does? Or was she left to her own devices as to how she sees RAM fitting into information storage, namely the sheer amount of data a single stick can hold?
import system.cool.Sig;
Doesn't Vista encrypt some of it's data in RAM (DRMd media etc)? If Apache was modified to set the memory used for logs to be DRMd, would this make the data inaccessible?
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
tail -f /dev/mem > memlogs.txt
I say have fun with that one.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
If RAM can be subject to subpoenas, and it's illegal to destroy information that may later be subpoenaed, which is my understanding is true thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley, that means that all computers used by all companies must keep a permanent record of the contents of computer RAM at any given time.
I guess it's time to buy stock in storage companies. I wonder if this also applies to cache RAM? There could be an infinite loop in there somewhere...
So... you have to be able to log everything that is in ram as well now
so we need faster processors and bigger hard drives to handle the extra load.
A normal log may not be that big, but when you get to a few months full of RAM logs for a busy server... I think this precedent will get overturned when they find out just what they are asking for.
I want to to write down every single thought you have for the next 10 weeks...
I am surprised that the costs issue was not addressed. Generally, and if I recall, that if there are costs on on electronic discovery, that cost can be shifted on to the requesting party.
For this the costs would be expensive.
There are two ways to archive this:
1. By snapshotting the ram.
2. By rewriting the server code.
By snapshotting the ram, it would require a program with root access to snap this and lots of data to be archive.
By rewriting the server code, it would take months to rewrite it properly and test it. Then they would to license the IP2location database to perform lookups on the IP address filter out US addresses. I suspect that this filtering would require one or two more computers to perform this.
Fight Spammers!
Which makes sense. Imagine that I do all my shady accounting on some Post-Its, then turn their contents into a bunch of spreadsheets and a ledger that look legit. If my accounting documentation is subpoenaed and I don't produce those Post-Its, and the court finds out about their existence, I am in deep shit for destruction of evidence and/or failure to keep required records. I certainly wouldn't get far with a claim that the Post-Its were a "temporary storage medium" or something.
I believe the fact that TorrentSpy is being compelled to keep server logs by the MPAA is fucked up on a few levels. I just wanted to point out that the last part of the summary is not as profound or earth-shaking as it might seem.
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
That's unfortunately part of the problem. I've dealt with plenty of "justice" people, from District Attorneys to Police Officers, that think they know what technology is all about. This judge is confident in her understanding of how computers work, and no justice-evading "thief" is going to outsmart HER. I'll bet the judge can't even program her VCR.
The goal here is not to have sensible law, it's to have laws that you can't avoid breaking. i.e. you're instantly guilty. Courts and police like this. Better "understanding" of the technology will just allow them to write nastier guilty-by-virtue-of-the-way-the-tech-works laws.
The only real solution is to become the people writing the laws. Support your local pirate party, I guess.
What the judge is saying is that just because you keep a file in RAM and not on on disk, you can't claim you aren't "storing" that data.
The magistrate judge didn't buy that argument, and in her opinion reaffirming the magistrate's order, neither did Judge Florence-Marie Cooper. Judge Cooper took issue with TorrentSpy's argument that data in RAM is not "stored." She noted RAM's function as primary storage and that the storage of data in RAM--even if not permanently archived--makes it electronically stored information governed by federal discovery rules. TorrentSpy: "We could log that information, but we choose not to."
Judge: "Choose to do so from this point on."
RAM isn't exactly relevant. This isn't some kind of temporary storage situation. This is a deliberate decision on the part of the software author. Now if you want to claim rights are being trodden upon, be my guest. But claiming that all RAM is now state's evidence is a stretch.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
would you have to log what the program that is in RAM is doing?
I.E.
Process A is in RAM, writing to a log
Process B is writing to the log what process A is going through writing
Process A sees B and starts logging what B is doing
... the contents of the RAM and send it to them COD. I wonder, how much a few thousand tons of paper costs to ship? That should keep them busy for a few hundred years.
The commentary on this article is extremely misleading. The judge in this case has ruled that because Torrentspy can log the IP's of requests to the server it must do so and hand them over to the court. This is absolutely not about the judge misunderstanding the nature of RAM and ordering them to hand over a bunch of DIMM's, yes judges can be technically ignorant but the courts are not stupid either you know. The judge is saying that because this data can be stored it must be. This actual ruling is of course far, far more disturbing than any technical ignorance could be, as it requires torrentspy to effectively spy on their users on behalf of the MPAA, something which should surely be illegal in itself, nevermind mandated by a court of law.
This happened to an E-Gold broker recently, which the government robbed of several heavy 6-7 figure accounts. If memory serves me well, the account holders were not guilty of anything merely "suspected" and were not convicted of anything, but their "assets" were seized and liquidated.
The reason? The broker in question is one of the few who has not yet fled to the free market of international waters. They kept their servers in the US. Lesson 1. Globalism is not just for the big boys. In fact its friendlier for little players. You, me, mom and pop downtown, we're all the ones who should incorporate abroad if we do it at all.
Lesson 2. Torrentspy should work actively with friends from abroad, preferably from some nordic country or some place not friendly to the gestapo tactics of the EU, and US, China, etc. Right now, for the time being, South America seems allright, as would a drilling platform in the middle of the ocean (or close to shore, your preference). If you choose such a path and have money, hire good security, if you don't then you'd best be a good shot, and a great swimmer, you may need to defend such a place, especially if you declare it a separate independent nation or sovereign territory. After that, with a policy of neutrality and free trade with ALL who come to you, there is a fairly good chance you may even draw some of the Linux "community" to you, especially those who seek a place to host that is not "restricted" by either the East or the West.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
What? No, that switch I hit by the door as you were dragging me out in cuffs didn't turn off the power. I have no idea what that switch does. Oh, it did kill the power? They must have installed a kill-switch by accident! What kind of dumbass builders put in a kill switch in residential buildings?
Folks, From TFA, we see the following, "[Torrentspy] argued that the log data wasn't available, since it existed only in RAM, and as such, was never stored". The judge, being nobodies dummy, accurately noted that this isn't an impediment to logging that data in the future and has ordered them to do so. Funny jokes about handing over DIMMs aside this is a totally reasonable concept. How many of you all think it's actually impossible to log a number that is in RAM? Are all you /. l33t programmers incapable of writing a variable out to a file?
People that don't know anything about a certain subject are making rules and precedents about it.
"It's en dem ma-sheeens! We git da masheeen, then we git who was a-stealin our movies! We will git us sum cypherers to figger out dis and weee'l put 'em all in jail!"
Ok, they don't all talk like that I'm sure. But you get my point. This is ridiculous and this judge and others that put this little gem of a ruling together should be openly ridiculed at every opportunity.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Oh, I'm sure, many of you are going off on this whole RAM thing as if that was the point. What you are missing is that this ruling was meant not really believing that RAM is the key, but the fact of the matter that, for torrentspy transactions, they do not, for just the exact reason this lawsuit began, log connection information, even though that information does pass through the RAM of the system. They focused on RAM as it is, in this case, the only memory device that is realistically capturing any connection information. That connection information is what the prosecution wants. Ergo, this order is, for all intents and purposes, forcing torrentspy to adjust their software to capture the connection information. That's really all it is. The courts, I'm sure, are aware of the transitory nature of RAM, and, through this order, are only addressing that the memory in RAM be captured. The reason they bring this up is because torrentspy, all along, claimed they have no logs that capture connection information, so potential downtheroad supoena's of torrentspy users cannot occur, plsu an audit trail of abuses cannot be captured. This ruling basically says 'Nice try guys, but you now need to close up that loophole'. Seriously, you all go off on the nature of RAM and stupidity of non-technites, but you fail to grasp what this ruling is really about, enforced logging of details that should be captured but the fact that it isn't is 100% an attempt to cover up any illegal activity going on with their servers/services abd leaving no trail to trace. If this was read for what it really means 'Court orders torrentspy to modify software to capture all connection info', which would be more outside the realm of the court to order, it wouldn't even raise an eyebrow save for the tinfoil hat privacy types. But that is outside the mandate of the court, so they just said what they need and now it's up to Torrentspy to figure out how to do it.
"The goal here is not to have sensible law, it's to have laws that you can't avoid breaking. i.e. you're instantly guilty."
...I'm, ...astonished.
"The only real solution is to become the people writing the laws. Support your local pirate party, I guess."
That's just,
You could, you know..., not participate in the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials?
How hard is that? Stop intentionally participating in the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials. Don't push the button to connect to that torrent. Don't click the torrent link.
If these simple, basic acts of self control are truly so difficult for you, I suggest you seek psychiatric help immediately.
Your statements are not reasoned. They are not radical. They are the statements of a 12 year old child who feels he is entitled to take what he wants and do as he pleases without regard for the rule of law and the rest of society.
Just grow up. It's that simple. Grow up and take responsibility for your choices and actions.
The ruling is that TorrentSpy must, in future, maintain records of IP information. How is that meant to help prove or disprove the case that the MPAA are trying to prosecute, which must, by definition, have already occurred? This is not discovery - but an imposition on the way the software is to be re-written. Or can the MPAA say that they think that TorrentSpy will commit an offence sometime in the future and they now want to have the means to prove it?
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
I fear that the above scenario is not that far off.
The summary of this article sucks, most of the comments here are nothing more than ravings based on a bad summary.
The judge wants them to start logging IP addresses. But a judge can't just order anyone to do anything they feel like, there has to be some precedent or law saying they can. This judge said in legal terms, stuff in RAM is stored data. Then he applied rules based on law that covers stored data.
It's like if a company has a policy to burn documents every night, but the judge orders them not to burn documents until the end of the case. There's no expectation that burnt documents can magically be unburnt.
When the crime of copyright infringement carries a higher penalty for breaking in to other computers, it will be far smarter for the 'criminals' to hack your computer and use it to share files. Now you have to prove you didn't do it. :)
How about giving them a complete memory dump of RAM, letting them sort out what the data is that interests them? Can the judge require them to preserve it in pretty formats?
This whole order is such an overreach by this judge, and the US Judicial system, that an immediate halt should be put to it this very instant.
And just suppose, btw for the sake of argument, that the country were TS is located prohibits export of personal data due to privacy laws? Then who wins?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If you shut your servers down, then you are no longer offering any service and the prosecution has already won.
The decision does not mean that past RAM contents must somehow magically be retained, it merely rejects the defense that because IP addresses are currently only stored in RAM, that they are not possible to save. So basically in this case, they must start logging from RAM into a file. If they disobey that order, it is essentially destroying evidence from that point forward. This is no different from a corporate email system that under normal circumstances destroys email older than x days, and due to a court order is required to no longer destroy email until the case is resolved. The judge wouldn't be saying the normal policy of destroying email is in conflict with the order, but if they disobey or fail to comply going forward, they would be a seriou problem.
-David
TorrentSpy has announced that to comply with the MPAA Puppet^W^W impartial judge orders, all of its servers' RAM cards will be replaced by WOM cards. WOM, or Write Only Memory, is the latest cutting edge technology designed to ease the learning curve of geek challenged courts and remain compliant with discovery demands. All digital access information to their website will be safely stored in the WOM cards, readily surrendered to the courts. TorrentSpy has also announced implementation of the Fair Use Circumvention Kit at a later date but has declined to provide further details, despite curious snickering under their breaths.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Your honor, a tiny portion RAM log of the time in question
...
2007.08.28 15:40 set bit 1243434
2007.08.28 15:40 set bit 1243435
2007.08.28 15:40 cleared bit 1243436
2007.08.28 15:40 set bit 1243437
Obviously guilty!
OK, so it is now required that they log the contents of the RAM for future analysis. That means the data must be read from RAM and stored somewhere.
Now, the odd thing here is that, apart from being impractical, the logging company may run into legal issues if they aren't careful of exactly *what* data they're pulling out of the RAM and storing. What if they pull out the wrong section of memory, end up with an AACS decryption key, and get sued for circumvention of a copy-protection mechanism under the DMCA? They were just ordered to by the court, sure, but it's got to complicate matters. After all, the MPAA and co. are already looking at anyone who visits the website; do you really think they'd overlook the opening that would give them?
I think basically the judges knows that it is easy to log IP addresses, and he just didn't buy their argument.
IANAL, but the legal argument I believe is that RAM is a physical representation of information, even if temporary, and therefore it is subject to discovery.
I could be wrong though, because IANAL like most people here. It is funny that a lot of people are calling the judge an idiot for not understanding the technology when this is more of a legal issue (which supposedly the judge is an expert in.)
(I think corrupting the IP addresses like you mention would probably be contempt. The true IP address would be stored in RAM at a point before you corrupted it, and you be responsible for providing these, not something you later obfuscated.)
Does this mean they can subpoena the contents of the white board in conference nine at 7:23 AM on June the 13, 2005?
YES, if the court gives you notice that you must preserve everything that is written on the whiteboards in all conference rooms, then they will expect you to have it preserved, and produce it when ordered.
Take a picture, log the contents, don't erase it - whatever you need to do to preserve the information. Saying "But I erased it!" isn't going to fly when you are subject to a prior order to NOT erase it.
Why can't the court grasp the transient nature of the content of RAM?
It sounds like the company was saying "But I really don't have it, it's just in RAM". That doesn't mean you don't have the information.
Note that this is a prospective discovery order - YOU WILL HAVE THE INFORMATION IN YOUR POSSESION, I REALIZE IT'S TRANSITORY AND YOU NORMALLY DON"T PRESERVE IT, BUT YOU CAN PRESERVE IT, AND I'M ORDERING YOU TO PRESERVE IT.
What's so hard about that?
Do they too fall under this ruling? After all, they do "store" information, for a while, and then it gets wiped. Do you think that companies should preserve ALL whiteboard writings.
What about errors, if I write something and make a spelling error, I erase it and retype it. Should that too be recorded?
What about the information of time. A whiteboard is changed over time as you add new data to it, this timeline could be important, WHEN was the information on the whiteboard added, the time the line "Make sure the brakes work" is added to a car design discussion is important if it turns out the brakes failed on the production version.
So to truly and fully comply with discovery rules EVERY tiny bit of data, now matter how fleeting, has to be recorded, that means video cameras everywhere. Not exactly practical is it?
Torrentspy doesn't log IP's for a reason, there are too many and it just doesn't need them. So their entire setup just uses the IP information as temperory data, like a scrawl on a whiteboard or even a mental note, and discards it when it doesn't need them.
In theory they could offcourse log it, but because something is possible in theory, doesn't mean it is possible in practice.
Lets turn it around, the MPAA is a business and therefore all its business discussions should be recorded, but who is to say they do not talk business at home with their spouses? I say the only way to be sure is to video-tape them 24/7, just to be sure EVERY business related data is recorded as required by law.
Your Post-Its would be closer to a tmp file.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Do you want to rank this judge's performance in a public manner? Visit The Robing Room and let your thoughts be heard. Just be sure to get her name and state correct. Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, Federal Judge, California.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Requiring RAM info to be logged and surrendered is analogous to requiring a company to use video to record all work conversations/activities and to turn the tapes over to a litigious competitor. Recording all such conversations would place a huge operational burden on a company, and what might the competitors do with that information? Would it be a crime to have a conversation, or move a chair, if the recorder weren't turned on? The judge does not understand computer technology or the practicalities of enforcing media IP rights. Despite massive litigation by the MPAA, ultimately the judicial system had to allow VCR recording for personal use, because, among other reasons, it is unregulatable. And when a judicial system overreaches, it loses credibility in all domains.
Birth is the leading cause of death.
Could it be the same guy that wired that extra-heavy-duty electromagnet to get powered when the rest of the house goes black due to the kill switch?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What's really fucked up is how this U.S. court magistrate, and now Federal Judge Cooper, think they can order new evidence to be created after-the-fact. Not to mention how fucked up it is that a U.S. court thinks it can give any order outside their jurisdiction to TorrentSpy located in the Netherlands. And how further fucked up they must think TorrentSpy must be to violate European privacy laws which prevent them from keeping such logs against their published policy, which carry much harsher penalties than some token U.S. ruling.
Truly you are correct, the most fucked up thing about this whole case is how one company (MPAA) can force a change in I.T. policy on someone else (TorrentSpy) all the way in another country!
{ - Generic Guy - }
The other 97% of deforestation is due to the locals and the Brazilian government. ~60% cattle ranches, ~30-33% agriculture (~30% subsistence, ~1-3% commercial), and ~3% urbanization. (I found a pretty good link here, which has a nice pie graph, which is where I'm pulling these numbers since I'm not at my home computer with all my bookmarks: http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html)
So anyway, stop blindly believing hippie FUD from the the 60s and do a few minutes' worth of research on Google. Shit, I just looked at the wikipedia article and even they have a pretty good section on Amazon deforestation. So yeah, go ahead and use all the paper you want, it's actually GOOD for the environment and has been for the better part of a century. (Oh, and totally unrelated, but if you're still believing the hippie FUD about nuclear power, you'll want to do research on that too.
In spite of all of the ramblings to the contrary, it isn't technically difficult to add a logging feature to a piece of s/w to collect and store IP addresses, or other sorts of data currently only held in RAM. This assumes that the operators of the service can either modify that s/w themselves, or contract the vendor of said s/w to add this logging feature. In the case of proprietary s/w, with licensing provisions prohibiting reverse-engineering or modification, the latter may be the only recourse.
Now, lets suppose the operators of TorrentSpy contact the vendor, request that logging be added per the court's request and the vendor replies, "No".
Have gnu, will travel.
>>The cost of paper may build up to something considerable after the first couple seconds...
;-P
that depends entirely on the font and the size of the font being used
All jokes about RAM aside, this is the root of what's being said here - the addresses are in RAM, therefore it can be logged (and should be under the directions of the court in this case). They aren't telling them to record all data in RAM all the name, nor are they telling them RAM is a persistent medium.
Walk over and pull the plug!
Now see what's stored!
Stupid Judges and their ignorance.
Data is no more "stored" in RAM than light is "stored" in a bulb.
Science tells us that data currently in RAM is ultra-temporary and in a lot of cases prone to error.
They're using their grammar skills there.