Internal Emails of An RIAA Attack Dog Leaked

qubezz writes "The company MediaDefender works with the RIAA and MPAA against piracy, setting up fake torrents and trackers and disrupting p2p traffic. Previously, the TorrentFreak site accused them of setting up a fake internet video download site designed to catch and bust users. MediaDefender denied the entrapment charges. Now 700MB of MediaDefender's internal emails from the last 6 months have been leaked onto BitTorrent trackers. The emails detail their entire plan, including how they intended to distance themselves from the fake company they set up and future strategies. Other pieces of company information were included in the emails such as logins and passwords, wage negotiations, and numerous other aspect of their internal business."

Comments

Distance?

[Poromenos1]

They didn't just distance themselves from the company, they were going to relaunch it under a totally new name/look while still making sure it couldn't be tracked back to them. Doesn't this constitute entrapment?

Re:Distance?

[forkazoo]

They didn't just distance themselves from the company, they were going to relaunch it under a totally new name/look while still making sure it couldn't be tracked back to them. Doesn't this constitute entrapment?

Generally speaking, entrapment only applies to law enforcement and the government. RIAA still isn't there yet, thankfully. OTOH, a good lawyer could probably spin it as morally equivalent in principle for a jury.

Re:Distance?

[Atlantis-Rising]

You can't be entrapped in civil court. Entrapment is a statutory creation of criminal law. (Sorrells v. United States, although later supreme court precedent leads us to believe that rather than the statutory creation theory, they are moving more towards dealing with entrapment in a supervisory sense.)

Re:Distance?

[ctishman]

Regular people (like you or me or, in the court's eyes, the RIAA) can't commit entrapment. It's a police-only crime.

Re:Distance?

[Abalamahalamatandra]

As people have said, entrapment only applies to law enforcement types.

In the civil arena, I believe unclean hands would be more applicable, especially if you can trace Media Defender back to the RIAA via contracts and such.

Re:Distance?

[Wordplay]

I imagine that a clever lawyer could point out that they're attempting to sue over a transaction of which they were an active part. If I give you something outright, it would likely be impossible for me to sue to get compensation later. If I give it to you while wearing a disguise, I'm not sure that principle doesn't apply.

A -really- clever lawyer could point out that since the RIAA has been documented as giving their stuff away, that anyone downloading from anywhere might have a reasonable belief that it was coming from the "authorized" source in disguise. I don't know that it would fly, but seems like there'd be a non-zero chance of diluting RIAA's argument in the entire body of cases.

On a side note, seems like this would give the artists cause to sue the RIAA, for distributing their work in a manner that's likely not covered by their contract (though with artist contracts in RIAA member companies, who knows--maybe they have the right to give it all away for free.)

Re:Distance?

[Em Adespoton]

entrapment involves the use of a technique that ends up in a crime being committed that under normal conditions would not have happened. would the crime have been committed without mediadefender setting up a trap? in all probabiliy it would. It would just happen elsewhere. it isn't strictly entrapment but it sure is evil.

If they hadn't set up the website, this specific "crime" COULDN'T have happened.

Think about what you said, with respect to, for example, VICE squads:

"Would Joe have been busted for possession of marijuana if the cop didn't sell it to him? In all probability he would have; it would just have happened elsewhere."

This is incorrect. It would NOT have happened; he MIGHT have been busted for possession of OTHER marijuana sold by someone else. On the other hand, he might not.

All of this is moot anyway, as you can't be entrapped in civil court. If they passed federal charges (under the DMCA), then an entrapment suit might possibly be in order if those entrapping were operating "above the law". Otherwise, either THEY were committing a crime by distributing the content, or those downloading weren't committing a crime as they would have been given legal permission to download the data. The worst thing they could be asked to do if those distributing the data didn't have permission to do so would be to remove their copy from their computer by the court. Of course, in most sane countries, possession of copywritten data isn't a crime, infringement, or anything similar; only distribution is. All you can be sued for is breach of contract in civil court (assuming there was some sort of contract).

Re:Distance?

[dgatwood]

I'm glad you pointed that out. If this company, acting as an agent for the plaintiff (a movie company, for example), participated in the distribution of this content via P2P, then that constitutes a tacit approval of P2P distribution of the content by the plaintiff, thus making any further P2P distribution of that content potentially authorized by the copyright holder, and thus not a copyright violation.

Further, even if the person did not actually get it directly from an agent of the copyright holder, the rights holder distributing in such a way that causes it to be automatically redistributed by anyone who receives it (P2P) could constitute deliberate abandonment of the copyright (at least for the purposes of personal, noncommercial use) by the copyright holder.

I'm not saying that argument would necessarily hold up in court, but if I were in charge of a media company, I would not be doing anything nearly this stupid and reckless.

Re:Distance?

[Kjella]

In additional to only applying to agents of law enforcement or those acting as such, entrapment also only applies to making you commit a crime that you wouldn't otherwise make. So unless either the old or the new company did that, it wouldn't be entrapment. And if there was entrapment, it wouldn't have anything to do with their secret change.

Re:Distance?

[Alwin Henseler]

Yes I can see a prosecution of downloaders might be hampered by how they were caught, if they were handed (corrupted) files by copyright holders themselves (RIAA/MediaDefender or allies). But 2 points you may have missed:

1) On a Windows system I've once seen a URL being opened as a direct result of playing some video file. Maybe there still exist similar leaks on many (unpatched) client systems out there, that allow arbitrary code execution. In that case: install some monitoring software, gather system info, identifiable data an so forth, and voila: you might proceed to prosecute that person not for sharing the video you handed him/her, but for all other illegal activity done using that computer. Failing that, an inside look in a file sharer's machine could be very helpful for rights holders.

2) By feeding corrupted downloads to users, you make their experience less satisfying, so that said users may turn away from using things like BitTorrent. Or give BT / file sharing in general a bad reputation (as in: works difficult, downloads often crap). That would also serve your purpose (although I expect the result to be minimal unless you succeed in causing mayor disruption of the file sharing network).

--Don't tell me this sounds good, and you won't me on your team. Up yours! File sharing may be illegal in some cases, but in general I don't feel it's unethical, or that it helps society at large to prevent it. Try and convince me otherwise, with solid arguments.

Re:Distance?

[Sparr0]

Keep reading. He posits that the existence of honeypots lends credibility to the argument that *ANY* download *MIGHT* be coming from a legitimate source. We know the RIAA is distributing songs via P2P, and we know they are disguising themselves, so why can't we assume that the guy sending us music right now is really the RIAA in disguise, making it legal?

Re:Distance?

[budgenator]

if MD went to the potential downloaders and invited them to the site it would be like entrapment or more properly something like soliciting a criminal activity or conspiracy, but if the downloader came to them its a different critter. What I can't figure out is how you get people to the site without soliciting them.

Re:Distance?

[Goaway]

Now, I did not read the actual emails yet beyond the summary, but that contains a hint most people are missing. The goal of this isn't to entrap people for downloading material. That idea is dumb, everybody knows it, and these people aren't so dumb they think that would work.

No, what I see hints of is that their client would contain code to disrupt OTHER P2P networks. Their efforts to disrupt traffic are easily thwarted by blocking their IP ranges. What they might be going for is creating a botnet of sorts, so they can attack from entirely random IPs.

And that's the thing they don't want getting out at any cost.

Re:Distance?

[dgatwood]

I think you missed the point. The movie company knows that the very act of downloading it causes you to redistribute to other people. Therefore by distributing it in that fashion, they are agreeing to allow the content to be obtained with the knowledge that doing so will cause you to redistribute the content, and therefore they are effectively agreeing to allow you to redistribute the content.

Torrent or it didn't happen

[Anonymous Coward]

http://thepiratebay.org/search/mediadefender

http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/3806944/MediaDefender.Mail.200612.200709-MDD.3806944.TPB.torrent

enjoy !

Re:Torrent or it didn't happen

[erroneus]

Nothing like the slashdot effect to boost the speed of a torrent!

Re:Torrent or it didn't happen

[Goldberg's Pants]

Some interesting stuff in these emails.

in front of Bobby, Brad, Joe and Joe's infamous candy
bucket, there are a couple dozen CDs and DVDs totally up for grabs.
There's some pop, rock, rap, r&b, and more. It's totally free, so
help yourselves.

Gee, I'm sure THOSE didn't come from their corporate paymasters at the RIAA...

Re:Torrent or it didn't happen

[Jugalator]

This really goes without saying, as it is expected from people like them. Still it is unexcusable, what I found... They top-post on e-mails.

Hahahaha, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is big. But I doubt there will be any sensible outcome. What will likely happen is that this will be talked about for a couple of days, soon enough some other story will come along, and people will forget all about it.

Re:Hahahaha, no.

[spikestabber]

Their SSN's, home addresses, birthdates, wages and all are included in a spreadsheet attachment. They're screwed.

Re:Hahahaha, no.

[bladesjester]

Yeah, which is a more distasteful way of dying, sword or bullet?

Being crushed to death under a really fat guy :P

Re:Hahahaha, no.

[robbiethefett]

I'm betting right now there's a lot of employees of MediaDefender on the phone with their banks right now trying to find out why they bought several boats, cars, etc. in Russia, China, and god knows where else..

Re:Hahahaha, no.

[WaltBusterkeys]

I am wondering is whether we find their vigilante attitude towards stopping downloads more or less distasteful than

Their "vigilante" tactics have inspired a vigilante response, for better or for worse. It's the old "well, they started it" defense.

It's almost a little disgusting to see intelligent Slashdot readers encouraging identity theft and other federal crimes because they don't like the work that MD does. Obviously the vast majority of readers aren't doing so, but there have been full names of low-level programmers already posted in this thread and I'm sure far worse on other sites.

Do the ends (stopping MD's work) really justify the means? If this were the internal emails of an abortion provider we would all be disgusted if a pro-life group sent the names, addresses, and social security numbers of clinic secretaries and janitors around. But when it's the low-level functionaries of a hated technology group it's apparently OK and to be commended.

Just because a large number of people disagree with their work it shouldn't be OK to break federal law to discourage them. Yes, they may have broken federal law first, but the answer is not to raise the ante.

Re:Hahahaha, no.

[dreddnott]

Being crushed to death under a really fat guy :P

Does there have to be a CowboyNeal option in every poll?

They seemed to appreciate utorrent

[Aim Here]

If you read the emails, apparently utorrent is their favourite torrent client, since it allows them to 'interdict' torrents, whatever that means. Whatever they're up to, that surely warrants a campaign to boycott the client in favour of free software torrent clients where these sorts of deficiencies can at least be fixed by anyone who cares.

Oh, and the rumors of them being behind the spyware-encrusted ziptorrent were false; that one seems to have been MediaSentry's doing.

Re:They seemed to appreciate utorrent

[Aim Here]

That's not the problem. The idea is that it's easier for MediaDefender to disrupt bittorrent when the other users are using utorrent.

I don't know exactly what interdiction involves (it's a military term so I can make a guess) , but it seems to be an exploit in utorrent that they use to disrupt downloading of utorrent users. The less people use utorrent, the harder it is for MediaDefender to practice this 'interdiction'. MediaDefender seems to be quite worried every time a new version comes out, and they do try to get their customers to use utorrent when checking torrent sites to see that their files are being spoofed properly.

Some of this stuff could conceivably be used by MD's customers to sue MediaDefender for deliberately misleading them as to the effectiveness of their spoofing, like this one, when Amy Winehouse' record company wants to come and see how well they're doing:

From: Ben Ebert
To: Randy Saaf; Tabish Hasan; Ben Grodsky; Jay Mairs
Cc: qateam
Sent: Wed Jun 27 09:23:42 2007
Subject: Re: umgi

Neil is asking for this now, let's give him amy winehouse on the sites I listed below. We need to make
+sure they are usiny utorrent since our decoys are not as strong as they could be. If you can influence
+the methodology have them download the top 15 with a short time frame like 2 hours.

Oh, and their emails do show them avidly reading slasdot and Digg and the like whenever a scandal affects them. So hello and welcome, to all you grifters taking the piss out of corporate record executives in ineffective-but-lucrative-peer-to-peer-spoofing land!

Re:They seemed to appreciate utorrent

[Rufus211]

First google result for bittorrent interdiction is a resume from a former MediaSentry (a competitor of MediaDefender) director. The juicy bit (in case it goes away):

Director of Interdiction Development
MediaSentry Div of SafeNet
(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; SFNT; Computer & Network Security industry)
September 2004 -- November 2005 (1 year 3 months)
Lead team of software developers and systems engineers developing interdiction solutions for P2P networks.
Designed and deployed new Linux based 300+ host distributed infrastructure for p2p decoy distribution with automated command, control and monitoring. Designed and deployed network of filtered eDonkey servers. Managed roll out of new BitTorrent interdiction infrastructure. Implemented multiple p2p file trading clients on hosts utilizing VMware.

It seems like it's basically a distributed network of clients that feed garbage data, trying to slow down everyone's downloading. Sadly for them it seems that uTorrent defeated their work:

After more in-depth analysis...we've determined that the new version DOES affect our interdiction in a negative way. They've added a new "bt.ban_ratio" field that takes into consideration how many good pieces a client has uploaded.
[....]
We still see a lot of hash_check fails...but now the only peers getting banned are ours. This also affects MediaSentry's interdicted torrents. They are no longer effective on the newest version either.

Re:They seemed to appreciate utorrent

[Aim Here]

Not the whole story. They must have made it work again, because this one is dated September 7th, later than the email you quote:

Subject: RE: utorrent
From: Daniel Lee
To: Randy Saaf , qa ,
                torrents
Cc: Ty Heath , Jay Mairs

Yep, we checked yesterday and interdiction still works on the latest
version.

this is in the wild now

[unity100]

nothing can cover it up

Re:this is in the wild now

[iluvcapra]

one of still pretty credible news outlets.

Does anybody know how to submit it to them?

You can't submit to them, that's why they're credible :P.

Re:this is in the wild now

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Why the hell would anyone pay that much money just to engage in the online equivalent of pissing against a force 10 gale?

You assumed that the narcisstic, vain, executive types, having landed in their positions straight from their MBA mutual-adoration "schools", actually have an ounce of a clue. That is a very dangerous assumption. These people are the new artistocracy. Their time is spent in adoring each other's golf swing on exclusive golf courses and a byzantine dance of trying to ingrate themselves with the "right" coctail party crowd, which then, if successful, leads to their occupation of new, ever more obscenely overpaid, musical seats on various boards of directors, finally ending in a massive "golden parachute" payout.

Well being of the companies, competence and the financial gains of shareholders have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any of this.

Returning to the case in point: the overpaid clowns, not having a dimmest idea as to what they are doing (as the leaked emails plainly and painfully show), did what their kind usally does: played and postured at being "rent-a-cops" for their objects of adoration, the much better paid, and even more clueless, executives of various media conglomerates.

It is a little wonder that other buffoons would pay millions (usually comprised of some blue-collar worker's pention fund money) for this glorified circle jerk of "serious businessmen crime fighters".

One of the dimwits, seeing himself so much more competent that mere "techies", then proceeded to bypass all of the security measures of their email system by forwarding all of his mail to Gmail, and then used the very same account, with the very same password of "blahbob" to "investigate" one of the p2p sites.

In short, everything that is happening here is merely a sympthom of the state of total corruption to which the modern corporate world has descended, other indicators being known under the names of Enron, WorldCom, Haliburton etc.

Re:this is in the wild now

[19thNervousBreakdown]

And you, sir, are a walking, talking, slashdot-posting parody of yourself, who apparently learned everything he knows about the mindset and behavior of corporate officers from Jeep commercials.

Me, I learned it by interacting with them personally and professionally way more than I ever wanted to on a day-to-day basis over the majority of my career, and my experience is that the grandparent is dead-on. The whole system is some screwed-up incompetence engine fueled by narcissism bathed in the infinite oxidizer of a personality almost entirely driven by a super-ego that hasn't matured a day since puberty stopped.

P.S.
They all play golf.

Re:this is in the wild now

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I'm not sure if you're intentionally parodying those who blame all of the world's woes on this supposed elite that nobody can name or place, but you're doing a great job of it. If you're not then your worldview is incredibly warped and I prescribe one dose of leaving the basement and seeing the real world.

Real world? Basement? These goofuses are actually my long-time customers and I deal with them daily. That is how my worldview got "warped" as a result of what I know first-hand. And that is how you do not know, apparently. Not only can I place them and name them, I can even name their boats. And that is why I post here under a handle. If they knew that I know many of them for what they are, they would no doubt try to retaliate and that would be rather inconvenient. I can fix the overpaid stuckup buffoons' mistakes for top dollar when they believe all their screwups are the wisest moves ever and only need "little touchups", but it is impossible to do so when they know that I know what those turds of their making really are. It bruises their fragile egos and makes them very uncomfortable. I like to call this: "Customer Relations". The way the world works, kid. Smile and shovel. Your reward is laughing all the way to the bank.

And if you are one of those MBAs - keep in mind that this grinning consultant on whom you offload all your real work and who says "That would be no problem!" or "I can work within the framework of your plan!" and the like, might be someone like me and hold the same opinion of you as I do. You can tell by how skillfully he actually does what he needed to do to make it work, as opposed to what you told him to do, even though he agreed and nodded his head all the way. That and the fact that his bills keep going up the more your fuckups pile up, even though you did your darnest to hide them. But he never stops smiling and being nice to you, does he? It is so fortunate that you cannot read his mind. You would spend the rest of your days under your bed shivering.

PS - Nobody even plays golf anymore. Try adventure sports. That's where you'll find today's executives.

Muahahahahahaha! Hahahahaah! Ehrm.

"Adventure sports" would require these farts to actually exert themselves. Although some few do that, there are very good reasons why golf (followed by far distant second: squash) is king, which you do not seem to grasp: 1) one can do this in an exclusive, exorbitantly-priced, invitation memebership only, bar-equipped course right in or very near the city, which also provides an opportunity to flaunt one's wealth to all the peons 2) most execs are lazy farts who talk a storm about "sports" but usually restrict themselves to swinging clubs and copiously drinking and 3) one can discuss business deals in comfort while golfing, which is rather hard when, say, hand-gliding and what not. "Adventure sports" are what most of them would, without batting an ayelid, label a posh trip to, say, Africa or some other poor but picturescue place, where they ride around in well guarded and very luxurious RVs, once every decade or so.

I get cold sweat when I think on my days of youth, when I actually believed the same sanitized, propagandistic crap you seem to believe. But I don't blame you for your naivette. Unless you were born into this rarefied socialite club or are grudgingly admitted to it via marriage or some astronomically unlikely random coincidence (which you will prompty ascribe to your own infallable iron wit of which the mere peons are bereft of, as is the prevailing custom in those circles), you will learn eventually.

Re:this is in the wild now

[Anonymous Coward]

I get cold sweat when I think on my days of youth, when I actually believed the same sanitized, propagandistic crap you seem to believe. But I don't blame you for your naivette. Unless you were born into this rarefied socialite club or are grudgingly admitted to it via marriage or some astronomically unlikely random coincidence (which you will prompty ascribe to your own infallable iron wit of which the mere peons are bereft of, as is the prevailing custom in those circles), you will learn eventually.

This comment is like the GBU-28 bunker buster of reality. Man I wish you weren't right, but you are.

You should see defense contracting, with its own little circle jerk of mutual admiration with the goal of making lots of bucks while doing as little as possible. And it works! A bunch of ex-flag officers running the show with some so-called "engineers" in the mix performing "software maintenance" (in other words, working on shit that doesn't work, never will, and even if it did it performed a task that was appropriate in the chill of the cold war 70s).

Oh please DMCA this...

[BlueParrot]

Ok, normally I don't like the DMCA, but PLEASE , come on Media Defender, do DMCA this. Pretty please, with sugar on the top... you know you want to... I mean you have to beat your own incompetence somehow...

Re:Oh please DMCA this...

[Esion Modnar]

This is so good. It's like reporting your stash of marijuana stolen to the police. To DMCA it is to validate its contents. All they can do is claim ignorance and say it's all a hoax.

Re:Oh please DMCA this...

[MooUK]

Someone keep an eye on TPB's legal threats page - hopefully we'll have plenty of entertainment!

I wonder who did it

[unity100]

If it is a long hair working as a code grunt/sysadmin in their it lot, may god make his/her hair glitter with sunshine and rustle in gentle, warm winds.

Re:I wonder who did it

[CharonX]

According to the .nfo one of their employees had the presence of mind to forward all e-mail to their Gmail account. I guess all that e-mail protection stuff got in the way or something.
And the password of said account was *drumroll* blahbob.

Re:I wonder who did it

[c]

Nice. Real subtle. While you're at it, why not ask god to slap an "I did it!" tattoo on their forehead, too.

c.

Oh man it hurts.

[kwabbles]

I can't stop laughing. Oh hoh... my stomach. LOL

Inflation

[athdemo]

I thought these two were some of the best.

>From: Watson, Jeff (WBR)
>To: Octavio Herrera; leaks
>Cc: Bird, Jennifer
>Sent: Sun May 13 10:49:59 2007
>Subject: Re: # LP illegal album downloads

>MediaDefender folks - please let us know roughly how many Linkin Park albums have been downloaded since the leak. Album is called Minutes To Midnight. Thanks.

>From: "Octavio Herrera" >
>To: "torrents"
>Cc: "Gilberto Vargas" >, "Ben Grodsky" >, "Rick Moreno" >
>Subject: Fw: # LP illegal album downloads
>Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 15:24:59 -0700

>Torrent team, can you give us a sense of how many dowloads of tis album there has been off bt. We are not protecting on bt so the bigger the better.

I really hope Warner reads this gold.

Re:Inflation

[Jugalator]

I nominate this one:

Dylan,

I wouldn't normally e-mail you directly about MiiVi stuff, because a lot of what I say about this is total crap (so keep that in mind) and Jay filters the crap from the important stuff for you. Is there a way to add this hash/title to the porn filter explicitly?

hash=30755326A4E4B28E678BFF8CB2AF5FC4A4FBF710&i=3 (the title is Celebrity deathmatch: Korn vs slipknot and the exact URL is http://129.47.9.160/zonie/media.php?hash=30755326A4E4B28E678BFF8CB2AF5FC4A4FBF710&i=3)

I just flagged it as Other Terms of Use violation. It's a warthog (or maybe it's a big bushy dog, I can't tell) having sex with a woman and NOT a Korn vs. Slipknot mash-up video.

If this is a big deal, don't worry about it for now. But eventually this would probably need a tool of some kind for a Super User account to remove files from our indexing system all together. Seriously, since I know they also read Slashdot, and definitely this story: Find a new career where you can be constructive rather than destructive, and where it's not just a completely futile battle, for fuck's sake. Wouldn't you feel better about that, than helping out media companies with a flawed business model? Quotes like the one I did above is just sad. When you get to stumble upon animal porn while you work to solve an inheretly flawed business model in the "digital millenium", you know you're just plain losers. Wow.

Re:Inflation

[Jugalator]

NO WAIT. Oh my lord, this one is even better. There was a follow up, and this time I'll just include the headers. Disgusting! :-X

-----Original Message-----
From: "Ben Grodsky"
To: "Jay Mairs" ; "Dylan Douglas"
Sent: 5/11/07 10:39 AM
Subject: RE: naughty miivi hash for filter

it's the first bestiality vid i've gotten that didn't have any porn or bestiality key words.

i'm not offended by bestiality in the least and actually have seen a few of the horse and dog fucking videos already :p

cool. no worries though. it just freaks me out when key words couldn't do anything at all.

Torrent Download

[the angrybaby]

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3806944/MediaDefender.Mail.200612.200709-MDD/ GO! GO! GO!

Re:Torrent Download

[Wizy]

More fun, just leaked:
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3808220/Gnutella.Tracking.Database.Leak.INDEPENDENT

Unclean Hands

[bmo]

It was only a matter of time. Heh. Not a honeypot, eh? Rrrrriiight.

I just had to dig up an old post of mine that needed reposting...

Msg: 35175 of 43019 7/9/2007 4:27:06 AM Recs: 32 Sentiment: Not Disclosed
By: Boyle M. Owl Send PM Profile Ignore Add To Favorites
Legal Crows Come Home To Roost. Media Defender Says "We Didn't Mean It"

Media Defender backtracks on 'entrapment site'

It was all a terrible mistake

By Nick Farrell: Monday 09 July 2007, 07:14

THE MOVIE industry's private dick division has denied that it set up a P2P site designed to catch people pirating.

Media Defender admitted that it set up a site, called MiiVi, which looked exactly like a P2P site but claimed it was never meant to go live and was not designed to entrap pirates.

According to Ars Technica, Media Defender claimed the story has been blown far out of proportion and was started by sites like The Pirate Bay and TorrentFreak. MediaDefender's Randy Saaf told Ars Technica the story was "completely made up".

Well, not completely made up. He said Media Defender was working on an internal project that involved video and didn't realise that people would be trying to go to it and being a security company it didn't password-protect the site.

Saaf said that it was not an entrapment site, and Media Defender was not working with the MPAA on it. He claimed that the MPAA didn't even know about it.

However Ars asked theme why MediaDefender immediately removed all contact information from the whois registry for the domain if the site was so innocent. Saaf said that it was afraid of a hacker attack or people sending it spam.

It is not clear what Saaf was planning to do with all the details of would-be P2P users who might have logged into the site while it was accidently online or if anything was collected.

-------

Not an entrapment site? Walks like a duck...

Yeah, uh, Media Defender (nee Sentry) is in a heap of trouble because it gives the MPAA two things:

An unclean left hand and an unclean right hand. Media Defender's software installed a secret scanner that uploaded data on any "copyrighted files" to MPAA goons that may have resided on the computers of the dupes who went there.

You can't be breaking into people's computers and violating things like RIGL 11-52-3 by installing nefarious software. Many states have similar laws, and some states have laws specifically against spyware. "Evidence" gathered with unclean hands (this is an actual legal term and concept) angers judges to no end. Any "evidence" by the MPAA shown to be gathered by Media Defender now is under a very dark cloud.

That's why Media Defender is in deep shit. They committed felonies _and_ screwed their client. Thus all the "we didn't know people would actually _go_ to our honeypot"

Whoops.

--
BMO

-------

Fast forward to today...

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3806944/MediaDefender.Mail.200612.200709-MDD/

And now it's proven that they really _did_ set it up as a honeypot. This weekend has turned out pretty good so far.

Hats off to the leaker. Now the _feds_ might have something to go after MediaDefender and the MPAA with. Oh, what delicious irony, with cream and sugar.

--
BMO

Torrent Comments

[Dubpal]

Comments from the torrent for the leaked emails make for an interesting read also:

MediaDefender-Defenders proudly presents 9 months worth of internal MediaDefender emails

By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contains information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services.

A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account, and using the really highly secure password: blahbob

So here it is, we hope this is enough to create a viable defense to the tactics used by these companies, also there should be enough fuel to keep the p2p bloggers busy for quite some time.

*Wanted* "Noise" Spoofing Files

[none295]

Hello, my name is %20 and I collect interdicting spoofing noise files created by entities like Overpeer and MediaDefender. They are important 'art' objects which are in dire need of preservation. I had thought the methods and products died out when Overpeer went kaputz, but there are several e-mails in this collection which revive my search and preservation of these outstanding works of questionable merit. So if you happen to get a files from these folks which seems a little off, read this blog: http://noneinc.com/RIAAEM/RIAABlog.html and we'll host them for everyone to enjoy.

TIA!
%20

nice

[wwmedia]

its a very nice business model they have, one arm of the company spreads/facilitates illegal downloads the other arm collects protection money from media companies

them media companies are the bigger fools for doing business with this crowd, mediadefender's whole business model depend on piracy always being there

Are you sure?

[Xenographic]

I wonder if Ray Beckerman (NYCL) would be able to use this? He's been trying to get discovery about what MediaDefender is up to from the RIAA for ages, last I heard, and hasn't gotten jack. Considering they're now open to all, I wonder if they could be used in court?

After all, you may remember how MediaDefender paid someone to hack into TorrentSpy's email. I'd call this turn-about...

Re:Are you sure?

[Kelz]

One would imagine it would be extremely hard to get any of this into evidence. But might it be used to lower MDs credibility with a judge, so that the judge would force a discovery?

Re:Are you sure?

[SL Baur]

I wonder if Ray Beckerman (NYCL) would be able to use this? I doubt it, but I'm not a lawyer and he is, so I'd expect him to Do The Right Thing.

Actually, I'm in awe of him. I read the deposition he conducted earlier in the year against an RIAA "expert" witness yesterday (yeah, yeah mod me down for violating /. etiquette in not only reading TFA but also the attached links). Reading the transcript was even more fun than reading about SCO's chapter 11 filing. Brilliant man.

Re:Yes, but isn't that all in .rar format?

[the angrybaby]

Haven't you heard of http://www.7-zip.org/? Or am I just misunderstanding what your saying?

Student lawsuits...

[BlueParrot]

From: Randy Saaf
        Sent: Wed 11-Apr-07 21:24
        To: Jay Mairs; Ben Grodsky; Ty Heath; Ivan Kwok; Ben Ebert
        Subject: Fw: .edu filtering

        Team

        Universal is curiouse if we have any historical data over the last 3 months that show whether .edu IP addresses on p2p have gone down.

        They want to see if their lawsuits are getting students to stop using p2p (take a moment to laugh to yourself).

        Let me know if anyone has any ideas.

        R

        --- Original Message ---
        From: Benjamin, David
        To: Randy Saaf
        Sent: Wed Apr 11 18:11:50 2007
        Subject: .edu filtering

        How are you doing with this?
        Thanks
        db

OH RLY?

[BlueParrot]

Its a pity we can't see what these paracites earn. I bet they earn more than us sysadmins :( Why hide what this scum thinks its worth.

dev-salaries-18june2007.xls

Sergio A. Alvarez 2,916.67 $70,000.00
Linus Aranha 2,708.33 $65,000.00
Dylan C Douglas 2,916.67 $70,000.00
Benjamin Ebert 3,541.67 $85,000.00
Norman T Heath 4,791.67 $115,000.08
Sujay S. Jaju 2,708.33 $65,000.00
Andrew H. Kim 2,291.67 $55,000.00
Ivan Y Kwok 4,166.67 $100,000.00
Jed Z. Levin 2,291.67 $55,000.00
Gerald E. Rode 2,291.67 $55,000.00
Sheetalkumar Shah 2,708.33 $65,000.00
Nainesh N. Solanki 2,708.33 $65,000.00
Daeyoung Song 2,375.00 $57,000.00
Jeffrey W. Wang 2,375.00 $57,000.00

You were saying? :p

Re:OH RLY?

[budgenator]

"Hey why am i only making $55K and that dipshit Solanki is getting 65?" OOPs I forsee trouble in paradise.

Re:You are taking it the wrong way

[IgnoramusMaximus]

That is laughable given what many in the slashdot crowd consider evil. Developing closed source software for example.

"Evil" is an exaggeration. This dislike of closed-source comes from the fact that many here instinctively realize that information, such as computer programs, some forms of art, thoughts in people heads, large integer numbers etc, do not fall under the simplistic, inane attempts to mis-apply an economic model of a "market" to things which do not have the required attributes to become "private property" and thus are not subject to "trade".

This does not mean that we believe that artists and software developers have to go hungry, but it does mean that the method by which various misguided businessmen (usually the middle-men peddling the art/science and not creating it themselves) expect to make their living is fatally flawed (primarilly because it was constructed by businessmen for businessmen, with no regards to anything else) and, in order to be "successful", demands positively immoral and dangerous to society activities, such as attempts at truly totalitarian measures in efforts to control the flow of information in society.

As more and more people realize this, it is my hope that some time in the future this idiotic "copyright" regime will be replaced with something that actually reflects the nature of the information and the needs of the society.

My personal favourite for art, for example, is a modernized "patronage" system, with direct transfer of donations by patrons of art to artists themselves. Sicence is, as it should, funded by academia and as soon as the for-profit scientific journals are dispised of (efforts in this direction are under way) it will be free from this nonsense. Performance arts have no problem whatsoever since the performers are expecting payment for their labour at the gate. Etc and so on.

It is quite possible however that a better model exists. If so I am sure someone will come up with it. Whatever it is, the notions of "copyrights" and "patents" as they stand are ... well ... patent absurdities! And what we see is simple human reaction to that undeniable fact, particularly among the younger generation whose indoctrination in these mattters is not yet effective.

Interdiction

[E IS mC(Square)]

From ARSTechnica article in the "News" section of Mediadefender.com - http://www.mediadefender.com/news/20070318_ARSTechnica.pdf)

Four main methods

Decoying. This, in a nutshell, is the serving of fake files that are generally empty or contain a trailer. The goal is to make legitimate content a needle in a haystack, so MediaDefender works hard to ensure that its copies of files show up in the top ten spots when certain keywords are searched for. Everything about the file is tailored to look like the work of pirates, from the file size (movies are often compressed enough to fit on a CD) to the naming conventions to the pirate scene tag. With massive bandwidth and plenty of servers, the company has little trouble in getting these decoy files to appear at the top of search results, but decoying has a down side: the bandwidth. Because MediaDefender actually serves these large but bogus files, it incurs a significant bandwidth bill by using this technique.

Spoofing. Spoofing sends searchers down dead ends. MediaDefender coders have written their own software that interacts with the various P2P protocols and sends bogus returns to search requests, usually directing people to nonexistent locations. Because most people only look at the top five search results, MediaDefender tries to frustrate their first attempts to download a file in hopes that they will just give up.

Interdiction. While the first two techniques try to prevent searchers from locating files, interdiction prevents distributors from serving them. The tool is generally used when media is leaked or newly released; the goal is to slow its spread in those crucial first days. MediaDefender servers attempt to create constant connections to the files in question, saturating the provider's upstream bandwidth and preventing anyone else from grabbing the data.

Swarming. Though he acknowledges the BitTorrent networks can be hard to disrupt, Lee points out that MediaDefender can use "swarming" to make life more difficult for users trying to download copyrighted content. BitTorrent works by using a hash file to reassemble a file from many pieces, each of which may have been downloaded from a different user. MediaDefender simply serves up its chunks of these files, but instead of providing the proper data, its chunks contain static or nothing at all. When the file is eventually reassembled by the user, it may contain clicks, silent spaces, or odd skips. This can make the viewing/listening experience less pleasurable, but it's most effective with software downloads since even small errors can prevent programs from running.

not an internal leak!

[the Plums in us]

A lot of comments here seem to be talking about what might happen to whatever MediaDefender employee leaked the email and soforth. This info suggests that it's not actually a renegade employee at all, just a stupid one who's gmail account got cracked.

What's interesting about that (to me) is...

[Animaether]

okay, so Mr. Maris wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed in forwarding the stuff to a gmail account.

However... assume the the group/person releasing this did at least have a gmail e-mail address for this guy, he still wouldn't have the password.
Now, it's not a very strong password - it can certainly be cracked easily by a dictionary or even a brute force attack.

But if either of those methods are what were used - then what's up with Google apparently not stopping this in one way or another? E.g. maximum of N login attempts in a given time, notifying the rightful account holder of the attempts, etc.?

Re:What's interesting about that (to me) is...

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't Google's fault either. Maris signed up to a bittorrent forum using his gmail address and password, then accessed his account from an IP that was already marked by PeerGuardian.

Re:What's interesting about that (to me) is...

[IgnoramusMaximus]

The info on the intertubes is that Mr. Maris, otherwise known as The Putz of the Century, after having forwarded all his corporate mail to his Gmail account, signed up for one of the p2p forums he was "investigating" using that very Gmail address and the same password as his gmail account had.

And he did so from an IP address already known to belong to Media Defenders.

You figure out the rest.

Re:What's interesting about that (to me) is...

[Jugalator]

what's up with Google apparently not stopping this in one way or another That's because Google doesn't do evil, even in this case. ;-)

How to open the .mbox file from the torrents?

[samwh]

I see a .mbox file... how do I open it?

It'll never be admissible in court.

[glindsey]

If the emails were obtained by hacking somebody's GMail account -- as seems to be the case given the comments on the torrent file -- then they were obtained illegally. The RIAA's lawyers would immediately cry "illegal search."

IANAL, so I'd like to hear from somebody with real law experience either confirming or denying this, but that's my gut feeling.

Re:It'll never be admissible in court.

[bongk]

IANAL as well, but its my understanding that only Law Enforcement can perform and illegal search. If someone steals information and gives it to Law Enforcement its still admissible.

Otherwise, if I thought that the police were about to crack down on my best friend's counterfeiting operation, I could just steal all the stuff related to the operation and drop it off at the police station, basically nullifying all of it as an illegal search.

The defense's best tactic would be to claim that there's no way to know if the messages have been tampered with (unless the originals can be subpeona'd off MediaDefender's systems). Though I'm sure MediaDefender is in a tailspin right now trying to figure out if they should be purging all the email from their systems quickly, or if there's already a substantial likelihood of legal action - which would forcing them at this point to retain all the related email they have today.

Re:This is NOT good news

[sssssss27]

Somewhere along the way, or maybe it has been this way the whole time, people started using laws as ethics. Most people seem to think that if something is illegal then it must be wrong and if it's not illegal then it's probably fine.

I don't think anyone here is jumping for joy that a gmail account got hacked. Instead I see a bunch of people jumping for joy because a company that is seeming violating the law might actually have to suffer for its actions.

I think what happened here is for the greater good. Sometimes breaking the law draws attention to a problem few realized existed.

Re:Interdiction

[jandrese]

Don't Bittorrent clients do a checksum against every block downloaded? How can the swarming work? I know I have seen my client report that a chunk has a bogus checksum and re-download it. It's pretty rare but it does happen. It doesn't even have to be malicious, some people have dodgy computers that will silently corrupt data or frankly the TCP checksum isn't all that strong and it's not impossible for corrupt data to get through it.

Re:You are taking it the wrong way

[FunWithKnives]

Quite succinctly put. Specifically with regard to music, I find major fault with those who seem so up in arms about artists losing money due to p2p or torrent sites. Being a musician, I understand quite well that true artists do not create their music for money. Those who do are not musicians, they are simply business people hijacking an art form for personal profit. If we did away with copyright, and instituted a system such as the one you have mentioned, music would not disappear. Rather, as an art form it would become confined to those who love it for what it is.

Creating music is not a chore. It is something done out of necessity, more often than not. I liken it to an addiction, complete with withdrawal symptoms if neglected. In short, if a system like yours was implemented, music would not cease to exist. On the contrary, the trash would be weeded out and we would all be better off for it.

Re:Time to get to work boys -- Why?

[SynapseLapse]

These people aren't suing anyone. They're not the most professional of orginizations, but they're not evil either.

So far, all they really do is make is more annoying for people to share priated movies/music/games.

Hardly worth "link them to child porn and prostitution"

People like you disgust me.

Re:How to open .mbox -- Step by Step

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Step by Step with screenshots
http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=6436#500

Adeptus

Re:You are taking it the wrong way

[IgnoramusMaximus]

As an artist, I knew you would understand.

It kills me everytime when I hear some suit-clad MBA blather about "music industry" and its "products". Art "industry" isn't. The notions of "industry" or "commerce" are the very anathema of art. Art, as I am sure you know very well, is an intrisic desire of an artist to share his vision of the world, his insights and his feelings with others. Artists receive pleasure from satisfying their desire to express themselves and are, if they are indeed artists, pleased if many, many people enjoy their art for what it is.

Kitsch manufacturers and peddlers on the other hand, see their "art" as means to an end: to get rich quick. To them, making of their "art" is akin to manufacturing some throw-away plastic doo-dad on an assembly line. They do not produce art, they produce a "product". And they are of course in full agreement with the various pointy-haired MBAs and "intellectual property" lawyers: the sucker, otherwise known as the "consumer", must be made to pay, or else their scheme would not work.

You are of course completely right that the creation of art would go on in the absence of these conmen, as it went on throughout the recorded history of humankind, and even before it - as the drawings on cave walls testify, looong before the self-appointed would-be "captains of industry" appeared on the scene.

And of course I concur that if the vulgar profit motive were to be removed, the only people left to create art would be ... artists. Artists who, I am sure, given the modern dynamics of instant communication and easy money transfers, would receive enough donations to make a very comfortable living, enabling them to focus on their creative urges, but who would not become mega-millionare "wonders", whose wealth seems in reverse proportion to their talent and in direct proportion to marketing and media manipulation by their "handlers".

Gold Jerry, Gold!

[MtlDty]

I like this one. It seems the record companies try to get marketing data from illegal p2p downloads. ---------- Subject: Nicole Scherzinger Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:14:31 -0700 Nicole from pussy cat dolls has a single called "whatever u like". It's not selling well on itunes or playing that great on radio. A song called "Baby Love" just leaked (I don't know how long ago). Interscope wants to know if Baby Love is picking up steam on p2p. They need to make a decision by early next week on whether they should switch to this song as the single. Please get me a score comparison on Monday for these two tracks. Also, please put beyonces, fergie, gwen, and nelly furtado singles as comparisons.

You get the email from discovery

[Myria]

You're right that you couldn't directly use these emails in court, but that's more because it's hearsay than because it's stolen. However, during discovery, you could subpoena these particular emails to get legally sanctioned copies then use those in court. MediaDefender would have a hard time proving that they don't exist or that the requested emails are irrelevant.

warning: I'm not a lawyer.

HTML Format :)

[jrwr00]

Ive Converted the emails into HTML (With attachments)

http://jrwr.hopto.org/

Link to deposition

[SL Baur]

An article was just posted yesterday; here's the main link:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/14/1723253

A direct link to the deposition is here:
http://info.riaalawsuits.us/umg_lindor_070223JacobsonDepositionTranscript.txt

Warning: It's long, but inherently pornographic in nature as the "expert" witness isn't wearing any clothes by the end of it. Enjoy!

Re:So, hypothetically...

[scoot80]

Set up an internet account in their name and start downloading music and movies?.. From.. FreakTorrent?

now with actual phonecalls

[supplex]

MediaDefender-Defenders Date: 2007-09-16 MediaDefender-Defenders proudly presents some more internal MediaDefender stuff... more will follow when time is ready. MediaDefender thinks they've shut out their internals from us. Thats what they think. The past 9 months we also monitored MDs phone systems. This is just one phone call, 25 minutes long, with the New York State General Attorney. Spread it like the wind! Someone willing to transcribe this so the search engines will find it as well? MediaDefender-Defenders