Leaks Prove MediaDefender's Deception

Who will defend the defenders? writes "Ars Technica has posted the first installment in their analysis of the leaked MediaDefender emails and found some very interesting things. Apparently, the New York Attorney General's office is working on a big anti-piracy sting and they were working on finding viable targets. It also discusses how some of the emails show MediaDefender trying to spy on their competitors, sanitize their own Wikipedia entry, deal with the hackers targeting their systems, and to quash the MiiVi story even while they were rebuilding it as Viide. Oh yes, they definitely read "techie, geek web sites where everybody already hates us" like Slashdot, too."

Comments

Mixed feelings...

[KingSkippus]

You know, I hope people keep this incident in mind if they are considering going to work for a disreputable company, a company whose primary missions is screwing people, especially when those people that are being screwed have a Robin Hood-like reputation and are a lot smarter than you. The sad fact is that there will undoubtedly be a lot of collateral damage due to this episode. As pointed out in the Ars Technica article, a secretary who happened to be working for MediaDefender whose worst crime was answering phones and getting coffee for his or her bosses now has the social security number, home address and phone number, and salary information out there for everyone to download and look at.

I think that an even worse fallout of all this is that companies are going to be even more anal about stuff like e-mail policies and such. At my company now, they content-block us from accessing Gmail. I'll be that companies will start doing crap like blocking employees from even sending e-mail to Gmail now, the attack vector that allowed these e-mails to get leaked.

But still, even after having said all that, I love it when an evil company doing evil things gets their due like this. It's entirely possible that MediaDefender might go out of business because of this. If you're one of their customers whose detailed contract information got leaked, how likely are you to do business with them again? Although it occurred in a totally scummy way that I just can't endorse, I can't deny the end result of big media companies being a little more skittish to hiring these outfits to do their dirty work is a Good Thing.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[dc29A]

MediaDefender wasn't only screwing people. They were screwing their clients as well (the big labels). I read a few of their emails, and one particulary caught my attention. I think Universal asked MD to produce stats about illegal downloads after they started another wave of lawsuits to see if these lawsuits have any effect on downloading (they were hoping it goes down).

One MD scumbag then forwards this email to his lackeys and he adds: "If you want a good laugh" to the forwarded mail.

These scumbag know that what they are doing is worthless, it doesn't stop piracy, but they both piss off users and rip off their own clients.

They also received one confidential study from a think-tank in Washington DC, the nice presentation had some extremely disgusting stats: only about 17% of the piracy comes from illegal downloads, the vast majority comes from people borrowing CDs ... so much for the MAFIAA's claims.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[packetmon]

You know, I hope people keep this incident in mind if they are considering going to work for a disreputable company What you consider disreputable others consider reputable. Most businesses are in the business of making money, bottom line. There was a show I was watching yesterday where hot chicks were baiting married men to see if those men would cheat on their wives. How disreputable! To think that women would stoop so low to entrap someone will to do something illegal just makes me so mad.

I think that an even worse fallout of all this is that companies are going to be even more anal about stuff like e-mail policies and such. At my company now, they content-block us from accessing Gmail. Boo hoo. Work is work not meant for personal stuff. Although some companies may allow it, you're there to do a job not worry about your Gmail account so grow up and get real.

I'll be that companies will start doing crap like blocking employees from even sending e-mail to Gmail now, the attack vector that allowed these e-mails to get leaked. Poor policies allowed the company information to get leaked. Why the hell procedures weren't in place to prevent corporate email from going out on something other than a corporate server is puzzling but again, you're throwing personal feelings into the mix. Which part of *your* work contract specified "Check your Gmail hourly for personal mail". I don't think there is any corporate policy which specifies that.

But still, even after having said all that, I love it when an evil company doing evil things gets their due like this. Evil things like what? What they were contracted to do. Personal feelings aside would a security engineer at your company be an asshole because he decided to block all and allow in specified hosts? Its his job is he an evil ass?

Re:Mixed feelings...

[gravos]

the vast majority comes from people borrowing CDs

What a second... you mean that those damaged CDs that don't work when you put them into a computer may actually help to curb piracy in some appreciable way? I am shocked and awed.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[lanswitch]

Most businesses are in the business of making money, bottom line
and at the bottom line you'll only find the bottom feeders.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[badenglishihave]

I do find it funny that people will be paranoid about GMail now... the only reason these MediaDefender-Defender guys got in is because they knew the password. Perhaps GMail is more insecure than other email providers; however, afaik they didn't hack into his account, they just found out his password from another site and used it to log into his email. Not exactly GMail's fault.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[yoder]

"and at the bottom line you'll only find the bottom feeders."

Spot on. Granted, businesses are there to make money, but unless they employ only robots, there is a human factor there as well. Oversimplifying this to the point that "money trumps everything else" is exactly how these companies get into such shitloads of trouble.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Opportunist]

As pointed out in the Ars Technica article, a secretary who happened to be working for MediaDefender whose worst crime was answering phones and getting coffee for his or her bosses now has the social security number, home address and phone number, and salary information out there for everyone to download and look at.

To be blunt, my first thought was "work for them, hang with them". But where does that lead?

Yes, it would be pretty neat to bleed those companies dry by by "discouraging" people from working for them with such or similar tactics. Work for them and we make you a public person. Now imagine this backfiring. Write OSS, or worse, write P2P software, and we circulate your "favorite pastime" in our circles, don't try to get a job anymore.

Also, I think it would be generally more efficient against IT people than against Joe Average secretary. So... don't do it.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Opportunist]

First, there is a difference between providing a service or good and earning money that way, and ripping off your customers with snakeoil. When you sell something of value to your customer and you make money, more power to you.

Second, sometimes mailing policies in some companies are so off whack that you need GMail or similar services to get anything done. I do have a mail account strictly for business purposes on GMail, that I used to receive and send (encrypted) messages while working for a company that did not allowed any kind of attachment in mails. Yes, I do agree that sending an FTP link is more useful, but getting FTP access to the outside world would have been more of a hassle.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[discogravy]

congrats on not understanding strict security policy. you are the type of person who let this miivi/media defender thing go down: the guy who is technical enough to get around the security measures put in place to avoid things like this happening.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[neoform]

I'd want to punish Hitler's secretary (provided he/she wasn't forced into the job).

Re:Mixed feelings...

[LordSnooty]

At my company now, they content-block us from accessing Gmail. I'll be that companies will start doing crap like blocking employees from even sending e-mail to Gmail now, the attack vector that allowed these e-mails to get leaked.

Interesting. Why did your company never view this 'vector' as a problem for sites such as Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail, which both launched as far back as 1996? The tools that GMail offers are not that much different, I'm sure the mass forwarding of mails to a web mailbox was possible B.G. (Before Google)

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for him. but his post does not state that only Google is blocked. That's you extrapolating. Providing a full list of such services was not the point he was trying to make anyway.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Paraphrasing: "I find it funny that people will be paranoid about the shared printer now... The only reason some people's SSNs got out and abused was that Mr. Y in HR printed an e-mail and subsequently left it at the printer. Someone found it there and passed on the info outside the company. So there is no reason to warn employees about leaving secret or confidential data at the printer. After all, it's not the printer's fault... And if the guy who found it would not have been so stupid to pass the data on, but would instead have silently abused it himself, there would be no problem at all."

Hmmm, wait, something's fishy here, but I can't quite pinpoint it...

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

To be blunt, my first thought was "work for them, hang with them". But where does that lead? The Nuremberg trials after WWII. "I was only obeying orders" is not a valid defense.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[KingSkippus]

AC's right. They block all of the major web e-mail providers.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Jaseoldboss]

Our company has the worst blocking software I've ever known. Bugmenot.com is classified as "Hacking" and Insecure.org is apparently ok. Too many other examples to mention, I wish I knew who the content filter supplier was.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[renoX]

Sigh, I wonder how this got moderated insightful?

What MediaDefender does is making the download of real files difficult by seeding false files and gathering data on downloaders for statistics and maybe also for prosecution.

A client wants to know if the lawsuit stopped people from downloading so they provide statistics to see by how much, how is-it 'ripping off their client'?

Re:Mixed feelings...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

These scumbag know that what they are doing is worthless, it doesn't stop piracy, but they both piss off users and rip off their own clients.

Why is a measure to curb piracy always "worthless"? Just because piracy won't stop tomorrow doesn't mean the approach is bad, or that it isn't making a difference. We still haven't eliminated crime, yet we still pour government funding into police. We can't cure a plethora of diseases, yet we still try to treat them. Why is it always so black and white?

Re:Mixed feelings...

[R_Dorothy]

Blanket security policies that get in the way of business are what drives people to circumvent the security - generally in order to do their job. GP is not the type of person who lets this happen: If someone wants to do this they will find a way and, if they have already worked to circumvent a policy in order to do their job then they will use that route for this kind of thing.

I came across a good example of this kind of braindead security last year. We had to send data to a financial institution who would not accept inbound encrypted emails (apparently they are a security risk) but, at the same time, they were required to transmit all eamils containing financial information with encryption. Apparently their usual (and unofficial) solution to this is to use personal emails. In the end we sent the information as hard copy via snail mail until they finally granted an exception on their mail gateway.

No automated security policy will ever be 100% effective against a determined violator (block Gmail so they switch to Hotmail, block Hotmail they switch to Yahoo mail etc. etc.). However, if you put in overzealous security then circumventing it will become common knowledge within the organisation. In order to be effective, security policies should be defensive rather than offensive.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[the_lesser_gatsby]

Maybe because the MD's actions on receiving the email was to forward it to his employees with a cover message that basically insulted his customer and implied that he knew that what he (or the customer) was doing was worthless.

At the very least it's rather unprofessional behaviour. I won't go into how unprofessional it is to have your company's emails leaked onto the internet...

Re:Mixed feelings...

[AJWM]

I can't help but wonder why things like spreadsheets containing sensitive data like SSNs and the like are being emailed around in the first place, and what position this Jay Mairs held (I sincerely doubt he still holds it after this leak) to be on the mailing list for same.

Oh, I understand why the stuff was in a spreadsheet at all instead of an appropriate place like a secured database -- that's just because people are stupid about that sort of thing in the first place, and it's just too easy to throw the data into a spreadsheet instead of a DB. Then you end up with umpteen different and incompatible versions of it (which people then try to solve by putting the thing on Sharepoint or something similarly awful) and copies getting emailed around inappropriately.

Okay, I'll stop ranting now.

It really doesn't surprise me that a company like MediaDefender made these kinds of stupid errors, but I've seen it at places that really do know better too.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because the Holocaust is roughly comparable to MediaDefender. Do you have any respect whatsoever for the 10 million people who died at the hands of the German government?

Following orders to gas somebody is one thing. Following orders to make coffee and answer phones is another. One involves the murder of ten million jews. The other involves a fresh pot of joe.

If you have any sense of perspective whatsoever you'd see that there's a pretty important difference.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 Godwin's law.

Hitler killed 10 million jews. MediaDefender is obnoxious but has yet to kill a single person. Do you see the difference here?

Re:Mixed feelings...

[discogravy]

denying users without giving them an alternative method of doing what they want to do is a recipe for disaster; people will circumvent your safeguards if you don't give them any option (and usually even if you do...). But if you have a method in place (as GP did; an FTP is mentioned), and you circumvent security policy, you get what happened with MediaDefender.

Maybe they have a bad security guy. Maybe they have users who think they're smarter than the security guys or the server guys or thought "well obviously this rule is inconvenient to me so it obviously shouldn't apply to me. I'll just use my gmail account and fuck all this checking that my mail isn't from the work domains when I send it nonsense." Hell, more than likely it's a combination of all of these. Automated security policy is stupid, yes. Not following security policy (or not having a good policy in place to begin with) because "it's a hassle" is dumber.

When the story's about a security leak because some dude circumvented security policy, the GP's braggadocio about circumventing policy is hardly smart, even if it is a hassle.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[thegux]

Godwin's Law?

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

...evil company doing evil things...

"Evil" is a bit strong. I mean, they weren't killing puppies or anything like that.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't go into how unprofessional it is to have your company's emails leaked onto the internet.

Your use of the passive voice shows the problem: to "have your emails leaked" lacks an actor. It wasn't an insider who leaked the emails -- it was somebody who broke into an email account and took them.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[kd5ujz]

~6 million Jews, the other 4-5 million were various groups of people that Hitler did not care for (homosexuals, Catholics, handicapped, Gypsies, POWs,Jehovah's witnesses, etc).

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Sloppy]

Why is a measure to curb piracy always "worthless"?

When that's really all it's about, it's not worthless. But these guys aren't working on the problem of curbing piracy. The only way to curb piracy is to make ethical arguments (to the pirates) about the consequences of taking without paying -- the effects of denying patronage to artists (e.g. causing people to simply give up, causing some to "sell out" and seek dubious/compromising sources of funding, etc). These guys just put up minor roadblocks but don't actually give anyone a good reason to not pirate. Perhaps they are making piracy slightly less attractive compared to purchasing, but whatever they do is going to be so minor that the ill will it generates (and long term: technical resistance) counteracts it.

Also, one can't help look at these people, without thinking about the snakeoil salesmen who sell DRM to the media companies. DRM causes piracy, and loss of goodwill and revenue to whoever implements it -- the tangible costs to the snakeoil salesmen aside. There's simply no upside, and lots of downside. DRM truly is [less than] worthless, and these guys efforts are going to be tarnished by association, no matter how unfair, because they're going to be seen as part of the same overall misguided strategy. (That strategy being: telling potential customers "fuck you, we don't want your money.")

Funding police isn't like that. Funding police generally doesn't increase crime, unless you've got corrupt cops.

The comparison to disease treatment is more interesting, though, in that it evokes images of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. It's possible that these guys' attempts to sabotage communication will result in sabotage-resistant protocols (using signatures and distributed reputation systems, for example). But even in the treatment of disease, it's known and understood that you have to fight it all the way, and using a weak antibiotic ineffectively is a bad idea. That sounds a lot like what these guys are doing. They're training resistance, without actually making the effort to win.

The xxAA's money would be much better spent on education/propaganda (call it whatever, depending on your point of view ;-).

Re:Mixed feelings...

[LordSnooty]

That of course is a crime and the perp should be dealt with accordingly - but I'm so glad he did it. And it doesn't remove the problems exposed by these mails.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, but no one at Nuremburg was prosecuted for "being a Nazi". They were prosecuted for deliberately performing specific acts that they knew were wrong.

When it becomes illegal to make coffee and answer the phone what you said might be relevant. People working in generic low-level support position are unlikely to even be able to understand the issue enough to make an informed decision on it. They certainly didn't do something wrong because they swept the floor after some people who built a sleazy internet site went home.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[gobbo]

Granted, businesses are there to make money, but unless they employ only robots, there is a human factor there as well. Oversimplifying this to the point that "money trumps everything else" is exactly how these companies get into such shitloads of trouble.

Yes, and more: Businesses are not there just to make money, I'm getting tired of this old trope. It's like saying Humans are there to make more Humans.

Enterprise means getting things done, making stuff, acheiving goals. Businesses are there to do things and compensate their investors and staff for their efforts or risk-taking. People start a business (or should) because they want to provide, create, or change something. Let them be judged by what they do and how they do it, not how much they've managed to skim off the top.

Let's not reduce capitalism to The Trough, it's nihilistic and will lead people further into market fundamentalism.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, one email did mention dog-on-woman bestiality and the author of the email wasn't offended by that. So perhaps not killing puppies, but fucking them is OK.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Ilgaz]

AC's right. They block all of the major web e-mail providers.

Can you blame them after this story? Guy forwarded entire company communications to Gmail! God knows why...

Re:Mixed feelings...

[EatHam]

You know, I hope people keep this incident in mind if they are considering going to work for a disreputable company, a company whose primary missions is screwing people, especially when those people that are being screwed have a Robin Hood-like reputation and are a lot smarter than you

Wait, are we talking about MediaDefender or the IRS?

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Dun Malg]

Hmmm, wait, something's fishy here, but I can't quite pinpoint it... It's your poor analogy. A shared printer is not a password problem but a physical access problem. The former can be fixed with a better (i.e. unique) password. The latter, only by not using it for sensitive data.

Yes, I know, It's hard being an idiot. You'll just have to deal with it.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[raju1kabir]

Why is a measure to curb piracy always "worthless"? Just because piracy won't stop tomorrow doesn't mean the approach is bad, or that it isn't making a difference. We still haven't eliminated crime, yet we still pour government funding into police. We can't cure a plethora of diseases, yet we still try to treat them. Why is it always so black and white?

We still try to treat diseases, yes, but that doesn't meant that anything someone does in the name of fighting disease is automatically admirable.

When Media Defender and its clients take an adversarial, immature, destructive, and ultimately futile approach to dealing with piracy, they don't score any points with me. Similarly, if someone says they are "fighting disease" by hauling away kids with the flu and tossing them into quarantine cells in Guantanamo Bay, I don't think they deserve a pass just because their stated purpose sounds nice.

As others have said, there are plenty of ways to fight piracy that don't involve a digital arms race. Probably nobody has done more to fight piracy than Steve Jobs, who finally made a way to buy music online that was so easy and low-friction that people actually used it. The recording companies ought to spend less time talking about child porn with the boobs at Media Defender, and a whole lot more time studying what Apple did right.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

They have a 0% success rate on the two (three if you count suprnova) biggest torrent sites out there. I'd go so far as to say that 80% or more of the public tracker torrent traffic is from those two (three) sites.

I downloaded the newest Foo Fighters album when it leaked (and I still have it pre-ordered, so there goes their lost sales claim) and it downloaded in about 20 minutes and is a higher quality than iTMS provides.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out printers like the Ricoh SP 5100N. These things have featues like (quoting) "passcode protect private documents with confidential print". This kind of technology ain't exactly new either.

I may be an idiot, but at least I inform myself before posting. Oh... right... this is Slashdot, so that approach is the very thing that makes me an idiot. So you win.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[TooMuchToDo]

I'm intrigued by your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

All kidding aside, it's rare someone with such an opinion (tempered and educated) appears on Slashdot with regards to business. Kudos to you sir.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're an idiot because the vast majority of shared printers aren't password protected on the printer side, and your example makes no mention of such an oddity.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[Reziac]

"Funding police isn't like that. Funding police generally doesn't increase crime, unless you've got corrupt cops.

Three words: "War On Drugs".

Probably nothing else is as responsible for the high crime rate in target areas. So... funding police for a losing battle very much akin to the **AA's efforts does indeed increase crime.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[DDLKermit007]

Yeah, too bad BT is designed to be suspicious of other clients, and checks hashes for each chunk received. Too many bad chunks? Banned from the client. At best their seeding of bad files made people take 30min more to download a file. Hell I'm sure it cost more to power for the machine doing their work than it earned the record companies.

Re:Mixed feelings...

[gobbo]

it's rare someone with such an opinion (tempered and educated) appears on Slashdot with regards to business.

[grin] Well, the emperor has lacy undies. Corporations have the potential to ultimately become sentient (run by AI, cf. singularity alarmists), as we've designed them as entities (and allow this sleight of mind to persist). We have to set up proper ethical frameworks now, while we can. Thugs like MediaDefender need to be straightened out like a tyrant tot (or a gangrenous finger).

I have a long view on this since I'm not an avowed capitalist, but actually a Parecon oriented municipal libertarian of sorts, who's decided to work freelance within the given system. But my attitudes towards business in general are based on kindergarten ethics... since corporations are little more than toddlers, as pseudo-entities with the common-denominator collective emotions of its directors and chief executives.

While industrial capitalism makes the transition into post-industrialism, the late-cretaceous marginal creatures like "social venture-capitalists", worker-owned small enterprises, 'balanced job complex' worksites, and cooperatives are proliferating and filling new niches. Yay for real progress, however camouflaged and sluggish (at first) it may be!

Hmmm

[adam1234]

Heavens, a company discussing how to "deal with the hackers targeting their systems"? What a scandal.

Re:Hmmm

[grantek]

Twah? The scandal bit is where they then discuss things such as using DoS attacks on third-party computers to achieve their aims.

Re:Hmmm

[morgan_greywolf]

Heavens, a company discussing how to "deal with the hackers targeting their systems"? What a scandal. The scandal is in likely how they were dealing with the h4x0rz. This company has a tendency to interrput P2P systems by essentially breaking the law -- ping flooding networks and other DoS attacks, employing h4x0rz to bring down web sites, etc. All illegal tactics, no matter what activity they are trying to stop. Things that if you or I did them would likely get us thrown in prison.

Re:Hmmm

[mink]

Don't forget they also were torrenting (this would mean helping to distribute) bestiality (I think illegal in a lot of the US) and child pornography, at least thats what I am reading in those e-mails.

so

[wwmedia]

so MiiVi was a complete failure, what do they do make a new site and call it Viide

no one would notice eh?

i wonder from a legal point of view can these emails constitute as evidence in a court, or is the manner in which they were leaked make any prosecution impossible??

Re:so

[sexybomber]

IANAL(yet), but I believe the emails would be admissible in court. Even if the identity of the leaker was known, he/she would be protected under the laws we have regarding whistleblowing.

Re:so

[spiffyman]

...he/she would be protected under the laws we have regarding whistleblowing. Wait, how? IANAL (ever), but according to Wikipedia, the legal protections for whistleblowers appear to extend only to employees. My admittedly limited understanding is that MediaDefender-Defender was not an employee or group of employees but someone who claims to have 'infiltrated' the Gmail account in question. I'm not at all sure how that qualifies for whistleblower protection.

Even if we all want to cheer MD-D, it remains that what they did was very likely a violation of a number of user policy agreements (Gmail, their ISP, etc.) and possibly illegal. Let's not start adorning them with medals yet.

Re:so

[AJWM]

i wonder from a legal point of view can these emails constitute as evidence in a court,

The provenance of them is not verifiable, so their value as evidence is questionable, but if it came to a court case the originals could be subpoenaed in discovery. Whether they'd be available depends on their email retention plan, existence of backups, etc. but some of it would be, from them or gmail.

A lesson from this episode

[jkrise]

I think this revelation brings to light the extent to which companies will go - to deceive the public, the mainstream media... and then continue with their illegal practices after a short time.

Microsoft's recent downplaying of the unexplained Windows Updates is another case in point. Where is Mark Russinovich's article that does a 'diff' of the replaced files, and explaining the 'new behaviour' in detail - like he did in the Sony rootkit case?

It is a bit sad that many of these incidents do not figure in the mainstream media - which seems to be in the powerful grips of these Corporate thugs.

Re:A lesson from this episode

[radarjd]

It is a bit sad that many of these incidents do not figure in the mainstream media - which seems to be in the powerful grips of these Corporate thugs. While it's possible that some corporation may be exercising some undue influence, it seems just as likely (if not more) to me that people simply don't care. Have Sony's CD sales been hurt by the rootkit incident? (And I mean on a meaningful level, not anecdotally.) Has Microsoft lost business from its anti-trust issues? Those have certainly received a great deal of media attention, but the greatest portion of the public seems not to care.

Re:A lesson from this episode

[Anonymous Coward]

And I mean on a meaningful level, not anecdotally Please don't take that away from us. This is Slashdot, and anecdotal evidence is all we have. That and Wikipedia articles that contain anecdotal evidence.

Re:A lesson from this episode

[jkrise]

While it's possible that some corporation may be exercising some undue influence, it seems just as likely (if not more) to me that people simply don't care.

I did address this issue in my original post. I speculated that this happens becasue Mainstream Media is simply reluctant to publish these issues, which have a vital bearing on true competition in the IT industry. The BBC has an article on the EU anti-trust ruling; but none at all on the Media Defender clowns circus. If it did, there would be much larger pressure on them, than discussions at Slashdot, Digg, Flexbeta ArsTechnica and so on.

In fact an email at MD discusses precisely this apathy in the mainstream media; and why they should relaunch the whole thing under a different name. Microsoft has simply relaunched the same core Office applications and the Windows operating systems in different names at different points in time. The intention is clear: To subvert proper competitive development, impede progress, ruthlessly maintain lock-in; etc. The media must resist such intereferences... otherwise such secondary media sites will make take away their business in tech reporting at least.

Re:A lesson from this episode

[gEvil (beta)]

Wow! Way to miss the point of the post. He was asking the question precisely because Russinovich now works for MS--he knows damn well there will never be such an article.

Re:A lesson from this episode

[Stavr0]

Where is Mark Russinovich's article that does a 'diff' of the replaced files, and explaining the 'new behaviour' in detail - like he did in the Sony rootkit case?

Ha! I see what you did there... (Russinovich sold to MS a year ago) but seriously, I'd like to see Steve Gibson's[grc.com] take on the Stealth WUA thing. He's got just enough of a tinfoil hat to uncover the juicy details...

Re:A lesson from this episode

[Technician]

Are you kidding?

Between the DRM Rootkit, DRM, extra copy protection on Sony Pictures DVD's, and now a rootkit on a Thumb Drive, the movement to Don't buy SONY is growing. It shows in their financials.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=SNE&annual

Note Net income 2005 ending March 31 was 1,523,693 in 2006- 1,050,736, and in 2007- 1,073,788. This is a downturn of almost a full third in one year.

For the most part they are moving away from being a manufacture to an investment firm much like the Sears Roebuck catalog store is now mostly The Discover Card financial services.

SONY's Capital Expenditures was less than their Investments in 2005. In short, they invested heavily in investments. As Net income dropped, they invested less and Capital Expenditures remained fairly steady from 2005-2007. In short, they are down in sales of products, invested in investments, and still have a falling net income.

For the year ending March of 2006 Total Cash Flow From Operating Activities was 3,398,793 while Total Cash Flows From Financing Activities was 3,058,844. We like to think of SONY as a manufacture of video games consoles and other consumer goods. In reality, that is only half the business.

Note all numbers are in thousands as noted on the webpage.

Do you think the drop in 2006 right after the 2005 November rootkit was just coincidence?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Copy_Protection

Security researchers beginning with Mark Russinovich in October 2005 have described the program as functionally identical to a rootkit: a software program used by computer hackers to conceal unauthorised activities on a computer system.

I think there might be some connection to the rootkit and net income loss of 1/3rd might show a relationship. In the year ending March 31 2007, Total Cash Flow From Operating Activities still has not recovered to the 2005 level.

Re:A lesson from this episode

[kimgkimg]

Uh, I think your reasoning is flawed there. How can you draw this as a cause and effect? Maybe it's was a lack of compelling products, or charges taken due to the Li-ion battery recalls. There's absolutely nothing that ties one to the other, so you can't make this claim.

Re:A lesson from this episode

[ScrewMaster]

Russinovich works for Microsoft now, you know.

Re:A lesson from this episode

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is Mark Russinovich's article that does a 'diff' of the replaced files, and explaining the 'new behaviour' in detail - like he did in the Sony rootkit case?

You were expecting a technical explanation of the stealth update from a Microsoft employee?

Why?

Oh, you moralists

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Don't despair!

Totally Unprofessional

[CaptainZapp]

This may be nitpicking, but I was somewhat shocked about the tone of the (paraphrased) emails. There seems a lot of f**k and s**t flowing around from the head honchos of this dodgy outfit right to the bottom.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm neither squeamish, nor easily offended. But in professional, corporate email communications such a tone has about as much justification as surfing porn at work.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[eskimoboy]

funny you should mention that, as it is, in fact, the other thing they do at "work"

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[packetmon]

Apparently you have some fucking sort of perception problem. Just the other day I was telling my boss to kiss my fucking ass after he'd left the meeting. In fact while walking to my car I was telling the marketing people how I thought they were so full of shit!

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[artg]

This sort of thing echoes the Watergate tapes : there is a certain class of person that feels bigger by acting aggressively, and swearing is a socially-acceptable form of aggression.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[JRHelgeson]

But in professional, corporate email communications such a tone has about as much justification as surfing porn at work.

And to that point - it is their JOB to surf porn at work, to seek out child porn and notify the DoJ and the New York Attorney General's office of the material so that the AG could pursue the offender as part of their own investigation.

Yet, I do agree that the use of profanity does show a lack of professionalism. Much like the theory that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his waitress. These emails reveal that they have an air of arrogant superiority about themselves, that they operate above the law, and that they are immune from "teh bad d00dz". They are convinced of their moral authority and moral superiority.

To wit:
I have a fair level of certainty that they got themselves infected with spyware, adware, trojans. They surf sites in the dark corners of the 'intertoob' seeking out nefarious content, evil trackers and child predators. In going there, they are in the stomping grounds of the best of the worst when it comes to infecting computers using the most current 0day exploits.

(Side note -- Stick with me here)
I personally do not run anti-virus. I deal with malicious content all the time. I know what is running on my machine at all times. If I were to run an AntiVirus, it would delete half the files on my hard drive that was gathered as evidence in investigations, or malicious tool kits used to exploit systems that I use in teaching classes.

Whenever I venture to evil sites, I start up a virtual machine, I have two - they are called "Hindenburg" and "Titanic" that are not current on their patches and run no anti-virus. I purposely seek out infections and malware on these machines so I can analyze the machines postmortem. I have a tremendous amount of respect and even admiration for my opponents. They are VERY good at their game. As such, I am careful not to let my guard down.

(My point)
I'll bet that what they've done is get a real machine infected, one that was not sandboxed, connected to the internal domain, and the user was running with not just local admin privileges, but with full domain admin privileges. OOPS! This infected machine reported back to the hackers, who then connected back in to their hacked box and set up user accounts on the network and also rooted the boxes.

At this point, no amount of changing passwords or firewalls or IDS will get the intruders out. They need to rebuild every box on their network, from scratch. They need to stop thinking of themselves as an "academic institution" that needs full access to the internet (no outbound restrictions on the firewall) and where proper security practices "don't apply to them".

Proper security and safety protocols were not followed. The arrogant attitude of "we're security folks, policies don't apply to us" is what let this happen.

Further your affiant sayeth not, :)
Joel Helgeson

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[Opportunist]

I'm sorry, but I simply cannot agree with you. Sorry, you are horribly wrong on this one. I, for one, spent a lot of time surfing for porn while at work (some shadier porn pages used to contain a few quite interesting malware infectors).

So yes, sometimes surfing for granny porn at work has its place. But take my advice, do it before lunch. First, you will definitly save a lot of your lunch money, and it keeps you from making your work space a messy place.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[Anonymous Coward]

There seems a lot of f**k and s**t flowing around from the head honchos of this dodgy outfit right to the bottom.

The technical term for these ballmerisms is "potty-mouth". And yes, there does seem to be an increase in potty-mouthed corporate officers among the bottom dwellers of the IT and music distribution industries.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[Anonymous Coward]

This may be nitpicking, but I was somewhat shocked about the tone of the (paraphrased) emails.

Indeed. Take a look at this one, where they express their opinion of one guy who dared to complain about portscanning by MediaDefender.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[Anonymous Coward]

And to that point - it is their JOB to surf porn at work, to seek out child porn and notify the DoJ and the New York Attorney General's office of the material so that the AG could pursue the offender as part of their own investigation.

In other words, a pedo's dream job.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[OglinTatas]

You've never heard the Nixon tapes.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[Chris Brewer]

No, it was simpler than that. The guy who's gmail account was 'compromised', registered on a p2p site with his MediaDefender (or gmail) address and used the SAME password as his gmail account. There was no 'hacking' of the MediaDefender's computers, just user stupidity.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[Anonymous Coward]

And to that point - it is their JOB to surf porn at work, to seek out child porn and notify the DoJ and the New York Attorney General's office of the material so that the AG could pursue the offender as part of their own investigation.

The outsourcing of police work to a private entity is seriously fucked up. I realized this is just an extension of the Blackwater mentality we now take with the armed forces, but this will have serious implications for our society.

Downloading and possessing child porn is illegal. Was MediaDefender was given some kind of immunity from state and federal prosecution? Were they deputized into the NY state police department? I wonder if the NY state police was laundering this evidence to protect MediaDefender.

I would love to see the contracts and other documents from NY state related to this "job."

captcha: lechery

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[JRHelgeson]

The outsourcing of police work to a private entity is seriously f****d up.

99% of the police work done on the internet is carried out by individuals, not the police. I'm not a cop, but I've busted up spam networks, cybercrime, phishing scams, and everything in between. This isn't outsourcing, it is being a good netizen.

There aren't enough cops to police the internet, so it is left to the 'vigilantes' to take down phishing sites and all these things.

It is up to each of us to police our own neighborhood.

Could I get your name and address for this incident report? :)

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[Achromatic1978]

Bestiality, too. One of the developers even comments on how much of it he's seen, what he recommends, and so on and so forth.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[Anonymous Coward]

I am all for policing our own neighborhoods. I see you have policed my post and rendered it safe for family consumption. The problem I have is with the paid outsourcing of police work. A paid vigilante is just a mercenary.

You aren't paid for your incident reports are you?

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[abb3w]

Yet, I do agree that the use of profanity does show a lack of professionalism.

Moreover, it shows limited imagination and vocabulary.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[socz]

This may be nitpicking, but I was somewhat shocked about the tone of the (paraphrased) emails. There seems a lot of f**k and s**t flowing around from the head honchos of this dodgy outfit right to the bottom

You know, i've seen a lot of things and heard of worse things in the company i work in now. Although i am a contractor here, through relations with employees of the company i've seen and heard many raunchy things. Such as sticking of one's finger in her own hole and putting said finger in a VP's mouth... after he requested it!

Yeah hard to believe eh? But like they say, "pictures are worth 1000 words."

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[JRHelgeson]

I'd be willing to bet vital body parts that Media Defender did not make a DIME profit. The AG might cover costs such as installing a T1, or special case-related tools that will directly benefit their investigation, but that is normal job costs. Paying Media Defender turns them into a PAID informant which then calls the credibility of the evidence into question. (Granted, with the revelation of their phone calls, everything they've done is now worthless.)

The likely scenario is that Media Defender went to great lengths to download and sample every torrent available, essentially to provide an inverted Nielsen's rating on the popularity of 'pirated content'. In doing so, they came across illegal porn. Understand that the files aren't labeled as "6_month_old_being_raped.torrent", but rather labeled harmless names such as "Celebrity_deathmatch:_Korn_vs_slipknot.torrent". So what are they to do, nothing?

The one thing I have never come across, and God willing, I hope to never come across is child porn. I've heard about it, and I've seen stuff that I consider beyond borderline that the very sight of put me into a rage... and that was before I had kids of my own. I applaud the work done by Media Defender, I thank them for doing a job I could not, and would not willingly do. I am disappointed that this leak has pulled the rug out from what appeared to be a huge investigation to bring these despicable criminals to justice. I also do not see a problem with them seeding invalid torrents on behalf of media companies. I think it's stupid, I wish Hollywood would wake up to reality, but I can understand how Media Defender was trying to stem the tide - I hope they made a lot of money off the Hollywood boneheads.

I do not, however, support in any way the railroading of random internet users by the RIAA. The mass lawsuits are disgusting and the RIAA deserves everything they have coming to them: a long, slow, suicide.

You aren't paid for your incident reports are you?

If a company wants me to investigate an incident and write up a report, yes, I charge for that. I'm also a paid expert witness... no problem with any of it.

When I see a crime, I report it. For free... can you imagine the lunacy of being paid for each crime you report?

When I see a crime

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[mink]

Along with uploading said illegal content, or do they not upload while they torrent the child porn they talk about in those mails.

Re:Totally Unprofessional

[mink]

Not knowing if Media defender has some special client that does not upload (I doubt it because they will get blocked quick) then havent they been helping to distribute the above mentioned child pornography? When is it ok to do that?

there are more leaks!

[wwmedia]

there are more leaks!

MediaDefender Phone Call and Gnutella Tracking Database Leaked

Re:there are more leaks!

[deftcoder]

Anyone have a link to the Gnutella database torrent? I only saw the email and phone call torrents on TPB.

Re:there are more leaks!

[apollosfire]

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3808220/Gnutella.Tracking.Database.Leak.INDEPENDENT

Re:there are more leaks!

[deftcoder]

Thanks. I was searching for "mediadefender"; I guess that's why I didn't see it.

Re:there are more leaks!

[Anonymous Coward]

So Media Defender employees are documented looking at child porn.

I learn something new every day.

Re:there are more leaks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you stick your stupid comments to the relevant points? There's enough to talk about in here that's far worse than people looking for child porn for the very sake of eliminating it and with explicit approval of the authorities. Someone inevitably has to look at that filth in order to eradicate it, damnit.

Re:there are more leaks!

[Anonymous Coward]

there are more leaks!

MediaDefender Phone Call and Gnutella Tracking Database Leaked

The real news: People use Gnutella.

Re:there are more leaks!

[Ilgaz]

there are more leaks!

MediaDefender Phone Call and Gnutella Tracking Database Leaked

The real news: People use Gnutella.

That is why you should always check "versiontracker.com", "download.com" top 10 for real life figures. They show the general population.

Limewire is a Gnutella client and always shows up.

I don't buy those "I hate MS Office" messages too, it always shows up on Amazon top selling software even Mac version.

Re:there are more leaks!

[samwh]

From the link: "This is a MySQL database dump from a Mediadefenderserver, showing tracking and decoy file information for the Gnutella network. Thanks to MDD and Seaking for making this possible." FUCK YEAH SEAKING

The weakest link

[kj_in_ottawa]

Some smart yet misguided people have their plot foiled by the weakest link, the human. I'm glad this whole miivi thing has been exposed. I think how it has been brought to light serves as a good reminder to the rest of us. No matter how secure your app, or how great your plan, all it takes is one person who doesn't understand policy or the consequences of following it and all is lost. Cheers

Re:The weakest link

[z0idberg]

Speaking of smart people.

My favorite quote from the article/emails:

(while discussing communications between the Miivi site and its "customers")

"Make sure MediaDefender can not be seen in any of the hidden email data crap that smart people can look in."

Re:The weakest link

[Legion303]

That was your favorite quote? Mine was the one where the company's CEO/President/big cheese was asking his underlings to follow up on some Chinese spam he got to determine whether they should pay to get the "internet name" of MediaDefender registered.

legal

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if any evidence produced by media defender can be used in court, since their systems are hacked and it is perfectly possible that they do now show in court what they initially found, but they show data that was modified by hackers.

The phone hack makes clear that hackers are quite deep into their systems.

Journamalism 101

[jalefkowit]

I know it's pointless to ask things like this of the /. "editors", but the summary of this story is almost completely useless to anyone who is coming to the story cold (like me).

Would it have killed someone to have rewritten the submission so that it explained:

• Who MediaDefender is
• What the "leaked MediaDefender emails" are
• What the "MiiVi story" is
• Why I should care

?

I can go Google all that stuff and find out for myself, but why would I bother, if it's not clear to me why the story is important in the first place?

Re:Journamalism 101

[Overzeetop]

Actually, if you'd been on /. over the weekend, you would have gotten the first installment of the series. I was thinking this was a dupe, but it turns out it's just a link to a story discussing somehting which was on /. last night. A meta-dupe, if you will.

Re:Journamalism 101

[Otter Escaping North]

I can go Google all that stuff and find out for myself, but why would I bother, if it's not clear to me why the story is important in the first place?

(I can't help but wonder if this is satire...)

Answer: I suppose you wouldn't.

I don't imagine anyone is going to lose sleep over that. If you're interested, take an interest. If you don't care, then just move one. We're all fine with that, really.

Slashdot: News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. Context for Jason Lefkowitz.

Re:Journamalism 101

[complete loony]

News flash, it's a summary. If you want journalism go read the article, unless it was posted by Roland P. of course.

Re:Journamalism 101

[ZachPruckowski]

MediaDefender is a company that the RIAA and MPAA hire to pollute Bittorrent trackers with fake torrents, track torrent usage, and spew false data out to torrents.

A group called "MediaDefender-Defender" got someone's password and spilled thousands of emails from within MediaDefender. Apparently some idiot forwarded all his corporate mail to Gmail, and used an easy password.

"MiiVi" was an attempt by MediaDefender to create a fake file-sharing site to entrap people. About two people fell for it, then they were exposed by Torrentfreak.

You should care because this company lied about its involvement with an attempt to "entrap" (legally, it's not entrapment, but it's still pretty morally grey). You might also care because it's another attempt by the RIAA and MPAA to screw over file-sharers. Or maybe you don't care about it. There's no assurance that you'll find everything on Slashdot interesting.

Re:Journamalism 101

[mrbobjoe]

Apparently some idiot forwarded all his corporate mail to Gmail, and used an easy password.

Not only that, the story that I've gathered is that he had created an account with one of the trackers MediaDefender was foiling (or was it a related forum?), using the same password, from an IP known to belong to MediaDefender.

Re:Journamalism 101

[tero]

I know it's poinless to try to tell things like this to /. "users", but if you would have clicked the story you would have seen a short section called "Related Stories" just before the comments.

In that little section you would have found two links to articles that are - surprise - related to this story.

Following those links would have taken you to the whole backstory story and you could have read that right here on Slashdot without having to do any Google searches.

Isn't technology fantastic

?

Re:Journamalism 101

[Anonymous Coward]

it may be morally grey, but then downloading movies and music you haven't paid for is pretty morally grey too surely?

Re:Journamalism 101

[speaker of the truth]

You mean MediaDefender comes along and flags me as a suspect for downloading Linux? Fuck. Or do you mean downloading something illegal?

Re:Journamalism 101

[Ilgaz]

You mean MediaDefender comes along and flags me as a suspect for downloading Linux? Fuck. Or do you mean downloading something illegal? If you install IP filters to your Torrent client and enable them, let your client logon to DHT while just sharing GNU/Linux, you will notice some very shadowy companies/IP Blocks trying to sneak your shares. Media Defender is just ONE of those companies.

I am downloading/sharing only legal and paid content and you should see the IP Filter circus I am looking at.

Re:Journamalism 101

[Ilgaz]

I know it's pointless to ask things like this of the /. "editors", but the summary of this story is almost completely useless to anyone who is coming to the story cold (like me).

Would it have killed someone to have rewritten the submission so that it explained:

• Who MediaDefender is
• What the "leaked MediaDefender emails" are
• What the "MiiVi story" is
• Why I should care

?

I can go Google all that stuff and find out for myself, but why would I bother, if it's not clear to me why the story is important in the first place?

Slashdot is linking stories and inviting discussion on those stories.

You could click these showing up right under the "scoop":

Your Rights Online: MediaDefender Denies Entrapment Accusations 104 comments
[+] IT: Internal Emails of An RIAA Attack Dog Leaked 413 comments

So;

Who MediaDefender is
^^RIAA Attack Dog
What the "leaked MediaDefender emails" are
^^Internal Emails of them
What the "MiiVi story" is
^^^ Your Rights Online: MediaDefender Denies Entrapment Accusation
Why I should care
^^^Besides obvious ethical reasons, this is "IT" aka Information Technology section of Slashdot.

Re:Journamalism 101

[Virgil Tibbs]

you must be new here!

Re:Journamalism 101

[Dogtanian]

Would it have killed someone to have rewritten the submission so that it explained [..] What the "MiiVi story" is It was a scandal involving ice lollies. Here's what a Mivvi is! (By the way, that's no f*****g way to eat a Mivvi, what a disgrace...)

nice one.

[apodyopsis]

nice one, thats my evening's humorous reading sorted out then. Purest, addictive, schadenfreude - what a delight.

its always cute when you see a big firm like that caught with its breeches down, but when its the sneaky bugger who where behind MiiVii on the receiving end its extra juicy.

tell you one thing, I wish we could get a current tap on their email to see what they are saying about this one! :-)

on a more serious note, this came out because one single employee forward all his email to a gmail account which was then compromised, I would sure hate to be in his shoes right now.

Re:nice one.

[Opportunist]

I wish we could get a current tap on their email to see what they are saying about this one!

One of the few occasions when I'd really advocate spyware on a few selected computers...

Re:nice one.

[LordSnooty]

If they have any sense - debatable - they'll be meeting face-to-face only.

Good Time . . .

[Dausha]

Is this a good time to mention that access to these internal emails was gained illegally? Sure, he was stupid enough to use the same password on different systems, but that doesn't mitigate the invasion of privacy.

Re:Good Time . . .

[artg]

Isn't whistleblowing always illegal (in the sense that it always violates contractual agreements) ?

Re:Good Time . . .

[Kadin2048]

Legally, the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine applies only when there's some sort of causative link between the illegal discovery of something and the investigation into it. E.g., if a police officer breaks into your house without cause and finds your coke-cutting equipment, you're probably safe. But if your house gets broken into by a(nother) criminal while you're away, and in the course of the ensuing investigation the police find your stash ... tough luck. That's pretty much how I see this situation. The fact that the information came out because some guy's GMail got hacked pales in significance compared to the content that was disclosed, and I don't see any reason to cover my eyes just because of the source, when the source was just due to chance (or, perhaps, some sort of karma/fate/God).

Morally, these scumbags gave up any claim to anything a long time ago. Morally, they all deserve to be soundly beaten and left for dead on some island somewhere so they can learn to play nice with each other or starve. Because that's sadly illegal, pointing and laughing at their misfortune is a close second.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Dausha]

"Legally, the 'fruit of the poisonous tree' ..."

I never said anything about that doctrine, of which I am familiar. That involves illegal government action that yields criminal evidence. This involves non-government action that is itself criminal. This is the same comparison we have with apples and oranges: none. The person reporting the information is the criminal actor, in my assertion.

"Morally..."

Morally, we all deserve to be soundly beaten. I did not raise the moral character of the email account holder, but the legal behavior of those who acquired the email. I leave morality for another thread.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Is this a good time to mention that access to these internal emails was gained illegally?

The sad thing is that throughout this discussion, I have yet to see a single post noting that MediaDefender are employed by Big Media in order to protect their legitimate, legal rights against a whole load of people who routinely break the law without remorse. There are reasons entrapment is frowned upon by most legal systems, but that doesn't excuse the fact that the people being entrapped were deliberately trying to break the law themselves, nor does it excuse the dubious way these e-mails were obtained and circulated in response.

As I've noted on many previous occasions, I have no love for the business practices of Big Media, but the correct answer to this is firstly to ensure they themselves work within the law (e.g., by enforcing competition rather than allowing effective monopoly abuse) and secondly to educate consumers so they can make informed decisions and vote with their wallets. The answer is not for us to support freeloaders who just can't be bothered to pay up like everyone else and who rely on a combination of wishful thinking, economic naivete and outright selfishness to "justify" their actions; nor is it to condone knowingly circulating the personal data of employees at MediaDefender in what is tantamount to inviting vigilante action against them.

I shall now sit back and await the inevitable (-1, Overrated) mods from people who don't like what I have to say, but can't actually present a genuine counter-argument.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not going to be flippant or dismissive, but I will say that the conclusion I have drawn about the RIAA is that they are bad for America, to such an extent that I shed no tears at the thought of their copyright being infringed by millions of freeloaders.

Copyright laws exist to promote creativity for the benefit of Americans. I do not believe that the actions of the RIAA benefit Americans on the whole. It's a judgement call, and it's going to be on incomplete data, much of which is at best biased if not entirely fraudulent, but that's my call anyway. On balance, I assess the RIAA as leveraging a monopoly to squash alternate business models in a way that smacks more of antitrust crimes than of a measured benefit to our society.

It is not that the RIAA is trying to enforce copyright. It is that the actions taken to do so lead me to conclude that the RIAA's hands are so unclean that any judgement in their favor smacks of inequity.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I suspect I agree with everything the AC parent writes (other than the irritating tendency to care only about Americans, as distinct from the people who live in the US, or people generally for that matter). I certainly agree that the actions of Big Media appear remarkably similar to anti-competitive behaviour prohibited by law. But the answer to this is to enforce the law, not to start freeloading and promote vigilante justice.

For what it's worth, I do think there is a point where civil disobedience becomes a legitimate tactic in a civilised country. But that point is usually when the alternative is something like civil war, and I reckon we're a few million lightyears short of reaching that point in the copyright debate. And in any case, real civil disobedience is not at all the same as trying to get away with breaking the law for selfish reasons because you can.

Re:Good Time . . .

[speaker of the truth]

Morally, these scumbags gave up any claim to anything a long time ago. Morally, they all deserve to be soundly beaten and left for dead on some island somewhere so they can learn to play nice with each other or starve. Because that's sadly illegal Get some perspective and grow up. They tried to stop people from infringing on someone's copyright and yet you want them to starve on an island. You truly are a sad specimen of the human race.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Specifically, they used illegal means to do so. A vigilante kills a drug dealer... do we applaud the vigilante? No, we don't... we have LAW ENFORCEMENT to ENFORCE THE LAWS. Not Lackeys who work for the *AA's.

The *AA's have no business ENFORCING anything... they have NO business trying to STOP someone from infringing either... They can REPORT it, as anyone would be able to, if they saw (normally, not snooping around someone's computer) infringement occurring, but since this is a CIVIL matter... (these aren't bootleggers who profit from the sale of fraudulent copies of something... and equating the two is pathetic.) we should allow the system to work as designed, rather than hiring a bunch of hypocritical morons who can't even keep their own data secure, much less be bothered NOT to trespass on someone's machine.

You are a truly sad specimen who really believes this "infringement" crapola is more than an ANTHILL in comparison with the REAL WORLD PROBLEMS that get NO ATTENTION because someone copied a Britney Record for their neighbors. We've got MORE important things to worry about, but you wouldn't think so with the *AA's and morons like you making a mountain out of that anthill.

Grow up, yourself.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Ilgaz]

Is this a good time to mention that access to these internal emails was gained illegally? Sure, he was stupid enough to use the same password on different systems, but that doesn't mitigate the invasion of privacy. Those people were setting up thousands of ISP grade servers sneaking millions of downloaders private data. Based on common sense, sending trojan to child porn downloaders is completely ethical, why wouldn't be ethical to steal data from people who sneaks to kids computers and uses data to threaten them?

To this date, everything I shared was either given free (legaltorrents.com) or completely GNU (PowerPC linux stuff), it didn't stop them and checking my IP logs, doesn't stop them from sneaking in to DHT whatever and steal my private data served on good purposes.

I just noticed some another "anti" P2P company tried to sneak and check AmericasArmyOSX.dmg which is property of US Army and given for free. What they do with the data they get? For example, can't that data be used in some terrorist manners to figure which individuals are OK with US Army game? I don't think US Army hired someone to figure who downloads their game, it is already in their hands. Who hired them?

They may have invaded a single criminals privacy, what about the same company invading MILLIONS of peoples privacy? IMHO it is a criminal act to seed "decoys" and trap people. Is it OK to sell drugs on streets advertising them as individual/private company on purpose of giving the information to cops?

Re:Good Time . . .

[WilliamSChips]

do we applaud the vigilante? Depends. Is he Batman?

Re:Good Time . . .

[FredMenace]

Did anyone not think the leaks might be at least somewhat in response to this?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/31/1334245

Re:Good Time . . .

[jx100]

legitimate, legal rights While the rights you're talking about are technically legal, it would probably be no stretch to assume most here think they're not legitimate. Most of us are aware of the finagling these organizations have done to aquire these rights, and at least some of us believe that they do not reflect the fair balance copyright really needs.

As such, we tend to not feel the need to adhere to such laws. We are certainly aware that they exist, but attempts to defend laws that aren't fair aren't seen as particularly noble.

In addition...

One definite element to overturning such laws is to instill in the people the mindset that such laws are indeed wrong. Copying for personal purposes is illegal, but its commonness means that the people are now much more used to an environment where it exists. There is a relatively small number of people who do not see this as wrong, and the existence of copying for personal purposes is likely to make that grow.

Re:Good Time . . .

[speaker of the truth]

I did not say what they do is right, I simply said that to wish them death is immature behavior.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

While the rights you're talking about are technically legal, it would probably be no stretch to assume most here think they're not legitimate. Most of us are aware of the finagling these organizations have done to aquire these rights, and at least some of us believe that they do not reflect the fair balance copyright really needs.

If we were talking about, say, using P2P to circumvent copy protection that inhibits fair use, then I agree you'd have a strong case there. But let's be honest: a substantial proportion of people using P2P aren't "trying things out before buying" or using them to circumvent those paid-for provisions in the DMCA and its ilk; they're just breaking the basic principle of copyright, pure and simple, and for as long as our economic approach to creative works is based on copyright, there's nothing fair about that.

One definite element to overturning such laws is to instill in the people the mindset that such laws are indeed wrong.

Yes, it certainly is. But you do that by making reasonable arguments for why they are wrong, and by electing representatives who share your views.

The only statement you make by just ignoring them and hoping to get away with it is that you believe yourself to be above the law, and the principle that no-one is above the law is way, way more important than the right to listen to the latest cookie-cutter pop record on P2P. (This applies equally to Big Media, of course. And the principle that the laws should represent the will of the people is important too. I'm not disputing either of these things, or that the system is broken.)

Re:Good Time . . .

[jx100]

The basic principle of copyright, to me, includes two opposing sections. The first is control over the media, as it provides an easier approach to a business model intended to support those who make the media. The second is the ability for the populace at large to actually use the media and let it add to their culture. These abilities include distributing the material, consuming the material and using that material as a base or piece in a later piece. The only potential justification for limiting these abilities is for the first purpose, or assistance in creating a more easily viable business model.

I certainly agree with the creators getting total rights to commercially distribute the material, as it, in a very real sense, takes money away from both the artist and the consumer and puts it in the hands of the guy who, for example, made the DVD the person is buying. However, the evidence that personal copying actually impacts the artists' business model is sketchy at best. The RIAA has certainly paid off several studies saying it does, but the actual, truly independent studies I've seen show either no effect or even a positive one on the amount of money the artists get. Assuming this is true, then there is *no* reason to disallow personal copying, as it actually is fair to the artist. Copyright exists to help ensure that they get paid. If they get paid when copyright is ignored, then the power of copyright is an unjustified limitation on the freedom of the populace and should be removed or reduced.

I'd say that having the people experience life without unjust laws would go a very long way towads getting such laws repealed, especially when done so en masse. One of the major reasons for prohibition being repealed was the fact that everyone was getting drunk anyway.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm not sure what you mean by "personal copying". If you literally mean making copies for personal convenience (back-up, format-shifting, etc.) then I agree completely. It is entirely reasonable that, having paid the going rate for access to some content, people should be entitled to enjoy that content as they see fit. I have no sympathy with media groups who want everyone to buy the same material each time a new format comes out, yet justify the high prices of media that costs almost nothing to mass produce on the basis that the content on that media is the expensive thing.

Where I personally would draw the line is in allowing copying for friends. If you allow that, then the entire economic model breaks down on a "six degrees of separation" argument. Right now, such copying is not legal anywhere that I know of, and I don't think you can legitimately argue that softening the law here wouldn't make a difference unless you can show that people's behaviour won't change. In particular, right now those who pay the going rate for legal copies of material are subsidising the freeloaders. If you remove any legal/moral obligation on those people to pay for the content, who is going to pay for it?

Re:Good Time . . .

[jx100]

By "personal copying" I do mean the latter. I would disagree that the economics do entirely break down, and I know for a fact that copying *is* legal in several areas around the world. The entire reason Pirate Bay exists is due to the fact that it is an entirely legal organization in Sweden. The legal battles have not entirely finished, but it also seems to be legal in Canada. Both these countries have cultures that produce plenty of media, and yes, people *do* pay for it. They do so partly out of convenience, and partly out of wanting to support the artist.

Also, despite its legality, it *still* happens in enormous amounts inside this country. If personal copying were sufficient to wreck our culture, it would've *already* happened. We would have droves of newly starving artists, and no new artists would be able to support themselves. However, this culture is one that still desires to pay its artists, despite the existence of ways to get stuff for free.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

But you miss the other part of my argument: you can't infer that personal copying is OK just because it is widespread today even though illegal and people still make money, simply because law-abiding consumers are paying for the goods. The law-abiding members of the population are directly subsidising the lawbreakers.

On the subject of copying for friends, clearly I should have been more careful in how I phrased my comments about legality, but of course some people do pay for the content in places like Canada, whether they like it or not: the levy on blank media offsets the cost of the material. Personally, I think this is unethical, since it imposes costs that go to Big Media even if people are just buying media for back-ups or other personal uses, and I much prefer a model where the people benefitting from the content are also the ones who pay for it. YMMV.

Sweden is an odd case, because the copying may be legal under their local law today, but nevertheless they are signatories to the major WIPO treaty on the subject, and by allowing essentially unrestricted personal copying and redistribution they are blatantly ignoring their promises under that treaty. This is a one-sided deal for other countries that protect Swedish artists' copyrights, and will inevitably change if Sweden ever gets a big enough commercial advantage out of it that anyone cares. More realistically, given the stakes involved, if the Swedish approach becomes a big enough threat to the economic well-being of other countries because of TPB and the like, I don't think it's a completely unrealistic jump to see them effectively cut off from the Internet (though of course they would cave and ban TPB like everyone else long before that happened).

Now, it is certainly possible that even if you changed the law to allow any personal copying people wanted to do, the population would still pay for the material out of charity. We don't have enough data to know this either way. But you can't infer that from the current situation, and given the parallels in the open source world, I sure wouldn't bet an industry on it on my first visit to the casino.

Re:Good Time . . .

[jx100]

Actually, them making money is exactly the point of this law, and how it's done is merely the method. If you're concerned about the fact that the people who are paying for it are subsidising for those who aren't, keep in mind that that is exactly what's happening right now, not even including any illegal action. Those who pay for media during the period it's copyrighted are, in effect, paying for its use by everyone who wants to use it once the copyright runs out. The very system is set up so that a relatively small portion of the population pays so that the entirety of society benefits. This is the way it's been set up since the beginning, and this is how it's intended to work.

I don't necessarily doubt what you say about Sweden's adherence to the WIPO treaty. However, why wouldn't it be a better solution to amend the WIPO treaty to reflect what Sweden is promising, and hold every other country to that standard? Afterwards, then every country would be able to benefit from this kind of IP law.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm about to get on a plane, so apologies for the brief reply, but I just want to make two points.

Firstly, I don't think it's fair to compare copyright expiry with infringement when talking about one group subsidising another. In the case of copyright infringement, both groups are getting the same, it's just that one is playing by the rules and the other is breaking them. In the case of expiry, sure, you can have the work for free, but only if you wait a long time. If you want it sooner, you have to pay the going rate like everyone else. So while in a sense one group is subsidising another in both cases, that doesn't mean they're getting the same deal.

Secondly, regarding the Sweden/WIPO issue, perhaps you have a better answer than any I've heard so far for this: what alternative model do you propose where, assuming people play by the rules and without relying entirely on charity, it is possible both for an artist to be compensated to a reasonable level for producing a useful work and for that compensation to come from many small contributions from those benefiting from the work rather than a single major benefactor or other large-scale contributions?

Re:Good Time . . .

[jx100]

I would personally support some sort of grant system where anyone with a copyright would get money from the government, with money taken from levies or some other taxes.

The most accurate measure of the worth of a work is a combination of how much it improves a society and the quality of a work. These are obviously impossible to quantify. "Improvement of a society" isn't easily measurable, and this improvement may happen over years, decades, or centuries. Quality is something that is largely subjective, and can't be quantified either.

The current system rewards neither; it rewards popularity above all else. This system necessarily promotes works that, instead of improve a society or are of extremely high quality, works are made simply to appeal to the largest number of people. The artist who makes quality music ahead of his time wouldn't be able to support himself if too few people want to listen to his music right now.

You lay several restrictions fol this system, including the requirement that the system work on many small contributions from the benefitters, as opposed to a major benefactor. I appreciate your reasons for this, as it ensures no one organization is in control of who gets money (and is thus able to quash down something they disagree with, for example) However, I don't see how a fully free market could possibly reward based on quality and improvement to society. A fair governmental organization (yes, I know, this requires a truly fair government first) would.Keep in mind that copyright, in itself, is a sort of government grant. Without it, there is no requirement for beneficiaries give any sort of reward at all.

Re:Good Time . . .

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I can see what you're getting at, but I suggest to you that you are posing a problem to which a solution is already known.

While, as you rightly say, we have no objective measure of things like "quality", we do have an objective measure of how much value people place on something: money. A useful work may be high art that appeals greatly to the connoisseur but has little value to most people. A useful work might instead be a mass-produced novel that is entertaining enough that many people will value it a little, yet not good enough that any one person or small group would pay a lot to read it. Either has significant value to society, though of course in different ways, and the fact that either can bring in a worthwhile income for the creator of the work given the basic idea of copyright and our general economic system is a pretty reasonable and objective demonstration of that value.

There isn't really any government grant involved here in an economic sense. There is no guarantee that a given work will make any money at all, and certainly if it does the money doesn't in general come from the government. However, by introducing the copyright mechanism, we can realistically evaluate the worth of creative works in the same way that we evaluate the worth of material goods or services rendered, and thus incorporate them in a coherent way into our overall economy.

On the other hand, while I'm sure we could agree with the principles that it would be nice to reward quality and improvement to society, to date I have seen no-one describe an effective, objective mechanism for doing so, nor even achieving a realistic approximation based on some specific criteria, that doesn't boil down to reinventing copyright or something pretty close to it. If you think you've got one, I'm sure many of us would be interested to hear about it.

Thank God for Data Protection

[igb]

Of course, in a country with a sensible data protection regime, forwarding personally identifiable information to a weakly-protected gmail account would be a non-no in and of itself, One of the problems with the US's absolute lack of constraints on companies' use of personal data is that the casual mailing of SSNs can go on, and management have no reason to deal with it. In europe, that sort of stuff is locked down into HR department systems.

Re:Thank God for Data Protection

[Martin Blank]

"Casual mailing" of SSNs can (theoretically) get a company in trouble under federal HIPAA laws and under certain state laws like California's SB1386. Many companies are working on locking down their e-mail, often with smart filters that look for strings like SSNs or driver's license numbers, among other things, and automatically encrypting them before going out, sometimes even before leaving the department while remaining within the company.

This doesn't stop the need for laws which are much more clear and restrictive on the use and control of personally identifying information, and which have more bite when they are enforced.

Re:Thank God for Data Protection

[Anonymous Coward]

"Casual mailing" of SSNs can (theoretically) get a company in trouble under federal HIPAA laws

As MediaDefender is not a Health Care provider HIPAA does not apply.

Re:Thank God for Data Protection

[ednopantz]

Exactly how does legislation stop stupidity again?

I just got a list of SSNs from a client, cleartext, over email. They had no idea the numbers were there. The IT guys swore up and down that the system didn't contain SSNs, but there they were. No malice, just stupidity.

It strikes me as vastly more useful to have an identity system that is more resistant to attack than putting a lot of faith in the good sense and good intentions of IT admins, DBAs, clerks and interns. The whole "one secret, many points of failure, punish those who reveal the secret" approach is doomed to failure, but not before it will waste a ton of resources in its pointless task.

Re:Thank God for Data Protection

[Martin Blank]

Legislation on its own will not stop stupidity. The mistakes made by the MediaDefender employee that led to the leak of its internal messaging is a prime example. However, it may lead to solutions to help protect those who don't understand or know better from making stupid mistakes. A more complete overhaul of the system requires a great deal of time and energy, and will take much longer to address than locking down some of the existing issues. In the meantime, something should be done to mitigate the flaws in the current system as much as possible.

Re:Thank God for Data Protection

[Anonymous Coward]

"Casual mailing" of SSNs can (theoretically) get a company in trouble under federal HIPAA laws

Let me preface this by saying that I handle the HIPAA and non-HIPAA EDI data feeds, archiving, and processing for a pharmaceuticals services company (processing the data on behalf of a variety of 1st and 3rd parties). I am not an expert on the subject, but I do have to deal with it every day...

Thinking that any potentially confidential information given to a service provider is HIPAA protected is a common misconception. SSN is not HIPAA Data unless it was part of a HIPAA form - if you don't have to show the HIPAA policy before getting the information, then you don't have to treat it as HIPAA data and it's not eligible under the HIPAA laws.

But not to despair...

There is PHI - protected healthcare information - these laws are a lot more broad than HIPAA, but again they refer only to medical care records. (so not necessarily relevant here, either)

And even beyond all that - the bottom line is we don't NEED any special laws to make divulging a customer's SSN a crime. There are very real and applicable fraud and privacy laws that protect this information even if it has nothing to do with healthcare... the main problem with privacy breaches is if the state doesn't have mandatory disclosure laws, it's nigh impossible to even know that your rights have been violated, much less prove it in court...

MiiVi? Viide?

[Gothmolly]

Um, not all of us are bloggers, so mind sharing with the group WTF these mean?

Re:MiiVi? Viide?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Chinese Nintendo ripoffs.

Online mailbox access..

[AftanGustur]

In case someone wants to have a look, Here is a on-line mailbox with all the leaked emails

Re:Online mailbox access..

[Evangelion]

You know what's really amusing? If you search through that thing, you can find some attachments regarding employee performance reviews.

That alone isn't funny, but the comments that the manager guy left in there are like word for word what I've had in the past on mine -- a box with like a one sentence generic complement, and a checkbox beside it where you can imagine the manager was just picking in a pseudo-random manner.

It's really frightening how similar most companies actually are.

Re:Online mailbox access..

[z0idberg]

Interesting email, about considering using their employees home IP addresses, most likely to try and get around IP blacklists. http://jrwr.hopto.org/msg02207.html Contains a list of a bunch of employees home IP addresses. Woops. Might see a few of them changing ISPs if they have any sense.

Re:Online mailbox access..

[spyrochaete]

Thanks so much for sharing this link! Some fascinating stuff in there! A few lols at MediaDefender's low opinion of Digg users!

Roofers on the Death Star

[elrous0]

While it's unfortunate that the innocent (or semi-innocent) are paying a price too, you can't tell me that the secretary had no idea what business they were in. She may not have appreciated the kind of backlash she was risking, you can't tell me that she didn't have to deal with angry calls all the time letting her know what people thought of this "business."

Re:Roofers on the Death Star

[teh_chrizzle]

you can't tell me that the secretary had no idea what business they were in.

when i lived in seattle, i worked for a startup company in the same building as 180 solutions. our offices were right across the hall from theirs. at the time i had no idea what they did, and i would run into their people in the hall from time to time, usually it was their receptionist. she was really cute and very outgoing, far too nice to be working for such a despicable company. when i learned what they did and saw the collective internet angst directed at them, i wonder if she quit before word got out about them and she got her tires slashed or whatever.

i am glad that i haven't had to make any career decisions that put me in such a position. when the dotcoms in seattle all went under, i was worried i would have to take contract work for microsoft and listen to my wallet rather than my personal politics. fortunately, such a situation never arose.

Re:Roofers on the Death Star

[Anonymous Coward]

So only ugly chicks work at spyware companies or you only assume that your personal attraction to the girl was somehow an indicator that she could not be involved with a company that some people do not like? I only say some people because I bet 99.56% of the population has no idea what 180 Solutions is or what they did.
Does your theory work with the male population as well? Should I not buy from or trust Apple because Jobs is a dorky looking lanky dude and not attractive?

Re:Roofers on the Death Star

[WilliamSChips]

You skipped over the part talking about her personality.

Re:Roofers on the Death Star

[Anonymous Coward]

You skipped over the part talking about her personality.

Her personalities were cute and perky, with a medium uplift.

When....

[Chineseyes]

When celebrities have their sex tapes stolen no one goes around saying what a tragedy a crime has been committed. We say what kind of idiot would tape themselves having sex. So why on earth would you think that when MediaDefender has their internal e-mails and tracking database stolen people are going to feel pity for them especially when they do business for such an unsympathetic cause. Instead people are gawking and gloating at this the same way they gawk and gloat when some celebrity they don't like gets caught with their pants down.

Sanitized wikipedia entries

[dj245]

Wikipedia entries tend to be sanitized for companies anyway asa a matter of company policy. Employees aren't supposed to post- its in almost every contract there is. Every contract I have ever seen for a major company has something that basically states you may not act as the PR agent for the company or speak publically for the company. This is basically what you are doing by posting on wikipedia.

So the guys in PR are the only ones in the company posting over the long term. Anyone else doesn't work for the company, or won't be working there long (yerfired!).

Re:Sanitized wikipedia entries

[Anonymous Coward]

I found it interesting that the Wikipedia post on MediaSentry says in the FIRST SENTENCE "MediaDefender is a company which offers services designed to prevent and stop people who engage in alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution..."

So, there have to be allegations about you before they'll try to stop you? I think not, since the MAFIAA's true aim ism't to stop the distribution of their own files but to stop sharing their independant competetitors' files, or they wouldn't let their stuff be played on the radio where anybody can not only hear it but record it; I've been doing it for forty years or more. From Birth of a label-sanctioned pirate radio station:

On Sunday nights they started the "7th Day" show, where they would play seven full albums back to back, uncut. They would always prompt the audience to cue their tape recorders before starting, and convieniently left a few seconds of dead air before and after each album side.

Yes, listeners were encouraged to record these LPs off of the radio, uncut and in their entirety.

And yes, that's an old FP story from back when people still loved me =(

At any rate, here is another old K5 front pager "How to rip from vinyl or tape". It works just as well from the radio, and is even easier than the old-school cassettes we used, as there's no cueing needed; just let it sample and then edit.

-mcgrew

Re:Sanitized wikipedia entries

[Watson Ladd]

There's a difference between prohibiting your own employees from posting material and deleting material posted by outsiders.

MiiVi would be such a cool name...

[Anonymous Coward]

MiiVi would be such a cool name for a text editor. Especially if it ran on Nintendo consoles.

Moral of story = good to be old fogy!

[scottsk]

Glancing through the news and some of the e-mails, the good news is the best way not to be implicated in any of this is to be an old fogy -- I don't think any media mentioned in these e-mails is from the previous century. Apparently us old geezers who like 1980s and 1970s music get a free pass.

Mixed downloads.

[Anonymous Coward]

"But still, even after having said all that, I love it when an evil company doing evil things gets their due like this"

Yes I can see how stopping illegal copyright violations would make one evil.

"It's entirely possible that MediaDefender might go out of business because of this. If you're one of their customers whose detailed contract information got leaked, how likely are you to do business with them again?"

How likely are you to do business with all the companies that have lost YOUR personal information?

"Although it occurred in a totally scummy way that I just can't endorse, I can't deny the end result of big media companies being a little more skittish to hiring these outfits to do their dirty work is a Good Thing."

I'm afraid you all haven't seen the full effect of this incident, and I wouldn't be breaking out any party favors and celebrating just yet.

viide.com

[zerocool^]

Well, they haven't learned anything, their new miivi replacement site, www.viide.com, which isn't live yet, has the following whois credentials:

Registrant:
  MediaDefender, Inc.
  11965 Venice
  Venice, CA 90066
  US
  310-306-9110
 
Domain Name: VIIDE.COM
 
Administrative Contact:
  Saaf, Randy info@mediadefender.com
  11965 Venice
  Venice, CA 90066
  US
  310-306-9110
 
Technical Contact:
  Saaf, Randy info@mediadefender.com
  11965 Venice
  Venice, CA 90066
  US
  310-306-9110
 
Record last updated 07-17-2007 03:10:09 PM
Record expires on 02-07-2008
Record created on 02-07-2007
 
Domain servers in listed order:
        NS0.DIRECTNIC.COM 69.46.233.245
        NS1.DIRECTNIC.COM 69.46.234.245

Re:viide.com

[Technician]

Total Cash Flow From Operating Activities

So how long did it take you to null-route the 2 DNS addresses? It took me less than 5 minutes.

Re:viide.com

[yuna49]

Well, you won't see any of the sites I host then, since I use DirectNIC as well.

Don't blame them just because you don't like one of their customers. Do you think every DNS registrar reviews every registration (in their case, an online registration) to make sure it passes some kind of Slashdot cleanliness test?

BTW, DirectNIC is an excellent registrar with good customer support. Sure they cost a bit more than GoDaddy, but I've found they're worth the $15/year I pay.

Re:viide.com

[Technician]

Well, you won't see any of the sites I host then, since I use DirectNIC as well.

Darn-it. I was hoping they had their own netblock to handle all the download traffic. It's the pits they went with a hosted site. I guess I'll have to keep an eye on sites that are now null-routed. So far, I haven't run into any, but I haven't been on long. I hope the mole can keep us informed on the domain names they use so we can keep our hosts files up to date.

Mediadefender Slashdot trolls.

[Lumpy]

Oh yes, they definitely read "techie, geek web sites where everybody already hates us" like Slashdot, too."

Duh, most of us that are here too much can pick out those shills. They are very obvious to anyone paying attention. I believe there is a website out there that tracks them and even links accounts on different sites to specific people at Idiot-defender.

What they do is ineffective except for catching the 13 year old girls that dont know anything. they dont even put a mild dent in the real sharing groups. One of the guys at work was running around with a new DL DVD he got in the mail from a group member full of zero day songs and even stuff that has not been released yet all at incredibly high bitrate. He also had a copy of the Simpsons movie in 1080i which was mind blowing, it had to be a digital conversion from a not released yet BluRay master or someone broke the digital cinema format to convert it in a theater projection booth with a laptop.

No attempt to get comments from the AG's office?

[yuna49]

I don't see any mention in the article of even an attempt to get the NY AG's office to comment on this story. Nor do I see any mention of it on the AG's own web site. If ars were a newspaper, the editors wouldn't have let this story appear at all without at least an official "no comment" by the Attorney General's office.

A quick search this am for "new york attorney general mediadefender" turned up no mainstream press reports about this story.

According the ars piece, by the way, the AG's office appeared to be interested in porn downloads, not, as the editors here put it, "working on a big anti-piracy sting and they were working on finding viable targets." From TFA, "Although the full scope of the project cannot be extrapolated from the e-mails, the information available indicates that MediaDefender intends to provide the Attorney General's office with information about users accessing pornographic content. Other kinds of information could be involved as well." (That last sentence is so vague and general that it could refer to almost any information of any kind anywhere on the planet.)

Don't the editors at least read the stories themselves before they post them to Slashdot?

None of these comments is a defense of either MediaDefender or the NYAG. I'm more concerned about the shoddy reporting that passes for journalism on geek news sites like this one and arstechnica. Particularly the latter, since the articles I've read there in the past gave off the semblance of decent journalism.

ViiDi?

[ChrisStrickler]

Following the Nintendo pronunciation of Wii (as Wee), would this not be sound like ViiDi would be pronounced "Vee Die" I'd check to see if they are scandinavian and suicidal.

Re:ViiDi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternate pronounciation as Vee Dee (VD) -- also quote appropriate. ;)

Re:ViiDi?

[ChrisStrickler]

That explains all why after a torrent I get that burning sensation!

Re:ViiDi?

[Anonymous Coward]

As in damn, I knew I shouldn't have uploaded that video last night, that MediaDefender gave me V.D.!

It's like with the mousetraps

[Opportunist]

The average mouse is not stupid enough to fall for the average mousetrap. Instead, you will get the really greedy and the really stupid ones. Which in turn means two things. First of all, you think your mousetrap is working (because you catch mice) and second, you breed more intelligent mice.

Hmmm-Picking pigs.

[Anonymous Coward]

All it proves is that if you lie down with pigs, you rise up dirty. An illegal network, used to do illegal activity, by those who hide their identity and what they're doing. Who've now broken several laws to do another illegal act.

"Things that if you or I did them would likely get us thrown in prison."

Things like illegally violating copyright, and hiding what we're doing and who we are?

Re:Hmmm-Picking pigs.

[XdevXnull]

"Things like illegally violating copyright, and hiding what we're doing and who we are?" Um... none of those things are likely to get you thrown in prison.

Just curious

[Anonymous Coward]

Did any /. people happen to investigate what software they used to put the site up ?

Just being curious - it would please my sense of irony if they used some form of open-source software.

Re:Just curious

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAICT, their development work was predominately done in PHP and Java. Some of their servers, at least, ran Solaris, with CentOS being mentioned a reasonable amount, too.

Beautiful. Just Beautiful

[asphaltjesus]

That transcript is a black-hat's wet dream.

For those that don't want to read through it, it's classic PHB scumbag B.S. They're running exchange on one side, so there's going to be trouble finding a compromise unless the disks are taken out of production.

The buzzword B.S. level is so high I think I threw-up in my mouth a little.

Re:No attempt to get comments from the AG's office

[bjc23]

The WSJ got a 'no comment' from the NY AG ( http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page94?oid=161203&sn=Detail ). The AG's case was definitely related to child porn; not piracy.

Actually

[Xest]

...the word on the street is simply that one of their staff signed up to a torrent site from one of MediaDefender's IPs with the same gmail address as username and password as he used for his gmail account where all these e-mails had been archived.

It's true that simple mistakes lead to major errors, you only have to look at the Half-Life 2 source code leak where a member of staff was e-mailed a key logger trojan giving the attacker all the info they needed to get the code out of there.

Re:Actually

[JRHelgeson]

...the word on the street is simply that one of their staff signed up to a torrent site from one of MediaDefender's IPs with the same gmail address as username and password as he used for his gmail account where all these e-mails had been archived.

Heh, they all but went out of their way to provide access to the hackers. The top brass had his emails being forwarded to his Gmail account, bypassing any and all security they had set up on the corporate network.

Then the hackers got the usernames and passwords and gained internal access to the network, establishing admin access on the domain. They apparently set up packet captures, or if MediaDefender were the ones capturing packets, they found them and this is where they captured the VoIP calls.

"Keyloggers, we don't need no stinking keyloggers!"
The worst infections to get rid of are those who have admin access to the network and who maintain their access using normal everyday network admin utilities (From my experience, the French are especially good at this). I have worked with sites that have been hacked where the intruders have obtained an administrator level password, then gone in and set up RPC over HTTPS on the domain servers, then the hackers have set up their own 2003 server, added it to the domain, promoted it to domain controller and had the hacked company's Domain Controller perform an outbound sync (using the RPC over HTTPS) to the hackers 2003 server. Any password changes the users make on the home network will be replicated to their off site "guest host" malicious server.

The hackers later added Distributed File Shares or DFS, and used it to replicate file shares (i.e. user folders) information to their hacked domain controller. The hackers basically set themselves up as a run-of-the-mill remote office that synchronizes over a low-speed wan link.

This company was totally Pwn3d... I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing happened here with the amount of information they collected.

Re:Sanitizing Wikipedia is bad?

[z0idberg]

From TFA:

"When Douglas pointed out that information about MiiVi had been added to the MediaDefender Wikipedia page, Saaf decided that he wanted it taken down. "Can you please do what you can to eliminate the entry? Let me know if you have any success," Saaf wrote. "I will attempt to get all references to miivi removed from wiki," developer Ben Ebert replied. "We'll see if I can get rid of it.""

They wanted to remove all links between themselves and Miivi. When there definately was a link. They knew it was true, they just didn't want anyone else to know about it.

That's not the intended use of the tool that is Wikipedia.

don't you know?

[biscon]

All scandinavians are suicidal you insentive clod!

Mark your calendars! MediaDefender @ Career Fair!

[Anonymous Coward]

Meet the scumbags in person on 10/18 5:30PM at Harvey Mudd College!

Original Message:

FW: Career Fair Registration Approval Notice

        * To: "Iris Andrade"
        * Subject: FW: Career Fair Registration Approval Notice
        * From: "Ben Grodsky"
        * Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 11:45:09 -0700
        * Authentication-results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of grodsky@mediadefender.com designates 65.120.42.14 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=grodsky@mediadefender.com
        * Cc: "Rick Moreno" , "Jed Levin" , "Jay Mairs"
        * Delivered-to: mdjaym@gmail.com
        * References:
        * Thread-index: AcfwsBPBwxgG7deORRqxVv0hHhGkjQABT/FC
        * Thread-topic: Career Fair Registration Approval Notice

Iris,

Please calendar the HMC career fair for Jed and Rick for October 18 (4-9 PM).

Rick and Jed -- just keep receipts for any gas/other expenses you incur on this trip. Consider carpooling, if that makes things easier for you. That day obviously you don't need to work your normal shifts, as you'll be commuting and at the fair for the company most of the late afternoon to night.

Thanks,
Ben
From: selina_zerbel@hmc.edu [mailto:selina_zerbel@hmc.edu]
Sent: Thu 06-Sep-07 11:01
To: jobs
Subject: Career Fair Registration Approval Notice

Thank you for registering for the Harvey Mudd College Fall 2007 Career Fair. This is to confirm receipt of your form for Thursday, October 18, 2007. Please make any necessary changes to the information on this form and add the names of representative's no later than October 15th, 2007. The hours are 5:30-8:00 p.m. You do not need a parking permit. There is parking on Foothill Blvd. as well as behind the Linde Activity Center except in student parking spots. The registration table will open at 4:30 p.m. Complimentary coffee/tea/and water will be available. Sincerely, Selina Zerbel

Indians and Russians

[Anonymous Coward]

This is *not* a racist statement, it's a statement of fact: You can hire Indians and Russians to do anything.

Related stories 101

[Scrameustache]

I know it's pointless to ask things like this of the /. "editors", but the summary of this story is almost completely useless to anyone who is coming to the story cold (like me).

Related Stories
[+] Your Rights Online: MediaDefender Denies Entrapment Accusations 104 comments
Ortega-Starfire writes "We've previously discussed the subject of MediaDefender setting up a site to catch movie pirates. Ars Technica covers the response from MediaDefender, which basically states the entire thing was a mistake and was only an internal site they forgot to password protect, and that they were not using this with the MPAA. The article asks: 'If this is true, why did MediaDefender immediately remove all contact information from the whois registry for the domain? Saaf said that after everything hit the fan, the company decided to take everything on the site down because it was afraid of a hacker attack or "people sending us spam." Yes, spam. The MPAA's Elizabeth Kaltman also chimed in to say that they had no involvement with MiiVi: "The MediaDefender story is false. We have no relationship with that company at all," she told Ars.'"
[-] IT: Internal Emails of An RIAA Attack Dog Leaked 412 comments
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."

Re:Sanitizing Wikipedia is bad?

[gurps_npc]

No it is NOT a feature.

Wikipedia is clear that it is AGAINST policy to self-edit. Read the Code of Conduct.

Just because they don't have a very effective police force preventing rude, deceptive bullcrap does mpt mean it is acceptable behavior.

And YES, changing what OTHER people wrote about you without admitting who you are IS an indication of guilt. When I defend myself from something I do NOT do it anonymously.

save his bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

poor fella is getting crushed by the bandwidth
here is a coral cache mirror

http://jrwr.hopto.org.nyud.net:8080/

Re:save his bandwidth

[Virgil Tibbs]

already crushed!!!

No facts.

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt we will learn how the hack was done. But the fact that more data leaked afterwards, including a large (11GB) database, and a phonetaps tells that this was not a simple google mail password guess anymore. This is a full CSI style hack where they knoe everything about everyone in mediadefender.

If that is the case is would like to request the other database we should defend against that they have:
-list & hashes of decoys they use. (like gnutella, but then for other networks)
-Source code of proxymaster tool they use against eMule. (the installer was included in the mails, mailed form a guy named segio)

Wow

[johnarama]

That article was some interesting reading...I'll bet someone got yelled at this morning! Damn I'd hate to be in his shoes. What was he thinking forwarding this stuff to his Gmail account? This company is toast. They can infiltrate p2p networks all they want, but they have a new p2p model to worry about now: private and encrypted p2p. How can they fight private p2p networks set up by individual groups of friends? GigaTribe is one example: http://www.gigatribe.com/

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

They chase the low hanging fruit. Like bittorrent users that don't filter IP addresses. There are still plenty of those.

If you dish it out...

[aqui]

If you dish it out, you shouldn't be surprised when something comes back your way.

Again I agree with the post above I feel sorry for some of the employees caught in the middle, but have little sympathy for the company.

When you actively seek to disrupt somebody else's activities (legal or not), especially with questionable tactics it won't make you popular and there is going to be backlash.

Law enforcement activities should be left to law enforcement officers that have been empowered by democratically elected governments and are accountable for their methods and activities. When individuals or companies begin acting as vigilantes ( URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilante ) it undermines the very stability and fairness of a legal system. Fair applications of law require law enforcement and police officers to follow a legal process that minimizes the effect an investigation has on innocent bystanders, all further controlled by legal system and the judiciary.

I find it most disconcerting that a government law enforcement entity (New York Attorney General's Office) is apparently supporting this vigilante behaviour by turning a blind eye to let someone else do their dirty work.

There is no doubt that some people are using P2P networks to commit acts of piracy but that does not justify disrupting P2P networks and affecting innocent bystanders, using P2P for legitimate purposes.

Re:If you dish it out...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't there people who gets threatening letter from RIAA/MPAA while all they do is downloading FREE torrents such as Linux ISO or stuff on legaltorrents.com ?

Wonder who is the source of that? Companies like Media Defender giving false data.

In fact companies like media defender is why we can't buy $10 legal movie over P2P World Wide subtracting the cost of plastic, bandwidth costs and post/package. I bet Apple Inc. would be offering P2P enabled HDTV/Dolby releases on iTunes movie store if these idiots didn't make everything to look illegal on p2p scene.

There are people who are afraid to run bittorrent because of companies like that. There are software companies who can't offer anything but DVD-ROM Plastic because of companies like that makes it completely impossible to ship stuff via p2p. Thanks to such idiots ISP's blindly filter torrent traffic.

Re:If you dish it out...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you applying the above to MediaDefender? Or to Slashdot readers or others who have proposed taking individual revenge against MediaDefender employees?

When you actively seek to disrupt somebody else's activities (legal or not), especially with questionable tactics it won't make you popular and there is going to be backlash.

Applies to both -- it's a questionable tactic to post the name, home address, SSN, and telephone number of a secretary online. There will be backlash.

Law enforcement activities should be left to law enforcement officers that have been empowered by democratically elected governments and are accountable for their methods and activities. When individuals or companies begin acting as vigilantes ( URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilante ) it undermines the very stability and fairness of a legal system

Applies to both again -- signing every programmer up for new credit cards is undoubtedly vigilante action, but it has been celebrated here.

Fair applications of law require law enforcement and police officers to follow a legal process that minimizes the effect an investigation has on innocent bystanders, all further controlled by legal system and the judiciary.

And yet again, applies to both. Nobody has stopped to ask if any of the people on the SSN list have already quit, were working to sabotage the company, or were placed in the list maliciously by the mysterious hacker who took the list off GMail.

Sounds like Slashdot readers should look carefully at their own actions since they are doing the very things they condemn in others.

The week in summary....

[bennini]

i think my shirt sums up the past few days pretty nicely.

Harvey Mudd

[phorm]

With MD and the MPAA/RIAA's tactics in general, I'm quite surprised they aren't recruiting employers from Harry Mudd college (for those that know old Trek). Their attitudes seem to be much the same.

Format Of Email Dates

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody notice that the format of the email dates is DD/MM/YY? Which is kind of strange here in US.

Re:Results are In. Dickheads are Out.

[Anonymous Coward]

god i was laughing so hard when i finished reading this fest of pure stupidity. no wonder you seem to be posting at -1.

I like this shirt better

[mjmeyer]

I think this shirt is more appropriate.

Re:No attempt to get comments from the AG's office

[Ilgaz]

This story would mark the end of professional IT media. I have read some of mails randomly, it is some sort of Big media Watergate scandal of 2000s. All those large media companies show up either as customers or people who they demostrated their technology to. There is a media company asking their PIRACY data to decide which single they should release next.

Slashdot is not claiming to be a media site, it is a portal, it links to sites. If IT media is sold out, Slashdot can't setup IT sites just to link.

Check "The Register", there isn't a MENTION of "media defender" to this moment.

Does it have something to do with famous British record company which actively works/teams with leaked mail company?

This is much more than Anti-P2P.

Re:No attempt to get comments from the AG's office

[yuna49]

Slashdot is not claiming to be a media site, it is a portal, it links to sites. If IT media is sold out, Slashdot can't setup IT sites just to link.

I'm not asking that Slashdot become a "media site." All I'm asking is that they check to see that the summaries they post are, in fact, consistent with the article that is cited. In this case, we were told the AG's involvement had to do with piracy while the article said it had to do with pornography. A day on Slashdot contains perhaps one or two dozen articles, not hundreds. I don't think it's asking much of the editors that they read the articles they post to ensure the summaries are correct. It took me, at most, five minutes to read the arstechnica article and see the discrepancy.

Obligatory...

[AJWM]

Don't the editors at least read the stories themselves before they post them to Slashdot?

You must be new here.

Legal implications?

[phybere]

What are the legal implications of this... obviously the people who broke into the gmail account/etc could be in trouble, but is there any laws against downloading these leaked emails (social security numbers, etc)? What are the chances they try to go after all the people hosting and downloading these files on bittorrent?

...and...

[Anonymous Coward]

"One involves the murder of ten million jews"

Actually, it was 10 million people, Jews amongst them (and a primary target). But don't forget the gypsies, the homosexuals, the objectors, the retarded, anyone who didn't fit the Nazi ideal.

I only say this because many people suffered at the hands of the Nazis. My father in law has shown me the pictures he took as he would free the camps, and I can say it was one of the few things in my adult life that made me break down and cry.

I don't want us to forget anyone.

Targeted networks

[HTH NE1]

Targeted networks include FastTrack, Gnutella, IRC, Usenet, DirectConnect, eDonkey, MP2P, Kademlia, Overnet, BitTorrent, SoulSeek, and Shareaza.

Looks like archie and gopher are safe.

Re:Targeted networks

[Virgil Tibbs]

please provide link to pirate bay's gopher server!

Re:Targeted networks

[HTH NE1]

Assuming your browser even recognizes the gopher URI, the obvious choice of gopher://thepiratebay.com/ fails to connect (for me today at least), and there's no gopher.thepiratebay.com either.

Re:Targeted networks

[Virgil Tibbs]

new challege: provide link to gopher "warez" server.

Re:Targeted networks

[camg188]

I can see how they could disrupt the p2p networks by providing bad data instead of genuine data to their peers, but how can they disrupt Usenet other than by posting bad data?

(yeah, I know I broke the first rule about usenet.)

Re:Targeted networks

[HTH NE1]

how can they disrupt Usenet other than by posting bad data? I could tell you, but then I'd have to cancel you.

Re:Results are In. Dickheads are Out.

[jwilcox154]

radarjd dreams of infinite public gullibility:

it seems just as likely (if not more) to me that people simply don't care.

and asks is Sony and M$ have suffered for their bad behavior. The answer is an unmitigated "Yes". Not only have those companies suffered, the entire industry around them has taken a beating. People don't like being ripped off.

In the Sony case, CD sales are down even further than might be expected by the lack of new releases and general crapitude of traditional broadcasting. The industry's reputation could not be lower right now and people are really turned off. Music and entertainment are all about sharing. People want nothing to do with digital restrictions.

In the M$ case, Vista is a huge failure that's sucking down hardware sales. At the six month mark, retail sales of Vista trail XP by 60%. Big IT might start rolling it out in three years. People are sick of bloated crap and want nothing to do with digital restrictions.

Did I mention that people want nothing to do with digital restrictions? Business as usual is no longer good enough, and digital restrictions are even worse.

"Damage control" can't hide the real nature of the power grab that big media is trying to pull and meatier methods have backfired entirely. No one wants the future to be even more restrictive than paper and broadcast were. The future people really want is what you see at YouTube, Wikipedia and the free software world in general. People want to share, information wants to be free and corporate dickwads are just going to have to learn how to make an honest living. The harder the dickheads push, the worse it gets. They might have been able to keep playing games with non free software and hardware, but the lawsuits against innocent people turned the issue into the stuff revolutions are made of: they threatened the very prosperity that would ordinarily lead to the complacency media shits hope will save them. Free software advocates have been handed wonderful weapons in the promotion of Free Culture. Just owning non free media and software can now cost you your house and life savings. They might as well try to sell rusty cylinders of nerve gas and promote it with lottery based arson for their best customers.

Vista is a failure? I wasn't aware they stopped selling Vista. As I pointed out before, I am waiting to see how the first service pack turns out. I waited to purchase Windows XP till it was out for a few years. No operating system is perfect. I don't have time to talk about the rest of your rant.

Re:Results are In. Dickheads are Out.

[Anonymous Coward]

jwilcox154, replaces radarjd in the assertion of infinite public gullibility:

Vista is a failure? I wasn't aware they stopped selling Vista. As I pointed out before, I am waiting to see how the first service pack turns out. I waited to purchase Windows XP till it was out for a few years. No operating system is perfect. I don't have time to talk about the rest of your rant.

Yes, Vista is a failure because people don't want it and are not buying it. That destroys M$'s monopoly position: without sales, they have no reward for vendors and developers and these lose their incentive to support a second rate platform which reduces sales and you have a death spiral. SP1 is will dissappoint you because the problems are deeper than poor quality.

On the quality front, how long are you going to wait? It's been nearly six years since Bill Gates promissed to improve Windoze security instead of adding new features, but things are worse than ever. Are you still waiting for a system you can plug into the internet? Most people have had enough.

It's too bad you are not interested in the rest of my "rant". If you could see things in terms of freedom, you would understand why non free music and software are falling flat.

Some of each?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The AG's case was definitely related to child porn; not piracy.

I think it's getting confused with ViiDe/MiiVi there. After all, knowing what ViiDe was from these stories, it wouldn't have been very useful for catching pedos.

Perhaps they were after both?

hacked gmail account

[jon_joy_1999]

this would never happen to me, simply because I have a 99 character password, use firefox and HTTPs when I access gmail, and have an application level firewall.

I've had plenty of guys come after me, and I've buried them all, Hobos, Sea Captain, Joey Bishop.

Re:hacked gmail account

[Virgil Tibbs]

keylogger?

Re:hacked gmail account

[ScrewMaster]

... simply because I have a 99 character password ...

99, eh? Thank you, you've been helpful.

Re:hacked gmail account

[Anonymous Coward]

"... simply because I have a 99 character password ...

99, eh? Thank you, you've been helpful."

lol

Re:Results are In. Dickheads are Out.

[jwilcox154]

Actually, there are those who are waiting for the first service pack. You constantly compare Windows Vista to Windows ME. Windows ME was a failure for sure. It was unstable and vulnerable to numerous attacks. Windows XP is extremely stable and IMO secure, however it wasn't always that way. No operating system is 100% secure. It would be wise to wait a few years before considering it a failure. Who knows what will happen in the next couple years.

As for free software, free does not always mean it is the better choice. Which is the better choice between Photoshop and the GIMP? That depends on who uses it. Some will consider the Gimp to be better while others will consider Photoshop to be better. Some will even consider neither one to be any good and use Paint Shop Pro. Although I prefer to use Photoshop CS3 as it does what I need it to do, I will still use Gimp portable when I need to.

BTW, I haven't called you any names, but yet you seem to call people stupid and use childish names such as Windoze and M$. You are no different than those who call GNU/Linux "Linsux" or anyone that uses it "Retarded Slashdot Sheeple"

Re:Sanitizing Wikipedia is bad?

[Jack9]

Someone creating a link on wikipedia is not the same as one existing (although it often correlates with reality) and there's nothing illegal about changing wikipedia.

Atheist Time . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

"The fact that the information came out because some guy's GMail got hacked pales in significance compared to the content that was disclosed"

In a contest of "who's more evil", no one wins.

"I don't see any reason to cover my eyes just because of the source, when the source was just due to chance (or, perhaps, some sort of karma/fate/God)."

It's not your eyes that are the issue.

"Morally, these scumbags gave up any claim to anything a long time ago. Morally, they all deserve to be soundly beaten and left for dead on some island somewhere so they can learn to play nice with each other or starve."

Morally? Since when did Slashdot suddenly develop a moral center? Morally people wouldn't be breaking the law in the first place (alright stop that finger pointing). Morally people wouldn't be wishing ill upon others.

"Because that's sadly illegal, pointing and laughing at their misfortune is a close second."

No, it's the height of pettiness. It's also "morally" wrong.

---

And people wonder why I diss upon humanity. The above is one reason why. Peace out.

Re:Sanitizing Wikipedia is bad?

[Jack9]

And YES, changing what OTHER people wrote about you [on Wikipedia] without admitting who you are IS an indication of guilt.

As a matter of fact, it is not and I don't really need to prove the sky is blue either. In this case where the legal entity is separate from the individual, I'm not sure where you even got the idea that this would be possible in this case. You don't need to read a Wikipedia policy to know basic tort law. I'm not exactly a proponent of the US rule of (corporate) law, but I won't concede that there's legal precedent or rights where they do not exist and it seems others would in accordance with their morality (see the aforementioned modding). So sad.

I wonder...

[richie2000]

...if MediaDefender has a license to distribute Wall Street Journal's articles as a PDF from their own site:

http://www.mediadefender.com/news/20070622_WSJ.pdf

It's apparently printed out to PDF from the WSJ website by someone named "randy". It doesn't really look like something they'd get by buying the publication rights from WSJ...

Re:I wonder...

[AndyCR]

Hmm, do we smell a stench of copyright infringement with overtones of irony?

Re:Results are In. Dickheads are Out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Naturally a fat fucktard would support Micro$haft Windoze. All fat fucktards seem to support fucktarded OSes, just take a look at that fat chair-throwing fucktard Ballmer.

Remember fat fucktard, anytime you post I will remind everyone how much of a fat fucktard you really are. Eventually someone in their right mind will mod your whole fucking account into fucking oblivion which is what fat fucktards like you should do by slitting your fucking wrists. Once all you fat fucktards do so, then there will not be a shortage of food ever again.

If you flame me or ignore my post, then you will prove just how fucking right I am fat fucktard.

Re:Results are In. Dickheads are Out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter, is that you? Are you now going so low as to use profanity?

Too bad there isn't a way of modding you below -1.