Slashdot Mirror
'I Was a Hacker for the MPAA'
Wired has up an article with a man named Robert Anderson, who was recruited by the MPAA in 2005 to inform on people in the BitTorrent community. In a tell-all interview with the site, Anderson explains how the powerful media organization encouraged him to obtain the information they were looking for: "According to Anderson, the MPAA told him: 'We would need somebody like you. We would give you a nice paying job, a house, a car, anything you needed.... if you save Hollywood for us you can become rich and powerful.' In 2005, the MPAA paid Anderson $15,000 for inside information about TorrentSpy -- information at the heart of a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought by the MPAA against TorrentSpy of Los Angeles. The material is also the subject of a wiretapping countersuit against the MPAA brought by TorrentSpy's founder, Justin Bunnell, who alleges the information was obtained illegally."
If they would give him anything, and he only got 15K?????? What an idiot.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If this is really true, it must mean that MPAA seriously believe they can close illegal interweb media distribution channels. Either they underestimate scale of the problem or overestimate their own power and influence, in any case they live in a dream world.
The MPAA does not dispute it paid Anderson for the sensitive information, but insists that it had no idea that Anderson stole the data. "The MPAA obtains information from third parties only if it believes the evidence has been collected legally," says MPAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Kaltman.
Essentially, the MPAA said "we will give you anything if you rat these people out and obtain evidence for us", yet "didn't know" he was doing it illegally? Please, just shows how desperate they can be and what kind of morale these people have.
SHUT UP.
You're fighting a battle which was stupid even before it was lost, 10 years ago. To the general population, when Joey Pimpleface finds some code on the internet that lets him sniff out some doofus's password, that is hacking. That makes it the case, whether you like it or not. You're never, ever going to realign the definition of the term, not even if you did more than post on slashdot about it (which you won't). Do what you do with every other word in the damn language, and use it the same way everyone else does. Suddenly, magically, you'll find you can communicate with other lifeforms! Imagine that!
By the way, You're so naive I almost hate to burst your bubble on that one, but no. Leaving aside your high-school perception of the world, the thing that set nerds and geeks apart is lack of social skills. I can assure you "jocks and cheerleaders", as you so eloquently put it, do not try to imitate an inability to socialize. Geeks and nerds are respected once they learn how to socialize, to become like the "jocks and cheerleaders" in that sense.
ResidntGeek
Actually, multiple personality disorder is a form of schizophrenia. So, people who say that those with multiple personality disorder have schizophrenia, they're not wrong, just inexact.
I started hacking and cracking in 1983, way before it was "cool". At the time, according to me and my friends who were much better hackers and crackers than I was (including one Pentagon computer hacker who eventually got caught), cracking is a subform of hacking.
Language evolves and meanings change. Happens every year with lots of words. During the transition, it creates confusion, but then the new meaning takes over and settles in and communication continues. take "hacking", for example. It used to just mean "beating something with a sharp object"...