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MediaDefender's BitTorrent-Based DOS Takes Down Revision3
Sandman1971 writes "Over the long Memorial Day weekend, Revision3 was the target of a malicious Denial Of Service Attack which brought R3 to its knees. After investigating the matter, it was discovered that the source of the attacks came from MediaDefender, the famed company hired by the MPAA and RIAA to try and stop the spread of illegal file sharing. The kicker? Revision3 was taken down for running a bittorent tracker to distribute its own legal content."
OMGLAWYERSUESUESUE! Seriously, I hope they get even more crucified because of this. Performing a DOS is a clear violation of law in all states, and since it crosses the borders, its a clear felony.
Exactly. If a normal member of the public did something like this, they'd be facing jail time.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
I look forward to the indictment, conviction, and imprisonment of the executives of their operation.
Failure to achieve these things will not reflect well on the fitness of the rulers to rule.
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Corporations aren't normal members of the public. Except they're treated as such in court. So that the people who run them don't get treated like normal members of the public.
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Revision 3 should have just sued, and sued BIG. By discussing it so glibly, and in such detail, on their blog they're jeopardizing their case. A huge financial hit would hurt the RIAA's cronies a LOT more than a little negative publicity from a blogger.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
One can hope, but I doubt it. Revision3 might see it as bad publicity, even though they're not the ones who did anything wrong, and they'd risk further massive DDoS attacks in retaliation if they did file a lawsuit. Cases take a long time to come to court, and all MediaDefender needs to do is destroy their solvency before that happens. Dead companies tell no tales.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
And what's the betting the FBI's interest is more in obtaining a copy of the DDoS attack software, rather than prosecuting? They have to sniff around, for the image of the thing, but savage levels of corporate brutality are widespread and Government-led prosecutions are not.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This appears to fall under the definition of cyberterrorism under the same section, as proscribed by the USA PATRIOT ACT as well.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Exactly. I highly doubt R3 would have contacted the FBI if they were hosting illegal content. They use bittorrent as a method of distrobution for legal content.
they'd risk further massive DDoS attacks in retaliation if they did file a lawsuit.
That would be the best thing that could happen. Judges have absolutely no sense of humor about people who pull shit like that.
Yup, just like every single contractor on the second death star - every mediadefender employee knows what they're doing. F*ck 'em.
Sure, R3 may disolve before it can file a civil suit, but I imagine the US goverment will hold together long enough to bring criminal charges against MediaDefender.
DOS attacks are a felony. People go to jail for committing felonies.
R3 can sue, in addition to the criminal charges brought forward by the state, in order to recoup any damages sustained by the attack, but even if they don't, MD still has to face the federal government for breaking the law.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
1. Copyright infringement isn't normally a crime. You're using the word "illegal" and "guilty" carelessly here.
2. Committing a crime to retaliate in response to another crime is still wrong, and committing a crime in retaliation for a mere civil infraction doubly so.
Hard.
"Move it's own media files" means they were probably using it for jamming operations against other trackers. Meaning they hacked the server, went to other bittorent sites, said "hey, we've got tasty files here, but only 91% of complete garbage", used revision3 as their server so everyone thought it was kosher instead of, say, Media defenders IP range, and when revision3 kicked them off their servers decided to reconnect and DDOS'd them. Because the input bandwidth was intense for the fubar'd uploads and they had just been cut off of their primary source, they used all available bandwidth to reconnect and DDOS'd.
What's going to happen here is a combination between defamation of character suites and hacking lawsuits. Those are the kinds of suites that put people out of business and in jail.
The RIAA and MPAA just shot themselves in the head on this one and their shell company is going to go tits up due to it. That's going to have a concussive effect on the other shell companies which will have a bad effect on their anti-piracy campaign.
You argued the lesser point with the troll and missed the greater one.
Why does the legality of Revision3's hosted content matter?
Is MediaDefender an agent of the federal government, granted extra-legal powers by Congress to commit these otherwise-illegal acts? Are they chartered by a state government? Has their operation been nationalized by the military, or perhaps they possess a letter of marque and reprisal?
No?
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R3 should sue the pants of them. Maybe EFF can provide some legal advice on the matter.
-- All this knowledge is giving me a raging brainer.
THEINTERNETS (Reuters)- ...
Brilliant! Dunno if this is original, but it certainly qualifies for meme status.
Agreed. "I was only doing my job" is never an excuse for immoral behavior. Cops who arrest pot smokers should be aware of this.
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MediaDefender seems to think it's just fine and dandy to DOS other sites because they don't approve of what that site's doing. Why don't we all go over there and take a real good look at what they have to say for themselves. Let's see how they like being Slashdotted.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I operate a tracker to distribute my music. It's more efficient than direct HTTP downloads, so it saves on my hosting bill.
The point really needs to be rammed home to law enforcement and elected officials that there are many perfectly legitimate, and in fact socially beneficial uses for peer-to-peer file sharing.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Sounds like MediaDefender wants to take down *any* competition to their clients, illegal or otherwise.
MediaDefender claims that they have taken steps to ensure this won't happen again. "We've added a policy that will investigate open public trackers to see if they are associated with other companies", promised Grodsky, "and first will make a communication that says, hey are you aware of this." Since when is being a "company" required to legally run a BitTorrent tracker?
Try this instead: Determine if the tracker belongs to you. No? Then you don't have the right to abuse it in this way.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
how about you let law enforcement work out if the allegations of a blog post are true first?
Or you want to abandon the whole concept of justice and just punish whoever gets pointed at first?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
MediaDefender isn't stupid; they found illegal content and shut it down.
Shutting down illegal content with an illegal attack is still illegal. Also, the only evidence of illegal content is the content MediaDefender was trying to put there. They are apparently going to all open BT servers they can find, serving up illegal content generated by them, then shutting them down. That's not looking for problems to address, that's planting evidence and then attacking them claiming vigilante justice. The only ones slinking away will be MediaOffender
Learn to love Alaska
Actually they do. we can find out the Executives info and go and break some knees. with pipes.
Honestly this is what these corporation heads need, they need angry mobs breaking their knees and ribs.
Honestly it's what's needed, the fuckers have bough the government and courts, so they need to be shown their asses bleed just like everyone elses.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
I think the world would be a better place if every individual acted according to their conscience. Why else have a conscience?
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So, let me get this straight...
MediaDefender uses back doors in web server software to plant fake torrents. Then if those fake torrents are removed, and the back door closed, they DDoS the server?
Wow. Entrapment, AND attacking the network.
Doesn't matter. Even if there were other, illegal torrents there, it's against the law to take down servers with DoS attacks.
MediaDefender is just the messenger. The FBI needs to go after the source of their money. The MPAA and RIAA companies.
You have to be kidding. I've seen enough crooked cops to know that can not be a good thing.
If your morals say that smoking pot is fine, then you should lobby to have the law changed, because I can assure you there's a cop out there somewhere whose morals say it's fine to turn a blind eye while his buddy has his way with you, before planting a few grams of heroin in your car because you didn't pay him for the privilege.
Will you accept a collect call from reality, Hatta?
you do realise that writing your software in such a way that it automatically retaliates if it's 'pissed off' is just as intentional legally as doing it manually, right?.. it doesn't make any difference if this was inititated by an employee unthinkingly switching on the doling out of 'punishment' to websites frustrating their efforts to annoy people with fake materials without first checking if the website is owned by a reputable company or just an automated response which didn't require further human interaction, the response was programmed/executed in a systematic fashion.. that doesn't add up to being negligent when it comes to checking whether they should be bullying this person or not, it adds up to intentional bullying, period.
Routers and firewalls still have to take time to process all the incoming packets. It may do some good for a while, but a SYN flood will eventually overwhelm the router, especially in the proportions being talked about here.
Remember that blocking the packets doesn't make them not come to the router. It just means they don't get past the router.
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Even with free lawyers from the EFF, the costs and risks of civil litigation could be substantial for what looks like a fairly small company. The alternative of focusing on maximising the free publicity and then keeping 100% of your effort on providing a great service might be a better business strategy. I'm just guessing, but if I was in Revision3's shoes I'd think long and hard before starting law suits that could easily tie up scarce resources. The upside could be big I suppose but it would be a gamble and also any payoff would surely be a long way in the future.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.
The only thing these **AA thugs understand is brutal force. Someone needs to carbomb those fuckers.
To me, this suggests that the RIAA and MPAA are okay with using 'not legal' tactics -- so is it safe to say that we're allowed to use DOS attacks against them?
Surely by using them, they advocate that it's a kosher thing to do. Afterall, the **AA are populated by the model citizens that we should all aspire to be like, right?
Wait until tomorrow afternoon and lock all the employees and directors in their offices under "house arrest" until this is settled. if this was really a corporate sponsored attack they need to find a way to arrest the ENTIRE company just to make a point that this won't be tolerated. In some ways it's economic vigilante terrorism.
because 250k for a few songs or movies goes on your credit report. The new bankruptcy laws allow the courts to keep certain judgments even after you lose everything. How's not ever buying a house, not getting ANY bank loans for school, or car, your credit report stopping you from a good job, etc... that's far worse "punishment" and without nearly the same level of evidence of a criminal trial.
If I knew you bought illegal drugs, despite being a crime, that doesn't mean I should hope you were really buying illegal drugs when i murder you by shooting you in the head. No matter if you were buying illegal or legal drugs, I would still be in even more trouble for murdering you.
MediaDefender committed a felony here, while arguing the only reason they are allowed to commit this felony was because they thought R3 was breaking a civil copyright contract.
No matter if they were breaking copyright or not, that has nothing to do with, nor justifies, nor makes it ok/allowed/legal to launch a denial of service attack.
My conscience says it's okay to kidnap you, lock you in a box in my basement for months on end and abuse you in un-imaginable ways as my family lives a quiet life upstairs.
If everyone had a well trained conscience it would be a wonderful thing.
But since we don't we have to have laws to at least maintain some kind of civility in life. Otherwise you would be locked in a box for the next 5 years till I got tired of you and fed you to the pigs.
Note that the law doesn't prevent me from doing these things that my conscience allows me to, but The fear of PMITA prison or a death sentence keeps me from it.
Who run Barter Town?
As long as they either enforce a particular law uniformly or don't enforce it at all on the grounds that it's immoral, then yes. I DO want that. That would be a much needed additional check on the law.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
They already do, and they should. Otherwise all pot smokers would go to jail, every minor traffic infringement will get done, etc. Of course, this will have its own problems and can be abused, but i percieve robot enforcement to be just as bad. I break every immoral law(that i can without risk of punishment), and cops should too. Robots should not be allowed to police.
All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain..
That's not neccesarily true. When it comes to morals it has been suggested (or maybe even proved) that there is a difference between the immediate percepted feeling of right and wrong and the one that comes through discussion. Mainly due to our built in difference between "us" and "them", i.e. we tend to not really care about others outside our own group. It's also why we laws stating that it's not okay to kill somone who murdered your daughter, even though your morals or conscience would not object.
So, conscience are good. So are laws sometimes. And sometimes they are both very messed up. But neither should exist alone.
I hate to feed trolls, but this needs to be pointed out: R3's still in the clear because they took action to both remove the illicit torrents and close the backdoor as soon as they found out about it. The DMCA, of all things, would protect them. Mistakes happen and the DMCA even recognizes that. Companies are given shelter as long as they remove offending content as soon as made aware of it. In this case they found it themselves and quickly removed it. They're completely clear under the law.
MediaDefender however blatantly violated several federal laws about computer crime, and R3 has plenty of evidence. The FBI is already investigating and R3 suffered a measurable loss due to MediaDefender's actions. I'd say they're in deep shit.
I can assure you there's a cop out there somewhere whose morals say it's fine to turn a blind eye while his buddy has his way with you, before planting a few grams of heroin in your car because you didn't pay him for the privilege.
Such a person isn't going to care what the law says, they will victimize people regardless. Think harder about it. You are making a fundamental mistake when you place the law above a persons conscience, where do you think the law comes from? It is (ideally) an expression of our collective conscience. If our consciences are so unreliable, then the law is even more so.
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