Slashdot Mirror
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."
Looks to me like MediaDefender is in clear violation of at least two subsections of 18 USC 1030. Where is the federal criminal investigation?
heh. I first read that as "...conviction, imprisonment, and execution..."
How did mediadefender get enough computing resources/bandwidth to launch a DOS? Did they launch it out of their own datacenter/domain, or do they have a network of locations?
No, I haven't read the article because the link is not coming up right now.
Not to mention any discovery in this matter can and WILL be used by states who are currently investigating mediadefender for performing investigations without proper licensing.
Can you expand your comments on this to include a reason such a thing as you propose would be true?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
That 'huge financial hit' would be years off at best. R3 is trying to hurt them now while they can. They know that with deep enough pockets, the RIAA & friends can keep justice at bay almost forever. Contrary to their public boo-hooing over the cost of "piracy", the RIAA and MPAA are full of money.
What they need is public opinion. In order for them to be successful in curtailing "piracy", they need to convince a large percentage of the public of 2 things - 1) that they are in a morally superior position compared to those sharing files, and 2) that bad things happen to those who share files.
R3 is taking this opportunity to show that 1) the RIAA is a morally bankrupt group of thugs in 3-piece suits, and 2) the RIAA makes bad things happen to good and bad people indiscriminately.
I'd be surprised if a whopping big lawsuit didn't follow this, but I haven't been able to RTFA.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
It wouldn't be too big of a stretch of one's imagination to believe they use the same tactic against other trackers.
Maybe if the likes of PirateBay, Mininova and others looked more closely at their traffic patterns and found some "common problems" (such as web traffic from MediaDefender), there would be grounds for civil if not criminal proceedings against MediaDefender.
What IP#'s or subnets or networks does MediaDefender use?
Or better yet...
Maybe we should all run trackers with fake movies being shared and watch for MediaDefender DOS'ing us and create an ever larger case against these twits?
... This method is becoming increasingly common, and unlike DOS's from a single source, Db/. (Death by Slashdot) cannot be fought with conventional methods, as it is indistinguishable from normal traffic. So far, Db/. is usually fought by taking down the targeted webserver until the story leaves the front page.
Its doubtful that anyone will hack into any of those closed systems for the most part. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see mediadefender start getting nailed VERY hard bandwidth wise. I wonder how many syn packets or christmas tree packets it takes to fill up a 9gbps pipe?
Can you expand your comments on this to include a reason such a thing as you propose would be true?
The most important thing in legal matters is that you don't discuss a damned thing without talking to your lawyer first.Let's use a hypothetical example: I've been injured by, let's say, "Mike Dammit!" (MD for short). Let's say MD stabs me in the arm.
I usually carry a small aid kit, so let's also assume that I manage to give myself First Aid and stop the bleeding. In the meantime, MD had stabbed four other people and run off before the cops arrive.
Someone then asks me how I'm doing. I say, "I'm fine."
Later, MD's lawyer will do their damned best to find anyone, anywhere, where I've said, "I'm fine." The goal is to make it look like I've suffered less than I actually have.
"After all, Mr. Beardo, if that IS your real name, if you were suffering so greatly, why did you tell the Paramedic that you were, in your words, 'fine'.?
"In fact, your injuries were so light that you were able to treat them yourself, isn't that right? So why should my client be forced to pay you more than an hour's last wages and the reimbursement for your first aid kit?"
It's not logic, it's the law.
I have a great real life example that, under the advice of my legal councel, I cannot share.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Revision3 refers to longstanding misuse of its severs by MediaDefender, before the current DOS attack. What exactly they were doing isn't clear to me. Anybody know? And is it a crime?
The idea MediaDefender is nothing more than a disposable front-end, therefore, is entirely possible and would make a lot of sense.
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)
You mean lobbyists and campaign contributors, such as the MPAA, RIAA, Sony, and such? Please. This will get swept under the rug and the relentless juggernaut of "copyright justice" will roll on like it has for the last 10 years.
- Why Free Music?
I only have the scores to two of the songs so far. At the time I composed them, I couldn't read music, so I did it all by ear, and by memorization.I stopped playing for a while because I got real depressed shortly after recording my album. That lead to me partially forgetting how to play Sahara, and completely forgetting how to play As Yet Untitled.
But I'm working on transcribing the scores from my recordings. It's taking me a long time, but eventually I'll be providing Lilypond source for them as well.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
SYN Flooding is one of the oldest DOS attacks around. The attack must have been truely massive to bring down the server... or the admins didn't have the protection in place for such an old style DOS attack.
Either way, if they can track the attack back to MediaDefender, then they have pretty good evidence to sue them, or at least get the FBI involved.
I think MediaDefender need to be taught a valuable lesson: just because other people break the law, doesn't mean you have the right to break the law in your crusade against them.
Exactly. And if a legit company tells them 'Go fsck yourself.' and they get DoS'd, Media Defender will have even more criminal charges against them. I hope other companies refuse to answer when MD asks them, so this will happen over and over.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM