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."

Comments

Criminal investigation?

[mrbah]

Looks to me like MediaDefender is in clear violation of at least two subsections of 18 USC 1030. Where is the federal criminal investigation?

Re:Criminal investigation?

[SpooForBrains]

Exactly. If a normal member of the public did something like this, they'd be facing jail time.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[HalAtWork]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Em Adespoton]

I take it you didn't RTFA; the FBI is currently investigating the issue with R3's assistance.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[jd]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[ozamosi]

According to this, it's on the way.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[jd]

Your argument contains one common fallacy. Corporate executives aren't even remotely normal.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Penguinisto]

Hella nice! (TFA is 404'd here too).

So... how long until we see MediaDefender's board get perp-walked? (too much to hope for seeing the RIAA board getting arrested, but hey...)

*sigh*... I know, I know. MediaDefender will likely claim that some poor (scapegoated) bastard employee of theirs did it without authorization, yadda yadda... then said poor bastard will get to watch in horror as his entire life goes down the toilet.

Then again, if it does go down like that, it would stand as a prime example of how one should always give priority to personal ethics before accepting a job offer...

/P

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Bourbonium]

Again, please RTFA Coward. The torrents on Revision3's servers were their own content, but one R3 member found a torrent named something like RAMBO_axxo on their tracker on May 25 and reported it to the admins. They immediately took it down and then found the backdoor that MediaDefender had been using to post fake torrent hashes on their servers. Once the backdoor was closed, MediaDefender's servers began the DOS attack as an automatic response. Louderback says that the FBI is already investigating. I expect the EFF will get involved as well as this story develops.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[zantolak]

How do we know that the Revision3 content was legal? Because they (Revision3) say it was? I don't buy it. MediaDefender isn't stupid; they found illegal content and shut it down. The reason there will not be any investigation is because Revision3 cannot allow an investigation to occur, lest they be found guilty of hosting illegal torrents.

Here in the US we have one little legal principle known as "innocent until proven guilty". Perhaps you've heard of it, perhaps not. Essentially, it's what keeps the justice system from being a Jump to Conclusions mat.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[s4m7]

This appears to fall under the definition of cyberterrorism under the same section, as proscribed by the USA PATRIOT ACT as well.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[scubamage]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[scubamage]

Yup, just like every single contractor on the second death star - every mediadefender employee knows what they're doing. F*ck 'em.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Tubal-Cain]

Here in the US we have one little legal principle known as "innocent until proven guilty". You must be new here

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Fastolfe]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[jesdynf]

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?

Re:Criminal investigation?

[provigilman]

Even worse though, Media Defender allegedly committed a crime in response to a perfectly legal activity. The only thing on that torrent tracker, prior to Media Defender injecting all sorts of nastiness into it, was just their own videos and podcasts. Basically, it's no different than an RSS feed you'd get from some place like /., they just used BitTorrent to do it.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[mrbluze]

Revision3 is an "internet TV" site. Or, in other words, a site were people upload copyrighted material with five seconds of commentary or something and claim "fair use" despite the blatant copying. Damn, why doesn't someone tell us about these sites before they are taken down so at least we get a chance to see all the content!

Re:Criminal investigation?

[beef curtains]

I salute for having the courage to voice your opposing viewpoint in the face of such adversity, O anonymous Totally-Not-A-MediaSentry-Employee contributer.

So tell me, how did you set up this DOS?

Did I say "you"? I meant to say "they", of course. Apologies.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Applekid]

Why does the legality of Revision3's hosted content matter? Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[pha7boy]

R3 should sue the pants of them. Maybe EFF can provide some legal advice on the matter.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Hatta]

Agreed. "I was only doing my job" is never an excuse for immoral behavior. Cops who arrest pot smokers should be aware of this.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[billcopc]

There is an "official investigation" being launched, but frankly I think they should just drag all MediaDefender staff into the street and hold a public execution.

Human rights should only be offered to those that respect them in the first place.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[ePhil_One]

Your argument contains one common fallacy. Corporate executives aren't even remotely normal. The executives aren't being sued, the company is. This sort of "Take-down" company is treading on thin ice legally, one such misfire as this and they can lose the company.

Trick is, they are well aware and have likely structured the company to allow a simple simple collapse w/ minimal loss, after which MediaProtector will be reborn from the ashes, a completely different company w/ the exact same staff and an identical client list.

Best bet is to go after the company that hired them; prove they paid this company to break the law for them. The RIAA/MPAA will have a harder time collapsing and reforming...

Re:Criminal investigation?

[ceoyoyo]

Lets see... if you commit an act of piracy without a letter of marque you are a pirate. A real pirate, not the "downloads Britney songs" kind. What's the penalty for piracy? Hanging, isn't it?

Re:Criminal investigation?

[shasbot]

I hate to feed the trolls, but just felt someone should point out for those who don't use Revision3 that this is incorrect, they produce original shows, such as Diggnation. (as far as i am aware, they do not have any user uploaded content or any non-original content at all)

Re:Criminal investigation?

[blhack]

And what's the betting the FBI's interest is more in obtaining a copy of the DDoS attack software, rather than prosecuting? If the FBI is so incompetent that they actually would need to raid a company to find software capable of a syn flood....well then I'm pretty sure most of us can stop using strong encryption and just start hiding all of our files on floppy disks in the air conditioning vents behind the couch.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[_KiTA_]

Looks to me like MediaDefender is in clear violation of at least two subsections of 18 USC 1030. Where is the federal criminal investigation? Corporations, and their cronies, do not face criminal investigations unless their bri... political contributions run out. Or unless they're stupid.

Are these guys stupid enough? We'll see.

This does explain those fake torrents I see every so often that have fake trackers and like 90,000 peers, though.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[AK Marc]

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

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Chris Burke]

Trick is, they are well aware and have likely structured the company to allow a simple simple collapse w/ minimal loss, after which MediaProtector will be reborn from the ashes

Well that seems perfectly normal to me. Don't you do that when you're caught doing something you're not? Why I had to collapse and reform the other day to get out of a reckless driving charge. The cop did seem pretty surprised, though. Hm.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[bishop32x]

There isn't much of a chance this attack could have been forged.... Their VP admitted that they had been mucking around with R3's bit torrent, which R3 apparently stopped just before the DoS attack started. The only point of contention seems to be exactly how many packets MediaDefender was sending, R3 says up to 8000/sec while the VP of MediaDefender says one every three to four hours.

Now it's possible that there was a 3rd party somewhere in there forging packet headers and inflating the number of packets sent, but that seems unlikely.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[NotBornYesterday]

Best bet is to go after the company that hired them; prove they paid this company to break the law for them. The RIAA/MPAA will have a harder time collapsing and reforming... Didn't Tanya Anderson sue them under RICO laws? What you describe is the kind of shell-game asset preservation that RICO was designed in part to thwart. IANAL, and can't say whether those particular laws would apply in this case, but I'd love to see the poetic justice of the mafIAA brought down by laws designed to take down the original mafia.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[s4m7]

Cops who arrest pot smokers should be aware of this. On the other hand, do you really want the police to be selectively enforcing the laws they feel are "moral?"

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Dan541]

SO your saying its ok to break the law when you disagree with something?

Go back to kindergarden.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Joebert]

It's sitting on the bench right next to the investigation as to whether Mediadefender being the originator of the attack was due to spoofed information or malicious software that somehow made it onto their network.


The legal system should really be left out of the show being put on by the media companies & pirates, when you get right down to it huge sums of time and money are being wasted to protect something that's all in our heads, literally.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Hatta]

I think the world would be a better place if every individual acted according to their conscience. Why else have a conscience?

Re:Criminal investigation?

[mr_matticus]

"Illegal" has nothing to do with criminality. All copyright infringement is illegal. Affirmative defenses mitigate that with a justification.

"Mere civil infraction" is likewise misleading. Many civil penalties are far harsher than criminal ones. Both have a range of consequences. Many criminal misdemeanors aren't show-stoppers, while some civil judgments, depending on your occupation, can be.

As for 'guilty', because Revision3 is an Internet television business, had they actually done what AC believed, it would be criminal infringement. The civil suit is an option, but not a requirement, for industry litigation. They prefer it because it allows them greater leeway with their false-attack shenanigans, makes it easier for them to prove, and because it shows some element, however small, of temperance. Willful, knowing copyright infringement is a crime, punishable with imprisonment.

You're using 'illegal' and 'mere' carelessly, while the troll, in fact, got the 'illegal' part right, as far as terminology goes. Within the false scenario presented by AC, 'guilty' would also be correct. Leave it to Slashdot to get it wrong, though.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[gnuman99]

#1 - yes it is. It is covered in the copyright act.

    http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
    AKA - Criminal Infringement

Most copyright infringement on the Internet is falls under Criminal Infringement. The key word in the definition there is "public" under paragraph 506(a)(1)(C). This protects private distribution on the internet amongst friends (and you better be able to prove that all people with access are friends!), but it slaps public distribution.

The clause was added due to relatively cheap or free ability to infringe on other's work. See 10 years ago with Napster. Clearly, the sharing was *not* between friends!

2. I agree. But in this case no crime was not even committed in the first place. MediaDefender is treading on some very thin ice.

Anyway, this is not about the copyright act. It is about a different law altogether.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Fieryphoenix]

Doesn't matter. Even if there were other, illegal torrents there, it's against the law to take down servers with DoS attacks.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[afaik_ianal]

Don't you do that when you're caught doing something you're not?

Is that even possible?!?

Re:Criminal investigation?

[mweather]

Here in the US we have one little legal principle known as "innocent until proven guilty". Not in civil court, where copyright cases are heard.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Chris Burke]

Is that even possible?!?

I, er... *collapses*

Re:Criminal investigation?

[afaik_ianal]

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?

Re:Criminal investigation?

[coolGuyZak]

It's called 'civil disobedience' when you break the law you disagree with.

That said, be prepared to accept the consequences when participating in such an act.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[jd]

Why I had to collapse and reform the other day to get out of a reckless driving charge.

You wasted one of your 12 regenerations to get out of a reckless driving charge? What are they teaching in the Time Acadamy these days?

Re:Criminal investigation?

[mdmkolbe]

I could be wrong here but I believe 506(a)(1)(C) only applies when the work has yet to be released. The work has to be in the process of "being prepared for commercial distribution". Thus most music piracy would not be criminal. This is spelled out in detail in 506(a)(3).

The intent seems to be to distinguish between competing in the copyright holder's monopoly (and thus reducing their income) which would be civil and distributing before the copyright holder even gets started making money which would be criminal. Basically they are trying to stop leaks.

(Of course, things aren't quite that simple either. For some reason, theater movies have their own special clause to get them some extra protection. A movie that is in theaters, but not yet on DVD or VHS is considered to still be "being prepared". See 506(a)(3)(b).)

Re:Criminal investigation?

[pfleming]

Are they able to handle the subsequent /. effect? Looks good so far, just don't say "hi" too many times while you're there.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Lunarsight]

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?

Re:Criminal investigation?

[magarity]

Will you accept a collect call from reality, Hatta?
 
You're kidding, right? Look what "Hatta" is advocating and tell me how likely it is he's thought everything through.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[mishehu]

Actually, the corporate shield doesn't provide complete immunity. This being a criminal offense being committed by the company, I highly doubt that the heads of the company could simply say "oh gee, so and so wanted us to do it, and we have this agreement with them that absolves us of all wrongdoing." IANAL but my lawyer has advised me of such in the past when I was asked by previous employers to sabotage clients' networks to generate more income for the company - I would have no legal shield saying "my boss said to do it so I did like a robot." He also reiterated that the same goes for the officers and board of a corporation along with its employees.

The more likely scenario is that they had some patsy of theirs perform this attack, and they'll feed him straight to the feds to save their asses.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[mabhatter654]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[mabhatter654]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[dissy]

Not to defend the vigilante actions of "the industry" here; but who's to say that the fake torrents injected into the tracker by them were the ONLY ones on it? Surely if they could find trackers with backdoors, so could others. For all we know R3's tracker had become a clearinghouse for all sorts of "community mirroring" projects.

For R3's sake; with a highly accusational public post and the feds involved, I sure hope that MediaDefender's fake torrents were the only 'unauthorized' ones ever hosted by R3's tracker. Why? It doesn't really matter at all.

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[deniable]

And that's how MediaDefender (MediaOffender?) works. If they DOS people who aren't going to call law enforcement, then it's job done. In this case, they messed with people who are going to call the cops.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[sjames]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Penguinisto]

...and criminal computer penetration to boot if they used a back door to do it. No different from a common script kiddie, really.

/P

Re:Criminal investigation?

[MadnessASAP]

Well here in Canada alot of police officers choose not to enforce the pot smoking laws. So far this hasn't led to a massive breakdown in law & order or police abuse, just a bunch of relaxed police officers and pot smokers. Yep ignoring that law sure seems to have worked out pretty well, maybe we can try a few more in the near future.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Ptraci]

I actually went to the site to see what they had, and I didn't see anything there that was not their own content. It looks like some pretty interesting stuff, too. Would you like to provide a cite of anything that can be found there that is not theirs? If not, just admit that you don't know what you're talking about and refrain from further comment.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[ex0duz]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[dr_d_19]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[darthflo]

Not quite. MD's two most important tools are fake torrents and DoS attacks, both to be used only against what they deem immoral^Willegal.
Probably, Rev3's tracker somehow made the list of evil trackers, only to be "attacked" by the first, inexpensive measure: Injecting fake torrents. MD's goal being to dilute the quality of one tracker's torrents to uselessness. Since Rev3's tracker doesn't communicate tracked torrents back to a web site, nobody noticed or downloaded the fakes and everything was good with the exclusion of some wasted cpu cycles and memory on Rev3's side.
Now after Rev3 changed the tracker's policy to no longer accept random injections, MD's system probably recognized it's first measure to be failing and escalated behaviour to the next stage. A purty DDoSing of the torrent, obviously illegal under federal law.

Since this appears to be their software's standard behaviour, blame will probably be shifted on some dumb programmer who merely executed orders from higher-up scum within MediaDefrauder. I demand the heads of all of MD as well as the RIAA and MPAA on silver platters. Also, pepper sauce. :]

Re:Criminal investigation?

[gnasher719]

Here in the US we have one little legal principle known as "innocent until proven guilty". Perhaps you've heard of it, perhaps not. Essentially, it's what keeps the justice system from being a Jump to Conclusions mat. Who marked that as "insightful"? First, there is the relationship between companies. Company A hosted bittorrents. Company B thought company A was doing something illegal. There is no "innocent until proven guilty" here at all. If I believe a company rips off its customers, I won't buy from them. I don't care whether it is proven or not, what counts is what I believe. Same here, what counted for Mediadefender's actions was what they believed.

However, their actions were clearly illegal and breaking multiple US laws. First they were hacking into Revision3's servers, interfering with their intended purpose. That is illegal. Then when Revision3 figured it out and closed the holes allowing that attack, Mediadefender started a concentrated DoS attack against Revision3, taking the site effectively down. That is absolutely one hundred percent illegal. And it did not happen by accident, Mediadefender bought tons of hardware for the purpose of creating attacks like this one - which would be illegal whether Revision3 had done something bad or not.

The only _legal_ actions that Mediadefender could have taken would have been to take Revision3 to court, to call the police, or to write letters to the company asking them to stop doing what they are doing. If the told the police that Revision3 did something criminal, and Revision3 were dragged to court, _then_ "innocent until proven guilty" would come into play. In this case, none of this happened. Mediadefender just took some illegal action.

"Innocent until proven guilty" will also apply when Mediadefender is taken to court, since a criminal investigation is on its way. And in every future court case that relies on information from Mediadefender, the defense will ask Revision3 to appear in court and destroy Mediadefender's reputation.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[gnasher719]

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. There was a case where person A bought illegal drugs, and person B stole the drugs from A. A called the police. The police investigated, and B was eventually convicted for theft. A was also convicted for possession of illegal drugs :-)

So the fact that another person committed a crime may stop them from calling the police if you commit a crime against them, but once the police is involved, their crime won't help you at all.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Maestro4k]

Not to defend the vigilante actions of "the industry" here; but who's to say that the fake torrents injected into the tracker by them were the ONLY ones on it? Surely if they could find trackers with backdoors, so could others. For all we know R3's tracker had become a clearinghouse for all sorts of "community mirroring" projects.

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Dr Caleb]

"Technically possible, though illigal... Unless you happen to be a "person" that contains no flesh/blood/"soul"/etc."

Ahhh, Lawyer. Gotcha.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[Hatta]

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.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[blhack]

Its in that place where i put that thing that time.

And there is nothing hotter than hacker Angelina Jolie sneaking into the guys bathroom to get a flappy disk full of secret documents from behind the condom machine.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[sumdumass]

The executives aren't being sued, the company is. This sort of "Take-down" company is treading on thin ice legally, one such misfire as this and they can lose the company.

Trick is, they are well aware and have likely structured the company to allow a simple simple collapse w/ minimal loss, after which MediaProtector will be reborn from the ashes, a completely different company w/ the exact same staff and an identical client list.

Generally, in a suit involving a company, you sue the company and the persons who wronged you working at the company. They in turn rat our the executives to save their asses. If you can show that an executive issued the order to do whatever violated you and gave grounds for the suit, you go directly after them too. They will have the company pay their legal fees but they will also do everything possible to stop it from going under because now their personal wealth is at risk too.

In a criminal prosecution, they often go after the persons who committed the crimes and the management who issued the orders to if and when it is clear that breaking the law was the intent of the orders from the management. Sometimes criminal charges are ignored when civil charges have been brought against someone at a company when the civil complain could cause more punishment then the civil charges could (misdemeanors limited to $1000 fine and so on verses a couple mill lawsuit). But this concept has been used widely in the past.

A common misconception is that a company hides or shields the execs and owners. But the reality is, if there is proof that they had anything to do with the illegal actions, they are held accountable for their part. Of course proving how far up the ladder goes is something of a difficult nature and the criminal burden of proof is harder then the civil burden or ever the trial in the court of public opinion might be. But if you wondering when this has happened recently, W.R. Grace over asbestos at their libby mine, Patricia Dunn from HP fame, and BP over their alaskan spill around 2005-2006 all faced criminal charges for their illegal activities.

Best bet is to go after the company that hired them; prove they paid this company to break the law for them. The RIAA/MPAA will have a harder time collapsing and reforming...

If I was them, I would file a criminal complaint with the state and federal attorney generals then wait to see what happens with that. If nothing seems to be happening, I would then launch a civil suite. If criminal charged are being brought, or it looks like they might be, I would wait until they are done or almost done then file the civil suit so you don't provoke leniency on any of the convicted. And yes, I would name as many people up the ladder as possible, including RIAA/MPAA in the process. But I would also attempt to name specific people in those organizations in order to broaden the scope of communications in the discovery process. Of course us talking about something like that could trigger them to start deleting and shredding documents. Preservation laws probably wouldn't kick in until they had a reasonable belief of a pending or potential case.

Re:Criminal investigation?

[causality]

You have to be kidding. I've seen enough crooked cops to know that can not be a good thing.

That's a good example of not acting according to your conscience. It is actually an example of ignoring your conscience; people who do this are what the law is for.

Another function that the law should serve, but tends to utterly fail to serve, is to prevent one person or group from forcing their views on others. If a "crime" consists of an adult person ingesting a substance in a responsible manner without allowing this to harm others in any way ("offending" someone because they don't like the substance does not constitute harm) and therefore this "crime" has no victim, then the law has been perverted and the injustice of this makes a mockery of what was otherwise a good institution that served a good purpose.

...and in other news....

[UncleTogie]

Revision3 taken down by curious Slashdotters, and the popcorn you're eating has been pissed in. Film at 11....

Late Breaking News....

[Izabael_DaJinn]

THEINTERNETS (Reuters)- Following the DOS attack which brought Revision3 to its knees, the site was once against the target of a DOS attack by the popular news site "Slashdot" as thousands of nerds flooded the site at once hoping to find fodder to use against their arch-nemeses the MPAA and the RIAA.

Re:Late Breaking News....

[value_added]

THEINTERNETS (Reuters)- ...

Brilliant! Dunno if this is original, but it certainly qualifies for meme status.

TO paraphrase world of warcraft

[scubamage]

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.

Re:TO paraphrase world of warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me MediaDefender also violated their ISP's Terms Of Service. Why then are they still on the net? when a normal user is accused of violating the TOS they are taken off-line. Why/how should MD be any different? Also, law enforcement should be raiding MD offices where the attacks came from to collect evidence (ie PCs and servers).

I am looking forward to hearing that MD is off-line and without a significant portion of their computing infrustructure.

Re:TO paraphrase world of warcraft

[smoker2]

Heh, all you need is a screenshot with their ip showing.
Works for the RIAA, right ?

That'll teach 'em

[Nerdposeur]

Looks like they're also the target of a vicious Slashdotting. ;)

Really? Lucky We Have Laws

[jesdynf]

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.

Re:Really? Lucky We Have Laws

[Pedrito]

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.

ROFL... You must be new here. Allow me to welcome you to planet Earth. Expect no useful action against Media Defender. And again, welcome to our humble planet...

Re:Really? Lucky We Have Laws

[Wandering Wombat]

Or the people who elected them.

Re:Really? Lucky We Have Laws

[Goaway]

Man, it really is amazing how much better you are than all those other people!

Re:Really? Lucky We Have Laws

[stickyc]

Failure to achieve these things will not reflect well on the fitness of the rulers to rule. ... Or the people who elected them.

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.

Re:Really? Lucky We Have Laws

[Phrogman]

Sorry this event took place in the Corporate States of America (featuring "The best politicians money can buy"). At worst MD will get a minor fine and an injunction to engage in similar behaviour in the future and will then change its name and carry on regardless. No one in charge at MD will bear any ill effects from this I expect. I no longer expect Justice where a corporation with any substantial influence is concerned. Fines, sure, but never anything substantial enough to be a real penalty.

Shouldn't have publicized it on their blog

[elrous0]

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.

Re:Shouldn't have publicized it on their blog

[RichMan]

>>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

Except then RIAA could have just paid up and fixed their scripts and moved on.

The FBI investigation is going to turn up more dirt and likely will lead to lots of discovery. Imagine the connections between organizations proper discovery could come up with. Also imagine the work needed to comply. "Ok, RIAA turn over all correspondence you have had concerning enforcement for the last 3 years".

This does not mean Revision 3 can't sue for damages. But letting the FBI get the ball rolling is the first step. And if the FBI do lay charges then the money part gets a lot easier.

Re:Shouldn't have publicized it on their blog

[Frosty Piss]

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...

How so? The facts have not changed just because they've talked about it in a blog. If it was illegal before, it's still illegal. IANAL, but I can't imagine a law that says you can't talk about it when someone commits a crime such as this against you...

Can you expand your comments on this to include a reason such a thing as you propose would be true?

Re:Shouldn't have publicized it on their blog

[NotBornYesterday]

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.

Re:Shouldn't have publicized it on their blog

[Beardo the Bearded]

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...

How so? The facts have not changed just because they've talked about it in a blog. If it was illegal before, it's still illegal. IANAL, but I can't imagine a law that says you can't talk about it when someone commits a crime such as this against you...

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.

Re:Shouldn't have publicized it on their blog

[Frosty Piss]

The most important thing in legal matters is that you don't discuss a damned thing without talking to your lawyer first.

A useful anecdote when you are accused of a crime. But Revision3 isn't being accused of a crime, they are the victim. They have no liability by discussing the issue because they have committed no crime and it can not change the legality of MediaDefender's behavior.

Re:Shouldn't have publicized it on their blog

[PunkOfLinux]

Here's the thing: most of the time, those small, single people who get sued have dynamic IPs. MD does not, almost guaranteed. It would be pretty stupid to give a 9gb/s links a dynamic ip address, which means that the ambiguity inherent in dhcp-assigned ip addresses is gone. Also, the RIAA and MPAA have sued people who, in one case, were dead, and in another, didn't even own a computer. They just keep pulling names out of their asses.

Re:Shouldn't have publicized it on their blog

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me of the classic joke:

Farmer Joe decided his injuries from the accident were serious enough to take the trucking company (responsible for the accident) to court. In court the trucking company's fancy lawyer was questioning farmer Joe.

"Didn't you say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine'?" said the lawyer.

Farmer Joe responded, "Well I'll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite mule Bessie into the...."

"I didn't ask for any details," the lawyer interrupted, "just answer the question." "Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine'!"

Farmer Joe said, "Well I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I was driving down the road...."

The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Judge, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question."

By this time the Judge was fairly interested in Farmer Joe's answer and said to the lawyer, "I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favoritE mule Bessie."

Joe thanked the Judge and proceeded, "Well as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and was driving her down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side.

I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurting real bad and didn't want to move. However, I could hear ole Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans.

Shortly after the accident a Highway Patrolman came on the scene. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked at her, he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes. Then the Patrolman came across the road with his gun in his hand and looked at me.

He said, "Your mule was in such bad shape I had to shoot her. How are you feeling?"

Re:Shouldn't have publicized it on their blog

[mabhatter654]

this is how MD finds out who's downloading torrents.. they hack the servers of private groups and then log the IPs of people who stumble on their illegally placed "infringing" files. This has been the MO for a while and slashdot reports it occasionally. Places like Pirate Bay deal with this all the time but can't report it because they are infringing on copyright so they'd get in more trouble. R3 has no such issue.. they are trying to run an honest shop because their jobs and homes are on the line here. They'll have no problem turning over IP logs to the FBI because their downloads are legal. Nobody LEGAL has gone against these guys like this before. Pass the popcorn!

Re:smells like...

[jd]

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.

"Hey guys, we just got the servers ba-"

[Trails]

and then slashdot linked to them.

And the rustling noise

[petes_PoV]

... you can hear is R3's lawyers leafing through the 2008 Mercedes catalog.

Re:slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't RTFA. They're slashdotted.

Where is the federal criminal investigation?

Please bear in mind...

[jd]

...the rulers are vampires and therefore do not reflect at all.

Where did they get the firepower?

[joeflies]

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.

Re:Where did they get the firepower?

[mrbah]

They have a 9 gigabit connection dedicated to launching illegal DoS attacks. I wish I was joking.

Re:Where did they get the firepower?

[Bourbonium]

The story is all over the place now. You can read about it at CNET at http://news.cnet.com/coops-corner/?tag=cnetfd.blogs
as well as Valleywag http://valleywag.com/393955/revision3-ceo-antipiracy-group-attacked-our-network

Re:Where did they get the firepower?

[DragonWriter]

They have a 9 gigabit connection dedicated to launching illegal DoS attacks.

Its going to be hard to blame that on a rogue employee.

A deliberate decision to acquire the instrumentality of a crime is frequently fairly convincing evidence of intent.

Re:Where did they get the firepower?

[blhack]

They have a 9 gigabit connection dedicated to launching illegal DoS attacks. I wish I was joking. The quote from the article was something like:

"6000 Servers connected to 6 gigabits worth of connection".

Think about how much money there is behind that.

Or is it entirely possible that a company who has no trouble using a backdoor to host torrents would have no problem using a backdoor to host syn drones.

Re:Where did they get the firepower?

[mrbah]

In a word: Cogent.

Re:smells like...

[argent]

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.

Re:smells like...

[RingDev]

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

Re:smells like...

[scubamage]

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.

Media Defender is going to get shitcanned.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:smells like...

[Penguinisto]

Dear Revision3: Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

signed,

The Rest Of The Planet

And what about other trackers...?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Mail to MediaDefender

[WereCatf]

I just absolutely felt compelled to send email to MediaDefender, I so much hate MPAA/RIAA using illegal tactics. So, anyway, here is the email I sent them: Hi there! I just wanted to congratulate you on your brilliant stunt of a highly illegal DOS (Denial of service) attack on Revision3. Perhaps you should have checked earlier that they were seeding their own legal products? Then again, DOS attacks are illegal even against illegal trackers so this could be a bit unfortunate for you. If FBI can link you to DOS attacks on other trackers then you could face serious legal issues. So, I just want to congratulate you once more, this was such a brilliant move by you and I hope you'll do something equally stupid again in the near future! ;) Yours truly, -Nita

Here's the blog post

[eddan]

I was able to grab the blog post:

As many of you know, Revision3's servers were brought down over the Memorial Day weekend by a denial of service attack. It's an all too common occurrence these days. But this one wasn't your normal cybercrime - there's a chilling twist at the end. Here's what happened, and why we're even more concerned today, after it's over, than we were on Saturday when it started.

It all started with just a simple "hi". Now "hi" can be the sweetest word in the world, breathlessly whispered into your ear by a long-lost lover, or squealed out by your bouncy toddler at the end of the day. But taken to excess - like by a cranky 3-year old-it gets downright annoying. Now imagine a room full of hyperactive toddlers, hot off of a three hour Juicy-Juice bender, incessantly shrieking "hi" over and over again, and you begin to understand what our poor servers went through this past weekend.

On the internet, computers say hi with a special type of packet, called "SYN". A conversation between devices typically requires just one short SYN packet exchange, before moving on to larger messages containing real data. And most of the traffic cops on the internet - routers, firewalls and load balancers - are designed to mostly handle those larger messages. So a flood of SYN packets, just like a room full of hyperactive screaming toddlers, can cause all sorts of problems.

For adults, it's typically an inability to cope, followed either by quickly fleeing the room, or orchestrating a massive Teletubbies intervention. Since they lack both legs and a ready supply of plushies, internet devices usually just shut down.

That's what happened to us. Another device on the internet flooded one of our servers with an overdose of SYN packets, and it shut down - bringing the rest of Revision3 with it. In webspeak it's called a Denial of Service attack - aka DoS - and it happens when one machine overwhelms another with too many packets, or messages, too quickly. The receiving machine attempts to deal with all that traffic, but in the end just gives up. (Note the photo of our server equipment responding to the DoS Attack)

In its coverage Tuesday CNet asked the question, "Now who would want to attack Revision3?" Who indeed? So we set out to find out. Internet attacks leave lots of evidence. In this case it was pretty easy to see exactly what our shadowy attacker was so upset about. It turns out that those zillions of SYN packets were addressed to one particular port, or doorway, on one of our web servers: 20000. Interestingly enough, that's the port we use for our Bittorrent tracking server. It seems that someone was trying to destroy our bittorrent distribution network.

Let me take a step back and describe how Revision3 uses Bittorrent, aka BT. The BT protocol is a peer to peer scheme for sharing large files like music, programs and video. By harnessing the peer power of many computers, we can easily and cheaply distribute our huge HD-quality video shows for a lot less money. To get started, the person sharing that large file first creates a small file called a "torrent", which contains metadata, along with which server will act as the conductor, coordinating the sharing. That server is called the tracking server, or "tracker". You can read much more about Bittorrent at Wikipedia, if you really want to understand how it works.

Revision3 runs a tracker expressly designed to coordinate the sharing and downloading of our shows. It's a completely legitimate business practice, similar to how ESPN puts out a guide that tells viewers how to tune into its network on DirecTV, Dish, Comcast and Time Warner, or a mall might publish a map of its stores.

But someone, or some company, apparently took offense to Revision3 using Bittorrent to distribute its own slate of shows. Who could that be?

Along with where it's bound, every internet packet has a return address. Often, particularly in cases like this, it's forged - or spoofed. But interestingly enough, whoev

Re:Here's the blog post

[ChuckSchwab]

hi

Re:Here's the blog post

[nuzak]

hi

Re:Here's the blog post

[jocknerd]

MediaDefender is just the messenger. The FBI needs to go after the source of their money. The MPAA and RIAA companies.

Re:Here's the blog post

[indraneil]

hi ACK!! :-) sorry, could not resist!

Re:god save their souls

[scubamage]

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?

misuse of Revision3 servers?

[belmolis]

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?

Re:misuse of Revision3 servers?

[Max Threshold]

The way I'm reading it, MediaDefender hacked Revision3's torrent tracker to track a torrent of copyrighted material, believing that this would somehow justify the DDOS attack.

Re:slashdotted

[Sponge Bath]

Browsing and posting to Slashdot?

What's sauce for the goose...

[techno-vampire]

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.

If they take down *my legal tracker, I'll sue

[MichaelCrawford]

And yes I know it's expensive, but I could find an attorney to take it on spec.

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.

R3 says they are not planning to sue

[davros-too]

According to CNET article http://news.cnet.com/coops-corner/?tag=cnetfd.blogs "At this point, Revision3 says it's not planning to file a lawsuit. Not because it doesn't have a case but pursuing a court remedy would likely cost a lot of money."

Competition ... illegal or otherwise

[phoomp]

Sounds like MediaDefender wants to take down *any* competition to their clients, illegal or otherwise.

Re:slashdotted

[JK_the_Slacker]

"(Mirrordot seems to have died and the wayback machine doesn't have it.)"

The wayback machine doesn't have it? You mean this is fresh news!?!?

Good point.

[jd]

Although not a similar case, Clive Sinclair structured his company with an eye to surviving collapse. He split it into "Sinclair" (which carried all of the losses) and "Sinclair Research" (which carried all of the profits, intellectual property, et al). After the Sinclair C5 fiasco, "Sinclair" was sold to Amstrad for a small fortune (ie: he sold off the debt) and "Sinclair Research" (which had all the useful stuff and was now considerably richer) remained in his hands.

The idea MediaDefender is nothing more than a disposable front-end, therefore, is entirely possible and would make a lot of sense.

Re:Good point.

[mollymoo]

That wasn't the greatest deal ever. Alan Sugar[1] sold Sinclair's existing stock of Spectrums for more than he paid for the company. Clive Sinclair hasn't made billions since then, I'm not sure if he even made millions, but Alan Sugar has made billions[3] - though not all of the back of that purchase.

[1] Who happens to be the boss in the UK version of The Apprentice - the UK's Donald Trump[2], in that sense.
[2] When initially writing this post I couldn't remember his name, so it originally read "that guy with the tall buildings and bad hair".
[3] In US dollars at least. His net worth was a bit shy of a billion quid last time I looked.

Re:Good point.

[Tycho]

W.R. Grace and Company is the company responsible for 90% of the world's production of Vermiculite until the early 1990's. All of the vermiculite that W.R. Grace mined was mined from open pit mines located near Libby, Montana. All of the vermiculite from Libby had tremolite asbestos present in sufficient quantities to be carcinogenic to those who handled it. However, not all deposits of vermiculite have tremolite asbestos present. Unfortunately, the tremolite asbestos present in the vermiculite cannot be separated out. The dangerous types of asbestos are reasonably benign and of no immediate danger unless handled or disturbed in some way. Handling materials with asbestos will release asbestos fibers, which is surprisingly dangerous. Unless you are trained and have the proper equipment handling asbestos contaminated materials is a bad idea. Besides government standards allow for a reasonably high acceptable concentration of asbestos fibers in air. The asbestos fibers are released during natural weathering processes of natural rocks and soil and the fiber concentrations in the air should not normally be considered an issue.

Anyway, back to W.R. Grace and Company. The executives at W.R. Grace appear to have known about the toxicity of their vermiculite product since at least the 1970's and ignored the warnings. Additionally the executives appear to have covered up the information about the toxicity of their product as well. In 2000, W.R. Grace transfered assets worth about 4 to 5 billion dollars to spin-off companies. Shortly there after W.R. Grace filed for bankruptcy. This move appears to have been done to shelter assets from ongoing liability lawsuits brought against W.R. Grace from the sale and manufacture of asbestos contaminated vermiculite. Filing for bankruptcy could have ended any ongoing or new lawsuits for W.R. Grace. However the asset transfer scheme was discovered and now the current executives from W.R. Grace are now in even more trouble. This new trouble for the executives of W.R. Grace is of the criminal law type.

I think that in the case of W.R. Grace, the events seem to show that not all schemes of this type work.

First WTF

[SanityInAnarchy]

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.

Re:First WTF

[cheater512]

Maybe we should just make some honeypot trackers and see what they do about it.

Re:First WTF

[Aladrin]

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.

Re:First WTF

[neuromancer23]

>> Since when is being a "company" required to legally run a BitTorrent tracker?

You're simply not wearing your Hitlerian headgear. Put it on, and you'll realize that rights belong to institutions and not to individuals.

Re:PUT THEM IN JAIL.

[cliffski]

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?

Where can I get the floppies for this?

[WheresMyDingo]

I'd like to try out this new BitTorrent-based DOS. I'm still using MS-DOS 5 and it takes too long to copy files.

Since /. isn't making things any easier...

[akahige]

...the least we could do is provide a Coral Cache link to the blog entry.

Re:Criminal investigation? Yes

[deck]

A DoS violates Federal Criminal Law. Copyright is generally a Civil statute and is prosecuted via lawsuits.

What MediaDefender did is therefore being investigated under criminal law.

Re:Good luck suing anyone

[scubamage]

Unless you can find some leaked documents from the higherups authorizing it, or some people come forward and admit it. If they were using their servers without permission, that alone is illegal - and under antihacking laws, a federal crime.

Re:Criminal investigation? Yes

[DAldredge]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NET_Act The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.

Free as in Freedom. My manifesto explains why.

[MichaelCrawford]

• 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.

Re:PUT THEM IN JAIL.

[cliffski]

wow, only on slashdot does the suggestion of innocent till proven guilty get modded as troll.
How pathetic.

intentionality already established

[boombaard]

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.

Re:slashdotted

[Kalriath]

Ironic. A Slashdot article about someone else DoS'ing a site gets it DoS'ed.

Letters and Phone calls (The old school DOS)

[Bryansix]

2461 Santa Monica Blvd., D-520
Santa Monica, CA 90404

PHONE: (310) 956-3300
FAX: (310) 956-3391

Start your letter writing and phone calling campaign against Media Defender now.

Here are the IPs responsible for the attack:

[Anonymous Coward]

For the lazy. Seems they run vmware. Maybe slashdot would like to say 'hi' to them at port 950.

129.47.130.104
129.47.130.155
129.47.130.53
129.47.131.106
129.47.131.208
129.47.132.160
129.47.132.211
129.47.132.58
129.47.132.7
129.47.133.10
129.47.133.112
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38.103.50.152
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Re:I don't get one thing

[CelticWhisper]

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.

Publicity a better business strategy?

[davros-too]

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.

I'll say it again

[gelfling]

The only thing these **AA thugs understand is brutal force. Someone needs to carbomb those fuckers.

There IS NO "Original" Content! Thieves & Robb

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to feed the trolls, but just felt someone should point out for those who don't use Revision3 that this is incorrect, they produce original shows, such as Diggnation. (as far as i am aware, they do not have any user uploaded content or any non-original content at all)

There is no "original content". All music/TV/movies/video created in the last 10 years at least must be derivative works of major media company IP. 99.99% of the US population (and nearly as high a percentage of the rest of the world) is exposed/hears/watches/reads/is told about IP owned by the major media producers. It is nearly impossible for anyone to escape it.

Subconsciously, they process it and incorporate it into anything they create. Therefor all content is owned by, or is a derivative work of, the major media producers. With even government failing to acknowledge the truth and logic of this fact, the major media producers are *forced* to take extra-legal actions.

They have every right and no choice in taking these actions to preserve their business, capitalism itself, and justice. Until government and the courts acknowledge these facts, expect more attacks on distribution of content and IP that by all rights is owned by the major media corporations either outright or as a derivative work illegally appropriated and incorporated into unauthorized works that steal food from the table of honest, hard-working media creation and distribution business workers and executives.

They have the money and political connections to avoid any deluded wrong-headed attempts to twist the law to impede their God-given right to defend what is rightfully theirs and theirs alone by whatever means they decide is most effective. Any claims that any media created these days is not rightfully theirs flies in the face of the facts and are simply the whines and whimpers of thieves trying to excuse their larceny!

Re:god save their souls

[dissy]

I wonder how many syn packets or christmas tree packets it takes to fill up a 9gbps pipe? Fortunately with a syn flood, one doesn't need to fill their pipe, not even close.

It's the server/computers IP stack which processes SYN packets and maintains the state table of TCP connections, which are awaiting being opened (syn), which ones are open (syn,ack), which are closing (syn,rst), and which are closed (rst,ack)

If you send a bunch of syn packets, their server will send back a syn,ack and await the last stage of handshaking, which of course you don't do, since you are busy sending out your next syn packet and don't want to keep track of all those connections yourself.

Once their servers IP stack state table is filled with these half open connections, awaiting for the final packets to setup the TCP connection (which will never happen), then until those half open connections start timing out and being dropped from the state table, no new legit connections can be established due to the state table being full.

So, you don't need to send enough syns to fill a 9gbps pipe, only send enough to fill their servers state table, and send them only faster than the IP stack timeouts those connections and drops them.

Chances are a constant syn storm sent at 10mbps will be enough to make their server stop answering legit requests.

And if their server happens to be an OS with a more advanced TCP stack, which can support syn cookies to stop syn floods, then all one needs to do is aim the attack at one of their routers and take IT down instead.

Re:Don't waste your time

[Blackknight]

How about a backhoe?

SYN Flooding?

[NimbleSquirrel]

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.