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University of Michigan Student Wants SafeNet Prosecuted
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An anonymous University of Michigan student, targeted by the RIAA as a 'John Doe,' is asking for the RIAA's investigator, SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry), to be prosecuted criminally for a pattern of felonies in Michigan. Known to Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth — the agency regulating private investigators in that state — only as 'Case Number 162983070,' the student has pointed out that the law has been clear in Michigan for years that computer forensics activities of the type practiced by Safenet require an investigator's license. This follows the submissions by other 'John Does' establishing that SafeNet's changing and inconsistent excuses fail to justify its conduct, and that Michigan's legislature and governor have backed the agency's position that an investigator's license was required."
SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one."
Why do they insist on calling p2p itself illegal? Do they actually understand the law at all, or are they relying on public ignorance to keep them justified?
Wait....nevermind...
"SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks..."
Limewire is illegal? What other "p2p networks" are illegal? Good to see that the judicial system is finally wising up to those weasel-worded bastards.
What a bunch of cocks. Don't they understand that it's the combination of collecting the information and presenting it in court that is the issue here?
How we know is more important than what we know.
On one side we have a massive industry with an unlimited supply of lawyers (and public officials) and on the other side we have somebody who's obviously right.
Let's see which way this one swings.
[Although the phrase "Michigan's legislature and governor have backed the agency's position that an investigator's license was required" does make me cautiously optimistic - Let's get this one right, Michigan!]
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Gotta love that: "If we need a license, everyone that uses Limewire needs a license." Sorry, but the rest of the world isn't hired by the RIAA specifically to start legal proceedings based on the data they are collecting. There is a difference.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
when they're under oath. Right now they're speaking through their mouthpieces, who will say anything, anything at all, no matter how nonsensical it is. It will be hysterical when one of the actual crooks is actually required to testify under oath about his or her illegal conduct. I'm betting (a) they take the Fifth, and (b) the RIAA's whole litigation campaign goes down the tubes.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Nobody likes MediaSentry but they do make a compelling case. If you require a PI license in order to simply view logs of connections to your machine and to contact the people referenced in those logs then the law would be extended to a lot of other things.
If I not mistaken I thought the line between requiring a PI license and not is simply where the information exists... If you are using third parties or other people's hardware then a PI license if clearly warranted.
But on the other hand if all the information you're using is in-house then the license is simply not warranted or helpful.
I don't think it would serve the public good at all to require a PI license, particularly if all Network/System Administrators ended up requiring one.
It also wouldn't stop SafeNet/MediaSentry from operating the way they currently do.
It also, ostensibly, involves the chain of custody of evidence.
You can't exactly present a file called "IllegalDownloaders.txt" to a court of law and have it be proof. Yes, anyone can view the data that they collect(IPs, etc). So far, they have been using "We are a giant corporation! Of course we would not lie!" to vouch for the authenticity of their data. MediaSentry has never been through any sort of rigors whatsoever. It could be a seagull pecking at a number pad for all we know.
Everybody knows that the law wasn't written to apply to important people!(or their hired lackeys, unless a scapegoat is needed)
Good heavens, the commoners are getting quite out of hand. They'll be demanding perjury charges for false DMCA takedowns next!
I hate this notion where ya can't do squat without some license from the government. So on purely libertarian grounds I'm forced to take SafeNet's side. Yes there are some legitimate chain of evidence issues involved, as other posters note, but basic liberties have to trump that. Evidence collected by a licensed & bonded investigator should be given extra consideration in court perhaps but ANYBODY should be able to collect evidence of criminal activity from the public Internet and should be able to testify in a court of law.
Now with that said they ARE a bunch of clueless wankers from all appearances. But on the other hand with the bulk of the tech press so obviously biased against them I'd be listening extra careful so as to form a more informed opinion if I were an actual juror on a case involving them.
Democrat delenda est
Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one.
But not everyone using a search engine or collecting data from a p2p client are doing so for the purpose of presenting evidence in court.
Nice try.
By claiming that you shouldn't need a license to practice these types of claims, MediaSentry has essentially decided that any simple google search of a user should suffice as verifiable evidence. The reason the law was created, and the reason that the law exists is to make sure that the supposed evidence is actually legitimate. A private investigator is likely to do a real search into the evidence to see if it is legitamate, whereas a simple google search leaves no proof, but merely a statement of possibility. If someone were trying to deceive people who were spying on them, they might use a false IP address, and thereby throw off the untrained. This is why governments require a PI license, and why these ready, shoot, aim lawsuits aren't legally sanctioned. It's based on the idea that most of the time they'll get it right, not proof that they're right first.
Let's consider an alternate story: hardscrabble open-source advocate uncovers evidence that Microsoft misappropriated his GPL'd code, files lawsuit. Microsoft convinces the State of Michigan to prosecute him for failure to have a private investigator license. It's not hard to imagine which side Slashdot would take, no?
Come on! We're all supposed to be good libertarians here. There's no good reason for the government to require a *license* in order for somebody to gather non-private information. We shouldn't cheer when the government abuses a bad law - even if it's being used against a party we personally disagree with.
If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one.
First, let me say- Uhh... no.
Here's the requirements, and some of them are quite interesting. Like:
A person, firm, partnership, company, limited liability company, or corporation shall not engage in the business of furnishing or supplying, for hire and reward, information as to the personal character of any person or firm, or as to the character or kind of business and occupation of any person, firm, partnership, company, limited liability company, or corporation and shall not own, conduct, or maintain a bureau or agency for the purposes described in this subsection except as to the financial rating of persons, firms, partnerships, companies, limited liability companies, or corporations without having first obtained a license from the department.
Hmm....
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"Illegal P2P"? So, I guess that means that the WoW patches I just downloaded from the Bittorrent network are illegal.
I should expect a cease and desist letter from Blizzard any minute now...
WTF is with these RIAA and affiliate companies always making the statement that P2P is illegal? It is some of the MATERIAL that may be a violation of copywrite to distribute without license. The networks themselves and the sharing of free-to-distribute medias are perfectly legal. Maybe if they understood this, they would have a better result in court.
Really, the RIAA and MediaSentry/SafeNet need to be grilled in court over and over and over again. They still won't get the point, but I'm sure a few kicks in the nuts will wipe the grins from their faces.
I'd lean towards your opinion, except for one thing: There are a multitude of things you can do on your own behalf, but once you want to sell your services, it's different. [see: prostitution]
Electricians, cosmetologists, lawyers all do things that you could many times do yourself. But if you want to sell yourself as an expert to others, there are licensing and other rules.
While SafeNet might only be using public information, but who's to say they aren't also illegally tapping into information they aren't supposed to? If they were licensed P.I.'s their licence would be at risk if they violated the rules. Risk of their professional license is another way to keep them straight, for things that criminal and civil law don't cover.
Let's consider an alternate story: hardscrabble open-source advocate uncovers evidence that Microsoft misappropriated his GPL'd code, files lawsuit
This is a fallacious comparison of the two situations.
First and foremost, the developer himself found the evidence.
Second, he retains a lawyer and sues the company specifically, rather than a john doe in order to gain his identity and go on a fishing expedition.
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Scott Moulton gave an excellent talk about Computer Forensics professionals needing Private Investigator (PI) licenses at Defcon 16. Basically the Private Investigator lobby has been pressing state legislatures to classify computer forensics as PI work. This does little to guarantee that the public is protected against poor/shoddy computer forensic work, and it does everything to increase the number of dues-paying members to the PI licensing body.
The law may be making the online community happen, in this instance, where it is causing the RIAA grief. But on the whole, laws like the Michigan law are not good for the computer forensic and computer security community.
Scott Moulton's talk at Defcon 16: http://defcon.org/html/defcon-16/dc-16-speakers.html#Moulton
Pretend I said something meaningful or insightful here.
The law is pretty clear here, it's a bad argument on SafeNet's part.
Section 338.822
(b) "Computer forensics" means the collection, investigation, analysis, and scientific examination of data held on, or retrieved from, computers, computer networks, computer storage media, electronic devices, electronic storage media, or electronic networks, or any combination thereof.
(e) "Investigation business" means a business that, for a fee, reward, or other consideration, engages in business or accepts employment to furnish, or subcontracts or agrees to make, or makes an investigation for the purpose of obtaining information with reference to any of the following:
(i) Crimes or wrongs done or threatened against...or any other person or legal entity.
(viii) Computer forensics to be used as evidence before a court, board, officer, or investigating committee.
Section 338.823
(1) A person, firm, partnership, company, limited liability company, or corporation shall not engage in the business of professional investigator for hire, fee, or reward,
It basically all comes down to the fee requirement and evidence to be used in front of a court.
Most of the information investigators collect comes from 'publicly available sources'. Safenet's argument is totally meaningless; there is no exemption for evidence gathered from 'publicly available sources'. They're just blowing smoke.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Sometimes we powerless voters - who do not have hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the legislation we want, nor a high-priced legal team to use as an extortion racket, and whose votes are being thrown away by the counters (diebold...) - have only one reasonable course of action left: play two corrupt power blocs against each other.
Sadly, this can all be resolved by them very easily with a transfer of funds between the two organizations to make them best friends supporting amended legislation to exclude MediaSentry-style investigations from the rules, or to allow super-easy licensing of MediaSentry-type investigators.
... but conducting organized and covert surveillance through it is not. At least not in my state.
MediaSentry deserves to go down. Hard.
B and C are the same parties, but nice try attempting to portray the **AA as "mean and bad" without appearing to demean the beloved musicians.
Some musicians sell the rights to their creations to others. Some choose to market them themselves. It does not matter — for this argument — the B and C in your example are one and the same, and B is damaged — at least some of the people, who got their music for free, would've paid for it.
Giving away and using copies of somebody else's works without permission is much closer to theft, than, for example, the right to sell pornography is to free speech. Stop blaming other people's common sense, when they disagree with you — American schools aren't that bad...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This move seems more like a maneuver against the RIAA then a chance to catch Safenet doing something illegal. The impression I received from reading the article you wrote concerning the RIAA's legal practices was that Safenet only made it to the stand a handful of times at most, and each time made no attempt to insist their methods met the relevant reliability standards.
With that in mind, it seems like the RIAA lawyers are the ones presenting Safenet as legitimate investigators, and then dismissing the case once in possession of the desired name. Putting Safenet under the spotlight puts their methods directly in question, and offers the chance to expose a part of the RIAA's own methodology that seems to much harder to achieve when directly dealing with the RIAA's suits and actions.
All the same, criminal charges against Safenet for what they are doing specifically with technology and information might have unintended, negative consequences. Is the push to prosecute Safenet being put specifically into terms of it's actions as agent in the RIAA cases?
Downloading a file, verifying it's content, recording the IP address from which it came hardly seems illegal. All normal things that legitimate software might do. Safenet hands that information over to the RIAA, and the RIAA of course misuses that.
Without being clear on the Michigan law, is it the last step, the releasing of that information to a client with the knowledge that it's going to be used in litigation, what specifically defines it as computer forensics and requires an investigator's license?
I've mentioned it elsewhere in this thread, but the ubiquitous use of the word "theft" in the context of p2p file-sharing is a slur, not unlike the use of the "n word" in reference to african americans.
It is used to denigrate the practice and practicers of p2p file-sharing (more often than not no matter what the material shared is).
Is there not some basis for a suit in that?
I would imagine there must be a legal reason why more partisan news sources don't use the term "towel head" in reference to people of arabic descent or "kike" in reference to people of jewish descent.
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This move seems more like a maneuver against the RIAA then a chance to catch Safenet doing something illegal. The impression I received from reading the article [beckermanlegal.com] you wrote concerning the RIAA's legal practices was that Safenet only made it to the stand a handful of times at most, and each time made no attempt to insist their methods met the relevant reliability standards.
It has not yet been deposed even once.
With that in mind, it seems like the RIAA lawyers are the ones presenting Safenet as legitimate investigators, and then dismissing the case once in possession of the desired name.
You are confusing the "John Doe" cases with the "named defendant" cases. In the "named defendant" cases the MediaSentry investigator is the RIAA's sole fact witness.
Putting Safenet under the spotlight puts their methods directly in question, and offers the chance to expose a part of the RIAA's own methodology that seems to much harder to achieve when directly dealing with the RIAA's suits and actions. All the same, criminal charges against Safenet for what they are doing specifically with technology and information might have unintended, negative consequences. Is the push to prosecute Safenet being put specifically into terms of it's actions as agent in the RIAA cases?
Of course it is. We don't know about their other illegal activities.
Downloading a file, verifying it's content, recording the IP address from which it came hardly seems illegal.
1. You might feel differently if someone accessed your hard drive under false pretenses. 2. Doing it without an investigator's license is certainly illegal. 3. It might even be illegal with an investigator's license, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
All normal things that legitimate software might do.
It is software. You haven't persuaded me it's "legitimate".
>Safenet hands that information over to the RIAA, and the RIAA of course misuses that.
That, too. But Safenet and the 'expert' Dr. Doug Jacobson are partners in the misuse. Without being clear on the Michigan law, is it the last step, the releasing of that information to a client with the knowledge that it's going to be used in litigation, what specifically defines it as computer forensics and requires an investigator's license?
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You are confusing the "John Doe" cases with the "named defendant" cases. In the "named defendant" cases the MediaSentry investigator is the RIAA's sole fact witness.
It seems more likely I've misunderstood the process as outlined. Without the evidence gathered by MediaSentry's investigator, how does the RIAA obtain the ex parte ruling to proceed to the "Named Defendent" phase? A judge cannot order an ISP to turn over a specific account name without anything to identify the specific account. Isn't there a standard for evidence to obtain such a ruling, implying a presentation of the investigator as legitimate?
Downloading a file, verifying it's content, recording the IP address from which it came hardly seems illegal.
1. You might feel differently if someone accessed your hard drive under false pretenses.
The important thing is to separate false pretenses. I download files, use them, and have access to the IP addresses they came from every day. Those files are hosted with the intent to be served to clients, just as P2P clients do in the process of sharing the cost of bandwidth by acting both in the roles of client and server.
It is software. You haven't persuaded me it's "legitimate".
Hopefully, it won't be up to Safenet to argue in court that the nature behind P2P software is legitimate. Unless they are going beyond accessing shared files on a visible network, I don't see how it's the software that should be called into question.
It is looking like the law in Michigan hinges on receiving a fee with the intention for the gathered information to be used in court, so let's hope any prosecutors are informed enough to distinguish what is and what isn't part of the crime.
Free music has been making people happy since the dawn of civilization, that is why there are so many who pursue it.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
To most people, theft is taking what you didn't pay for. That's exactly what file sharing someone else's IP is - you have something you didn't pay for, even if nobody else "lost" it as a consequence.
No, I don't think that's true. To most people, theft is taking something away from its rightful owner: the fact that someone "lost" it isn't just an irrelevant detail, it's the most important part.
Go ahead, ask someone, or just try a thought experiment. Suppose your neighbor told you they saw someone "stealing" your car, but then you looked in the driveway and your car was still there. The neighbor explained that it was a new kind of "theft" that doesn't cause you to lose the "stolen" item.
Would you feel robbed?
I doubt you'd care at all, and I'm certain that most people wouldn't care. Most people consider theft bad because of its impact on the victim, not because the thief gets something for free.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
IANAL, but that all information gathered by a third party that does not have a private investigator license (or court appointed warrant, whatever) is inadmissible as far as I know. You can gather all the information you want, but whether or not you can use it against someone in a court of law would require gathering that evidence through proper channels, I'd think.
However, holding onto that gathered information and using it in other ways would fall under an entirely different law. But rendering that information inadmissible in court would force the RIAA's corporate spies to follow the law or be essentially useless except for building a case for just cause for a warrant.
The guys making bucks from RIAA suits are like Danny DeVito in that Matt Damon movie, The Rainmaker. They would have licenses to practice law if they were savvy enough. Don't think of them as legal entities, duly representing the power of the courts, they are just some guys filing paperwork and gloating about the gullibility of people who can't defend themselves. These guys think they're important every time a Slashdot article appears about their scare tactics. RIAA suits should come with a mandatory picture of Danny DeVito pretending to be a lawyer.
If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license.
Not only that, but Limewire and other p2p's presumably have THE USER'S PERMISSION. SafeNet does not. QED.
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Yes, I can see this already:
It is a bone-headed law, and it ought to be stricken out ASAP...
I'm not, but that guy, who took spammers to courts, certainly did. The simple activity should not require a license — and this entire forum would've been in agreement, had it not been related to music-sharing. Slashdot would've been outraged, if his lawsuit was turned down, because he was not licensed to collect the evidence (against spammers), that he collected. I do hope, MediaSentry and **AA challenge the very law itself here, instead of trying to weasel out...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
SafeNet/MediaSentry defended their actions by claiming their company simply "records public information available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one."
Bullshit. If private investigator licenses were required to take compromising photographs of people in public places, everyone who owns a camera would be required to have a private investigator license.
Ummm, hey, dumbass; it's not the act alone that matters. It is the act as part of an investigation. Are you retarded, or lying?
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I am not familiar with the law in Michigan. I am somewhat familiar with what was attempted in Texas. I believe they have similar roots and similar objectives.
The idea is to eliminate the "shadetree forensic examiner" from the marketplace. These folks represent themselves as being qualified but often do more damage than useful work. Read up on Bando v. Gates for an example of an unqualified forensic examiner.
The problem is most people are missing the point. States do not differentate between actions taken as part of an investigation or not. States do not differentate between evidence being collected for court vs. information for private use. If you are going to regulate examiners, then by God they are going to regulate examiners. What defines an examiner? Well, the Texas proposal would have regulated anyone doing "examination" work.
Yes, indeed, using Google would have fallen into their definition in some cases. This is not a matter of fine-tuning the law. This is utter silliness. The objective - elimination of unqualified people touching computers - is a good one. I'd really like to have a law like that to keep most of the people that come to me for help from ever touching a computer again. But it is not a realistic objective and not one that is compatible with the current state of the art.
Bemoan the use of "unlicensed investigators" all you want, but be aware that the bloggers license is next if this really were to succeed. I suspect it will not. The law may remain but it will not be enforced. Ever.
I think there is a flaw in the argument by SafeNet/MediaSentry that the information is: "available to millions of users. If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on Limewire and other illegal p2p networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one." is flawed.
Millions of users might have access to all of that information, but only one is making money from it..... Guess who???!? SafeNet/MediaSentry. Their business is based upon the SALE of that information to the RIAA.
That must count for something in this smoke and mirrors game they are playing, don't ya' think?