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Film Industry Hires Cyber Hitmen To Take Down Pirates

Posted by samzenpus on from the roll-for-initiative dept.

thelostagency writes "Girish Kumar, managing director of Aiplex Software says his company is being hired by the film industry to attack online pirates. He says if a provider did not do anything to remove the link or content hosted on its site, his company would launch what is known as a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the offending computer server. From the article: 'Kumar said that at the moment most of the payment for his company's services came from the film industry in India. "We are tied up with more than 30 companies in Bollywood. They are the major production houses." As for Hollywood films, he said they, too, used his services.'"

4 of 457 comments (clear)

  1. So like by adversus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    21st century version of a protection racket? "Do what we say or we'll beat your connections down."

  2. Cool, now we can measure the effect of piracy. by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Let's see a graph of how their earnings went up during the attack.

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    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  3. Sounds reasonable to me. by jafo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because DoS attacks never harm innocent bystanders like the ISP, *THEIR* ISP, or other customers of either of them.

    We have enough problems with DoS attacks launched by miscreants. So, yeah, maybe some of these ISPs don't take reports seriously, but I do know that not all "copyright enforcement" type actions are well researched...

    This one time we got a DMCA takedown notice from a software vendor in Australia for a site run by a department of a local university, for running an unlicensed copy of their software. The DMCA takedown notice was sent to my company because they "couldn't find the contact information" *FOR A UNIVERSITY*. I found it by clicking on the "contact" link on the page they made the takedown request for.

    Turns out that the university *DID* have a license for the software, BTW.

    I know it's annoying when your stuff gets stolen, but don't go attacking people.

  4. Re:Really? by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's a though. If computers are going to get infected anyways and turned into SPAM spewing zombies, why not modify the virus to host P2P trackers along with it? Let the blackhats and MPAA roll around in the mud and take care of our vexing problem for us =) It would kill two birds with one stone. The SPAM goes away and the MPAA gets busted as an accessory to the crime. If they don't, they still keep taking down the SPAMMERS. Win WIN!!!!!

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    Life is not for the lazy.