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Sony, Universal and Fox Caught Pirating Through BitTorrent
New submitter Bad_Feeling sends in a followup to the story we discussed on Monday about a new site that scanned a few popular torrent trackers and linked torrents to IP addresses. The folks at TorrentFreak decided to check IP addresses belonging to major companies in the entertainment industry and published lists of pirated files from several, including Fox, Sony, and NBC Universal. Of course, they used the information to make a slightly different point than the industry usually does:
"By highlighting the above our intention is not to get anyone into trouble, and for that reason we masked out the end of the IP addresses to avoid a witch hunt. An IP address is not a person, IP addresses can be shared among many people, and anyone can be behind a keyboard at any given time."
So surely the companies are distributing the movies to everyone. As they are the rights holder, it should be legal to download it?
...out of existence!!!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
So their point is if IPs change, and it is hard to figure out who broke the law, law enforcement might as well just give up?
I'm all for sharing of information and media freely. Hell! I pirate the shit out of everything, but this is the worst argument for it I have ever heard.
The argument is equivalent to: A murderer used many cars during his escape, since it is hard to pinpoint which one is his we should give up.
Then obviously we should ban cars.
Didn't we discuss to death that the site www.youhavedownloaded.com was a hoax? I mean we're talking about a site that says "Don't take it seriously" at the bottom of every page. Also apparently I've downloaded a single episode of some series I've never heard of (mid-season mind you), and my IP has been static for about 8 years now.
Just like a cop watching kiddie porn at the 'evidence room'.
...that if a property is doing sluggishly the PR arms of the studios put it out on the 'net to try to raise buzz. The irony is that then the legal arms of these same companies go after those very people the other side of their company want to resuscitate their ailing properties by word-of-mouth.
It's cynical, hypocritical and just downright fucked up.
By highlighting the above our intention is not to get anyone into trouble . . .
This quote is not from Hollywood studios but the author of the article on torrentfreak. This is somewhat of a non-story. It is possible that an employee of a studio is downloading via torrents without permission. After all, how many people do you know use their work networks to download pirated content. Their companies most likely do not approve of such actions. This is only a story if a high-ranking employee is pirating. If the downloading was authorized, what was the purpose? If someone from the legal/copyright department is doing so to verify that their content is on the internet, that's well within the scope of their jobs.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It did nothing. Figuring out the last octet shouldn't be too difficult.
FTA:
"In a response Buma/Stemra issued a press release stating that their IP-addresses were spoofed. A very unlikely scenario, but one that will be welcomed by BitTorrent pirates worldwide. In fact, they’d encourage Sony, Universal and Fox to say something similar. After all, if it’s so easy to spoof an IP-address, then accused file-sharers can use this same defense against copyright holders."
This is quite a smart move. Getting these big organisations to explain this away will only add credence to the valid reasons that the public should be able to use to protect themselves. It doesn't matter what your personal opinion is on the morals of the situation the plain fact is an IP is not a person and the clearer this is made to the judges the better. Of course there is a the chance that the IPs were added manually by the guys who set the project up, they already admitted that there is still test data in there (do a check for 192.168.*.*) so it's far from perfect.
how many people do you know use their work networks to download pirated content
None, actually. That's a really stupid thing to do... The only thing worse than being slapped with a 100k fine for downloading some music is also getting fired over it.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
It seems to me it's not so much about giving up enforcement than pointing out that ip isn't a good way to identify law breakers.
It more like, a murderer used a stolen cars ( Or the murderer give/sell the car away) and the police arrest the owner of the car...
(\__/) This is Lapinator
(='.'=) copy it in your sig
(")_(") so it can take over the world
Actually it's pretty much a story if it's low-level employees doing it.
Come on! the MPAA and RIAA are always trying to get ISPs to police their customers and make sure nobody is using their connection to pirate stuff.
But then they can't even block their own freaking employees from going to torrents and pirating copyrighted works?
I mean, it should be easier to control employees than customers, no? So this makes the point of the ISPs that have long said that they can't monitor their customers and make sure they don't pirate.
I did a search on some IP addresses assigned to overseas US military facilities. Let's just say it turns out US soldiers like transsexuals and big girls. And possibly big transsexual girls.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Those major could have asked some of their employees to test if there was some of their own movies being pirated, acting like pirates for a few moments...
Yep. Fox was making sure that Sony movies were being pirated, by downloading them.
No doubt they were trying to help Sony's legal case by making their downloading problem look even worse.
John
That's exactly what happens. Until the owner can prove it wasn't them driving, or the cops have a reason to believe otherwise, they are the prime suspect.
Much in the same way that if your car is caught on a speed/red light camera, the owner gets the fine. Until they prove in court it wasn't them, or the real driver owns up to it, the owner is responsible for paying it.
Whatever. It's still hilarious.
which is totally what she said
That's exactly what happens. Until the owner can prove it wasn't them driving
R.I.P. Presumption of Innocence.
Quick pass PROTECTIP or SOPA and then we can catch these companies pirating content then shut them down for a felony pirating offense since Company=Person=IP address.
Well, I haven't heard anyone admit to it but receiving C&D letters was the reason filtering was turned on at a previous employer of mine. And there was no witch hunt tone, just a "This is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it, please remember that what you do on the company network can be tracked back to us and reflect poorly on the company." Never heard of anyone getting punished for it, then again I of course didn't have access to anyone's HR files. That said, I don't live in the US...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Their point is that an IP is a terrible basis for an accusation. It is. It's still a good starting point for a real investigation.
It is possible that an employee of a studio is downloading via torrents without permission.
I'm flabbergasted that this is actually possible, unless the employee in question is privileged in particular ways, such as by being a network administrator.
After all, how many people do you know use their work networks to download pirated content.
None. Those who use torrents do so at home.
Reputable companies which are large enough to have an IT department will have strict enforcement of many network policies, especially those which are related to commercial risk. Where I work, everything other than ports 80 and 443 must be opened on a per-node and per destination basis. If you need ftp or ssh, you have to state the specific need and how it relates to the business. Also, even ports 80 and 443 are heavily filtered so that social media sites (youtube, facebook, etc.), name redirection sites (dyndns and its ilk), file lockers (megaupload, etc.), webmail (gmail, hotmail, etc.) and all sites hosting questionable activities are blocked. I suspect running a client for IRC or BitTorrent would get you nowhere. There are probably some ways around this, but looking for them would be stupid and might set off career-threatening alarm bells.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
If they're from the studios, they own the copyright to the properties so they have the legal right to download them. Sure, people make the argument that if they're on a BT tracker they're "distributing" the file so they're giving everyone else the legal right to download it, but that's not how IP law works. Besides, they'll say they were only downloading them to support their enforcement actions against other downloaders.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Good grief, are you really that dumb? Presumption of innocence means you are not guilty until proven otherwise (ie at trial). It does NOT refer to what the police do or who they consider guilty (a suspect). The stuff that happens BEFORE the trial is based on 'probable cause'. If your car is seen fleeing a crime scene, there is good reason (probable cause) to think you were involved. No, you have not been PROVEN to be involved yet, that would occur at trial. Same thing with an IP address. No, it does not mean the owner of the address is the guilty party, but there is probable cause to think he is, and that probable cause opens the door to the collection of further evidence and legal action. Nobody has been convicted or successfully sued based solely on an IP address.
It is possible that an employee of a studio is downloading via torrents without permission
Well yes, naturally. The thing is these companies are the same ones telling courts that an IP address connected to a swarm constitutes positive identification and proof of guilt for whoever the IP address was assigned to at the time.
If someone from the legal/copyright department is doing so to verify that their content is on the internet, that's well within the scope of their jobs.
Again, true. And more evidence that an IP address does not equal proof of infringement.
They deserve to squirm on the hook for this one. Totally a newsworthy story.
It is possible that an employee of a studio is downloading via torrents without permission.
Indeed, one of the people with whom we pass around "The Hard Drive" is an IP lawyer for one of the big media companies.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Well, actually, in a corporate environment, that is almost always false and in every single corporate behavior policy involving computer and network access I have ever seen it has stated that one is responsible for anything done under one's ID and from one's computer if one is logged into one's computer.
Also, I wonder if the IP addresses are for an open guest internet connection, something several companies I have worked for have had.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Haha, I checked it out and found that it fakes results when you hit the homepage. It showed some British-looking women for the IP of an area with no women like that (the closest IRL version of the "women in Low Earth Orbit!" experiment). Also it allows you to sign in with Facebook credentials. What could possibly go wrong?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Not necessarily true. It is possible to download a torrent without seeding.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
So? They could upload their entire catalogue to an open website, it doesn't mean that you have *permission* to copy it, view it, burn it to a DVD - that's not how copyright licensing works.
I can request an install disk of a site-licensed piece of software from a company - it doesn't mean they have "given" me a license to use it on my entire site. The license and content are entirely separate and without the license, the content cannot be legally used. Similarly, I can read a book and even own a copy, it doesn't mean I have permission to broadcast it across Times Square.
Also, we don't know that they uploaded anything. And if they did, we don't know that it was more than the same block over and over again and not a usable copy of the work. And if they did give everyone on the swarm a complete copy, it still doesn't mean they are licensed to view it, especially if the nature of the protocol requires that to check on infringement of their own work.
It's their work. They can upload it to YouTube if they want and hide it in a private account. It does *NOT* mean that even YouTube itself would get rights to view or distribute it unless contracts that were agreed to said so. With YouTube you have an EULA concerning uploads. With torrents you don't. No licence agreement does not mean "public domain" or even "for your personal use only". It still means "no unauthorised use" by default under copyright law.
That should be *unless* proven otherwise - big distinction there.
That's not how it works. Copyright law itself imposes the constraints.
Dilbert RSS feed
I think a better analogy would be:
A car manufacturer rails for a couple decades against the use of certain lithium batteries for its negative eco-impact.
Car manufacturer is found to be using those batteries in their cars, and their cars to produce more eco-damage than the batteries.
Car manufacturer says "See, the battery's not so big of a deal. There are more important considerations for a car."
Basically, they reversed completely their opinion on prosecuting based on IP. That is their primary means of going after 'criminal' P2P sharers. I wish this had come out as "We're sorry, we realized we messed up, we're not going to use IP as prosecution material anymore."
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
In a response Buma/Stemra issued a press release stating that their IP-addresses were spoofed.
A spoofed IP address does not receive return packets unless you hijack the address or PAT the specific traffic on the router/firewall responsible for the address. I doubt Buma/Stemra had an outage long enough for someone to snag some files. If someone malicious owns their router/firewall there would be more mischief than this.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Which they (and only they) have the right to do, as they own the copyright.
No, definitively not. Bittorrent algorithms don't replace the law. Copyright law says you can't distribute it unless you have a license that gives you that right, so all torrent downloaders are committing copyright infringement if their torrent client uploads what they've already downloaded. They don't need to claim anything or have an agreement.
Dilbert RSS feed
Yes, but ownership of the car alone is not sufficient evidence for a conviction, only to point the finger of suspicion. The police then go on to look for more evidence to build a case in court. With these civil cases often the IP is the only "evidence" that's being offered, and it's a lot harder to steal someone's car, use it to commit a murder and put it back without the owner realising than it is to let someone else use your computer, or to spoof an IP/piggyback off someone else's network, or for the logging software at the ISP to screw up.
Keep in mind that they only need to show there is a 51% chance it was you to win in court.
In your analogy, at least 51% of the time a murderer probably uses their own car.
So if the MPAA lawyers show up in court with a printout from your ISP saying that you were using X IP at a particular time, and they have a log from a hacked client showing that X IP downloaded a movie they own at that time....bam, automatic win.
Because a rational, scientific view of the evidence would be that this method of data collection works at LEAST 51% of the time.
Now, in practice courts give lawyers a chance to try all kind of things to slow down the process...but the way the system works, it is "justice" for you to pay some kind of civil penalty for your misdeed. Now, the actual dollar amounts specified by the law are ridiculous...but JUDGES DON'T MAKE THE LAW, they just INTERPRET it.
Fortunately people never do anything stupid.
Dilbert RSS feed
But I think I remember the general consensus on /. when a normal human gets accused of pirating is that IP addresses don't prove anything.
No. The consensus is that IP addresses don't prove that a particular person downloaded something. But it can definitively prove that it was done by a machine in a particular network, which in this case is the network of those RIAA members. Nobody is claiming a specific employee has downloaded them.
Dilbert RSS feed
They could upload their entire catalogue to an open website, it doesn't mean that you have *permission* to copy it, view it, burn it to a DVD - that's not how copyright licensing works.
Hang on. If the owner chooses to upload the content to a open website you absolutely have the right to download it. You do not require permission to download it or view it. That's not how copyright licensing works.
Maybe thats the whole point of this exercise. Getting the companies to admit that IP address alone don't prove anything, so courts can tell them to back off when they show up with this "evidence".
Nobody has been convicted or successfully sued based solely on an IP address.
You lost it in the last sentence there, nobody's been convicted in a criminal case. Plenty of people have been sued and lost in civil cases, where you don't have the presumption of innocence. A civil case is looked on as a dispute where both parties are equal and a simple preponderance of evidence is sufficient.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'm in Hong Kong, and when I checked Badoo, it showed a map of Hong Kong, and then a dozen mugshots of people (male and female) supposedly looking for "friends" there. Most white, one or two black, not one Chinese. So, complete fake and bullshit.
Opentracker spews out random IPs, scanning them means nothing.
Bullshit. There's no "percentage" required to convict, nor any such way to quantify that. And even as an approximation, 51% doesn't match what happens (at least, what's supposed to happen). The game isn't whether or not they "probably" did it, for which 51% would be the minimum (but not at all meaningful); it's that they did it "beyond a reasonable doubt," i.e., assuming reasonable circumstances and given the evidence, it should be very likely that they did it.
51% is idiotic. It's not meaningfully different than just flipping a coin and getting rid of courts and judges and jurors. 51% means maybe they did it maybe they didn't, but most of all, we have no clue whether they did it or not.
I vote based on politicians' actions, unless contrary to my preconceptions. Often wrong, never uncertain. #iamthe99%
I don't know where you came up with that crap, but it is entirely false. Perhaps you could point us to this 51% law?
I suspect you are referring to the different standards between civil and criminal cases, but your interpretation is way off.
In a criminal case, the standard is 'reasonable doubt'. That is, if the jury has any reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty, they must acquit. The defense does not even have to put on a case, and the jury can still decide the prosecutions case was too weak.
In a civil case, the standard is 'preponderance of evidence'. That means that, in the jury's mind, enough unrefuted evidence was presented by the plaintiff to determine that the defendant is liable. The defense MUST put on a case, or they will lose. It has nothing to do with probabilities or any such nonsense.
Good grief, are you really that dumb? Presumption of innocence means you are not guilty until proven otherwise (ie at trial). It does NOT refer to what the police do or who they consider guilty (a suspect).
Answering your question? Yes, he is.
Shit like this is why you see memes spring out of places like 4chan. An apt, pejorative nickname that describes the behavior of an internet denizen. A good example could be the "White Knight." "Troll" is so well known and obvious that the metaphor contained therein is completely dead; it quite literally means "asshole on the internet who derives increasing satisfaction from the emotional degree of a response solicited by provoking others."
I suggest we coin a new one for "asshole who takes three sentences of legal concepts, refuses to understand them, points out contradictions that hold only against that ignorance, and then proceeds to rally support from those with just as much or more ignorance (...to be fair, those people are usually called 'sheep')."
I would propose "iANALyst," but so many people fail so damn hard at finding either shift key, that the integrated puns would likely be lost in propagation. Regarding the shift-key location failure, Slashdot is thankfully the exception, rather than the rule.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Name one case where someone lost a civil case based solely on an IP address.
They offered their "property" up in a fashion that assumes that other people will continue to redistribute it on their behalf. No pro-corporate legal interpretation of the Copyright Act will really change that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Name a case where the ONLY evidence was an IP address, and the plaintiff won.
Who has lost a civil case based only on an IP address?
They could have been looking for IP addresses to send DMCA notices to.
Well then at the very least this highlights that the studios need to clean their own house before they start witch hunts elsewhere. Why they wouldn't have blocked such sites/software is baffling - it's clearly a huge PR loss in the making when they're desperately trying to win the PR war in the eyes of a largely indifferent public. There are also all kinds of laws about agency and when one is acting as an agent of one's company which it's easy to fall foul of.
That's the whole point of this story - that by their own rules these IPs show they are downloading when we all know it's not that clear cut. As someone who doesn't download from these sites but who relies on net access for a living, it's a real concern to me that big media can basically extort money from people with nothing more than a number on a piece of paper and a threat of court hassle, but it's even more of a worry when we see ridiculous "three strikes" laws starting to appear which can ruin a career with what amounts to zero real evidence.
So their point is if IPs change, and it is hard to figure out who broke the law, law enforcement might as well just give up?
I'm all for sharing of information and media freely. Hell! I pirate the shit out of everything, but this is the worst argument for it I have ever heard.
The argument is equivalent to: A murderer used many cars during his escape, since it is hard to pinpoint which one is his we should give up.
How about
People ride cabs all the time. I know, you saw the criminal get in that cab, six months ago. That doesn't mean that whoever is in that cab right now is the criminal
Sorry, I posted before reading your post. I had the exact same analogy, except that the murderer was seen in a taxi six months ago. You are in that same taxi, today. Therefore, you must be the murderer.
No agreement is needed. All that is needed is a copyright notice somewhere in the file. Which there definitely is.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
I don't think there any such laws in the US, and in any case having your internet connection cut off is not losing a lawsuit or being convicted of a crime.
Most civil actions are "Preponderance of the Evidence", which means more likely than not.
Some civil issues require "Clear and Convincing" evidence, which is a higher burden, this is often used for counter claims that involve having legal fees covered (for example, I sue the insurance company, claiming they need to pay, they counter sue, saying I acted fraudulently in getting the policy, I would generally only need Preponderance, they would likely need Clear and Convincing, but if they one the counter suit, I would owe them for all of their legal fees).
I've actually never heard the words "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" in a civil case, except for during jury instruction where the judge tries to explain that it is a lower burden than a criminal case.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Preponderance of the evidence does not mean more likely than not. It means the plaintiff has presented a stronger case than the defense. 'More likely than not' is a simple probabilities statement, and preponderance of the evidence has nothing to do with probabilities.
So, if you are working in WallMart, is it normal to eat anything and everything for free?
If the use by date is expired, then eat away; however, don't try it with something they are trying to sell.
If one is working in a media company with a DS3 connection, then maybe someone downloads when the boss is not looking. I would look for back room rogues first.
No, the argument is, a murderer used many cars during his escape, just because one of those cars belonged to this guy, does not mean that this guy is the murderer, or an accomplice to the murderer.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The key difference is that they would not be able to convict the person solely on the basis of the fact that a car they owned, that they claim was stolen, was used by the murderer. It is unlikely they would even take the person to court if that is all they had.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Banning cars would make more sense.
Unlike bittorrent, cars actually kill people and are a huge environmental problem.
Yeah, no kidding. My cable modem is way faster than my employer's measly little 10 Mbit link!
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Putting a torrent for people to download is a form of contract (where you grant rights - the right to download it, and the right to seed the torrent - and doesn't restict any).
Rethinking email
If you need ftp or ssh, you have to state the specific need and how it relates to the business.
How long do these requests take to process?
Also, even ports 80 and 443 are heavily filtered so that social media sites (youtube, facebook, etc.), name redirection sites (dyndns and its ilk), file lockers (megaupload, etc.), webmail (gmail, hotmail, etc.) and all sites hosting questionable activities are blocked.
If YouTube is blocked, how long does a request to view a video published by one of the company's suppliers take? If Facebook is blocked, how long does a request by the company's marketing department to update the company's official Facebook page take? If webmail is blocked, how long does a request to connect each employee to the company's Google Apps server take?
how many people do you know use their work networks to download pirated content.
I did. I downloaded a copy of Ubuntu at work, and when Dell was still selling "N series" desktops, my boss ordered a PC with Ubuntu from dell.com to use as a development workstation. Raenex has discovered a technicality of how GPLv2 defines a "work based on the Program", which when combined with GPLv2's vagueness on what constitutes "mere aggregation" makes any Linux distribution including proprietary software a copyright infringement. He bases this analysis on the text of the license, not any non-binding FAQ. Furthermore, Ubuntu includes the video game Quadrapassel, which according to Henk Rogers and Alexey Pajitnov of The Tetris Company is an infringing copy of Tetris.
Being dumb does have some benefits, like low expectations.
NAT and wifi are two reasons that it could be anyone in the area or household
Within the household, the head of household is under contract with the ISP not to allow any copyright infringement to happen over the ISP's wire. Within the area, the head of household is under contract with the ISP to use WPA2 with a strong password.
"preponderance" means 51%. What else would it mean?
Are you on drugs?
Did you agree to an EULA when you plugged in your TV and started watching Fringe?
What if the criminal is using his credit card to rent cars from companies that keep records on who had each car and when? Do ISPs keep logs of who had a certain IP on a specific day? Maybe they delete the logs once a month.. I have no idea, but in both cases, wouldn't that be enough to prompt an investigation?
they were seen downloading a movie that was already theirs.
The MPAA is not one company. If someone from Sony downloads a Disney movie outside a specific license agreement, that's still an infringement.
as long as the person at the company is downloading the items on the behalf of the company who is the copyright holder
But has any evidence come to light that, say, Warner Bros. employees have permission from Universal?
Capitol v. Thomas?
A Gatso image has to have a clear shot of the driver's face or the case falls over. Unless of course, you have an honest driver who admits to being over the limit and pays the penalty notice...
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
While there is such thing as an implied copyright license, that would require the downloaders to know the person distributing was in fact the copyright holder. Since I don't see how they could - they only knew its IP, which doesn't prove anything - I find it very hard to believe that a court would agree with that line of reasoning.
Dilbert RSS feed
That is PRECISELY what happens in civil hearings. Balance of Probabilities only requires a 1% swing either side of the midline to find fact in favour. The only way say, an accused rapist would get out of being found to have actually committed a rape in a civil hearing would be if he DIDN'T HAVE A PENIS.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
First I tried with a proxy ID, nothing came up... So it was obviously not reading my cookies. Then I tried with my IP and nothing came up... But then again, I only torrent as a last resort (i use a private encrypted service for most things) and by last resort I mean "so obscure that it is not mainstream" and thus... nothing shows up.
There Can Be Only One...
It is in a civil hearing. Only in a criminal trial would you hear of the prosecution trying to prove that X was driving the car at the time the alleged offence took place and that that car was there. In a civil hearing only the presence of the car at the scene would be enough to prove to the civil standard that X was also at the scene. The burden is thus on X to prove he was not behind the wheel.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
So, if a private citizen were to site this as a defense in legal procedings ...?
"By highlighting the above our intention is not to get anyone into trouble, and for that reason we masked out the end of the IP addresses to avoid a witch hunt. An IP address is not a person, IP addresses can be shared among many people, and anyone can be behind a keyboard at any given time."
There is nothing to FEAR but NOTHING itself; and I fear there is a whole lot of nothing going on. --scorpivs
We are more relaxed where I am at, but there are still provisions to mitigate commercial risk.
FTP is banned without a waver.
SFTP is allowed but you must log in to a proxy for it i.e:
to get to ftp.example.com :
ftp open proxy.core.com
username is user@ftp.example.com
password is your password at ftp.example.com
This does two things:
it gives the proxy server your username and password, which dissuades most people from using it as there is no guarantee that IT won't capture that data, and second the proxy logs the machine account that connected to the proxy server and the username that logged into that account.
We allow "reasonable personal use" of the internet at the office, so Facebook and such are fine at breaks/lunch/whatever. Proxy bypass sites SSH tunnels, etc. are blocked and while there are ways around that as you noted bypassing the procedures raise alarms.
I regularly hit proxy blocks in my line of work and my boss gets summary e-mails once a quarter about my hits. He ignores them because one of my jobs is security hardening, so going to blackhat and greyhat sites is part of my job.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Within the area, the head of household is under contract with the ISP to use WPA2 with a strong password.
Ah, so that's why my Verizon FIOS router straight from my ISP came pre-programmed with a WEP key...
:(){
We do that here too.
32 gig thumb drive sneakernet token ring is our carrier media of choice.
Of course we learned from the mistakes of others like the app team the re-purposed an old staging server to be an MP3 filer...
things went sub optimally for them.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
My contract says *nothing* of the sort.
It has some vague language about not sharing internet service with neighbors, but only to the extent that making my SSID name private_whatever is good enough.
The router they provided me even has the ability to create a guest WiFi network that can use my internet but not access my LAN, to me that looks as if they expect some level of sharing of my connection.
Now, that is not to say it wouldn't be prudent to use WPA2, just that it is not required.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Within the household where I live and with my ISP [...]
Fixed that for you. My TOS doesn't look even remotely like that, and I'm running open (but mostly firewalled) WiFi for any of my neighbors who need it - and with the knowledge and assent of my ISP's owner. Don't generalize your own contractual situation.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
all torrent downloaders are committing copyright infringement if their torrent client uploads what they've already downloaded
Yeah? I'm torrenting Mandriva, Kubuntu, Mint, and my own book right now. Oh, and two MP3s of music I wrote that my daughter performed. No copyright is being violated. But your "all torrent downloaders are committing copyright infringement" is just what the media conglomerates want you to think. So please stop it. There is FAR more legal content on BT than illigitimate material.
Free Martian Whores!
My contract says *nothing* of the sort.
Yet. I'd guess after a few lawsuits, ISPs will probably scramble to add that to the standard TOS.
The router they provided me even has the ability to create a guest WiFi network that can use my internet but not access my LAN, to me that looks as if they expect some level of sharing of my connection.
I'd guess after a few lawsuits, ISPs will start expecting the customer to restrict access to the guest network, handing the password out only to specific trusted friends and relatives, not to leave it open to the world.
My TOS doesn't look even remotely like that
This is true, I grant, but will remain true only until the first monthly bill after some ISP gets sued.
Agreeing with Cox to not download copyrighted material does not mean accepting legal liability to all copyright holders worldwide.
It does if said copyright owner sues Cox and the indemnity clause gives Cox the right to go after a customer to pay any legal fees and/or damages awarded to a plaintiff that sues Cox over that customer's behavior.
As I said, it means that the jury found the plaintiffs argument persuasive. It has nothing to do with percentages. What does that percentage even mean? What does 100% represent?
um?
Every produced work of intellectual property's copyright is held by the producer, unless they choose to transfer it under contract to another party. The copyright holder has complete control over that work, with a few exemptions for satire, political debate, news reporting and educational study. These are *limited* exemptions, and are in place until copyright expires due to time, or due to the holder intentionally releasing the work into the public domain.
If I write something and put it in a publicly accessible place, I still own copyright... just like a professional photographer owns copyright on photos they take of me, even if they use the photos appear in ads and they have sold copies to me.
This is what copyright is all about.
Of course, some countries have specific exemptions. For example, in Sweden and Canada, it is perfectly legal to download music from wherever you want; it's just not legal to upload without permission.
In the UK and USA, this practice is illegal, and carries criminal (not just statutory) penalties.
Sigh.
con-text
Noun:
The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.
My post is not isolated, it's in the context of a /. story. So when I say "torrent downloaders", I'm talking about the ones downloading the files being distributed by Sony et all. And if you check TFA, they weren't downloading and distributing Linux distros.
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Considering the judge uses the words "more likely than not" every single time I heard jury instructions were read, I would disagree.
Though you are correct that it is based on the evidence only, and not over-all probabilities I suppose.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
That's a pretty questionable claim you're making there. At one company I worked at years ago, there was a guy who not only downloaded porn while at work, but he printed some pictures out on the company printer. Conclusion: People do stupid things at work.
Nope. Read through the transcript. You'll see evidence of the IP address. You'll see evidence of how the ISP matched that to her account. Evidence of the a user name from kazaa. Evidence of the MAC address of the modem to which the IP addr was assigned. Evidence of how hard it would be to spoof the IP address. Evidence that there was no wireless router being used. Evidence that there were no other computers in her home. Evidence that the Kazaa user name matched her email address. Evidence that the user name on her computer matched the kazaa name. Evidence that her hard drive had been re-imaged after she was warned not to destroy data. Evidence that she used the kazaa name all over the place.
But if he's found in possession of a strap-on, he's fucked.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
mod parent funny. I actually did a doubletake.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
If you need ftp or ssh, you have to state the specific need and how it relates to the business.
How long do these requests take to process?
No idea what the statistical distribution of lag times is. For the few I've needed (ssh or remote desktop to client sites where we're running process experiments), I was able to open a connection within 30 minutes to 3 hours of requesting it.
Also, even ports 80 and 443 are heavily filtered so that social media sites (youtube, facebook, etc.), name redirection sites (dyndns and its ilk), file lockers (megaupload, etc.), webmail (gmail, hotmail, etc.) and all sites hosting questionable activities are blocked.
If YouTube is blocked, how long does a request to view a video published by one of the company's suppliers take?
Something important from a supplier posted on Youtube??? Pardon my laughter, but this probably never happens. If a supplier has a public video which it's important for us to see, they would put it on their own web site. If it's less than 50MB, they can just email it to us.
If Facebook is blocked, how long does a request by the company's marketing department to update the company's official Facebook page take?
We have a corporate presence on Facebook, so there are some marketing-communications groups with permanent access. The remaining 100,000 employees don't need to use Facebook for work purposes.
If webmail is blocked, how long does a request to connect each employee to the company's Google Apps server take?
Webmail is blocked because the company has its own extensive email infrastructure and all email is logged for SarBox compliance (among several important reasons). Use of Gmail or other Google Apps (or anything similar) for company purposes is explicitly forbidden. All company-related email must use the official infrastructure.
This all sounds like control-freakery, but it appears to be part of a system that works. We design and make high tech products, but targeted at different industry segments rather than at consumers. The company is doing quite nicely, with good financial results even in the "recession". Bonuses in 2011 are up on 2010, which were well up on 2009, which were up a bit on 2008. And projections for 2012 are fairly decent also.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
If a supplier has a public video which it's important for us to see, they would put it on their own web site.
And deal with frustrated viewers who get "this web browser doesn't support this codec or this plug-in" messages. What solution do you recommend for publishing videos on one's own web site that automatically transcodes to MP4 in a Flash wrapper, MP4 in HTML5, and WebM in HTML5, at multiple resolutions (240p, 360p, 480p, and 720p), such that preparing the video for public viewing is no harder than uploading to YouTube?
Webmail is blocked because the company has its own extensive email infrastructure
I was just confused by a few Slashdot stories over the past year about the pros and cons of outsourcing "extensive email infrastructure" to Google.
What do employees where you work do on break? Does the company make available, as a perk, PCs in the break room whose web access is not quite as locked down?
We design and make high tech products, but targeted at different industry segments rather than at consumers.
Then perhaps my perspective has been skewed by developing and hosting online shopping cart software as a service. Our first major client is a hobby shop selling R/C cars, model trains, and the like, and occasionally, as part of educating myself about the client's needs, I've had to watch public videos published by the manufacturers of the products that the hobby shop sells.
100% would mean there is absolutely no chance at all, short of aliens or intervention by a deity, that a particular side in a legal case could be correct.
For example, the chance that Nidal Malik Hasan did not in fact shoot those people is approximately 0, making the prosecution's case (that he is guilty of murder) essentially 100%. The only way Hasan could be innocent is if there were a conspiracy of hundreds of people, many of whom willing to die, in order to make Hasan receive the death penalty. Or if God/aliens were to have inserted illusions of Hasan shooting those people into the brains of the dozens of direct witnesses. (and teleporting Hasan to the scene, and placing the smoking gun into his hand, etc)
Preponderence of evidence means that if there is a straw more evidence for one side or the other, you are supposed to take the side with more persuasive evidence. The chance that you did not pirate certain files, if they have your IP doing it, is less than 51% unless you can show something clear and convincing. (for instance, that you do not own a computer)
The argument is equivalent to: A murderer used many cars during his escape, since it is hard to pinpoint which one is his we should give up.
Not really. It's just that the nature of the internet makes it difficult to determine if the person actually did it. The person who really did it could be (depending on the circumstances) anywhere.
And your analogy, while slightly similar, demonstrates a crime that I think is far more severe. The fact of the matter is that confiscating equipment and such greatly inconveniences people (and they might not have even done it). And for what? Because someone, somewhere may or may not have lost potential profit? That's not worth investigating, in my opinion. Unless they can magically demonstrate that it definitely was that person, I couldn't care less.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
That sounds idiotic. Why not have the same standard of evidence everywhere?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Because that would be inconvenient in cases where the mere mention of a possibility is enough to "convict" - ie, a family proceeding where hearsay is found in fact and the facts themselves are an inconvenience, the end result being children are removed to suffer the next few years being abused in the hands of the State and the parents often commit suicide. I can only think of one example that actually made the news, and that's Willow Simpson who hanged herself in a Stafford hospital seven days after being told that she would never see her newborn baby as it was being adopted on the grounds that she might possibly one day in the future cause her child "emotional harm". Scoff all you want, doubters, this shit happens in the UK on an extremely regular basis.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Then obviously we should ban cars.
It's not the cars that are the problem, it's the open access to roads.
Then the ISP can sue for breach of contract. But they're not the party typically doing the suing, are they?
That can change very quickly. At one time, the record industry wasn't suing members of the general public.
Works well if you do your hacking stuffs in a cyber-café :)
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