RIAA Plans Cyberwar Effort 669
Richie Z writes "This article at the New York Times talks about new anti-piracy efforts from the music industry, some of questionable legality. One idea simply redirects users to a website with legal downloads. But two other programs freeze the user's system or delete music files determined to be illegal. Another proposed idea is basically a DoS attack against downloaders. I guess the RIAA believes the law only applies to their enemies." They had a solution to illegality planned.
but (Score:5, Funny)
Re:but (Score:5, Insightful)
questionable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:questionable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Illegal for them, the multibillion dollar international corporation? No.
See the "They had a solution to illegality [slashdot.org] planned." link. The courts already look the other way for them all the time. This bill was just them deciding "We can spend $X bribing a bunch of judges, or we can invest in the long-term solution of spending $Y to get a law that makes it legal for us to do all this."
Use the law, Luke (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Make sure the content looks "illegal" but, in fact, is not
(i.e., MP3 files named for popular songs but containing only commentary on them).
3. Get hit.
4. Sue for damages.
5. Profit!
OK, joking aside, in most countries, even accessing a computer without authorization is illegal.
The Canadian criminal code forbids it [justice.gc.ca] (look here [justice.gc.ca] for a longer version).
TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 47, Sec. 1030 [cornell.edu] of the US code also looks applicable (but IANAL so if somebody who IAL reads this, please comment).
So, with the law on your side, you can also sue them in a small claims court [google.com]. That way, they cannot use their financial advantage to subvert justice.
Re:Use the law, Luke (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:questionable? (Score:3, Insightful)
The good old "right-to-hack" law. I really love their comment about it: "There was such an immediate attack that you couldn't get a rational dialogue going,"
Yeah, and I indroduced a law that would make it legal to mug RIAA executives and employees for cash restitution if you had a "reasonable belief" that you had been illegally price gouged on previous CD purchases. But the RIAA assholes mounted was such an immediate attack that we couldn't get a
Re:questionable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:questionable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because I download a song, it doesn't make me any more likely to buy it then if I was to hear it on the radio.
Sure I might still have it on my HD, but if I never listen to it again, it's not really lost revenue is it?
Of course, the more that the big companies can complain loudly about "lost revenue", the more they can pressure courts to do whatever they want.
Re:questionable? (Score:5, Interesting)
If own an album in LP form and collect all the tracks off Kazaa in order to get it on my iPod without going through the hassle of ripping the vinyl (and thus getting a pretty lousy sounding bunch of mp3's) then I'm pretty much well within my rights but the RIAA is counting that as just more money they've lost to those pesky music pirates.
Re:questionable? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why prople are bent out of shape. What if they delete a file that I depend on for my job by mistake? And let's suppose that ALL of the music files on that system, including the ones that are being shared, are files of music that I created, and am distributing for free to promote my band? What happens when I try to sue them for costing me my job?
Allowing a private company to act as judge, jury, and executioner is a bad idea. They do not have the best interests of the public in mind.
Re:questionable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they assume that because a court case is won/loss in the US, that it applies to all countries there after?
Futhermore, DoSing a foreigner could be esculated into an international incident. It is, after all, an attack by a group in one country where the government in that country refuses to do anything about it. Which pretty much lends to the conclusion that it's state endorsed.
Re:questionable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Therefore, the RIAA member companies are engaging in state supported terrorism!
I wonder what would happen if someone DoSed the DoSers.
Re:questionable? (Score:5, Interesting)
They also do not want computer scientists angry at them. They have no right to go into my computer and erase MP3s of some CDs that I owned and ripped.
The RIAA does not have the power to do that. They are a trade organization, period. They are not judge, jury and executioner. They will be well advised not to start a war with us.
I have a better idea: The RIAA should ignore the fact that the internet exists. It will save them and us a lot of grief.
Re:questionable? (Score:3, Interesting)
They don't have the right to -- they have the Power to do so. Your countries only legal remedy is to ban or add a 100% (or greater) tarrif on RIAA imported CDs.
Do you really think a government that would give the RIAA the legal right to delete files on constituents computers would turn those people over to foriegn courts?
Not so (Score:3, Insightful)
It's of questionable legality to shoot someone who's come into your house in the middle of the night.
Copyright infringement is a crime against someone--a tort. If you can shoot someone who's trying to kill you, beat up someone who attacks you, or respond in kind to someone who's maligning you, why not use a quirk of software to stop someone who's using a quirk of software to "steal" from you?
Re:Not so (Score:5, Insightful)
- Getting your house broken into, then,
- Breaking into the house of someone else who you think might have been the guy who broke into your house, then,
- Looking around the place, then,
- Deciding that some of the stuff in his house looks something like stuff that was taken from yours, and then,
- Setting the house on fire in retaliation.
The legality of that sequence of events is not "questionable" at allRe:Not so (Score:3, Insightful)
What it IS legal, (and proper, and The Right Thing to Do) is for Joe to call the cops, who in turn get a search warrant from a judge (not a clerk), then search your house & send you to jail for your crime.
Re:Not so (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason this hasn't been a problem in the past, was that being a copyright infringer wasn't free. Now it is. Doing it to scale, and not getting caught was difficult. The internet and technological advancements have made that possible, and why it's a problem now.
You might not have bought the song either way, but your getting the enjoyment of said song. That has some value to you. If it didn't, you wouldn't have downloaded the song. Or at the very least you wouldn't have put it up on display for others to download. So clearly the song has value to the people whom are putting it up for download, and it has value to some of the people downloading it.
Those songs aren't naturally occuring objects. They don't just grow on trees.
Do you understand the Lockean princepals that are the rational and foundation of our current system of gov't? Know why people can claim they own land? Go read John Locke's "Second Treaties on Government". Very good book, you'll learn a lot about ethics and princepals in it. A lot about the justification for gov't, ownership, and property rights.
They can claim ownership by working the land, and improving it. You can claim ownership because you've put forth the effort to change and create the land from it's natural state. That's how one claims ownership of such things. I think that the individual artist, and the corporations behind them have put in the work to create the objects, and thus have a moral right to their ownership of the music.
Personally, I think that P2P networks should be left alone. They are fine constructions that have legitimate purposes. I think that if the RIAA is going to go after individuals who are copyright infringers, that's great. I think the people they went after recently who created search methods is wrong. I think those people should have been left alone. I think the RIAA should just crucify several copyright infringers in court, and keep doing it, until people realize the risks. It should continue doing so, one after another. It's illegal, it's copyright infringement, it's against the law. That's all there is to it.
Copyright is a *WONDERFUL* thing. It's what makes the GPL tick. It's what makes being a writer, and a programmer a viable proposition. It's what makes so very many occupations work.
Copyright intentionally makes scarcity of non-scarce objects, for the specific purpose of creating economic value. Did you catch that? It was an intentional construction, put forth by the founding fathers, who clearly thought about the matter at length. I think fair use is a good thing. I think making backup copies is a good thing. I think copyright is a good thing (not as currently implemented in the US or internationally by the Berne Convention).
Now, I think that copyright is a screwed up deal. I think they are entirely too long, and that they are fundamentally broken in that respect. However, you should respect copyrights. If you don't, there are innumerable things you enjoy which will disappear, precisely because they are what creates the economic incentive to create. That's why the founding fathers created copyright.
If you've got a problem with the Music business, stop consuming their product, support a different product. The music business doesn't have a right to a business model, so they can't just randomly sue people
Re:Not so (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so simple. To prove your point, you have to establish that the demand for the song in fact remains constant. Perhaps spreading the song about makes demand for it go up. Perhaps it goes down. When you hear a song on the radio, does your demand for it go up, down, or remain constant? Also depends on the song, doesn't it?
Your simple illegal copy diminishing their value, makes you liable for a lawsuite.
The key word there is "illegal". The reason the person is liable is because they are committing a tort, not merely because they are making a copy. Not all copies of a song are illegal, even if they diminish the economic value of it. A performance of a song is a copy, but if you perform it on your home keyboard in front of a few friends, you aren't violating any laws. And again, whether that causes demand for the song to increase or decrease will depend on the circumstances at hand.
Re:Not so (Score:5, Informative)
You cannot be jailed for a tort. Being sued != being arrested. Being sucessfully sued != criminal conviction.
Just makes the game more fun (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem the RIAA/MPAA folks have is not P2P developers. The problem is that current copyright law is simply not recognized by most P2P users. Users looked at the law and found the things being done with it unacceptable, much like Prohibition. As long as this is the case, music and movies *will* be pirated. The ease of data copying and distribution has monotonically increased for many years now. The only way to stop this is to:
(a) Provide the users with a significantly better product that is not trivially copyable and improves value a good deal. This would probably take the form of services from the company selling the track.
(b) Reduce pricing and/or restrictions on music. No one wants to run out and pirate music if they can download, quickly and reliably, and for 20 cents a track, whatever tracks they want. Why *bother* burning CDs or copying files from friends, when for 20 bucks you can have 100 tracks of your choice, available from a vast library with a good interface (cross-linking similar tracks, etc)? (Even better, provide said music at 48 kHz to make burning more annoying.) Sure, you could root around someone's FTP server to try to save a tiny bit of money...but is it worth the time and effort?
Until then, piracy of music and movies is not stoppable. I will grant that the **AA really doesn't care about *stoppping* piracy; the crucial thing is driving it underground enough to not be a threat. However, I don't think that it can be pushed underground to the extent the **AA requires. The next wave of P2P work is focusing on resiliance to attack (and to a lesser extent, privacy). The elderly (in P2P terms) Freenet is still undefeated -- even child porn is freely and openly available on it, and child porn garners a lot more support for crackdowns than do MP3s. P2P over the next few years will be a hellova tough nut to crack. Still, cheers to my RIAA/MPAA counterparts at Overpeer -- it'll be a good game, no matter what else.
Re:Just makes the game more fun (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's what I want:
Free samples: 64kbit mono is good enough. (But not clips
10 cent cheapies: 128kbit. Good enough for everyday, and cheap enough to keep me coming back even for stuff that's only a temporary thrill. (If the Apple experiment's sales volume at the 99 cent level is any indication, they could sell BILLIONS at a dime apiece.)
25 cent upgrade: 320kbit. For when I want a GOOD quality MP3, such as for my fave stuff.
$1 CD quality WAVs (no compression or data loss). For stuff I think is so wonderful that I want it in its fullest glory.
Put all those back catalogs online -- after all, we can't buy that stuff now even if we want to, so why not be selling it instead of just sitting on it? And for subscribers, let us buy physical albums at a nice discount. Maybe even increment discounts depending on your file consumption for the month.
And all absolutely unencumbered. I don't care if they watermark each file -- in fact, it should be ID-tagged to make it easy to find more files/CDs from the same artist or distributor -- but I want to be able to do as I damn please with it on my own equipment.
We all know that what the RIAA really fears is loss of control; if every artist can use P2P or FTP as a distribution channel and still get paid for his work, there goes any need for the RIAA cartel. But if the RIAA had any sense, they'd hop on the bandwagon -- after all, they have the back catalogs to make themselves the biggest file distributors around, if they could only see how much money they could be making that way!!
Re:Well, Physical Violence is next (Score:4, Funny)
Re:questionable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but they're just about to step on someone with bigger, tougher lobbyists -- and that someone is rather pissed off and defensive right now from crummy earnings, layoffs and overwork: the telcom industry.
Implementing DoS as a means of targeting abusers is comperable to bulldozing an electric company's transmission lines as a way of getting back at an individual who's done something wrong. It's another illegal act and definitely constitutes theft and abuse of nearly every telco or major ISP's policies. I'm sure some of those recent terrorism acts passed which we all have harped about have some interesting things to say about coordinated, widespread infrastructure denial-of-service = terrorism. Even the announcement of the intent to damage American telecommunications infrastructure should put RIAA execs in the holding tank with the shoe bomber.
We've notified our upstreams that should any RIAA DoS services originate on their networks, we will hold themn legally and financially responsible for the impact to our network. Likewise, we will block (via BGP) any external networks and blackhole them that originate RIAA DoS, and expect our upstreams to do so as well.
You may see some Internet fragmentation, but I'd suggest people identify which providers permit and encourage DoS abuse, and which oppose it (and vote with your wallets). Just as you probably wouldn't want service from AT&T if they crammed hundreds of spam messages at you daily, will you want them if they burn all your bandwidth due to illegal RIAA hacking? And how will this set with customers who have burstable service? Will you permit your service provider to engage in a racket that intentionally fills up your circuit, allowing them to overbill you?
Sounds like the RIAA's walking into a nice RICO trap and potentially some interesting domestic terrorism issues, and any tier one network provider that permits this may also be implicated. My attorneys are ready, are yours?
*scoove*
Re:The exact wording in the article (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup. And to give a new spin to that old cliché, that would be like having varying degrees of pregnancy.
justice is for the rich afterall (Score:3, Interesting)
But when they start losing, all this "legal" mumbo-jumbo gets tossed out the window and they fight back dirty.
Hmm, are these the people you really want to pay so you can hear teeny pop stamped music?
Tom
Should be Funny (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Should be Funny (Score:5, Funny)
t
Virus Scanners (Score:5, Insightful)
If not... there really isn't much use in them if they can be paid off to not detect such things (so the gov can do the same and bill gates can do the same etc...).
Re:Virus Scanners (Score:5, Insightful)
If they refuse to detect the RIAA CompuKiller(TM) then within a week there will be compariable free or paid software to do the same thing. They would lose credibility for caving in to the "legal" virus makers and not ship as many units, compounded with having to compete with free software to kill the RIAA/MPAA worms.
Good money after bad. (Score:3, Insightful)
What's good for the goose... (Score:5, Insightful)
Opening up this type of warfare could get nasty.
I will relish the challenge.
- OrbNobz
I swear! It's like they're waging a anti-piracy jihad!
Re:What's good for the goose... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's good for the goose... (Score:3, Interesting)
Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war... (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
Please note that there's a lot that they can do short of breaking the law or ethnical guidelines. Many of these suggested technologies will probably never be deployed, but that still leaves quite a few interesting avenues open to RIAA. Furtermore, the mere threat of such viruses or trojan horses being on the network can serve as a detterant for a good number of people.
The hackers, on the other hand,
Re:I disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Easily. Use SHA1 sums for all files. The gnutella client I use [sourceforge.net] already deals with this. (At le
Counter Counter Measures Already Started (Score:5, Informative)
Not so surprisingly the other side is already monitoring the RIAA activities and in this case some of results are already in public. For example, Peer-Guardian [methlab.tech.nu] tries to protect the P2P-clients from the hostile IP-addresses. There's a quite nice article [securityfocus.com]about the topic in Security Focus. [securityfocus.com]
V.
Bait the trap (Score:4, Interesting)
two wrongs do not equal a right (Score:5, Insightful)
So now they are above the law, and can cause a computer to become unstable and crash? Or they can scan your hard drive and delete files at will. I mean, there is a problem with their "silence" program in which it deletes legit music. What's to say it doesn't have the power to delete _any_ files it wants? So now the music industry can have free reign to scan hard drives and delete file they find inappropriate? With that idea in mind, would I be allowed to hack a computer and scan the hard drives, deleting any files I don't like? I think not.
But it's all in the name of stopping pirates, right? It's scary to see such tactics even being considered, and the thoughts of these being used is even worse. Just more steps for Big Brother to have full control. Give them the right to tamper with hard drives, it'll keep snowballing from there...
Re:two wrongs do not equal a right (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like we don't need to worry for some time, then. They'll be ice covering hell before the RIAA's team find a better way to code their silence program than recursive_delete("*.mp3");
Re:two wrongs do not equal a right (Score:4, Interesting)
Another idea if you have a high-end firewall would be to find out where the hosts launching the attacks are located, and place deny entries into the ACL on the firewall, blocking access to all ports from that host or network. Let's hope they do not resort to address spoofing or using multiple network addresses.
Re:two wrongs do not equal a right (Score:5, Funny)
Does that mean we can sue Microsoft?
Re:two wrongs do not equal a right (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder if they'd consider making my super-hero status legal. I'm sick of bringing bad guys in just so they can be out on the street again trying to build laser cannons on the moon.
Re:two wrongs do not equal a right (Score:5, Funny)
If they want to delete pirated MP3s, they'll have to tell them apart from MP3s ripped from CDs you own.
That's impossible, but of course I'm sure the RIAA will err on the side of caution, to ensure you're a law-abiding citizen.
A program that continually pops up with ''Do you own the CD for <artist>-<album>-<track number>-<track name>?'' over and over again for every single MP3 on my two HDs isn't just malicious, it's a freakin' pain in the ass.
OTOH, anyone who lets themselves get rooted by the RIAA, an organization that can't even keep a website up for more than ten minutes, or do basic things like run Windows Update, will probably loose more self-esteem than data.
Re:two wrongs do not equal a right (Score:3, Interesting)
% find /data1/mp3 -name '*mp3' | wc -l
2586
Out of those 2586 MP3s, I ripped them all from my personal CD except for Laundry Service as I got the crippled version without realising it. Unfortunately, this was bought in a supermarket 500 miles from my home, so returning it wasn't easy, particularly as I broke my ankle between purchase and realising it was crippled and I had other things on my mind...
Turns out that the enhanced CD is rippable, so I ripped my flatmate's version.
The point of this?
Re:two wrongs do not equal a right (Score:5, Interesting)
Now the DoS attack might be effective but that game goes both ways. If they start attacking individuals how long will it be until P2P clients come with the ability to detect DoS's and trigger the whole P2P network to do a DDos on the source of those attacks? They'd be hard pressed to handle such a DDoS with legal threats if they did it first and I can just imagine the negative public relations off an Internet war that'd no doubt disrupt large portions of the Net at once.
Why don't these morons figure out that the only way to beat P2P is to offer cheaper cd prices and affordable (non DRM) downloads of songs themselves. Legal or technical attacks aren't going to be very functional and have dangerous tailspins off their customer base.
RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
Even in the best case for the RIAA, imagine somone in my firm is downloading mp3s at work. The RIAA robot sends them something that damages their machine, causing loss of productivity, loss of valuable business data, and consumption of IT resources. Unless the RIAA wins some additinal legal immunity, their damage of my corporate property will not be legal and OmniMegaCorp will have the incentive and resources to create major legal trouble if it happens very often.
Now imagine that the employee wasn't actually downloading copyrighted music and gets hit by mistake for whatever reason.
Or, that the RIAA hack attack takes down an important corporate server.
Or, that the RIAAs DoS attack does stop my employee's downloading, but also my whole firm's net connection -- say I'm a brokerage that gets cut off from the market for hours. I do some IT work for Wall St. firms, and I can only imagine the reaction if I had to explain that our day's trades got screwed up because of an RIAA attack, even if some receptionist was guilty of downloading the latest Madonna song. The partners would be quite happy to join the inevitable class action lawsuit the next day.
I can't imagine they'll get immunity from damages even when their attack is an outright error -- and mistakes WILL happen, whether in targeting the wrong people or causing more damage than intended.
I'm sure it'll make corporate america tighten up their "no downloading" policies, but when it comes to actually causing damage to business operations, firms will view it is just another hack/virus attack -- except this time coming from someone with a well known mailing address for the subponeas and criminal complaints.
DDoS attacks (Score:5, Interesting)
DALnet is dead, DDoS attacks, and supposedly no one knows who was doing it, strange coincidence that the RIAA is "planning" anti-priracy acts. It isn't to much of a leap to say that they are already doing them.
Bit torrent is gaining popularity and is difficult to directly attack, but relies on various websites to distribute .torrent files for the program to work, so what happens? These web-sites are attacked.
The "war" has already begun...
I doubt it (Score:3, Insightful)
Please? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Please? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the RIAA has too much politcal sway. As it is, they've been scanning hard drives for music files, etc., yet I am not aware of any legal actions against them for this (I may be wrong). As much as I'd love to see them get sued... it won't happen. They'll have enough support (read: bought enough support) to get away with any actions. As it is ri
the riaa won't be happy until (Score:4, Funny)
Re:the riaa won't be happy until (Score:4, Funny)
Well theres a shocker... (Score:5, Interesting)
Come on, what else do you expect from these people? They have stated that they think its alright to break into computers that contain Mp3s (fair use be damned).
They have sued college students for $90 billion and settled for $17 thousand which is still way too much.
They count 50 cd burners at faster speeds to be 420 burners for statistic purposes.
They have been proven guilty of illegal cd price fixing and screwing the consumer.
All in all, anything they do doesn't really surprise me anymore. I think the only actual thing that would shock me would be something like:
"The New York Times is reporting that the RIAA is giving away $5000 worth of free cds to every person in this country who ever purchased a cd. They also are responsible for puppies, ice cream and rainbows."
Re:Well theres a shocker... (Score:3, Insightful)
Based on what? If the college students held up a bank, hacked the RIAA servers, or stole from a local artist, they'd still be liable for damages.
They count 50 cd burners at faster speeds to be 420 burners for statistic purposes.
Ever been sued / looked at the inital claim in a lawsuit? Any plausible method of counting or claiming gets used to be in the claimant's best interest.
My wife had an auto
Moral standard (Score:3, Insightful)
PR skills (Score:5, Funny)
Way to go RIAA
Just wondering... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just wondering... (Score:5, Insightful)
And what's preventing my band from recording a new album, mixing it down, then encoding it out to mp3 to distribute on the internet...only to have RIAA BuzzKill(TM) delete them first?
And what is an illegal file type anyways? I could take every one of my mp3's, rename them to
We all have a duty to stop the RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We all have a duty to stop the RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Not buying the latest top 40 crap.
3. Fully and completely exercise my existing fair use rights. This means trading tracks with friends and borrowing music to sample. All done either with physical media, or via SSH. --Fuck 'em.
4. Letting everyone I know why I do what I do.
5. Turn off the FM. Too damn bad really, I like what radio used to be.
6. Share as much Indie music as I can.
7. Let the local music store know my choices and why. Do that again every couple
Why do they want war? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean seriously, the RIAA created this problem for themselves. Music's expensive. You can't try it out, once the CD's opened you own it. And you can't buy what you want. You can only buy their expensive albums.
I'm not surprised that the customers have leveled the playing field by creating the services the RIAA should have provided. Too bad they choose to fight instead of listen to the people that hand them their money in good faith.
Music CD with EULAs (Score:5, Interesting)
I think turning off autorunning on CD's should be considered necessary for basic system security. It would be too easy for a music CD to run a fast installer and bang you have a anti-pirate virus installed. Even if they don't "delete files", they could (if you didn't have an outbound firewall) scan for music and send lists to the RIAA. Report on installed P2P software. Send any and all usage logs from that software, etc.
Sure they will hold off till they can get laws on their side, but right now I'm not sure congress really is looking after consumers all that much. This "right to hack" nonsense has come up too many times recently.
Just need to be a copyright holder eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA is either being advised by those that excel at incompetence, or they simply have the collective intelligence of a drunken band of chimps.
By this methodology anyone who rights a poem (or anything which can be copyrighted) can create malicious code which makes a "reasonable" effort to only go after those files which it thinks have some relation to the copyrighted files in question.
I'm no lawyer, but I i have a hunch that this won't survive it's first court challenge. This whole notion of what is and isn't "reasonable" opens up far too many loopholes, and no court in the world would rule in their favor should somebody sue them.
From my experience, it would seem that although governments can pass any law they wish, it's only REALLY valid until it survives it's first few court challenges.
L8r...
RIAA...... bring it on (Score:5, Interesting)
They will get absolutely and utterly bent over and destroyed if they open that Pandora's Box.
Please RIAA... I am begging you... Start a "cyberwar."
Re:RIAA...... bring it on (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:RIAA...... bring it on (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw something like this already (Score:3, Interesting)
One time when I logged onto my PPPoE DSL provider about a week or two ago, I saw my DSL modem's activity light blink reguarly. At the same time, my firewall started dropping 2-3 packets per second coming from at least a dozen spread out IP addresses, all directed to the same TCP port number on the IP address I currently was given.
Being adventerous, I told netcat to listen to the TCP port in question. It turns out that the clients wanted to send me HTTP-ish Gnutella requests. A variety of clients were used/spoofed (Limewire/Gnutella/etc.). All wanted some random combination of the words "Gay Sex P0rn" and similar.
I tried to get the systems to stop sending me packets by telling my firewall to actively reject any packets sent to the TCP port in question. That did not stop them. I tried spoofing various HTTP-style errors; that also did not work.
I tried to get my ISP to reassign me to an new IP address (by disconnecting my PPPoE client and reconnecting a few minutes later), but it did not work at the time. Giving up, I left my firewall up on my DSL connection on to see if these packets would ever stop.
But they did not.
By the time I shut down this experiment, I had logged over 30,000 connection requests to the TCP port in quesiton in 20 hours. Total data sent in connect requests by the attacker: about 2 MB.
Its a shame I didn't keep the logs for that date. It was amusing at the time.
(Obvious disclaimer: I do not have Gnutella nor any peer2peer shared files on my machines.)
good luck (Score:4, Insightful)
I buy the music. (Score:5, Insightful)
All I want is to buy a CD, rip it and place it on my server so that I can play them on my Audiotron. Then comes the copy protection and our(local) laws that it is illegal to bypass their copy protection. It's not worth the trouble.
And it all comes down to what have been discussed here many times. The way people use music. Now we have a generation of people who have learned that the computer can be used for just about everything, even getting the music they like. But instead of trying to make money on this "new" marked like everybody else they first acted like it didn't exist and when it became clear that the people wants it, they try to fight it and the result is that everybody now has learned that music is something that you download for free.
Got me thinking of this quote from Homerpalooza:
I used to be with it, but then they changed what "it" was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me.
easy to fight: honeypots (Score:3, Insightful)
load it up with madonna, justin timberlake, christina aguilera, etc.
get on all the networks: kazaa, gnutella, etc.
snort the traffic, profile the attacks, trace the source
serve, volley: game engaged
bring it on assholes, if it's cyberwar you want, then it is cyberwar you will get
you have no idea how much antisocial time tech-savvy college kids have on their hands
enjoy the rotten fruits of your misstep into the big kids arena
Who would do this for the RIAA? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the RIAA is allowed to follow through on this, I wish nothing but the worst of geek hell to whoever does their bidding. Yes, I mean the worst: having the maintain someone else's Perl code.
Who would do this for the RIAA? I know who! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I could and I would. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless the RIAA has proof enough to get a warrant to search my computer, their right to protect their IP stops at the edge of my network as far as I am concerned. The minute they do something in the name of fighting piracy that would normally be considered illegally, they can kiss my ass as they deserve the criticism I gave them. And yes, what they are proposing would be totally illegal.
Some of the methods you describe are legal and pretty good ideas in my opinion. If someone has a P2P client running and the port open, that implies that they are allowing data to be shared. Leech the hell out of their bandwidth so that no pirates can get any. File up all their download slots. However, the RIAA plans to do more than this.
If you want to get a job helping them, so be it. I wish you or anyone else the worst at such a job. Help them write the trojan they want, but just remember that you are innocent until proven guilty.
Re:I could and I would. (Score:3, Interesting)
Source Code released! (Score:5, Funny)
I have the source code for their trojan! Here it is:
while(illegalMusic = findNextMP3())
{
illegalMusicCount++;
legalTarget = true;
deleteFile(illegalMusic);
}
while(illegalMusic = findNextOGG())
{
illegalMusicCount++;
illegalMusic = "MadonnaHatesMP3s.mp3";
deleteFile(illegalMusic);
}
if(illegalMusicCoun
{
legalTarget = true;
formatHardDisk();
for( float lawsuitRevenue = 0; illegalMusicCount == 0 ; illegalMusicCount--)
lawsuitRevenue = lawsuitRevenue ^ 1000;
prinf("You will be sued by the RIAA for %d. Have a nice day", lawsuitRevenue);
}
Criminal Conspiracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone should look up the laws. I'm pretty sure that if I were planning the same massive criminal action, the conspiracy itself would be illegal. Isn't it time someone arrested the leaders of the RIAA?
Re:Criminal Conspiracy (Score:3, Insightful)
While the RIAA will be aiming for the pirates, it's bound to happen that they hit someone who wasn't pirating anything. If damage is caused, then the concept that the person suing the RIAA for those damages being a pirate won't be a valid defense. They will have to be very very careful to avoid that.
Re:Criminal Conspiracy (Score:3, Interesting)
"But your Honor, part of these activities was determining the legality of these ideas. We certainly would not do anything illegal, so we had our legal research team investigate laws and past decisions to determine if this was legal while our technicians tested t
When lawyers run a company (Score:5, Interesting)
The RIAA never ceases to amaze with their stupid antics. Within a couple of days of the successful iTunes deployment, they leak this bit of lunacy. I can not think of another industry doing so much to alienate its customers, all the more amazing given that a CD is a totally discretionary purchase. How long before they cross the line and get hit with a general boycott?
The idea of launching destructive software is really mind-boggling. IANAL, but it sure seems to me that they could get hit with some massive liability lawsuits if one their destroy bots is a bit more successful than intended. Gotta admit though, it would be sweet irony to see these idiots sued out of existence.
What about Sony? While the record division is trying to impede piracy, the hardware people are abetting it by producing CD-R drives, among other things. What happens if a legit use of a Sony hardware product is impacted by a Sony Music destroy bot?
Maybe something else is going on. Perhaps the real panic in the industry is caused by the notion that a smart artist could put their files on p2p to get exposure w/o signing a record deal. If technology can improve the bargaining position of the artist before signing a deal (of their choice), the extreme reactions of the industry are a bit more understandable. NOT agreeable, however, and as stupid as one can imagine, but understandable if one takes the perspective of those who have been feeding at the music cartel trough for so long.
Dang, I was looking forward to getting an iTunes account, but now I'm conflicted. I'd like to support Apple and the artists, but I hate the idea of any money going to the RIAA overlords who should have been supporting iTunes-like products a long time ago. The pirate networks aren't really free, they just take a lot less time than going to CD store, have better selection in many cases, and allow one to sample. A good pay service with reliable connections, selection and organization, let alone the absence of all the spyware would be much preferable to the "freeware." That's why I think there is something else on the RIAA's mind - Not loss of the customer, but rather loss of the artist...
Re:When lawyers run a company (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm waiting to see the headlines when someone purchases a few albums on iTunes and subsequently gets wiped out by one of the RIAA's anti-p
Fun with ping! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fun with ping! (Score:3, Interesting)
PING riaa.org (65.244.101.224): 56 data bytes
--- riaa.org ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
Looks like someone beat me to it...
this is *simply* Corporate (Cyber) Terrorism ... (Score:3, Interesting)
first, even Machiavelli would recognise that by no way a legitimate end would justify such an extreme mesaure.
second, and if we look at things straigth, this just looks like spam (only not over SMTP) .
In a time when finnaly all parties involved start to try to kill spam in a global way it is interesting that this kind of *solutions* is not only thinked but openly presented to the public ...
what we, the *society* need to demand is that the big fish do the same to this polluters that does to the average spammer i.e. silence, block and wipe them!
AOL are you listening ? ...
the world can be going nuts, but surely it is fun ...
chrs from Portugal...
PS: where is Ashcroft when we need him ?
Just try it! (Score:3, Interesting)
Backwards Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
If we could somehow convince the RIAA that spam promotes mp3 sharing, we'd be set.
The RIAA. because Big Brother is watching YOU. (Score:5, Funny)
This is MY PROPERTY! I am NOT a CRIMINAL. And I will NOT have some stupid RIAA telling me otherwise. Oh, and need I mention that due to their tactics, I do NOT buy music recordings any longer? (Except for self published recordings that have nothing to do with the RIAA.) It's not due to piracy either... because I don't download MP3s. I bought a GUITAR [taylorguitars.com] and I make my own damn music!
if my files get deleted, they get sued (Score:5, Funny)
Let's assume for sake of argument that I have 300 songs in mp3 format on my hard drive, all of which I copied myself from CD's I paid for.
Let's also assume that this program 'silence' will wind up being distributed in the form of an email (and you can bet your house it will).
If I open the file, with nothing illegal on my computer, but the program finds my legal mp3's and deletes them, why should I not sue RIAA for damages?
This type of action a violation of more than one constitutional amendment.
For instance:
It violates my right to be secure in my home from unreasonable searches and seizures.
It violates my right to a fair and speedy trial.
It violates my right to be informed of the charges against me, but of course in this case, there are no charges and no trial, they just skip ahead straight to punishment, which by the way, is not legally theirs to carry out.
What would I sue them for?
The violation of my constitutional rights; for intentional sabotage of property (the files are mine); for intentional and unprovoked abuse of resources (my computer); for gaining unlawful access to my computer; and for intentional infliction of mental anguish.
Not to mention lost time. Will they pay for my hours spent making LEGAL backup copies of my LEGALLY OWNED CDs?
Of course, their answer will be: prove that you own the CD's and we will let you keep the files, which is of course perfectly beside the point. They have no right to be looking in the first place, no matter how open my network is.
These people will stop at nothing to make you pay, even if you already have. Even if their tactics are barbaric and illegal (Sopranos come to mind).
Basically, this is their argument:
"The guy who parks next to me in my parking garage has a lot of antenna balls in the backseat of his convertible. My antenna ball is missing, so I think he must have stolen my antenna ball. Because it's a convertible, and the top is down, I must have every right to assume I can gain access to his vehicle, it's practically open for all to see. So, I'm going to go through everything in his car and destroy all the antenna balls I can find. He must have stolen them from somewhere. I will let him keep those for which he can provide proof of purchase. If I happen to destroy those in the process, that's just too bad... he shouldn't have left those other balls in plain sight.
Hey, look at that... the guy who parks on the other side of me just handed me my antenna ball, his 8 year old daughter found it in the driveway, it must have fallen off. Well, it was still within my rights to destroy that other guy's antenna balls, they looked suspicious to me."
your move suits (Score:3, Interesting)
If its war you want, its war you will get.
But honestly, who gives a shit? Did everyone forget that its actually an artist who writes this stuff in the first place? There are plenty of other options out there to find, IMHO, much more creative music than the 'major labels'. I for one will have no problem with this 'war'. All its accomplished in my case was to drive me away from EVER buying another piece of music from these people. And since this has turned into a nice game of threatening the other side, heres my threat;
feel free to scan my drive with your programs for files that dont exist, since I dont listen to your 'product' and still have thousands of .mp3 files , and the TOS for programs running on my servers states that any program without written authorization by me will be billed at a rate of $120/CPU cycle and by running said program you agree to these terms.
After all for the RIAA to win, they have to SPEND money, for me to win, I have to NOT SPEND money on their 'product'. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that that is a very unstable situation that will quickly come to a state of rest.
If a majority of people get pissed off then they will have no income to draw from to launch these rediculous campaigns. But I fear I am the lone minority, as most people dont even have a clue what the local bands in their area are, much less any music not played on FM radio
So it goes...
anyone home? (Score:5, Insightful)
The game isn't cyberwarfare. The game is psychological warfare. Most of
A few homes further down the street, a mother is frightened, and tells her son to remove that gnutella program again, and never use that again or he'll be grounded.
You don't have to actually write or use these programs. Making enough people believe that you do has almost the same effect, with none of the legal dangers or possible repercussions.
Wake up, people. These guys have been at the game for a while longer than any of us have. They aren't playing our game, they're playing their own game. They're not writing code, they're writing press releases, strategy papers, and while they're at it, the next copyright laws.
When will they get the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why won't they acknowledge that slumpy cd sales have more to do with the fact that albums are: a) overpriced b) almost exactly the same as every other album c) of significantly less overall quailty than used to be the case? True some people don't buy albums anymore because they can get them for free, but this isn't the case for the majority of users and I sincerely doubt their losses are anywhere near close to what they claim.
When will they realize that they could destroy the entire internet and it wouldn't make the new Britney Spears sound-alike any more palatable. When you choose artists exclusively based on their physical attractiveness rather than their ability or the content of their songs, formats where that appearance is not part of the package are going to suffer.
When will they realize that if they imprison every single person who has ever pirated music there will be no one left to buy their product?
Why are copyright laws which were designed to protect creators for a limited period of time so that they would have a financial motivation for creating used to provide corporations who for the most part had nothing to do with that creation with huge profits for periods of more than a century?
For that matter, why do multi-billion dollar corparations need to band together to support one another. I think it's about time someone looked at these on the angle of anti-trust issues.
Retaliation has begun... (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe if I just keep on trying to ping it...
media replacement policy? anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Robbery. Sheer robbery.
-- Dossy
But I have stuff copyright myself on my PC... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bring it on (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why just cyberwar? (Score:4, Insightful)
They can always restore from backups if we launch a cyberwar, they can't just pop down to the local shop and pick up a replacement for everything with a microchip in it for their entire building.....
Re:RIAA... (Score:3, Interesting)
No, actually it's more like your neighbor is missing his wallet. He decides that *YOU* probably have it in your house so while you are not looking, he breaks into your house and digs through your drawers, cabinets, closets, under your couch cushions, in your fridge, etc. He even opens your desk drawers and reads through your persona