

Busted: BitTorrent Pirates at Sony, Universal and Fox - jjp9999
http://torrentfreak.com/busted-bittorrent-pirates-at-sony-universal-and-fox-111213/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29

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nickolai
An insightful nugget at the very end, for anyone missing it:

>In a response [another copyright advocate caught 'stealing'] 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, we 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.

Could such a defense be expected to work ? Has it ever ?

~~~
jrockway
It depends on the TCP stacks on each side; some crappy TCP stacks let you
forge connections rather easily. I don't think Bittorrent works over UDP, but
if it does, that's very easy to forge in theory (assuming your ISP doesn't do
egress filtering).

The best excuse is probably, "I installed some malware and I guess it turned
my box into a torrent gateway".

~~~
tptacek
Spoofing IP addresses is wildly more difficult than this, and implausible in
the BitTorrent scenario.

* There are no mainstream TCP stacks that have the vulnerability you're alluding to (poorly randomized sequence numbers).

* Even during the Mitnick/Shimomura days, the attack only got you the transmit side, not the receive side; it was sufficient to push an RSH command, but not to dump a file.

* There are network-level controls that make this attack more difficult; for instance, ISPs increasingly do reverse path filtering to ensure they're only egressing traffic from their own ISP space (we'd watch this happen while monitoring DDoS attacks at Arbor, seeing "randomized" source addresses constrained to prefixes from specific ASNs).

There is still IP spoofing, but it's got dollar signs attached to it,
significant enough to merit BGP tampering.

When laypersons claim to be victims of spoofing, they are overwhelmingly
likely to be full of it.

I couldn't possibly be less interested in the politics of Bittorrent and
labels ("Movie theater employees caught sneaking into shows without tickets
--- FILM AT 11") and admit to reading this thread only out of masochism, but
my nerd brain can't get past 'jrockway talking about IP spoofing; if it was
anyone else, sure, but 'jrockway should know what he's talking about here. :)

~~~
d0mine
> When laypersons claim to be victims of spoofing, they are overwhelmingly
> likely to be full of it. </quote>

What prevents a tracker to mix up some random IP. How do you know that it is
not correct unless your torrent client tries to connect to it?

~~~
unabridged
Usually for any torrent case just being on the tracker is not enough for
conviction, they have to record the user sending copyrighted data to the
investigator.

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iloveponies
As someone inside the music industry, this comes as no surprise. The spotlight
of the attempts of anti-piracy actions on the part of the big four and rights
groups overshadows the actions of the individuals working at these companies
and the others in the industry. Not everyone in these companies agrees with
what the rights groups and major labels/studios are doing, or see it as case
of "it's okay for as long as it's not ours".

~~~
gvb
The first rule of leadership is to be willing to do what you ask of others.

The stink of hypocrisy is to ask others to do what you are unwilling to do
yourself.

I am sure all of the companies involved have a "no piracy" company policy on
their books with severe penalties (probably reprimands leading to dismissal on
repeated offenses). If they are unwilling to enforce their own policies on
their own employees, they are being hypocrites, not leaders.

~~~
iloveponies
You're probably right. And you may find those who are breaking these rules are
the ones entrusted (sysadmins) to uphold and enforce these rules.

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onedognight
When someone at Sony, Universal and Fox use bittorrent, why is that not legal
distribution? Especially when they hire someone to spy on bittorrent users,
because in that case their distribution is clearly authorized. Maybe the
blocklists used by torrent clients should be inverted?

~~~
unabridged
I've always felt that when two torrent clients start talking, they should
require each other to say something to the effect: "I am an agent of the
copyright holder of this material, and I hereby authorize you to use and
distribute this material freely" before sending any data. Try to sue someone
in court when you have your investigator on record telling them they can use
and distribute your works.

~~~
Karellen
Won't work for FLOSS/CC licensed material, or public domain works. The
distributor is not an agent for the copyright holder; she either has a license
which allows redistribution, or does not need one to legally redistribute.

So, your disclaimer is reduced to "I am legally allowed to redistribute this
media". Which is pointless. It's inherently implied by the fact that you _are_
redistributing the work. Unless you are breaking the law - in which case, why
would lying about it bother you?

Oh, yes, I am totally authorised to redistribute this media. And these genuine
Rolex watches I am selling for $20 fell off the back of a truck. They are
definitely not fakes infringing on trademarks, nor are they actual genuine
articles which are stolen and being fenced, no siree!

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darksaga
I thought it was interesting everybody thought the site was s joke. Now we
have a highly trafficked site using it as a means to convict the companies who
are going after the pirates.

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Aloisius
There were plenty of people coming from the IPs of music labels on Napster
back in the day so it doesn't surprise me that they continue to use P2P
services. IIRC, it was on the order of tens of thousands though that included
parent companies and subsidiaries.

Our lawyers told us it wasn't useful (and might have been harmful) to our case
so we never did anything with the information.

