MySpace Private Pictures Leak

Martin writes "We all heard about the MySpace vulnerability that allowed everyone to access pictures that have been set to private at MySpace. That vulnerability got closed down pretty fast. Unfortunately though (for MySpace) someone did use an automated script to run over 44,000 profiles that downloaded all private pictures which resulted in a 17 Gigabyte zip file with more than 560,000 pictures. The zip file is now showing up on popular torrent sites across the net."

You know what to do...

[grub (11606)]

fetch! [thepiratebay.org]

Trap!

[fictionpuss (1136565)]

No way would I touch that torrent.. all it takes is one underage myspace kid to have posted one nipple.. cue child pornography charges/public outcry/p2p filtering mandated/end game. It's the wet-dream of the **AA crowd.

Re:Trap!

[L4m3rthanyou (1015323)]

Actually, I think this is more of a threat to myspace itself. After all, they were hosting all of these pictures... when people discover how much kidporn is stored on myspace (I'm sure there's a significant amount of it), THEN there will be a public outcry, and no one is going to care about the people who downloaded the leaked photos. The backlash will be against myspace itself, by the "think of the children!" nutjobs.

Figures... and they just put further measures in place to attempt to "protect" children from themselves. Oh well, I have a hard time feeling sorry for myspace since (a) it's myspace and (b) it's owned by News Corp.

Re:Trap!

[orclevegam (940336)]

Actually, I think this is more of a threat to myspace itself. After all, they were hosting all of these pictures... when people discover how much kidporn is stored on myspace (I'm sure there's a significant amount of it), THEN there will be a public outcry, and no one is going to care about the people who downloaded the leaked photos. The backlash will be against myspace itself, by the "think of the children!" nutjobs.

Figures... and they just put further measures in place to attempt to "protect" children from themselves. Oh well, I have a hard time feeling sorry for myspace since (a) it's myspace and (b) it's owned by News Corp.

This does bring up the interesting question though, of how one deals with kidporn that's being posted by the kids in the pictures. Obviously the nutjubs are going to go after whatever company is doing the hosting, but unless I'm missing something, if they're not aware of the content then all they have to do is make a good faith effort to delete anything they find, much like the case with copyright violations. Any legal experts on the laws concerned here no for sure what sort of issues this brings up?

Re:Trap!

[meringuoid (568297)]

This does bring up the interesting question though, of how one deals with kidporn that's being posted by the kids in the pictures.

You charge the perpetrator with child abuse and with making and distributing indecent images of a minor. And you try them as an adult just for the glorious irony.

Re:Trap!

[AuMatar (183847)]

Prediction? Hell, its already happened.

Re:Trap!

[afidel (530433)]

Yeah anyone who reads fark on a regular basis knows that kids who make home movies often get charged as adults for laws meant to protect the childish innocence. It really is very ironic and very SNAFU.

Re:Trap!

[by Anonymous Coward]

I am!

*fap*
*fap*
*fap*
*fap*

Re:Trap!

[MBGMorden (803437)]

Ironic. It's little known that parents are explicitly allowed to have nude photos of their kids as long as they are obviously not being abused and the pictures are not distributed. It keeps all the parents with the pictures of babies in the bathtub from going to jail. Kinda stupid that your parent can have a picture of you naked but this girl gets charged with child porn charges for having pictures of HERSELF.

Re:Trap!

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

Ironic. It's little known that parents are explicitly allowed to have nude photos of their kids as long as they are obviously not being abused and the pictures are not distributed. It keeps all the parents with the pictures of babies in the bathtub from going to jail. Kinda stupid that your parent can have a picture of you naked but this girl gets charged with child porn charges for having pictures of HERSELF.

Just to play devils advocate: If we consider publishing nude photos of yourself to be pornography, why would we consider it not pornography when a young person does it?

You might make the argument that child pornography should be treated differently when the perpetrator is also the child in question, but trying to say it's not pornography is nonsense.

Re:Trap!

[cyphercell (843398)]

so all pictures of nude people are pornographic? I think there's a word for that world view, oh yeah, prude.

Re:Trap!

[Mr2001 (90979)]

Just to play devils advocate: If we consider publishing nude photos of yourself to be pornography, why would we consider it not pornography when a young person does it?

The issue isn't whether or not it's pornography, but whether it merits all the outrage that usually accompanies "child pornography".

"Child pornography" is generally considered bad because in order to make it, you have to have a minor in front of your camera who's posing erotically or having sex. Since the law presumes that minors are incapable of knowing whether or not they want to pose erotically or have sex, this means that producing these photos or videos involves an act that's equivalent to rape: putting a minor in that situation without her (legally recognized) consent.

In the case of a minor posting her own pictures, however, there's no third party who could be accused of putting the minor in that situation against her will. It isn't even conceivably similar to rape, because the "victim" is making all the decisions on her own - if that's analogous to rape, then so is underage masturbation, and every teenager in the world is a sex offender.

Re:You know what to do...

[carpe_noctem (457178)]

My dog only plays fetch when I throw her sticks... this would be like throwing a sequoia log!

Script to upload them to HotOrNot

[xmuskrat (613243)]

Somebody is going to write it.

Gee Thanks

[TI-8477 (1105165)]

By covering this story, Slashdot has exponentially accelerated the spread of these images, and the number of seeders.

Re:You know what to do...

[Captain Splendid (673276)]

Are these divided up and tagged as to the myspace user profile they originated from?

Who cares? Wake me up when somebody offers up the "director's cut" of this torrent, ie only the really goofy and naked pics.

Re:You know what to do...

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

Yeah. Good grief, just what I need - 17Gb of pictures of other peoples cats.

On the plus side

[Weaselmancer (533834)]

Yeah. Good grief, just what I need - 17Gb of pictures of other peoples cats.

But on the plus side, you could head over to Fark and be a LOLCAT GOD.

Re:On the plus side

[gosand (234100)]

But on the plus side, you could head over to Fark and be a LOLCAT GOD.

What was the plus side again?

Re:On the plus side

[Jugalator (259273)]

I agree, the advantage doesn't lie in posting this junk on Fark, but rather watching others do it! You'll learn the syntax for LOLCODE in the process! Think of it as a free programming course.

Re:You know what to do...

[gstoddart (321705)]

Yeah. Good grief, just what I need - 17Gb of pictures of other peoples cats.

But, you admit you've already got 17Gb of pictures of your own cat? :-P

Cheers

Re:You know what to do...

[Kingrames (858416)]

Why do you want to see their douchebags?

Re:You know what to do...

[JeepFanatic (993244)]

If you read the wired interview, it says:

DMaul: The script that I wrote uses the myspaceprivateprofile.com interface to find the images. Therefore, it uses the same criteria. From my own testing, it appeared that myspaceprivateprofile.com did not return public images from public profiles. It only returned public images from private profiles. It did not return private images from either public or private profiles.

So ... I'm guessing the really good stuff isn't there.

Re:You know what to do...

[Cecil (37810)]

I would recommend the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children online tip form.

Yes, because teens on myspace who take nude pictures of themselves are clearly being exploited by... themselves.

The insane kneejerk hysteria surrounding the ever-growing umbrella of things that unfortunately technically qualify as "child pornography" is truly something to behold.

It's a diversion..

[GreggBz (777373)]

It's p2p diversion... It was the RIAA. Brittney Spears or Brittney next door? Curiosity and perversion are certainly more powerful than greed.

Re:It's a diversion..

[FooAtWFU (699187)]

Where's my -1, Paranoid Conspiracy Theory moderation?

Solution:

[Normal Dan (1053064)]

Ask 'Who cares?'
Then ask 'why?'
Then ask 'so?'
Then keep asking 'so?' until you realize it's not that big of a deal.
Problem solved.

Re:Solution:

[CaptainPatent (1087643)]

Ask 'Who cares?'

Um, Anybody concerned with internet privacy along with everybody who had a myspace account with pictures posted privately they did not intend the public to see.

Then ask 'why?'

Because this has huge implications for online security.

Then ask 'so?'

So, something like this that is potentially damaging should have had much better security measures against it.

Then keep asking 'so?' until you realize it's not that big of a deal.

I'm asking... it's still a big deal

Problem solved.

I think not.

Re:Solution:

[Mikya (901578)]

So?

Re:Solution:

[Bob9113 (14996)]

something like this that is potentially damaging should have had much better security measures against it.

Ummm, if you store potentially damaging photos on a third-party web site that is not intended to be a secure repository, why would you expect high security?

Because this has huge implications for online security.

Really? I think it just shows that MySpace is not (nor is it intended to be) a high security repository.

Re:Solution:

[bcguitar33 (1001772)]

We need to take this further. What about children talking on the telephone? They could be talking to pedophiles, potentially making plans to meet up. The government has got to monitor all telephone calls made by people under 18. Then again, these children could be out in public meeting pedophiles, or worse, being abused. It's the government's responsibility to monitor these minors at all times, to make sure they're not being abused. It would certainly take a lot of man-power to keep know where all these children are at all times. We'd have to resort to some sort of model of distributed responsibility. How about, we have 1-2 adults focusing on every child, and become responsible for what the kid is up to? For the sake of convenience we could just have the people who birthed each child be the ones responsible for them, and if they're not available, we could assign other ones. Any takers? This could solve all our problems!

One of the first rules on the internet?

[Animaether (411575)]

"Um, Anybody concerned with internet privacy along with everybody who had a myspace account with pictures posted privately they did not intend the public to see."

I thought one of the first rules on the internet was that anything you put out there can fall into the wrong hands / become public?

I certainly wouldn't trust MySpace with personal affairs - if not because of technical glitches / hackers, then because of a disgruntled employee who decides offering the entire database up is so much more rewarding than going postal.

Though the whole idea of using MySpace - a site where everybody openly shares information about themselves.. that's the whole point, after all - for *anything* private at all sounds ridiculous to me in its very premise.

Just my 2cts.. I do feel sorry for those who are/will be affected, especially in the days to come as the juicier bits are filtered out and plastered all over the web and into youtube videos for truly everybody to see, as even though my opinion is that there's no reasonable expectation for true privacy on those sites, that doesn't mean they asked for some stupid hacker and a scriptkiddie to go running amok with it.

Re:One of the first rules on the internet?

[MarkGriz (520778)]

"I thought one of the first rules on the internet was that anything you put out there can fall into the wrong hands / become public?"

No, the first rule of the internet is we don't talk about the internet.

Oh crap...

Re:Solution:

[sm62704 (957197)]

Um, Anybody concerned with internet privacy along with everybody who had a myspace account with pictures posted privately they did not intend the public to see.

Rule #1 of the internet: If you don't want anyone to see something, don't fucking put it it on the internet! There is no such thing as "posted privately on the internet". If it's REALLY something you don't want seen don't even put it in a computer CONNECTED to the internet. In fact, don't even take the damned pictures!!!

Gees, if brains were dynamite some people wouldn't have enough to blow their noses. I wonder how many pics in that 17 gig file are goatse?

Re:Solution:

[Pendersempai (625351)]

Rule #1 of the internet: If you don't want anyone to see something, don't fucking put it it on the internet!

Really.

So you don't have an online interface for your credit card? You don't do online banking? You don't manage your IRA or 401K online? You don't write any emails that you wouldn't want published? You don't use SSH to access sensitive information? You don't send any instant messages that you wouldn't want published? You don't visit any websites that you wouldn't want the world to know about?

Oh, but that stuff's all different, you say. Sure, the information is all on a server, but the server will only send it to people who have the right password! Except, the MySpace photos weren't leaked by a mole; they were leaked because the server mistakenly sent it to anyone who asked for it.

This is a big deal, and your snide reply (essentially "don't use the internet") doesn't come close to offering a workable solution.

Re:Solution:

[cuantar (897695)]

Um, Anybody concerned with internet privacy along with everybody who had a myspace account with pictures posted privately they did not intend the public to see.

The intersection of these two sets is empty.

4chan is gonna have a field day with this...

[by Anonymous Coward]

Oh lord...there are gonna be some angsty teenagers with real reasons to cry soon...

Re:4chan is gonna have a field day with this...

[spun (1352)]

I thought everyone on 4chan was an angsty teenager with a real reason to cry, being that no human woman will ever touch them.

Re:4chan is gonna have a field day with this...

[orclevegam (940336)]

I thought everyone on 4chan was an angsty teenager with a real reason to cry, being that no human woman will ever touch them.

Funny, a quick browsing of 4chan leads me to believe most everyone on 4chan is really a collection of cleverly written troll bots. They certainly don't seem capable of passing a turing test. You know, that would be a great experiment. Write a bot that posts random images out of a shared folder with appropriate descriptive comments, and randomly replies to other posts from a database of oft used memes and see how long before someone notices it's actually a bot. My money is on at least 2 months.

Maybe it's just me...

[Derek Loev (1050412)]

I personally have better things to do than waste 17gb of space -- and a large amount of time -- looking through other people's pictures.

Re:Maybe it's just me...

[MacarooMac (1222684)]

It's called a multiphasic scan [memory-alpha.org] or sweep and can be conducted accros multiple targets by modifying the navigational sensors to operate on a multiphasic bandwidth.

Slight Tweak: Myspace Privates Leak, Pictures!

[webword (82711)]

Title says it all...

Private?

[Eberlin (570874)]

I understand the general idea of privacy...but to expect any sort of privacy by putting your pictures online onto a server out of your control isn't exactly the smartest thing to do. I say if you've voluntarily uploaded it on one of the social networks, it can't be THAT private.

I know, I know, the myspace demographic doesn't know any better.

Re:Private?

[Ajehals (947354)]

The myspace 'generation' *are* supposed to be the ones using and seeing 'value' in all the weird and wonderful crap out there geared toward them, they are the ones who are supposed to be massively connected with their mobile phones, email and social networking account. They are supposed to be benefiting from a massively connected world, identifying and receiving wonderful services and consuming all those wonderful products geared toward them. They are the generation that (apparently) cannot tell real life from role playing, are emotionally and mentally damaged from playing video games and browsing the web. In short they are the generation that everyone is referring to when they scream "think of the children".

We, (I refer to the /. crowd, although I may be being over simplistic) are the demographic that saw the internet evolve, have technical knowledge of how parts work and can separate out our real lives and what we want to keep private, from our on-line identities and what we wish to be public. Unfortunately we are also the generation who don't understand nor see the appeal or utility in of many of the new and wonderful social experiments going on on the web, we see the real dangers involved in using them in an inappropriate or irresponsible manner.

We know the danger is from information about us being harvested, being used by future employers, insurance companies, the government, other corporates etc.. They (the 'myspace' generation) are worried about paedophiles and stalkers, whilst simultaneously being drawn to having deep personal relationships and generally being interesting (by whose standards I don't know) and pushing their personal information to anyone who will give them a linden dollar, a discount voucher or a chance to win an iPod.

Or am I just getting old?

never underestimate

[circletimessquare (444983)]

the power of bored horny teenaged males

Can someone run porn detection on this and reseed?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Porn-Detection Software [yangsky.com]

Looking through all the junk is going to take too long.

I've looked. Yaaaaawn.

[jridley (9305)]

I downloaded the first zip, which is the first GB of images. I unzipped it, and I looked at the first 4500 images before falling asleep. 999 out of 1000 are crappy cellphone pics of ugly people drinking a beer and flipping off the camera, or vacation pics, or pics of someone's crappy car, or just simply snapshots of people (the vast majority).
So far out of 4500 images, I found exactly zero images that I think anyone would give a crap about. I'm not even sure why the vast majority of them are even bothered marking private; nobody would care about them at all.

Submitter should RTFA, bug was known for months

[infestedsenses (699259)]

From the summary:

We all heard about the MySpace vulnerability that allowed everyone to access pictures that have been set to private at MySpace. That vulnerability got closed down pretty fast.

No it didn't. MySpace let this thing go on for months. From TFA:

The MySpace hole surfaced last fall, and it was quickly seized upon by the self-described pedophiles and ordinary voyeurs who used it, among other things, to target 14- and 15-year-old users who'd caught their eye online. A YouTube video showed how to use the bug to retrieve private profile photos. The bug also spawned a number of ad-supported sites that made it easy to retrieve photos. One such site reported more than 77,000 queries before MySpace closed the hole last Friday following Wired News' report.

The irony (and scandal) is that they not only failed to uphold their privacy policy despite being in the public spotlight over the last 2 years precisely for privacy issues, but that they didn't bother to acknowledge or fix this bug until a high traffic site reported on it.

Re:Dueling compression algorithms

[_xeno_ (155264)]

In case you're new at this: a torrent file can contain more than one file, organized unto subdirectories. There's no need for any encapsulation.

Sure there is. Ignoring the way BitTorrent actually encodes the information, and assuming that somehow every file name could be stored as one byte (ignoring the obvious flaw with that), by keeping all of them at the torrent level you'd require "more than 560,000" bytes just devoted to file names. Since the general rule of thumb is to keep the actual .torrent file around 100KB, give or take, that's right out.

Now, throwing in the way the .torrent file actually stores the list of file names, you're looking at at least 21 bytes per file. Assuming 560,000 files, that bloats the .torrent file to over 11.2MB - and that's still not realistic, because it requires every file to be less than 10 bytes in size and all of them to have empty path names. (Which is obviously not valid.)

Throw in realistic constraints, and you're adding another 15 bytes, bringing us to a total of 36 bytes per file - bloating the .torrent to 19.2MB, just for file names.

So, in short, the reason to place them in a ZIP file and not use the multi-file feature is because using the multiple file feature would massively bloat the .torrent file. Now the final .ZIP file has similar requirements per file in the ZIP file, but that becomes payload as part of the BitTorrent download and not something that has to be downloaded via non-BitTorrent means first.

Finally, for an explanation of where those numbers above come from, the "smallest possible" form for a file would be:

"d6:lengthi0e4:pathlee" (21 bytes)

The "more realistic constraints" brings that to:

"d6:lengthi100000e4:pathl8:0000.JPGee" (36 bytes)

Yes, the .torrent file is essentially "plain text" although the piece hashes are stored as binary strings. It's encoded using "Bencoding [wikipedia.org]" - which isn't the most compact of formats.

Re:Dueling compression algorithms

[syukton (256348)]

Those multiple .RAR files most likely originated on Usenet [wikipedia.org], where corruption-resistance is very important (indeed, the .RAR files are often accompanied by .PAR parity files as well).

The .torrent was probably just created from a usenet download, omitting the .PAR files (which are unnecessary when using Bittorrent).