MediaDefender Explains Itself

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Wired has an interview with MediaDefender in which they try to explain why they attacked Revision3, which uses BitTorrent to host its own content. Somehow it eluded MediaDefender that they had injected fake content into Revision3's tracker, so when Revision3 changed configuration to forbid this injection, MediaDefender's systems saw it as a pirate tracker with lots of illegal content (which MediaDefender had put there) and attacked. In other words, everything they did was intentional except for the choice of target. Given that they have 9 Gbps of bandwidth dedicated to denial-of-service attacks against torrent trackers, all anyone needs to do is to trick them into attacking a hospital or government facility. MediaDefender has never been very competent, after all."

I think...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that Air Traffic Control using BitTorrent to distribute approaches is quite possibly the worst analogy I've heard come out of this whole mess.

oh noes, my /. torrents!

[Anonymous Coward]

it all begins with going to http://www.mediadefender.com/

Re:Fry.

[jon787]

If you distribute baking soda (sell/give away/etc) and tell people that its crack, you can be arrested and held to the same liabilities as if you had actually sold crack..in fact..some states have laws to where you'd get charged for selling it, but not possession. Some will tack on an extra charge on top of possession/sale.

Kaffee: It was oregano, Dave. It was 10 dollars worth of oregano.
Lieutenant Dave Spradling: Yeah, but your client thought it was marijuana.
Kaffee: My client's a moron that's not against the law.
Lieutenant Dave Spradling: Kaffee, I have people to answer to just like you do. I'm going to charge him.
Kaffee: With what? Possession of a condiment?

Revision 3 is lucky!

[mcbutterbuns]

I can't prove it but I heard that The Planet was hosting an open tracker. We all heard what happened to them... http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/01/1715247 [slashdot.org]

China

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhhhhh I get it now. The recent power outages wasn't due to the Chinese Cyber Militia. Someone at the plant must've been downloading the new Snoop Dogg album! Hence no power. That should teach those damned pirates....

Re:What the fuck?

[smorken]

No it wouldnt. That's one dollar.

Inexcusable

[Joebert]

Computer systems should be treated as pets, if they attack someone they should be put to sleep.

Re:I CONFESS!! IM GUILTY! Can I get off the hook n

[empaler]

Also, we made this cake. For you. Please, don't ask about the teeth marks.

Re:Mediadefender is the Punisher

[HappySmileMan]

What's most disturbing is that I doubt any court will ever find them guilty of a crime for this, if charges are even pressed.

MafiaDefender

[Mr_Icon]

Can someone tag this with "MafiaDefender" please?

Re:Now, really?

[jd]

The responsible parties are drowning their sorrows in champaign, their guilt crushed under the weight of party hats and women of ill repute.

Re:You forget, they're the "darlings" of congress.

[funkyloki]

I thought filesharing=communism.

There's even a poster [russiablog.org].

Re:Cake?

[flosofl]

The cake is a lie! (sorry, I'll just let myself out)

Re:I CONFESS!! IM GUILTY! Can I get off the hook n

[rrohbeck]

Why on earth would they have their servers set up to automatically commit serious crimes just because a server was public and then restricted access?

Their servers became self-aware on August 29, 1997.

Re:Mediadefender is the Punisher

[burroughsj1]

The State brings the charges, because the state is the "victim." That's why the individual doesn't get to decide whether or not charges are filed, or have the final say in punishment.

As far as I know, that is only true for commonwealths because the commonwealth is supposed to take over those kinds of decisions for the greater good for all...or something like that.

I hope that's not the case, or else I've wasted the last few years of my life, and a lot of money... :)
(IANAL yet, but hopefully very soon!)

Re:I CONFESS!! IM GUILTY! Can I get off the hook n

[iapetus]

Does this last section make sense? No? So what? Do you really think it has to? Look at their other arguments for making P2P illegal - do they make sense? Didnt think so. ;-)

Actually, I was fairly convinced by that argument they made about Chewbacca. I mean, they have a point. Why would a Wookie live on Endor?

Re:I CONFESS!! IM GUILTY! Can I get off the hook n

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

It bloody figures that SkyNet spawned from the evil **AA entities :P

Re:What the fuck?

[Opportunist]

Depends on the script language you use.

Why would a Wookie live on Endor?

[SpaceLifeForm]

Great bandwidth. Everyone knows Wookiees use BitTorrent.

Re:Why would a Wookie live on Endor?

[iapetus]

That doesn't answer the question, though.

You can see here, the Router orbiting the forest moon of Endor. Although the download systems on this Router are not yet operational, the Router does have a strong defense mechanism. It is protected by a firewall which is generated from the nearby forest moon of Endor.

The firewall must be deactivated, if any torrent is to be downloaded.

Once the firewall is down, our servers will create a tracker, while our admins hack into the system and attempt to inject the fake contact.