Gawker: valleywag, mediadefender

Revision3 CEO: Antipiracy group attacked our network

Owen Thomas — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:40:00 EDT

Jim Louderback, the CEO of Revision3, is jumpin' mad. A denial-of-service attack brought down the online-video network over the weekend, and it wasn't the work of a freelance hacker with a distributed network of compromised machines, he writes in the company blog. It was, he says, the deliberate act of MediaDefender, an antipiracy consulting group which works to shut down file-sharing networks. Revision3 uses BitTorrent, a file-sharing protocol, to distribute its own content, and runs a "tracker" server to coordinate those downloads. All of this is quite legal. MediaDefender, it turns out, found a security hole in Revision3's server, and planted unknown files, possibly illegal copies on Revision3's servers, for their own purposes. It's not clear why, but whatever the motive, MediaDefender may have broken several laws in doing so.

What brought down Revision3's network wasn't the security hole, however. It was MediaDefender's response after Revision3 technicians noticed the breach and shut it down. MediaDefender's servers, in what that company told Louderback was an automated response, started trying to contact Revision3's servers through the now-closed hole. That turned into a flood of traffic that overwhelmed Revision3's network.

MediaDefender has worked for Sony Music, the Recording Industry Association of America, and the Motion Picture Association of America to shut down illegal file-sharing networks. But Revision3's use of file sharing for its own content was entirely legal; to the extent its servers pointed to any illegal files, it was only because of MediaDefender's hacking, Louderback tells me.

Revision3 has asked the FBI to investigate MediaDefender's alleged abuses. For years, the music and movie industries have been telling us that sharing files is criminal, and that blocking file-sharing networks is proper. For millions of file-sharing users, it would be quite satisfying to see the opposite proved in court.

Butt pirates battle Internet pirates

Jordan Golson — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:33:16 EDT

All-male porn peddler Titan Media has sued to shut down an "online gay porn piracy ring." Titan is suing 22 defendants working on a half-dozen blogs. In this arena, for a change, the porn world is behind the curve, not on the cutting edge of tech. While the RIAA and MPAA have huge budgets and companies like MediaDefender and BayTSP to do their antipiracy dirty work, those companies don't "want to be known in the porn space," according to the CEO of BayTSP. As a result, sex sites must do their own dirty work.

We can't wait to see save-the-children-type public service announcements before our porn starts, begging watchers not to pirate the videos like the ridiculous ones we see now before movies showcasing all the people "behind-the-scenes" like gaffers and script editors and the like.

Dear readers, remember: don't pirate pornography. Please, think of the fluffers.

(Photo by Boss Tweed)

The Pirate Bay takes on corporate raiders

Mary Jane Irwin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:22:11 EDT

Amidst all the hubbub about MediaDefender — the file-sharing policing agency whose private email files were recently spewed across the Internet, revealing unsavory antipiracy plans — one particularly interesting tidbit has bubbled to the surface. The Pirate Bay, a major file-sharing site, says it now has proof from those files that the music and movie industries have been paying hackers to attack the site. It is now taking this information to the police and charging the Swedish arms of Fox, EMI Music, Universal, Paramount, Atari, Activision, Ubisoft and Sony with technical sabotage, denial-of-service attacks, hacking, and spamming.

MediaDefender cracked by more hack attacks

Mary Jane Irwin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:02:56 EDT

Be careful what you ask for. You may get it. MediaDefender had hoped to lure file sharers using a fake site. It's certainly drawn the attention of sophisticated hackers. The antipriacy organization has been hit twice by hackers since an initial breach spilled 6,000 of the company's emails onto the Web. As Wired News reports, hackers hit the database that holds the dummy files that MediaDefender floods file-sharing networks with — a tactic meant to discourage use of those networks to download music and videos. The second managed to scoop up a recorded phone conversation in which MediaDefender assures the New York attorney general's office of its security. (Photo by aussiegall)

MediaDefender's plans to ensnare the Web uncovered

Mary Jane Irwin — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:44:15 EDT

A group of hackers banned together to hack an antipiracy group's email == and uncovered a dastardly plan to entrap file sharers. MediaDefender, the antipiracy organization, spends its days devising new means to thwart BitTorrent networks, the current, most sophisticated generation of file-sharing technology. Recently it's taken to seeding them with fake files. Among the 6,000 captured messages were emails detailing the planned creation of MiiVi, a faux BitTorrent site that would track all IP addresses that accessed the site. MediaDefender executives were also considering hacker tactics like a hostile takeover of computers, transforming them into bots that would spread fake files among peer-to-peer networks. That's a vile technique perfected by spammers, of course.