Grokster Launches Fear Campaign 443
An anonymous reader writes "Slyck is reporting on Grokster's new scare tactic. Suddenly it's become taboo to head over to Grokster.com. In a transparent attempt to scare potential P2P users, Grokster.com has reinforced its anti-P2P sentiment. The visitor's IP address is clearly displayed in large font on the Grokser's homepage while indicating the address was logged."
So.. (Score:2, Interesting)
All youre IP are logged by us (Score:5, Interesting)
Gotta love the XXAA (Score:4, Interesting)
why.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why don't they just close up shop and be done with it.
Re:Get a sense of proportion (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:shaking in my boots (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA (Score:5, Interesting)
It's hardly unique, except if you consider it to be 0-dimentional.
Many computers can have the same ip at different times. Also many computers can have the same ip at the same time within the same network. Indirectly, in hacking cases, even two computers can have the same ip at the same time and not really be in the same network. Well, even one computer can have some different ips assigned to it... or even many networks connected to the same computer... I could go on multiple people using the same computer... or many.
Ugh... this is funny, now even I don't know if I'm being insightful, informative, or if I'm trolling some modern physics.
Re:Settlements tend to do this (Score:3, Interesting)
Google can take the blame (Score:1, Interesting)
Grokster, by Google [google.com]
Billions of defendants (Score:3, Interesting)
Will they sue China?
Re:Telnet is fun (Score:4, Interesting)
#!/bin/bash
while
wget -O
printf "\r%d " $i
i=$((i+1))
done
Re:Won't you be my neighbor (Score:5, Interesting)
Who really runs these anyonymous proxies? I mean if I were in law enforcement (and I might be), I would strongly consider creating a website of an anonymizing proxy (which I might have done), put in some text about how illegal actions will not be tolerated (which I think they all do). I would "report" all illegal activity (as advertised), then get paid to investigate it professionally (which I might do).
When I observe people using multiple anonymizing proxies in series, I'd probably create a few more, because especially when being randomized, it's just a matter of time before somebody uses all of my proxies in series for criminal activities.
I would love to be in the court (Score:5, Interesting)
Lawyer: Your honor, we want you to award us 1 million dollar in damages for copyright infringement against the defendant.
Jduge: Indeed, do you have any evidence of this charge?
Lawyer: Of course, the defendant visited a website!
Jugge: and?
Lawyer: AND we logged his IP!
Judge: and?
Lawyer: and? your honor I don't understand, we got his IP!!!
Judge: yes but what do you alledge the defendant did.
Lawyer: he visited our site!
Judge: and downloaded copyrighted material wich the original copyright owner did not give him permission to do?
Lawyer: wha? He visited our site!
Judge: That is not actually illegal you know. In fact I can see only one criminal act and that is your site records personal information without a privacy statement.
Lawyer: ah.
Judge: Indeed.
Re:Won't you be my neighbor (Score:3, Interesting)
Which I assume covers web traffic only on port 80. When you start hitting sites with random, proprietary protocols on other ports, the chances are that the other end see your real IP address.
Your only chance of anonymity on a P2P network was if there were proxies set up between you and the powers that be that prevented you from following the trail. This in itself is non-trivial and requires lots of benevolent people to cover your tracks when you use them as a conduit for your illegal activites. Even such people existed (and weren't RIAA plants), performance would go the tubes. Hence the reason that Freenet sucks.
I would say that you're never going to cover yourself completely but it occurs to me (a naive thought no doubt) that a bittorrent-esque protocol could be formulated that made it a lot harder to prosecute people if all clients allocated 15% of their bandwidth for proxying some other data aside from the data requested. To make statistical analysis harder, the data you proxy would not change over time so all intents and purposes you would look like you were downloading it, except you're not.
Re:Do as I say, just not to me (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mashboxx (Score:3, Interesting)
"Mashboxx itself [mashboxx.com] is a sham RIAA front company"
Mashboxx is, of course, Wayne Rosso's company. Wayne was the pirate's best friend back when he was Grokster's CEO and when he later ran Optisoft, which provided Blubster -- he was not shy about defending the rights of P2P applications to exist, and regularly told the record companies to fuck off, in so many words. He even founded a trade group of P2P application providers called P2P United [38.119.65.153].
Providing a P2P application that's compatible with the rights and wishes of copyright holders does not make one a "sham RIAA front company." Yeah, yeah, all those greedy copyright holders are the enemy, and entertainment wants to be free, and all that, but Wayne saw the writing on the wall. At least he's having some measure of success -- remember when Kazaa printed those full-page newspaper ads to try to get the record company's cooperation in migrating to a permission-based P2P network? Kazaa wasn't a "sham RIAA front company," either.
For years, Mr. Rosso was trying to separate the concept of P2P (highly efficient file sharing) from the current primary application of P2P (piracy); now he's doing something about it.