Innocent File-Sharers Could Appear Guilty?

daveo0331 writes " New Scientist has an article about what could be a promising defense strategy for people targeted by the RIAA. Basically, anyone on the Gnutella network can frame other users by making it look like someone is hosting RIAA music, even though they're not. Therefore, the RIAA's "evidence" against file sharers is theoretically unreliable and wouldn't stand as good a chance of holding up in court. No mention of whether this has anything to do with the RIAA's eagerness to settle the lawsuits out of court. The article is based on a research paper (PDF link, HTML version) posted anonymously to a web hosting service in Australia."

Innocent? Filesharing?

can you say those 2 words in the same sentence?

Re:Innocent? Filesharing?

i currently share 976 free songs (~3.58 GB), legally. i got all these songs off of iRATE [sourceforge.net]. so i'd say you certainly can!

i think irate is great by the way, although there's certainly room for improvement (p2p support, perhaps, as well as integration with an external media player). maybe when i have time i'll sit down and (attempt to) throw something together... (hopefully someone will have done it by then, and i can just download it. =P)

Entire computer share?

How about an entire computer shared to the internet? [67.37.26.90], like this crazy guy did...

Re:Entire computer share?

"Longer than it took to slashdot it, it seems. "

Actually it stayed up like 2 hours.

Interesting note: I tried to create a batch file that endlessly spun on the CPU, trying to make it self DoS. Unfortunately, I'm running Windows 2000. When I made a batch file that looped itself, after it spun a few times I got a message to the effect of "too many iterations, closing app". Now with all the talk about how stupid MS security is, it was an interesting suprise to find that it wouldn't let me put it in an endless loop.

Possibly beware of the link...

If you are using any version of windows NT, it is not always wise to open untrusted telnet links. By default windows will send the NTLM hash of the logged in user to the remote server, which could be auditted to recover the password in usually less than a day.

This may have happened already

Read about this [usatoday.com] in USAToday Monday:

A number of people say they were wrongly accused by the RIAA, or that their children swapped music without their knowledge. The RIAA dropped one suit, against retired Boston teacher Sarah Ward, 66, when it was discovered she couldn't be sharing songs on pirate service Kazaa because she uses an incompatible Apple computer.

Re:This may have happened already

This case alone is the ultimate mistake the RIAA could have made. A easy-to-deny false alligation against an "adorable grandmother" character... way to lose a "hearts and mind" campaign.

Re:This may have happened already

It would have been so easy for the RIAA to only go after people who hosted both illegal mp3s and child porn in this first round. Congress would have given them medals. Then they could have quietly expanded their lawsuits.

Re:This may have happened already

How many people are going to stand up and say in court that they hold the copyright to a child porn clip, and demand that they be compensated for loss of profit. Also, I doubt if they would be members of the RIAA, though it wouldn't surprise me that much.

html link

Thanks to google, here's the HTML version of the PDF [216.239.37.104].

Sure, karma whoring, but who wants to load a PDF? At least I didn't post a MS Word version of it!

-ted

Re:Does it realy make a difference?

Not really. The courts have decided there's legitimate uses for P2P and therefore they actually have to catch you in the act of violating the law to sue you. One concern here, though, is the Gnutella network doesn't, by itself, detect your IP. You can put whatever IP in you want and it'll appear that way to the rest of the network. Often, you'll see people with IPs in the 192.168/16 block on there. I could see how they could get your IP wrong this way and falsely accuse you because someone on the network claimed to have your IP. And this sort of thing scares me away from Gnutella.

Re:Does it realy make a difference?

You don't seem to understand the article. Infact, I would go out and call you a "big fat liar," but I'll try to be civil here.

You can't put whatever you want as your IP. That's stupid. In P2P networks, other peers connect to you. They know your real IP number.

Where you lie is when someone searches for a file (you search by asking your neighbors in Gnutella), you just put in a random (or not so random) IP number and claim that the machine returned a successful hit and send it back to the original peer.

Lo and Behold! That machine could be thought of a culprit by the RIAA if they don't verify by downloading.

The question is

Will this really stop them from doing anything? Like the poster said, they like to settle out of court, and they'll probably pull something like "Well, you should've been more protected against this kind of identity theft. Give us $10,000 in amnesty, and we'll go catch the _real_ theif."

Ummm, so what?

How many of the people being sued by the RIAA actually use Gnutella? I would bet few to none. The vast majority are getting nabbed for Kazaa and other more popular, less geeky p2p clients.

What about the obvious DHCP issue?

When using a modem, or even Cable/DSL one is typically dynamically assigned an address. Many times these can change. It was stated in numerous articles that the RIAA found IP addresses for people, then subpoenaed ISPs for the users using those addresses.

Either due to ISP incomprehension, or RIAA non-specific requests, they most likely received a lot of information based on who was using that address after subpoena, not during copyright infringement.

Re:What about the obvious DHCP issue?

ISPs are required by law to maintain a USERNAME,IP,TIME_USED record for even dynamic IPs.

So if RIAA gives them a IP,TIME_of_infringement, they will have no problem in retrieving a USERNAME and other resulting info to send to the RIAA

Re:What about the obvious DHCP issue?

the law only requires them if they have such a record to produce it when issued with a court order

ISP's generally have this information as they needed it for their own billing systems

Umm no. The vast majority of user accounts are unmetred - you pay the same price for the month if you are online for 5 minutes or the entire month.

ISPs that are serious about protecting customer privacy will simply quit keeping these records.

Re:What about the obvious DHCP issue?

ISPs that are serious about protecting customer privacy will simply quit keeping these records.

...and Customer's that are serious about protecting their own privacy will quit the ISPs that don't.

Re:What about the obvious DHCP issue?

ISPs that are serious about protecting customer privacy will simply quit keeping these records.

And spammers will flock to them in droves.

After all, if the ISP has no record linking Time and IP Address to a customer, then there is no way to know who sent the spam...

Nice, but...

Just because they've pointed out theoritical weaknesses in P2P apps doesn't necessarily raise a "reasonable doubt" about any defendant's activities. Is there any evidence that these vulnerabilities are actually being exploited out there? If not, I don't think this would hold much weight in court...

Oh yeah, and IANAL.

Re:Nice, but...

In a criminal case, yes, it most certainly does raise reasonable doubt; and were the RIAA prosecuting criminally this would be suffcient cause for a finding of not guilty, or even dismisal.

However, for now, the RIAA is not prosecuting criminally (although this threat is always in the background of any negotiations to settle). They are prosecuting civilly.

In a civil case it is the preponderance of the evidence that is considered. In other words does the jury think it's more likely the defendant is "guilty" (liable actually) than not.

This is a much looser standard just ask O.J. ( Or Chaplin, who was found liable for the support of a child he had proven wasn't his).

KFG

Since it's theoretical, it doesn't change anything

While it's interesting that apparently Gnutella can in theory be spoofed, I can't believe that this could form much of a legal defense since the spoofs are specific to Gnutella, so this has nothing to do with the vast majority of p2p usage.

Re:Since it's theoretical, it doesn't change anyth

You don't get it.

To publish something that relies on reverse engineering puts you open to charges under the DMCA. Reverse engineering PD software is easy (you have the source). Reverse engineering a closed source program isn't exactly impossible, look at Kazaa-lite, for example. However there are other PD clients to more popular networks such as eMule for ed2k (no disassembly required).

So you can still say that the RIAA's IP address is sharing movies and the MPAA's IP address is sharing MP3s for other networks.

Where is the principal in all this ?

This is no "strategy", it's a cop-out. If people are sharing files, and they *really* believe they should be allowed to do so, they should fight on the merits of their position, and live or die on said merits. To cook up a tenuous argument that someone might have framed you, is a tacit admission that the arguments people have mostly been using to justify file-sharing are worthless, and that file-sharing itself is indefensible. Show some backbone, people.

Re:Where is the principal in all this ?

This is a great argument utill some idiot teenager starts echoing your IP showing that you are sharing thousands of copyrighted files and you get a subpoena. If it's possible, someone will get around to eventually for a laugh. What do you do then? Plead your innocence siting your slashdot posting as proof? Well, you don't get a chance because you can't afford to fight the case because you haven't got a lazy 10-20K. So you pay up. And you're innocent, or so you say.

Let's face, if it happened to you you'd bee bawling endlessly about the injustice instead of condeming possibly innocent people.

Haven't You Heard?

The "law" is no longer about the "truth", but who can spin the best "half-truths" (read: lies). And the best "lawyers" (read: lairs) cost $$$, so in short, he with the most money gets "justice" (read: their way). So anything the "little guy" (read: not much $$$) can win is to come up with a nice "open-source" "half-truth", of which this seems to be. That and all that framing stuff others mentioned ;)

Even worse (or better?)

Furthermore, a worm/trojan could be released that secretly installs a Gnutella client and ACTUALLY downloads some tunes. Would ignorance be an excuse, when suddenly every computer in the world is filesharing? Tell you what, if I did fileshare copyrighted material, I would put up a fight.

A Question

Someone already sort of asked this but they are modded at 0 and thus might not get heard that easily. I was wondering if anyone had a breakdown of just what P2P networking the RIAA is targetting. If you read the headlines all you would think is that this is between the RIAA and Kazaa. I remember when recently when we all joked about the actual kazaa names people were using and how many "kazaalite" users there would be.

So what's the deal? Any WinMX, EDonkey, Bittorrent users being attacked in this recent spat of 700 cases by the RIAA. Or is it just those Kazaa users?

Re:A Question

I know for a fact that the MPAA monitors eDonkey. I was caught by them a few months ago, and they told my college to yell at me. Since the RIAA seems to put even more resources than the MPAA into tracking file sharing, I'm positive they're also watching eDonkey.

Same here with Gnutella

About a year ago. There wasn't any punishment I'm aware of, but the network people didn't like the fact that they got quite a lot of those mails (big university, and obviously many people sharing).

Unlikely

At least in the ways described in the document. They're describing potential attacks that just don't seem like they'd be worthwhile to pull off. A jury would be silly to use this as the reason to let file sharers off the hook, unless their only concern is getting the file sharers off the hook, regardless of whether they're guilty.

Annoying, it's it?

That's the thing about innocence until proof of guilt. One has to show evidence that the presumed innocent logically has to be guilty. Not that they COULD be guilty. Not that they might as well be guilty. Not if they have the tools that would allow them to be guilty. Not even if the prosecution can't find anyone else that they think might be guilty.

It's things like these that can make harrassing people a real bummer for a litigious group in the long run. Still - fear and respectful loathing may still "work" in the short term. But again, that short-term respect and fear will die down if cases are ruled against them.

Ryan Fenton

I am quite against IP in general...

I am quite against intellectual property in general, because intellectual property is not truly property, and violates natural law.

But I am also very much against anything that perverts justice, obfusciates the truth, and in general destroys respect for the law.

This one is ridiculous, because 99% of the people who say "no, it wasn't me, someone set me up" based upon this will be perjuring themselves.

Quite honestly, isn't that the claim that most criminals make?

I, for one, if set up, would have a different answer: "I never installed Kazaa or other P2P software, nor did I pay the Kazaa fee." Come to think of it, that would be my defense if accused of stealing cable channels too: "I never bought one of those cable-selection-hiding filters; indeed, I never bought cable TV."

Come off it, people. Stop trying to make a case for yourself why maybe it perhaps isn't so bad, and perverting your consciences.

RIAA

The RIAA has an amazing similarity to OJ Simpson. Still in search of 'The Real Filesharers'

Flaws in the paper

First, as some have mentioned previously, all of the RIAA legal actions required that the ISP's map date + IP correctly to the right user. This has shown to be problematic, as a number of Mac users have been caught up in the lawsuits.

The RIAA cannot expect the ISP's to provide 100% infallable information. This alone is a bigger threat than the attacks mentioned.

On to the paper. You can find it via google [google.com].

For the duration of these items im going to assume that the networks in question are either FastTrack/KaZaa or Gnutella. These appear to be the networks currently targeted by the RIAA.

Scenario 1: Modifying Search Requests and Search Results in Transit

This is a non starter, as the RIAA have mentioned before regarding their tactics that they rely on MD5 check sums of files that are downloaded from the peer. Simply modifying search results or requests will not incriminate anyone given the method the RIAA is using.

Scenario 2: Spoofing the Originator of Search Results and Search Requests

This falls into the same problem as #1. This will not get someone targeted by the RIAA.

Scenario 3: Renaming a Contraband File to Match Incoming Search Requests

This is a bit more troubling, as the MD5 sums would match the contraband, however, the title may be something completely innocuous - "Slashot Comment Archive" for example.

I find it unlikely that the RIAA would target someone based on MD5's alone. Their tactics appear to use a search to identify potential infringing uploaders, and then a download to confirm contraband via MD5 sum.

If this is the case, then the search for contraband would likely miss this type of file, as it would be renamed to something else (also popular) but unrelated to contraband content.

This does remain a viable risk and potentially exploitable entrapment attack

Scenario 4: Impersonating Another GP2P User

This is another non starter in the same lines as #1 and #2. The RIAA is not using randomly selected user GUID's to identify infringers.

Scenario 5: Tricking an Innocent User Into Downloading Contraband from an Authority

This is a very implausible attack. The RIAA is using custom software to track the network, and does not appear to be uploading the files they are downloading for evidence, as would normally be the case with a standard kazaa/morpheous client.

The chances of downloading a contraband file from the RIAA crawlers seems nil, regardless of how spoofed search resulsts could direct them in this fashion.

In short, there is a potential for abuse, but the methods used by the RIAA prevent a number of these from working effectively. They search keywords and titles, and then confirm contraband with MD5 checksums of the uploaded content.

This is very hard to spoof without actually deploying the contraband on a peer with malicious intent. You are still liable if someone puts contraband on your client!

The biggest danger is still the ISP's inability to properly account for times and dates for each user associated to each IP address. This will continue to target innocent individuals, although the RIAA does appear to drop cases that are blatantly without merit.

Even easier on edonkey

On the edonkey net, information about who has what files is collected and managed by edonkey servers. Since the server protocol is open, anyone could write a server that deliberately misinforms clients about the location of RIAA files.

Even without these holes, where's the proof ?

There's something that's bothered me about these lawsuits since the beginning: what proof does the RIAA have that a given person shared a file ? They're simply using logs of their software. But how is this being verified ? A log, afterall, is just a textfile; I can make one now that says Lars Ulrich was sharing my copyrighted works.

Not to mention they're also relying on the DHCP logs of the sharer's ISP. These were designed to aid admins, not to be 100% accurate. And, even if we assume that the RIAA's and the ISP's logs are accurate, most people these days have multiple machines on their home networks and often wireless access points. How can could one possibly prove that the internnet account holder did the sharing and not a neighbor sneaking on via wireless or a friend who stopped by with a laptop or a roommate ?

IANAL, but I don't see how any of these cases could possibly stand up in court, with or without security holes.

There are no juries, these are CIVIL cases

It really makes no difference if these arguments can be used a a defense or not. THESE ARE NOT CRIMINAL CASES. There is NO JURY.

Basically, you can go before a Federal Judge and try to convince him you shouldn't pay $150,000 per song, or you can settle with the RIAA for ~$2000. To do the former, you'll need to hire a lawyer and be out more than $2000 anyway.

That's why it's so scary. These aren't criminal cases. Hardly anyone even goes to court to try and make a case at all.

Re:There are no juries, these are CIVIL cases

THESE ARE NOT CRIMINAL CASES. There is NO JURY.

Of course there are juries in civil cases. What makes you think there aren't? It depends on the jurisdiction, but at least in the federal court system [uscourts.gov], in most civil cases you need only ask for a jury trial to get one, and only if both parties waive will you not get a jury (i.e., get a bench trial).

Not to Mention That...

anyone on the Gnutella network can frame other users

Not to mention that most home wireless networks are still running on their out-of-the-box (read no security) settings. How many people may have their IP hacked for filesharing through their wireless router?

Even the best security settings on most 802.11b boxes are hackable, often in 24 hours or less.

what we need

what we need is someone to write a virus that installs inself on windows machines and honeypots the common various p2p protocols and gives results that the riaa hate like a few titles of briney, metallica, etc.

so when your ip address changes and your still listed as a valid source they get scanned and nailed with the legal mess.

that will put an end to this crap when they start suing innocent people in massive quantities.

caching

On of the obvious ways to scale-up Gnutella was caching of search results, this would mean that even without framing there could be responses which are already irrelevant because the IP address was since reassigned, this could potentially produce the same effect. Without actually successfully starting the download, there is no way to know if the response is correct. Additionally, the original Gnutella protocol does not provide checksums, so even a correct response could point to the wrong file.

Ooh, an anonymous paper

That'll help to provide reasonable doubt! No... no, wait... these are civil cases, not criminal. There's no burden of proof, no assumption of innocence, no "reasonable doubt" defence.

All that the RIAA has to do is to show that the balance of probability is that the person on the other side of the courtroom is who the RIAA say they are and did what the RIAA say they did. Now, really, how probable is it that Kazaa users (which is who they are targetting) are likely to be the target of a malicious prank that's only been claimed (anonymously, and not yet independently verified) to be theoretically possible on Gnutella?

Sorry for the nasty little wake up call, but civil cases aren't like Twelve Angry Men [imdb.com]. If you're relying on this as a defence, I'd suggest changing your story to "a wizard did it" [xenafan.com], because that's a more probable explanation.

So many misconceptions . . .

In reviewing the threads in response here, I noted so many misconceptions as to how our legal system works, I thought it might be useful to compile them into a single e-mail rather than answer piecemeal.

1. Jury Trial. Somebody suggested that because this is a civil action, there is no jury trial. This is not the case. The Seventh Amendment assures that a plaintiff or defendant is entitled to a jury trial for an action traditionally at law, which includes actions for Copyright Infringement.
   
2. Preponderance of the Evidence.Because these are civil actions, the plaintiff only needs to prove the elements of his cause of action by a preponderance of the evidence. That is, to produce evidence tending to show that it is more likely than not that the allegation occurred. The theoretical possibilty that it might have happened otherwise doesn't suffice to get you off the hook (as it might in a criminal trial) unless you show not only that it is theoretically possible you aren't guilty, but that it is LIKELY that you aren't guilty.
   
3. Reliability. Most evidence is unreliable -- there are two sides to every tale, and you almost never have a forensic "gotcha" slam-dunk that will actually goes to trial. The standards of authentication are virtually trivial in many cases, and the weight of the evidence is weighed by ordinary people. I guarantee this -- at the end of the day, the jury is not going to listen to forensic experts on both sides contradicting one another as to whether there might have been fuzzy spoofing to frame the defendant -- the jury is going to consider the facts and evidence overall, the credibility of the witnesses and most significantly, the circumstances overall under which they occurred. Case in point: A produces contract supposedly signed by B. B denies signature. Signature experts on both sides quibble about authenticity of signature. This case will be decided not on the scientific evidence, almost never. It will be decided on the circumstances of the case: "Did you speak with A then? yes. Did you discuss the terms of this agreement? yes, but those weren't the terms. Did you get the shipment of widgets shortly thereafter? yes. did you install them? yes. did you see the invoice? i don't remember. did you ever complain about the price on the invoice? i don't remember. how about that first check you sent, how come you used the price set in the agreement then? well, that was a clerical error." The answers won't matter so much, as HOW they are answered. And you will be amazed at how well a jury can smell a liar.
   
4. Not everybody lies. When you are caught, at some point you will be asked the ultimate questions under oath, and then you have a choice: (i) tell the truth, in which case you may be credible enough to prevail; or (ii) lie, in which case you may be credible enough to prevail. The thing about lying, however, is this: you are lying. For many of us, when push comes to shove, personal honor tends to matter more than a few bucks. For others, well, that's how it goes -- they are the lying liars that make this place a sadder one in which to live.
   
5. RIAA has a case. Look, here it is. If the facts are true, if you have copies of unauthorized works on your computer, and they catch you -- you are busted. You did the deed, and it is actionable. You might not like it, but you are responsible under the law for your conduct.
   

Spartacus

A P2P system which has nodes set by default to route requests and data packets around with a bit of crypto thrown in (a la Freenet but without the storage & ultraparanoid settings). The net result is that 1000s of sites know about some file, but only a handful actually have it with the rest routing packets around. The efforts involved in detecting who is actually doing the sharing would go through the roof. Of course P2P users might disable their settings to improve performance, but then they're exposing themselves to easier detection. So there is an obvious tradeoff, but by default it should be turned on to maximize the amount of noise.

So let's see the RIAA crucify every single P2P user whether they're guilty or not. Altogether now - "I'm Spartacus!"

The article is fallacious.

Depending on how the RIAA is getting their lists, the article is at best fallacious and at worst deceptive.

Supposedly the RIAA is going after people who've been sharing more than a thousand titles. It is highly unlikely the RIAA would've gotten this information by sniffing the network or by putting out queries; it would just be too impractical. Gnutella hosts will very often put a list of what they're sharing up in the form of a web page, and if the RIAA were reading the page, they'd be retrieving it directly from the user's verifiable IP.

Similarly, other networks have the option to "browse this person's list". From what I understand none of these networks route the results of such requests through any sort of indirection; the data is also transferred via a direct connection to the "offender's" machine.

Re:mp3 music is illegal

"I taught my son a lesson by destroying his iBook. The lesson is that if you work hard and save your money to buy something, once you break the law with it, it will be taken away. By the time he saves enough to buy another laptop (which will be around two years based on his after school pay check) he will have learned that he was doing something bad and wont do it again."

Dude, if I had you as a parent, I'd watch your back. How is your lesson any better than a thug breaking a gambler's legs for not paying on time? I hope you don't own any guns... you just may become a statistic.

Re:mp3 music is illegal

So to punish your son for downloading music, which really doesn't have any value anyway, you destroyed a computer worth over 1000 dollars of your son's money? What would you do if he simply shoplifted the cd's, cut off his hands? Would you have destroyed his car for speeding?
I suppose you've never copied a video tape, or a cd, or a casette, or recorded something off the radio or tv.
I don't get why people treat downloading music as worse than stealing the cd. It's not even close to being like physicly stealing, you're not depriving anyone of their property.
You're probably just a troll anyway, no sane person would do that.

Re:Oh please

hmmm, let's see. I've used P2P apps to:

*Remotely administer files on a computer
*Access files on my PC while at class
*Back up data
*Aquire legal distributions of applications
*Aquire legal distributions of media
*Aquire quick information about a song or artist
*Communicate and (legaly) share files between friends and co-workers

seems like legitimate uses to me.

Re:mp3 music is illegal

Downloading mp3 of music that you do not own is illegal. I taught my son a lesson by destroying his iBook. The lesson is that if you work hard and save your money to buy something, once you break the law with it, it will be taken away. By the time he saves enough to buy another laptop (which will be around two years based on his after school pay check) he will have learned that he was doing something bad and wont do it again.

So it's pretty obvious that you are a troll but you do inadvertently raise a good point about authoritarianism.

Destroying your son's personal property was an immature act. He knows it was a childish thing to do, and it caused him to lose respect for you as an authority figure and role model. You have eroded your ability to make moral judgments that he will respect.

If your child does not respect you, he will not listen to you. Because of the power you wield he will simply give the appearance of respect and obedience, but in reality will go behind your back and do whatever he wants. This is the behavior you are reinforcing. Why would he do any differently?

So in a way you are like the RIAA. The RIAA is destroying any respect the public had for it by suing its own customers for large damages, much like you destroyed your son's iBook. Now even if they had a valid moral position (e.g. sharing music is stealing from artists) people are disinclined to believe it, regardless of its veracity. Music sharing will go on - just behind the RIAA's back.

You and the RIAA both need to act like adults here and build trust by acting maturely. Then maybe you both will get the respect you desire.

Re:mp3 music is illegal

"Downloading mp3 of music that you do not own is illegal. I taught my son a lesson by destroying his iBook. The lesson is that if you work hard and save your money to buy something, once you break the law with it, it will be taken away. By the time he saves enough to buy another laptop (which will be around two years based on his after school pay check) he will have learned that he was doing something bad and wont do it again."

Oh wow. I had no idea Dr. Laura visited Slashdot!