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RIAA Security Expert's Quest For Reliability
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Apr 28, 2007 05:46 PM
from the is-he-who-he-says-he-is dept.
from the is-he-who-he-says-he-is dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In the ongoing case of UMG v. Lindor, Ms. Lindor has now moved to exclude the trial testimony of the RIAA's 'expert' witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson. Jacobson is the CTO and co-founder of Palisade Systems, Inc, and a teacher of internet security at Iowa State, but in his February 23rd deposition testimony she argues he failed to meet the reliability standards prescribed by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Federal Rule of Evidence 702. The Groklaw and Slashdot communities participated in both the preparation of the deposition questions, and the vetting of the witness's responses."
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Ask Slashdot: What Questions Would You Ask An RIAA 'Expert'? 616 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer asks: "In UMG v. Lindor, the RIAA has submitted an 'expert' report (pdf) and 26-page curriculum vitae (pdf), prepared by Dr. Doug Jacobson of Iowa State University who is the RIAA's expert witness in all of its cases against consumers, relating to alleged copyright infringement by means of a shared files folder on Kazaa, and supposed analysis of the hard drive of a computer in Ms. Lindor's apartment. The RIAA's 'experts' have been shut down in the Netherlands and Canada, having been shown by Prof. Sips and Dr. Pouwelse of Delft University's Parallel and Distributed Systems research group (pdf) to have failed to do their homework, but are still operating in the USA. The materials were submitted in connection with a motion to compel Ms. Lindor's son, who lives 4 miles away from her, to turn over his computer and music listening devices to the RIAA. Both Ms. Lindor's attorney (pdf) and Ms. Lindor's son's attorney (pdf) have objected to the introduction of these materials, but Dr. Jacobson's document production and deposition are scheduled for January and February, and we would love to get the tech community's ideas for questions to ask, and in general your reactions, thoughts, opinions, information, and any other input you can share with us. (In case you haven't guessed, we are the attorneys for Ms. Lindor.)"
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RIAA's 'Expert' Witness Testimony Now Online 512 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The online community now has an opportunity to see the fruits of its labor. Back in December, the Slashdot ('What Questions Would You Ask an RIAA Expert?') and Groklaw ('Another Lawyer Would Like to Pick Your Brain, Please') communities were asked for their input on possible questions to pose to the RIAA's 'expert'. Dr. Doug Jacobson of Iowa State University, was scheduled to be deposed in February in UMG v. Lindor, for the first time in any RIAA case. Ms. Lindor's lawyers were flooded with about 1400 responses. The deposition of Dr. Jacobson went forward on February 23, 2007, and the transcript is now available online (pdf) (ascii). Ray Beckerman, one of Ms. Lindor's attorneys, had this comment: 'We are deeply grateful to the community for reviewing our request, for giving us thoughts and ideas, and for reviewing other readers' responses. Now I ask the tech community to review this all-important transcript, and bear witness to the shoddy investigation and junk science upon which the RIAA has based its litigation war against the people. The computer scientists among you will be astounded that the RIAA has been permitted to burden our court system with cases based upon such arrant and careless nonsense.'"
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Judge Says RIAA "Disingenuous," Decision Stands 195 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Judge Lee R. West in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has rejected the arguments made by the RIAA in support of its 'reconsideration' motion in Capitol v. Foster as 'disingenuous' and 'not true,' and accused the RIAA of 'questionable motives.' The decision (PDF) reaffirmed Judge West's earlier decision that defendant Debbie Foster is entitled to be reimbursed for her attorneys fees." Read more for NewYorkCountryLawyer's summary of the smackdown.
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Prof. Johan Pouwelse To Take On RIAA Expert 184 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Marie Lindor has retained an expert witness of her own to fight the RIAA, and to debunk the testimony and reports of the RIAA's 'expert' Dr. Doug Jacobson, whose reliability has been challenged by Ms. Lindor in her Brooklyn federal court case, UMG v. Lindor. Ms. Lindor's expert is none other than Prof. Johan Pouwelse, Chairman of the Parallel and Distributed Systems Group of Delft University of Technology. It was Prof. Pouwelse's scathing analysis of the RIAA's MediaSentry 'investigations' (PDF) in a case in the Netherlands that caused the courts in that country to direct the ISPs there not to turn over their subscribers' information (PDF), thus nipping in the bud the RIAA's intended litigation juggernaut in that country."
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Lindor Attacks Record Company Copyright-Pooling 136 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Back in March, 2006, Marie Lindor called the record companies suing her a collusive cartel, and their joint agreement to pool their copyrights "copyright misuse" (pdf). A year and a half later, the RIAA apparently got nervous about that allegation and made a motion to strike the allegations. Ms. Lindor has struck back, pointing out to the Judge not only that the RIAA's arguments had no legal basis, but also that its brief was completely silent as to any justification for the record companies' copyright-pooling agreement. Such a justification would be necessary for it to pass muster under 'rule of reason' analysis mandated by the US Supreme Court. Ms. Lindor, a home health worker who has never even used a computer, let alone infringed anyone's copyrights with a p2p file sharing program, is the same defendant who exposed, with a little help from her friends, some of the weaknesses in the RIAA's expert testimony. She also obtained a ruling that the RIAA's $750-per-song file damages theory might be a wee bit unconstitutional."
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Geez too many links (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Geez too many links (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Geez too many links (Score:5, Funny)
Clicking it will result in a temporal vortex opening up and taking away your internets.
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1. The designation of "foe" was by mistake.
2. I don't know what the heck you are talking about with "revenge" and "sock puppets".
Yikes. (Score:3, Funny)
Ask me! (Score:4, Funny)
Wait, what am I doing? On second thought, they can kiss my skinny pasty-white nerd ass.
Moderately Amused (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Moderately Amused (Score:5, Interesting)
I posted this before, but this should be required reading for anyone interested in the subject:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070302
And it's not just refuting the sham expert, it's about refuting the RIAA's strategy in general, and it's worked. The RIAA has much higher hurdles to jump now. Extorting money from random people just became much more expensive.
--
BMO
Awesome. (Score:3, Insightful)
2cents I also think that the RIAA and everyone from them can fornicate themselves with an iron stick.
I can see the troll/flamebait mods coming already.
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Am I the only one (Score:5, Interesting)
There are plenty of weak points in the RIAA's case as a whole. One could attack the chain of identity leading to the defendent - is the infringing activity traced to the correct IP, and is the IP at that time actually the one that belonged to Ms. Lindor, and can we be reasonably sure the activity took place on her computer, and we don't even know that she was the one at the computer so would she even be liable... The chain of identity is probably the best weak point in their case, but you could also argue that the damages are negligable and fight the absurd statutory fee, or that perhaps no uploading took place and the torrent was all seeded one way.
There are a number of legitimate arguments to be made, but the point I'm getting at is I don't see how the deposition of Jacobson attacked any of them sufficiently to prove or disprove his competence as an expert witness. Slashdot was quick to point out the minor screw-ups in his testimony, but many of those statements were perfectly fine in the context of explaining the technology to a layperson. Some of the "holes" in his argument were so unlikely that I would not even consider them reasonable doubt in a criminal case. Do you really think someone actually decided to frame the woman by filesharing wirelessly and changing her MAC address and internal NAT mappings to mask the presence of a wireless router? I don't.
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When there is a search space of a size small enough that the entirety of it can be searched, one can produce evidence documenting that something is not present within that space.
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Re:Am I the only one (Score:5, Informative)
The main argument is that all of his testimony is based on assuming the ISP and MediaSentry provided accurate information. MediaSentry and the ISP are not going to testify. In his deposition, the RIAA "expoert" stated he has no idea how MediaSentry or the ISP came to their conclusions. The cases sited require that the expert testimony start with verifiable facts, not with unverifiable information provided by third parties that will not even be in court.
Furthermore, the sited case law requires that the expert use peer reviewable methods. The RIAA's "expert" made up his own methods that have never been published or reviewed. So he can't be considered an expert by the court.
I kind of hope the judge refuses this motion. The RIAA's "expert" made enough errors in his deposition that he will be made a laughing stock on the stand.
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From
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From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
site
v : assign a location to; "The company located some of their agents in Los Angeles" [syn: {locate}, {place}]
cite
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I think another explanation would not be that someone was fr
Dr. Jacobson is alright. Just not as a witness. (Score:3, Interesting)
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Secondly, he st
Re:Am I the only one (Score:4, Informative)
You missed the part(s) where he continued to state that the public IP address identifies one, and only one, computer. Even after admitting the existence of NAT, he kept returning to this assumption.
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Re:Am I the only one - ARE YOU AWARE...? (Score:2)
Are you aware that some of the words Mr. Beckerman ask him about are in the Code of Ethics of the organization he claims certification membership in?
I th
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It is a well known principle in the law, and fully recognized in many judicial decisions, that a witness who will lie about little things will usually li
Why exclude? No real problem with his testimony. (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Why exclude? No real problem with his testimony (Score:5, Insightful)
Your comment makes no sense. He was not "supposed to investigate" anything; he was "supposed to" testify about the investigation that was done three (3) years earlier.
As to whether he was "out of his area", he probably was... but that's not my fault, that's his, for pretending to be something he's not, and it's the RIAA's, for inducing the man to pretend to be something he's not. While I may have been asking him things he couldn't answer, they were not irrelevant to his report and his proffered testimony; they were directly relevant to what he falsely claimed.
I'm sorry to have to tell you that your knowledge of law is quite limited. There is no "prosecution"; this is a civil case. There is no concept of "reasonable doubt" in a civil case.
Yes his testimony is helpful to defendant. But this is not a game; this is a federal trial where one side is suing someone for tens of thousands of dollars. Under clear standards of law his testimony is inadmissible and must be excluded. I would be a pretty dumb lawyer if I allowed the RIAA to bring this guy anywhere near a courtroom.
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You're arguing phrasing here; when I said he was supposed to investigate something, I obv
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Then when I correct your misuse of legal terms, you say
Sorry I'm not as
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Personally, I don't think that letting him near a courtroom would make you a dumb lawyer - I think it would make you dumb, PERIOD.
Even without any technic
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Please actually read it or learn about computers (Score:3, Informative)
How do you figure? (Score:2)
1) "The prosecution's own expert witness says the defendant's computer was not used for filesharing, but they brought this case anyway."
2) "Well, we removed all evidence due to technicalities. The prosecution coul
Re:Unreadable (Score:5, Informative)
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To be fair, several of them were either links to previous stori
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I agree (i.e. please mod parent back up) (Score:2)
Re:What does this mean? (Score:5, Funny)
Other. I'm the guy with the gun.
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Since you obviously have evidence for your well-considered conclusion, I don't see why you don't give the RIAA a call and offer your services. I suspect
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I hope that tells you something about her guilt or innocence.
But yet.. (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly though, these cases indirectly impact many other activities, many of which I think the great majority of the community feels are not unethical, which involve limits of copyrights, security, DRM, etc.
And speaking as somebody who's a US citizen who knows a fair amount as an amateur about the law and constitution as written documents, these cases, as well as the SCO entries, are certainly educating me greatly about how the law is actually practiced outside of my personal reading of it. Routine trial motions are relevant when they deal with something that is important to track, especially when most of the community doesn't know what's a routine motion and what isn't. I personally hope that at the very least everybody from the US learns from these, since being able to describe with accuracy and detail the problems we have with the current state of the laws is the only way that all the letters, e-mails etc to legislators are going to have any measurable impact.
Re:Routine Motion (Score:5, Insightful)
This was the first time in 25,000 cases that the RIAA's expert was deposed.
The RIAA says he is their only witness to copyright infringement.
They used the same expert in all the cases.
And it turns out his testimony would be inadmissible at trial.
I think that's pretty important and not at all "routine".
In fact in 32 1/2 years of working in the litigation field, I've never even heard of anything quite like this.
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Re:Is this the end of MediaSentry? (Score:4, Informative)
If this court makes this ruling (and while IANAL, I would grant this motion!), could this be grounds for challanging all future MAFIAA supenas?
1.Yes.
2. Yes.