Judge Orders TorrentSpy to Turn Over RAM

virgil_disgr4ce writes "In an impressive example of the gap of understanding between legal officials and technology, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian 'found that a computer server's RAM, or random-access memory, is a tangible document that can be stored and must be turned over in a lawsuit.' ZDNet, among others, reports on the ruling and its potential for invasion of privacy."

What's the problem?

Take the chips out of the machine and send them to the other side.

Re:What's the problem?

I read a couple of other articles on it (google 'em, easy to find) and basically the Judge understands more than this Slashdot abstract says.

Torrentspy was contending that they had no record of user's IP addresses, since they don't do any IP logging. The Judge has ordered that since, even though there is no logging, the IPs are available in the RAM for a period of time, that constitutes a recording and they were ordered to capture that information from the RAM in a more permanent spot.

This is new because it's the first time that volatile RAM has even been considered as evidence in that manner.

Re:What's the problem? Ordered Recording!

This is unbelieveable, especially in a Civil case. Sure, you can order the production of documents. Even expost format conversions. But I've never heard of imposing a requirement to make new documents.

The meatspace equivalent to RAM-recording is to require conversations to be taped and those tapes to be produced. Worse (more intrusive) actually, since RAM must be slowed to be recorded. RAM is as ephemeral as air.

I expect an appeal. I understand the desireability and value of the evidence, but rules are rules.

Re:What's the problem?

Maybe a few minutes later. Not hours or days. The decay is total by then, and there isn't even theoretical equipment that could distinguish its state from noise.

Re:What's the problem?

Yeah... uh right. I am sure there is some type of theoretical possibility here, but practically no. RAM has to be constantly "refreshed" to keep the charge high enough to be read. After about ten seconds without power, I doubt any instrument would be able to read the state before power down.

Re:What's the problem?

That oughtta work. I do that recreationally anyway.

What's next?

"Please sir, hand over your motherdisk."

Re:What's next?

I insist that you hand over your ISDN drive. And your SCSI modem.

HD

Maybe she meant 'hard drive'? The majority of the people I supported while working IT during college used the terms RAM and hard drive interchangeably.

-gb

Re:HD

No, nothing like that. I can only presume that the judge's order explained the reasoning in detail, but basically the court has decided that if it's in RAM it's an electronic document. To that end, the judge has ordered TorrentSpy to turn on logging to capture these "electronic documents".

It's basically some wild legal theory invented to provide a method of giving the MPAA the discovery information they want. The bright side is that the judge has decided that the individual IP addresses may be redacted to prevent TorrentSpy's users from being targeted.

Blank RAM

And these guys get arrested for destruction of evidence when they find that the RAM is blank. Un-freaking-believable.

Re:Blank RAM

Apparently "Your honor, you seem to be an idiot," is not an effective objection.

Re:Blank RAM

And these guys get arrested for destruction of evidence when they find that the RAM is blank. Un-freaking-believable.

No, because the article summary misrepresents the actual ruling. TorrentSpy claims that it can't turn over certain data because it was never logged. The judge ruled that since the data in question was in the RAM, TorrentSpy was in possession of said data and must preserve it for discovery, i.e. start logging it. The judge in no way ruled that they must physically turn over the RAM chips.

Re:Blank RAM

I doubt anybody will get in trouble because a judge doesn't know a PS/2 port from a SATA connector.

Don't count on it. In the UK, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, anyone can be required to turn over the password to decrypt any encrypted data they have that is needed for certain legal purposes... even if the "encrypted data" is just random bits, with no significance and not derived from any meaningful data. You are presumed guilty if you won't (or can't) supply the appropriate password.

If this case happened in the UK, the RIP Act would appear to make you guilty by default if you couldn't supply a password that "decrypted" whatever data was in the RAM when it was next powered up to turn it back into whatever they think was there before. And given that these are people who don't appreciate the volatile nature of RAM, I wouldn't hold out much hope of explaining to the judge why it's not possible to comply with their ruling.

Aren't you glad that our inept legislators and your incompetent judges work in different jurisdictions?

link is broken

Here is a working link to the article: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6190900.html [zdnet.com]

hmm..

I wonder if its floppy or hard ram?

Sure

Sure, I'll unplug it and send it to you right away, your Honor!

precedent

Keep in mind this is a magistrate judge, which is one step below a trial court judge (who is already generally below 2 levels of appeals courts). Magistrate judges work on a very fact-specific level, so I don't think this ruling would make even persuasive authority. I think I cited a magistrate judge like once, and that was just because the subject was so obscure I couldn't find anything else...

Even if they had the information off the ram...

Even if they had the information off the ram, there's no way to tell what context they're running the information in.

1001011010100100 - Well with this information I have no choice but to rule the defendant innocent... oh wait...
1001011010100101!! That changes everything! - I have no choice but to rule the defendant guilty !

Over Simplified Headline...

It has nothing to do with handing over physical ram. It's about whether you have a piece of information in memory but deliberately fail to ever write it to a log - and whether you can be compelled to add that to your logs.

The more worrying demonstration of ignorance for me is:

"To imagine my information being disseminated without my written or verbal consent is unnerving," she said. "Then again, if I'm doing something I know is illegal, can I protest?"

If you smoke dope in your own home, can you protest if the police break in without any kind of a warrant?

If you like oral sex in any of the states that ban it, can you protest that your landlord installed a hidden video camera to catch it?

If you had depression and were hospitalized for being potentially suicidal, can you protest if the hospital gives the information to a former spouse who's trying to get child custody?

Of course you can damn well protest. Violation of your privacy is not acceptable simply because you're happening to commit a crime at the time.

It's especially not acceptable if you're not even necessarily committing a crime (seizing all server logs of all people using a torrent when only some of them are sharing copyrighted information over it). "Many people in group X are criminals, thus we're pulling all information on group X" is absolutely not acceptable. Imagine if the argument was "Many people in this housing project are involved with drugs. So we're demanding complete phone taps for everyone that lives there and we'll decide who's a criminal once we have that."

Re:Forgive My Ignorance, But...

You are correct, so the only viable solution is to remove the RAM with out turning off the machine!

-Rick

PS: KIDDING!!!

Re:invasion of privacy

As the TFA explains, the judge means that the RAM would become a legal document, and that any information put on it would have to be retained for later examination, and that if this ruling were extended to things like SOX, a SOX-complying company would have to keep transaction logs or images of their RAM so that the state of the RAM at any point in the past could be accounted. EEep.

Re:invasion of privacy

Damn! I knew we should have stopped referring to 'pages' of memory.

Re:invasion of privacy

oh please let it be so... that would show just how ridiculous it is...

Wholly agree. Another implication in the article is that someone could hit you with a court order, and the moment you were served, if your machine was on, turning it off (or even killing a process or doing something that caused a pageout) could be destruction of evidence.

Re:Judges shouldn't be allowed on these cases.

he still couldn't understand this udderly basic principle

Moo.