Film Industry Hires Cyber Hitmen To Take Down Pirates 457
thelostagency writes "Girish Kumar, managing director of Aiplex Software says his company is being hired by the film industry to attack online pirates. He says if a provider did not do anything to remove the link or content hosted on its site, his company would launch what is known as a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the offending computer server. From the article: 'Kumar said that at the moment most of the payment for his company's services came from the film industry in India. "We are tied up with more than 30 companies in Bollywood. They are the major production houses." As for Hollywood films, he said they, too, used his services.'"
Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't DoS attacks illegal? If so, why not?
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
What could possibly go wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, I've decided I'm going to start shooting out the tires of cars that I witness passing on the right.
or should I be going after Ford?
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What could possibly go wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
Just ask Canada to extradite him... They've never refused an extradition request from the US. They'll probably even get him out of another country just to extradite him.
Re:Er, (Score:4, Insightful)
And this is legal how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty sure DoS attacks have landed many a hacker with extraordinarily long prison sentences... So when are we raiding the corporate HQs of the hollywood studios?!?
Re:What could possibly go wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
That isn't true. If the packets cross though American controlled territory any where they are violating American laws. And America makes sure as much traffic as possible crosses their territory in order to be able to tap it.
Do you have a source for that? Wouldn't that mean that if you were to do something illegal then you would be charged in every country that your traffic was routed through?
Re:And this is legal how? (Score:1, Insightful)
This isn't legal. Mr Girish Kumar is actually admitting that his company is committing criminal offenses.
Copyright infringement is not a criminal offense, but civil matter.
He can argue all he likes that his targets are breaking the law, but that does not give him the right to break the law in response. The courts take a dim view of this type if vigilantism.
What about shared servers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So like (Score:1, Insightful)
Essentially, if the Justice Department, and more importantly DHS and 'CyberCommand' doesn't step in hear and shut this down as willful domestic 'cyber-terrorism', their existence and purpose is officially complete and utter bullshit.
As far as I know, these DoS attacks will be on the same networks that they are so hell bent on protecting from the evil entities over-seas. I guess if Corporations attack citizens online its ok, but if it crosses international boundary, it's suddenly technological warfare.
And as for Aiplex? Aside from the fact that you can't defeat piracy, it's always good to know who your enemy is. Thanks for the announcement.
/hates using the word 'cyber' as much as anyone else
//can't believe the MPAA still thinks these efforts will stamp out piracy
Re:Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
Its like complaining someone was murdered because they broke into a house. Simple solution - stop breaking into houses dummy, and then you don't have to worry about the, actions which are completely illegal and immoral, which follows.
No, this is like sears fighting shoplifting by sending assassins after shoplifters.
Yes, the pirates are breaking the law, but that doesn't mean the **AAs get to respond by breaking it in kind.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
How is he going to pull it off? (Score:5, Insightful)
DDOS attacks require a ton of people to properly work. Torrents sites are going to have a very large bandwidth and the ability to service many clients at the same time. So he's probably going to need more than one company to do it.
Secondly, if they're all in the same company, chances are they have a similar IP range - which means that any admin worth his salt can disconnect them from the network.
Of course, if they use a botnet, to do so - which is probably the only plausable way - they're going to be breaking quite a few international laws - and get sued into oblivion.
So yeah, I think this is going to end up in tears.
Re:Er, (Score:3, Insightful)
No, this is like sears fighting shoplifting by sending assassins after shoplifters.
DOS attacks are unlikely to kill anyone, unless they rely on VOIP and can't make a call when they have a heart attack.
It's more a store fighting shoplifting by tracking down people they think might be shoplifters and setting fire to their cars.
Re:Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more a store fighting shoplifting by tracking down people they think might be shoplifters and setting fire to their cars.
And yet if someone actually did that, everybody would be in agreement that it's deplorable.
There is a very good reason vigilantism is illegal.
Re:What could possibly go wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly correct. If anything along those lines should be illegal, it would be BEING PASSED on the right. If you're being passed on the right, move to the right!
Re:Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the shit is stolen from monopoly abusers thieves which then exaggerate the damage to terrorize people and as a consequence keep law enforcement from going after bigger crimes, your argument doesn't hold much water. You are immoral if you pay them because you are supporting an immoral system. Google around, ask artists, see e.g. Courtney Love on piracy [salon.com].
But, in a sense, I criticize pirates too, even if their immoral behavior makes less damage than the IP terrorists'. Piracy is not the answer. "Just Do Not Buy Their Stuff and consume/create something else and defend the right to access it" is the answer.
They won't bankrupt, as big media is a propaganda machine and will be financed some way or the other.
But you won't forfeit your integrity with piracy. And if you are thinking "The hell with my integrity", I'm beginning to think that your reaction is anticipated and sought after. Making you a criminal means you won't be able to defend your rights if you step on the toes of powerful people, and making you forget about integrity removes barriers to the acceptance of the only law that stands when you remove all other laws: "the most powerful wins".
That's why I think anonymous is a great concept used as a great deception: I prefer to be moral, and piss off the real power.
No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
All I've got to say is if we see this on our (a university) network, we will go after them. Conveniently we've got a company name now and them admitting who hired them. I'll be looking up some IPs and adding them to our network monitors. If these guys decide to DoS our network, we'll get the logs and turn it over to the lawyers and the police.
Re:Er, (Score:1, Insightful)
This is why its impossible to discuss this topic, in any way, on slashdot. No one wants to hear they are wrong and anyone who can explain why everything they say is both complete bullshit and only proves they are hypocrites gets moderated into the ground. The reason is simple, you can't reason with stupid.
Your rebuff means DOSing servers is okay so long as you don't pay for it. So commit fraud by agreeing to use their service by never pay for me. Gotcha! You make complete sense - and obviously have the moral high ground too.
The rest is complete bullshit too. I mean, you're comparing the damage of a couple hundred companies - at most - with theft by tends of millions of people around the world and have the brazen stupidity to claim the companies are doing far more damage. That's the literal definition of stupidity; lacking all critical thinking.
Re:Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
They never prove any of the accusations they use to justify their actions, which makes them FAR worse than vigilantism.
Actually, that is the core problem with vigilantism. It is based off of a perceived crime and usually not compared to any unbiased standards. Though how truly unbiased you can be in any case is a discussion for another topic. But the stated goal of the court systems of most developed countries is to give the accused a fair trail in front of either an unbiased judge or jury of their peers. Thus, hopefully, preventing the innocent from being punished and the guilty to be punished fairly.
What this is and many other actions of the copyright cartels, says is that they have seen the results of fair trials and don't like the results. So they have decided that they are going to write their own rules to get what they want. This is perhaps one of the better objective standards to determine when an group has gone from a lawful organization to a criminal institution.
Wrong wrong wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Stealing shit left and right is okay but stopping people from stealing shit is completely illegal and immoral.
That's not the case at all and you know it.
DOS is illegal. Period. But the claim here is that if you're doing good works it's not illegal. That's bullshit. Otherwise the pirates they're taking down could make the same claim.
That's the way the law is. Something is illegal, or it isn't. If you claim to be on the side of right and good, you follow the law. Or you don't. That lets you know what the real gist of this battle is all about. This isn't about good versus evil. This is my interest versus your interest. There aren't any good guys in white hats in this battle.
HIOOOOO (Score:1, Insightful)
Be interesting to see what happens when someone "In country" gets ddos'ed and their base commander considers losing his uplink an act of war.
Re:Er, (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a very good reason vigilantism is illegal.
And yet, that's EXACTLY what pirates claim justifies their vigilantism - they don't like the pricing, ignoring that pricing has long met their demands, so they seek their own justice by stealing.
would be in agreement that it's deplorable.
And yet piracy is cheered on as a god given right to steal because of a glorified sense of self entitlement which is all too often disguised behind dumb, inept, and hypocritical excuses.
To pirate anything and be against what the article is about means you are a hypocrite; not specifically you. To date, I've never met a pirate that wasn't a complete hypocrite. Never. Not once. Not ever. And I've met lots and discussed on-line with countless.
Where is your outrage for the people behind all the stealing? Morale people do consider piracy deplorable.
Re:Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
you wouldn't download a car
Re:Er, (Score:2, Insightful)
No, this is like sears fighting shoplifting by sending assassins after shoplifters.
DOS attacks are unlikely to kill anyone, unless they rely on VOIP and can't make a call when they have a heart attack.
It's more a store fighting shoplifting by tracking down people they think might be shoplifters and setting fire to their cars.
No, it's more like they are tracking them down and setting fire to every car in the parking lot. A DOS attack causes congestion and problems for more than just the person at the end of the "series of tubes".
Re:Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
"And yet, that's EXACTLY what pirates claim justifies their vigilantism - they don't like the pricing, ignoring that pricing has long met their demands, so they seek their own justice by stealing."
And copyright infringement is ... wait for it ... also an illegal activity!
What pirates, or this company, have to say about the ethics of their actions is completely irrelevant. vigilante justice is not allowed because it gets disproportionate and results in feuds and wars and collateral damage, much like DoS.
"And yet piracy is cheered on as a god given right to steal because of a glorified sense of self entitlement which is all too often disguised behind dumb, inept, and hypocritical excuses."
By whom? Most people I know that pirate wholesale don't think of it as a god given right, just something they can get away with so they will. Your mistake is in trying to engage people who copy stuff by attacking their characters, which will inevitably result in irrational argument and a lot of hypocritical self justification as they still like to think of themselves as "good people". Exactly the same as what happens if you raise the environment issue.
And when it comes down to it people still find it hard to believe that swapping a few bits around from in front of your screen either has a victim or could possibly be anything illegal. It's not like you went out and shot someone.
"Moral people" as you would like describe them are extremely, extremely rare. Most people bend the rules in their favour, especially when there's little to no chance of being caught and they don't perceive anything bad happening from their actions.
You never exceeded the speed limit on an empty road?
Re:Er, (Score:3, Insightful)
In any country with sane laws, that's considered to be criminal, because it uses more than reasonable force to counter the offense. If someone tries to punch you in the face, you cannot kill them for it. Same with breaking into your house to steal your TV -- it's not a crime punishable by death.
NONE of which is to say that I think private copyright infringement is theft, or should even exist as a crime.
Re:What could possibly go wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news, I've decided I'm going to start shooting out the tires of cars that I witness passing on the right.
You do realize that the left lane is supposed to be the passing lane. That means if you want to drive like a little old lady you are supposed to do it in the right lane. I wish we could shoot out the tires of every person who deems it his god given right to drive at half the speed limit in the left lane, just chugging along while creating massive and dangerous traffic problems behind him. Actually, to be honest, I wouldn't aim for the tires. Slow drivers need to be taken out of the gene pool. Particularly the ones who always insist on being in the left lane all the time as if deliberately trying to create a traffic jam.
Should have been completely hush-hush (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Er, (Score:2, Insightful)
1) I already have the dvd but it got damaged
2) It's no longer available
3) They refuse to sell it in my country (or i have to wait 6 months before the European release, fuck that)
4) I'm not sure if it's worth any money yet
Basicly, if the dvd is any good, and the price is good, then i'll buy it, sadly, i haven't had to buy many dvd's these days, most of what comes out is crap.
Is this legal? No.
Is it immoral? No
Re:No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most will, but to be honest this sounds more like a desperate call for free press to me. I mean, c'mon a guy basically goes out of his way to say "hey, they've hired us to take down torrent sites, and guess what? we're awesome at what we do!" Sounds fishy to me. Then, of course, there are the legal issues:
At time, we have to go an extra mile and attack the site and destroy the data to stop the movie from circulating any further
So, not only does he plan on launching a DoS attack, but he also plans on destroying the data? Sorry, even governments investigating CP won't do that, let alone some small private company.
Now let's assume, however, that he's telling the truth. Would major motion studios actually be that stupid (jokes aside) to give him discretion to bring up their names? He brings them up as if it were nothing.
Sorry, but this is all too much for me - let me be the one to call bullshit on this article and to the author who fell for it bait, line and sinker
Re:No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
This company also appears to offer "email marketing services".
I would say that being lying scumbags is probably part of their day to day ops. You're mist likely right. It's a publicity shot.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude, we use metric measurements in England :)
Re:Er, (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me get this straight. Stealing shit left and right is okay but stopping people from stealing shit is completely illegal and immoral.
Let me get this straight. You say that it's ok to commit a crime to prevent a crime. So... how far shall we take this? What if we now get a company that attacks the company that attacks the pirates?
What if someone is suspected of murder? Can you shoot him on the spot if you personally think that evidence is good enough?
What if you're certain someone will commit a murder, but hasn't done so yet... can you shoot him on the spot then, if the evidence is good enough?
It's never ok to commit a crime to prevent a crime. In our modern world, we have separated the powers: executive, a legislature, and a judiciary. Where in those 3 are the "companies that hold up their own laws to protect the movie industry"?
What you're suggesting is a sort of Wild West where the biggest gun has the most rights. No thanks.
Besides, where's the line? When automated, I can see these companies do attacks on every person who accidentally watches the wrong Youtube video, or reads the wrong article, or has interest in the wrong political party.
Actually, here it's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this one goes even one step further and illustrates yet another aspect of what's wrong with vigilantism, namely: harm to innocent bystanders. You know, people who even the vigilante never accused of doing anything wrong.
DDOS-ing a hosted tracker somewhere, essentially can DDOS the whole colocation company. There'll be a bunch of small company servers there, a bunch of kids' blogs, some community page, maybe a couple of Teamspeak and Ventrilo servers, stuff like that. It's not even a hypothetical scenario. The Pirate Bay servers for example, as probably the most famous tracker, were hosted at such a company. And basically then everyone else there is colateral damage, even though they never did anything wrong with those servers.
DDOS-ing enough users of an ISP essentially stuffs the pipe for everyone else too, even if they never torrented even legit stuff. Maybe not completely if it's a major ISP, but still lag them majorly, and if it's essentially a cable ISP trunk that only has the max bandwidth of cable, it's possible to actually cut a whole building or city block in the suburbs off the net.
And that doesn't even have to mean just the inconvenience of living a couple of hours without lolcats or porn or WoW. In the meantime a bunch of people rely on VOIP for their phone. So they could prevent someone from calling an ambulance or the cops. It's not just got the potential to cause a little collateral damage, but actually very disproportionate collateral damage: it could cause a grandma somehwere to die, just so the fuckwits can annoy a file sharer.
To use the earlier sending-assassins-after-shoplifters analogy, it's more like sending someone to torch the whole city block down because they followed a shoplifter to that location. Even by the standards of criminal organizations, it's like torching the whole condominium down because the guy running the grocery store at ground floor didn't pay his protection money. I'm pretty sure even the mafia generally avoided something that disproportionate, if nothing else, because they were trying to not alienate the population all that much. (In fact, quite the contrary, for example Al Capone was running soup kitchens for the poor to whitewash his public image.)
Re:Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, that's EXACTLY what pirates claim justifies their vigilantism
Piracy isn't vigilantism. They're not punishing people, they're robbing people. On the high seas. (That is what we're talking about, isn't it?) It would only be vigilantism if the Somalian former fishermen focused their attention completely on the super trawlers that are emptying their seas. They don't.
More to the point: your point seems to be that vigilantism is okay because there are people who do bad stuff. I consider vigilantism bad stuff, and therefore not okay. In my book, crime doesn't justify more crime. To you, apparently it does.
Re:Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
"Moral people" as you would like describe them are extremely, extremely rare. Most people bend the rules in their favour, especially when there's little to no chance of being caught and they don't perceive anything bad happening from their actions.
You never exceeded the speed limit on an empty road?
I have to slightly disagree on this point. Breaking the law is not automatically immoral - it's just a piece of paper written by people with more hired guns than everyone else and 51% popular support. What is immoral is violating other people's rights. Laws are usually made so that their infringement constitutes the violation of other people's rights, and those laws should be followed. However, when a law is defective in that you're not doing anything wrong by violating it (as in the case of a speed limit on an empty road), there's nothing morally wrong with violating it - it's just a pragmatic cost-benefit analysis with the fine. Immoral people are people who don't particularly care about other people's rights (eg. people who swerve their way through traffic twice as fast as everyone else as if the road is some kind of video game, endangering everyone's safety).
Re:Actually, here it's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrong wrong wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time this kind of topic is discussing, I see a lot more posts claiming that everyone on Slashdot defends piracy than posts that actually defend piracy.
Re:Actually, here it's even worse (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuck costing them a lot of money, if they hire someone to explicitly break the law then execs should get jail terms.
Yeah, Right - Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
My bet is that it will only take a couple of initial DOS attacks before the pirates will strike back with some DOS attacks of their own, and aimed right at the heart of the motion picture industry-- and it won't be pretty. No more online movie tickets-- the sites are blocked. No more movie trailers, the sites are blocked. No more fan forums-- well, you get the picture. Er, or rather, you won't.
Re:Actually, here it's even worse (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd have to check in your jurisdiction, but in most places hiring someone to do something illegal is illegal. It doesn't matter where the people running the DoS live - the RIAA member companies have seizable assets in countries that have such laws.
I really hope the RIAA goes ahead with this. Once following RIAA strategy starts costing these companies a lot of money, maybe they'll notice that they could make a lot more by being less hostile to their customers.
Well it seems obvious to me that if the RIAA and MPAA were going through with this sort of thing they'd make sure that had plausible deniability.
They'd place the order through some third party which they control but cannot be directly linked to; then when some random guy named Kumar stands up and tells the media the horrible things the **AA ordered him to do there is no direct link back to the **AA.
Re:Er, (Score:4, Insightful)
It's more a store fighting shoplifting by tracking down people they think might be shoplifters and setting fire to their cars.
If I can stretch that analogy much too far, it's more like a store sending out hundreds of cars to block and harass people who may be shoplifters on the road without regard to the impact on other traffic. DOS attacks use the same infrastructure you're trying t'use to work, play games, read the news, post on /., and such. So in essence they're attacking everyone on the Internet as retaliation for one site ignoring an accusation of piracy.
Given that some, admittedly few, DCMA notices are sent out improperly formatted, in bad faith, or to the wrong people, this becomes particularly irksome. One hopes it opens up all kinds of crazy liability issues for both Kumar and whomever pays him, but we all know that big filmmakers, both in Bollywood and Hollywood, have a war chest larger than some nations' GNPs.
Re:What could possibly go wrong. (Score:1, Insightful)
Thank You.
Tips hat.
Voice of reason...
all that good stuff.
I would love to see those "Slower traffic keep right" signs enforced
Re:Er, (Score:1, Insightful)
And copyright infringement is ... wait for it ... also an illegal activity!
They've going after civil offenders with criminal actions!
With copyright, the *worst* that could happen to you (theoretically), is you end up paying money to someone forever and ever. They, on the other hand, could end up in jail (theoretically). e.g. what if their DoS disrupts a fire department voip network and causes a school bus of children to burn to death? (in reality, such a thing would never be pinned on them, but, eh, this is theory).
RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
1. TFA says that if they shut down an Austrailian site, they're in deep poodoo.
2. The DMCA only applies in the US. Nobody else has to worry about it
3. I see DDoS war on the horizon. How long until Aiplex Software is knocked off the internet? I'm betting it won't be long.
4. I'm also betting that NOBODY from the US film industry will spend a minute in jail over their blatantly illegal activities. In the US, if you have enough money you're above the law. A rich, powerful man only goes to prison if a richer, more powerful man wants him there.
Re:Er, (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want a better example, try growing one marijuana plant in your back yard, using a vaporiser to ingest it on the first day of a holiday where you will be home, not driving anywhere for a week and tell me how that is wrong? If you can tell me that is wrong then I hope you've never had any alcoholic beverages ever in your life.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Er, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Er, (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright infringement is a civil violation and not considered criminal, as nothing is actually stolen from the owner. And, most of the laws regarding copyright infringement govern distribution (and for a profit). DDoS is a criminal act. A person downloading a movie while not distributing it to anyone else is simply violating copyright laws the way you would be if you were to make copies of something on a copier machine years ago. And yes, those same people were pursuing copier machine copies as pirates.
Re:People want to pirate Bollywood films? (Score:3, Insightful)