TorrentFreak has uncovered a "top-secret" presentation made by the Federation Against Copyright Theft and sent to Sony Pictures. "The document reveals suspects being filmed in cinemas, tracked using Facebook friends, and their connections to release groups mapped in intriguing diagrams."
FACT goes on to give Sony several examples of situations in which it has been involved in information exercises sharing with the authorities. The exact details aren't provided, but somewhat surprisingly FACT says they include murder, kidnap and large-scale missing persons investigations.
But perhaps of most interest are the details of how the group pursues those who illegally "cam" and then distribute movies online. The presentation focuses on the "proven" leak of five movies in 2010, the total from UK cinemas for that year.
[...] Considering the depth and presentation of the above investigations it will come as no surprise to most that many FACT investigators are former police officers. For the curious, the full document can be found here on Wikileaks.
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WikiLeaks has published "The Sony Archives," a searchable database containing 30,287 documents and 173,132 emails leaked from Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE). The WikiLeaks press release portrays the archive as newsworthy and in the public interest:
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange said: "This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation. It is newsworthy and at the centre of a geo-political conflict. It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there."
Sony is a member of the MPAA and a strong lobbyist on issues around internet policy, piracy, trade agreements and copyright issues. The emails show the back and forth on lobbying and political efforts, not only with the MPAA but with politicians directly. In November 2013 WikiLeaks published a secret draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) IP Chapter. The Sony Archives show SPE's internal reactions, including discussing the impact with Michael Froman, the US Trade Representative. It also references the case against Megaupload and the extradition of its founder Kim DotCom from New Zealand as part of SPE's war on piracy.
The connections and alignments between Sony Pictures Entertainment and the US Democratic Party are detailed through the archives, including SPE's CEO Lynton attending dinner with President Obama at Martha's Vineyard and Sony employees being part of fundraising dinners for the Democratic Party. There are emails setting up a collective within the corporation to get around the 5,000 USD limit on corporate campaign donations to give 50,000 USD to get the Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo elected as "Thanks to Governor Cuomo, we have a great production incentive environment in NY and a strong piracy advocate that’s actually done more than talk about our problems."
Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton is on the board of trustees of RAND Corporation, an organisation specialising in research and development for the United States military and intelligence sector. The Sony Archives show the flow of contacts and information between these two major US industries, whether it is RAND wanting to invite George Clooney and Kevin Spacey to events, or Lynton offering contact to Valerie Jarrett (a close advisor to Obama) or RAND desiring a partnership with IMAX for digital archiving. With this close tie to the military-industrial complex it is no surprise that Sony reached out to RAND for advice regarding its North Korea film The Interview. RAND provided an analyst specialised in North Korea and suggested Sony reach out to the State Department and the NSA regarding North Korea's complaints about the upcoming film. The Sony documents also show Sony being in possession of a brochure for an NSA-evaluated online cloud security set-up called INTEGRITY.
Additional coverage at BBC and LA Times. Sony has condemned the document dump:
"The attackers used the dissemination of stolen information to try to harm SPE and its employees, and now WikiLeaks regrettably is assisting them in that effort," said a Sony Pictures spokesperson in a statement. "We vehemently disagree with WikiLeaks' assertion that this material belongs in the public domain and will continue to fight for the safety, security, and privacy of our company and its more than 6,000 employees."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @09:30AM
Care to summarize them? You know, this is supposed to be a summary, not an advertisement of the article.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 27 2015, @10:23AM
Apparently, they get video of the guy doing the camming, follow him home and/or get the police to run facial recognition to identify him. Once identified, I guess the use the equivalent of a SWAT team to bust into his home and find the "evidence". Peripherally, they go on Facebook to identify all his friends, and if any of those persons have viewed the same movie, then they are guilty by association. They've got an entire anti-terror campaign running to stop these pirated movies.
No wonder they can't stop the real terrorists, they're to busy with enforcing corporate policy! How very much like ICE in the US!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Monday April 27 2015, @10:39AM
Actually reality is that there are not all that many "real terrorists" and they need to justify the billions being spent on them by showing SOMETHING...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 27 2015, @12:44PM
You're not far off. The reality is, organizations like ICE simply don't give a damn about terrorism. It's all theatrics for them. Their real mission in life is to serve those corporate masters. All the anti-terror in the world is only good for diverting attention from their real mission.
The mission of those corporate masters, is to subjugate the population. If you or I aren't somehow contributing to enriching those corporate coffers, then we have no value, and can be safely warehoused in a prison somewhere. At least in prison, we would be generating revenue for the prison industrial complex.
And, that used to be pretty plainly stated on the New American Century website. Neoconservatives envision a world in which every man, woman, and child on earth are working to enrich Wall Street. You can still read between the lines, but they've spray-brushed over their hard core language since Bush was elected the second time.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 27 2015, @06:57PM
Step away from the koolaid, and nobody gets hurt...
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 27 2015, @08:47PM
I hate to break it to you, but if you really believe that ICE's mission has anything to do with terrorism, or immigration enforcement, then you're the one drinking the Kool-Aid. Oh yeah, immigration. The first thing they did after more or less disbanding INS, was to decide that they wouldn't apprehend illegal aliens, unless they were convicted criminals. Big joke there - the illegals swap names around routinely. If you were so unlucky as to be enrolled into the "justice" system, just get a new ID, with a new name on it.
Oh - the name Napolitano. No conflict of interest there, huh?
Kool-Aid. A lot of people do drink it. Most of them actually believe in the security theater that the administration plays for them.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 27 2015, @11:07PM
Security theater is one thing we agree on.
Corporate masters is just your loony coming to the surface.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @11:25PM
He calls it "their real mission" when it is more like an inevitable side-effect of the way they pursue their official goals in the current environment.
Some people have a really hard time with the concept of emergent effects, it is much easier to believe in active malice rather than damaging side-effects that occur because no one cares. If its malice, then there is a specific person or set of persons that you can deal with in simple straight-forward ways. But emergent properties defuse responsibility and require systemic change and that's really hard.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday April 28 2015, @12:24AM
Some people have a really hard time with the concept of emergent effects
No, it's just that our system is set up to violate people's rights to such an extent that it is unreasonable to believe it's not malice at this point.
If its malice, then there is a specific person or set of persons that you can deal with in simple straight-forward ways.
Nope, because what may be causing them to become malicious is the fact that power corrupts, that these organizations have powers that they can easily abuse, and that already evil individuals tend to be hired by these organizations. So systematic change is needed either way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:40AM
> No, it's just that our system is set up to violate people's rights to such an extent that it is unreasonable to believe it's not malice at this point.
“We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour.”
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:56AM
I just prefer to take into account the probability that these filthy scumbags aren't acting with malice. When I do, I realize that it is rather improbable that they aren't
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:33AM
Circular reasoning.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:11AM
Saying that I like to take probability into account and then stating the conclusion I reach when I do is circular reasoning? You don't understand basic logic, it seems. Not presenting the specific evidence I take into account in a certain comment != circular reasoning.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 27 2015, @04:00PM
What do they do if you're wearing glasses with a camera built into them?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @05:17PM
Put a VEIL pattern on their uniform?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @02:00PM
Somebody told me once that one could "RTFA"; but I think that acronym is archaic knowledge. Nobody knows what it stands for any more.
Also, that line is directly in said article. Do you want him to summarize an in-article summary too? This is getting a bit too meta.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @11:28PM
> You know, this is supposed to be a summary, not an advertisement of the article.
Nowhere is it called a summary.
The submission form calls it a "scoop."
There is no requirement to summarize, however you are encouraged to do so for your scoops.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @12:32PM
As if we needed more...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Monday April 27 2015, @01:00PM
"... connections to release groups mapped in intriguing diagrams."
A couple of I^2 analyst notebook screen-grabs now apparently qualify as intriguing diagrams. It's basically a industry standard software package and considering how many people from law-enforcement they probably lure over with their Hollywood entertainment dollars that these people would then use the same software packages they are trained to use isn't really all that strange is it?
(Score: 3, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Monday April 27 2015, @01:25PM
I hate downloading a movie to find out it is one of those lousy cammed captures with someone heavy-breathing in the microphone. I didn't like Blair Witch in the 90's, I certainly don't want to see it on a modern movie.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Monday April 27 2015, @01:51PM
I can't believe people are so desperate to watch a film that they willingly accept garbage quality video and audio.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 27 2015, @07:09PM
I suspect the whole story is something of a deception.
I've seen a few pirated movies, some well before the DVD hit the stores, and they quality was usually top notch.
The truth is that for at least a decade, movie leaks come out of the studios in digital form. Hackers or insiders or pre-release DVDs.
Unless you have a friend in the projection booth who will screen a movie in the wee hours for you, you are going to have a difficult time "cam"-ing a first run movie. Just because the house lights are off, doesn't mean they can't see you clearly.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:25PM
I did accidentally waste bandwidth on a movie that appeared to be recorded on an iphone. Was not happy to waste time and bandwidth on that stuff.
However, I suppose that these are few and far between. I just wish people would label the torrents as such.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 4, Funny) by jimshatt on Monday April 27 2015, @02:05PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SrLnclt on Monday April 27 2015, @04:04PM
Seriously, who watches CAM's anymore? Just wait a couple weeks - chances are a telesync, screener, DVD/BD rip, or some other source with much better audio/video quality will be available. If it's a good enough film that you want to watch it right now, chances are it's good enough you want to watch it in something resembling HD quality.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 27 2015, @07:26PM
Telesync was needed when films were actually distributed in film form, because you could never get your hands on a physical copy of the film.
Not so much any more.
Since the late 90's, its all digital media distribution., often transferred over the net to the larger first run theaters. First they used hard disks, later
they used private satellite, now mostly its over the net.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinema [wikipedia.org]
That being the case, its almost always easier to steal a digital copy.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.