Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
In what's believe to be a first of its kind ruling, a federal court in Oregon has dismissed a direct infringement complaint against an alleged movie pirate from the onset. According to the Judge, linking an IP-address to a pirated download is not enough to prove direct copyright infringement.
[...] To prove direct infringement copyright holders merely have to make it "plausible" that a defendant, Thomas Gonzales in this case, is indeed the copyright infringer.
For example, by pointing out that the IP-address is directly linked to the defendant's Internet connection. However, according to Judge Beckerman this is not enough.
"The only facts Plaintiff pleads in support of its allegation that Gonzales is the infringer, is that he is the subscriber of the IP address used to download or distribute the movie, and that he was sent notices of infringing activity to which he did not respond. That is not enough," she writes in her recommendation.
Source: TorrentFreak
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @02:25AM
Maybe if I set a really really weak password.................I can claim I was Hollywood-hacked when I downloaded an entire season of Mr Robot?
LOL.mp4
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @02:54AM
Why not... isn't it always innocent until proven beyond reasonable doubt? IP addresses can be spoofed. Even if it is not and the ISP verified the location to the person's house, if the house is multi-tenanted, how do you know for sure it is a particular person? Jail em all? Might as well run a commie state and get some extra profit selling organs...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @08:08AM
Two things, if this was a civil case and not a criminal case (and I don't know which, although the importance of the word "likely" referenced in TFA makes me think it is a civil case), the standard is a preponderance of the evidence, not reasonable doubt. A preponderance simply means that the evidence supporting the conclusion is better than a 50/50 guess (if the jury is 50.0001% certain, then the case is proven). That's not a very difficult hurdle to cross. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_burden_of_proof#Preponderance_of_the_evidence [wikipedia.org]
Secondly, this is a trial court decision. I'd bet a substantial amount of money it will be appealed by the rich movie studios and who knows how that will turn out.
Thirdly, again, this is a trial court decision and as such, has no precedential value. It is at best, persuasive authority which means it can be considered, but other courts are free to ignore it and come to the opposite conclusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent#Persuasive_precedent [wikipedia.org]
Fourth, and again, this is a trial court decision. If you don't live in the very specific area over which this court has jurisdiction, see the link above about persuasive authority.
Please don't do anything stupid based on this one case.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday June 29 2016, @04:12PM
Bittorrent uses TCP, which can not be spoofed.
You can share an IP address, but you you can't have a two-way conversation with a fake return address.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Sunday July 10 2016, @06:23PM
You sure can spoof TCP and use a spoofed IP in exactly the same manner as one that hasn't been spoofed. Spoofing is far more than faked SYN flooding. More than likely you've had someone in your swarm that's using a spoofed IP but there's no way for you to tell unless you both have nEyes network analysis abilities and mass surveillance and in addition look very closely at the endpoints, particularly the endpoint closest to the spoofed IP and even then someone could be using a hidden pass-through "selective repeater" on the media layer between the last hop and the IP which requires you to travel there and walk the line to be absolutely sure there's nothing there.
Which they won't do unless they're so shit scared of you that they'll rather just kill you (although the two are not exclusive if it's the only way they can identify you) or whatever poor bastard actually has the IP because someone told them "TCP can't be spoofed" :P
Don't get me wrong: I'm not doing it (or any of the stuff below), I have no reason to nor am I unlazy (that is a word now) enough to bother "for the fun of it" nor do I find it particularly fun or interesting (or even clever) to begin with.
Anyway that level of work in order to spoof "freely" is not necessary and unlikely to be common so let's look at the much simpler spoofing that isn't just spoofed SYNs.
Without getting too far into the details serious spoofing can be thought of as selective belligerent routing on either of the last mile end nodes relative to the "spoofed IP" or the "tricked target" using quite fast and simple packet header (not data content) inspection that the router has to do anyway. Either "last hop" will do. You know the IP being spoofed and the target being tricked and filter & route (into your own separate destination) the packet headers for whichever is opposite to the end you're doing this at for both outgoing and incoming packets. There's only one place to go that matters when you're the next-to-last public¹ routing hop and all the information needed to yank and push packets are in the packet header¹. The relevant packets go to whatever route you've added and into your bucket :) the actual IP that is used for spoofing never sees any of it.
¹ If you're at the "spoofed IP" end then spoofing something behind NAT traversal is trickier and requires more information unless you're using a dormant IP or an IP not current simultaenously being used.
It's all much simpler than this description makes it sound like but I'm not going to start drawing diagrams.
I would think spoofing is probably the most likely reason for anyone cracking routers but I have no way of knowing.
This kind of spoofing is why people (including me) point out that all the talk about attacks coming from China or Russia or North Korea or anywhere based on the IP is completely meaningless.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday July 11 2016, @04:46AM
I forgot a simpler method: Just make up addresses when gossiping about peers via DHT.
Since you came back more that week later to correct me, I should probably ponder your post; and possibly draw my own diagrams. It sounds like you are talking about a compromised router. I think that falls under the "sharing" category in my original post. It is also possible that traffic is temporarily routed to a hostile router as well, but hopefully that kind of thing is logged.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday July 11 2016, @05:01PM
It's not a big deal I just wanted to correct the TCP notion since I still could :) (and it's a late reply because I'm trying to catch up with tons of stuff I haven't read since mid-winter).
But yes, compromised routers is the easy way because almost everything is already there (a little additional software is probably needed but might not be; my knowledge could be outdated since I was a network person in a previous life long ago and have forgotten most of it) and can be done from far away. Then I messed it up and made the whole thing unintentionally hard to read when I started talking about the alternative of using custom "selective repeaters" which can't be done remotely.
The big players can also do it using routers that aren't "last hop" by redirecting massive amounts of traffic through the routes they control as documented by several Snowden files and so on although for the most part they don't seem to need to since they control so much to being with. When they do it they lie to the network (using the routing protocols) about route speeds and capacity, hop count etc..
The core point is that to spoof this way one has to be able to control/inspect/filter all the traffic either heading to the spoofed address or from the spoofed address to the target, for hackers/crackers that's only the end-point/last hop routers at either the spoofed address or the target (internal private routing mostly doesn't matter). It sounds more daunting than it is; after all that is exactly what the routers do, all one really does is add an additional slightly weird routing rule (okay not quite that simple since this is the point where any special software comes into play).
So far it's not perfect¹: if the IP that is being spoofed actually starts to legitimately talk to the target IP it won't get any of the replies and people might start to complain and look into things. This is part of the explanation for why Chinese, Russian etc. IP addresses are chosen since they're less likely to be visiting some US business site or whatever. The IPs being spoofed are most likely chosen after some profiling (when is there traffic on them if ever and where does it go), after all if one already controls the router one can collect and pipe that data. Maybe that's being too careful and circumspect and maybe no one bothers to do it, I wouldn't know.
¹ It could be perfect but that requires more work (and maybe some redundancy) where the router (or alternatively the selective repeater) notices if the actual IP tries to communicate with the target and switches from spoofing that IP to another one (or even tells another compromised router to take over with whatever IP it can spoof) etc.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by black6host on Wednesday June 29 2016, @02:31AM
While this does not go as far as I'd like it to go (don't ask why) I am pleased to see a sensible response to the fact that an IP address is not a one to one relationship to one person.
With all the other crap I read daily about the justice system abusing people, accusing people and downright being mean to people it was a breath of fresh air (sorry NPR) to read this.
Still, we've lost so much ground...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @02:43AM
Static IP hosting, heard of it? Every hosting company in existence holds you responsible for traffic on your static IP.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @05:22AM
So what?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 29 2016, @05:52PM
Don't ask, you say? Could it be that you think, as I do, that this is a minor victory on an unimportant front, while the real war is fought with technology, over the purpose and existence of copyright itself? Copyright looks ever more pointless as the business model of selling copies becomes ever more difficult to maintain. The law and the thinking of the lawmakers and their lobbyists is horribly out of touch and out of date on this matter.
The question now is whether the public is going to submit to being confined in walled gardens, their devices controlled by large corporations, who will use that power to force copyright to work, for them not us so much. I had thought Apple a dying company in the 1990's, dying because they were enforcing the proprietary nature of their systems and using that to charge excessive prices, which was costing them market share. The PC was killing them. I never expected Apple to not only turn around, but overtake IBM and Microsoft. Or really, for all three of those to be doing as well as they are when there are free systems such as Linux. Why hasn't Linux put MS out of business? It is the graphics drivers and games that keeps people on Windows? ATI/AMD and Nvidia have been playing a game of their own, dangling the hope of open source drivers in front of Linux users, but taking a long, long time to deliver. They could move faster, much faster. That action may be the key one propping up the entire proprietary computing world, and copyright.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 29 2016, @02:39AM
If your vehicle is used in a bank robbery, the cops need SOME OTHER evidence to prove that you were the robber. But, with an internet connection, ownership/rental/lease/contract is sufficient proof that you're the guilty party? Something seriously wrong here. I wonder just how many people in the world have full control over every connection made on their IP address.
Thanks to Microsoft, whatever that number might be, it is steadily being diminished.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday June 29 2016, @05:42AM
Kinda makes me wonder how Comcast handles IP addresses in their xfinity duel access on their cable modems. Where anyone with xfinity login privileges has internet access through any xfinity modem.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @06:55AM
Xfinitywifi open access for guests is on a separate VLAN, gets an IP from a different block of addresses, and anyway people logging in with Xfinity logins are logged.
The car analogy is xfinitywifi riders use the designated sidecar.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @02:39AM
Infringement happens when you distribute. You distribute when you upload. Torrents upload while you download.
Uploading during download is a design flaw. The solution is simple.
STOP. USING. TORRENTS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @02:43AM
May we have your ip address? We will only use it for a while.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @02:50AM
Hahaha. Before I moved in, my IP address hosted a porn site. I still get crawl requests from Bing bot looking for porn I never had.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @05:15AM
Somebody on a Japanese blog linked to an image that used to be hosted under my domain while it was owned by someone else. Once I noticed, I made it serve goatse.cx on that URL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @06:57AM
All of you stick you hands into the Holy Asshole!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 29 2016, @12:41PM
That's the famous Jason Scott story. Hilarious and he presents it well on video. And it was something like MySpace themes where some "html programmer" tried to use a scary goth vampire/devil type image from his server, served from his server, to act as a background images. Then he documented the carnage in the comments of people using the theme that was stealing his bandwidth.
(remember shitty background images as a page fad? Remember shitty myspace themes? Have web designers ever not sucked in the past? How about where past is defined as anything from 1992 up to 30 seconds ago?)
He's the movie director of a couple tech documentaries on BBSes, text adventures, 6502, couple other topics.
Disclaimer is I'm one of his many financial backers. But I thought his work was cool, before I coughed up some cash. I've met him at computer cons and he's a nice guy.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 29 2016, @02:52AM
Here is my IP address: 162.216.46.116
You may use it freely. Well, actually, that's not quite accurate - you have to pay a small fee to use it. https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ [privateinternetaccess.com]
If you can afford internet and a computer, you can almost certainly afford this inexpensive VPN - I think I'm paying $30/year - have fun!
(Score: 3, Informative) by RedBear on Wednesday June 29 2016, @06:26AM
It's $39.95 if paid yearly, actually. Since 2014 at least. Still, very affordable.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday June 29 2016, @10:14AM
Note that torrents do not intrinsically violate copyright, just like a fax machine doesn't. However, if what you put in falls under copyright, then use of bittorrent or a fax machine would violate copyright laws. The main difference that bittorrent has (in this respect) over fax machines is that it is far easier for someone to determine recipients of bittorrents.
Basically, you're arguing that people shouldn't use easily traceable methods of copyright infringement. But actually, (copyright) infringement happens when you make copies in violation of copyright law. If you do not wish to infringe copyright, the solution is indeed simple: do not infringe copyright.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday June 29 2016, @04:22PM
That is still not quite correct.
By default, all creative works are subject to Copyright. However, it is possible that you have a license (statutory or otherwise) to copy the work.
For example, you can argue that you are torrenting a movie for "private study" (Canada) or "Educational use" (USA). You may not win in court, but the supreme court in Canada has ruled that teachers making class photocopies still fall under the "private study" exemption.
Then, there are the Linux and BSD DVDs where you have an explicit license from the copyright holders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @12:27PM
I don't see a problem with torrenting a Linux distribution. Op a copy of Elephant's Dream. So you may want to be a bit more specific.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Wednesday June 29 2016, @03:42AM
So the next time someone complains about copyright infringement the police are just going to have to knock down your door and take every device that has the ability to connect to the internet, for evidence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @06:50AM
Yes indeed, seizing every device for evidence is exactly what the FBI does.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 29 2016, @12:34PM
And your neighbors, since its probably the neighbor kid stealing your wifi
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday June 29 2016, @08:49AM
Hey if they are running Windows 10 (or an "updated" Windows 7/8) just blame Microsoft's telemetry junk. After all, they still haven't 100% documented what it does or will do.