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posted by janrinok on Friday December 12 2014, @12:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the opening-Pandora's-box dept.

Lily Hay Newman reports at Slate that Sony is counter-hacking to keep its leaked files from spreading across torrent sites. According to Recode, Sony is using hundreds of computers in Asia to execute a denial of service attack on sites where its pilfered data is available, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Sony used a similar approach in the early 2000s working with an anti-piracy firm called MediaDefender, when illegal file sharing exploded. The firm populated file-sharing networks with decoy files labelled with the names of such popular movies as “Spider-Man,” to entice users to spend hours downloading an empty file. "Using counter-attacks to contain leaks and deal with malicious hackers has been gaining legitimacy," writes Newman. "Some cyber-security experts even feel that the Second Amendment can be interpreted as applying to 'cyber arms'.”

[Ed's Comment: As I understand it, the Second Amendment only applies in the United States or in its territories overseas — it doesn't give Americans the right to bear arms anywhere else in the world.]

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Sir Garlon on Friday December 12 2014, @03:14PM

    by Sir Garlon (1264) on Friday December 12 2014, @03:14PM (#125478)

    One problem with the gun analogy is that, even if you concede that taking some of Sony's intellectual property is the equivalent of going on shooting spree at the corporate headquarters (and I most certainly do not conceded that point!), Sony's response is not self-defense, it's retaliation after the fact. It's one thing for a security guard to return fire against a shooter at headquarters, and quite another to arm up a death squad and go do some drive-by shootings all over the shooter's neighborhood the day after his attack.

    Even in Texas, I am pretty sure the law doesn't say you can do _that_.

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