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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: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Friday December 12 2014, @03:32PM

    by pTamok (3042) on Friday December 12 2014, @03:32PM (#125481)

    Isn't DDOSing an illegal, if not criminal act in many, if not most jurisdictions?

    Even if SONY employees are not executing the DDOS attacks themselves, wouldn't they be liable to criminal conspiracy charges if the DDOS attacks are being carried out on SONY employee's orders?

    The law, as it applies in England&Wales is explained in the links below, and I expect similar considerations apply in the USA and other places.

    http://www.out-law.com/page-9592 [out-law.com]
    http://legalpiracy.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/ddos-attacks-and-the-law/ [wordpress.com]

    The law on conspiracy in several jurisdictions is summarised here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_%28criminal%29. [wikipedia.org]

    I think it would be remarkably ill-advised of SONY to have any hand in retaliatory DDOS attacks.

           

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  • (Score: 1) by BananaPhone on Friday December 12 2014, @04:09PM

    by BananaPhone (2488) on Friday December 12 2014, @04:09PM (#125495)

    Sony is acting as if it is a sovereign country declaring war.
    It's a question of time before multinationals demand a seat at the UN

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 12 2014, @04:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 12 2014, @04:57PM (#125514)

      It's a question of time before multinationals demand a seat at the UN

      Why would they? They just buy sufficiently many UN delegates to vote the way they want. That way they are not visibly involved in the decisions, and therefore can evade being held responsible for them.

    • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday December 12 2014, @04:59PM

      by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Friday December 12 2014, @04:59PM (#125517) Journal

      Who needs a UN, when you have it all sewn up in GATT and TPP?

      --
      You're betting on the pantomime horse...