I'm so sad for the RIAA - Boo Hoo Hoo

It made me laugh anyway!

It made me laugh anyway!

How can you laugh at such grave misfortune? It's easy to dehumanize the RIAA as some massive, money-grubbing institution, but behind that institution are regular people like you and me. They have husbands and wives, sons and daughters... Why all of this illegal music swapping could mean the difference between whether their kids get 3 series or 7 series BMW's. It's easy to laugh at the RIAA's tactics, but think of the children!

but think of the children!

Did you bite your lower lip while posting?

Anyone try Blubster? Supposedly anonymous.

Supposedly anonymous.

Until someone in the RIAA starts using it to recover IP addresses and subpoena-ing ISPs, just like they're doing for Kazaa and other P2P networks.

Oh, and if you didn't read the site carefully, you may have missed this:

Blubster is ad-supported software. It is part of the Gator Advertising and Information Network (GAIN), which helps keep software free by delivering messages based on the sites you view.

So who knows what other sort of spy-ware you're installing if you choose to use Blubster.

I'm a Kazaa-lite user, how easy is it for people to find my ISP/IP address??

I thought the lite version had anonymity and no spyware.

Who cares! What can they do? NOTHING!

Well, that's not technically true. If the courts find in their favour -- forcing ISPs to submit to their subpoenas for names/addresses -- they can sue you, and take all your money (due to the strange way they calculate damages).

That, of course, depends on a) you residing in the US, and b) them actually picking you out of the pool of millions, which is statistically unlikely.

As for who cares? Well, probably not the people that don't think there's anything ethically wrong with downloading music. However, if you're worried about your anonimity when all you're doing is breaking copyright laws and trading music, then you don't fall into that first group of people, and are doing something you know to be ethically wrong and illegal -- you probably care.

But that's just my take on it.

Well...
You're on Internet via your provider who provided you an IP-address. Over this IP-address all your traffic is going. Even if you're using NAT, the traffic finally goes over the IP your provider gave you. RIAA is collecting IP-addresses and asks your provider which name/address belongs to xx.xx.xx.xx, which they can find in the logs. So next they are going to that address... and there are you... behind a possible NAT which is in the same house where you're playing on a PC with 192.168.x.x (after the NAT)

All the stuff about anonymous... I'm sorry, but on Internet this is almost not possible.

Eize

I have no sympathy for the RIAA and I will continue to download music - for one reason. I like to sample music before I buy it. If I don't like it, I'll delete it. If its good, I'll get an album. Where else do you buy something before trying it out?

IMO the 3 series is much better than the 7 series. This is a GOOD thing!

You make a good point, at one time, you went in to your record shop and they put the record on the turntable and you could hear as much as you liked. At HMV in Oxford Street, they handed you the LP and you went away to the booth and listened to what you needed to, to make up your mind.

If you don't download, you are now reliant on two things:
Clips on Amazon, which often gives you little idea of the whole.

A track heard on the radio with the enthusiastic say so of the DJ: Often he/she has picked the one track that shines out, and I've largely given up buying on this basis, as I get home with the CD and find the whole thing to be missable - I find Bob Harris particularly guilty in this light, every album is super, whizz-bang, fantastic.

I can't find the thread now, but I posted the following, part of a reply I made to a press article on CD/MP3 piracy, the other week:

"MP3 users do use this technology considerably to make better use of the CD collections that they have legitimately paid for: At any one time, the MP3 player in my car, which is identical in size to a car radio, contains my entire collection of talking books and all my favourite music, amounting to a total of 300 hours. In my house my music collection of around 1200cd's, by use of this digital technology, can be heard in every designated room, without an extensive outlay. These technologies, and particularly responsibly managed internet sites, therefore encourage wider listening and publicity for music, both new and old, without expensive marketing.

I have no truck with CD copying, but MP3 use can be for the benefit of all, if only the music industry realised that; It's there, they can't stop it, so they might as well learn how to live with it, again for the benefit of all, instead of this lock them up and throw away the key approach!"

Actually, it is particularly easy to be anonymous on the Internet - more so than through any other medium in the world (IMHO)

There are perfectly good anonymous file sharing apps whaich are gaining popularity at an incredible rate due to these disclosure decisions by the courts. Using them, the only thing that can reasonably be proven is that you are using the application. It is not possible to prove what you are sharing or downloading, or even if you are doing anything with it. Very neat.

Or you can very easily spoof your IP address - there are ways of routing your connection through various hosts to obfuscate your real location - just got to watch 'Hackers' for a demonstration

I remember reading about this the other week. Basically the lawyers for MIT and BC weren't against releasing the names, but would not because the subpoenas were issued in Washington DC when Massachusetts falls in the Boston court's jurisdiction. They must be issued by the court in the district they are being served in. Like the RIAA says, a minor setback. Once they file properly we'll see what happens.

Actually, it is particularly easy to be anonymous on the Internet - more so than through any other medium in the world (IMHO)

Well, it is and it isn't - and I suppose I should know, that's what originally got my spot in Hacker's Hall Of Fame

I would say it is very easy to be pretty anonymous, and decidedly non-trivial (albeit possible) to be really anonymous (and get something done).

Ah, very cool. Never made the connection, as it's been years now.

Nice!

Spyware aside, I thought and had read that Blubster was indeed over a private (whatever that means) anonymous filesharing network. Is this even possible? Here is the first I saw of Blubster and the anonymous aspects of future file sharing programs.

Does anyone follow the info on Zeropaid?

Definitely been quite a while ago. Suppose I haven't been controversial enough since :-/

Woah, cool!

Peter

Suppose I haven't been controversial enough since :-/

Just inform TLC that you now own a missile launcher.

a private (whatever that means) anonymous filesharing network

Many filesharing apps used the same protocol talking to the same servers. It was just different clients accessing the same data. (All the Gnutella clients talk to the same ``network''. Kazaa is used by many different clients, IIRC, even though they don't come out and say that. Folks used the Napster protocol to set up ``networks'' outside Napster's control.) They mean that Blubster's data is Blubster-specific. You won't find the same stuff on Napster clones or Kazaa or whatever.

They mean that Blubster's data is Blubster-specific.

I surmised that portion but I am curious as to whether the Blubster network (or other non Gnuetella/Kazaa) can in fact hide the IPs of the users. The implication of the PCMag article was that Blubster (along with Filetopia) was indeed anonymous.

Julf, you are a true hero.

Umhh... Thanks! But... We all have our moments. And that stuff is ancient. To steal Ester Dyson's tagline - "always make new mistakes"

Holy sh*t man, you're famous!

I agree with the sampling of the music. I would not have half the cd's that I do If it were not for music sharing. Most of the time I would hear a cool song I didnt know who it was so I would get on the net and type in what I thought was the name of the song and find it, then I would go buy the cd but what do I do now? On amazon or some other place they only give you a crappy clip of the first couple songs on a cd. Also what about songs that are out of print? There are some songs you cant buy on cd anymore, like just now I was looking for Billy Squire's greatest hits and can't find it anywhere. Amazon doesn't have any Billy Squire cd's. So the whole thing just stinks as far as I am concerned.

It's spelled 'Squier' not 'Squire' and Amazon shows 27 results.

Not picking on ya, just pointing you in the right direction.

-Chuck

I discovered this not a long time after the euro-meet 2002 by accident, googling for a total differet topic.
When i saw Julf's pic in this "hall of fame" i thought, this is the guy i met on the meet, and i put his nick on his t-shirt...
It was very impressing to me.

cheers, Thomas

AHH!! now I do feel stupid especialy becuse I do have one cd of him. I always thought that is was dyslexic maybe I really am. But I guess you get my point anyway.

It's spelled 'Squier' not 'Squire'

I found more results on WinMX for Billy Squier tracks by spelling it the wrong way... Go figure...

Right. I'm not suggesting anyone should have sympathy for the RIAA, even though they are being wronged legally. Nor am I trying to argue that there are no valid reasons for downloading music. You obviously fall into the first group of people that don't think there's anything unethical about it, but then, you also behave ethically when you do it -- you delete it if you don't like it, or buy the album if you do. I like to do the same.

Ahhhh - things begin to make some sense now.

Very cool.

I'll go and hide my head now

Well, I am starting to feel a bit embarrassed about the Hackers Hall of Fame thing - as I haven't actually done any real programming, apart from simple scripts, in at least 5 years. Sigh.

And anyway, I still remember the USENIX conference way back when I was totally swamped by people - who only wanted me to introduce them to Linus Torvalds

Well, I am starting to feel a bit embarrassed about the Hackers Hall of Fame thing - as I haven't actually done any real programming, apart from simple scripts, in at least 5 years. Sigh.

Well, then? What are you waiting for? Get hijack on yer empeg, and start hacking!

Umhh... So many other projects... The 12m pneumatic mast with webcam off my roof in central Amsterdam, the final full-IP-ing of my house (phones and doorbell remain non-IP:ized)... All the work on the vehicles... As soon as the weather turns bad, honestly....

Here.

As soon as the weather turns bad, honestly....

Then I think we should all thank our lucky stars you're not living in California.

Then I think we should all thank our lucky stars you're not living in California.

Well, Linus managed to stay productive despite moving to California, so I guess that (among many other things) proves he's the Hacker's Hacker