--- Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 14:57:14 +1000 From: Nathan Cochrane <ncochraneat_private> Organization: The Age newspaper To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: P2P Hacking Redux Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-UIDL: 5ef76796ca33286d944dbf3a40540dfe Hi Declan Please ignore the previous post; I hadn't quite finished it when it barfed from my machine. You may remember last year there was much talk around the RIAA's alleged proposals to hack PCs to see if there was pirate music on them. It occurs to me that the RIAA doesn't really have to do anything. The P2P networks are so inherently insecure they are their own worst enemies. September 25, 2001 Alleged e-mail from RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen to entertainment industry executives published December 25, 2001. "It is time to get coordinated and aggressive with the new round of peer to peer services. We need to discuss: 1. Spoofing and/or interdiction methods for existing peer to peers - (perhaps by adding promotional messages about the launch of various new systems)" http://www.dotcomscoop.com/print.php?sid=40 October 16, 2001 "Look out, pirates: RIAA wants to hack your PC By Declan McCullagh An RIAA-drafted amendment, according to a draft obtained by Wired News, would immunize all copyright holders -- including the movie and e-book industry -- for any data losses caused by their hacking efforts or other computer intrusions 'that are reasonably intended to impede or prevent' electronic piracy." http://www.politechbot.com/p-02656.html October 24, 2001 RIAA denies to Declan McCullagh that it wants to hack PCs: "The answer to whether our proposal would permit a copyright holder to hack computers and delete information is: No, absolutely not." http://www.politechbot.com/p-02704.html April 30, 2002 "KaZaA users brace for hijack By Nathan Cochrane 'I have concern about their (KaZaA Media Desktop owner, Sharman Networks) security protocols for activating the client and running programs that utilise idle resources . . . If someone finds out that, anybody can request your machine to do what they want, which is scary,' (said distributed computing researcher, Rajkumar Buyya.)" http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/26/1019441306209.html May 18, 2002 "Worm Crawls Into The KaZaA Network The KaZaA file exchange network takes its turn as a virus victim. Kaspersky Labs, an international data-security software developer, announces the detection of the network worm "Worm.Kazaa.Benjamin" - the first malicious program to spread through the KaZaA file exchange network." http://www.kaspersky.com/news.html?id=738605 May 20, 2002 "Benjamin Worm Means Well By Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes The creators of a new worm that targets users of the Kazaa file-trading network say they released the code to frustrate Internet users searching for pirated software and child pornography. 'After a few months it could be that there are more Benjamin files in p2p networks than warez files ... Within a few days Benjamin has spread very far in these illegal networks,' said (virus creator Paul) Komoszki." http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:H4D_By_NUPkC:www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176684.html+kazaa+virus&hl=en&ie=UTF8 -- Nathan Cochrane Deputy IT Editor :Next: The Age and Sydney Morning Herald http://www.next.theage.com.au ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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