FC: P2P hacking and worm-writing redux, by Nathan Cochrane

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Fri May 31 2002 - 06:17:49 PDT

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: Philadelphia judges nix library filtering law, cite buggy sw"

    ---
    
    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/
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri May 31 2002 - 07:02:32 PDT