A thought about the impending lawsuits that will supposedly be filed
against several thousand peer-to-peer users by the RIAA:

Part 1: What if I take a bunch of MP3s, encrypt them with PGP so that
no one can decrypt them except me, then pout them up on Gnutella? The
RIAA sees me and sues me. What happens?

Part 2: What if a whole bunch of people rename the extensions of their
..mp3 files to .pgp? Can the RIAA tell that they are actually
unencrypted MP3s?

"Modemac" <modemac@modemac.com> wrote in message
news:b71f73eb.0306271112.2f57e260@posting.google.c om...
If you don't make the key available and noone who downloads them can use
them, you've done nothing illegal and the RIAA can't touch you. However, if
noone else can use them, why share them to begin with?

If you make the decryption key publicly available, which you'd have to do to
make the files usable, the RIAA will probably figure it out eventually. The
same would hold true for renaming them.

On 27 Jun 2003 12:12:50 -0700, modemac@modemac.com (Modemac) wrote:

This is kind of unrelated but since it happened recently I thought I'd
share it with ya.

Some guy who I was downloading from on WinMX, had sent me a message
through the hotlist (A list with temp users who you are downloading
from, or uploading to, which allows you to chat) saying that if I
didn't not cancel the download he would ring the RIAA on me! For
starters, what is this dude doing if he's pro-RIAA? I then clicked on
the guys nick and browsed the files he had on offer.

Now if the RIAA where to prosecute in terms of quantity, he'd be a
broke man by now. He had 4GB worth of MP3 compared to my lame 400 MB
(A 56k connection I have after all.)

Also, it goes exactly what WinMX is condoning right now, the "Share or
Die" sentiment.

"Stratomaster" <spdstuff@earthlink.net> wrote
Not to mention you would have just used encryption in breaking copyright
law, I seem to remember that although copyright theft is a civil offense,
the use of encryption in this way may constitute a criminal offense....

Modemac wrote:
Such strategies could only work outside of the
auspices of the law, I'm afraid, for the
following reasons:

1) The RIAA has and continues to lobby for
*protections* and *advantages* to be given to
it, especially through, but not limited to the
DMCA and DMCA II, that not only allows it to
spy on you, but to compel others, such as
ISP to spy on you *for* them. *And* if they
press ahead with civil actions, or file a
criminal complaint against you, too bad; the
best you can hope for is to *prove* you are
innocent; you don't even have recourse to
many types of countersuits or "false arrest"
litigation, though *you* might be out thousands
of dollars for your little joke.

2) In a bizarre twist to litigation begun by
a satellite TV provider, a new *class* of
lawsuit, dubbed "reverse class-action", has been
filed by a corporation against hundreds or even
thousands of people who have offended it.
In the current case, a database of people who
had purchased cards to pirate their signals was
found in a police raid in California. The
satellite TV provider then sent out letters to
everyone in the database demaning a few thousand
dollars from each, or else they would be sued.
Out of 8000 or so people contacted, about 1500
paid the "fine", and the rest are being sued,
'en masse', demanding several times the amount
of the "fine".

Both the RIAA and the MPAA are watching this
lawsuit with hopes to maybe sue, eventually, a
significant percentage of the 57 Million Americans
who use P2P file trading, ratted out by their own
ISPs, based in the Verizon decision.

Dark days may lie ahead. If you want content, I
suggest you get it now.


--
If it wasn't for the government
keeping so much fun stuff illegal,
I'd be homeless.
-- nu-monet

On 27 Jun 2003 12:12:50 -0700, modemac@modemac.com (Modemac) wrote:

They should change them to *.riaa instead.

Where's your sense of humor?

Or *.hiriaa

--
Joe Cosby
http://joecosby.home.mindspring.com

Winching that baby into the cage is going to be no picnic.

"nu-monet v5.0" <nothing@succeeds.com> wrote in message
news:3EFCA8E1.4D4D@succeeds.com...
<snip>
I'd think an ISP would be in high demand that purposely did NOT keep track
of files sent through it's servers. Records of files sent could be deleted
on a daily, or hourly basis, possibly even instantaneously. Think of the
hordes of people that would flock to such an ISP......

Verizon, Cox, AT&T, etc..... are you listening????

MrDancer wrote:

That's not the problem. The RIAA keeps track of the
files. Then it demands, and as of the 'Verizon'
decision, gets, the IP number of the individual who
is doing it. And while IP numbers are volitile with
dial-up, they are much more fixed with high bandwidth.

Heck, some of the P2P softwares tells you what IP you
are downloading from.


--
"HERE LIES NU-MONET.
GOT TRIPLE HIS MONEY BACK."

"nu-monet v5.0" <nothing@succeeds.com> wrote in message
news:3EFCA8E1.4D4D@succeeds.com...
[snip]

Surely there's your answer?

In the UK when the Tories were in power they tried to introduce something
called the Poll Tax (actually it was really called the Community Charge,
but universally known as the Poll Tax). It was perceived by so many to be
manifestly unjust and unfair that significant numbers, myself included,
refused to pay it. Even Tories refused. The result was that the courts
became completely clogged with cases, and the tax had to be replaced with
something (slightly) fairer. Yes, the refuseniks had to pay up in the end,
but we killed off the tax before we did so.

How can the RIAA take 57 million cases to court?

Java Jive wrote:

Easy, they don't. Right now they are in the "high
profile" case mode, persecuting poor schmucks who
use university and other institutional nets to P2P.

Think of this as "Phase I": *They* (the RIAA) don't
do the policing, they coerce OTHERS to do it for
them.

From there, they might move to attacking small,
borderline profitable ISPs, threatening to put them
out of business unless they clamp down. Or maybe
alternatively, or at the same time, they reach a
business "agreement" with the really big ones,
like AOL, to block any P2P in or out or through
AOL. Call it "Phase II"

"Phase III" is maybe the "Reverse Class-Action
suits", at the State level. Most people wouldn't
even notice such things if they were done one
State at a time. Optimally, you sue those you
know have money, so instead of 10,000, just 1,000.

"Phase IV" is them lobbying government at all
levels, even internationally, to put more and more
of a strain on P2P users. Once again, *They* keep
their own work and costs down to a minimum, and
use taxpayer money to oppress the taxpayers.

In other words, using your Poll Tax example, what
if the government had used any collected Poll Tax
to hire Poll Tax collecting thugs to get more Poll
Tax money? Anybody who doesn't pay gets beat up.


--
If it wasn't for the government
keeping so much fun stuff illegal,
I'd be homeless.
-- nu-monet

"nu-monet v5.0" <nothing@succeeds.com> wrote in message
news:3EFCFF87.6C47@succeeds.com...

[snip]

If you substitute bailiffs for thugs, and there are those who would say you
were simply substituting one synonym for another, that's actually kinda what
happened. I was threatened with bailiffs several times. But the same thing
was happening in sync all roud the country and the courts got so jammed that
they had to stop accepting PT cases, including sending bailiffs out, just
so they could try the normal ones. As this became apparent, the government
realised it wanted to get elected again, so they repealed the tax and
dumped Thatcher. We all had to pay some years later, but we had changed the
law AND got rid of Thatcher, so it was well worth it!

Based on this experience, if it ever gets as far as taking massive numbers
of individuals to court to the extent that their ability to try normal cases
is affected, then you're begining to win, because your legislators would
have to act. Who are you gonna try, a mugger or a P2P sharer? For an
elected representative, it's a no brainer.

Java Jive wrote:

That's why this "Reverse Class Action" suit is so
interesting. A satellite TV company is actually
suing 6500 people *at once*, all in the same
State. Ironically, as I mentioned in another
thread, State legislatures wouldn't catch on to
this very fast, and couldn't do anything in favor
of the thousands sued once the suit had been filed,
that being a constitutional legal no-no.

And remember, that the RIAA sues for ridiculous
sums per each "offense". How would you feel about
getting sued for $6M dollars because you downloaded
100 songs? No insurance company would write a
policy for that, and you would have to settle for
maybe a few thousand or be impoverished.

Hell, their total lawsuit against five or ten
thousand people in a given state might run into
the billions of dollars. And even if they don't
win, they have FUCKED YOU OVER GUD, PYR8.

--
"HERE LIES NU-MONET.
GOT TRIPLE HIS MONEY BACK."

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 21:42:16 GMT, "MrDancer" <mrdancer@athotmail.com>
wrote:

Go ahead and run a network with no web logs.

Then come back and tell us how easy it is.

Anyway, it wouldn't be in demand for shit. The vast overwhelming
majority of users are naif.

That's where the money is.

If any of the ISP's wanted to badly enough they could simply say that
they don't keep their web logs that long. Nobody keeps them forever.



--
Joe Cosby
http://joecosby.home.mindspring.com

"How CAN we use sex to get what we want? Sex IS what we want!"
- Dr Frasier Crane

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 16:56:53 -0700, "nu-monet v5.0"
<nothing@succeeds.com> wrote:

It's easy to log what IP was assigned to who when.

Try to get a typical ISP to provide that info though.

--
Joe Cosby
http://joecosby.home.mindspring.com

"How CAN we use sex to get what we want? Sex IS what we want!"
- Dr Frasier Crane

Voice in the desert: Quiet, isn't it, Modemac?

Look for RIPA-style legislation extending powers to the RIAA.
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000023.htm

I'd use FreeNet BTW. The question then becomes, What if I run a FreeNet
node and the RIAA sue me? How do they know which files are on my node, and
how to they identify the files on my node? Even the RIPA can't make me
divulge a key that I don't have! That would be an interesting test case.
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/

Followup questions: Can Gnutella provide download logs? Does it provide
download stats of any kind? What about FreeNet?

They can download the files and test them. It would be easy to automate.

Conclusion: FreeNet (or any P2P network with double-blind encryption) is a
powerful tool for protecting privacy and supporting civil disobedience.
Public key encryption alone is not enough.
--
<URL:http://www.wildcard.demon.co.uk> You can never browse enough
Will write code that writes code that writes code for food.

Joe Gunchey wrote:
Unfortunately, for years now the US government
has been actively trying to coerce nations with
proxy servers to open them up to "scrutiny."
The US isn't alone in this, as the EU, AUS and
several others also doesn't want people to be
anonymous to avoid government snoopage.
In addition, the second generation "Carnivore"
system gets around that problem by nicking you
at your ISP level. You're nailed before you
can even get to, or get info from, your proxy.

Hey, but don't worry, they'll only use it to
track down terrorists. And pedophiles. Don't
forget the pedophiles. Certainly not file
sharers who piss off their big campaign
contributors.


--
"I can imagine a LOT when it comes
to unimaginable power."
-- nu-monet

BABY! BATHWATER! HEAVE HO!

No matter how it plays out over time, the ultimate bottom line has
always been that Hyoo-mons rise to a challenge, good or bad. Sheer
numbers will overwhelm any system. Just as there will never be enough
cops to hold more than a modest amount of crime in check, so too will
the RIAA and any government setup hit the Lightspeed Challenge: by the
time you carry enough fuel to reach Canopus at the speed of light, the
weight will be too great to ALLOW it to happen. You simply can't
assign on policeman to every person around, 24/7. People CAN and WILL
use the tech to crack their shells, period.

If Them had not long ago set themselves up as liars and cheaters,
pumping the market with highly overpriced, overpromoted crap and
boning the natural market flow of letting things find their own
semi-healthy capitalistic levels, most of this would not be happening.
They CREATED a nation of people who are now willing to steal from Them
as readily as they have stolen from Us and of course, they don't LIKE
it. Awwwww!

Said it before, say it again: if I had my choice of 10,000 CDs @ $5-7
apiece, I would be a more regular buyer, but when its just the Top 100
Shit-Hits @ $20 per, I buy 2nd-hand, or from independents apart from
the System As We Know It, or not at all. If they won't let Bartlett be
Bartlett, they can't honestly bitch and say they didn't see it coming
while they stitched together FrankenNixon. Fuckem, with big red
STRAPS! HAH!

--

HellPope Huey @ hellpopehuey@subgenius.com
Popeye had selective elephantitis of the arms and legs

For "Bob" hath said the Con shall fear the child
and the doohickies of the child,
for the doohickies which hath come to the child
shall be the sand in the briefs of the pinkboys
- Rev. Socks

"I can't stay mad at what is essentially me. I LOVE me!"
- "Futurama"

HellPopeHuey wrote:

Same thing here.. second hand or from the band.. Hey.. that' has potential.

--
rbg
Show RIAA where you stand,
buy second-hand or from the band.

Here's a few more links directly related to
fighting this RIAA, DRM, DMCA, etc. crap.

http://www.antiriaa.com
their links page:
http://www.antiriaa.com/links.htm

http://anti-dmca.org
their links page:
http://anti-dmca.org/links.html

http://www.azoz.com
George Ziemann's article related to this thread:
http://www.azoz.com/news2/riaa01.html (6/25/03)

"Joe Gunchey" <joe@nym.alias.net> wrote in message
news:20030628060426.9928.qmail@nym.alias.net...
If they can buy politicians in US, what makes you think,
entire third world country can be bought. Any idea
how corrupt they can be if money is dangled in their face.