Would a firewall have protected Jammie Thomas from being sued by the RIAA Safenet

Because:

Somebody who knows your MAC and has access to the wifi gear at the hotspot could trace your whereabouts.

Anybody with access to the WLAN-router can see what devices are connected. If you're in a small cybercafe that runs their own equipment, that would probably mean it's just the technical staff there who can do that.

If, however, the hotspot technology is provided by a large ISP (The Cloud, Fon, T-Com, whatever...), they could simply collect every new MAC that hooks up to one of their Wifi devices in a huge database which would allow them to say "The machine with that MAC was seen in the Starbucks in London-Heathrow at X o'clock on the Yth December, and was next seen in a deli in New York in January".

Juergen Nieveler

I don't think that is true. They don't issue search warrant for p2p copyright infringers in any jurisdiction that I know of.

Can you substatiate your spurious claim?

Apologies for the typos. I have fat-finger syndrome today.

The problem is more a privacy issue - somebody can built up a profile of your movements...

For the police to catch a culprit, they'd have to watch the networks of multiple ISPs and get notified if the right MAC shows up, then send a patrol car to arrest everybody at that location... difficult, but doable in an anti-terror background.

Juergen Nieveler

Is it against the law to pirate media?

Is it against the law to provide pirated media?

Can you say no to BOTH of those? If you answer YES to either then you have reason for a warrant.

Sure, i understand. From what one true hacker posted, he would dedicate one of his old laptops to "experiment" and not for anything else. He would use this laptop at any Wi-Fi spot to "experiment" on. He would also format his drive occasionally. His laptop was a 'hot' one. I suspect he meant not his originally.

No

No

Yes.

If you answer YES to either then you

Right. Just as long as that is clear.

....if and only if the information contained therein is not copyright or intellectual property.

This is incorrect. Since the definition of pirated media is material which is obtained in breach of copyright or IP law, you are inevitably breaking the law if you supply it.

.... hmm....

I search warrant is not needed except in criminal cases. in civil cases, a subpoena is used to "confiscate" the equipment holding the "proscribed materials" and its then imaged. now, if a civil case goes against the defendant, then information gained from that civil case can be used to obtain a warrant for further searches (as well the previously testified info presented in the civil case can also be used in the criminal courts).

it rather depends on which court system was used first: civil or criminal. if criminal first, then yes, a warrant is required for search and seizure of equipment/drives/etc (unless there is sufficient probable cause to go in without a warrant first).

I really wish you guys would not use the term "hacker" to describe a script-kiddie or a cyberpunk (either of which are clearly criminal elements on the net).to do so means you are falling right into the very same trap the news media has (its an old rule, tell a lie big enough, for long enough, and eventually everyone will believe that its true).

It didn't help that hollywood boilstered this criminal image of hackers. :(

anyway, I know a few hackers personally. a lot of them are pretty quiet, extremely intelligent engineer types then build and create new technologies (apple anyone?).

anyway, it isn't that hard to keep an eye on a server to see if the same MAC address shows up from on the net (its part of the packet headers that define not only the IP, but the machine behind a NAT/firewall. this is why they call it a "Media Access Control" header. btw, you can read more about MAC addresses here:

This is incorrect. MAC addresses are used to address frames inside ethernet networks. As most LAN are ethernet nowdays you'll find them there. However, a MAC address is not part of the routed IP packet. In other words, once you cross the router the MAC address from the original frame which arrived at the router is not visible anymore.

If your computer wants to send an IP packet into the internet, all it knows in the beginning is the IP address of the default gateway to use as the IP address is not part of its own LAN. It finds the MAC address of this gateway inside your LAN using ARP. Once it knows the MAC address is puts the IP packet for the internet server into an ethernet frame addressed to the MAC address of your router (aka default gateway).

The router receives the ethernet frame, takes out the IP packet and decides how to route the IP packet. If the router is connected via ethernet to the next hop it will do exactly the same thing again: it uses the IP address of the the default gateway on your internet connection. It finds the MAC address of this next hop with ARP. Now the router puts the IP packet into an ethernet frame with its own MAC address as source and the next hop's MAC address as destination.

This continues like this but usually you'll find other protocols in between, e.g. ATM. The important thing: the MAC address is only valid and used inside the ethernet network. The MAC address will not be send out with the IP packet. The MAC addresses will change with every hop.

If the MAC address of a device is somehow exposed to the internet it is only because it was added somewhere in the IP payload, i.e. into the contents of the IP packet. But this is application dependent.

Gerald

Perhaps you or Leythos could refer me to a case anywhere in the world where a warrant has been used to enter a person's home and examine their computer, because they were suspected of infringing copyright on p2p systems on a non-commercial basis?

I think you will find that copyright infringement is a civil matter, not a criminal one, pretty much everywhere.

In my country, raids have been made under fraud legislation (the Oink case, which is unlikely to fly in court), and under trading and tax laws when companies have been producing or supplying pirate videos, but not for simple copying without agreement.

In the US, the RIAA has been subpeonaing ISPs to get user details, and then sending the users letters to demand financial penalties or face civil court. Some have gone to court, and the courts have ordered the PCs be examined, but that is hardly the same thing.

Yes that sounds more like it. I am not aware of the criminal justice system having been used in the first instance.

This is not necessarily true in the United States.

"The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by

50%.

Prior to the enactment of the NET Act in 1997, copyright infringement for a noncommercial purpose was apparently not punishable by criminal prosecution, although noncommercial infringers could be sued in a civil action by the copyright holder to recover damages. At that time, criminal prosecutions under the copyright act were possible only when the infringer derived a commercial benefit from his or her actions. This state of affairs was underscored by the unsuccessful 1994 prosecution of David LaMacchia, then a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for allegedly facilitating massive copyright infringement as a hobby, without any commercial motive. The court's dismissal of United States vs. LaMacchia suggested that then-existing criminal law simply did not apply to noncommercial infringements (a state of affairs which became known as the "LaMacchia Loophole"). The court suggested that Congress could act to make some noncommercial infringements a crime, and Congress acted on that suggestion in the NET Act.

The NET Act amends the definition of "commercial advantage or private financial gain" to include the exchange of copies of copyrighted works even if no money changes hands and specifies penalties of up to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. It also creates a threshold for criminal liability even where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain anything of value for the infringement.

The NET Act raised the levels of statutory damages to $750 -- $30,000 per work (or actual damages or infringer's profits, whichever is greater). In cases of willful infringement, the act allows individuals to be held civilly liable for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work infringed).

The NET Act could be applied to the unauthorized trading of infringing MP3 files, although music file-sharing was not yet widely practiced by 1997. The infringements of greatest interest to industry at that time were primarily infringing copies of software."

(a) Criminal Infringement.- (1) In general.- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed- (A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain; (B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or (C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.

Web LinuxElectronsT

"Operation Copycat Results in more IndictmentsPublished: Thursday, February

02 2006 @ 11:51 AM CST Contributed by: Tommy

SAN JOSE - The United States Attorney for the Northern District of California announced that as part of the ongoing prosecution arising out of Operation Copycat, a federal grand jury in San Jose returned a thirteen-count indictment last week charging ten additional individuals with violations of federal copyright laws. Twenty-five persons have been charged to date as part of the ongoing investigation and prosecution, and ten have been convicted.

Based on the indictment, the following ten individuals were each charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, and for violating the No Electronic Theft Act (known as the "NET Act") for copyright infringement by electronic means over the Internet: Matthew Thompson, 22, of Lubbock, Texas David Siloac, 27, of Clinton Township, Michigan Johnny Russell, 34, of Spring, Texas Eric Rolfe, 22, of Columbia, Missouri Phillip Templeton, 24, of Kingsport, Tennessee Ali Ghani, 28, of Irvine, California Matthew Fong, 19, of Miami, Florida Jose Soler, 30, of Elmburst (Queens), New York Donovan Kargenian, 31, of El Cajon, California Gregory Dickman, 25, of Wilmington, North Carolina Defendant Fong was also charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by distributing a copyrighted work on a computer network, and aiding and abetting that conduct. These two charges are based on the "Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005," which was enacted on April 27,

2005, and prohibits the infringement of a work being prepared for commercial distribution by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, where the individual knew or should have known the work was intended for commercial distribution. The indictment also contains forfeiture allegations to forfeit computer and other equipment used to violate the criminal copyright laws. The equipment was seized during a federal search warrant executed on June 29, 2005.

The charges stem from the recent undercover investigation targeting online "warez" groups illegally distributing newly-released movies, games, software and music. "Warez groups" are the "first-providers" of copyrighted works to the warez underground - the so-called "release" groups that operate as the original sources for a majority of the pirated works distributed and downloaded via the Internet.

The ten defendants will be arraigned on the indictment on February 22, 2006 at 2:00 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg in San Jose.

The maximum penalties for conspiring to violated federal copyright law, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, and for copyright infringement by distributing a copyrighted work on a computer network, and aiding and abetting, in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 506(a)(1)(C), 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 2319(d)(2), are five years in prison and three years of supervised release. The maximum penalties for violating the NET Act, in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 506(a)(1)(B), and 18 U.S.C. § 2319(c)(1), are three years in prison and two years of supervised release. A maximum fine of $250,000 applies to each offense, and a mandatory special assessment of $100 applies for each conviction. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553. An indictment only contains allegations and these defendants, as with all defendants, must be presumed innocent unless and until convicted.

The other ten convictions in Operation Copycat to date include: January 9, 2006: Paul Aleman, 25, of Menafee, California, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement by electronic means, and copyright infringement by electronic means and aiding and abetting.

January 9, 2006: Philip Kang, 22, of Wayne, New Jersey, admitted engaging in copyright infringement by electronic means.

December 12, 2005: Mark G. Carter, II, 28, of Azusa, California, pleaded guilty to one count of violating the NET Act, as charged in the Northern District of California Case, and to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, as charged in the District of Connecticut.

December 12, 2005: Jonathan Stanley Golenbock, 22, of Ithaca, New York, pleaded guilty to one count of violating the NET Act.

November 30, 2005: Nathaniel Lovell, 22, of Boulder, Colorado, an equipment supplier for the warez sites, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit criminal copyright infringement and to violating the NET Act.

November 14, 2005: Chirayu Patel, 23, of Fremont, California, and one of the site operators for the warez site, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit criminal copyright infringement and to violating the NET Act.

November 14, 2005: Daniel Van Horn, 32, of Wantagh, NY, pleaded guilty to violating the NET Act.

October 11, 2005: William Veyna, 34, of Chatworth, California, another site operator, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit criminal copyright infringement and to violating the NET Act.

October 3, 2005: Ryan Zeman, 23, of Rohnert Park, California, admitted violating the NET Act.

September 26, 2005: Curtis Salisbury, 19, of St. Charles, Missouri, pleaded guilty to two charges under the recently enacted "Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005," including the first convictions in the country for using recording equipment to make copies of movies in movie theaters, and for making a commercially distributed movie available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, when the individual knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution. As part of each plea agreement, each defendant also agreed to forfeit computer and other equipment that was seized during the federal search warrants executed on June 29, 2005.

These prosecutions are part of a continuing investigation known locally as Operation Copycat, which involved the execution of more than 40 searches nationwide on June 29, 2005. Operation Copycat is the local and largest part of the coordinated international law enforcement action known as Operation Site Down, which is targeting online piracy. Mark L. Krotoski is the Assistant U.S. Attorney from the CHIP Unit who is prosecuting the case, along with the assistance of Legal Assistants Mimi Lam and Lauri Gomez. Stephanie M. Hinds is the Assistant U.S. Attorney, along with Alicia Chin, paralegal, assisting with the asset forfeiture matters on the case."

TB

Bollocks!