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

NO, not at all.

The fact is that the PUBLIC IP you use can be tracked and is recorded by the ISP. You run a service that shares files, or you just download them, the router does not block their ability to see you connect to their download site and track the number/content that you download.

So, All the RIAA needs is your IP and they can get the rest from the ISP. They don't need to know your LAN (private) address to find you.

when YOU make a connection, it shows your PUBLIC IP, that's all that's needed.

But they have to prove YOU (personally) did it - don't they?

For example, what if there are five people and five computers in the house?

Or if the neighbor hijacked your wireless router connection?

No, the fact that YOUR IP did it is enough to get a search warrant - from there, since you don't know it's coming they get the computer and records....

Face it, if you break the law you don't have much to complain about.

The person responsible for the internet connection is first, then the computer owner, and then you can guess if one person in the 5 will rat the others out.

"On cross examination, Thomas' attorney, Toder, suggested that perhaps Thomas owned a wireless router, which a third party might have hijacked from 'right outside her window.'"

So ... part of the defense is that someone might have done it, but, not her. ""Did you people actually observe defendant infringing?" defense attorney Toder asked Jennifer Pariser, Sony BMG's anti-piracy chief, who took the stand for about 90 minutes."

Also, in the Jammie Thomas case, she replaced her hard drive when they asked for the computer as evidence. So, there is nothing on her hard drive for the search warrant to see.

Even simpler than replacing her hard drive, she could have simply wiped her file sharing folder clean with PGPwipe freeware when they asked for the computer. Even simpler would have been to mount her file sharing disk partition with Truecrypt freeware or Sandboxie freeware so even if a raid occurred unbeknownst to her, all the files would be safe from everyone anyway.

Would an additional PeerGuardian freeware firewall (in addition to the wireless router) also have provided basic protection to Jammie from Safenet eavesdropping?

So, a person that isn't guilty removes the drive because there is nothing to hide. A person that didn't even know it was happening removed a hard drive because of something they don't know about.

So, we're advocating that people the commit crimes should have wipe functions that trigger in case of a police action?

Fact, all that is needed is to know the public IP, no firewall will prevent that from being detected/seen by the download site.

Depends on your country, the judge, etc... but if the ISP contract was signed by you, you're the first to get sued.

In some countries, YOU then have to prove that it was somebody else... IANAL, YMMV, etc.

In Germany a woman recently tried that defense. Got charged for aiding and abetting then, as the judge ruled that everybody who runs a wireless router can be expected to either learn about the risks or pay for somebody to configure it properly.

Juergen Nieveler

Hi Leythos, I'm pretty sure she's guilty but that isn't the technical point I'm trying to get to. Let's assume, for now, that she is guilty. Now let's ask the question again which is basically what would have protected her?

Whatever would have protected her is the same thing that protects you and me and everyone else from someone else snooping on our activities. Even legit activities. You wouldn't question why you lick and seal an envelope, would you? Or why a phone booth has a privacy door. Or why a voting booth has a privacy curtain. Or a bathroom door. Or ... well ... you get the point (I hope). There are legitimate reasons for desiring privacy even from snooping police.

All I ask is what software or hardware or technique would have protected her from prying eyes?

I think we've already established that there is a basic right in this country to be proven guilty which has a burden of proof which is MORE than just an ISP (otherwise why did the lawyer argue she "could" have had a wireless router and that mystery router "could" have been hacked)?

Is there a firewall or other solution that would protect our privacy? Or is Leythos actually correct in that there is no software, hardware, or technique which gives you any better privacy than that open connection she apparently used?

Tor network is perhaps a thing that would keep the RIAA away in the first place - there would be too much work to trace down the public IP

The P2P sharing itself however reveals a great deal of data so one must be quite careful and educated to use the anonymity network without any personal data beeing leaked...

I never could get TOR to work. I'll try again but it's darn slow.

The same question seems to be regularly asked each month, with similar answers being given. Check your newsfeed is working. "NO" is the answer you are looking for.

They do not HAVE to be right outside your Window. You can make an antenna out of a Pringles can, or Nalley's Big Chunk Beef Stew can, and be able to hit wireless routers from quite a distance away. You can even BUY ready-to-use "cantennas" in some of the computer store, and in most countries, its LEGAL to use one, including the United States. Such antennas can be bought and used LEGALLY in America.

I know this, becuase on the two biggest figure skating bulletin boards, where people do "live blogging" from figure skating events, many of them DO use such antennas and hijack peoples' unsecured wireless access points, to post their reports onto Figure Skating Universe and/or GoldenSkate. And what these live-bloggers are doing to post to Figure Skating Universe is LEGAL in EVERY country except Canada and England. So if you go got Figure Skating Universe, or GoldenSkate, you will find at least ONE live blogger, somewhere in the arena sending reports back to either site, and usually hijacking someone's nearby unsecured wireless access point. And what these bloggers are doing is LEGAL in every country except England and Canada, as long as they don't break any password, encryption, or other security system to do it.

So, in short, if she has or had an unsecured wireless access point, then it is considered PUBLIC under the computer crime laws of America, and if someone DID hijack her wireless router, said person or persons are NOT SUBJECT to prosecution, under Federal law, and the laws of 45 states (there are 49 states in the Union) as long as they did not break through and password, encryption, or any other security system to gain access to her wirelsss router.

I use encryption when going to Australian Customs, becuase one pieve of software that I use on my station, for making station IDs, and arching my talk show could be considred a "tool" for breaking copy protection under far more stricter DMCA-like laws in Australia. Alive WMAMP3Recorder could, sooner or later, be declared illegal the new Australian laws, becuase it can also be used to cirumvent DRM, which has recently become illegal in Australia. To prevent problems with Australian authorities, whenever I return to Australia from abroad, I keep that softwware encrypted and locked, so Australian Customs will not be able to open it or read it. As the saying goes "they cannot prosecute what they cannot read".

Evidence Eliminator is the BEST of the bunch. That is what *I* use, when travelling, before taking any of my radio station's computer equipment through Customs, especially in Canada, England, Australia, or the United States, where it has become quite common for Customs agents in those countries to do on-the-spot foensic examination of hard drives. You NEVER KNOW what might be on your computer that could get you arrested in those countries, so I first bomb the equipment with Norton Ghost, and then have Evidence Eliminator scrub all the empty space. Despite some of their cheesy advertising, the software does everything the advertisting says it will do.

Programs, such as Evidnence Eliminator, however, are LEGAL to purchase and use. So she would NOT have broken any laws, by using programs, such as Evidence Eliminator, KillDisk, or one of numerous other programs on the market sold for this purpose. I know that there have been calls in Britain to ban such programs there, but that would be hard to enforce, becuase most of the companies making these programs, except Evidence Eliminator, are based in Eastern European or Middle Eastern countries. In other words, if they did ban such programs in England, the makers of KillDisk, for example, would be NOT SUIBJECT to prosecution in Britain, becuase KillDisk is manufactured and sold from RUSSIA, that makes the authors of KillDisk, and their company, ONLY subject to RUSSIAN LAWS, and British law DOES NOT APPLY in RUSSIA.

If she had used one of these programs, she could not be prosecuted for purchasing or using such software, under current laws.

Well I am certainly going to take the word and actions of a live figure skating blogger when it comes to the law.

So which state did we kick out and I missed it? Last I heard there were 50 states. Did those crazies in Vermont actually get the state to secede?

>

The way most Tor nodes work, that are NO LOGS that the RIAA can subpoena, and even if there WERE, most Tor nodes are OUTSIDE the United States, where American courts have NO JURISDICTION.

Well, the admins at GoldenSkate and Figure Skating Universe that I have talked to about this have TOLD me that it is LEGAL for live- bloggers to hiijack nearby wireless access points, for sending back reports, as long as they do not crack any password or other security scheme to connect, and as long as they are not in Canada or England. They ALLOW users to do this, becuase as far as admins at BOTH sites are concerned, what the live bloggers are doing is LEGAL. I have been TOLD that it is LEGAL in most places to do this

I am looking at a road map of North America right now, and I count 49 U.S. states on the landmass of North America. 49 U.S. states, 31 Mexican states and 14 Canadian provinces. So America has 49 states, Canada has 14 provinces, and Mexico has 31 states. Got it? Good.

X-No-Archive: Yes

As I had said already, its the computer crime laws of most jurisdictions. Outside of Canada, England, and a handful of U.S. states, if you have an unsecured WAP, this it is considered PUBLIC in the eyes of the law. Its so simple, if there is NO password, encryption, or other security scheme saying "keep out", then you CANNOT prosecute somoene who finds it and uses it, just for using your access point. While they COULD be prosecuted for downloading pirated music, if caught, they CANNOT be prosecuted JUST for using your unsecured wireless access point. Why do you think all those lists of open proxy servers exist on the Net? Because in most jursidctions it is LEGAL to find one of the list and use it, until such time as the put up the afforementioned security barriers.

That isn't settled yet either way. Some places in the US have specific laws. I read a rather interesting paper a couple days that suggests it is illegal under the laws that regulate interception of radio communications (which this is in essence). You may (heck probably are) right, but it isn't all that settled.

Of course that isn't anywhere near what you said. There are 49 states in the Union with no qualifiers. Also no real reason to cut Hawaii out of the equation.

Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, as Thomas' loss is more formally known, was the first lawsuit of its kind to proceed before a jury as well as a landmark case that set precedent heavily favoring the RIAA in future legal battles. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ruled that one could be guilty of copyright infringement merely by the act of making copyrighted songs available for download; as a result the RIAA did not need to establish that Thomas at her computer at the time her was accessed by investigators, nor did they need to prove that anyone actually downloaded the music she offered.

"Trying to raise doubt among jurors, who said during jury selection they were not computer savvy, Thomas' attorney Brian Tober suggested his client was the victim of a zombie, a cracker, or a drone. He also suggested somebody using her wireless connection from outside her Brainerd, Minnesota, apartment window could have been responsible. Computer forensics specialist Doug Jacobson, of Iowa State University, testified that no wireless connection was used the night in question, based on IP data embedded in the Kazaa traffic. And Thomas never testified that she owned a wireless router. Tober never asked her."

If you do much reading on this it's clear that she put up a pretty lame defense. One of her best hopes for an appeal is the ruling that the RIAA didn't need to prove that anyone actually downloaded music from her. Unless someone else is paying her legal bills she is well beyond the point where even if she wins she loses.

TB

14 Canadian Provinces ?? LMAO ..