p2pnet - rss feed: A question or two for RIAA PI MediaSentry ….
p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA News:- “In UMG v Lindor, when the defendant got close to taking MediaSentry’s deposition, the RIAA tried to fold up its tents and run home to Mommy.”
That’s Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.
And he’s again asking for help from the online community.
“Now that MediaSentry is being investigated all over the place, and giving contradictory and false responses, I’ve pointed out to other lawyers that this is a good time to take MediaSentry’s deposition,” he says, going on:
“In the comments to that post, people are starting to weigh in with some interesting suggestions for deposition questions to be posed to MediaSentry.
“I’d be interested in what the Slashdot community can provide, especially on the technical issues.”
By way of example, “Something I’d be sure to ask Media Sentry is how they synchronize the clock of their detection server with the clock on the Target ISP’s DHCP server. Without them matching closely false identifications can easily take place,” says David Donahue, going on »»»
Another thing I’d love to ask them regards how and who set up and runs their detection server. If this server device is to be legally treated like a tape recorder, video camera or radar gun then only the people who built, setup and maintain it can testify to it’s accurate calibration.
Also, who is the individual who was running this device when the detections occurred? Are they a licensed private investigator in the state where the detection took place? Did this person actually download music from the IP they detected offering torrents? Is that whole songs or just data fragments? What percentage of the song was downloaded? Were there others offering the same torrent for downloading? Who were they? Why are they not named codefendants in this suit? If a normal bittorent user were to download the song what percentage of it would have come from the defendant vs. these other unnamed individuals?
Regarding expert vs fact witness testimony from Media Sentry:
- Is the person giving this deposition the person who was running the detection server at the time of the alleged infringement?
- Are the detection server logs and case file the personal notes of the deposee or are they notes of someone else?
- Who?
- Why are they not giving this deposition?
- Is the deposee testifying to facts he has personal knowledge of or is he making conclusions as an expert?
- Is he an expert in ISP network operations and DHCP server systems administration?
- Is he an expert in the bittorent protocol and software client?
- Is he an expert in MS own detection software (if yes, how does it work in detail)?
- Is the fact he is testifying to is that the report and file says “x” and not a detection he had any personal knowledge of? (note: anyone can testify to this if handed the report & file).
- Can the deposee testify that the data in the logs was not modified since the detection?
- How is the detection server’s log database secured against data modification by viruses, worms and hackers?
- If this database were used for financial transactions would they still consider this sufficient protection?
- Do their data security and development standards meet the legally mandated ISO 27001 standards?
- Why did they use a lesser data security methodology?
- How does he know, by personal knowledge, that their database and log files were not compromised and changed before the print off of the logs took place?
- Who at Media Sentry has sufficient administrative access to the log database to change its files and content?
- Would an audit record have been made of any potential log data modification?
- Does that same individual have the ability to change / eliminate these audit records?
- Does the deposee have personal knowledge that such a data modification audit doesn’t and hasn’t existed?
Adds Donahue:
“With the kind of fluff I’d heard coming from Media Sentry, any good deposition should tear their facts and methodology to little tiny threads.
“If the questions asked in the deposition don’t require a significant percentage of Media Sentry’s Development, QA, Operations and networking teams to answer them, you’re not trying hard enough.”
Definitely stay tuned.
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August 14th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Add to the time syncronozation question the issue of time zones. If MS uses current time, passes it on to ISP the time zone may change and also the issue of some servers running on GMT. Not minutes of difference, hours.
(Apparantly an issue in a few european cases)
August 14th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Why does the above keep mentioning bittorrent? All of the depositions (so far) have referenced Kazaa, not BT. AFAIK, Kazaa clients typically download the whole file from one client; this may be why the RIAA has (so far) only sued Kazaa-type users.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Not mentioned:
Backup procedures: who has access to backup tapes, are there even any backup tapes? Are they stored off-site or at some employee’s house?
As well, were proper CoC (chain of custody) procedures followed at *every* stage of the investigation? Do they even know what CoC is? Do they have certified forensics experts on staff to handle every case? If the data even has a slight possibility of being tainted then it can not be used as reliable data and must be thrown out and not admitted as evidence.
This is such a sham that ANY reasonably-knowledgeable I.T. person could rip them to shreds.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:19 am
” Kazaa clients typically download the whole file from one client; this may be why the RIAA has (so far) only sued Kazaa-type users. ”
Not really.
Kazaa and other clients like it are perfectly capable of multisource downloading.
I think the reason they target Kazaa users is that most Kazaa users are too computer
illeterate to use anything else, that can’t be tracked, or to simply turn off the ability to
view the shared file list.
The RIAA lies so much, on the on hand they says their investigative methods are proprietary, and must
be protected from scrutiny, and on the other hand the ALSO say that they do nothing that any other
Kazaa user would do.
This leads me to nelieve that they simply use a Kazaa client, just like the people they are suing.
To admit this could ruin their entire claim, since there are many ways to spoof Kazaa.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
This whole “IP Address” evidence is failing apart. Even you know somebody “officially” owns gun there is still work required to ensure you charge actual “criminal” instead of innocent gun owner. Other words to say is if there “possibility of someone” who can access same IP Address as charged in violations of copyright protection laws then all such charges against IP address associate should be dismissed.