New RIA anti-p2p weapon?
p2p news / p2pnet: Will a $14.99 Addonics cable become another Big Four record label cartel latest weapon for use against ex-customers it’s trying to sue into buying ‘product’?
"By itself, the $14.99 cable provides a connection between the 1.8-inch Toshiba hard drive and a standard 2.5-inch 40-pin IDE hard drive interface," writes ExtremeTech.
But, it was also commissioned by computer forensics experts, Addonics president Bill Kwong is quoted as saying.
They needed a way to, "determine if illegally copied data – such as music illegally copied from RIAA artists – was stored on the iPod’s drive," says the story. "A standard IDE write blocker can be used to turn the Toshiba drive into a read-only device for forensic applications, he added, preventing the intentional or accidental destruction of data."
However, the cable can also be used to back up an iPod and, "in a worst-case scenario, where an iPod may be close to failing and its data inaccessible, the cable may allow the user to rescue some data from the drive, Kwong said," states ExtremeTech.
"Really, we’re not intending that users should use this on a running iPod," Kwong said. "But if you really need to take the hard drive out – that is where [the cable] would become useful."
Also See:
ExtremeTech – Could Addonics iPod Cable Be RIAA’s Next Weapon?, February 3, 2006
February 4th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
wtf?
February 5th, 2006 at 3:03 am
I’m guessing the riaa is meant to buy some of these cables and then using a laptop randomly grab ipod users off the street and check out what’s in the ipod.
Maybe i shouldn’t have given them that idea…
Then again if enough congressppl in the us get ipods and start getting hassled on the street about what’s in them, maybe they’ll do something about the cartels.
February 5th, 2006 at 4:10 am
The idea is, they avoid writing to the drive; then in court, it will be harder for the defense to argue that they planted evidence. But they can read from it while it is preserved in the condition it was in when seized from the defendant. A standard technique.
However, the idea that this procedure can “determine if illegally copied data – such as music illegally copied from RIAA artists – was stored on the iPod’s drive” makes no sense. It can reveal only whether a particular file is or is not present. Whether the file was copied legally or illegally is not a technical question.
Suppose the RIAA is suing, and song X by RIAA artist Y is found on the defendant’s drive. But was it copied legally or illegally? It’s not even a question of whether the defendant has the CD or got the song from itunes or a similar service – maybe he/she had it at the time of copying or obtained the file from someone who downloaded it legally.
February 5th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Part of the Gonzales case rested on whether the defendant had obtained the tracks legally, not whether they were shared.
I think this means that I now have to keep a complete audit trail of all music that comes through my household.
I can imagine a case where the RIAA impound every piece of music and every music storage mechanism in your house. They’d then use forensics to come up with a list and you would then have to produce receipts for all of it or prove that you came by it legally. The MP3s you ripped from that CD you then lost at a friend’s party? Prove you did actually own the CD once.
It’s all so much simpler in the UK. Share the files, get sued, lose in court.
February 8th, 2006 at 3:17 am
Since the RIAA can’t seem to differentiate among a gnu, gnutella, kazaa, and a kazoo, how on earth are they going to know what devices to connect the cable to, or the correct connector configuration? I would suggest refraining from attempting to bend over to pick anything up while they are pondering the possibilities.