Leaked: Hollywood's BRILLIANT Plan To Curb Piracy. Hint: THEY ARE IDIOTS.

Hello again ATS.

Some of you might know that I've written several threads over the past few days documenting the unprecedented level of DDoS activity and the Sony / North Korea leak based situation.

Well those Sony leaks have produced yet another jaw dropping revelation... Hollywood's plan to curb piracy.

Before I get to that particular gem - let me catch those who aren't knowledgeable in this area up a bit.

Most piracy is done through programs that download torrents. This uses a technology known as peer to peer exchange. I am sure many remember the entire fiasco Metallica ( and others ) caused that brought Napster down. Same concept here, but with movies, music, games, anything you can digitize basically.

Sites like the recently defunct Pirate Bay were places where one could find these torrents. You'd search, click, and if you had the right software - the file would begin downloading. The download did not come from a lone site - but from other computer users interconnected through the software.

But there was a catch that many if not most people did not realize. Those torrent files had trackers. It was not uncommon at all for movie studios - or their legal or IT departments - to embed their own trackers into the torrents ( this could be overcome easily, but as I said, many people were unaware ). If you've ever known or heard of somebody getting a letter threatening to sue them for unbelievable amounts of cash over an illegal download - the tracker is probably what caused it.

In fact it was and is not uncommon at all for the actual movie studios to put their own copyrighted material onto these sites so that they can deliberately track and threaten / prosecute the people who download it. Entrapment much? Cops can't, but Corporations can. Go Team America!!!

In short, even though piracy was a problem for Hollywoods bottom line - they had their little tricks to fight it and to sue endlessly over it. But that wasn't enough apparently.

The plan they were ( and assumptively still are floating ) to curb piracy?

To break the Internets backbone

Yup. That's right. That is the logic these idiots came up with. Think of the analogies, because they're easy. Nuke the world to end hunger... burn down the house to get rid of the fleas... sink the boat to stop that pesky leak that nobody can find...

I'll let you read...

Most anti-piracy tools take one of two paths: they either target the server that's sharing the files (pulling videos off YouTube or taking down sites like The Pirate Bay) or they make it harder to find (delisting offshore sites that share infringing content). But leaked documents reveal a frightening line of attack that's currently being considered by the MPAA: What if you simply erased any record that the site was there in the first place?

To do that, the MPAA's lawyers would target the Domain Name System (DNS) that directs traffic across the internet. The tactic was first proposed as part of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2011, but three years after the law failed in Congress, the MPAA has been looking for legal justification for the practice in existing law and working with ISPs like Comcast to examine how a system might work technically. If the system works, DNS-blocking could be the key to the MPAA's long-standing goal of blocking sites from delivering content to the US. At the same time, it represents a bold challenge to the basic engineering of the internet, threatening to break the very backbone of the web and drawing the industry into an increasingly nasty fight with Google.

Source

I enthusiastically encourage you to read the full article as it's educational and shows just how arrogant and short sighted these jerks are. Did they learn nothing from the same exact stink that we had a decade, or so, ago with music sharing? NOW digital music is the most common form of purchase for that medium. The music industry finally figured out that their paradigm was outdated and caught up. Well, only after they made complete asses of themselves.

Now companies with way more money than we can imagine have entered the same stale argument and that is a very dangerous development. If we're dealing with companies that can throw $300,000,000 out to create a movie only to have it flop and not go bankrupt - imagine what kind of finances they have to coerce lawmakers into bending the rules of an open Internet.

I do not support the idea of piracy. If Studio X makes a movie and I wish to watch it, I am happy to pay for it. If it doesn't pique my interest enough to go to a theater, I wait for it to hit Netflix or Redbox ( and, btw, don't be fooled - both of these companies are giving Hollyweird a huge headache as well ). If my interest is even less than that? Then I wait for it to hit cable or the clearance bin at Wal Mart.

But for these suit wearing, detached from reality, money is nothing / money is everything hipster douches to threaten the Internet to protect their own lack of internal security and ability to deliver their product in a manner pleasing to the public? I say not on my watch!

Having said that, I'll be dollars to doughnuts that some Senator or Congressperson pops up in the very near future championing this anti-piracy concept and heralding this approach as revolutionary - all while they giggle about the number of zeroes in their Cayman bank account.

I'll also predict this: We, the people of the world inhabit this space universally and we pay for that right. Mess with us much more and watch what real cyberwrath looks like. There is only so much the average person will put up with before they start Googling terms like "cyber activism".

Thanks for reading!

( And to the techies who will show up and dissect - I'm writing for the general population not for a tech blog here. Generalizations are valid when speaking in a general setting. )

Good thread.

It's true, companies do put their own IP out there to catch people downloading. I know from experience. Way back when Limewire was a thing, I downloaded some Harry Potter pdf files. The next day our ISP called and said they received notice from "people on behalf of J.K. Rowling" that we were downloading copyrighted material. We didn't get sued though, just got a warning.

a reply to: Hefficide

Love your lengths of research Heff and your entertaining manner of posting it!

But do you think, considering the atmosphere being created by the government of spying on it's citizens without warrants that this whole Sony thing could be nothing more than a distraction to do nothing more than put more controls over the internet?

China has done very well with controlling it and if I am not mistaken wasn't some US delegates just in China commending them for how they control it?

*I know I read it somewhere and I am looking for it*

Anyhow, I am off to search for the article I referred to above!

Napster pioneered peer to peer technology that so many of us use without knowing it!

IMHO had the record companies and movie companies embraced this technology and put a small price on it they would not be at a loss right now...

Many on line companies do this now... i-Tunes and NetFlix just to name two....

Napster pioneer Peer to Peer tech

Look at Kodak now for coming late to digital age another company refused to progress with the times....

Honestly, ANYTHING that comes out of Hollywood anymore, be it music, movies, television, is complete and utter garbage. I really wish it became a fad for people to read, learn, enrich their lives. Get outside and enjoy fresh air while we still have it.
That would show those greedy, life destroying, pieces of orange Hollywood crap. Either that or we can just wait for California to break off and fall into the ocean.

I was gonna say they add the trackers themselves... But you said it...


I was then gonna say it's blatant entrapment to force lawsuits on the unsuspecting public... But you said that as well...





I think you're correct in your prediction that soon a congressperson will be an advocate for this plan, probably more than one...
& I think we can guess which side of the spectrum they'd be doing it from as well.




I remember SOPA, it was the public backlash that caused that to go down the pan because if I remember rightly, it also entailed restrictions to freedom of speech.


It'll be harder to fight this new idea if they keep that out of their agenda.


Politicians are mostly bought and paid for by the corporations, that goes for my country as well...
They'll fight tooth & nail to enact this for some measly scraps from their masters.



I don't even think piracy is a good thing, as you said if it's worth it then pay for it, if not, don't bother...

This will piss off a lot of people who do enjoy piracy though, in all honestly they probably outnumber us who are indifferent to the whole thing.

a reply to: thesmokingman

I agree 100%. I wouldn't willingly pay for anything they create. There's no originality anymore and no talent imo. Remakes, superheroes. That is modern Hollywood.

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
a reply to: thesmokingman

I agree 100%. I wouldn't willingly pay for anything they create. There's no originality anymore and no talent imo. Remakes, superheroes. That is modern Hollywood.

Exactly. All green screens and unimpressive cgi, I am really glad I grew up in the era I did. I am actually embarrassed often times to even be a part of this society we live in. It really, really does disgust me.

Taking out a DNS listing will cause a lot of collateral damage. How would yahoo like to have its name dropped because some user had some file? The yahoo servers will still be up and running, but only people who know the IP address will be able to find it. Most users who just use the website name to go to the site will be blocked.

As for anyone trying to hit the internet the DNS is a weak spot, cracking it will not fully disable the internet but it does make how humans interact with it a lot harder.

a reply to: Hefficide

Blocking DNS ROFL! These people really are idiots, it's way overkill as you mention and akin to nuking a city to kill a fly, but circumvention is easy, yehaw.

Somebody needs to tell Sony that "Trix are for kids."

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: Hefficide

Kind of a conundrum. If they want their products to be popular, they have to put them on the internet. If its "out there" then its vulnerable to Piracy.

If any zapper they make to protect the goods is out there then it can be used against them, too.

So whats the solution. If its music, bands should tour. Then people will buy the albums.

Thats how they made money in my day.

I guess this helps add fuel to the Net-Neutrality fire that's recently come back into the headlines. Every time I see a buzzword creep up that at any point raised some sort of public opinion, I cringe knowing that somebody, somewhere is pushing that "buzz" so it's on peoples minds.

While this DNS-throttling theory may sound far-fetched and somewhat insane, I see it as a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Imagine a scenario where a major studio/association suggests this as a plan. It's publicized, ridiculed, discussed at the highest levels (Congress etc) and once it's made clear that it would never fly, the studio/assoc comes back with "how about we work with the content providers (ISP) to regulate what traffic goes through (AKA - the plan all along).

It's similar to when you want to watch certain content that's available on a cable channel, online, such as a football game or HBO show but because you don't have a current Comcast or DirecTV subscription, it's blocked.

This, my friends, is the future of streaming media I'm afraid. They'll coerce you into subscribing to their content delivery systems and the ability to do so will be granted like a golden egg from (you guessed it), Congress.

What if you simply erased any record that the site was there in the first place?

i pretty much got lost right there.
i dont see how this will help stop piracy
erase the tracks of what site? all of them?

yeah, pirate bay is gone for now. it does not matter

the same exact files can be found with a simple google search. you dont need to go to a special site and then search. just search.
pick a movie title and search that with the word torrent behind it and in less than a second you will get pages of results.
bang, youre done

it cant be stopped. there are far too many files out there and far too many people sharing.
torrents are not the only way either. direct connects through messenger programs. hell, you can share files via email.
news groups.
youtube itself.

you can download the video or strip the audio from any video on youtube.
dont need anything special.
a simple internet search again.

the monster is out. cant stop it

on a tech level i really dont understand how erasing all traces of this or that site will stop piracy...it wont.
people have personal sites and use personal ftp

i understand next to nothing of how it all works. i just understand how to use it...
theyre delusional if they think they can stop it...
they would be wise to embrace it

im not talking about only computer users either. dont matter if youre on android or apple.
hit the app store and there are loads of programs for torrents, for saving youtube vids.

can you imagine how many millions of people are uploading/downloading every day?
cant even fathom how much is out there.

and honestly even if all the moves were erased from the internet tomorrow, people can still make digital copies and then the monster will be back out.

i also think it is funnt at the products you can legally buy.
software that rips, compresses, and burns video.
you think people are only using those to share home videos of their little lemmings?

hardware that you can put a vhs tape in and have a dvd pop out.
strictly for updating your bull# 80's catalogue to put back in the closet right?

this goes back to the days of vcr's with record buttons and blank tapes.
people were sharing back then

cassette tapes...all the millions of people that would borrow a friends tape and copy it or tape songs off the radio.

this is nothing new at all. it has been going on for at least 25 years

im 37. when i was 7 i can remember having 2 vcr's set up. we would go rent a tape and put that in one, put a black in the other and bang, now i have the movie.

these people are nuts if they think they can stop it

a reply to: seeker1963

LOL@China controlling. China steals more proprietary software and information than the rest of the world combined. Usually from people they do business with. Sorry. Not laughing at you. Just at the statement in general.

The entertainment industry born in Hollywood California is a rancid cesspool, that needs to burn. It's an industry that had a rare opportunity to enlighten not only America, but the world as a whole.

Yet instead of utilizing their media monopoly to empower mankind, they chose to employ it to incarcerate and control the human mind.

It's about time this degenerate self-serving industry was called out. I look forward to watching it slowly burn, until it's nothing more than a small pile of smoldering disinfected ashes.

originally posted by: Hefficide

Hello again ATS.

Some of you might know that I've written several threads over the past few days documenting the unprecedented level of DDoS activity and the Sony / North Korea leak based situation.

Well those Sony leaks have produced yet another jaw dropping revelation... Hollywood's plan to curb piracy.

Really ? Curb Piracy ?

Before I get to that particular gem - let me catch those who aren't knowledgeable in this area up a bit.

Most piracy is done through programs that download torrents. This uses a technology known as peer to peer exchange. I am sure many remember the entire fiasco Metallica ( and others ) caused that brought Napster down. Same concept here, but with movies, music, games, anything you can digitize basically.

Sites like the recently defunct Pirate Bay were places where one could find these torrents. You'd search, click, and if you had the right software - the file would begin downloading. The download did not come from a lone site - but from other computer users interconnected through the software.

But there was a catch that many if not most people did not realize. Those torrent files had trackers. It was not uncommon at all for movie studios - or their legal or IT departments - to embed their own trackers into the torrents ( this could be overcome easily, but as I said, many people were unaware ). If you've ever known or heard of somebody getting a letter threatening to sue them for unbelievable amounts of cash over an illegal download - the tracker is probably what caused it.

In fact it was and is not uncommon at all for the actual movie studios to put their own copyrighted material onto these sites so that they can deliberately track and threaten / prosecute the people who download it. Entrapment much? Cops can't, but Corporations can. Go Team America!!!

Several movie companies did outlet their movies ON PURPOSE, in the form of a "screener", thereby letting the masses dwell upon it, and give feed back on the web. Didn't matter if it was good or bad comments, all that matters was hearsay about the movie = free ads!

In short, even though piracy was a problem for Hollywoods bottom line - they had their little tricks to fight it and to sue endlessly over it. But that wasn't enough apparently.

The plan they were ( and assumptively still are floating ) to curb piracy?

To break the Internets backbone

Yup. That's right. That is the logic these idiots came up with. Think of the analogies, because they're easy. Nuke the world to end hunger... burn down the house to get rid of the fleas... sink the boat to stop that pesky leak that nobody can find...

I'll let you read...

Most anti-piracy tools take one of two paths: they either target the server that's sharing the files (pulling videos off YouTube or taking down sites like The Pirate Bay) or they make it harder to find (delisting offshore sites that share infringing content). But leaked documents reveal a frightening line of attack that's currently being considered by the MPAA: What if you simply erased any record that the site was there in the first place?

Too late, several programs can inhabit a part of a forum. When ppl log on they can read parts of the forum of different users, collating the entire forum piece by piece.

The thing is you cannot stop piracy, really! Never Ever! If this is a free world you cannot. You can only share the crap movies that others have shared, and so on. What is vital is to share the really important information, that is undergoing a censorship never seen before. Who give a crap about new Hollywood flics anyway ?

I have shared several videos and documents for years. Tons of videos on 9/11, that would have been forgotten im sure. Along with several thousands of other people, by sharing you keep this information alive. This is the true core of the "piracy world", and which the tricksters want to get rid of.

Who cares about Hollywood movies!

Ok, i plea guilty to downloading music i love. I dont have that much money, but i really want to hear person XXX perform the act of YYY. I can watch them free on YT, i can hear them free on the radio, but if i download them on the internet, im a gulty pirate? I promise - when i get the money - i'll send a donation to the band. In a perfect world i would have the internet-cash. And i would in a heartbeat send 1 or several internet-cash to the band to say i like them, and are grateful.

I would be happy to give 1 dollar to a band i never heard of, but sounded promising. But unfortunately, the banks in my country adds a fee, coz they are greedy as f%"k.
Then there are the company behind the music online - they gotta live too you know, and wants a percentage too.
Who cares about company XXX or YY, or Sony as you put it, they don't really have anything todo with the art, they are just pumping money into the ads, and their online agencies. All to make money, And thats fine too. Bt do NOT get greedy! This is where your failure is lying, your greed. This is why i am a pirate and are proud of it!

From your very own...


Did he burn that jacket as fun... or ?

I was a member of torrentspy, way back. I was a frequenter of the forum, and still am part of a Facebook group with some of the old members. I was there when the site fell, I was in the forum lifeboat when we jumped ship to an old Google page. Ircspy, *spy, mystery axiom, I was there.

When it all went down, a couple members (forum mods, not even really affiliated with the torrent area) were forced to submit their hard drives to the courts. I don't think they were actually sued, but it came close.

What the studios don't realize is that this kind of reaction only alienates us more, it only makes people less willing to give them money. Because now, more than in a long time, people see media consumption as an agreement, not feeding time. Because we have choices that didn't exist 20 years ago, options of variety and originality.

It will be the death of them.

Greed seems to be a fog machine that hides all common sense approaches to a problem, and the most laughable outcome of these things they have done, which includes incredible bribery and sanctions or threats to foreign governments, (Swedish authorities comes to mind first), and the aftermath of the recent raid has done what?

It has caused 1000 or more copycat sites to spring up and do what TPB did.

Looks like Hollywood not only failed, but brought forth a pandora's can of worms onto themselves with this.

What about the worlds resources? What if band XXX made a mega hit and had to print a billion copies on CD, how would that effect world oil & economics? We can distribute the music over cobber cables in seconds, without spilling a cent on making more plastics for CD's covers and so on - ok - we still need the power. But it is a hell more efficient than sending containers around the world with a bunch of plastic.

We are on the brink!
Before they had stonetablets, suddenly they got steelwire to store audio, then they got vinyl to store music. Later on we got cassettes-tapes, and then CD... now we got the freakin' internet - so lets make the best of it.

The digital world are evolving, but greed is holding it back...

a reply to: Hefficide

Sites like the recently defunct Pirate Bay

Pirate Bay is anything but defunct. The only thing that changed was the .org to a .cr

This is the flaw in Studio thinking. The other side seems always to be two steps in front while the studios take one backwards.

They just don't get it. They are advised by lawyers and others who have a vested interest in continuing the war.

P