MediaDefender Hacker Speaks Out
Written by Enigmax & Ernesto on January 14, 2008In September 2007, anti-piracy company MediaDefender’s emails went public after a hacker gained access to their systems. The attacks cost the company a huge amount of money, not to mention acute embarrassment. Now the person behind the attacks speaks.
The whole Media Defender scandal needs little introduction. The anti-piracy company is incredibly unpopular with most of the file-sharing community, so when they fell victim to a hacker and their company secrets spread all over the Internet, few held much sympathy for them.
Soon it became known that a shadowy group known as MediaDefender-Defenders appeared to be behind the attack - they host the Media Defender emails on their website to this day, but little was known about the chain events, or who was behind them - until now.
In an interview with portfolio, the hacker (using the pseudonym ‘Ethan’) explains how things led up to the leak. Ethan, a polite high-school student who lives with his family, was on his Christmas break when he first gained access to the anti-piracy companies servers by exploiting a weakness in their firewall. This was the end of 2006, at a time when business was still good for Media Defender, with revenue standing at nearly $16m.
The interviewer, Daniel Roth, says he communicated with Ethan on pre-pay phone to ensure security. Meeting after school in a local bookstore, Ethan handed over a flash drive holding confidential Media Defender information, explaining that the initial security breach hadn’t amounted to much and that he had difficulty in gaining the interest of fellow hackers. However, a few months later Ethan decided to go back and take a second look - which bore more fruit - giving him access to the company’s email, it’s networked resources and even its telephone system. He then explains how he passed on some of the information to a fellow hacker who gained access to Media Defender servers and used them for denial-of-service attacks.
Logging in a handful of times each month through the summer of 2007, Ethan started to get bored with ‘Monkey Defenders’ - his pet name for the anti-piracy outfit. Deciding to go out with a bang, he and the Media Defender-Defenders gathered thousands of the company’s internal emails and published them on web.
A text file included with the emails stated: “By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contains information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services,” and “A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account”
Just days later, slamming the anti-piracy company again and again seemed to be the aim of Ethan and friends, as they released a private telephone conversation with the New York attorney general’s office, a P2P tracking database, followed a few days later by all of Media Defender’s anti-piracy tools.
Ethan said that he didn’t set out to ruin Media Defender: “In the beginning, I had no motivation against Monkey Defenders” he said. “It wasn’t like, ‘I want to hack those bastards’. But then I found something, and the good nature in me said, These guys are not right. I’m going to destroy them.”
Ethan, who is now sought after by the FBI because of the leaked emails, is getting close to this goal. It all went downhill for MediaDefender after the leaks got out. In November it turned out that MediaDefender’s parent company ArtistDirect lost almost $1,000,000 because of the hack, and their stock price plunged soon after that.
To make it even worse, a week after the sensitive information was made public, the Pirate Bay launched a counterattack against their arch rival. They decided to use the information from the emails to file charges against some of MediaDefenders customers including Paramount Home Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Music Group for corrupting and sabotaging their BitTorrent tracker.
There is no doubt that the pirates have won this battle, and it will be very hard for MediaDefender to regain their credibility. To quote MediaDefender CEO Randy Saaf: “This is really fucked…”. Yes, I’m afraid it is Randy.
Previously: Video: How People Are Tracked Using BitTorrent
Next: Trading BitTorrent Tracker Invites – Commodity or Curse?
104 Responses
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“Catching” Ethan won’t do anything. For every Ethan there are a hundred John Doe’s who could do worse I’m sure.
The damage is done.
[quote comment="263413"]
The damage is done.[/quote]
@ #3- On the contrary, my doubtful friend. This war IS going to be won by the Pirate side. The industry is already showing clear signs of teetering as their revenues continue to slide and they increasingly clutch at whatever straws they can to prop themselves up in the face of a world that no longer needs their outmoded and obsolete business model.
They are being taught on a daily basis that NO ONE owns or controls a society’s entertainment or information. They can no longer hold our shared common culture for ransom.
Take a deep whiff. Smell that? It’s the smell of victory for freedom of information and it’s the smell of fear as arrogant, greedy corporate behemoths that have raped their customers for decades wake slowly up to the fact that they are dying.
Yarrr, mateys! Hoist up the sails.
Ramming speed!
“To quote MediaDefender CEO Randy Saaf: “This is really fucked…”. Yes, I’m afraid it is Randy.”
What a quote!
[quote comment="263482"]
Yarrr, mateys! Hoist up the sails.
Ramming speed![/quote]
Agreed.
Let’s speed up their demise. More power to us.
Keep up the boycott, let more people know about it, and why.
Do your part in helping P2P blossom.
fucking awsome :)
have you ever seen a cat poop
DAMNIT I FORGOT 2008
I hope we do win this war in the end. As a proud pirate, I fear the day someone nabs me, but that will not stop me from downloading. I have seen the RIDICULOUS fines these business industries have concocted. They are despicable and ruthless people to say the least. I cannot wait for them to cease chasing everyone. I will jump for joy the day these bastards wave the white flag.
I too agree a hacker gets FBI on him while companies breaking laws left and right gets almost nothing…
oh wait its America… (sorry lol!)
no right or wrong
laws are made by criminals to abuse innocent people.
man Torrentfreak, stop spamming the site :) we are still getting more then 200 hits a day, its amazing how many people have visited the site
WHAT THE FUCK! THIS ARTICLE IS BULLSHIT!
iirc, the leak happened because one of the media defender employees was found out on a tracker (likely due to his IP resolution). Apparently he used the same password for the account on the tracker that he had used for his sign up email address, a gmail account.
The admins accessed his gmail account using said password, and discoved THAT HE WAS FORWARDING ALL EMAILS TO HIS GMAIL ACCOUNT.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A TEENAGE HACKER. Excuse me, but if this kid were so secure and unafraid of the FBI, would he not explain in more detail how the hack was performed than simply say “exploit in their firewall”.
Honestly, torrentfreak. You are worse than Fox.
look here:
-={ MediaDefender-Defenders }=-
Date: 2007-09-15
MediaDefender-Defenders proudly presents 9 months worth of
internal MediaDefender emails
By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and
personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails
contains information about the various tactics and technical
solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services.
A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire
email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail
account, and using the really highly secure password: blahbob
So here it is, we hope this is enough to create a viable
defense to the tactics used by these companies, also there
should be enough fuel to keep the p2p bloggers busy for
quite some time.
-={ MediaDefender-Defenders }=-
lululul
Great article!
MediaDefender if you leave you doors open then people will come in and play, and you guys should really be defending your data.
Ethan (or Eitan or Eytan in Hebrew) is a male given name meaning strong, firm and safe.
Ethan is not a hacker he is a very naughty boy.
they are fighting to continue to suck the wealth out of artists.
like 50 cent said: the real income (for the artist) is accessories and fan stuff, like shirts and action-figures, clothes etc.
the music industry used to provide an audience (by controlling what music should be popular) to the artist, and the best way to make it, would be via one of these established money-makers.
piracy will free music, u better believe it.
if ethan get caught he will be asked to working for the FBI.. :D
Gangsta Rap should go fuck himself
THIS IS REALLY FUCKED… HAHAHAHAHA
media defender is mafia
Ethan, good job! and thank you!
:-)
Boobies! Hehe
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