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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[quote comment="264398"]With lobbyist forcing strict copywrights, HW vendors including native HW HDCP functionality, SW following suit (VISTA is nothing but a DRM gotcha) and the US thinking it owns the world so it’s all right to control those foreign swedens living in the far nordic reaches of the U.S. of Assholes to do as they say. I don’t see how anyone can spend one dime or pander to these corrupt organizations. Dissent is patriotic.[/quote]
I think you’re taking this the wrong way. I may sound like a blind(intellectually speaking) American patriot but put some thought into it, it’s true that America has it’s very own, very horrible flaws but it’s the best that humanity has tried (notice I didn’t say “come up with”).
There was way *way* too much information about “Ethan” in the original article this post links to. The author just kept piling on the detail: we can assume that the kid is an american, lives near a bookstore, attends highschool, lives with his parents, house has a basement, has n computers of x type, etc etc.
This may sound tinfoul-hat-ish, but its the slow accumulation of these details are a boon to investigators.
SERIOUSLY! THIS ARTICLE NEGATES EVERYTHING THAT WAS POSTED ON HOW THE LEAKS HAPPENED BEFORE.
THIS ARTICLE IS BULLSHIT. TORRENTFREAK IS RETARDED. EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES THIS IS RETARDED. I AM NOW RETARDED AFTER READING EVERY “OMGGZ ETHAN IS A L33T H4CKER. C0NGRATS ETHAN!!!” COMMENT
i hate you all.
ETHAN! ETHAN! ETHAN! ETHAN!
good job Ethan
[quote comment="264398"]With lobbyist forcing strict copywrights, HW vendors including native HW HDCP functionality, SW following suit (VISTA is nothing but a DRM gotcha) and the US thinking it owns the world so it’s all right to control those foreign swedens living in the far nordic reaches of the U.S. of Assholes to do as they say. I don’t see how anyone can spend one dime or pander to these corrupt organizations. Dissent is patriotic.[/quote]
And apparently American bashing is trendy. The issue has nothing to do with America or any type of nationalism. These multinational corporations care not a whit about nor harbor any allegiance to a single country. They see themselves as above that, as a power unto themselves. It doesn’t matter where the corporate headquarters is located. And frankly, as far as that goes a goodly portion of them are owned or based in Europe and Asia. Stop trying to make it an “Us vs. America” thing. It’s not.
It’s a global issue.
Oh, and last time I checked, there was only one Sweden. If you meant the Swedish people, they would be properly called Swedes not Swedens.
You know, I was going to be polite but I just re-read your comment. U.S. of Assholes? Okay, douchebag. But the next time you see your country’s flag waving, try and remember that it was those “Assholes” that were a big part of why there’s no swastika on it.
Yes, dissent is patriotic. Tarring and feathering an entire people because of the actions of their leaders is not.
Enigmax & Ernesto
You guys don’t like to read things, eh? You might want to, so that you can get the correct information and not look like a fool.
A. Read the NFO that came with the e-mail leaks. It was posted in comment #39. Read it over a few times, and let it sink in.
B. http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/
IS _NOT_ owned and run by MediaDefender-Defenders. They have NOTHING AT ALL to do with it, so to call it “their” website, is just plain wrong.
This is from the website:
“About
The whole mail database was converted to HTML by Forrest F. (JRWR), and is hosted by prq.se.
Do note that this is not the official MediaDefender-Defenders website, just a browseable copy of the e-mail leak that snowballed. We’re also not the guys that acquired these e-mails, we just nabbed them off of BitTorrent and converted them.”
FUCKING READ SHIT NEXT TIME, and you won’t perpetuate the ego of some little script kiddie.
Some people just need to vent their angst on some medium, I suppose.
I also did a double take, and it appears you can’t read, wtf.
“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.”
This is the only paragraph I can find that’s even remotely is relevant to your claim, and it doesn’t say it’s owned by the official company at all. It’s saying there’s a group that hosts the hacked e-mails among other incriminating things.
Are you mad that a “script kiddie” got lucky or something.
if ethan gets caught, i’ll drop him off apple pies during visition hours
thanks for your leet haxor skills :D
@ 62
SirNull already did a good job showing the fallacies of your argument. I just want to add a point that always creeps up when dealing with your type:
How does it come that the recording industry considers itself the guardian of music as such? In discussions you people keep going on about the demise of culture, the death of music blabla. Some jerks even predict a worldwide economic meltdown, don’t they “This is your Conscious Speaking”? Why not throw in a plague or a nuclear war for good measure?
In the case of music just consider this point: Mankind made music before the advent of the grammophone. Amazing isn’t it? For some reason Bach and Beethoven and thousands of other artists created music without a contract from EMI, Warner, Sony etc.
And they earned a living. Great, isn’t it? So I got a hunch that music (or any other art) will be around even without these corporations.
Or maybe your vision of the future comes true and the US of A launch a thermonuclear attack on Sweden to rescue their starving and rioting citizens from the evil Pirate Bay…
Why the fuck is 80 (n3l87) the only other person besides myself to address this. THIS ENTIRE STORY IS A HUGE FUCKING FRAUD.
MEDIADEFENDER WAS NOT HACKED, there was no exploit, ethan is an idiot/probably does not exist. Or is atleast laughing himself to tears at everyone here’s stupidity.
Look at this:
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
That was the NFO that came with the leaked emails. If anyone followed things, they would also know that it was a torrent site operator who, using the same password as Jay Maris used for the torrent site, accessed and leaked the gmail emails.
YOU ARE ALL FUCKING IDIOTS.
HOW do I contact Enigmax & Ernesto to personally tell them how much I hate them?
The story is that Jay Maris who is a Media Defender exec used his Gmail account and the Password blahbob to sign up to a torrent indexing site and the Operator of the Torrent site noticed the Mediadefender IP .
Jay Maris was fowarding all his work email to his Gmail account and used the same easy to remember password on Gmail .
shiver me timbers.
to poster 85:
Tell that to the stock holders
and i bet u work at Mcdonalds with Jay Maris
No BlueBalls, LOL!
Learn to fucking read. USING A PASSWORD THAT A USER PROVIDES TO YOU IS NOT A HACK OR AN EXPLOIT.
But the leaks of course did indeed happen.
What I am trying to tell everyone is that the stor of Ethan is false because it does not coincide with what we were told when the leak first happened, AND IT SURE AS HELL DOES NOT AGREE WITH THE NFO THAT CAME WITH THE EMAILS. That NFO is available here: http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3806944/MediaDefender.Mail.200612.200709-MDD
A leak through gmail is not the same a “breaking a firewall” as claimed by this article. Ethan also never mentions anything about the gmail leak.
Therefore, Ethan is just as stupid as 99% of the commenters here, including yourself. He lied to this media outlet and they published his false story. This fucktard is full of shit.
God is in the details. The author of the story glanced right it.
[quote comment="265553"]@ 62
SirNull already did a good job showing the fallacies of your argument. I just want to add a point that always creeps up when dealing with your type:
How does it come that the recording industry considers itself the guardian of music as such? In discussions you people keep going on about the demise of culture, the death of music blabla. Some jerks even predict a worldwide economic meltdown, don’t they “This is your Conscious Speaking”? Why not throw in a plague or a nuclear war for good measure?
In the case of music just consider this point: Mankind made music before the advent of the grammophone. Amazing isn’t it? For some reason Bach and Beethoven and thousands of other artists created music without a contract from EMI, Warner, Sony etc.
And they earned a living. Great, isn’t it? So I got a hunch that music (or any other art) will be around even without these corporations.
Or maybe your vision of the future comes true and the US of A launch a thermonuclear attack on Sweden to rescue their starving and rioting citizens from the evil Pirate Bay…[/quote]
He also forgot to note (or perhaps failed to even educate himself of these data) that way back in the day the folk in charge of the written word (librarians, anyone?) screamed at how the printing press was going to destroy the value of books; or how about the sheet music vendors - the ‘pirates’ of _their_ day. Even funnier is how Mr. Fox (of 20th C. Fox) - one of the main bleaters about movie piracy - was originally a movie pirate _himself!_
LMFAO…
I actually have some sympathies for the US law enforcements as they are in fact doing something good for the society as a whole. It’s really just Media Defender that we have a problem with.
Hackers unite and take arms with me in OUR fight for free media and downloads. I believe if they catch me they will make me a slave for the government for my natural life. Ethan is my story name and all should believe it wasn’t just me who helped. To defend my genius press conference to Monkey Defenders. Why the fuck would a company publish something like this on the internet regarding a leak. Think about it, Bill Gates doesn’t revile that shit publicly, just Patch Fixes Etc. Use your brains people! Really even if it hurts!
EtHAn
[quote comment="263321"][quote comment="263268"]Let’s hope “Ethan” doesn’t get caught.[/quote]
[quote comment="263296"]If Ethan gets caught he will be thrown in jail, and they will throw the key away…[/quote]
Not really. He will have the support of the US piracy party.[/quote]
I hope this is sarcastic.
the us purate party arent allowed to support any actions counted as illegal in america, otherwise they lose their right to be a party.
Regarding no-more software if it becomes free, anyone heard of Ubuntu?? LOL, I think they make the point that free can do as well if not better than expensive.:-)
i feel that everyone is still posting in praise of ethan and this story just to piss me off.
viva la internets anyways.
May those Monkey Pretenders burn in hell! Thank you ‘Ethan’ for exploiting yet another bunch of thieving bastards.
What a great read ! Down with the anti-pirates
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