MediaDefender, One Year After the Email Leak
Written by Ernesto on September 15, 2008Exactly a year ago, the anti-piracy company MediaDefender was put to shame after a hacker gained access to their systems. Many of the deepest secrets of the company were published online, and now, twelve months on, the company is walking the plank to bankruptcy as its shares are worth less than one cent each.
For years, MediaDefender has been known for their notorious anti-piracy efforts, flooding torrent sites with fake files and decoys. It was therefore no surprise that the filesharing community was delighted when a hacker gained access to the company’s servers.
The hacker, a high-school student using the pseudonym Ethan still lived with his parents when he first accessed they company’s servers by exploiting a weakness in their firewall. This was at the end of 2006, at a time when business was still good for MediaDefender, with its revenue standing at nearly $16m.
Soon after that, Ethan got access to the company’s email, its networked resources and even its telephone system. Logging in a handful of times each month through the summer of 2007, he 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.
The rest is history. On September 15, 2007 the database containing thousands of emails was uploaded to several BitTorrent sites. In the release note Ethan and friends wrote: “By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contain information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services,” and “A special thanks to Jay Mairs, for circumventing their entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account.”
The emails contained a wide range of information including server passwords, social security numbers, spoofing strategies and vacation pictures. And it didn’t end there. In the days after the email leak, Ethan and friends released a private telephone conversation between MediaDefender and the New York attorney general’s office, a P2P tracking database, which was followed up a few days later by all of Media Defender’s anti-piracy tools. The effect on the company and its operations was dramatic.
In a SEC filing, the financial damage started to become clear. As a result of the hacking, by November 2007 MediaDefender had lost nearly $1,000,000, which affected the stock price of parent company ArtistDirect significantly. Before the email leak, stock was around the $2.25 mark. Three months later stock plummeted to $0.63. Now, a year after the leak the stock price has hit rock bottom, at less than $0.01 per share.
Meanwhile, BitTorrent sites witnessed a decrease in MediaDefender activity following the leak. The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde, who sued some key players in the entertainment business for using MediaDefender, told TorrentFreak that there has been a significant decrease in activity from BitTorrent spoofers and decoyers. “It’s strange that no one has given much regard to the fact that the way MediaDefender works is probably illegal in most countries. Even in the US. I might even say, especially in the US,” Sunde added.
Decrease in activity or not, this spring the company still managed to make the tech headlines by sabotaging the BitTorrent tracker of the popular Internet TV network Revision3. Revision3 lost thousands of dollar in revenue because of the DDoS attack, but decided not to take any legal action. Meanwhile, the stock price on MediaDefender’s parent company continued its freefall.
So what does the future hold for MediaDefender? Currently, they have decreased their anti-piracy efforts, and started to explore options to use filesharing networks for marketing purposes. Eric Pulier and Teymour Boutros-Ghali, two former members of ArtistDirect’s board of directors who resigned last month announced that they were interested in buying MediaDefender, but it’s not clear what path they intend to take.
Perhaps a more realistic option, is for the company to file for bankruptcy, as The Pirate Bay predicted they would, long before the emails leaked.
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56 Responses
game over MD
Now we just need to find a way to nuke the RIAA, and MPAA, and all will be good!
All this started by the actions of one person. Well done Ethan.
anyone know of a torrent that contains all the leaked files?
Every now and again, I guess some corporate prickbiter really does get what’s coming to them.
Karma’s a bitch. ^_^
@Shushunmire, why waste a nuke and think of the collateral damage!
Everyday a bunch of people waiting with baseball bats… easier, faster, no collateral damage and soooo much more satisfaction.
Start with the biggest scumbag of them all, Cary Sherman.
As for MD, so die all enemies of the hydra… MuaH-A-HAHAHAHA….. MuaH-A-HAHAHAHA…MuaH-A-HAHAHAHA
Cheers!
http://www.eZee.se
Long live p2p Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anti piracy is going down for violating the data privacy act.They just don’t know it yet
If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.
Japanese Proverb
http://www.h33t.com where filesharing is trout fishing on a sunny summer afternoon
This is very rare. For once, doing evil has hurt their profits!
@Dante Xaiver
http://thepiratebay.org/search/mediadefender/0/3/0
Heh, I feel kinda bad for them, lol.
We also should take time to think about the type of slime that is still very hard at work to bring P2P down… i.e
BAY TSP,Mediasentry, etc.
They are like Bacteria!
they adapt, colonize, reproduce through binary fusion. And come back stronger from lessons learned by their competitors and industry peers. And what they actually have their hands in as far as other corners of the internet. Even New Egg is owned by ArtistDirect! Their i.p. is in the range as listed by ARIN / RIPE. Scary to say the least if you shop there.
If there’s anything a hacker should do it’s this kind of work. Whatever your skill level is, it should be to protect the people getting punked/picked on. Why waste your valuable time on the internets and in IRL hacking sites just to screw around with the settings? Take for example the DDoS attacks on certain unnamed sites. What’s the point really? Work like this albeit a bit illegal is the kind of stuff that’s really worth anything. Sure you can go into the underground and make money and what not being on the FBI’s most wanted list, but in the end it’s not worth it. Take Mitnick for example. He’s using his skills to make money legit. Helping the bullied ones. Making sure sites are secure and helping the people who deserve to be helped. This message is intended not only for U.S hackers, but hackers world wide. China Russia you name it. Fuck being poor. Use your skills to bring down criminals. Now how cool is that? Yes I’m stoned. But either way I would still write something this long sober as well.
As this share price is so low would it not make sense for someone like those concerned with Pirate Bay to buy it and use to their own devices?
lol @ 16
thats a great idea would be rather interesting to see what would happen from it
just imagine what the riaa would think of TPB doing what any public Jo can do and buy majority shares
Maybe we should take a collection and purchase MD… I’ll pitch in a $0.01.
@16: Now THAT would be funny.
Buy it, then use the company’s own records to sue the $#!7 out of the original owners.
“Thou Shall Not unTorrent”
[Updated Vocabs]
Media Defender should Change sides or at least let those like @6 http://www.ezee.se/ give you fellas a head to toe pampering/massage utilizing the latest and the best wood/alloy/carbon fiber baseball bats. Or you can choose if you want to jump off a building and die.
However the road may lead you.Can You Please Hit The Breaks already. Damn it.
Media Deaf.
Just Nuke the RIAA. Logical solution.
@14 (Asmodeus)
Newegg.com has absolutely nothing to do with ArtistDirect. “newegg.com” and “artistdirect.com” both resolve to IPs in the 216.52.0.0 – 216.52.255.255 range – a very large range containing over 65,000 addresses and belonging to Internap Network Services Corporation. Internap is an ISP: http://www.internap.com/ The two websites use the same ISP, that’s it.
Using the same ISP as someone else does not mean you’re associated with them. Duh.
MediaDefender rocks. It’s good that they try to trap warez criminals that illegally downlaod criminal material.
Gotta appreciate the irony here.
MediaDefender goes into business expecting to take on the criminal underworld; but instead of hardened career criminals, what they actually encounter is a lot of customers. But eventually they do run into one individual that could arguably be considered a member of the underworld (in action, if not affiliation), and out of business they go.
Better luck next time, guys. You won’t be missed.
MediaDefender sucks. It’s good that they screw themselves over trying to trap warez downloaders that have not illegally downlaod good material.
Thats hacker is a LEGEND!!!! Thanks for taking such a useless company down!!!!
Well thats MD done, who’s next?????
Maybe hackers should use their skills to get into MPAA & RIAA, would like to see what’s in their emails…
Leaked e-mails probably increased downloading and reduced fear, because it didn’t seem like the anti-piracy universe knew or cared about any albums released in the previous century (the 20th century) – everything they watched or cared about seemed to be new releases.
RIP RICHARD WRIGHT!
I read in the paper today, that (sir) Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who had the first HTML webpage in existence, says the web should be controlled because the internet causes people to believe conspiracy theories, like toxic vaccines and the CERN/LHC panic.
What a load of trash.
Is that Boutros-Ghali a relative of Boutros Boutros-Ghali from the UN?
You don’t say….
Teymour Boutros-Ghali is nephew of former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
n i g g 3 r
MD PWND LoL
Wow respect for that hacker! Keep it up dude!
http://www.nowtors.com
22
What MD did is Criminal Copyright is purely Civil
P2P users were not the only ones glad to see the leak of MediaDefenders email. The RIAA and MPAA were probably even more thankful – those emails providing proof that the millions of dollars the entertainment industry was paying MediaDefender to “protect” copyrighted content was a huge waste of money.
The copyright cartel were no doubt outraged to see the MediaDefender bosses privately admit that they were complete failures against moderated torrent sites like Pirate Bay and Mininova, which took down their fake torrents as fast as replacements could be put up. Perhaps the most damaging revelations were their discussions about how they should cover up their failures and “spin” their customers.
The crash of MediaDefender demonstrates why companies which lie to their paying customers *almost* never admit their deception in writing. MediaDefender cheated their customers, they were exposed, and then their business collapsed when most of their clients walked out – presumably as a result of reading those damning emails.
“I read in the paper today, that (sir) Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who had the first HTML webpage in existence, says the web should be controlled because the internet causes people to believe conspiracy theories, like toxic vaccines and the CERN/LHC panic.”
Um… A closed internet is part of some conspiracy theories. The best way to stop conspiracy theories is not to make them come true.
So why arent the hackers attacking those idiots at the RIAA and the MPAA? Seems like a good plan to me.
Jif
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
much respect ethan
Seriously MD, what were you thinking? Did you think you could attack so many people and get away with it? If you survive this, we’ll get you in the end.
god’s punishment
@ 22 & 31:
GTF out of TF and go troll somewhere else, /b/tards.
That cracker is legend. Down with MD.
An official suck my bittorrenty cock is order.
Yay, excellent news.
ETHAN, the P2P world needs your superpowers once more. Logistep need a good bitch slappin’ for their ‘work’ in the UK.
PWNED!!!
ROFLMAO
So why doesn’t Trent Reznor just buy the company and make it into something pirateous
I would like to know that Ethan is okay after this, and see if we could organize a donation box for him.
I’m pretty sure there’s a fair number of folks around here that’d be willing to chip in 5 or 10 in a token of thanks.
~~
Hacking is a crime like shooting someone is a crime. If it’s a Bin Laden or Bush, it’s not.
didn’t “media defender” start to use the name “safenet” or something … Or is that a different one?
“”And it didn’t end there. In the days after the email leak, Ethan and friends released a private telephone conversation between MediaDefender and the New York attorney general’s office..”
Your article neglects to mention that releasing this phone conversation saved potentially thousands of child pornographers and pedophiles from incarceration.
Outstanding work. If only we could do more.
I salute that hacker.
We can only wonder how Ethan feels today, knowing that he’s worshipped around the world as a hero for single-handedly taking down an evil multi-million dollar corporation.
Media Defender’s existing clones need to like seriously cover their asses as they can and will be pooch ****ed if they are not very very careful. I’m sure crackers have eyes on the **AA’s as well…
RIAA had it’s website redesigned not too long ago by unauthorized fingers.
Yeees..yes…your tears are so salty MD, let me lick your tears.
I still say that Randy Saaf and Octavio Herrara need to get their pwned ass out to the street corner. My windshield awaits the caress of their squeegees. Thanks for playing, Randy. We have some lovely parting gifts for you and Octavio, including the home version of the game and a hearty one-finger salute.
Hey, Dan Glickman! Come on down! You’re the next scumbag on the list and we’re coming for you. :P
ALL HAIL ETHAN!
ALL HAIL ETHAN!
MediaDefender is useless. Desperate illegal tactics, horrible security, and schemes to cover up their wrongdoings just makes me sick. Now GTFO.
They wont be missed… by anyone.
Imagine what was going throught the CEO's head when they first got hacked.
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