MediaDefender Phone Call and Gnutella Tracking Database Leaked
Written by Ernesto on September 16, 2007The leak of MediaDefender’s emails caused quite some controversy, Ironically, in a recently leaked phone call, a New York attorney and MediaDefender discuss the security of their email-server. Whilst there is some initial confusion as to where the leak may have originated, they eventually write it off as some technical problem.
The leaked phone call shows that they are unsure about their network protection, their IDS etc. One of the parties is on a VOIP connection which may explain how the leak was obtained.
Similar to the e-mail leak, a group called “MediaDefender-Defenders” released the file, and in the .nfo file we read:
MediaDefender-Defenders proudly presents some more internal MediaDefender stuff… more will follow when time is ready. MediaDefender thinks they’ve shut out their internals from us. Thats what they think.
The subject of the call is rather serious. MediaDefender is apparently involved in an ongoing Child Porn investigation. Their job is to identify child-porn images and report the IPs of the offending computers back to the government. A tricky project since it would mean that they actually have to download and rate the illegal content.
This wont be the end of the leaks according to the “MediaDefender-Defenders”, they claim that more will follow when time is ready.
In addition the the phone call, a huge MySQL database dump from a MediaDefender server was leaked on BitTorrent as well. The database shows tracking and decoy file information for the Gnutella network which is used by P2P clients such as LimeWire.
All this leaked information is a huge blow for MediaDefender, and it will undoubtedly cost them a lot of time and money to clean this up. Interestingly, no evidence can be found that MediaDefender is actually involved in prosecuting or gathering evidence against filesharers (as we reported earlier). Their core business is releasing fake files and polluting the filesharing networks.
Previously: Porn Industry Gloats Over Hollow Win vs BitTorrent
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[quote comment="167122"]Well, I don’t think so. I don’t see how the phone call would “repair” any damage done. Especially since they (MD) get wobbly every time the AGs office goes into technical details (best part when MD pulls the “I can’t hear you” stunt). They don’t seem to be very competent.[/quote]
I don’t think this could possibly be damage control. You can hear MD saying, “There’s nothing to say it was us and not you.” Well, we know different now.
I do agree that it was hilarious to hear them fumble the technical questions. When the AG asked, “What kind of IDS are you guys running,” I could almost hear MD thinking, “What in the hell is IDS?”
@Flep McGlep:
I was refering to Core-TX’s assumption (which I don’t share), that this leak was damage control by MD.
It’s not because they were on a VOIP connection. The recording was clearly made at the MediaDefender end - you could always hear the MediaDefender guy while the other people got cut off…
Ahem.
As someone who actually has worked in justice, in fact doing precisely the ‘catching paedos’ thing, I’m bamboozled as to why the government is hiring clowns like this.
Any indication that these guys are up to no good, is going to poison any case that is based on what these guys say (Granted that ‘leaked’ emails/wiretaps are probably not admissable in court, even for character purposes). But this is the thing. THATS WHY WE TRAIN COPS. Not fucking private wanna be james bonds.
Somethings incredibly fucking fishy about all this. Spider sense tingling and all that.
Or maybe you guys do things differently in America. *shrug*
Question for the net detectives among you: Are these guys Licenced to operate as Private Investigators? I’m not American , so I don’t know the rules there, but over here you need a license to go stalking folks for cash.
If all they do is deploy decoy files and pollute p2p…. in what way is this “fighting” pedos?
They don’t collect evidence and aren’t involved in prosecution….so WTF?
Sound like bullshit to me…. anyway if the powers REALLY wanted to get the pedos, they could… the same way the get the filesharers… nobody cares about procecuting pedos because they aren’t “stealing” copyrighted material, it’s all just a fucking big smokescreen.
another flood
god they suck.
Some basic analysis of the MySQL-Dump regarding the fake uploads:
http://jrwr.hopto.org/mediadefender_decoy_upload_statistics.txt
serious blow indeed! thou unfortunately i doubt that they’re going to just disappear.. 700mb worth of email is hardly everything in the span of 6 mos.. esp when they’re mostly tickets anyway and something about moldy fridge lol :D
No word from MD yet?
No official statement?
“Received: from [206.190.53.136] by web63815.mail.re1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:46:53 PDT
X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/651.50 YahooMailWebService/0.7.134
Sender: jon yards
Subject: mediadefender
I am the CEO of MediaDefender. We have begun our civil and criminal investigations into the stolen emails from our company. We are meeting with the FBI on monday. Your IP address has been logged. I hope it was worth the thrill.”
Because allegedly having an IP address reveals exactly whodunit, right? I hope they intend to provide evidence of the emails, so the FBI can handcuff them on the spot.
HAHAHA! I think thats the end of media defender!
Someone has any informations about that company http://www.evidenzia.de ???
MD’s core business is what called in the business: interdictions or countermeasures (spoofs, broken files, and the like); which by US anti-trust law, trade associations such as the MPAA & RIAA cannot and do not particpate. Interdictions are considered “self-help” measures which only the actual copyrightholder can be contracted directly by oufits like MediaDefende to carryout. No rightsholder will publicaly admit in any specific detail about their relationship with the MDs of the world, which leads to mad speculation on boards such as this.
IMHO, this event will not seriously damage MDs business, because they are one of a handfull of firms that actually makes a business out of it. They will probably have to explain the egg on their face and their competitiors will likely use it as FUD to win a project here or there. Nevetheless, the train will keep on running, no matter how much you love or hate them.
As far as the pedo stuff, perhaps a new line of business to drive growth, this is capitalism afterall. But because of some of the relationships they must carry in CP world, i don’t see MP as the lead on the evidence and investigation side.
link to mdd’s irc?
When I first read about this, I was, like many of you, disappointed that a pedo investigation by NY had probably been completely derailed. However, while I do think there will be some short term harm from this leak, I also believe we’ll be much better off in the long run. Perhaps the government will learn from this. Perhaps they will try to actually hire someone who knows what they’re doing instead of a pack of bumbling idiots who have no clew what security means.
This is serious crap! The government should not be hiring some moronic group of script kitties to handle their evidence gathering.
“Hmmm… Maybe we should setup PGP and a vpn instead of sending all this stuff in the clear.”
“Nah. They got our email once, but it can’t happen again. Even though we seem to have no idea how it happened, we’re perfectly safe. We have no security holes.”
Unbelievably stupid, and rather frightening. If they’re going to send people to prison for a long time (something which should happen to all pedos, or worse) the least they could do is use a tiny grain of care to maintain data integrity and security.
The best part of that conversation was when MD tried to imply that maybe the leak wasn’t MDs fault, but maybe it happened on the AGs end. Very funny stuff.
@76, wtf dude?? who the hell is jon yards? i know you’re just going with the crowd but at least do it right and don’t make stuff up.. everyone know who the people in the company are now!
…unless someone from MD sent you that email and you actually believed it, then, HAHAHA ROFL!!!
[quote comment="167022"]They are interested in kiddy porn, for marketing reasons.
People HATE pedo’s so it’s good for their immage.
But they do not realize, that takeing existing kiddy pron offline will make it scarce, which will result in higher prices, and make people rape more children for the money.
If they would REALLY care, they would try and find the producers of the kiddy pron, instead of the people of share it for free.[/quote]
well,they are trying to find the seeders with the ip, if it ain’t all just a ruse to hate p2p people more.
but personally, if i where gonna catch pedo and CP, then i would make that and the anti peer2peer program two separate programs. then the peer2peer people could maybe even help.. we can see how good info finders they are already..
[quote comment="167120"]I think that the “leaked phone call” is fake, since they are useing it for “repairing” the damage done to the name MediaDefender. And their bizz, in general.
It’s just their respons to the leaked mails.[/quote]
that is actually not a bad idea. think about it. this could be a test to see how big the leak is… maybe releasing this one was a bad idea.. because the emails are out,and then it’s “nothing to loose”, right? or again, that can just be me. i do support pedo hunt, but not p2p hunt…
Sorry, wrong url (damned copy and paste), you can view the phonecall here with a vid I made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l53FaS5rmb8
@ K
Quality! lol …. keep ‘em coming …
Great video K, excellent work :)
you realize, better than any leaks, would be contaminating their IP db?
unless they regularly crc hash it and store them offsite, which with these guys… how likely? yeah. just go crazy. invalid ips. random corporate blocks as alloted by arin. 172.16, 192.168.. just poison the crap out of it.
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