“The Federation” Targets BitTorrent Pirates at the Workplace
Written by enigmax on February 03, 2008The UK’s Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) has launched the third phase of ‘Operation Tracker’, an initiative to monitor people using BitTorrent to share computer software from their homes and also from their workplaces.
FAST – The Federation Against Software Theft is a UK organization setup in 1984 with the stated aim of ‘promoting the legal use of software by enforcement, lobbying and education’
‘The Federation’, as they like to be called, are currently entering Phase 3 of ‘Operation Tracker’ which aims to trace a “large number of computer users who are breaking copyright law by sharing software on the internet.” They do this using what they call ‘undercover investigators’ – people monitoring P2P networks and gathering data. FAST targets residential addresses but much prefers to catch business connections engaged in file-sharing activities as these are easiest to get a big settlement from. Very often, FAST tries to shift the blame for the file-sharing directly to the company directors, an effective way of increasing the pressure.
Now, FAST says it is monitoring certain sites for the purposes of tracking ‘illegal software downloads’, particularly those that employ ’swarming technology’ (BitTorrent) in the 3rd phase of Operation Tracker. FAST is using a tracking tool it calls ‘The CCTV of the Internet’ but which is likely just an open source BitTorrent client, with some more advanced logging features tagged on.
Chief Executive of The Federation John Lovelock, said of the system: “The march of technology assists both the law breaker and the investigator.” Indicating a longer-term initiative rather than a blitz he continued: “Operation Tracker Three is not designed to achieve overnight results. Rather it is a long-term surveillance operation aimed at successfully tracing and bringing to book anyone found to be blatantly flouting the law.”
According to FAST, it recently carried out some research with YouGov and was very disappointed to learn that just 2% of the workforce in the UK thought that they could get caught ’stealing software’. With that in mind, this ‘new phase’ is probably more of a publicity drive for instilling fear into UK businesses who allow their staff to share files than anything else.
As mentioned before, FAST likes to concentrate its efforts on targeting businesses, and those directors that run them, very often claiming that management allow their employees to break the law and therefore must be held ultimately responsible.
“Corporate liability is something that management cannot afford to gloss over – misuse of software is something Directors cannot plead ignorance to” said Lovelock. “If employees are using the corporate network for illegal activity those in charge may be liable. Theft is theft and will be treated accordingly.”
As is customary, Lovelock goes on to confuse physical theft, with copyright infringement: “Our message hasn’t changed,” he said. “Installing software unlawfully is wrong. After all you would not let your employees steal a company car so why are corporates allowing this to continue?”
‘The Federation’ is interesting in that it has mixed non-profit and for-profit operations under the same banner, leaving some people wondering about the direction of the organization. The Federation was a share holder in the for-profit business ‘FAST Limited’ with both sharing offices, staff and a common logo, creating a huge amount of confusion, as indicated by this post, and others like them:
“We had a visit from an officer of Fast who, in a 10-minute Q&A, identified ‘16 areas of concern’ with our IT practices. Nearly all were bullshit, with some very minor exceptions. She then suggested that we should join FAST as a corporate member to complete the training, just in case (hint, hint) Trading Standards ever came around to do an audit. What this tells me is that she is obviously a salesperson, working on commission, signing up as many members as possible. This strikes me as a highly unethical way of doing business for what is essentially a regulatory body.”
Unethical? Surely not…..
Previously: Sweden Warns Kids Against The Pirate Bay
Next: IFPI Forces Danish ISP to Block The Pirate Bay
63 Responses
lol that is retarded. Fuck the UK.
“Never get involved with the Federation. It cost me an arm and a leg.”
Bunch of muppets!
Faggots… get a life, cranky old bastards!
Ditto 3 + 4
Ditto 5
“After all you would not let your employees steal a company car so why are corporates allowing this to continue?”
Stealing a company car costs the company money. Allowing employees to use p2p protocols like BT doesn’t cost a company money (unless faggots like fast demand it), so it’s fundamentally different.
However, fast (and other organisations like it) seem to be fundamentally incapable of identifying the REAL problem. Instead they just want as much money as they can get, and they don’t care who to ruin for it.
Hmm, interesting parallel between copyright-lobbyists and mafia (did anyone say MAFIAA?)
Yea right! Become our customer or you might be sued by FAST!
Good Try!
But you failed parasites!
I will not let employees stil a company car but if they still a FAST car I don’t give a crap!
They can even still their headquarter and empty their Bank acpte too if they like!
This is not my business!
Go and fetch employees!
Look if MD operated in sweden they would be in jail, seriously they would!
Personal/private information is very protected these days, especially against information gatherers like this who will sell the information (record labels/lobbyists/hackers/bot net owners/adware makers etc).
Maybe its about time it got brought to court in UK to be tested? ;)
Jesus why are UK cops so lame with their naming of stuff. FAST federation, gimme a break!!! Its like they they think they are in a movie or something!
@ andyness
Fuck you and whatever shithole you come from
[quote comment="280339"]@ andyness
Fuck you and whatever shithole you come from[/quote]
QFT
+3
This will never fly for very long.
I can not believe that they have considered this as an option to stopping torrent traffic at the workplace.
Any real source of information they collect will most likely be revealed to be as illegal as the “theft” they are trying to stop.
“The Federation” sounds like something from Star Trek to me. They’re only after organisations here, but even so… they can suck my fat, hairy balls.
“I would not steal a car, but i will download a movie!”
i agree FUCK andyness
and 13 stfu cops can name themselves w/e the fuck they like, its not based on regions
A “federation” here in the UK is no more than a trade association, for example: The Federation of Master Builders.
It’s used more as an indication that the member companies are reputable.
Ironically, not in this case…
[quote comment="280402"]A “federation” here in the UK is no more than a trade association, for example: The Federation of Master Builders.
It’s used more as an indication that the member companies are reputable.
Ironically, not in this case…[/quote]
I think the point is they like to refer to themselves as THE Federation a little too much. Like thier “Join Us” page (read: “come to the dark side”?)
http://www.fast.org.uk/joinus.asp
“We had a visit from an officer of Fast who, in a 10-minute Q&A, identified ‘16 areas of concern’ with our IT practices … She then suggested that we should join FAST as a corporate member to complete the training”
Sounds like the same tactics as Scientology!
Thats it, I am going to write a book with illistrations of I would do, I am going, I have , I had, and allsorts of dumbass phrases. So when anyone uses any of my Copywritten phrases I will sue them.
This will also include, A e i o u , along with numbers. Ichi , Ni, xson, shi, go roku. and if any company trust entity monopoly dares use then I will sue on the grounds of intelectual property claiming I loose money each time they use the above mentioned phrases since they are from my book.
Fuck the federation.
I only take my orders from ” THE SHOP “
Yeah fuck them
Bunch of chipmunks LoL
There are two kinds of people that are tied up in the current piracy community.
1) Those who earn a wage and are willing to pay a FAIR price for material that is of a high quality. The recent distribution method used for the Radiohead album show’s that there is a huge market that are willing to pay for material they believe is quality.
The problem these people currently have is there are limited legal ways in which they can gain access to the media they require, due to region issues, distribution issues, etc. ITunes showed the world that if you create a legal model which is fairly priced then you can create a legal model out of media distribution.
Releasing tv shows or movies at different times in different regions is one of the reasons people download, along with the ease of access and speed of delivery/availability.
2) Children and idiots that believe that everything that is created should be FREE, no matter the quality of the finished product. People who, even if given the option to purchase a legal license at a severely discounted rate and in the format they require, would much prefer to steal.
The Piracy standpoint has highlighted a number of issues with the media industry, mainly that of the continueing degradation of material that is continouslly being thrust down consumers throats at ridiculous prices. However, pirates or not, civilised people cannot go around shouting obscenities at people due to a difference in beliefs or understandings…. that’s something that has caused a lot of problems in the past, be it religious, political, sexual, etc. The job of the filesharing community is to educate the media industry and point them in the direction of a model which is fair for all parties, a job which has been virtually accomplished with the music industry.
If there were no copyrights, people would not be able to make a living from creating the media that individuals rely on to entertain there lives.
> “Sounds like the same tactics as Scientology!”
I thought the exact same thing!
Like this is gonna get them anywheres. Good luck, FASTFaggots. We’ll stay one step ahead of you.
Fuck FAST
http://www.moola.com:80/moopubs/b2b/exc/join.jsp?sid=4d6a59744d544d784f54633d-2
“The Federation Against Software Theft is a UK organization setup in 1984″
founded in 1984 – nuff said
I hope they’re hacked the way MediaDefender was
Are this folks from the same school of scammers from Nigeria?
@UK Resident
bloody winging Pom
[quote comment="280706"]@UK Resident
bloody winging Pom[/quote]
lol too true
We’re not going to liberate the world if we keep calling our brothers “faggots.” Find your compassionate heart and liberate yourselves from these ugly, harmful ideologies.
FACT have no technical skill what so ever! I know this first hand as I’ve spoken with there so called “experts” They have no legal power as they are a private company! Just mis-managed help from the Police. If they wanted to take file sharers to court it’ll cost FACT money, as I doubt the police would be interested. My guess is FACT are having money problems, so they need to make it look like they’re doing some good! Fact use scare tactics to pressure company Directors into paying or sacking staff. Its all about publicity with FACT! final thought “useless Wan**rs”
Whoop wrong company! :) Oh well they’re both as useless as the other :)
[quote comment="280643"]Fuck FAST[/quote]
I hate fucking FAST.
FAST are stupid, you never see anything about them, unlike FACT… hmmmm, i doubt they will ever do anything to most people as they probably were just meant to make people aware, but now some people are aware it is illegal to download copyrighted pay for applications for free, but still do it anyway… :P
so they now have to work out how to stop the people who do this, as these are usually the people who get higher up in the chain so to speak…
Anyone noticed the FAST site is down this morning? I wonder how that happened…?
And i was so looking forward to joining them! Such a shame, i guess i will have to join Pirate Bay instead!
From the FAST site:
“A 10% drop in piracy would create 40,000 new jobs and add £6 billion to UK GDP.
BSA/IDC piracy report 2004″
=-=-=-=-=
I pirate stuff that I wouldn’t purchase in the first place. Stuff that I buy, I don’t pirate.
How come they can’t understand this shit? They must be retarded or something.
When the law is clearly unjust, are you still bound by it? Copyright was original meant to protect the original creator by giving him a temporarily monopoly. He/She had invested time and money to create something new. Before copyright someone else could reap all the benefits by making money of the hard work of someone else.
This is a viewpoint that I can agree with and why I am not against fighting commercial pirates. The main problem however lies in the way that corporations, who are most often not even the original creators but only licensees, have lobbied (bribed) politicians and subverted the original idea behind copyright law.
A point in case is Mickey Mouse (TM) (C) who’s copyright was about to end. Disney lobbied the political whores in Congress with as final result ‘The Copyright Term Extension Act’ (CTEA) of 1998 , alternatively known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Sonny Bono Act, or pejoratively as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. It extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. Before the Act (under the Copyright Act of 1976), copyright would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship; the Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.
This is clearly ridiculous and surely not a temporarily monopoly. When the law is obviously unjust, made for and by the rich, should people obey it then? The corporate criminals are the ones who fit the profile of a thief and pirates because of their legalized crime of robbing society of fair use and public domain.
More accurately, it should be called “The Shakedown”.
[quote comment="280643"]Fuck FAST[/quote]
It feels better that way.
From their page:
“Corporate Piracy
Installation of software onto numerous computers, for example using the same CD-ROM.
Software installed onto a server being accessed by more than the licenced end-users.
Installation of employees own copy of software on corporate devices.
Software is not in the name of the orgainsation using it.”
A) Nice typos. Buy some bloatware spellcheck, already.
B) Oh, snap! Your product (Software “A”) is in the wild and someone brought their copy of it to work so they could get their job done w/o banging heads against a corporate wall. Terror!
[quote comment="280339"]@ andyness
Fuck you and whatever shithole you come from[/quote]
This, from the country that brought us stinky judges in fancy wigs.
And then there is the BS that organizations like FAST, RIAA, MPAA and IFPI say they do it for the benefit of the artists. The same artists who are treated like feudal serfs by the industry.
An interesting read is on the website of Janis Ian (who doesn’t remember the beautiful song ‘At Seventeen’):
“The premise of all this ballyhoo is that the industry (and its artists) are being harmed by free downloading. Nonsense.
Let’s take it from my personal experience. My site http://www.janisian.com ) gets an average of 75,000 hits a year. Not bad for someone whose last hit record was in 1975. When Napster was running full-tilt, we received about 100 hits a month from people who’d downloaded Society’s Child or At Seventeen for free, then decided they wanted more information. Of those 100 people (and these are only the ones who let us know how they’d found the site), 15 bought CDs. Not huge sales, right? No record company is interested in 180 extra sales a year. But… that translates into $2700, which is a lot of money in my book. And that doesn’t include the ones who bought the CDs in stores, or who came to my shows.”
You can read the rest of the article at: http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
fuck the federation, klingon cock is where it’s at!
klingons have starship enterprise shaped penis heads, now isn’t that ironic?
don’t ya think?
@ aussie
youre only pissed off that your grandad was fucked off out of the uk for stealing some womens knickers.
I noticed the spelling mistakes were fixed around 16:40 GMT!
AND THEN MY FIREWALL LOGGED AN ATTACK!
ZOMG!!!!!
Here’s a wonderful quote from the FAST website:
In a recent software audit of 2,500 PCs at a UK financial institution FAST discovered over 5,800 illegal digital music files.
Most of these files were illegally downloaded by people in the IT department – those normally tasked with combating the problem.
Bit of an uphill struggle then?
[quote comment="280299"]lol that is retarded. Fuck the UK.[/quote]
wtf? it’s not the uk’s fault they have a stupid copyright protection federation. it’s the the us and the riaa. they’re worse.
It’s not the company’s fault it’s employee’s are using the company internet connection to download/upload stuff off bittorrent. It’s the employee’s fault. I’m all for keeping the internet unblocked at work as much as the next guy but really targeting the company just because they know they can get some quick money out of them is a crock of shit! IT’s just like the RIAA who think that a song is worth 1.5m in a lawsuit. Fuck the Federation, Fuck the RIAA, and Fuck anyone who thinks they can try to take the internet away from the people who created it, us! It’s my damn internet, if you don’t like stay the hell of the (internet) highway!!
[quote comment="280339"]@ andyness
Fuck you and whatever shithole you come from[/quote]
They aren’t cops – did you read the article?
does this place ever see any proactive comments? why not instead of saying “Fuck the cops, dude” don’t you get off your arses and do something, i.e. Torrent Freak, at least they are spreading the message that these people are greedy and don’t give a fuck about you or me they just want the money.
Why not go out their and create a company that allows people to distribute it’s software through BT and come up with a new model of making money?
Btw, sorry to those people in the minority who are proactive and are doing something, good luck to you.
Let’s sue these bastards in American state and federal court for violating our First Amendment rights!
Fuck these bastards. It’s time for us to rise and take back our government.
read this SUPERB article by a recording industry insider:
http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html
I’m pretty certain these sneaky ******’s don’t have any legal standing, therefore if they demand money they are guilty of extortion.
Trading Standards should investigate them!!!!
Anyhow all they can do is harvest IP address’s which is a long way from identifying anyone, bit of bluff going on there possibly?
“After all you would not let your employees steal a company car so why are corporates allowing this to continue?”
They allow it because its not the same thing. This is a straw man, they should be asking:
If you had a machine that could make an exact copy of a company car would you allow employees to make a copy and take it home?
Its a totally different question.
Can’t they just use peerguardian to block them all out and continue downloading whatever they want????
lol @ England. We get everything for free here. Mugs in England, pays the most, gets the least! hahahahaha
@scotsrule
lol @ scotland, youve been ruled by us (after having your arse kicked) for 300 glorious years.
we give you lot everything free cos you aint got any jobs roflmao!
@41 Buck Fush
Good words. I have never understood, why a sentence like
“Oh, eh, oh!”
Copyright (c) miniGandalf, 2008
can bring money for 70 years after my death to my relatives (oh, nice!), but a technical invention like 3D screen can me bring money (and will be protected) only for 20 years.
Copyright law is intended to protect a special art of mental work, and not with the interest of the man kind. Is is simple not appropriate for the new technologies.
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