Comments on: MPAA endorses wiretapping American college students

By: Forex market.

Forex market. — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:16:10 +0000

Forex forum….

Forex training….

By: Jason Bhagwakar

Jason Bhagwakar — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 06:29:45 +0000

I don’t see why the movie industry doesn’t do what the big networks like ABC and NBC are doing by offering their movies to be viewed for free with limited advertisements. I’m sure thats worked really well for them, and I believe it would do the same for the movie industry. I also think with the addition of things like Redbox is helping too. I think the easier the industry makes content available and the cheaper they make it, the less piracy they’ll have to worry about. They need to realize there will always be people that are going to find ways to get it for free, but they need to work on making content easily available to others.

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:15:41 +0000

This reminds me of a great blog entry by the infamous The Pirate Bay, an infamous Swedish download site you’ve undoubtedly heard about. The full text is pasted below.

“TPB files charges against media companies

Thanks to the email-leakage from MediaDefender-Defenders we now have proof of the things we’ve been suspecting for a long time; the big record and movie labels are paying professional hackers, saboteurs and ddosers to destroy our trackers.

While browsing through the email we identified the companies that are also active in Sweden and we have tonight reported these incidents to the police. The charges are infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, hacking and spamming, all of these on a commercial level.

The companies that are being reported are the following:

* Twentieth Century Fox, Sweden AB
* Emi Music Sweden AB
* Universal Music Group Sweden AB
* Universal Pictures Nordic AB
* Paramount Home Entertainment (Sweden) AB
* Atari Nordic AB
* Activision Nordic Filial Till Activision (Uk) Ltd
* Ubisoft Sweden AB
* Sony Bmg Music Entertainment (Sweden) AB
* Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Nordic AB
“

By: Eve

Eve — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:16:21 +0000

I dont really understand this. If many universities choose to adopt this technology..thus- initiating alot of speculation by outside parties (media..etc)..wouldnt that draw alot of attention to the fact that this is pretty much pirated software? And wouldnt that attention attract certain moral/ethical question into the universities using the software? I dont know alot about this type of thing..but i would think that this would be of positive nature.

As far as the glorified “spy kit” that they are pedaling..I guess I dont really have any opinion. We would be using their network..which- by definition of ownership..would allow them to take such royalties.

By: Griffin

Griffin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 16:07:50 +0000

At a school as large as Purdue, I don’t think employing this software would be very beneficial because the resources required to “catch” someone would be pretty substantial. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to infringe on our privacy. The network is Purdue’s and they can do whatever they want with it. If they did implement this software, even though it may be illegal and hypocritical, there is really nothing to do about it. Purdue probably would never (well hopefully would never) download this type of software, but they have the right to do so. If that ticks some people off, oh well, I’m sure Purdue and other universities using this software have legitimate reasons for doing so besides getting their students into trouble. And as always, if you don’t like something, you don’t have to use it.

By: Genevieve DeSutter

Genevieve DeSutter — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:18:43 +0000

I guess I can understand both sides of the argument. University students have the right to privacy over the net, but if they are doing something illegal, they should be stopped… this is a fuzzy topic in this sense. A lot of times what it all boils down to is, are the right people taking care of the problem. In this situation, I would say that it should be solely up to the police to catch such violaters over the internet. College is not a place to baby or give its students a slap on the hand… so why start now? Such illegal matters should be left up to the people who recieve paychecks to deal with them.

Oh yea, and Aditya, I didn’t like you shirt- FYI

By: Aditya 'STFU n00b' Srinivasan

Aditya 'STFU n00b' Srinivasan — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:38:36 +0000

Wait a min…University Toolkit is a modded version of…Xubuntu?! How? Xubuntu is an OS and U. Toolkit is a program, right?! But w/e I guess!

And I like your choice of the word “goon” here! And as far as using a linux product goes, they SHOULD give the source code. And to everyone thinking that they have violated copyright laws, technically they have not violated any copyright coz the world of linux in itself is heavily copyright infringed! Didn’t get it? Its called Open-Source. At the same time they must give the source code since even thought copyrights are not applicable here, copylefts are aka GNU Public License.

On their 2 page summary they say that they do not communicate the results to MPAA and monitor student activity to that much detail, but I think what they say is BS coz hey, its MPAA!

PS Liked my shirt?!

By: Trevor Opris

Trevor Opris — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:53:44 +0000

I really don’t understand what motivation Purdue university would have to do this. All it will do is piss of Purdue’s customers (students). This is not in purdue’s best interest.

By: Nwokedi Idika

Nwokedi Idika — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:38:32 +0000

“No source code is provided on their website…” How would school officials be sure that the “University Toolkit” itself isn’t a Trojan Horse?? How could school officials be sure there isn’t some major league vulnerability in the “University Toolkit” that would expose the schools using this software to unacceptable risk?? If so, will school’s get software support??

Too many dangerous unanswered questions.

By: Trice "The Beast"

Trice "The Beast" — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:18:36 +0000

Even if universities used this program they couldn’t catch all the downloaders. As soon as the program comes out there wil be programmers all over it. I about a week there will be a anti-product on the market. This sis the same thing that iTunes thought they were doing with their mp4 protection on songs and behold there is a program to reverse it. In my opinion this would be a total waste of money for universities but its always great to know BIG BROTHER is watching!!!!!