[jtl]

Since 3 pm yesterday afternoon, 207.105.246.90 has made 56 requests each for the AvsForum, CioCode and ChannelFlags pages on my Replay site; most of those have been at 8-12 minute intervals. Needless to say, those pages aren't being modified every 8-12 minutes.


207.105.246.90 is 207-105-246-90.omm.com; omm.com is O'Melveny & Myers LLP, which happens to be the attorney for Time Warner and various bits thereof in its suit against ReplayTV.


If they hadn't been so stupidly rude, I wouldn't have noticed them. They were, and I did, so:


They first visited April 9th; on the 9th and 10th, they appear to have read pretty much everything. They came back the 16th, 25th, and 30th, mostly just looking at the main page; the 30th, they searched for 'replayserver'. They also founed the WebChanges page that day.


May 2nd, they were back, again reading more or less everything.


The pages they've been most interested in:

59 Replay.AvsForum

58 Replay.CioCode

58 Replay.ChannelFlags

46 Replay.WebHome

22 Replay.CCIR601

16 Replay.AutoSkip

16 Replay.AspectRatio

13 Replay.WebChanges

11 Replay

10 Replay.PPVEnableHack

8 Replay.WebIndex

8 Replay.PhotoGuide

8 Replay.InternetVideoSharing

8 Replay.CIF

8 Replay.CCIR

7 Replay.HttpUtilsShellHack

6 Replay.WebTopicList

6 Replay.WebStatistics

6 Replay.ChromaFormat


Their user-agent is MSProxy/2.0. Anybody know anything about it, and why it might be asking for the same three pages over and over?

 

[Babbster]

Sounds like they are using a bot/spider of some sort to gather general information about ReplayTV, probably everything they can find on the web. Unless they are more tech savvy than most non-tech firms, there will likely be some poor clerk sifting through reams of paper or pages displayed on the computer, weeding out duplicates and collating the data into something that he/she can give a paralegal. Then, that paralegal will probably have to actually read everything, sifting it for relevant material. Finally, the paralegal will hand his/her notes over to an associate assigned to the case to try and put everything into perspective.


If the above is true, then PlanetReplay can expect at least a mention - and possibly even a subpoena - at some point during the case.


-Aaron

 

[Lee Thompson]

Quote:

Originally posted by jtl Their user-agent is MSProxy/2.0. Anybody know anything about it, and why it might be asking for the same three pages over and over?

With that user agent, their MS Proxy 2.0 server has web proxying turned on which means it's probably also caching.


Not sure why you're getting so many repeated hits from it.


Maybe you should block those IPs at the firewall - sounds like a DoS (j/k)

 

[jtl]

I actually did bset up a firewall block to see if that would block the cycle, and it did -- 6 failed attempts, and the requests stopped. Opened it back up now, on the theory that they'd just come in from somewhere else if I didn't, and I'd rather be able to recognize them than not.

 

[toots]

Back when I used to run a web site devoted to collecting US paper money, I was kinda paranoid about the feds coming to visit my site. As it turned out, they had no problems with the site.


Still, I did add some PHP code to the standard page header. Anyone surfing from treas.gov would see at the top of the page "Special Treasury Department Edition."


I found this to be totally fun. Using an Apache web server, I could certainly block any specific set of IP addresses I wanted to. With URL rewriting, I could also block based on referer page and/or web searches. But, with the PHP code in the page header, I could more easily customize the site's behavior based on a near infinite number of terms. One example was that I was getting a lot of hits for people searching for something that sounded odd, so I modified the page in question to ask them to e-mail me to tell me why that particular search had suddenly become so popular.


In your case, I'd be tempted to intercept anything that looks like a troll trawl to just return pages full of nasty words.

 

[kelliot]

Is this a violation of anti-hacking laws? Nothing like corporate America complaining to the feds about piracy and then trying to hack into your site.

There must be something about illegal invasion of privacy on this stuff at some point.


As for headers, you might want to try the Security and Exchange Commision.

 

[toots]

Let's not forget: When they were talking about defining hacking as "terrorism" in the Patriot Act, the RIAA tried to slip an amendment into the act that would allow them to hack customers in order to preserve their copyrights.


Fortunately, not even Congress is that dumb, but it does tell you where their minds are at.

 

[Scyber]

Come on now guys. Be polite and say "Hi" to the lawyers:

 

[nator]

I have them looking at what we are doing. But remember, what you say here will probably end up on some judges "brief". Great.


to a judge.

what is the problem with me watching tv, when i want, how i want?

 

[nator]

oh, another thing. if any of you have a cable modem connection. legally, the cable company has full access to "any equipment attached to their equipment", more fun for worrying what corporations are doing.


wheee!

 

[Riturno]

Quote:

Originally posted by Scyber Come on now guys. Be polite and say "Hi" to the lawyers:

Hi Media Weasels!

 

[jtl]

Quote:

Originally posted by kelliot Is this a violation of anti-hacking laws? Nothing like corporate America complaining to the feds about piracy and then trying to hack into your site. There must be something about illegal invasion of privacy on this stuff at some point. As for headers, you might want to try the Security and Exchange Commision.

Just to be clear -- I've seen no sign they're trying to hack my site, they're just using more bandwidth than they need to, fetching pages over and over.


Referer(sic) fields show them coming from virtual4k.com, and http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=129555 (discussion about streaming files to the 4k).


They've used other IP addresses in the same /24 netblock -- if you're checking logs, check for 207.105.246. The same machine which is now claiming to be MSProxy/2.0 was IE6.0b/Win98 till 1:15 yesterday afternoon.

 

[KenL]

This is all just too cool. It's going to be an interesting summer!!


Not only TiVo's approach but especially their corrupt sacred cows.


There's just no stoppin the future. http://www.plauder-smilies.de/specs.gif

 

[Babbster]

This makes me wonder why they are bothering to ask a magistrate to order SB to spy on its customers. There is clearly an easier way to prove "abuse," though in the interest of not giving the side of evil any help, I won't say it out loud. I think you all know what I mean, unless of course you ARE one of the studio lawyers.


-Aaron

 

[barmar]

Quote:

Originally posted by Babbster This makes me wonder why they are bothering to ask a magistrate to order SB to spy on its customers. There is clearly an easier way to prove "abuse," though in the interest of not giving the side of evil any help, I won't say it out loud. I think you all know what I mean, unless of course you ARE one of the studio lawyers. -Aaron

I'm not sure what you mean, but I also don't think it's relevant. I don't think they're trying to "prove abuse", since the fact that sharing shows is copyright violation is obvious. They want the spying done so that they can quantify the amount of sharing, presumably so that they can claim that it's much more extensive than sharing of video tapes is (this is not the type of personal use that the Betamax case said was OK, but it's tolerated by the networks because it's low volume and not cost-effective to prosecute).

 

[kelliot]

But what gives the right to O'Melveny & Myers LLP to grab your information.when you didn't provide permission. They obviously did not serve you with a seach warrant since its not a criminal case and they infrom you that you were part of their "discovery".


Another law firm who feels they are above the law.


I'd be tempted to send them a e-mail asking to "opt out" if I were you.

 

[jtl]

well, it *is* a public website, mentioned in my signature every time I post here.


I have been toying with the idea of reminding them that they have the right to *view* it, but they don't have the right to make a *copy* of any of it...

 

[honus87]

Yeah, I'm thinking about adding a caluse to Replayer and RePhoto that they are no employees or associates of Time Warner are licensed to download, run it, or use it for any purpose.

 

[honus87]

Quote:

Originally posted by barmar I don't think they're trying to "prove abuse", since the fact that sharing shows is copyright violation is obvious.

It is far from obvious. Is it obviously a copyright violation if I buy X-Men on DVD and loan it to a friend? What about if I have a friend over to watch it? What if I take it to work and show it during a "movie night"? What if I give a copy of an episode of The Simpson to someone who attempted to copy it but missed the last 15 minutes because a football game dealyed the recording and I happened to have the foresight to extend my recording and they didn't?

 

[mmatorin]

Quote:

Originally posted by jtl Just to be clear -- I've seen no sign they're trying to hack my site, they're just using more bandwidth than they need to, fetching pages over and over. Referer(sic) fields show them coming from virtual4k.com, and http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=129555 (discussion about streaming files to the 4k). They've used other IP addresses in the same /24 netblock -- if you're checking logs, check for 207.105.246. The same machine which is now claiming to be MSProxy/2.0 was IE6.0b/Win98 till 1:15 yesterday afternoon.

Sue them for trespass! This is actually a viable legal theory, as seen in the EBay v. Bidders' Edge case and similar cases. They are entering your site repeatedly and interfering with the functioning of your site. See http://www.legallanguage.com/lawarti...larida002.html or http://pub.bna.com/lw/21200.htm , for example.