[FC-discuss] MPAA "tool"kit

[Christopher Budnick]

Matthew Garrett (an Ubuntu developer) [1] is one of them and after
trying to contact the MPAA he sent a DMCA notice to the ISP and they
took down the software. [2]

[1] http://mjg59.livejournal.com/78590.html
[2] http://universitytoolkit.org/

christopher

On Nov 25, 2007 6:41 PM, Kevin Driscoll <driscollkevin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone know linux geeks working on this stuff? Who are they?
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
> On Nov 25, 2007 5:40 PM, Fred Benenson <fred.benenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://universitytoolkit.org/ -- like most MPAA efforts, the site looks like
> > a page out of a 94 edition of HTML for dummies... but I digress.
> >
> > It's a customized version of Xubuntu with some network tools and a server
> > that will report user bandwidth (as well as data requested) -- there's a lot
> > to talk about here, but the Washington Post has a comphrensive article up
> > here:
> >
> > http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/11/mpaa_university_toolkit_opens_1.html?nav=rss_blog
> >
> >
> >
> > The Motion Picture of Association of America is urging some of the nation's
> > largest universities to deploy custom software designed to pinpoint students
> > who may be using the schools' networks to illegally download pirated movies.
> > A closer look at the MPAA's software, however, raises some serious privacy
> > and security concerns for both the entertainment industry and the schools
> > that choose to deploy the technology.
> >
> > On Oct. 24, MPAA sent a letter to the presidents of 25 universities that the
> > association has identified as top locations for the downloading of pirated
> > movies over online file-sharing networks. In the letter, the group said it
> > "has developed the University Toolkit, an application which can produce a
> > report that is strictly internal and therefore confidential to illustrate
> > the level of file sharing on [your school's] network. In addition, we will
> > send a hard copy in the near future to your university's Chief Information
> > Officer."
> >
> > Security Fix downloaded the University Toolkit and studied it, with the help
> > of David Taylor , a senior information security specialist with the
> > University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. (Taylor's school was not among
> > those that received the letter.)
> >
> > What we found was that depending on how a university's network is set up,
> > installing and using the MPAA tool in its default configuration could expose
> > to the entire Internet all of the traffic flowing across the school's
> > network.
> >  ...
> >
> > Someone's pointed out that the kernel includes a non-free Nvidia driver,
> > which may or may not be a license violation.
> >
> > F
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Discuss at freeculture.org
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> >
> >
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