BayTSP are hunting! Know your enemy!

[begoodbebad]

here's the link to the original BBC Tech news story

Mark Ishikawa, a former hacker, is the CEO of BayTSP, arguably one of the most recognised and biggest companies working in the business of patrolling the web to unmask violators of copyrighted music.

From his Silicon Valley base he told BBC News Online: "There is no lock that can't be picked and our technology ensures that there is not a rock in the world you can hide under if you are sharing files.

"If you have an active internet address or connection and you are actively sharing files, our spiders will find you."

With the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) turning up the heat on illegal file-sharing and issuing hundreds of subpoenas, the role of these copyright cops is central in that fight.

"We are very successful at what we do," said Mr Ishikawa, who says he is not working directly for the RIAA but does have three of the top five record labels as clients.

"We find between 1.5 million to two million copyright infringements a day and we have a very high effectiveness rate. About 85% of the people we send notices to go away and we never see them again."

This is of course RIAA propoganda but it's an insight into how they are searching for filesharers. Also later in the article he mentions PeerGuardian and isn't too impressed with it...
The same firm confirms it is also working for the MPAA.

[phalkon30]

If I told you that I had a sandbox for sale in florida, would you buy it? Its the same as with all the news articles lately, even from big newspapers. They're making up stuff to scare you.

[begoodbebad]

Originally posted by phalkon30
If I told you that I had a sandbox for sale in florida, would you buy it? Its the same as with all the news articles lately, even from big newspapers. They're making up stuff to scare you.

So how much you want for the sandbox?

I thought it was interesting to hear from these people 1st hand. It's good to know a persons attitude if you have to fight. And to compare the public face with the known activity. There is some useful stuff in there too: i.e.BayTSP works for individual record co.s not directly for the RIAA. They are still sending out cease and desist letters or notices of some kind to people rather than referring them to be subpoena'd immediately. Of course we don't have to believe any unverifiable statistsics they issue because that is all PR and propaganda. Some of it is probably just bragging. but anyhow it seemed relevant and a way to put a face to a name which keeps cropping up.

p.s. not scared! share more than ever b4. over 100GB now.
also just because someone is your enemy it doesn't invalidate everything they say or do. You still have to pay attention to them and make up your own mind about stuff. They don't go away or stop bugging you by being ignored. And I think most people on ZP can read a news article without swallowing it whole or getting worried by it or believing everything in it.

[begoodbebad]

Originally posted by PiRaNeTuS
It's a shame. Article says he was formely a hacker. Doesn't say illegal hacker, but if he was, what a sellout.




Yeah right. You really think they're doing this? Methinks they are just doing major p2p programs like kazaa. I doubt they are dedicating energy to like the FTP, IRC, or newsgroups scenes. They want to start messing with big boys, and I know there are some pros in those places that could seriously f' a computer of BayTSP's up. Happy spidering.

I think they are doing some of this stuff but not all. Definitely they will be researching the big p2p networks. All this stuff with subpoenas for K users didn't happen overnight, a lot of preparation is involved. Of course they go after the one everyone has heard of and very loudly go after the little fish and really try to scare people who thought only big uploaders would be targeted. Although it is easy for us to see that this is a tactic of desperation and certain to fail (if the aim is to cripple Kazaa) we have to assume that when RIAA set out on this they believed they would succeed (or why bother?) and that they are preparing for the next battle while fighting this one. They will have to find some fresh thinking though because even if they sue or settle with a million people in USA they are still screwed. National and geographic borders and laws just don't matter in this respect so there is no point in harassing a few Americans.