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Load Gearing Up for Massive 8GB Multinational Data Dump

Drew Wilson — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:27:09 +0000

The hacking community has taken notice to another hacker who claims to have internal documents on several governments from around the world including the US, Russia and several European countries. To prove it, the hacker released a small set of "preview" leaks which appear to be internal documents of embassies and government minister offices.

If this particular hacker delivers in full, the data dump might send shock waves around the world. In a posting to PasteBin, Load claims to have obtained a total of 8GB of internal government and industry documents that span numerous countries around the world. The release is said to be exposing corruption. Here's the statement:

Heynow, This is a prerelease of a series we are going to make to reveal the biggest in history of European LE cyber operation Evidence exploitation and abuse. Thing's gonna get published and twittered all over anonymous and lulzsec community. Today we were granted with the Italian law enforcement Pandora box, we really think it shall be a new era of “regreaissance” to the almighty Homeland Security Cyber Operation Unit in EU. So we decided to leak everything they got since they were established as a full scale cyber taskforce named CNAIPIC. This corrupted organization gathered all the evidence from the seized property of suspected computer professional entertainers and utilized it over many years to conduct illegal operations with foreign intelligence agencies and oligarchy to facilitate their lust for power and money, they never used obtained evidence to really support ongoing investigations. Today we reveal a whole Load of stuff (estimated leak would be over 8Gb) from such owned institutions, just to make it clear all of this stuff was stored on CNAIPIC evidence servers for years while people are doing time in jail waiting for the trial while CNAIPIC used the evidence in the global spy game galore

Load provided a sample list of institutions affected by this data dump and, to say the least, there are big names included - from government to business entities:

Egypt: Ministry of Transport and Communication Australia: Ministry of Defence Russia: Atomstroyexport, Diaskan, Sibneft, Gazprom etc. Ukraine: several embassies and consulates on it’s territory Nepal: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Belarus: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belneftehim, Belspetzexport Gibraltar, Cyprus, Cayman Islands etc: Tecno Develp, Line Holdings, Dugsberry Inc, Alpha Prime, Alpha Minerals etc. Vietnam: PetroVietnam (PTSC), Ministry of Natural Resources (MONRE) USA: EXXON MOBIL, US Department of agriculture and hundreds of attorneys and DOJ accounts including: McCallion & Associates LLP, Goodkind, Labaton, Rudoff & Sucharow, LLP, and hundreds of bullshit agencies we don’t even know why we pay taxes to support all of them.

We've had a chance to go through the files. One file is a file structure that doesn't even look anywhere close to being complete. Just looking at the extensions alone, one can easily get a sense that these files are all over the map. There's power point slides, PDF files, gif images, .doc files - really, you name it, it's probably there. Also included in this was two preview leaks. The first preview appears to be predominantly two languages: Italian and Russian - though some documents are in French and English among others. Some of the files were pictures of scanned documents. There was a set of a screenshot of some people's e-mail inbox (some in English, others, not). One PDF appears to be an oil drilling agreement document (in English) with ExxonMobil regarding a "Master Marine Survey Agreement Order #2288701". In fact, there were a few documents surrounding oil drilling plans that seem almost freakishly detailed. Another PDF appears to be a flow chart regarding some alleged illegal activities (money laundering) with "Medici Enterprise's" (also in English). One PDF appears to be from the Australian Government Department of Defence - a letter to the "Bureau de la defense". The letter appears to be in French. That first file is about 27MB big. The second "preview" leak appears to be much larger - weighing in at around 60MB in size. A large majority of these files appear to be little more than scans of passports of different people from different countries. There were a number of files in Russian, but two files were in English. One dealt with gas company PetroVietnam. The other dealt with what appears to be something with India and Kabul. It mentions someone by the name of Shri Gurpreet Singh. There's not a whole lot more I can really read in to these documents. It would require a different set of knowledge to drill down deeper in to the significance of these documents. Some of this might involve someone who is more familiar with environmental sciences, geology and math to understand one document in particular. I can say that what is leaked certainly looks impressive given the different types of content that seems to be present in this "preview" release. Exactly how significant, I can't personally say. It's unclear when the full release will happen or what the implications might be, but given the number of countries involved inside these documents, it looks like this could be a big international story for whenever or even if the data dump actually occurs. [Hat tip: anonymouSabu] Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

AFACT Accused of Extorting ISPs to Import Three Strikes Law to Australia

Drew Wilson — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 20:40:28 +0000

Some interesting things coming out of Australia this week. It seems that AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) is attempting to pressure ISPs into implementing a three strikes law for Australian internet users. That has the Australian Pirate Party crying foul.

We turn things to Australia where tension between international corporate entities and Australian ISPs are growing. Things are not going well for AFACT in the courts and that has left AFACT seeking other options to get ISPs to agree to a three strikes deal. According to Delimiter, AFACT sent letters to ISPs demanding that they meet their "obligations". From that report:

One local ISP to receive the letter was Exetel, which in comparison with other ISPs, already has a number of provisions in its agreement with its customers that are favourable to content owners. For example, the ISP has committed to forwarding any copyright infringement notices received to customers. If three or more such notices are received, or if Exetel “reasonably suspects” that a customer is infringing copyright, and the customer fails to provide a valid defence for their activity, Exetel reserves the right to disconnect customers’ connections.

So, clearly, AFACT is pressuring ISPs to get them to agree to disconnecting users based on mere accusations of copyright infringement. Judging by this paragraph, it's very likely the three strikes law we have seen in France and seeing in New Zealand to name just two examples. In a more recent recent article on Delimiter, it seems that the Pirate Party of Australia has decried what they consider "extortion". The comments of the Pirate Party of Australia can also be found on their homepage as well. "These veiled threats are nothing more than intimidation tactics that once again clearly display the extent that Big Media will go to in their failing attempts to protect their flawed business models. Extortion is a new low even for AFACT." said Acting Secretary, Brendan Molloy. "It is completely inappropriate to have closed-room discussions even before the iiNet court case has concluded, and even more inappropriate to make veiled threats to begin yet another court case for not attending these 'voluntary talks'." There's two possibilities as to why this is happening now. The first possibility is that the court case is not going well at all for AFACT. Sweating over the outcome, AFACT may be trying to use new tactics to make sure they don't get a judgement they don't want. If both sides agree to AFACTs demands, there probably wouldn't be much of a reason to continue on with court proceedings. The other possibility is that AFACT got some inspiration from the US's new agreed upon '6 strike' regime which we did discuss at length before. It's entirely possible that AFACT has taken some insight in to the backroom deal going on between ISPs and the copyright industry in the US and imported them to Australia, hoping that they will get a similar outcome. Regardless of how we got to this point in Australia, there doesn't seem to be any effort to address existing problems seen everywhere else. A three strikes regime still violates international obligations to free speech, it is still a fundamentally flawed method of identifying the correct person and it is still a bad idea both politically and on the public relations front. Ironically, I see this certainly helping the Pirate Party even if this isn't something being codified in to law because a number of people will see how corporate interests are circumventing government to effectively put laws in place that stifles their freedom. So, this can all very well be made in to a political issue anyway whether or not politicians want to touch this with a ten foot barge pole. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

F1Esc Dumping Australian 2011 Election Data to ThePirateBay

Drew Wilson — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 16:48:27 +0000

It would appear that ThePirateBay is one of the most popular data dumping grounds for scores of hacked data. One of the latest data dump appears to be an ongoing release where data from the Australian 2011 elections are being posted. As of this writing, 5 data dumps have been posted so far.

The AntiSec movement isn't really tied to any one country or any one or any group of hackers. In a tweet early last month, F1Esc tweeted that he had obtained 76GB of data from the Australian 2011 elections. It wasn't until more recently that the data was being posted on to BitTorrent site ThePirateBay. The release is being posted in batches. Part 1 is 180MB, part 2 is 513MB, part 3 is 1.69GB, part 4 is is 37MB and the most recently released part, part 5, is 276MB. It is unclear what exactly is contained in these data dumps, but it was apparently done under the AntiSec banner. No doubt more releases are forthcoming given the alleged amount of data that was mined. The alleged hack comes in the wake of a string of attacks on other government institutions. Already, internal Democrat data from Orange County was posted along with Abhaxas dumping parts of the Florida voting database. Other hacks include three dumps on the Arizona police force (1, 2 and 3). Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Latest Anti-Sec Dump Targets Anguilla, Brazil, Zimbabwe and Australian Government Servers

Drew Wilson — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:47:02 +0000

LulzSec might be gone as an entity, but their effect, and leaks, are living on. This time, their latest leak is targeting several government servers. Anonymous clearly is picking up where LulzSec left off.

Previously, the major AntiSec dump consisted of content from the Arizona police force. This time, the Anti-Sec dump consists of sensitive content from the servers of a number of governments. The news comes after LulzSec officially called it quits as an entity - their membership has reportedly been absorbed back in to Anonymous. The content of several servers have been uploaded to MediaFire. The first batch is content from the government servers of Anguilla. The second batch appears to be passwords from the Brazilian government servers. The third batch is the userbase of Zimbabwe. The fourth batch is vaguely content from Australia. Anonymous is currently working on exposing content from the US as well, but such content has not made an appearance as of this writing. In a subsequent Tweet, Anonymous commented, "Currently uploading about everything about Zimbabwe Government on Internet there is to know. Who actually likes Robert Mugabe?" We'll keep you posted on any further developments. Anonymous hasn't issued a statement about the nature of these leaks as of this writing. Update:Anonymous has now posted the entire Zimbabwe government. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Anonymous and LulzSec’s Existence Scares ISP into Halting Web Censorship

Drew Wilson — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 08:23:50 +0000

LulzSec has certainly had an effect on many around the world. Love them or hate them, it's next to impossible to deny that they have caught the attention of many. That includes Australian ISP Telstra. According to reports surfacing, they planned on rolling out their web censorship plan, but are now hesitant on implementing their web censorship plan fearing reprisals from hacking groups such as LulzSec.

Australia's web censorship plans have been around for years now. In 2008, the plan to censor the internet caused many to hit the streets to protest it. Opponents suggested that the web censorship laws were "stricter than Iran" while proponents went so far as to say that 4Chan was reason enough to censor the internet. At one point, it was revealed that even P2P traffic would be included into the net filters. Regardless, the plan to implement the Australian web filters were were going to begin. For those hoping to stop web censorship at the ISP level, they may have gotten an inadvertant ally - LulzSec and Anonymous. The report came from The Australian which has this intriguing bit of information:

It is understood Telstra was last night still grappling with the decision as to whether to commit to the voluntary filter because of fears of reprisals from the internet vigilantes behind a spate of recent cyber attacks. It is understood the unstructured collective of hackers that identifies itself as Lulz Security, which has an agenda to wreak havoc on corporate and government cyber assets, claiming this is to expose security flaws, is one of Telstra main concerns. LulzSec has claimed responsibility for attacks on the US Central Intelligence Agency, the US PBS and most recently it released a swath of Arizona law-enforcement documents.

The other main concern is a group that identifies itself as Anonymous, another unstructured hacker collective that claims to be opposed to any form of internet censorship, and has carried out attacks on Australian government websites because of Canberra's support for an internet filter

Patrick Gray, host of information security podcast Risky Business said the carriers' fears were well-founded.

The fears might be well-founded considering, just two days ago, LulzSec and Anonymous together were able to break in to and post sensitive documents about the Arizona police force in retaliation of "SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona." What will be interesting to see is how many other controversial things might be stalled as a result of this activity taking place. [Hat Tip] Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Aussie ISPs Plan to Begin Voluntarily Filtering the Web

Jared Moya — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:50:15 +0000

Starting next month, Telstra, Optus, and Primus will block customer access to more than 500 websites; critics complain of a lack of transparency and inability for sites to appeal placement on the secret list.

Aussie ISPs Telstra, Optus, and Primus are reportedly planning to voluntarily implement a web filtering regime beginning sometime next month. The plan, which reportedly involves more than 500 sites, would primarily target ones containing child pornography as identified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and unnamed "reputable international organizations." "The ACMA will compile and manage a list of URLs of child abuse content that will include the appropriate subsection of the ACMA blacklist as well as child abuse URLs that are provided by reputable international organizations (to be blocked)," said a spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. Senator Conroy has long been pushing for a "voluntary mandatory" web filtering regime, but the plan has been delayed for at least a year now as the govt's been unable to deliver a series of transparency and accountability measures it's promised will accompany the introduction of ISP filtering of Refused Classification content such as child pornography. Refused Classification also includes bestiality, extreme violence including rape, detailed instruction in crime or drug use, and incitement of a terrorist act, though it's not clear if sites containing these types of content will initially be included on the list of sites to block. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has pointed out a number of problems with the scheme. "The problem with such a plan is multi-layered: First, there is no transparency in the selection of URLs to be blacklisted, and no accountability from the regulatory bodies creating the blacklists," it said. "The 'reputable international organizations' providing child abuse URLs have not been named, but may include the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK-based organization that in 2008 advised UK ISPs to block a Wikipedia page containing an album cover from the 1970s that they deemed might be illegal." The AMCA has also had problems with its blacklist, at one point listing the site of a dentist who had nothing to do with child pornography. The EFF added that scheme does little to halt child pornography as perpetrators largely use P2P and encrypted VPN connections, and not publicly accessible websites. More importantly, the scheme lacks a mechanism for sites to appeal their placement on the list, and sets a precedent that filtering is acceptable. "If the ACMA were to make the decision that sites deemed "indecent" or politically controversial--for example--should be off-limits, would the ISPs comply?" it asked. If there were a silver lining in it all, it's that Telstra is not yet fully commiutted to the deal out of concern that hacktivist groups like Anonymous and LulzSec would target it for retaliation. Stay tuned, jared@zeropaid.com

Media Gives LulzSec Credit for Another Hack They Never Carried Out

Drew Wilson — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 06:54:47 +0000

If there is anything that is surprising about the LulzSec story, outside of their success, is the poor quality of journalism when it comes to covering the hacking. After improperly giving LulzSec credit for breaking in to and compromising UK census data, now they are giving LulzSec credit for bringing down Australian domain registrar Distribute.it.

Earlier today, we covered how several major news outlets incorrectly reported that the leader of LulzSec was arrested. Other media organizations not only incorrectly identified the person that was arrested in the UK, but also incorrectly attributed LulzSec for breaking in to the UK governments websites. Just hours after we finished debunking that news story, some media outlets are now reporting that LulzSec hacked domain registrar Distribute.it. Like the other story we debunked, this story is also false. The report comes from the International Business Times. It reports the following:

A report by the Register said that hacker group LulzSec took down the Distribute.IT. LulzSec over the past month has hacked Sony Corp., the U.S. Senate, an FBI affiliate, the Public Broadcasting System, gaming sites, and online porn sites.

The problem with that? LulzSec never hacked Distribute.it. If they didn't, who did? We were aware of the Distibute.it hack earlier and know that someone else actually hacked the site. We were able to dig up one of the earlier reports of the Distribute.it hack from the Sydney Morning Herald which tells us the following:

When the hacker initially broke in, it defaced Distribute.IT's website with the message "OWNED BY EVIL AT EFNET YOU MOTHER f****ers". Evil is the same hacker who recently broke into the University of Sydney's website. In that instance Evil admitted to hacking into the university from Brazil for money.

On top of that, a quick scan of the LulzSec Twitter Feed doesn't show any mention of Distribute.IT. So, with someone else claiming credit (namely, a hacker by the name of EVIL) and LulzSec seemingly not claiming credit for the hack, I think the report that they hacked Distribute.IT is also thoroughly debunked. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

New Aussie Budget Cuts Kill Voluntary Net Filtering Plan

Jared Moya — Thu, 12 May 2011 03:20:12 +0000

The 2011-2012 Australian federal budget ends grants for the Voluntary Internet Filtering Grants Program to save $9.6 million over three years. Labor Party still plans to move forward with mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering.

The Australian govt has decided to scrap its Voluntary Internet Filtering Grants Program in the 2011 federal budget. "The Government will not proceed with the Voluntary Internet Filtering Grants Program," reads the budget. "This will provide savings of $9.6 million over three years." The plan was intended to help give ISPs give consumers an additional filtering option for content that wasn't Refused Classification (RC), but that they still objected to. The govt said, however that there was "limited interest" among ISPs in the grants, and that consumers had a number of filtering options at their disposal. "The Government provided $9.8 million in the 2010‑11 Budget to establish the Voluntary Internet Filtering Grants Program to assist internet service providers (ISPs) to offer customers internet filtering options on a commercial basis," continues the budget text. "However, consultation with industry has identified limited interest in the grants due to the increasing range of filtering technologies readily available to online users, including browser and search engine filters, and the decision of the three largest ISPs, which account for over 70 per cent of Australian internet users, to voluntarily filter child abuse sites using a list compiled and maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority." The problem for Aussies (pronounced "Auzzies" by the way), is that the govt still plans to push forward with an involuntary, i.e. mandatory, filtering scheme that's been in the works since 2007. Stay tuned. news tip? jared@zeropaid.com

PSN Outage: Day 9 – Sony Threatened With Fines As World Gov’t Involvement Increases

Drew Wilson — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 14:52:07 +0000

Sony, Visa and a few others have been trying to reassure PSN (PlayStation Network) that users credit card information is still safe in spite of unverified reports that money is already being stolen from customers. As we enter day 9, we are learning that not only are more governments getting involved, some are even taking the extra step of threatening the embattled company with fines over the data breach.

This outage has become quite a saga for Sony. It started with a temporary outage that grew in to a massive data loss and now, it's become an international incident. With a story so large, it is becoming difficult to keep track of every development that's going on in this story. Yesterday, both the UK and US government became involved in the data breach. Meanwhile, on the same day, a supreme court ruling that suggests that it is entirely possible for companies to shield themselves from class action lawsuits. Whether or not that could hamper the current class action lawsuit has been a subject of debate. Geohot, a hacker who discovered the PS3 root keys, weighed in on this himself saying that Sony should have hired more security experts instead of lawyers. So, what's the latest developments on the most talked about story here on ZeroPaid? We begin with news from a Chinese outlet, China Post which is reporting that Taipei City has send a letter to Sony demanding answers to this fiasco. The letter says that Sony must fix the problem within ten days or face fines between NT$30,000 and NT$300,000. From the China Post:

Taipei City Government Law and Regulation Commission Chairman Yeh Ching-Yuan said Sony's leak severely compromises PSN subscriber identity which should be considered a clear breach of consumer property rights. According to the Consumer Protection Law, business operators are responsible for “facilitating the safety of the consumer life of nationals, and improving the quality of the consumer life of nationals.” Yeh said Sony Corp. must provide the number of subscribers in the Taiwan area and explain why, although the cyber attack occurred between April 17 and 19, that it did not turn off the hacked services until April 20 and did not offer an official explanation until April 26. Furthermore, Sony Corp. must detail the risks and possible impact inherent in the leaked user information and offer methods of repair as well as compensation.

That government in China isn't the only government now getting involved. Canada's privacy commissioner is also investigating the incident. There's only so much the Privacy Commissioner of Canada can do (fining a company is not something the commissioner can do). While the commissioner isn't happy that Sony did not notify them of the breach, Sony isn't technically required to do so. From Edmonton Journal:

"We are currently looking into this matter and are seeking information from Sony," Valerie Lawton said in an email. "We will determine next steps once we have a full understanding of the incident."

"It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address, and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained," Sony told users on its blog Tuesday.

Australia's privacy commissioner is also getting involved. The concern for Australia's privacy commissioner was whether or not Sony notified customers of the data breach fast enough. From Smart Company:

"I am very concerned by news reports that hackers have stolen data from users of the Sony PlayStation Network," privacy commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said in a statement. "Our office is contacting Sony seeking further information about this matter and we will be opening our own investigation." While the PlayStation Network – which services over 70 million customers and over 700,000 in Australia – was brought down last week, it was only in the past few days that Sony confirmed a breach of the network had occurred.

Meanwhile, US government involvement has increased as the Department of Homeland Security is now being called in to help investigate the data breach. From Gama Sutra:

"The Department of Homeland Security is aware of the recent cyber intrusion to Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity music service," DHS spokesman Chris Ortman told government technology site NextGov. "DHS' U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team [CERT] is working with law enforcement, international partners and Sony to assess the situation."

So, overall, there are 5 countries involved now, the US, UK, Canada, Australia and a city government in China. If anything else, this further shows just how big this data breach really is. Sony has been in damage control mode yesterday saying that users data is safe because they did encrypt the information after all. This was amidst a handful of unconfirmed reports that users money was already disappearing from their accounts. While Sony and even Visa might be saying that they have no evidence to suggest that users credit card information hasn't been stolen, more reports are surfacing that users credit cards have been stolen. One man in Australia reported to ABC that a total of $2,000 AU in unauthorized charges had been made on his credit card. From ABC:

Sony has shut down the network while it tries to figure out how hackers were able to steal the details of so many customers. Adelaide man Rory Spreckley checked his banking details on Wednesday and got a shock. "I logged into my bank account just to check everything was OK and I found out there was some just over $2,000 in charges which I didn't personally accrue," he said.

The scary thing is, he isn't alone in these reports. Another report surfaced on Twitter saying that $1,500 was charged to another persons credit card. While it's unconfirmed that that incident was directly related to the Sony data breach, it certainly has the Twitter user on edge. In fact, one unconfirmed report suggests that these stolen credit cards are being sold in underground market places in bulk. One user is apparently saying that they obtained 2.2 million cards from the breach. From The Guardian:

Kevin Stevens, a security analyst with Trend Micro, said in a tweet that "the hackers that hacked PSN are selling off the DB [database]. They reportedly have 2.2m credit cards with CVVs" - the latter being the three-figure number required for "card not present" transactions. But Stevens added that he couldn't be sure the claim was true. The hackers were also claiming to have offered to sell the database back to Sony, but that the company declined it. Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold said that as far as he knew there was no truth in that claim. Speculation is growing that the hackers who carried out the attack could be European, based on the names being used in forums, though no further details have emerged so far. One reader of Venturebeat said he had been contacted by Sony and told that his card might have been compromised, and discovered two new charges totalling $400 he hadn't made.

Meanwhile, one report is saying that Sony is not going to be resetting users accounts. Gamepur quoted James Gallagher, SCEE Blog Manager as saying, "We’re not resetting accounts or anything like that, so when PSN is restored and you log on, everything will be as you left it." So, overall, it sounds like Sony is trying to project the image that no credit card information was stolen. As increasingly credible reports surface that users credit cards have, in fact, been stolen, that might become an increasingly difficult sell to the public. Do you think that credit cards have been stolen at this point or do you think that reports of stolen money not true? Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

School Porn Filter Defeated by Third Grade Students

Drew Wilson — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:03:58 +0000

Net filtering has been brought up a lot in recent months. But how effective are different kinds of filtering technology? As one school found out the hard way, such technology can be surprisingly easy to defeat.

If you've been following some of the copyright debate, you might have come across a few articles discussing the idea of filtering technology to stop copyright infringement. Recently, there was a an opinion by Advocate General Cruz Villalón in Europe who said that ISPs shouldn't be forced by national courts to filter the internet. In the US, there is a similar debate with the more recent news commenting on how the US is decrying other countries over net filters while trying to implement their own - namely the Combating Online Infringement & Counterfeits Act (COICA). Multi-national corporations such as top members of the RIAA and MPAA might argue that content filtering at, say, the ISP level, might be an option to supposedly stop copyright infringement. COICA is a bill which demands ISPs implement a blacklist filter which, among other things, sets out to block domain names at the request of rights holders. A lot of arguments have flown over the years over such technology be it an infringement on civil rights, false positives, protecting jobs, etc. One point that sometimes crops up is whether or not such technology is even effective at all. Most who are familiar with technology, outside of people selling such technology, would likely say that filtering technology is not all that effective at deterring whatever said filters set out to block all of the time. That's certainly what made a recent news story surrounding a school and its porn filter all the more interesting. A school porn filter differs from a nation-wide porn filter in several ways. From a security standpoint, it's a smaller audience on a smaller network which, conventional wisdom would suggest, would be easier to manage. How did the filter fare? Not so well evidently. According to the New York Daily News a group of third grade students from a Queens elementary school were caught and suspended for looking up elicit material on school computers. The students were suspended, City technicians were then called in. They wiped the computers and installed filtering technology on the computers. When the students returned, the filter was easily bi-passed when they Googled "Hot girls". What ensued wasn't all that surprising:

"The concern here is that a Department of Education filter shouldn't fail the [test of] 'Are you smarter than a third-grader?'" said City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria), who is looking into the matter. "As a parent, I hope that something like this never happens again," he added. PS 85 Principal Ann Gordon-Chang said it was an "isolated" incident.

Since then, new filtering technology was installed. The case is eerily similar to the infamous case in Australia that no doubt continually haunts pro-filtering advocates. In 2007, a 16 year old Australian cracked a government mandated country-wide $84 million porn filter in 30 minutes. This does raise some interesting questions. Are younger kids becoming more tech savvy? Is filtering technology flawed? More importantly, if filtering technology can't keep a handful of third grade students from surfing for porn on school computers, how can filtering technology be used to stop a whole nation of people from committing acts of copyright infringement? I think that the idea of filtering for the purpose of stopping copyright infringement, even in this day and age, is a deeply flawed concept. Rights holders will not gain what they hope to gain and a lot of people stand to lose a lot when it comes to basic things such as free speech. This story alone is just another example of why the former part of this argument is true. [Hat Tip] Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.