Ranting to /dev/null

Crackdown

This week the Department of Justice raided the homes of several hub admins of The ÜndèrGrøund® Ñètwø®k, a hub network that mainly uses variants of Neo-Modus's Direct Connect. I was wondering exactly how long this would take to happen, as Direct Connect is the most functional P2P network in existence, and tends to be pretty secretive if not downright exclusive. Until this week, DC has received little to no media coverage.

What is interesting about this situation is that neither the government nor the media seem to have any idea of what's going on here. "The Answer Man", one of the admins whose property was raided, posted this on a p2pnet forum. He correctly points out that the hub system does not actually distribute any files. Though users must connect to the hub to trade files, the hub itself has no knowledge of and provides no direct assistance in the transmission of said files. It would seem that this makes it protected under the recent precedents that ruled that P2P networks are not legally liable for the activities of their users.

Furthermore, Ashcroft is flat out wrong when he said in a DoJ press conference that DC requires its users to share copyrighted information. While most people do this, there is no DC reg that says you can't fill your share with Linux ISOs, home movies, and other public domain/uncopyrighted info.

It gets better. Ashcroft implied the existence of an exclusive membership in which users and shares are verified by hub admins before admittance is allowed. In certain members-only hubs this may be true, but the vast majority of the DC network really doesn't care who you are, or where you come from, provided you meet the unpoliced minshare requirements. User info is not checked, verified, or even collected. It wouldn't surprise me if the hub admins don't keep logs of activity either. In short, neither Ashcroft, the FBI agents involved, nor the judge who swore out the warrant have any idea what they're doing.

So immediately, the DoJ's case seems a bit weak, as the only correct information they've got does not seem to be actionable in court, as numerous decisions by the Judicial branch have confirmed the idea that networks and their admins are not responsible for the activities of their users. But here's what I think is going to happen. Just like the RIAA is doing to individuals across the country, if the DoJ sues these poor schmoes, they'll probably capitulate, even though they could win if the case went to trial. Justice. Right. About that...

Posted by ryan at August 27, 2004 01:04 PM | TrackBack