[Itpolicy-np] Film industry hires "Indian" cyber hitmen to take down internet pirates

[Bipin Gautam]

Background: http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/4chan-users-organize-ddos-against-mpaa/
The users at 4chan, a popular image board responsible for many
Internet memes such as the Rickroll, lolcats, and the “Anonymous”
assault on the Church of Scientology, publicly announced a coordinated
DDoS attack against the Motion Picture Association of America in
retaliation for the hiring of an Indian based software firm, which
carried out similar attacks on The Pirate Bay and other file sharing
sites.
...(snip)...


(Main : http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/film-industry-hires-cyber-hitmen-to-take-down-internet-pirates-20100907-14ypv.html
)
The film industry is using pirate tactics to beat the pirates – by
employing “cyber hitmen” to launch attacks that take out websites
hosting illegal movies.

Girish Kumar, managing director of Aiplex Software, a firm in India,
told this website that his company, which works for the film industry,
was being hired - effectively as hitmen - to launch cyber attacks on
sites hosting pirated movies that don't respond to copyright
infringement notices sent to them by the film industry.

Kumar said 95 per cent of sites hosting illegal movies co-operated
with notices, but a few - mostly sites hosting torrents and used
primarily for illegal content - did not.
Managing director of Aiplex Software, Girish Kumar.

Managing director of Aiplex Software, Girish Kumar. Photo: Supplied

"Most movies are released on Friday morning at 10am in India," Kumar
said in a telephone interview. "The movie is released in the morning
[and] by afternoon it's on the internet."

His company trawled the net to find movies uploaded, he said.

"What we do is we see all those links on the net," he said.

"We find the hosting [computer] server and send them a copyright
infringement notice because they're not meant to have those links. If
they don't remove [the link] we send them a second notice and ask them
[again] to remove it."

He said that if the provider did not do anything to remove the link or
content hosted on its site, his company would launch what is known as
a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the offending computer server.

In Australia, distrubuted-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are an
offence under section 477.3 of the Criminal Code Act 1995, according
to the Australian Federal Police. As for DoS attacks, which are
different, according to Australian law a person is guilty of an
offence if the person causes "any unauthorised impairment of
electronic communication to or from a computer".

According to news site Daily News & Analysis, Kumar's company
sometimes went further in its attacks.

"At times, we have to go an extra mile and attack the site and destroy
the data to stop the movie from circulating further," the site quoted
him as saying.

"Generally speaking 95 per cent of ... providers do remove the
content. It's only the torrent sites - 20 to 25 per cent of the
torrent sites - that do not have respect for any of the copyright
notices," Kumar said.

"How can we put the site down? The only means that we can put the site
down is [by launching a] denial-of-service [attack]. Basically we have
to flood [the site] with millions and millions of requests and put the
site down."

He said commercial sites such as YouTube and Daily Motion were the
only sites that responded promptly to infringement notices.

"They are immediately responding to our copyright notices and removing
the links and this is saving immense revenue to the producers [of
movies]," he said.

Asked whether his company ever warned when it was to launch a DoS
attack on a site if it did not remove pirated content, Kumar said that
it did not.

"No, we don't do that. We generally ask them to respect the copyright
notices under DMCA ruling XYZ."

Kumar even pledged to come to Australia to help out on internet piracy here.

"If you want me to service any Australian companies I would be really
pleased to come down and do a presentation and work for the Australian
movie [industry] also if they are willing," he said.

Kumar said that at the moment most of the payment for his company's
services came from the film industry in India.

"We are tied up with more than 30 companies in Bollywood. They are the
major production houses."

As for Hollywood films, he said they, too, used his services.

"We are tied up with Fox STAR Studios - Star TV and 20th Century Fox -
who are a joint venture company in India."

The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, or AFACT, which
represents the film industry on piracy in Australia, said it did not
condone the activities of Kumar's company.

"The methodology [used by Kumar's company] ... is not something that
AFACT has undertaken nor sub-contracted to outside vendors," executive
director Neil Gane said.

Asked whether it, on behalf of the Australian film industry, would use
Kumar's services, it said: "AFACT have very talented in-house
investigators and a successful track record that does not require
outside vendors to assist in ongoing criminal investigations."

"AFACT investigates websites that infringe our member companies
content and refers such alleged criminal matters to law-enforcement
agencies using investigative techniques that are within the law, cost
effective and would elicit the necessary level of evidence to support
further police inquiries."