The file sharing case

[rcgreen]

She calmly reads the quotes by juror Michael Hegg, from Duluth, Minn., that appeared Tuesday in a story by Wired.com. She then draws a bead on where Hegg said he is a father, former snowmobile racer and has never been on the Internet.

"I don't need to say too much, obviously," Thomas told CNET News.com on Wednesday. "They admit that they are computer illiterate. This person (Hegg) has never been on the Internet, so how can he say whether my story is possible? I've been contacted by Internet security experts who said that spoofing my address would have been trivial. Internet illiterate people are not going to be able to understand that."

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9795095-7.html

Aside from the high emotional content of this case, has this juror
harmed the RIAA by boasting of his lack of tech knowledge?
He later says that the jury wanted to make an example of her.
Have they given her grounds for a successful appeal?

[nihil]

Hmmm,

has this juror harmed the RIAA by boasting of his lack of tech knowledge?

Yes, but he has also inadvertently brought the shortcomings of the Jury System to the fore. People who lack the intellect and knowledge to critically examine and evaluate the evidence presented to them in a high-tech case have no place on the jury.

The RIAA rely on $h1t for brains lawyers and judges, and now it would seem jurors. Exposing their scams will make life one hell of a lot more difficult for them. This needs to be done in the interests and for the good of the people of the United States of America. I believe that a "fair trial" is one of their fundamental Constitutional rights?

He later says that the jury wanted to make an example of her.

That is not within the remit of a jury, and should alone be grounds for a mis-trial. At least over here, it would be

Have they given her grounds for a successful appeal?

Yes, and fired up some big guns who will work for free or pro bono.

Not mentioned, but in the article. Apparently the moron claims that his wife is an "internet guru"............. so he discussed the case with her?........... that would get him two years over here, plus a fine .............. and a mis-trial. Also, jurors mouthing off to the press is very much a no-no over here.

[Nokia]

The spoofing of an IP address argument is very shaky in her particular case.

Anyone even half security and/or technical minded will know this, so I personally only half believe her when see says that Internet security people have contacted her and told her it is possible.

If this argument was feasible then someone would have stood in her corner for free - who wouldn't want to be the security expert who took on the RIAA and won....if you lose you still come off looking like the good samaritan and get you name on the news everywhere in the world..

[MrLinus]

I think that she should look at an appeal from a due-process point of view. If the juror admitted this, then she was not tried by her "peers", as what is intended by the use of trial by jury. If it was her peers, then they have to have some knowledge and usage of the internet.

[nihil]

Hmmm,

There are a variety of possibilities. "Spoofing" is a possibility, but it does seem rather unusual or far fetched in these sort of circumstances.

I would have thought that someone sharing the connection would be rather more plausible? ........ not that I am saying that the defendant was either innocent or guilty. I just don't like the way the case was handled.

In particular, from the court reporting:

The Charter IP address identified the night of the downloading was 24.179.199.117, according to testimony from Edgar and Weaver. Had a wireless router been used, the internal private IP address assigned by the router would also have been detected by investigators, he claimed -- likely beginning with 192.168.

OK, the hack journalist meant to say "uploading" I am sure but the rest of it doesn't seem right, given my limited understanding of NAT. I would only expect the Kazaa site to see the 24.179.~ address, not that AND the router address assigned to the attached computer?????

The evidence was being presented on behalf of the RIAA by an alleged "computer security expert" from Iowa State University.

At best I would describe the proceedings as "sloppy" and I do not believe that sloppy procecutions deserve to prosper given that they set legal precedents.

The RIAA had her HDD (she volunteered it) but there does not seem to be one shred of evidence produced from examining that. Not even: "we couldn't find anything because the drive had been wiped, sanitised or whatever"

I am sure that many of us would agree that to sucessfully, selectively erase evidence is not something for amateurs. Even if you do so, you will leave the evidence that you have done it.

I am beginning to wonder if this might not be some sort of scam to set up the RIAA?

Just a thought

EDIT: It gets better (from ArsTechnica):

and expert witness Dr. Doug Jacobson, whose credibility has been called into question in other file-sharing cases.

[Nokia]

They would be able to see the internal IP with a P2P transfer - and spoofing the IP is not a realistic possibitly at all.

[nihil]

Interesting,

What would be the situation with a wireless router that supported both wireless and hard wired?

Say I connect my main machine by wire but my laptop is wireless? Then someone uses another laptop to connect via wireless but doesn't actually share any files, and doesn't allow a P2P connection?

I am also curious about the "1702" songs she made available.... errr.... that's about 60 Gigs, and that would not be typical of HDDs back then.

Like she is an unmarried mother of 2 children (hmmm?) on below median income, so she cannot afford rocket science............. maybe 80Gb would be typical of a budget machine in 2004? I do believe that she might just have noticed that her HDD was full?

Also, the original charge cited 26 tunes but this was later reduced to 24...... I wonder why? I notice that Virgin records pulled out? When the big boys bottle out; I smell rodent?

I do recall that some of this crapware would take every track you played and put it in an index in your "my music" folder. Kazaa used to take anything in your "my music" playlist and put it up as available for download.

I do not believe that anybody could have 1702 tunes on their computer and be unaware of it. I also do not believe that if a person did, they would be so foolish as to face trial.

[Ouroboros]

I live in Superior, WI, which is just across the lake from Duluth, MN, where this trial took place. It's the most national recognition our area has had in a long time. It's unfortunate that it's over something like this, though.

The decision will be overturned on appeal. From what I understand, the judge, in his instructions to the jury, basically told them to ignore the evidence. He instructed them to disregard whether or not she 'shared' the files (which is what makes it illegal), and instead base the decision on whether or not she was capable of doing so (which is not illegal). It's clear to me that the judge, and apparently the jury, are not very computer-literate. Combine that with fuzzy laws and a pack of wolves for lawyers bullying people in the name of the RIAA and you end up with a pyrrhic victory for them.

My prediction? Even if the case is not overturned on appeal, the RIAA will never see a nickel of the fine imposed.

They said that they are 'trying to send a message'. They did, and the message was "We are douchebags that will randomly sue people to advance a failing agenda of 'sending a message' to the millions of people that will continue to tell us to shove it and download and share music illegally until we are broke from randomly suing people in a fruitless endeavor to protect our profits."

Yeah, that makes sense.

[brokencrow]

Juries and judges making examples of people?

Nothing new there; that's been going on for thousands of years.
Usually there's more "mirage" than justice in some "puppet play"
overseen by an "old fossil" holding a gavel who can't see past a
byzantine collation of law.

Having said that, I don't believe Ms. Thomas in any way shape or
form. Spoofing an IP addy? Gimme a break. So she's saying that
1) someone snuck a CAT5 cable into her house and hooked it up
to her router or 2) that same person camped out on her wireless
setup.

Two problems:

1) no one breaks into someone else's residence for the bandwidth
via CAT5, and...

2) what kind of bandwidth are you going to get cracking someone
else's wireless?

No one, and not much.

The woman's not stupid. From what I read, she swapped out her old
HDD for a new one before she got busted. The real problem here is a
recording industry that is totally incapable of dealing with a new technology
and is increasingly being left behind not only by consumers, but more
importantly, by the artists!