The Pirates Can’t Be Stopped
I just read an article by Daniel Roth over at Portfolio.com and it was very interesting. He received an exclusive interview with Ethan (fake name) , the teenage hacker who hacked into Media Defenders website. Media Defenders does exactly what their name says. They attempt to slow the sharing of media content from some of the largest corporations. This includes Time Warner, Universal, and News Corp. Ethan got very deep into the “Monkey Defenders” (as he called it) servers and was able to get a hold of emails between clients and them, as well as phone conversations between government officials and the group.
This Interview was not easy to come by either. First Ethan agreed to a phone conversation where he used a prepaid phone so it could not be traced. Then he said he was willing to meet in public. One day after school they meet up at a book store and had a talk. First he handed Daniel a flash drive with information on it that proved he had gone deep into their system. He also slipped him a piece of paper with the first few digits of his social security number on it as well as where he has lived in the last 10 years. “I had to check,” he says.
This is a long, but good article on piracy and how you can’t stop what people will end up getting their hands on. It covers more than just Ethans story, as well as highlights topics about Napster as well.
