MPAA 'University Toolkit' Violated CopyrightUbuntu developer has kit pulled from Internet for GNU GPL violation
(
old news - 10:07AM Tuesday Dec 04 2007)
tags: legal · Fileswapping · software · OdditiesBack in October, the MPAA sent a letter to the presidents of 25 universities informing them they'd been targeted as top p2p hubs and copyright violation hotspots. The MPAA urged these universities to install the
"university toolkit," an OS (
xubuntu) and software suite aimed at tracking and reporting student file trading across University networks. While the MPAA insisted the suite protected user privacy, security analysts
found otherwise:
The toolkit sets up an Apache Web server on the user's machine. It also automatically configures all of the data and graphs gathered about activity on the local network to be displayed on a Web page, complete with ntop-generated graphics showing not only bandwidth usage generated by each user on the network, but also the Internet address of every Web site each user has visited.
Now Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett has found that the suite also
violated the GNU GPL, so after several unsuccessful attempts to contact the MPAA directly, he's had the MPAA's ISP pull the infringing software from the Internet.
