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Those Pesky Metadata Fingerprints
Anti p2p letter causes a considerable ruckus
(old news - 12:13PM Wednesday Mar 17 2004)
tags: Fileswapping
The leak of a letter from California's Attorney General bemoaning p2p technology as an internet evil is getting wide exposure on web news sites. P2Pnet notes that of the dozens of stories focusing on the letter, few mention Wired News discovery that metadata from the Word document showed it originated from the MPAA. Reuters reports that the MPAA says they "helped" with the drafting of the letter, but didn't write it themselves. How long before governments and organizations learn that Microsoft released a tool allowing you to remove those pesky metadata fingerprints? Many of these outlets seemingly forget the controversial "Super-DMCA" legislation, drafted by the MPAA, that in some states could have made NAT or even owning information on cable theft illegal.

Related:
  1. The "Death Of P2P" Is Relative, Possibly Wrong
  2. British Cops, Spies Oppose 'Three Strikes'
  3. BitTorrent Gets A Little Smarter
  4. Will 'Three Strikes' Come To The United States?
  5. One MPAA Complaint Closes Free Ohio Wi-Fi Network
  6. Verizon Working With RIAA On New Warning Letters
  7. Wi-Fi Network Shuttered By MPAA Re-Opens
  8. Pirate Bay Tracker Offline for Good
Forums » Those Pesky Metadata Fingerprints
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Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium,VIP
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30
clubs:

Great use of MS Office

Tracking the document origins.

Suprising findings? No.

Googled
Yay, I have FIOS

join:2001-08-13
Orchard Park, NY

Re: Great use of MS Office

I think it is funny that all this digital watermarking and fingerprinting, which the MPAA is "for" has come full circle to catch them doing something improper.

ronpin
Imagine Reality

join:2002-12-06
Nirvana

Follow the money

I'd love to follow the money on this one.

mig
Premium,MVM
join:2000-10-26
Anytown, USA
clubs:

Re: Great use of MS Office

I think it's time for an Independent counsel to examine the relationships between the Atorneys Generals and the MPAA & RIAA. Do not forget that the Atorney General position is an elected position. Don't like the work they are doing or how they explain what they are doing and you have the power to vote them out!

JackM

@198.208.x.x

Re: Great use of MS Office

As long as the money is not involved breaking the law has little meaning to the California Attorney General. Just ask Mayor of San Francisco. Obviously he has nothing to be afraid from people who elect him.

JM
Beeper
Part Of The Problem

join:2001-09-27
Dayton, OH
clubs:

said by mig See Profile:
Do not forget that the Atorney General position is an elected position.
The AG is Bill Lockyer, a Democrat. He decisively won re-election in 2002 by 800,000 votes.

Lockyer wants to be the next governor of California.
--
Guaranteed Fear and Loathing. Abandon all hope. Prepare for the Weirdness. Get familiar with Cannibalism.

mig
Premium,MVM
join:2000-10-26
Anytown, USA
clubs:

Re: Great use of MS Office

said by Beeper See Profile:

The AG is Bill Lockyer, a Democrat. He decisively won re-election in 2002 by 800,000 votes.

Lockyer wants to be the next governor of California.

Perhaps the new Govenor of California can ask for an inquiry into the States' elected official going to an organization such as the MPAA and having them draft possible legal action for the Attorney General to follow. Of course the att gen is probably just following orders from his boss the MPAA. Now thats who I'd definitely want as my Gov.........The MPAA!
Cyron

join:2002-09-24
Charlotte, NC

Re: Great use of MS Office

Don't forget, without MPAA support, you wouldn't be elected governor in California. Even though he's a Republican, anyone want to bet the MPAA doesn't support Ahnold?

mig
Premium,MVM
join:2000-10-26
Anytown, USA
clubs:

Re: Great use of MS Office

No.....say it ain't so! Arnold's always the good guy!

graysonf
Premium,MVM
join:1999-07-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL

Not the first time

And probably won't be the last time either. Too bad the people using this software don't know how to properly use it. They could have cleaned up the attribution and not have been exposed as the source of the documents if they knew what they were doing.

atangel
Now What??
Premium
join:2002-02-18
Bronx, NY

Re: Not the first time

Something we should be grateful for :D:D:D

I hope they never get "that" smart!

graysonf
Premium,MVM
join:1999-07-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL

Re: Not the first time

The process of "education" in matters like this is "one at a time" and involves being embarrassed rather than being knowledgeable enough to avoid the embarrassment in the first place.

But since this isn't the first time those in highly visible places have been caught like this, one has to wonder why this continues to happen.

atangel
Now What??
Premium
join:2002-02-18
Bronx, NY

Re: Not the first time

Well, that's easy. The same mentality that pervades some parts of the executive branch in any environment--arrogance. I would even go so far to bet that some underling may have been aware of it, but didn't say anything in the hopes it would burn the bosses cheeks somehow.

As far as the embarrassment, it clearly underscores that the people trying to make decisions, really shouldn't be!

But we can also probably be sure that any future documents will not reveal who is really calling the shots.
--
The reason you think I'm way on the left is 'cause you're so far to the right.
Dell Dimension, XP Pro, 2.4 Ghz, 512MB, BEFSX41, ZAP 4.5, NOD32, BOClean, Adaware, Spybot, MW Pro, The Bat!

gwion
wild colonial boy
Premium,ExMod 2001-08
join:2000-12-28
Pittsburgh, PA

I said it before ...

... the xIAA's were tech illiterates, and their flailing around for draconian legal means of addressing a problem THEY created for themselves, by not leveraging the technologies for themselves like every other technologically literate company and industry with any vision or intelligence was doing, years ago did.

They're now offering evidence against themselves... like I said before, they better either take some of those billions they're dumping into enforcement and get on the cutting edge with their own delivery technologies, soon, or they're going to end up like a dinosaur in a tarpit, sooner than they think. Business is dog eat dog. If they don't start providing legal, convenient, useful, economical distribution channels through new technologies, they're going to watch someone else sign their artists and do it, sooner or later. Then, the whole issue will become moot... their CD's will sit beside telegraph keys and copper wire in the Smithsonian, and they'll sink slowly into the black goo, to be all but forgotten, outside of history class...

When you make the bed, you should not be heard to complain about the short-sheeting when you have to sleep in it...
--
Tá na caoirigh ag ithe an gheamhair
Tá na gamhna ag ól an bhainne
Prátaí síos gan díolachán
'S duine gan mheabhair na raghfá abhaile

Qumahlin
Never Enough Time
Premium,MVM
join:2001-10-05
united state

Re: I said it before ...

The worst part is the artists have no choice...no artist I kno of joins the RIAA..their record label is the one who is part of the RIAA hence making all said artists works protected by the RIAA.

There are plenty of artists who have stated they do not mind people downloading their music..but the wishes of the artist does not matter..the artist does not own the music
--
Forum Posts:4100

gwion
wild colonial boy
Premium,ExMod 2001-08
join:2000-12-28
Pittsburgh, PA

Re: I said it before ...

Well, yes, guess I should have said, "their constituent labels will find their artists signing to others"... the RIAA (and MPAA), we do need to recall, is a PAC/advocacy group for the industry, not a "business." Thanks for pointing that out, it's a very important distinction...

And it becomes pretty obvious, to even the least articulate, business-wise, among us, that they sure aren't a PR and marketing group, that's for sure... if their constituent members would step out of the office, for just a few minutes, and walk around and chat the customers in a record store or DVD shop, they would probably be cancelling their memberships in droves...

In the sixties, a lot of artists found that the mainstream labels either wouldn't sign them, or would only sign them if the artists gave them creative control over content... in the zeitgeist of sixties music and thinking, that was horrible, to most of the artists... and a lot of the artists either found patrons who would publish their music, or started their own studios and labels, if they could raise the money... many, rather successfully...

Lou Reed is one artist still pretty well recognized, who had some rather unpopular (with the labels) content, by way of example, and he would probably still be another unknown club circuit player, had Andy Warhol not walked into the Bottom Line one evening and heard him, and grabbed him after the show to ask, "hey, how would you like to cut a record?" In a free enterprise system, anything that looks workable and profitable is bound to eventually draw an entrepreneur willing to buck the system...

In tamer genres, Herb Alpert started A&M, to distribute his and his friends' music... they were the label that signed the Carpenters, when literally every single mainstream label was laughing them out of the studio... they recorded and distributed, from Charlie Chaplin's old home, for such other artists as James Brown, Joe Cocker, Cream, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Moody Blues, Nazareth, Cat Stevens, Styx, Supertramp, The Bee Gees, Rick Wakeman, Joe Jackson, The Police, Squeeze, Oingo Boingo, Soundgarden and Andrew Lloyd Webber, over the years... alas, they were absorbed by Polygram, and Alpert left after he perceived they were just being used as an "alias" by Polygram, now owned entirely by Universal (guess where that probably puts them, today?)...

At any rate, where there's a will, there's a way... in fact, since a lot of the big labels of today were created by artists to distribute their own rejected pieces, back when, it would probably do well for the present owners to look at their own histories, before being too absorbed in their own status. Never forget your roots... and careful whose toes you step on on the way up... they may be attached to the.... well, we all know the rest...
--
Tá na caoirigh ag ithe an gheamhair
Tá na gamhna ag ól an bhainne
Prátaí síos gan díolachán
'S duine gan mheabhair na raghfá abhaile
Fishie

join:2003-01-14
Riverside, CA

Removal tool isn't so great

You know what I hate about that removal tool? One, people have to manually run it. It won't run itself when the document is saved. Two, it's about a 4 step process! Three, it creates a log in the user's temp dir. Four, it saves the original anyway.

Mr Anon

@69.212.x.x

Doh!

I was going to mention that tool or one that was I found around here that does the same thing but I decided not to, I waned these people to have no clue that it could be erased making it easier to stop this type of crap again in the future. Then again letters that are basically saying Hi I make a products and I know just how dangerous and bad for the world it is, usually is sabotage by a third party

nipseyrussel
Nipsey Russell, yo

join:2002-02-22
Philadelphia, PA

how do you view this metadata?

how do you view this metadata?

aurgathor

join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

Re: how do you view this metadata?

Right Click -> Properties -> Summary is one way; Tools -> Options when opened is another. (there might be some more)

aurgathor

join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

The tail wags the dog

Like in many other cases, the tail wags the dog.
RideManDave

join:2004-03-04
Columbus, OH

Metadata? What metadata?

Pity that people think that Word is an appropriate way to publish documents. .DOC is not a distribution format. .DOC is a creation (and collaboration if your colleagues have matching software) format. Once the document has been created, it should be published in a platform independent, software independent format: on paper, as .PDF, as .RTF, as .TXT, as .XML or as .HTML.

Clueless people who don't understand the difference between creation tools and publishing tools are bound to make critical errors like this!
russotto

join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA

Re: Metadata? What metadata?

I believe RTF can handle the tracking as well. XML-based formats certainly can, though I don't know if any do. (Interleaf has been doing tracking with SGML formats for years)
Forums » Those Pesky Metadata Fingerprints


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