-- more on -- Court docs reveal some RIAA "tracking" methods

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 21:23:13 -0500
> From: Rick Bradley <rick () rickbradley com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Court docs reveal some RIAA "tracking" methods
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
>
> Just a quick comment on a logical fallacy in the reasoning the RIAA
> is using here:
>
> > For example, the industry disclosed its use of a library of digital
> > fingerprints, called "hashes," that it said can uniquely identify MP3 
> music
> > files that had been traded on the Napster service as far back as May 2000.
> > Examining hashes is commonly used by the FBI and other computer
> > investigators in hacker cases.
> >
> > By comparing the fingerprints of music files on a person's computer 
> against
> > its library, the RIAA believes it can determine in some cases whether
> > someone recorded a song from a legally purchased CD or downloaded it from
> > someone else over the Internet.
> >
> > Copyright lawyers said it remains unresolved whether consumers can legally
> > download copies of songs on a CD they purchased rather than making digital
> > copies themselves. But finding MP3 music files that precisely match copies
> > that have been traded online could be evidence a person participated in
> > file-sharing services.
> >
> > "The source for nycfashiongirl's sound recordings was not her own personal
> > CDs," the RIAA's lawyers wrote.
>
> All that a hash (such as an MD5 hash or an SHA hash) can tell you is
> that such files are identical.  The RIAA appears to have vacuumed up a
> lot of files from Napster and computed hashes for them.  They then take
> the files they downloaded from the defendant and hash them.  When they
> find matches they know that the files downloaded from the defendant are
> identical to some that were earlier traded from Napster.
>
> The inference that the RIAA is trying to sell is that this means the
> defendant downloaded those files from a filesharing network in the past.
> This does not follow -- it is merely *likely* that the defendant
> downloaded these files.  Some other possible explanations:
>
>  - the defendant created the files from her own CDs and made these files
>    available on Napster (rather than downloading them)
>
>  - the defendant created the files from her own CDs, and the files were
>    taken from the defendant's system and distributed by someone else
>
>  - the process the defendant used to create the files from her own CDs
>    produces identical files to those created by another user from
>    her own CDs
>
>  - the RIAA is lying  ;-)
>
> Rick
> --
>  http://www.rickbradley.com    MUPRN: 864
>                        |  got his friends staff (with
>    random email haiku  |  my assumption that Qzar was
>                        |  Mav's roommate. My bad.

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