Top MPAA Lawyer, Mastermind Behind Its Plan To Attack The Internet, Arrested On Blackmail And Sexual Assault Charges

from the how-very-ethical dept

A while back, an MPAA whistleblower sent me a big file of internal MPAA documents. I spent many months going through them and trying to track down any actual story in them, but there really wasn't much there. Most of the documents were quite old and not all that revealing beyond what was already known (or widely assumed) about how the MPAA acted. The only thing that struck me as interesting, was a very old memo, written by lawyer Steven Fabrizio, before he became the MPAA's General Counsel, when he was still at the MPAA's favorite law firm, Jenner & Block. The memo outlined a very long list of potential anti-piracy strategies, and whether or not they were legal. Some of them were... quite surprising in what they were even considering (it included things like taking over a pirate site and using it as a honeypot). Many were what I would personally classify as somewhere between sleazy, dishonest and unethical. I never wrote up any details, because there was no evidence that the MPAA ever actually did any of the proposed programs, and a few people I ran questions by pointed out that, as as corporate lawyer, reviewing crazy ideas by clients and giving a legal opinion on them is standard practice.

The Fabrizio connection struck me as interesting on a few levels, though. Beyond being the MPAA's top legal attack dog for nearly a decade, the Sony Pictures email leak showed that Fabrizio was the mastermind behind Hollywood's Project Goliath to use MPAA/Hollywood Studio funds to pay for having state Attorney's General and news media owned by those studios, to attack Google to try to pressure it into some sort of "deal" with the studios. Fabrizio was also formerly the top litigator at the RIAA, and led its charge against Napster. Fabrizio was deeply involved in key copyright lawsuits, including the fights against Grokster, Hotfile, and Aereo. Basically, much of the history of "anti-piracy" litigation and "anti-piracy" efforts regarding the internet, was somehow touched by Steve Fabrizio.

And, of course, the usual line that people would give in supporting these positions is that it was necessary is because "piracy is illegal" and so on.

Anyway, that's why it's a bit shocking to discover that Fabrizio has now been arrested in DC (and fired by the MPAA) for alleged sexual assault and blackmail. Variety's story on the charges is really quite incredible:

According to a police affidavit, Fabrizio is accused of threatening a woman he met on a “sugar daddy” dating site. The police allege that Fabrizio and the woman had consensual sex once on Aug. 19, after which he paid her $400. After that, she did not want to see him again. According to the affidavit, Fabrizio sent numerous texts insisting on a second meeting, and threatening to expose her if she did not comply.

“I know where you live,” he allegedly wrote. “I know where you work. Don’t think — Hospital would be happy to know that it’s young nurses are having sexual for money / Same for your landlord.”

Fabrizio allegedly used those threats to coerce her into having sex again, according to the affidavit. The police allege that he then sent additional texts threatening to tell her parents if she did not continue to have sex with him a couple times a month. The woman called the police. After arranging for another meeting, Fabrizio was arrested outside the woman’s apartment on Friday morning, according to the document.

That is beyond horrifying -- especially given that part of Project Goliath was to try to get various state Attorneys General to argue that Google helped enable sex trafficking and other such things. Apparently, Fabrizio decided to "investigate" things a bit more directly.

Filed Under: arrest, blackmail, sexual assault, steve fabrizio
Companies: mpaa

Whitney Cummings Posts (Partially) Nude Photo Of Herself In Response To Blackmail Threat; Is That Revenge Porn?

from the content-moderation-is-difficult dept

Revenge porn -- or, more accurately, "non-consensual" posting of naked photos -- is a real problem. Such postings are, rightly, seen as an invasion into people's private lives, and are (quite frequently) supported by really awful online services, run by scammers and jackasses who keep ending up in prison or in other trouble with the law. Most of time this is because existing laws can, and do, handle these situations. Most mainstream internet platforms now have very clear rules against non-consensual nudity and act quite quickly to take it down.

However, there are continued efforts at passing laws to deal with this issue -- even if the attempts to do so mostly appear to be unconstitutional. We've also pointed out that these laws potentially criminalize behavior most people don't think of as "revenge porn," which could represent a real issue.

And that brings us to the case of Whitney Cummings, a comedian/actress/producer, who is getting some attention this week after responding to a blackmail threat from someone, asking for money to not release a photo that apparently shows her exposed nipple (which she had accidentally, and very briefly, included in an Instagram story). Someone sent her a version of the photo and asked how much not to post it (in this screenshot the naughty bits are cropped, and even though she's now released it, I'm not linking to the image because, be better than that).

In posting it, Cummings notes that "They all must think I’m way more famous than I am, but they also must think I’m way more easily intimidated than I am. If anyone is gonna make money or likes off my nipple, it’s gonna be me. So here it all is, you foolish dorks." Lots of people are, rightly, coming out to support her -- and are sending embarrassing pictures of themselves to her.

She does claim that others are threatening to blackmail her by saying that they've got access to her iCloud, but notes:

I'll be honest, I stand by most of my nudes. Frankly I'm way more embarrassed by all the inspirational quotes I've screen grabbed.

And, later, she posted those embarrassing screen grabs.

One other interesting note: she points out that she won't reveal who's been trying to extort her, because:

I'm not posting the names of the people trying to extort me because some of them might be dumb kids. I wouldn't want the stupid ideas I had when I was a teenager to follow me around forever or else every time someone Googled me, they'd see me shoplifting a NO FEAR t-shirt. .

This is a good example of confronting awfulness and turning it into something... better. I wouldn't say it's a "good" outcome, because it's not at all clear that Cummings wanted this image out otherwise. And so I'm left to thinking about various attempts to create revenge porn laws. Would they ding this photo itself as revenge porn? Yes, Cummings herself eventually posted it, but only under the threat of having it leaked by some jackass if she didn't pay up. One could easily argue that that situation is far from consensual. Some of the laws might say it doesn't violate the law -- since Cummings posting it herself is a sign of consent. But how would you square that with cases where these same kinds of idiots threaten to release photos or information on women if they don't "send nudes." In those cases, many young women do, in fact, send nude pictures, feeling it's their only way out -- but that's (again) very, very, very far from "consensual."

This is not to argue one way or the other on this -- other than to note that there are tough calls on this, and attempts to create laws against "revenge porn" could lead to situations where Cummings' own actions might be seen to violate those laws, even though it's a case of her taking control over a shitty situation and flipping the script a bit.

Filed Under: blackmail, extortion, free speech, ownership, revenge porn, whitney cummings

YouTube's ContentID System Is Being Repurposed By Blackmailers Due To Its Failings

from the nice-channel-you-have-there dept

By now, we should all be aware that YouTube's ContentID system is not great. What was supposed to be an efficient way for content owners to report when their content is being used without permission instead represents essentially the worst from all worlds. It's bad from a operating technology perspective, since the system manages to flag non-infringing content as infringing content on the regular. And it's bad from a operating human standpoint, since YouTube puts so little emphasis on staffing around copyright claims that the appeals and review processes are a joke. The result of all this is a system that is wide open for both mistaken collateral damage and outright abuse. That abuse typically takes the form of people who either don't understand how copyright works, or who are interested in merely trolling others.

Or, as it apparently turns out, the system is a lovely avenue for pure extortion, according to recent reports.

A Youtuber called ObbyRaidz, who makes videos about Minecraft, has found himself having received two copyright "strikes" on Youtube from a blackmailer calling themselves VengefulFlame, who has demanded "$150 PayPal or $75 btc (Bitcoin)" or equivalent "goods/services" to have the strikes removed. If ObbyRaidz doesn't comply, VengefulFlame could send one more complaint to Youtube and have ObbyRaidz's account -- and all the videos he's created -- permanently deleted.

ObbyRaidz says he's been unable to get any help from Youtube, despite repeated complaints and entreaties.

This isn't some one-off instance, either. It turns out that this sort of extortion is a somewhat regular occurrence. And even that shouldn't really matter, because it's plain as can be that a system that even allows for the possibility of this kind of abuse is a system that is too broken to be allowed to continue. If anything, the demonstration of a flaw of this magnitude should result in the immediate reformation of YouTube's policies. It's permanent deletion policies, at the very least, should be top of the list to reform as its users are currently in danger of losing access to the platform that is choosing not to support them.

And we should keep this in mind given what's going on in the EU, where the government there appears to want to roll out this avenue for abuse to everyone, for everything, all the time.

The extortion attempt is a timely reminder of what's at stake in the fight over the EU's Copyright Directive, which mandates a much broader version of ContentID, but for every service and every type of copyrighted work, from tweets to Minecraft skins. Under the proposal, anyone could add anything to the databases of blocked content, and get anyone else's work censored; while this could be used simply to suppress information that a fraudster doesn't like (say, reports of political corruption or complaints about a scammy business), they could also be used as fuel for extortion.

It's going to be a fucking mess, mostly because the over-sized government is seeking to kneel before the content industries by serving them a half-baked plan to create some copyright database that simply is going to be abused, full stop. The lesson of ContentID is in what shouldn't be done, not what should. And certainly not what should be done on the scale of a continent.

Filed Under: blackmail, contentid, copyright, extortion
Companies: youtube

Hacked Passwords Being Used In Blackmail Attempt -- Expect More Of This

from the isn't-the-internet-greate dept

Last week I received the following email with my name and a very, very, very old password that I haven't used in probably at least a decade in the subject line (even though I'm not longer using it, I'm editing it out of this because... it's still weird):

I am aware, ********, is your pass word. You don't know me and you're probably wondering why you're getting this mail, right?

In fact, I actually installed a malware on the adult videos (adult porn) site and there's more, you visited this site to experience fun (you know what I mean). While you were watching videos, your internet browser initiated working as a RDP (Remote Desktop) having a key logger which provided me with access to your screen and cam. Immediately after that, my software collected all of your contacts from your Messenger, FB, and email.

What exactly did I do?

I created a double-screen video. First part displays the video you were watching (you have a nice taste rofl), and 2nd part shows the recording of your web cam.

exactly what should you do?

Well, I believe, $2900 is a reasonable price for our little secret. You'll make the payment via Bitcoin (if you don't know this, search "how to buy bitcoin" in Google).

BTC Address: [REDACTED] (It is cAsE sensitive, so copy and paste it)

Note:
You have one day to make the payment. (I've a specific pixel in this e mail, and right now I know that you have read through this email). If I don't receive the BitCoins, I will send your video recording to all of your contacts including members of your family, colleagues, and so forth. However, if I receive the payment, I will erase the video immidiately. If you really want evidence, reply with "Yes!" and I will send your video recording to your 9 friends. This is a non-negotiable offer, and thus do not waste my personal time and yours by responding to this message.

This was immediately obvious as a scam from a hacked database of passwords. Besides the fact that I haven't used that particular password in ages (and even when I did, it was the password I used for "unimportant" sites), there are a whole bunch of other reasons why it was obvious that the email was fake and it would be literally impossible for the person to have whatever it was they claimed to have on me. I found it funny enough that I reached out to some other folks to see if this was getting around, and a few people told me they'd seen similar ones, noting that the final note about sending it to "9 friends" appeared to be an increase from the usual of "5" that they had seen before.

Indeed, Brian Krebs, who is always on top of these things, wrote a story about how a bunch of people got these emails last week. That one only asked for $1400, and also promised to send it to 5 friends. It has a few other slight differences to the one I received, but is pretty clearly sent by the same person/team of people with just a few modifications. Like the ones that Krebs reported on, mine appeared to come from an outlook.com email address. As Krebs notes, he expects that this particular scam is about to get a lot more popular, and will probably use a lot more recent set of passwords:

I suspect that as this scam gets refined even more, perpetrators will begin using more recent and relevant passwords — and perhaps other personal data that can be found online — to convince people that the hacking threat is real. That’s because there are a number of shady password lookup services online that index billions of usernames (i.e. email addresses) and passwords stolen in some of the biggest data breaches to date.

Alternatively, an industrious scammer could simply execute this scheme using a customer database from a freshly hacked Web site, emailing all users of that hacked site with a similar message and a current, working password. Tech support scammers also may begin latching onto this method as well.

And, at the very least, this scam appears to be working. It's unclear just how many people are receiving these emails -- and how many people are pointed to the same Bitcoin wallet address to pay -- but the one that Krebs included in his post shows a single payment of approximately $2000. When I first got the email the Bitcoin wallet address in the email I received showed no transactions, but I just looked again and there are two transactions, both within a day of when I received the email (one for .23 Bitcoins or ~$1600 and another for 0.3 Bitcoins or ~$2,000).

Of course, this should be a warning for everyone on a variety of levels:

1. Use a password manager already, and stop saying they're too difficult to use. They are not.
2. Use 2 factor authentication wherever possible
3. Cover your webcam with a sticker or tape or something when not in use
4. Don't believe every stupid threat email you receive
5. Don't randomly pay money to every stupid emailer who pretends to threaten you

Anyway, it will be worth watching how this particular scam evolves, but as Krebs notes, it's likely we'll be seeing it a lot more often as it seems to hit all the key points for a popular internet scam these days.

Filed Under: blackmail, hacked passwords, shakedown

Google Removes News Snippets From Complaining Publications In Germany; Publications Claim It's 'Blackmail'

from the let's-see-how-that-goes dept

Earlier this year, we noted a somewhat ridiculous and cynical attempt by some German newspapers to demand payment from Google for sending them traffic via Google News -- and not just a little bit, but 11% of gross worldwide revenue on any search that showed one of their snippets. There were a few issues that we noted here: first, anyone not wanting to appear in Google News can quite easily opt-out. Second, Google News in Germany doesn't show any ads. Third, those very same newspapers were using Google's own tools to appear higher in search, suggesting that they certainly believed they were getting value out of being in Google's index.

While German regulators rejected this request from the news publication industry group VG Media, Google has now decided to remove all news snippets from VG Media publications. It will still display results from those publications, but only in pure link/title format. Google claims it's doing this to "remove [the] legal risks" from ongoing legal action from VG Media, but it seems equally likely that this will also decrease the traffic to those publishers' websites.

As we've discussed in the past, years back under similar circumstances in Belgium, Google simply removed the complaining publications from its index, only to have those publications freak out and beg to be let back in, exposing the hypocrisy of those publishers, insisting that what Google was doing was somehow unfair.

Indeed, almost immediately, VG Media shot back that this is a form of "blackmail." According to David Meyer at GigaOm:

"Google is discriminating in that they do not show snippets and thumbnails for publishers that made a claim, but they still show snippets and thumbnails from other publishers," he said. "They're trying to [apply] economic pressure."

So... showing the snippets without payment is unfair and infringing. And, not showing the snippets is unfair and blackmail. Someone want to explain how any of this makes any sense other than that it's just petty corporate jealousy that Google has made a lot of money and those publishers want some of it for nothing?

VG Media's spokesperson seems to honestly think that there's some sort of moral requirement for Google to both pay for and show snippets. Again from Meyer:

The spokesman said VG Media was still in talks with the regulator about the case, and would add a complaint about this latest move. But how does this move harm consumers? I asked him. “Because they won’t have quality content in the future” if Google doesn’t pay for the snippets it uses, he claimed.

But surely Google actually helps publishers by sending traffic their way — do the publishers really believe that anyone sees a sentence-or-two-long snippet in Google News and then goes “Eh, that’s enough, I don’t need to click through”?

It's difficult to see how this is anything other than "We failed to develop our own business model, so the company that did ought to just give us money."

Filed Under: blackmail, copyright, germany, google news, search, snippets
Companies: google, vg media

Ecuador Tells US To Take Its Trade Agreement And Shove It, After Threats Relayed Over Snowden

from the wow dept

One of the points that many people have made concerning most countries in the world is that they're loathe to challenge the US on many things, even when they're in the right, because they're so reliant on the US for trade. The US regularly lords this fact over countries in seeking to get its way. In fact, US officials had been very strongly suggesting to Ecuador that if it decides to take in Ed Snowden and grant him asylum, that there could be consequences for trade under the Andean Trade Preference Act that both countries are signed to, but which needs to be renewed next month. Specifically, US politicians suggested that they might not allow the renewal if Ecuador granted asylum.

In response, Ecuador has taken a stand: saying that it's breaking the trade agreement upfront as it doesn't appreciate the attempt by the US to blackmail it in this matter.

President Rafael Correa's government said on Thursday it was renouncing the Andean Trade Preference Act to thwart US "blackmail" of Ecuador in the former NSA contractor's asylum request.

Officials, speaking at an early morning press conference, also offered a $23m donation for human rights training in the US, a brash riposte to recent US criticism of Ecuador's own human rights record.

Furthermore, they made it quite clear that this is entirely about the US' actions in trying to pressure them about Snowden:

"Ecuador does not accept pressure or threats from anyone, nor does it trade with principles or submit them to mercantile interests, however important those may be," said Fernando Alvarado, the communications secretary.

"Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably, the said customs benefits."

As the article notes, some of this is surely political. It is a bit of a populist move by the government, and many suspected that the trade agreement was unlikely to be renewed anyway by the US, so in some ways this is an attempt to get out in front of that story and pull something of a "you can't fire me, I quit!" move. Still, it highlights, once again, the way the US bullies smaller countries, and how that can backfire.

Filed Under: andean trade preference act, asylum, atpa, blackmail, ecuador, ed snowden, edward snowden, rafael correa, threats, trade agreements