News of Interest: MediaDefender Leak

On September 17, the Wall Street Journal reported that hackers had obtained and posted on the Internet thousands of internal emails from MediaDefender, a company working with motion picture studios and recording companies to combat piracy on the Internet. According to the posted emails, MediaDefender has been testing a web site that appears to be a peer-to-peer site that allows individuals to download movies, music and television shows, but the site obtains users’ IP addresses and then tracks their activities. One email also suggested that the fake web site would download onto users’ computers a software program that would distribute fake files (known as decoys) to clog other peer-to-peer networks. Some of the emails also disclosed communications with some of MediaDefender’s clients. The WSJ article is available on the WSJ.com web site (paid subscription required): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118998414197229169.html