RIAA Web Site Crippled By Virus

Jahfin · Post by **Jahfin** » March 23, 2004 12:24 pm

From Billboard.com:
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/artic ... 1000469653

The Recording Industry Association of America's Web site has been inaccessible for several days, possibly the victim of a computer virus specifically targeting the site. RIAA.com was among the targets named in the "MyDoom.F" virus, which Internet security firms spotted last month. The site has been down since Wednesday and remained offline this morning.

"We are working on getting it back online," RIAA spokesperson Jonathan Lamy said, declining to elaborate. The virus was programmed to activate between the 17th and 22nd of any month, said Vincent Gullotto, vice president of McAfee's antivirus emergency response team.

It's not clear whether the virus actually caused an Internet traffic jam that shut down the site, or if the RIAA opted to take the site down in anticipation of the virus' activation.

Upon activation, the virus performs a so-called denial-of-service attack, in which machines infected with the virus continually send bogus Web traffic requests to the RIAA site, overwhelming it so it can't handle legitimate requests.

"It's impossible to filter the traffic because it looks identical to the same type of traffic generated by a regular browser," said Tony Magallanez, systems engineer at F-Secure Corp. in San Jose. "You get to a point where if enough machines become infected it can overwhelm pretty much any connection." Sites targeted in the past include those of Microsoft Corp. and anti-spam organizations.

The RIAA site has been attacked several times since July 2002. As the trade organization for the major recording label, the RIAA has been at the forefront of efforts to stop file-sharing programs.

If the "MyDoom.F" virus caused the five-day jam, it suggests tens of thousands of computers have been infected, Gullotto said. So far, both McAfee and F-Secure have seen the virus crop up mostly on computers in Europe, but it remains a low priority compared to other, more prolific computer viruses. "It's not on our immediate radar," Gullotto said. "It's fallen far enough on our top 10 or even top 100 in the last week."

A1A BOUND · Post by **A1A BOUND** » March 23, 2004 12:38 pm

LET THE DOWNLOADING BEGIN!!!!!!!

tommcat327 · Post by **tommcat327** » March 23, 2004 1:06 pm

I THINK MORE PEOPLE SHOULD BE DOING THIS KIND OF THING TO THEM

Ilph · Post by **Ilph** » March 23, 2004 1:42 pm

hahahahahaha that's funny! Maybe they should use the extra money they gouge CD prices with to buy a decent firewall.

A1A BOUND · Post by **A1A BOUND** » March 23, 2004 2:02 pm

WHAT IS THE LATEST NEWS ON DOWNLOADING? ARE THEY STILL BUSTING PEOPLE?

Key Lime Lee · Post by **Key Lime Lee** » March 23, 2004 4:59 pm

A1A BOUND wrote:WHAT IS THE LATEST NEWS ON DOWNLOADING? ARE THEY STILL BUSTING PEOPLE?

From Reuters today:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. music industry on Tuesday forged ahead with its legal effort to stamp out online piracy by suing over 500 people for online copyright infringement, including 89 individuals using college networks.

Like 1,063 similar suits filed since January, the Recording Industry Association of America employed the "John Doe" litigation method because the names of the 532 infringers accused of illegally distributing copyrighted sound recordings on peer-to-peer services were not yet known.

The RIAA, which cites digital piracy as a big factor behind a three-year slump in CD sales, said individuals at 21 universities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin were included.

Lawsuits against 443 illegal file sharers using commercial Internet Service Providers were brought in California, Colorado, Missouri, Texas and Virginia, the RIAA said.

The RIAA identified song swappers by numerical Internet addresses only because it has been unable to sue suspected pirates by name since December, when an appeals court sided with Verizon Communications (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) by ruling that ISPs did not have to respond to subpoenas filed as a prelude to lawsuits requesting names of users.

As in the earlier rounds, the RIAA plans to discover swappers' names and locations through court-issued subpoenas.

tommcat327 · Post by **tommcat327** » March 23, 2004 8:51 pm

more geeks should get together to screw the RIAA over and leave my computer alone