A few inquisitive and observant folks have asked me 'Why are there regular ISPs like Verizon, BTCentral, and Sympatico on the Block List?
Flooding has been going on for a long time, its not new to WinMx and its not new to p2p systems in general. There are several companies that make this job of disrupting p2p systems for the RIAA/MPAA their daily work. Macrovision is our worry here on WinMx. They are the ones that developed and fairly recently patented a system by which to do this job on a 'decentralized' network.
'System', what does that mean exactly? Well, I will try to explain without going into too much technical jargon. The system they have developed basically is similar to the 'quickmx' in that it allows them to have multiple fake clients running from one IP address, optimizing the spread of fakes. This means that thousands of fakes can be uploaded from this one IP address. They have their own network or ISP if you will called SmokeBlower Networks to run these systems from, most of which is run through the backbone company Globix and Performance Systems Inc.
The problem they must have found was that just like we do here finding them, they where being noticed by other users of other p2p systems on these IP addresses. Using the same ranges of numbers was becoming obvious to enough that they must at some point have decided to expand the possibilities of IPs they have available to use. Business accounts as you may be aware are very 'static' IPs or IP ranges, this doesnt do them any favors once the folks at these other p2p systems started reporting the ranges to folks like BlueTack.org (the makers of the PeerGuardian, Protowall and the like block lists).
So just like most of us have a 'Dynamic' residential account and changing IP, they must have seen that this could benefit them to use also. When exactly they did this I dont know, maybe from the begining, maybe not, however they somehow now intercede themselves to these regular ISPs. I am in the process of investigating this activity further as well, after all they are breaking all of the 'Terms of Use Policies' of nearly all of these ISPs from what I have found so far.
The point is this, its much easier to hide amongst a regular swiftly changing IP to do the damage and try to stay under the radar. They didnt count on folks as diligent as we have working on our list..
Bare in mind that they have to use an IP address just like you or I do to connect to WinMx, without it the 'WinMX Primary Clients' will just tell them to piss off, so they grab an IP address and use while that particular 'system of theirs' is in use. More then likely as they reboot these systems the IP address of the dynamic numbers then also changes just like you or I. As mentioned above I am in the process of contacting these ISPs to find out how this happens, do they actually hold accounts, do they have a system that is 'proxy like'.. and so on.
Whats important to note here is that I have no proof that these ISPs are aware of what their allocated IP numbers are being used for, so we cant exactly hang the ISP, or say that they are helping Macrovision knowingly either. Its also important to know that just like anywhere the same IP numbers cant be used by a regular user at the same time as its being used by Macrovision. Hence the reason we have such a fast rate of maneuver of the numbers also. We dont keep a number on the list if there is
ANY chance they are no longer in Macrovision custody and could be a regular Joe trying to connect. This is another good reason for Macrovision to use them, we all know that getting a number added to the lists that BlueTack uses is easy enough, they have added several of the numbers we recommended however, getting one taken off is like an act of congress, that has to be approved by god.. lol
So if your wondering why your ISP is on the block list keep this in mind.
They may have no idea of the activity.
The numbers are removed within days at the most of them being Not in use by Macrovision.
This in no way reflects that the ISP is in cahoots with the RIAA. (yet, still investigating how this process goes)
There is NO way with our methods that if your on this ISP your IP address will be added to the list as a flooder. (in fact if there is ever any doubt about whether a number is flooding or not, its not added until there is none!!).
So rest assured for now that we are watching these numbers like hawks, and that your safe to use these ISPs without there being in any danger or worrying about being blocked by the list. We may at some time ask for help in writing emails to report Macrovisions activities to these ISPs in order to stop allowing them to commit DOS attacks, misuse of the ISPs allocated IPs, and breaking of the same 'Terms of Use' or 'Acceptable Use Policies' that you have to abide by through these ISPs. I will let you know what information you need when this happens and my investigations are over.
Now if there are any questions regarding the IPs on the list I would be more then happy to answer those here in this thread.
Hope this eases your minds and helps you to understand what kind of folks we are dealing with at Macrovision.
