In a shocking interview with Wired, hacker Robert Anderson tells how the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) paid $15,000 and promised power if he provided confidential information on TorrentSpy.
According to Anderson, MPAA allured him with nice paying job, a house, a car, anything he needed to “save Hollywoodâ€. They also wanted to set up a fake Torrent site.
Anderson cracked TorrentSpy’s servers by simply guessing an administrative password. He knew the password was weak - a combination of a name and some numbers (guessed in little over 30 tries). Once inside, he programmed TorrentSpy’s mail system to relay e-mail to a newly created external account he could access.
He sucked down about three dozen pages of e-mails detailing banking, advertising and other confidential information. Anderson proposed to implement an anti-piracy marketing campaign for the MPAA. He also offered to provide inside information on TorrentSpy.
Anderson’s account shows that the content industry may be willing to go to significant - and some say ethically questionable - lengths in its war against online piracy, and that it is determined to keep its methods secret. The MPAA’s use of Anderson is turning out to be like the MediaDefender - Email issue.
Meanwhile, the MPAA has not disputed the payment but told Wired that “the MPAA obtains information from third parties only if it believes the evidence has been collected legally.†They also deny the fake Torrent story.
