What are Internet Pirates?

Where do pirates like to shop the most? Taaaarrrrget! Okay, I know that's a bad joke (and probably doesn't make much sense outside the US and western Europe), but today we're looking at what, exactly are Internet pirates. They get discussed in the media, laws made against them, and are blamed by some to be the cause of all of the music industry's problems. You may be an internet pirate and not even know it!

"Internet pirate" is a term for someone who steals items from the internet instead of buying them through legitimate channels. This can be music, movies, software, or anything else digital. The term "internet pirate" became popular when Napster was at its peak and people were downloading music left and right. Have you ever downloaded a song from a program like Napster, Limewire, or Bearshare? These are all programs that are designed to allow people to share large files between each other, but people have taken over to share large copyrighted files between them and millions of strangers.

I've noticed an uptick in parents unknowingly pirating songs because their children download a program like Limewire on the computer and tell them that it's a place they can get music, TV shows and movies for free. They don't tell them that it's illegal, that they can be fined thousands of dollars, that it's a good way to get computer viruses, and/or have their internet provider refuse them further service. How can you know if you've been accidentally stealing your content? Did you pay for it? Did the maker of content explicitly say they're giving it away for free? If the answer is "no" to those questions, you've been pirating content!

Practical Tip of the Day:

As previously stated, pirating content is a good way to get viruses, malware, corrupted files and content you do not want (like porn instead of a TV show) downloaded onto your computer. Because of these as well as the legal and ethical reasons, I strongly discourage pirating. Where should you go to get these things then? iTunes, Amazon and Google Play are the three biggest content providers on the Internet. And yes, you have to pay.

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What is a Computer Virus?

They're there. Lurking in your inbox, behind that photo attachment, inside that program- the fearsome computer virus! Viruses in the physical world are microbes that are self-replicating. Viruses in the digital world are small programs that are self-replicating. A virus in your computer takes advantages of weaknesses in your security in much the same way a real virus takes advantage of weaknesses in your immune system.

A virus can do anything, or even nothing. Some sit there doing nothing but slowing down your computer, some will corrupt your data, others will take over your computer for someone else's use. Regardless of what it does, it's not a computer virus unless it self-replicates, meaning it makes a copy of itself and sends it on to another computer. I've compiled a small glossary of commonly used and misused terms related to this topic:

• Virus- A program that self-replicates (typically) through computer programs and usually does harm to your computer.
• Trojan- A program that claims to be one kind of file (like a game or music file), but is actually doing harm.
• Worm- A program that self-replicates through a computer network, not through programs. Usually does not harm the network itself.
• Adware- A program that pops up advertisements even when you are not connected to the internet.
• Spyware- A program that spies on you, reporting your activity to an outside source without your consent.
• Malware- A program that does bad things. This is a general name for all of the above terms.
• Phishing- An attempt- usually via email or webpage- to trick you into giving your information to a fraudulent source.

The last one, phishing, usually isn't a program at all, and thus is one of the most dangerous ones since there is no program to keep you from giving your own information away. One of the most common tricks is an email that appears to be from your bank saying your password has expired and needs to be changed. It then links to you what looks like your bank's webpage, and then asks for your log in, old password and new password. Once you hit submit, your banking ID and password is now available to whoever sent that email.

Practical Tip of the Day:
If you do ever receive an email from your bank asking for you to log in, do not follow the attached links, but rather navigate to the bank site as you normally would and log in from there. This keeps you from being navigated to a fraudulent site. Be suspicious of anything that asks for personal information of any kind. Most companies have a strict policy of not asking for log-in or personal information via email. If in doubt, call the company to verify the email.

Special Edition: What is a DDoS Attack?

The major news channels didn't give it much hype, but last night there was a significant attack on several major websites. Here's the list:

• Department of Justice (Justice.gov)
• Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA.org)
• Universal Music (UniversalMusic.com)
• Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation (Anti-piracy.be/nl/)
• Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA.org)
• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI.gov)
• HADOPI law site (HADOPI.fr)
• U.S. Copyright Office (Copyright.gov)
• Universal Music France (UniversalMusic.fr)
• Senator Christopher Dodd (ChrisDodd.com)
• Vivendi France (Vivendi.fr)
• The White House (Whitehouse.gov)
• BMI (BMI.com)
• Warner Music Group (WMG.com)

That's a lot, and a lot of very big, very important websites. The results of the attacks were that most, if not all, the sites were down for hours yesterday, being brought back online early this morning. I'm not going to go into detail on the politics of the attack, or who has taken credit credit for them, but I will try to explain exactly what happened.

"DDoS" stands for "Distributed Denial of Service", and "attack" stands for, well, attack. The name describes pretty well what the desired outcome of the attack is- to deny people the services of a website (usually by taking it offline). While there are several ways to do this, the most common, and the variant used in last night's attacks, is by overloading the servers that host those pages. Let's unpack that and translate it into normal-speak.

Let's say that you run a business, and you have a store front. If someone wants to look at what you sell, they come into your store and look. The person might leave and come back later, they might bring a friend, or they may never come back. Now, let's say that someone repeatedly came into your store and left it in a matter of minutes. One minute they're in, one minute they're out, one minute they're in, one minute they're out. That's odd, but not too dangerous, right?

Now, if that person brings three friends, and they each bring three friends, who each bring three friends.... You can see how it might become overwhelming very quickly. If enough people come into your store your real customers can't get in- they're being denied your services. (See what I did there?) In this analogy, the people coming into your store are computers, and the leaving and coming back are the computers repeatedly visiting the website very rapidly. (Usually several times a second.)

While a DDoS Attack does no long-term damage, it can take a website down and keep it down for as long as the attack continues if the attackers have enough "bots" (friends they brought to your store) attacking a site. Also, you can get 10 years in prison if you get caught, but more and more frequently, attackers are tricking people into becoming unknowing bots by getting them to either download a program or click a link under false pretenses.

Practical Tip of the Day:
Don't download a program or click a link you're not familiar with. The most common way for internet "bad guys" to get to your information is by tricking you into giving it to them. More and more often people are being tricked into giving their sensitive information away themselves instead of someone taking it by force. If you get an email from your bank asking for you to reset your password, don't follow the link in the email, go to the official site and do it there. It's very common for emails to look official, but be taking you to a website that will collect your information for someone else's use. This is called "phishing" (pronounced "fishing")