I am a huge fan of the content that Revision3 puts out. Although I may not watch every show they produce/distribute, I think some of the best “TV” actually comes from this internet company, with such examples as The Totally Rad Show, Diggnation, Tekzilla, iFanboy, and popSiren. I also frequent their forums to interact with the community of viewers. This weekend, however, I was thwarted in my many attempts to access their site; I was not alone. It turns out that, over the weekend, Revision3 was the target of a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack which severely crippled their servers. That, alone, is really not that newsworthy since these attacks happen constantly all over the web for a variety of reasons. What makes this example special is who perpetrated the attack and the suspected reasons behind why they would do such a thing.

In a lengthy and incredibly well-written blog post on their website, Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback details exactly what this DoS was, how it happened, and why it brought down their server. But he also goes on to describe how the evidence the attackers left behind led them to a subsidiary of Artistdirect called MediaDefender. MediaDefender is a company that, as ars technica points out, intentionally poisons peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic in a purported effort to fight piracy, and their clients have included Sony, Universal Music, the RIAA, and the MPAA. Now, Revision3 uses the Bittorrent P2P protocol to distribute its large volume of high-definition content (namely its shows) manageably and efficiently to its consumers. MediaOffender, ahem, MediaDefender had been injecting torrents into Revision3’s tracking server for months until the back door was found and Revision3 deauthorized non-Revision3 torrents. This caused MediaDouchefender, dammit, MediaDefender’s servers to attack Revision3’s servers by pinging them 8000 times every second, effectively bringing Revision3 to a crashing halt. It is interesting to note here how Louderback phrases this: “Revision3 suffered measurable harm to its business….” This certainly sounds like someone is laying groundwork for a lawsuit. Additionally, the FBI is investigating the incident so hopefully there will be repercussions for such an incredibly reprehensible and entirely indefensible attack on a business by an organization, funded by competing media interests, whose tactic to “fight piracy” is to undermine undeniably legal technology. I…am…so…angry…

Edit:
Here’s more of my feelings in the form of a comment (currently awaiting moderation) I left on Molly Wood’s Culture of Ownership blog:

I think there’s a little piece of the story that many people may be missing so let me quote from MediaDouchefenders’ website: “This last year, we have been leveraging our anti-piracy technology to market and promote on various Peer-to-Peer Networks.” My guess is that they not only put decoy torrents on Rev3’s network, but they have also likely been injecting torrents to “market and promote” their old media clients by hijacking/attacking their direct competition in new media. I also do not think it is coincidence that Revision3 was attacked given the founders’ connection to Digg, and we all know how much the AACS LA consortium (including MediaOffender client Sony) loved Digg after that encryption key was released. I don’t know. Maybe I’m thinking too hard, but that’s just how I see things.