Irony Alert: John Steele Denies Uploading Anything Ever Despite Growing IP Evidence
from the irony-alert dept
Well, well. We recently wrote about a new filing in the Paul Oppold case in Florida, in which lawyer Graham Syfert presents very, very detailed and compelling evidence, as put together by Delvan Neville, that many of the films that Prenda sued people over were initially uploaded by John Steele. The folks over at The Pirate Bay added to this by presenting evidence that the sharkmp4 user who uploaded the works came from the very same IP address that Neville had found (among other evidence) in his findings. Basically, there’s a ton of evidence that, at the very least, whoever controlled the Prenda Law domain name, also uploaded the torrent, ran a website “releasing” the movies, controlled John Steele’s confirmed email account and commented on various blogs with clear insider knowledge of Prenda Law’s actions.
John Steele’s response? Deny, deny, deny. Here’s him talking to Ars Technica:
“I have never uploaded a torrent in my life, I have never instructed anyone to do so, and I am not aware of anyone I have worked with in any capacity whatsoever (other than pirates of course). I am not sure how much more unequivocal about it I can be. I have no involvement with any case in Florida, including Mr. Oppold’s case. I have not read a single document in that case. I don’t intend to. As far as Mr. Syfert, you will have to ask him why he is hiring experts to try to connect me to a case I have no involvement with.”
For what it’s worth, Syfert didn’t actually hire an expert to try to connect one to the other, but merely to investigate who did what. That a tremendous amount of evidence then poured out all pointing to John Steele is the result.
That said, here’s the really ironic bit: In all of the John Steele cases of copyright trolling, in which he and his partners have been accusing people of copyright infringement and hacking computers, their “evidence” tends to be a single IP address involved in a single action, which they argue is enough information to accurately identify the person and the actions they did. Here, we not only have a single IP address, but a ton of additional information, including that identical IP address showing up in multiple places, while a variety of other evidence directly links Steele to the IP address, yet he insists it’s not true. Fascinating.
One of our commenters put it all together in a single image.
Filed Under: delvan neville, evidence, graham syfert, ip addresses, john steele, paul oppold
Companies: prenda, prenda law
Comments on “Irony Alert: John Steele Denies Uploading Anything Ever Despite Growing IP Evidence”
Brings a smile to the face
Ah, can’t help but smile at the awesomeness of so many people coming together in harmony and cooperation like this… to absolutely bury a scrumbag like Steele.
Also, I note that he has no trouble clearly and flatly denying his involvement in an interview, wonder if he’d be so confident or vocal if it was in a court with the threat of perjury charges hanging over his head if he was found lying?
How about we allow him to settle?
Maybe the attorney in the case should send John one of those “settlement letters” offering him the opportunity to settle out of court for a sum of money (equivalent to roughly how much he’s “earned” using the same technique).
Otherwise, the findings will be forwarded to his family, neighbors, etc. detailing what kind of person he is.
After all, an IP address == a person and if it’s his, well…
Karma. Gotta love her.
Re: How about we allow him to settle?
“Maybe the attorney in the case should send John one of those “settlement letters” offering him the opportunity to settle out of court for a sum of money (equivalent to roughly how much he’s “earned” using the same technique).”
You spake of Karma and it simply reminded me of Gandhi where he said “An eye for an eye makes the world blind”. Karma is not about getting even, it’s about doing good things to make you feel better about yourself. That’s how it works.
And for the record….because John Steal is facing criminal charges and the defense properly filed for discovery in these situations, it only affects and exposes John Steele and his associates, not countless, nameless shmucks who did not pirate porn.
Re: Re: How about we allow him to settle?
So instead we let him walk? I disagree. If he was truly enlightened by this experience, it’s one thing. But that’s not going to happen.
Karma is causation and effect. He’s clearly on the ass end of what he’s been doling out.
Re: Re: Re: How about we allow him to settle?
Even God only forgives those that repent. Haven’t seen a lot of that from John Steele…
Re: Re: Re:2 How about we allow him to settle?
Not only to repent but also to forgive others. We have not seen much of John Steele in a forgiving mood. Hey so you touched our stuff, no problem, hope you enjoyed.
Re: Re: How about we allow him to settle?
John Steele is facing criminal charges…
How do figure this? Where is he facing criminal charges?
Re: Re: Re: How about we allow him to settle?
Judge Wright referred (or will be referring) his findings to various organizations, including the Feds & IRS, for investigation. Considering all the evidence, charges should be forthcoming once the wheels of justice get up to speed.
Re: How about we allow him to settle?
This. Is. AWESOME!
Somewhere, atop their ivory towers, the MPAA head honchos just broke out into a cold sweat.
Poor John Steal
It was probably his evil twin brother that did the uploading. /s
Steele and his law firm are long overdue to get what they deserve.
Thanks to a lot of hard work by real attorneys and appropriate experts, it seems the end of this saga is at hand.
With any luck at all, Steele’s next residence will involve iron bars and nerve wracking showers.
Re: Poor John Steal
I am willing to bet that everything he is doing will definitely be used against him when being sequestered to defend himself and his associates from disbarment. So let’s pile it on and take out time as the judicial system has a veritable nuclear blast set up…the more he continues the bigger the blowout will become 😉
Maybe it was Alan Cooper…
After all, he was responsible for practically everything else in this story…
Re: Re:
Damn! I was just getting ready to post this and you beat me to it! LOL
the thing i find so ironic is his denial of ever uploading anything. did he take any notice of the denials he got from people he accused of downloading something? so why should he not be ignored now, just as he ignored everyone else? he should receive even less ‘mercy’ than was shown by him because of the position he holds as a lawyer.
what is so sad as well is though, this sort of thing will continue. it will be another firm, another lawyer, another town but the extortion will be the same. why is it then that those that could correct any of this, could stop any repeats of this and worse situations from even beginning refuse to do nothing??
There's a simple explanation for it all and Steele's innocence!
Steele clearly has a split personality disorder! It was his evil personality that did this evil uploading of pirated goods to the Internet! His good personality doesn’t remember a thing about it!
Oh and the emails for both the good and bad Steele going to the same place and Good Steele still not noticing? Umm… his evil side must possess his good side at times and make his good Steele forget things that bad Steele made him witness!
Re: There's a simple explanation for it all and Steele's innocence!
I thought the twist was…
He was dead all along!
Go ahead, sue me for infringement.
Re: Re: There's a simple explanation for it all and Steele's innocence!
Maybe Shamaylan will do the movie version when this is all said and done.
Considering the reviews for Airbender and After Earth, I love to read the reviews for that heh
Re: I think you hit the nail on the head...
Of course his evil personality goes by the name “Alan Cooper”. 🙂
So he denies it…so what?
What difference did that make with anyone else?
If it’s his IP, under his control, then by Prenda logic (oxymoron, I know…), he’s responsible.
Re: Re:
And in the end he loses either way (at least theoretically).
If he loses he’s in a world of hurt.
If he wins, he discredits the IP address fallacy, and there goes the business model.
Re: Re: Re:
I’m not sure if he was ever banking on the ‘IP address = person’ bit anyway, the entire operation was more focused on ‘Pay us or we drag you to court, tell everyone you downloaded fetish porn, drive up court fees on useless items, and then drop the case before a judge can rule on it’.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
If anything, he sure hams it up a lot whenever he talks about bringing his lawsuits – “if you didn’t do it, then your son living in his mother’s basement must have done it, you know it and I know it, so pay me through the nose or I ruin your life”.
If a judge does strike this down it’s going to ruin the RIAA’s food chain quite badly. Can’t say I feel sorry for them.
I wonder
Who the German operator is that seems to have posted the other half (at least the half shown in the image)?
http://ipadresa.net/whois/46.21.99/
The world wonders.
Re: I wonder
Please check the RIPE database! The network belongs to a hoster in Sweden!
Re: I wonder
It’s Mullvad VPN: we know for ages that Steele and his gang uses this relatively unknown VPN provider: he left a ton of comments on FCT and DTD while connected to that VPN.
Re: Re: I wonder
It’s Mullvad VPN: we know for ages that Steele and his gang uses this relatively unknown VPN provider
I know Mullvad says they don’t keep logs, but I wonder if, like the Hide* VPN, if they accidentally have logs hidden somewhere? But they really don’t need logs either, just getting the payment information for Steele on Mullvad could give some good circumstantial evidence to link him to it.
Re: Re: Re: I wonder
According to German law, they HAVE to keep logs (at least for their German exit nodes). And, according to TPB’s logs, half of the sharkmp4 torrents WERE uploaded from one of their German exit nodes.
Consequences
Would love to hear a quick blurb from Mike or Ken about the possible sanctions Steele/Prenda could be in for this…
I mean would all of their “legal” trolling turn into extortion rather than licensing/suing?
Would there be any ramifications for knowingly be the person who put it out there then be partners with the parties that filed suit?
Could people who have paid settlements recover funds?
I’m assuming based on their current actions they’re already in line to lose licenses to practice law…
Am I getting a little too far ahead of myself or have I not even scratched the surface?
Re: Consequences
Or someone else who would know (rather than speculate).
The suspense of this drama/thriller is killing me. Plus my popcorn supply is running low…
Re: Consequences
Should the Court conclude that Prenda did seed these torrents creating authorized distributions then people could indeed demand a refund.
Any Court orders against them would also be revoked either by default or on a fresh appeal. Such people could also claim damages and costs.
They may even want to go as far as a class action lawsuit but in this case it should be easy enough to handle it themselves with a little Internet help including default template letters.
Best people strike early when John Steele and friends will soon be bankrupt.
Their bigger problem is RICO which could well land them in prison for many years. An IRS audit should hopefully track down all payments and hidden money.
Re: Re: Consequences
Is that because of their practice of negotiating with someone to allow them to sue for discovery or did I miss something?
Sorry I’m trying to understand. Appreciate the help so far, but I’m leagalise illeterate.
Re: Re: Re: Consequences
Let me clarify then. So after Prenda have subpoenaed the ISPs for discovery of subscriber details they contact them with settlement demands saying “You infringed the copyright owned by Ingenuity 13 (a Prenda shell)”
The problem is on seeding the torrents themselves this is a lie when the download/upload was not infringing. So letters are a lie and a fraud upon both the Court and on the subscribers and what they should go to prison for.
This only applies to these stated more recent torrents but more could be included later. So yes people could demand a refund on any settlement because they were lied to when they don’t charge for what they are giving away.
Re: Re: Re: Consequences
When the owner of copyright material uploads the material themselves for other to download, any downloads are considered authorized copies, with licenses implicit by the fact that the owner made it available.
Thus all the “illegal” copies that Prenda forced people to make settlements for downloading would infact be “legal” copies that the people being threatened had permission to download.
It’s the reason why it’s not common practice for industries to create honeypots to catch downloaders.
In short, to give a real world example, it would pretty much be the equivalent of Prenda standing on a street corner handing out their DVDs to anyone that asked for one, then accusing anyone that accepted one of theft.
More Irony
John Steele doesn’t exactly have a mind like a steel trap.
Re: More Irony
Very ironic, indeed.
It’s like 10,000 spoons, when all you need is a knife!
Re: Re: More Irony
Spoooooooooooooon!
Re: More Irony
His mind is like a steel trap: rusty and illegal in 47 states!
Incentives are too great...
It is absolutely mindboggling the length that copyright has gone to justify unethical behavior like this.
This is just more incentive to abolish copyright and create more incentives for the public to make music and art instead of having to deal with greedy lawyers hellbent on making money illegally.
The great part about this is that every step he takes to prove it wasn’t him actually helps the defendants and anyone else accused of downloading.
Interesting comparing his current mode of denial vs. his response to the Wright smack-down. Before his response was along the lines of “hey, where’s the evidence?”; now, with the evidence right in our faces, the immediate, unequivocal denial is all he can think of.
Too bad that unequivocal denial is such an obvious lie. You can almost hear the panic seeping between the lines in his response like flop sweat.
Re: Re:
Yeah, he is ignorant. He should keep quiet. Every absolute, over-the-top denial creates another statement that will catch him down the road, and also motivates complete strangers to join the fun and throws some rocks at him.
Prenda is screwed either way. They either admit that IP addresses are not identifiable information and get all their cases thrown out of court across the country for that admission, or admit they ARE and lose all their cases due to it being a honey pot operation.
Hmm….
The location of that IP adress
The location of that IP address is in Minneapolis, Minnesota…….given the location of that…he might have been using one of those mobile broadband cards that cellphone companies provide you with and likely uploaded the porn while sitting on a bench in the middle of a public park.
https://ipdb.at/ip/75.72.88.156
Re: The location of that IP adress
Subpoena is waiting to happen.
Re: Re: The location of that IP adress
Sorry, correction: not MN Comcast, but another one, Mullvad.
Re: Re: The location of that IP adress
Sorry, correction: not MN Comcast, but another one, Mullvad.
Re: Re: Re: The location of that IP adress
Mullvad is also the name of a local DSL service in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Steele might have registered under Comcast in the past and due to his profession, used a mobile broadband receiver on his laptop…..The thing is that the devices could never be registered on two different ISP’s because to access his connection to Mullvad at home, he would have had to of hacked the broadband receiver from Comcast. Some DSL carriers rely on a wireless box away from your house and the DSL line just picks it up from across the street. My guess is that this method is used to prevent flooding from damaging the lines going into the houses.
Here is my conjecture or guess as to what he could have done…
He hacked his broadband receiver to pick up on that box and forgot to change the name registration that said mobile broadband receiver that is tied to its MAC address…
Re: The location of that IP adress
Geolocation isn’t quite THAT accurate. Sure, it drops a marker at a specific location, but you can’t look at that marker as an EXACT location.
Try it. Go put in your own IP address and see where it thinks YOU are. It puts me about 18 miles away from where I actually live.
Re: Re: The location of that IP adress
For me it is about 150 miles off, and in the wrong country (part of the UK)
Re: Re: Re: The location of that IP adress
Yes but here in the US, Google is not under the same strict privacy rules brought on by Maps.
Re: Re: Re:2 The location of that IP adress
More a case of using mobile broadband, the IP address locate the providers office.
Re: Re: The location of that IP adress
My ISP is TimeWarner and their location for the services they provide me are in Zanesville, Ohio….I live in rural northern central Ohio….in a town far from Zanesville.
Re: Re: The location of that IP adress
The location of the IP address is, no doubt, in Minnesota. Just do a reverse lookup and you’ll get: c-75-72-88-156.hsd1.mn.comcast.net
From this, you get two bits of information: “hsd1” refers to a “high-speed data plan” and “mn” refers to Minnesota. It means this is NOT a mobile broadband connection and it will be traced back to a specific person, once Comcast gets a subpoena.
Also, don’t forget about my exhibit to the embedded picture: a screenshot of a search result: I searched for my blog’s comments made using the first IP address from the TBP list (the one red-underlined, MN Comcast).
http://fightcopyrighttrolls.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/comments-e280b9-fight-copyright-trolls-e28094-wordpress.png
Re: Re:
Thank you SJD for “pushing Prenda into individual suits so hard,” as that really seems to have started the turning of the tides against them;)
Re: Re: Re:
John knows that he is very welcome 😉
Prison Awaits
The facts seem quite conclusive in this case.
Should the IP address turn up as owned by John Steele then it seems without doubt that he has been running a honey pot trap with the aid of his friends.
I pondered his response and what will he say open WIFI or hacked? But how can he say this when how could sharkmp4 the cause of these infringements have known John Steele’s own IP address? The odds are rare.
Even if possible how could Prenda be aware of these new torrents and begin infringement tracking within minutes of an announcement?
I am quite sure people get convicted on less evidence than this where Prenda are known liars.
Re: Prison Awaits
Nay, mate. The worst that will happen to Prenda Pirates is some kind of professional censure. All their suits will be allowed to be dropped, but no Judge will demand that Lawyers stand for their crimes. Judges all used to work as Lawyers themselves, and a lot have skeletons in their closets, if not their back yards.
Re: Re: Prison Awaits
So what about RICO and the IRS when they like to jail bad people?
All these Judge may do is to officially pass on the data to RICO to validate further.
Re: Re: Re: Prison Awaits
All these Judge may do is to officially pass on the data to RICO to validate further.
RICO is a law, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which is usually charged by the US Attorney or an indictment from a grand jury and investigated by the FBI/DHS/IRS/etc.
I am just guessing here (as I have no personal knowledge of what the wheels of justice are doing here, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night,) but I am pretty sure that if a grand jury hasn’t already started seeing this case, they will likely in the future.
He pretty clearly said, “I have never uploaded a torrent in my life” so if he was dead all along, that’s totally accurate.
Re: Re:
Actually, it really wasn’t that John Steele that uploaded the torrents; it was the other John Steele, that just happens to live in the same body as the former John Steele.
Re: Re:
Does that make him Schr?dinger’s Douche?
Re: Re: Re:
He is a G?del douche: cannot be consistent and complete[ly full of shit] at the same time.
Principle should work both ways
I’m pretty sure IP address doesn’t equal individual. I’ve seen that stated a lot when people are accused of copyright infringement based on their IP address.
I think there’s even been court precedent, although I’m too lazy to look it up.
Without getting a hold of his computer, it would be tough to prove.
Re: Principle should work both ways
I should add that while I think Steele is probably guilty of most of the accusations, he seems to have done a pretty good job of insulating himself from legal action. Lutz and Gibbs are already under the bus, and there’s a decent chance Hansmeier will get screwed, but Steele will probably walk away with little more than a verbal lashing from a few judges.
Re: Re: Principle should work both ways
I am quite sure that the others will turn witness against Steele to minimize their own punishments.
Re: Re: Principle should work both ways
“Lutz and Gibbs are already under the bus”
I have to wonder if and when Gibbs will start talking. Time is about to run out Brett’s career as a lawyer. He might as well break the whole attorney/client rules in an attempt to go down with the others.
Steele and the others could get nailed hard by the feds for RICO and the IRS for tax evasion. And if they did report their taxes properly, that would give the feds more ammo for a RICO case.
Re: Principle should work both ways
IP != Person when discussing a single IP capture carried out over a monitoring period.
Showing a pattern of the same IP over and over in different places and accessing private accounts registered to him does make it more likely the person behind the IP was Steele or someone in his employ.
Trolls have tried to overcome the hurdle of IP != person in various ways.
1 – They recorded multiple “hits” of the IP in a swarm for say a 10 minute period, then called each hit a separate infringement. Think of it as using the powerball multiplier effect, same alleged transaction but seeking cash each time they saw them. Still fails to establish who was at the keyboard or what machine was there.
2 – Malibu Media has filed into evidence a list of other copyrighted material they alleged was downloaded by the same IP. This material is not owned by MM or a client. The fact that bestiality titles were included on the list is purely by chance… which is why a Judge is moving towards sanctioning them.
The evidence here is not a single point. It is not a single transaction. It is a pattern of use that points directly at the responsible party. It goes less than was claimed in the Prenda “expert” declaration (the kid is 20 something and spent a majority of the report repeating debunked MPAA statistics. He never looked at the software used by 6881 (or whatever) but still claimed it would work that way from description.) You stand to be awarded $150,000 and your unwilling to spend more than $400 to attempt to get made whole from this horrible crime.
Re: Re: Principle should work both ways
This. At the very LEAST (and this is already giving Steele the benefit of the doubt, which he doesn’t deserve), the person that did the uploading of “sharkmp4” torrents used exactly the same Internet access as John Steele (given GoDaddy’s logs).
So… either the nasty nasty sharkmp4 pirate knew where Steele was working/living and (REPEATEDLY!) used his connection to upload the torrents (unlikely and unnecessarily dangerous, given that sharkmp4 had access to a Mullvad VPN account) OR John Steele knew where sharkmp4 was living/working and decided to use his connection to access his GoDaddy account LOL (again, unlikely and unnecessary, given that John Steele had access to a Mullvad VPN account).
Any way you slice it, you come to the conclusion that (even if we give Steele the benefit of the doubt and assume that sharkmp4 and him are not the same person), sharkmp4 and Steele used the same internet connection. There’s no need to assume that “IP address == person”. So, according to Prenda’s legal logic, at the VERY LEAST, Steele is negligent for not securing his internet connection.
The funniest part is that Steele could actually have avoided all of this, if only he kept using his Mullvad VPN account AT ALL TIMES. But, alas, he’s a baby n00b.
John Steele’s response? Deny, deny, deny.
Mike Masnick’s modus operandi? Accuse, accuse, accuse!!
Re: Re:
Average troll modus operandi? Rant, rant, rant!!
Re: Re:
…and yours, piss in the wind, piss in the wind, piss in the wind…
Re: Re: Re:
I think he doesn’t even bother. All he does is do a handstand and wee on himself while screaming “blargha flargha!”
Why get the wind to get pee all over yourself when you can do it D.I.Y.?
Re: Re:
I can’t wait till the day I get to read the news story of
“Asshole porn troll lawyer arrested for mass extortion and fraud.”
In other news OOTB was tragically raped to death by a pack of rabid mountain lions.
The perfect day!
Re: Re:
TRAGICALLY?
Re: Re: Re:
Tragically…
/waitforit
For the lions! Please think of the lions!
Why does my gut tell me that Allen Cooper has something to do with this recent spat of uploading….I mean he was caretaker of John Steele’s estate…maybe he swiped a mobile broadband receiver….
Re: Re:
this is not recent. this is the original points the files were posted online on the BT network. Lawsuits were filed shortly there after, and after that they attempted to make a site to “sell” the content.
In addition to the compiled image above, there is also this from sjd: comments from 46.21.99.29
So from the same mullvad vpn IP which was used by sharkmp4, comments like “we are suing the living shit out of people”, and clearly identifiying as “Prenda” (second last comment).
It looks like Steele or whoever were just sloppy in starting up his VPN sometimes…
What I don’t get, does the comcast IP belong to a broadband customer contract vs. an IP you get with a server? Can customer IP’s be that static? If its customer, they seem to run naughti-hotties.com from that now since march.. It looks like they run an embedded web server there, are they serving that site from a router or something?!
Also who from Prenda is in Minneapolis, MN (the comcast IP)?
SJD & DTD, have you checked your comments for the other mullvad IP used by sharkmp4, 85.17.31.120 (and all the other ones from the godaddy account etc)?
Re: myself
jesus, they indeed(have been) running naughtie-hotties.com on a comcast cable modem… utelnetd instead of ssh?!
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
23/tcp open telnet utelnetd
53/tcp open tcpwrapped
80/tcp open http GoAhead-Webs embedded httpd
And at the moment, all you get is a login page for Comcast Business Gateway…
Re: Re:
Yes I checked. Not this address, but other Mullvad nodes are present. See Exhibit K-4 to Delvan’s affidavit: it’s my email with all (to the best of my effort) the comments suspected to be from Steele.
Re: Re: Re:
OK wait a second, whats up with that latest comment in your pic (2013/03/23)?
It has the the mullvad IP as the commenter’s name, but comes from an AT&T IP apparently in Illinois(99.50.25.75). How the fuck does that makes any sense? Who knew about that mullvad IP back in March?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Sorry, I should have edited it out: definitely it is not, someone simply entered this IP address in the name field while discussing it. Search is performed over all the fields…
If it happened half a year ago, I would feel really bad because I accidentally exposed a guy whose IP address could be in Prenda’s database. Steele is know for his vindictiveness (see the most disgusting Steele’s comment #4). Fortunately, today crooks can’t do anything to anyone, they are busy digging to China.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
whoops sorry, I wasn’t aware that the mudvard IP was already being thrown around as potentialy linked to Prenda back in March. Either way, that comment you exposed is completely harmless.
Re: Re:
I don’t know if it’s a business or consumer class connection, but Comcast in my area (in Tennessee) practically gives out static IPs to consumer connections. Mine changes maybe twice a year at best, and seems to go along with major maintenance periods so they probably were redoing some network routing anyway when it happens. So it’s quite possible it’s a consumer connection and has had the same IP for a looooong time with Comcast.
Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, it is a Comcast Business IP contract, seems like you get a static IP and a modem you can run a server at from home. Weird setup, but alas.. The website is down at the moment, and stupidly exposes the cable modem’s setup login to the web… Is this now a honeypot for people trying to crack it?
I did not visit the the naughty-hotties site before, so no idea how long it is in that state already.
Denial in absolute terms “Never in my life” coupled with his call for evidence in a “prove it” challenge in context, leave me wondering if he is laying the ground for an insanity plea.
Because he sais so, seems to be the best he can do, certain that is all he should have to do. If John Steele told me water was wet, I would check for myself anyway.
The guy has narcissistic sociopath oozing out of him like stink on shit.
Yeah, he could be in some deep doo doo for this but his biggest worry should be that Judge Wright instigated an IRS investigation. If the judge is correct that Prenda didn’t pay taxes on the millions they extorted they could all go away for life. The IRS took down Al Capone. I think they can handle these idiots.
Look behind the veil
“I have never uploaded a torrent in my life…”
(in my personal capacity, as opposed to my “professional” capacity)
(with my fingers crossed behind my back)
You get this to find the address?
http://www.ipaddress-finder.com/?ip=75.72.88.156
Select Quotes
90 Minutes with John Steele (Ars Technica) – Select Steele Quotes:
“I work part-time with Livewire Holdings, one of the entities that Lutz owns. My role is on the business side. I acquire other adult content companies and deal with expanding the holding company. The main goal is to handle a lot of content and websites and to be involved in the adult space. For that, I’m paid a flat fee.”
“Steele: Well, they have websites. I know the next question is going to be to list out the websites and so on, but you’ll have to bear with me. I’m certainly not able to talk about the different entities… some of them are selling their content and collecting information on people that are stealing.”
“Why would we make piracy easier? “Go here, not here?do this, not this?” Then the pirates know where to go. They also know what websites to hack. We had a website that just crashed, and we had to rebuild it. We’re not going to do something to help piracy and hurt our company.”
“I’d have to get OK from Mark Lutz to tell you the titles [of movies being sold]. And, I’d have to be sure those [movies] aren’t being monitored by technical services [to check if they’re being downloaded].”
Re: Select Quotes
Ohai Graham!
Are we having fun yet?
Well your honor..
That was NOT entrapment, those were “revenue initiators”
He is not involved in any cases in FL.
I guess technically that might be true, but to refresh his memory he sued Mr. Cooper, his lawyer, FCT, DTD, SJD, DTD, myself and others in a defamation suit there. He filed Pro Se and then asked to attorney fees… in a state where he swore he wouldn’t even pretend to play a lawyer on TV.
And this is why some of us hate most lawyers.
Re: Re:
To be fair it is lawyers and judges(with the help of people like you pointing them to evidence) that are tearing Prenda a few extra holes in the courts recently, so they aren’t all bad, but at the same time Prenda’s actions, and the fact that they were able to go for so long untouched or even significantly inconvenienced does tend to sour one’s feeling towards the entire legal system and those that are involved in it, so I guess I can understand your disgust with the lot.
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None of these cases would ever have gotten off the ground if the courts, in general, had given the same benefit of the doubt to Does that they give trolls.
It should not take as much time and effort as it did to raise awareness of what was happening, and some Judges are still hesitant to do anything when they think there is a problem.
Given everything that is currently happening in several courts, it should be obvious that several Judges passed the buck to have someone else deal with it and left a line up screwed over Does in their wake. It is better for a guilty man to go free than for an innocent to spend a single day in jail.
I said most lawyers, not all. Those who have stepped up and are fighting the good fight are heroes.
Some stepping up now I still have issues with.
On the one hand I am grateful EFF stepped up for FCT and DTD, on the other hand their repeated refusal to speak up in the gay porn cases really ticked me off. It was only after there was media attention about what was happening that they dared put their hands on a gay porn based case… but they filed a few briefs here and there in str8 porn cases. Their list of defense lawyers was worthless, when the lawyer says you must have done it and should just settle… I know them so I can get you a better rate… how the f is that a defense? Shouldn’t they at least ask if you did it first?
I’ve been in the trenches a little to long I think sometimes, and well hell it doesn’t look like even if Pretenda goes supernova this crap is going to end anytime soon. There is going to be someone else posting a terrified post needing help to understand what the hell is happening to them.
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To clarify TAC’s comment: he’s talking about “Adam Urbanzcyk”.
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Wasn’t that the ‘independent’ lawyer whose actions showed him to be, for all intents and purposes, a prenda employee, or am I thinking of the wrong person?
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isn’t he representing someone now being investigated by a judge for collusion to allow for massive amounts of subpoenas to all sorts of providers?
Awwwwwww. I was hoping that he’d try to explain why the IP evidence in this instance doesn’t meant anything, while the much less extensive IP evidence he used for sending settlement demands is iron-clad. Whatever he came up with, it would’ve been hilarious.
John Steele, out_of_the_blue, average_joe and horse with no name just hate it when due process is enforced.
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You forgot bob!
Steele's response is wrong
If he were what he claims to be, then he would be thanking the expert for helping Prenda track down the person who is responsible for making the works available.
The person that this IP address is exactly who Prenda is looking for. Ending this persons illegal theft of IP should be a high priority for Prenda, for the defendants, and for all of us as well.
Who is this person at that address, and why doesn’t Steele give a crap? They don’t need to sue lots of downloaders when they can fine the uploader, and they can then find out how he consistently found the files for the same copyright owners. Clearly, this person has it in for the copyright owners, and it is all of our responsibility (just as it is for AF Holdings and Prenda Law), to find out who this is, and have them punished to the fullest extent of the law.
We are all behind John Steele and his friends at Prenda Law in this. We all want to know, don’t we, Mr. Steele?
Re: Steele's response is wrong
if by this you mean a cliff face…
Logging
Nobody seems particularly concerned that TPB appears to be logging activity. How odd is that?
Re: Logging
TPB logs are protected well enough through encryption. If they were ever seized they would be useless. You can always choose another torrent outlet if copyright piracy makes you uncomfortable.
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They fully disclosed this fact and were upfront about it happening.
So care to comment on the real story or do you have another little smokescreen to try and throw up?
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For the full story, I would let you generally eat your own words:
You guys claim that IP addresses are not accurate enough to prove who did anything. Stop trying to use them here to do just that, it makes you look two faced. If you accept that this information “damns” Steele, then why should it not be valid to prosecute other pirates?
Oh, the irony.
Re: Re: Re: Logging
Erm. woosh!
Re: Re: Re:2 Logging
^^^^
This, a thousand times this
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And an IP address ISN’T accurate enough to prove who did anything, in fact.
The thing is… in this case, the information that ties Steele to this “sharkmp4” identity is a bit more than just an IP address. At the very least, John Steele and “sharkmp4” share an Internet connection, which is evidence enough to assume that there is collusion between Prenda and “sharkmp4”.
Or are you really going to claim that whoever “sharkmp4” is, he managed to find where Steele lives/works and hijack his Internet connection for the purpose of uploading a torrent file to TPB (and, hence, expose himself in the process)? Yes, that totally sounds plausible, particularly given the fact that “sharkmp4” had access to a Mullvad VPN account (through which he also uploaded torrent files). /s
But congratulations on your lack of reading comprehension.
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A poster above suggested sending him a settlement letter…I think THAT kind of “both ways” is both fitting and appropriate.
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If you accept that Steele’s information damns pirates, why should it not be valid to damn Steele?
horse with no name really hates it when due process is enforced.
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No, you are very confused.
He (John Steele … ie. You) claims that there are minimal standards which link an IP address to a person. In this case, there is much more than minimal evidence, since it is ongoing and complex.
Then there is the issue I pointed out in that John Steele should be doing what Alan Cooper did; he should be getting a lawyer and going after whoever is using that IP address to steele (lol) the copyrighted materials of the clients of Prenda Law.
This should be a TOP priority for them.
So tell me, why isn’t it? It isn’t a DEFENSE, as you so poorly argue. It is a reason to go full force offense … and yet Steele and Prenda claim it is “an attack on them” by the defense.
If they feel threatened by this, I have to ask why that is the case.
Why don’t you?
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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130605/12101523329/irony-alert-john-steele-denies-uploading-anything-ever-despite-growing-ip-evidence.shtml#c1052
Here I explained it using little words so maybe you can understand why it is different.
Steele’s ego will be the one thing that brings him down. I said when Prenda settled with Nyugen to avoid sanction in the Florida case that it wasn’t the end of it.
And thankfully Syfert has made it so. There is a lot of information regarding Prenda that is coming to light and a lot of connect the dots is being shown.
Steele is going to be in a mad panic as more light is cast upon Prenda and it’s entities, we are all starting to see how they lead back to John “I don’t have anything to do with that” Steele.
An amazing coincidence that Steele who always claims the Sgt Shultz defence “I know nothing…nothing” has all these different entities in his name, registered to him, domains in his name, registered to his email address but yet has nothing to do with any of it.
When John get’s back from Fantasy Island, tell him reality is waiting for him, because if he honestly believes that people buy that he has nothing to do with any of this, then he is just delusional.
I cant wait for the Grand Jury investigating RICO to come about, the more evidence that comes to light the better those RCIO indictments are becoming a possibility of putting Steele behind bars.
Now I wonder how long it will be before someone starts a class action suit against all involved in Prenda Law over those settlements that were paid out
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They are still counting on the scandalous porn titles keeping people from attaching their names to it.
If a Judge allowed them to proceed anonymously in the documents, I bet they would be lined up around the building.
The only problem I see is Pretenda’s record keeping appears to be sloppy in general, so I doubt anyone could compile a full list.
sharkmp4 TPB logs from Seyfert
Graham Seyfert posted something titled as sharkmp4 TPB log, it seems to be the same IP adresses as listed in the torrentfreak article, but is missing the torrents uploaded. However there are three earlier IP logs from 50.77.50.222 not in the screenshot by torrentfreak… and this IP was also used to access a godaddy account for wefightpiracy.org owned by Steele. Logins came before and after this account was transfered from Paul Hansmeier to Steele on 7/10/2012.
Hansmeier is in Minnesota, both the IP above and the 75.72.88.156 are from Minneapolis, and wasnt Hansmeier the “tech” guy of the gang? Could it be Steele “merely” took on formal ownership of the domains/hosting, but Hansmeier was doing the dirty work? If so, how long will he keep his mouth shut…
Re: sharkmp4 TPB logs from Seyfert
Actually, its even more fun – the godaddy account logged into repeatedly by 50.77.50.222 is connected with mediacopyrightgroup.com (predecessor of 6881forensics), so there is another link tying sharkmp4 to the outlet monitoring for copyright infringement.
Btw, the timestamps of 50.77.50.222 in Grahams’ log correspond with three torrents uploaded by sharkmp4.
Re: Re: sharkmp4 TPB logs from Seyfert
here is another (although less prettier) recap image for the 50.77.50.222 adress:
http://imgur.com/SgMHN9l
Re: Re: Re: sharkmp4 TPB logs from Seyfert
Brilliant. So, even if we ignore the Mullvad VPN IP addresses, it seems there are TWO distinct IP addresses that tie up John Steele with “sharkmp4”.
Like so many others already said: the depth of evidence linking John Steele to the honeypot is orders of magnitude beyond the “evidence” Prenda used to extort people allegedly engaging in copyright infringement.
LMAO I love the irony that part of Steele whole game was IP addresses and how he used them to game these lawsuits.
Now the very IP address scenario is proving just how “connected” Steele is too all of this. Live by the sword die by the sword eh John.
This should make the IRS Criminal Division investigators quite happy in providing further evidence that Prenda and the related people are all tied to one another in these schemes, ditto for the Grand Jury that is looking into RICO.
John Steele, let me make an announcement for you, an announcement you should have made day before yesterday:
“I would like to thank Mr. Neville for uncovering the mega-thief, the initial seeder of our client’s copyrighted works. Your our hero, Delvan. Our team of lawyers is currently filing numerous lawsuits around the country… and motions for early discovery asking judges to subpoena ISPs in order to unmask the criminal who nearly destroyed our client’s business. Mumbo Jumbo Chicken Gumbo!”
By the way, Mr. Steele? Those buddies of yours doing IP investigation? They told you they were good at this kinda stuff? HA!
THIS is how you do an IP investigation.
A plaintiff is estopped from asserting a copyright claim ?if he has aided the defendant in infringing or otherwise induced it to infringe or has committed covert acts such as holding out … by silence or inaction.? Field v. Google, Inc., 412 F. Supp. 2d 1106, 1115-17 (D. Nev. 2006) citing Quinn v. City of Detroit, 23 F. Supp. 2d 741, 753 (E.D. Mich. 1998).
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I’ll just leave this here 😉
http://i.imgur.com/RJSkZsF.jpg