p2pnet.net News Feature:- A good conspiracy story is always guaranteed to get people going and we’ve been getting emails for quite a few days, now, on the real or imagined connection between Jun Group’s The Scene online movie series, and Operation Site Down, the recent international FBI bust.

The Scene is the collective name for members of the (in)famous underground warez community whose raison d’etre is to be the first to snag high quality digital files of new music, movies and software releases, and then to watch them filter down through, “the elaborate pyramid of illegal downloaders until seen on P2P programs and networks,” as Wikipedia describes the process.

“Thats how we get so much stuff on p2p,” says a p2pnet reader. “A real-life example is the War.Of.The.Worlds.CAM-POT [Pirates Of Theatre]. Someone with access to a top site puts it on p2p or a BT site.”

It also explains why individuals and groups who’re active in The Scene are, “extremely organized in their behavior and are very paranoid about their secrecy,” says the Wikipedia post.

As we’ve said before, it isn’t about raking in huge amounts of cash. It’s about the challenge - the sheer thrill of cracking ‘uncrackable’ software and DRM.

The rush that comes from being The First.

You might compare this to the buzz hackers get when they go exploring in someone else’s system. No harm is meant, but that’s not how the industry sees it, their views being reflected in the many police actions against hackers.

But the lack of ill intent doesn’t mean anything to the corporate entertainment and software cartels. To them, it’s cold: the warez and file sharing groups are causing major financial losses around the world.

This contention is fast losing substance as the cartels continue to report vast profits, warez, file sharing and even the definitely criminal counterfeit criminals who really are costing them, notwithstanding. But the ‘We’re being ruined!’ PR is swallowed whole by the mainstream media. And thanks to that, and to intensive lobbying, police and government resources around the world are taking care of corporate business instead of local crime.

Through the glass darkly
Jun Group says its business is to connect clients to, “top-tier entertainment properties that match their brands. Brief advertising messages are inserted before and after each selection, driving traffic to Web sites, promotions, and consumer databases.”

As part of this effort, it’s also running an online series featuring Brian Sandro, a fictitious character who inhabits a secretive network of Top Sites (top-level FTP sites) called, appropriately, The Scene, and that’s based on the real Scene.

The Scene team’s newest and youngst member is Corey Weiner who, before signing up as executive producer, was a, “Principal A student at SUNY Binghamton,” says Jun.

He’s also the company’s lead tech and his, “knowledge of file sharing, programming, and Internet culture has had a tremendous impact on the direction of the company, and his insights into the 18 to 34-year-old male demographic are an invaluable asset to our clients.”

Weiner is also an “an A+ Certified Professional in both Core Hardware and Operating Systems,” states the company. “He is currently majoring in computer engineering. “

Jun is looked upon somewhat darkly because, among other things, it’s said to enjoy an unsavoury association with Sony, and because of remarkable similarities between events in its online adventure and the Hollywood inspired Operation Site Down, the international FBI bust that was recently splashed on front pages around the world.

‘He works for the FBI’
Site Down had US FBI agents maintaining and operating a warez sucker site that scammed sceners into storing material on it.

Running it was Griffen, in reality, an FBI agent, backed by agency and freelance techies.

In fact, Site Down was almost like something out of a movie script and although it was conceived in the US, 10 other countries were eventually roped in on it. It was the “culmination of three separate undercover investigations conducted by the FBI,” said the US Department of Justice, and eventually involved more than 90 searches worldwide.

Computers and other property were seized and four people were arrested in North America.

Episode 9 of Jun’s The Scene features a fed named - wait for it - Gryffin and it went online some three weeks before Site Down was made public.

Background music predominates throughout but suddenly, and for no obvious reason, a voice is dubbed over the audio saying, “He works for the FBI.”

Was this thrown in by someone working for Jun who was trying to send a warning message to people on the real Scene?.

Hurricane Electric (he.net) features in Jun’s episode 9. All four sites busted in the US FBI raid were also on he.net.

Then there’s the supposed association with Sony, the giant Japanese multi-national which is a major record label and movie studio, one of the owners of both the RIAA and MPAA (with their major and increasing law enforcement, political and media connections), a maker of compact camcorders of the type associated with low level file sharing, and a prime mover in efforts to get corporate for-pay online p2p happening.

In from the cold
So is The Scene in fact a Sony operation as complex as Site Down, and designed to ferret out information on sceners?

To further darken the cloud hovering over Jun, until recently, one of its principals was the infamous Bruce Forest, a “self-described ‘elder statesman’ in the piracy scene” who “started ripping and trading in the ancient days of the late ’80s,” says Wired Magazine, going on:

“While he no longer actively traffics in bootlegged media, he maintains contacts that give him access to the most exclusive topsites. What the topsites don’t know is that three years ago, Forrest came in from the cold.”

And, “Basically, I’m a double agent,” Wired quotes him as saying. “Though I don’t fink anyone out. I’m not a cop.”

One of his corporate clients is said to be Sony. And the video part of episode 9 was shot entirely in the Sony Building’s public plaza.

There are also accusations that corporate sponsors backing the Jun production might have been in a position to wield undue power.

Bob and Dave
The ‘coincidences’ are all down to a series of, well, coincidences, Jun assures p2pnet.

“Do you have, and have you ever had, any connections with any anti-piracy organizations in any context?” - we asked Mitchell Reichgut, the show’s writer who’s also a Jun founder

“Jun Group has nothing to do with any anti-piracy initiatives,” he answered. “We have no relationships with any anti-piracy firms or law enforcement organizations. Our only mission is to provide free, legal content to file sharers.”

Weiner sent us an email Reichgut had written for fans of the show. In it, of Griffen v Gryffin, Reichgut says:

“I write all of the scripts myself; I choose the character names (including ‘gryffin’) and I create all the plots and storylines on my own with no outside input of any kind.”

He also says, “I chose the name ‘gryffin’ for Episode 9 all by myself. I selected it because it seemed to fit the storyline and the character - about whom, i might add, we have revealed very little. The coincidence has gotten an enormous amount of attention, but in my mind, however you spell it, the nick ‘griffen’ is like ‘Bob,’ ‘Dave,’ ‘Mike,’ or ‘Jim.’ It’s a simple word that comes from mythology, and I’m willing to bet it’s a very popular nick. Saying that I chose it because I knew that it would be part of a gigantic bust a week later is absurd.”

In a later email, Weiner told us, “it’s like saying there were two guys named Dave in a huge shopping mall three weeks apart. It seems much easier to believe that than to believe that the FBI gave some marketing company advanced notice about a bust so that they could put it in their show, doesn’t it?”

Warning message
So what about the ‘warning message’ where “He works for the FBI” is suddenly superimposed over the background music track?

“We picked the song (from the band Temple City - www.templecity.de) for the same reason we’ve picked all the other music in the show: because we thought it was a great tune and it fit the mood,” Reichgut told p2pnet

“The line about the FBI seemed to fit the theme, but it wasn’t something we thought a lot about.”

Hurricane Electric
“Hurricane Electric’s national backbone is ranked among the top in the nation,” said Weiner. “Connections ranging from OC48s (2.4 Gbps) to gigabit ethernet (1,000 Mbps) form rings around the nation connecting Hurricane core routers at several major exchange points including:

• PAIX Palo Alto, CA
• Equinix Ashburn, VA
• Equinix Chicago, IL
• Equinix Dallas, TX
• Equinix Los Angeles, CA
• Equinix San Jose, CA
• NYIIX Telehouse New York, NY
• LINX Telehouse London
• AMSIX NIKHEF Amsterdam

“As you can see, HE is one of the biggest datacenters in the USA. It is simply coincidence that USA scene sites were also busted there.”

Sony
Is Jun’s The Scene indeed some kind of devious Sony op? Not according to Reichgut.

“As far as Sony goes, our company has no association with them other than the fact that Rebecca Brandt, who has a ‘day job’ at Sony, helps produce our show,” he says.

Brandt is a Sony analyst.

And of corporate sponsors who might be able to lean on Jun, “The first few eps were sponsored by a San Fransisco-based skateboard company called Freebord,” Reichgut told us. “We’re negotiating with a few others now, but so far Freebord is the only company to officially back the show!”

And finally, of Bruce Forest, “He left Jun Group (of his own accord) just after Episode 8 was released,” Reichgut told us.

“He had nothing to do with the production of Episode 9.”

Stay tuned.

Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

HOME

Viewed 7599 times