p2pnet - rss feed: EarthStation V Sci-Fi
p2pnet.net News:- Towards the end of last year a couple of German journalists were chasing down rumours that the much vaunted (by the mainstream media) EarthStation 5 - aka ES5, aka ESV - and its owners were far from being what they claimed to be.
It didn’t seem much of a story because very few people (excepting said mainstream media) seriously believed ES5 was anything other than a second rate attempt to cash in on the p2p file sharing phenomenon.
When it started out, the Earth Station V web page looked like a really bad nightmare from Star Trek. It said it could stop the RIAA, and anyone else, from snagging user info, and also bragged that it had an amazing selection of current movies, free for the download.
These days, it resembles a movie promo site made by someone with no imagination. But it still promises, “ES5 Hides your IP address while you upload and download files. ES5 P2P program and network prevents the RIAA / MPAA from tracking you and/or your ISP down by using 3rd party proxy servers. If you are a university student behind a school firewall preventing you from using p2p programs, then you will be excited to use ES5 because ES5 penetrates university firewalls and nobody will know you are file sharing!”
Bottom line, however, there’s no such thing as impenetrable security.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way - in.
Last August, ES5 issued this, supposedly from Jenin on the West Bank of Palestine:
In response to the email received today from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to Earthstation 5 for copyright violations for streaming FIRST RUN movies over the internet for FREE, this is our official response!
Earthstation 5 is at war with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Record Association of America (RIAA), and to make our point very clear that their governing laws and policys have absolutely no meaning to us here in Palestine, we will continue to add even more movies for FREE.
ES5 (http://www.es5 .com) does not require any signups, registration, credit cards and/or any other personal information to watch the first rate streamed movies like TERMINATOR 3, BRUCE ALMIGHTY, MATRIX RELOADED, etc.
Our secure software protect our users who use our P2P application and there is nothing that you can do to stop us, says Ras Kabir, president of Earthstation 5
As p2pnet has been saying almost from the word Go, the only reason ES5 got anywhere at all was because gullible members of the traditional press quite naturally couldn’t resist a sexy story about a p2p network run by Palestinian freedom fighters and their Jewish and Christian brothers and sisters, all battling for freedom from the West Bank. Only Mickey Mouse was missing.
Once the story was splashed, it sank.
However, two months after ESV’s puff piece, FullDisclosure ran an item from randomnut of K-Lite fame headed up EartStation 5 P2P application contains malicious code. The disclosure goes into great detail on what and where. ES5 naturally had an excuse.
There were also suggestions that ESV was an RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) deep-cover site put up to suck in p2p file sharers. It was discounted, but not rigorously. And where the RIAA is conerned, nothing is too low.
In fact, it may be that ESV and the RIAA are in many ways almost mirror oppposites.
Arabic for Big Head
Washington Post Foreign Service writer John Ward Anderson went to Jenin and took a look, very hard look at Kabir and other Earthstation 5 crew members in his excellent Techno-Rebels in West Bank?
“No one in this town of 34,000 - the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the three-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict ‘ has heard of Earth Station V,” he writes. “Computer salesmen and technicians, Internet providers, Internet cafe workers and customers and community and Palestinian militant leaders said they knew of no one who works for the company. Questions about its founder and president, who calls himself Ras Kabir - Arabic for ‘Big Head’ - drew laughter.
“Yet someone has gone to enormous trouble and expense to create complicated software programs and a sophisticated Web site that offers X-rated movies, long-distance calling, a dating service, the downloading of music, first-run movies and computer software - all free and all supposedly augmented with stealth technology that hides a user’s identity. And all with no advertisements or other visible means of generating revenue, despite monthly operating costs that the company says amount to $1.5 million.”
The company claims to have its headquarters in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to take advantage of loose Palestinian copyright and intellectual property laws it says can keep US legal hounds at bay, the Post story states, going on that its real boon, “seems to be the publicity bonanza that comes from claiming that such a cutting-edge Internet company is being run by a multiethnic band of techno-rebels in besieged and impoverished Palestinian refugee camps.”
But, says Anderson, the West Bank and Gaza addresses the company lists for its offices don’t exist, the telephone numbers don’t answer, company officials refuse to meet with reporters and they communicate only by e-mails and call-backs. Reporters are not allowed to visit Earth Station V offices or talk to workers.
“In several telephone interviews, a spokesman for Earth Station V, Steve Taylor, said the company has about 100 employees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” says Anderson. “But he declined a reporter’s request to visit their work sites, saying that Palestinian militant groups did not approve of Earth Station V’s activities - particularly its broadcast of pornographic movies - and were threatening the company’s operations and employees. Militants also were angry, he claimed, that the company had Jewish partners.”
Ghassan Anabtawi, marketing director for Paltel, the monopoly telephone company in the Palestinian territories, is quoted as saying, “They [ESV] are making it very difficult for anyone to find who they are, where they are and how they operate. It’s something fishy and weird - they are very professional in conning people,” Anabtawi said.
Anderson says according to Taylor, ES5 also company has offices in the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem. But computer specialists in each town said they weren’t familiar with it.
Internet pornography king
“Business registration papers filed with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and other company documents reviewed by The Washington Post list an Internet pornography king, Stephen Michael Cohen, as the ’sole director’ of Earth Station V,” states the report. “Taylor said Cohen was a ‘consultant’ who ‘brings a lot to the table because of his expertise.’
“Cohen has been listed as a fugitive from the United States since 2001 for failing to appear in a court case in which he was ordered to pay $65 million in damages for stealing the Internet domain sex.com. According to the judgment, in 1995 Cohen forged a letter by the real owner of sex.com instructing the agency that registered domains to transfer ownership to him. Cohen controlled the domain name for five years, building sex.com into what reportedly was one of world’s most visited and profitable Web sites.
Taylor said Earth Station V had about $1.5 million per month in operating costs but no revenues, Anderson says, continuing:
“He said the company’s investors, whom he declined to name, were willing to lose money in the short term to attract users but planned to add potentially huge money-making ventures to the Web site in the near future, including online auctioning and gambling.”
Taylor also said ESV has roughly 710 employees in several countries, including Russia, and that the software is available in 28 languages, “although the Web site listed only about 15, and none was Arabic, the language spoken by Palestinians”.
Business registration documents filed in June with the Palestinian Economy Ministry said ESV had $2.75 million in start-up capital and was established to conduct “transactions in financial documents” and that theyt list Rony Hanouna, the owner of several cellular telephone stores in the West Bank, as the company’s representative in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
“Hanouna said in an interview that he had no knowledge of Earth Station V’s activities and expressed surprise that the company was conducting business, saying that as far as he knew, it existed only on paper,” the Washington Post report states.
“Hanouna said he was approached by several people about 10 months ago and asked to open an office for Earth Station V. But after filling out the paperwork, Hanouna said, he never heard back from the people.”
Hiba Husseini, a Palestinian attorney who is helping draft new intellectual property laws for the Palestinian Authority, told Anderson that while current laws are about 50 years old and don’t specifically address issues of using computers and the Internet to violate copyrights, the Palestinian ministers of culture and economy can and have issued administrative rules and regulations to combat copyright violations and piracy.
“The ministries can by directives or orders shut an operation of this nature down, if they get an official complaint,” she said.
February 23rd, 2004 at 10:44 pm
Oh oh, Watch out for the ES5 fanboi’s. Should be along any minute now.
February 24th, 2004 at 1:09 am
hahaha i bet all the fanboys and all the haters feel stupid about now? these guys are good at what they do there is no doubt about that , reading this makes sombody who felt imparial to the controversy before want to try the app now,.
February 26th, 2004 at 12:46 am
“Steve Taylor” is actually Steve Cohen.
February 26th, 2004 at 5:46 am
I’m File Hoover, lead programmer for ESV.
This article is a total sham.
I mean, we’re CLEARLY not GOOD at conning people. Anybody with half a brain figured us out in, what, 5 minutes? Hell, most figured us out before we even put out our overhyped demo which didn’t even work and crashed ever 5 minutes.
Christ on a Stick, you didn’t even go into our lousy explanation for the blatant security hole back door, and how we ‘fixed’ it without incrementing the version number…
February 29th, 2004 at 12:30 am
Interesting article…
March 15th, 2004 at 7:10 pm
March 17th, 2004 at 8:51 am
July 21st, 2004 at 5:02 am
Very interesting report about the P2p program Earth Station Five. I used to use ES5 right after the media started reporting about the R.I.A.A.’s lawsuit of Kazaa users. I was on the ES5 forums during the time Random Nuts broke the news about the code. What was amazing to me was how long it took for ANY responce from the admins of the site (days), despite almost instant replies from ES5 personal up untill that event.
I’m not a programer, and cant read C++ any better that ones and zeros… I do know there is conflicting reports on whats in the latest code. In seeing there must be tens of thousands of people that have installed ES5, I would like to see someone of high computer skill investigate the latest and prior ES5 code and report on their findings.
I dont buy the argument that the M.P.A.A. or R.I.A.A. is behind ES5. ES5 has streamed top rated movies during their first few weeks of airing 24 hours a day. Tons of people got their ileagle rips from those streams.. They were (maybe still are) runing a pirate radio station stocked from mp3’s and so on… Personally I find it a huge streatch to believe that any copyright holding organzation would bend so much on their precious laws that so adversely effect their purpose and survival. The theroy of a honey pot trap that waits untill enough p2p users climb onboard before they delete copyrighted works is simply silly. Why would the M.P.A.A. broadcast The Hulk and Matrix Reloaded 24 hours a day during the first weeks of release? There might be a backdoor in the code, but theory does not wash with the M.P.A.A. & R.I.A.A.’s involvment. I would believe a GOVERMENT’s involvment for espianogue resons would be more likely.
Thanks for the interesting report.
July 21st, 2004 at 5:30 am
Look out for the ES5 Fanboy Chaser Narcs.
Im the same person that posted prior about not buying the argument that the R.I.A.A. or M.P.A.A. has anything to do with ES5, although it might of/still have a backdoor in the code.
I just wanted to add another theory: Perhaps the R.I.A.A. and M.P.A.A. has been scared of the technology in this p2p program and very early on launched a large disinformation attack to prevent it’s use from becoming as widespread as Kazaa. Perhaps it DID have a backdoor in it for the makers to get their jollys off… Once the backdoor was found the exports went online with their favorite term: “ES5 fanboys”- It almost sounds like a high school bully calling somebody a “fag boy”.. One can find their favorite term “es5 fanboy” all over the internet. Almost any p2p forum site, cnet.com, download,com - anyplace people on the net can openly discuss this program one can read the same words: “es5 fan boy”.
Clearly somebody absolutely hates this program or the people behind it. They go all out to yell “fanboy” wherever they go… Now, if one can asume ES5 IS a real threat to hollywood and/or Nashville, (nobody using ES5 has been busted) is it unreasonable to invision someone on the payroll with a disinformation campaign to yell names and discredit anyone that dares to support this program and/or it’s authors…. You know, it’s enough to make me feel safer installing the program again. I sure think that makes more since than the idea the M.P.A.A. is broadcasting all these movies for free while the R.I.A.A. decides to hold off on sueing ES5 file sharers untill the day they erase the movies and music from people’s hard drives. If they had the information they would sue ES5 file sharers just like the Kazaa users. It just dont wash.
Take that one ES5 Fanboy Chaser Narcs.
August 25th, 2004 at 10:36 pm
I read that Earthstationv canceled their telephone numbers that were listed to the public last year because of the problems they were having with the religious groups in Palestine.
September 16th, 2004 at 2:06 pm
July 13th, 2005 at 10:06 am
“..reading this makes sombody who felt imparial to the controversy before want to try the app now.” ?
Only if they’re a complete moron. Why would hearing about what a sham the company behind this app is, and how they reportedly (reported by someone I trust infinitely more than any representative of ESV) have distributed malicious code along with their app, make any right-minded person want to rush off and install this worthless program, when there are real programs out there made by real coders that are far superior?
You don’t happen to work for ESV, do you?
August 20th, 2006 at 1:21 am
One day soon, I will tell the entire story. The truth is, was, and always will be that ES5 was only out there to provide an alternative solution to anonymous p2p. There was never any bad intentions to delete files or mishaps. Our mission was to provide an anonymous p2p network and application and teach people.
What type of security and anonymity could the owners, makers, and even members of ES5 boast about if they cant even protect their own identities.
Steve Cohen is currently sitting in some Mexican jail for something related to his sex.com days. Personally, I never cared for Mr. Cohen (haha…for those of you who remember, he tried to hijack ER from us!)
As far as I remember, Steve only offered a bunch of old ideas and started a bunch of fights with ZP. At the time, there we’re a couple of Steve’s and I hated all of them.
Both Steve’s dared (by offering 50,000 rewards, etc) to idiots like Random Nut to see if they could break into ES5, and created a lot of problems for the people like myself and Filehoover who we’re working our asses off to build the community and promote from beta a nice p2p program. ES5 wasnt released perfect. It had bugs. But we had alot of experience, adrenalin, and enthusiasm to continue the mission. Bad hype got in the way.
Every word that came out of my mouth was manipulated. I once said that I had a couple of BT sites (at the very beginning of Bit Torrent) and was using them for bandwith experiments. That was understood by a bunch of idiots to mean that I was dos attacking BT sites. So again, I found myself wasting time measuring each and every word (in my long ass educational essays that I would write…) before actually posting them.
Most people enjoyed my posts because while some came as a result of the hype and negative talk, the majority stayed because they found that ultimately, our entire community was made up of down to earth people.
We all found ourselves fighting and digging shit up on ZP instead of focusing on the real important things. Funny, but ZP realized that starting shit with us proved very stupid because their site is still owned by the same makers of DRM (digital rights management) and people who make real cash off of spying on peoples network traffic.
But nevertheless, time has proven that none of the people in ES5 had bad intentions. Our “p2p integrity” has been proven by the mere fact that we did many things that other p2p networks and management only dream about. All of the specualtive negative ideas about ES5 proved to be bullshit. When Random Nut created an exploit to erase peoples files, it was actually me who threatened his life (Yeah, I know, I went a little bit too far…). So how the hell people could publicly claim that ES5 was made to erase people’s files is beyond me. Truth is, in the backround via Forums PM’s, the owners of Slyck, ZP, P2PNET, etc., all knew that to be bullshit and wrote me letters telling me that they knew it was bullshit but promised “revenge”. My attitude at the time was simply to tell them to fuck off.
The fact that nobody really knows how the routing was done speaks for itself.
According to the article, ES5 died in Sept 2005, “shortly before Steve’s arrest”. Hmm… How many people believe that ES5 died less than a year ago? That article at Wiki was written on August 6th 2006, which is several years after ES5’s departure. Amazing how people are still digging. But the dates, times, and framework of the article are totally disportional to reality ( God knows that I havent been with ES5 in over 2 years), so I’m not even going to waste time editing the article and providing the real set of events.
For the matter of conversation, there is no physical proof of anything written in that article. But make no mistake, there is also nothing to disprove the article. Facts are generally based on 3rd party evidence. I didnt see any evidence in that article to support any of the theories presented.
Unlike the Washington Post, CNN, etc., who have editors to ensure that every word is REAL and can be PROVEN, you all must know by now that WIKI is nothing more than a community website allowing anybody to edit any definition without any real scrutiny. My theory is that on August 6, 2006, years after ES5’s absence in cyberspace, somebody has still got a “hard on” for information. Anything recognized as ANONYMOUS is mistakenly understood as a SCAM.
The fact is, I may be English, American, French, or Italian. Nobody will ever be able to connect myself or the other people who participated with that project because as I’ve said a million times, true p2p is not about headtrips regarding racial or ethnic backround, sexual orientation, politics or religion. God forbid we limit ES5 to a ISP in Europe or a person named Steve. The reality is that ES5 was a network and community of many people and none of the people who participated can be found today. I am just one of many.
Nobody cares who provides them the music, movies, games, etc. Was ES5 just one big anonymous proxy as reported? The truth is, today, nobody knows (…or cares). Was it in Palestine, Europe, America, or the Far East? Hmm…Good question, but no answer…
Our original objective was eventually realized. We proved that one can be online and remain anonymous. Steve Cohen willingly released his own identity. The others in the group and community continue to remain anonymous.
When Random Nut tried to erase people’s files, I did a simple WHOIS for Kazaalite.com and then cross checked the information with a couple of articles written on Cnet.com about a university kid from Scotland who built Kazaa Lite. I printed the information and everybody went apeshit. Amazing how little shits like Random talked so much shit about us being a conspiracy when in fact his own true colors were revealed by his own malicious actions.
At the time that we released ES5, the entire internet had thought that anonymity was increasingly difficult if not impossible. We proved otherwise. More importantly, we tought others. So our objective was reached.
Yes, Filehoover and I did plant false information in different places to send the RIAA, MPAA, newspaper journalists, etc., off in the wrong directions. (I imagine this gives a bunch of groupies now the right to run off and scream “SharePro lied to us…!)
The reality is that I never lied to anybody about things that they needed to know (i.e. Security, P2P, etc). Who I am is simply none of anybody’s business just like your home addresses, phone numbers, etc., are none of my business.
P2P is not personal and should never be limited to a guy named SharePro, Filehoover, ES5, etc. Many of you remember when P2P first started. The thought of being able to trade files and meet people without the headtrips of their religious or political backround, geographical location, etc., was a thrill for first time p2pr’s. The ability to join for free and get files for free hooked most of us onto the drug called p2p.
Hackers like Random Nut no longer had a job. No longer did people need to HACK to get unauthorized files. In the BBS days, people would hack into systems to get software (not everybody had the money to pay for games, software, etc).
I always figured that anybody who wants to know who I am only wants to know to cause me damage. Why else would anybody care who I am?
We spent a great deal of time not only protecting our identities, but also making sure that your identities we’re safe.
The fact that the Washington Post and many other first rate magazines sent journalists around the world into dangerous places to try and get information (and turned up with nothing…) shows you all that the RIAA, MPAA, Investigative Journalists, etc., will go very far and hire the best minds to get information about us. Haha…They all wasted their money. So allow me to be very bold (several years after the fact…) and say that we are very good at what we do because we succeeded in fooling the entire world.
I personally know alot more than I like to talk about regarding the techniques. I can teach network anonymity, but most security deficiencies on networks are not because of computer mistakes, rather because of human error. In short, doing what everybody thinks your going to do and/or being stupid and sharing secret information with the public. Good security depends on private information remaining private. I never liked some of the people at ES5, but I wont sell anybody out. Some of the people at ES5 hated me, but they never sold me out.
The moral is that a good community (public or private) needs to rely on eachother. Assholes like XTR, Bsmuv, Punk, Random Nut and others who erased p2pr’s content simply because they didnt like me or our community are bogus freaks who should never have had the privledge of entering into our community.
At any rate, there will come a time that I will talk. I may even release the code of ES5 as open source.
But to answer your question, if I edit Wiki and show evidence via 3rd party non-ES5-affiliated websites that actually track and monitor networking traffic that the article in Wiki contains details that are not true, what do you think would happen?
Answer - The person who wrote the article would continue searching. Personally, I like the idea that makes it look like Steve Cohen was ES5. Steve was an asshole from the get go, so I truly do hope that he’s enjoying his once-a-week meal in a Mexican jail. But I wont provide details to help and/or hurt Steve or anybody else regarding ES5.
Even after Punk, XTR, Bsmuv and others fucked with ES5 Forums, I didnt release their IP addresses or any other information I had about them. The came to ES5 as NOBODYS and I helped them create an online persona, gave them mod powers, and instead of fucking with me, they fucked with the community.
If they had my name, they would have gone straight to the RIAA. I know who Punk, Bsmuv, XTR and others are. I know their names, addresses, etc. Again, there was a time that those people we’re in good grace with me so they shared the information with me. I even know the company that Bsmuv and his old DJ partner worked for.
Unlike them, I’m not a drama queen nor do I become vendictive. They didnt get what they wanted so they erased p2pr’s content. What they never understood in grammer school is that THERE IS NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A “REASON” AND AN EXCUSE. The reality is that they we’re angry with me, and instead of dealing with that anger directly with me, they decided to erase other community members thoughts, ideas, pictures, and informative posts and yet today NOBODY CARES WHY THEY DID THAT. ER became alot larger than ES5 forums ever were with zero hype.
Bsmuv Radio is dead. Crapfiles forum is a black hole with zero substance. XTR committed suicide.
So it doesnt matter how much shit people have talked about me, at least nobody can say that I erased p2pr’s content and nobody can say that I sold out. All that bullshit about ES5 being some malicious p2p program to erase peoples files was bullshit and everybody always knew that.
It’s amazing how many people are full of conspiracy thoughts regarding ES5 yet the same people, and others, eventually show their true colors. As I have always said in the past, ALWAYS ASK YOURSELF WHAT THE AUTHOR OF THIS (OR THAT…) ARTICLE HAS CONTRIBUTED TO P2P.
All you know is that somebody on August 6th edited an article on Wiki regarding ES5. The original article on Wiki has been edited so many times, and most times the different writers contradict eachother while competing to write negative shit about the only fucking p2p network and community who truly provided an anonymous peer 2 peer working enviorment.
Anyway, if the RIAA, MPAA, or author of the various WIKI articles all jumped in the air holding their breathe waiting for me to talk…. to provide more accurate details on ES5…Allow me to say
I HOPE THEY ALL CHOKE!
I hope that answers your questions!
Cheers,
SharePro
September 19th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Cheers back SP, those were fun times and I hope to read more of the story down the road…
MaxImuM
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Sharepro has a site called earthreactor. Come visit him here.