Revision3 Taken Down by MediaDefender

Revision3

Wow! MediaDefender placed their own torrents in Revision3's BitTorrent tracker and then abused their server with SYN packets. Revision3 uses BitTorrent for the distribution of their own media files--not files owned by other parties/companies. MediaDefender, who is often funded by the RIAA, MPAA, and their members, attacks illegal file sharers. After Revision3 removed the files that MediaDefender deceptively put into its tracker MediaDefender commenced a DOS (denial of service) attack on Revision3's torrent tracker server.

"Although I can only guess, here’s what I think really happened. Media Defender was abusing one of Revision3’s servers for their own purposes – quite without our approval. When we closed off their backdoor access, MediaDefender’s servers freaked out, and went into attack mode – much like how a petulant toddler will throw an epic tantrum if you take away an ill-gotten Oreo.

That tantrum threw upwards of 8,000 SYN packets a second at our servers. And that was enough to bring down both our public facing site, our RSS server, and even our internal corporate email – basically the entire Revision3 business. Smashing the cookie jar, as it were, so that no one else could have any Oreos either."

This is unacceptable from any point of view. MediaDefender should be stopped. How? I don't know. I wouldn't doubt it if there was a petition posted online somewhere.

P.S.: Thanks to @mollywood for the tweet about this.