The “Break it Down” Blog

Ok for those that didn’t know about this, the MPAA released what they were calling the “University Toolkit” a few weeks ago. It was a customized version of Ubuntu, that sits on your network, sniffs all your traffic and reports all the information it finds using a standard Apache install with logs, charts, diagrams, etc. all useful for pinpointing and imprisoning students who are sharing copyrighted information.

Flawless plan? I know… it sure sounds like one.

The MPAA was asking most all major universities to simply install this and let it sit inside their firewall, watching them. Most universities said “Thanks, but no thanks” and a few actually installed it. Anyway, the point being that the entire distribution is based on the GPL, and the MPAA hasn’t released any source for the OS.

Well it looks like Matthew Garrett, one of the Ubuntu devs decided he had enough of this noise. He emailed the MPAA, called them and got shuffled around until he realized they were simply going to ignore him until he went away… so he went to their ISP with proof the posted download link violated the GPL and got them to take it down.

Ohhhh how’s that feel MPAA? Sucks doesn’t it? Yea…