Copyright Troll Offender Profiling – The Likely Suspect

Posted on March 8, 2013 by DieTrollDie

It is no surprise that the various Copyright Troll outfits use some sort of filter to try determine who will respond best to their pressure.  Notice I do not say their efforts are designed to fully “identify the true infringer.”  Their efforts will undoubtedly identify “some” infringers, but not all.  The potential for error is there and the business model does not work well with the error factor.  So what is a Troll to do?  Press on like there is no error factor and rationalize their actions as just and right.

Here is what true Offender Profiling looks like

Clearly, then, there is a close relationship between profiling and ‘conventional’ detective work.  However, profiling differs from conventional detection in its attempt to use information about how an offence was committed to make suggestions about the psychological characteristics of the offender. Profiling cannot tell police exactly who committed an offence, but it potentially can make predictions about the characteristics an offender is likely to possess. This can help police target their investigation more effectively and prioritise suspects once they have been identified.  {What is offender profiling?, Aidan Sammons, psychlotron.org.uk}

In no way do I equate the efforts of the Trolls to anything to a true profiling effort.  In profiling you use the available information to help target and prioritize suspects.  This is the same as using the scientific method of letting the facts speak for themselves.  What the Trolls are doing on average is to try to make the facts fit into their belief that the ISP subscriber or family members are responsible.
As the description above indicates, offender profiling is used to “help” the investigation, not be the mainstay of it.  The Trolls will claim it is otherwise, but for the majority of the cases to date, any real investigative effort is minimal or possibly non-existent.
In one of my recent posts the local Troll only spent one hour on investigative work for a case.  For the Navsca case (3:12-CV-02396), the investigative work appears to be the running of a LexisNexis Accurint report (http://www.accurint.com/) on the ISP subscriber, Internet searches (Google), and an analysis of the results.  According to Paul Hansmeier (19 Feb 13 deposition – PHanmeier_Redac_Trans_08333(CA)), from the Accurint report, they try to determine the personnel living at the residence.

(Pietz) Q. Can I interrupt you. Can you tell us which particular services were used in this case?
(Hansmeier) A. I believe the service that was used in this particular case is a service called Accurint, A-C-C-U-R-I-N-T.
(Pietz) Q. And were there any other database searches conducted on the ISP subscriber?
(Hansmeier) A. To the extent you consider Google to be a database. The most formal database search and background search of the household was done through Accurint.  {Page 214}

Once they obtain the names, gender, and ages of the residents, they try to remove those persons that don’t fit their existing profile – namely females.  Paul Hansmeier did say it is not an automatic removal, but it is unlikely that a female would be the offender (Page 225).  The age of the residents are also used to rule out possible infringers (Pages 228 – 229).
While this going on, Prenda is also attempting to contact the ISP subscriber via letters and telephone calls.  This communication is in hopes of attaining a settlement or developing additional information to support their case.
They then attempt to evaluate everyone in the household on their technical competence in relations to computers.  Prenda Law believes that only people with a technical background are capable of running BitTorrent (Page 227).  No independent basis for this assumption was provided.

(Hansmeier) A. So the next step in the process — or the intensive process is doing significant research on these individuals through subsequent reports through finding out what these people do, what their educational background is, what their hobbies are, what evidence there is of them being involved in computer communities, checking out handles online and seeing if there’s some way to link someone on one of these piracy sites to one of these individuals and build as complete a profile as possible to determine whether someone is the likely infringer.

Now take a look at the last sentence from Paul Hansmeier.  Their profile (after an “intense process”) only provides them information to say who the “likely” infringer is.  LIKELY.
Prenda also takes a look at physical location of the residence in relation to neighbors and/or streets where unknown individuals could possibly access the ISP subscribers Internet WiFi connection (Page 229).  They use Google Maps.
Prenda Law assesses how long the BitTorrent activity has been occurring from the public IP address (Page 229).  They are of the opinion that prolonged BitTorrent activity is indicative of guilt.  I guess they never thought a neighbor could abuse an open WiFi connection over time.

Prenda Law “LIKELY” Profile

Base on what Paul Hansmeier stated and other cases (link to other Ranallo case), I will make an estimate of who Prenda Law thinks is the likely infringer prior to naming them.

• Male
• Age – pubescent through pre-senior citizen
• Technical background – a job with some specialized knowledge and experience in computers and network.
• Plays computer games – Don’t laugh, I’m serious.  Watch out “Call of Duty” players.
• Has an active “Online” presence – Facebook is like crack to some people.  In guess that means something to Prenda Law.

Here are some other factors Prenda Law will use to further try to rationalize their “Likely” infringer view.

• Watches porn – Oh boy, that means a good majority of people probably guilty.
• Specialized software – If you happen to use CCLeaner, Prenda is of the opinion you are destroying evidence (page 230).

(Paul Hansmeier) …And then — I mean, the follow-up I make to that is that Mr. Navasca’s deposition I think shows and is a great illustration of the effectiveness of our process. We had a guy there who uses technical – or who has a technical background, who does a lot of stuff with computers. I think I remember reviewing the transcript and seeing that he uses — plays games two hours a night. And further, frankly, the fact that he had that program on his computer where he’s destroying the forensic evidence that we would need to prosecute him.

Even if you have a program on your computer that is expressly designed to wipe files and drives (CCleaner isn’t expressly designed for this), it does not mean you are destroying evidence.

So where do you stand?  Are you one of the likely suspects?

As I have previously said, the Trolls don’t like to do investigations, as it brings down the profit margin.  Speaking of profit, see page 206-207 in the deposition – 6681 Forensics LLC is paid $6,000 a month from AF Holdings LLC!
11 March 2013 – should be interesting.
DieTrollDie