Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3, a media company that plays host to wildly popular technology shows like Diggnation, and The Totally Rad Show has exposed Media Defender (a subsidiary of Artist Direct Inc) as the culprit behind a massive Denial of Service (DDOS) attack which shut down much of Revision3’s infrastructure after they closed a back-door that was being exploited by Media Defender to hamper the service.

Media Defender was founded in 2000 for the express purpose of shutting down illegal P2P file sharing networks by intercepting tracker servers used for piracy and copyright infringement and injecting malicious torrents into the network in an attempt to scupper illegal file-sharing, and of course making a tidy profit along the way.

Very noble, you might think - but the problem arises when Media Defender fails to make any distiction between illegal and legitimate content, as was the case with Revision3, who use bittorrents to distribute their own content. When the security hole was discovered, and subsequently closed on the Rev3 servers, Media Defender automatically responded by sending 8,000 “SYN” Packets per second, effectively shutting the service down. For the non-technically minded, this is like hitting a bee-hive with a stick, and Revision3 got stung.

The actions of Media Defender are obviously illegal, and this is where the FBI comes in, and Louderback’s response pulls no punches in regards to what action will be taken…

“Was it malicious? Intentional? Negligent? Spoofed? I can’t say. But what I do know is that the FBI is looking into the matter – and it’s far more serious than toddlers squabbling over broken toys and lost cookies.”

In his early response, Jim Louderback makes no mention of a law-suit, but that would seem to go without saying, considering the serious nature of the attack.

At the time of writing, Media Defender have not made a public statement regarding Revision3, but in a series of leaked emails published by TorrentFreak, an insider allegedly said..

“Given all the recent Digg, SlashDot and derivative online articles about MD, be careful what you say in job interviews. Specifically, I’m concerned about giving any information BEYOND what’s already on the mediadefender.com website. I’m worried about someone interviewing for a position just for the purpose of getting more info to post online…

.. This is really fucked.”

In 2006, MediaDefender was acquired by ARTISTdirect (ARTD). MediaDefender P2P Marketing Solutions are just one of the many projects that has come out of the acquisition.