Hacker Turns TorrentSpy Secrets for Power and Money

Wired has an exclusive story today on how Robert Anderson, a hacker who used to work with TorrentSpy’s founder Justin Bunnell, acted as a stool pigeon for the Motion Picture Association of America following promises of money and power:“We would need somebody like you. We would give you a nice paying job, a house, a car, anything you needed…. if you save Hollywood for us you can become rich and powerful” offered the MPAA, according to Anderson’s account of the events. The squealer, who also admits that he offered to set up an anti-piracy marketing campaign for the MPAA, got $15,000 from them in exchange of information about TorrentSpy, which included the source code for the site. Anderson alleges that the MPAA wanted to set up a fake Torrent site:

We’ll set up a fake Torrent site. We’ll contact the other Torrent sites. We’ll get their names, address books, contact information and banking information…. (They) wanted to run this as a shadow portion of the MPAA.

Meanwhile, the MPAA has not disputed the payment but told Wired that “the MPAA obtains information from third parties only if it believes the evidence has been collected legally.” They also deny the fake Torrent story. Read Wired’s story for yet another greed drama from Tinseltown, USA. [Wired]