ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

[4me2]

Anti-piracy lawyers' email database leaked after hack

Backup torrented


Hackers have uploaded a leaked database of emails from anti-piracy law firm ACS:Law onto P2P networks and websites.
ACS:Law was among a handful of entertainment industry-affiliated organisations to endure denial of service attacks by the denizens of 4Chan last week. A loose-knit collective of members of the notorious message board also hit the MPAA, RIAA and BPI using online attack tools, taking the MPAA and RIAA offline in the process.


Other targets of Operation: Payback is a bitch included solicitors ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons. During attempts to re-establish ACS:Law's website it seems a compressed copy of what seems to be at least part of the firm's email database, contained in site backups, was exposed online. Hackers extracted this webmail file and made it available via torrent trackers and posted it on a limited number of websites over the weekend.
“Their site came back online [after the DDoS attack] – and on their front page was accidentally a backup file of the whole website (default directory listing, their site was empty), including emails and passwords,” a leader of the attacking group told TorrentFreak.
Information contained in the email database reportedly includes personal details of the targets of the law firm's threatening letters and business correspondence with ACS:Law's partners. These email nuggets are buried among spam and office admin exchanges in a 350MB file. Slyck reports that the file contains around a month of webmails belonging to solicitor Andrew Crossley, head of ACS:Law.
UK-based ACS:Law has enraged the more freewheeling sections of the internet by threatening lawsuits against alleged P2P copyright infringers unless they agree to an out-of-court settlement, typically of £500. The files involved are often video games or pornographic flicks, with copyrights held by German monitoring firm Digiprotect. ACS:Law is under investigation over its tactics by the Solicitor's Regulatory Authority, with a tribunal expected next year.
Privacy International said on Monday that it plans to sue ACS:Law for violating the privacy of internet users over the security breach. It reckons the names and personal details of targets of ACS:law's legal nastygrams could become the target of scams or identity theft as a result of the email leak. The privacy activists are also briefing the Information Commissioner's Office on the breach. ®


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09...er_email_leak/

[raelmadrid]

just looking through e-mails now, does anyone know a good program to batch search all files for a certain keyword?

[matthewy2]

just looking through e-mails now, does anyone know a good program to batch search all files for a certain keyword?

text pad

[Mystical_2K]

theres a version out (usenet) thats already pre-loaded into a portable version of thunderbird - makes looking much easier

[RESiDENT-UK]

wheres the nbz lol?

[B.I.G.]

Do a search on newsbin for thunderbirdportable and it's the second one down.

Reading some of those emails you have to feel sorry for the poor cunts shelling out nigh on 5 ton just so their wives or partners don't find out theyve downloaded porn (most of them seem to be from men).

[RESiDENT-UK]

i dont have newsbin i only use nbzmatrix is it on there

[B.I.G.]

dunno why i put newsbin i meant binsearch

[RESiDENT-UK]

got it now cheers

[4me2]

wheres the nbz lol?

For anyone else that wants it.

[raelmadrid]

hope this is ok

A response to the PC Advisor article

by

Andrew J. Crossley, Principal, ACS Law Solicitors

In May 2009 my firm commenced work representing various copyright holders who were suffering financial loss due to illegal file sharing. During 2009 my firm sent out approximately 6,000 letters to individuals notifying them that their internet connection had been used for illegal file sharing and, in particular, making available to others a copyright-protected product, be it a game, a film or a song.

In November 2009, my firm obtained two further court orders, which compel ISPs to divulge the names and addresses of account holders of IP addresses that have been identified as being used to infringe copyright belonging to my clients. In response to a request by Which?, I was able to inform that organisation on 14th January this year that, in relation to the latest court orders, the total number of letters sent at that time was less than 500. More letters have been sent since, but that number currently totals less than 1,000.

It is incorrect to state that people are “fined”. We invite people to enter into a compromise agreement in order to avoid what could otherwise prove to be costly litigation. Our letter of claim makes that perfectly clear. Our letters are detailed, but not 30 pages long; they are ordinarily six pages long with evidence, a court order and a payment/undertaking form attached. In addition, we provide extensive information on our website, www.acs-law.co.uk, including copies of the court orders obtained, court guidance on how these matters should be dealt with (this is known as the pre-action protocol), a guide to the evidence obtained and a number of FAQs to further clarify matters. We also state very clearly that if in doubt the recipient of the letter should seek legal advice from a solicitor or Citizen’s Advice Bureau.

The starting point of any case we run is the act of infringement, which is identified by various data monitoring companies who are retained by my clients. The information gathered by these companies is accurate; the infringement occurred with the internet connection identified, of that I am in no doubt. The data monitoring companies’ methods and procedures have been analysed and scrutinised by independent experts, who prepare reports on the accuracy and efficacy of the data they collate. Consequently, any attempt to avoid or deny liability has to be very compelling for my clients to instruct us to close a case.

On the face of the information we have gathered, there is a case to answer and that is why the court makes an order to the ISPs to give us the account holders’ names. In addition to proving to court that an act of infringement has occurred and that the data captured is accurate, we also demonstrate to the court that my client is the copyright owner or licensee holding actionable rights. A detailed chain of title is produced to court, proving the copyright interest in the products of my clients.

Much drama has been made of the element of adult content material. In fact, this presently makes up less than ten percent of all data we send letters on. Furthermore, the adult content material is all BBFC certificated and legal. My clients that offer for sale adult content material are as entitled to the protection and enforcement of its copyrights as any other client.

In my opinion and that of my clients, it is insufficient for people to say in relation to the identified infringement that “it did not happen”, as we have evidence that it did; it is insufficient to blame it on a child who did not know what they were doing, as the parent should take responsibility for the actions of children under their care. Alternatively, if the child was old enough to understand their actions, that child should take the responsibility themselves. Suggestions of “spoofing” or faking IP addresses are not applicable arguments, as the evidence we gather establishes at the time the true identity of the IP address.

Finally, it is insufficient to think that simply denying the claim means we therefore have to accept that at face value, fold our tents and leave town. Ultimately, it is my clients’ right to test their belief in court if necessary, when their evidence and that of anyone they pursue can be tested, under oath, on the balance of probabilities. My clients wish to avoid court proceedings if at all possible, but where appropriate they will do so (and to this end, proceedings have been issued and many more are to be issued in due course).

File sharing is illegal, it costs this country billions of pounds in lost sales to media-providing industries. Our clients are entitled to pursue instances of identified infringement with all vigour and determination and my firm has been retained to help them achieve that. Thank you.

Andrew J. Crossley

27th January 2010

[Bald Bouncer]

BBC onto it now

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11418962

[ZX7R]

I would love to be a fly on the wall in their offices at the moment.

Why were they backing up unencrypted data on a public facing source? lol.

[Fearless]

These kents sent me a letter lol

demanding £450 for guru josh mp3 download, highly amusing

on the other hand my cousin got one for a porno lol, his mrs ripped him a new one

[4me2]

I would love to be a fly on the wall in their offices at the moment.

Why were they backing up unencrypted data on a public facing source? lol.

I doubt they were mate.

I suspect it was made to look that way by the person who hacked the place.

[Bald Bouncer]

I think what happened is they went to restore the site and uploaded the backups to the public directory rather than the root and someone checking the site to see if it was still down etc saw them and grabbed them as you would.

Not surprised they were unencrypted at all as it's something your would set rather than it being the norm.

[4me2]

BBC onto it now

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11418962

Direct action

Simon Davis, from the watchdog Privacy International, said he would be asking the Information Commissioner to "conduct a full investigation" and hoped it would be "a test case of the Information Commissioner's new powers".
"You rarely find an aspect where almost every aspect of the Data Protection Act (DPA) has been breached, but this is one of them," said Mr Davies.
"It fits perfectly for the term 'egregious misuse' of personal data," he added.
A spokesperson for the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) told BBC News that it "takes all breaches of the DPA very seriously".
"Any organisation processing personal data must ensure that it is kept safe and secure.
"The ICO will be contacting ACS:Law to establish further facts of the case and to identify what action, if any, needs to be taken."
BSkyB is yet to make an official statement on the matter, but said it was investigating the breach.
The attack on ACS:Law is the latest in a number of high-profile attacks by piracy activists.
Last week, hackers temporarily knocked out the websites of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
The attacks were declared on notorious message-board 4chan and were reportedly in retaliation for anti-piracy efforts against file-sharing websites.
Users of 4chan are renowned for online activism and direct action. "Operation Payback", as it was known, was reportedly revenge for the MPAA and RIAA's action against The Pirate Bay.
The group has declared it will continue to target other sites involved in anti online piracy activity.

I hope the hackers covered their tracks well.
The last place they should be posting now is on 4chan.

[Bald Bouncer]

Think that action will be against ACS:Law, the two incidents are really not connected although the Dos attack caused the site problems the uploading into insecure space in a unencrypted form is solely down to ACS:Law and although I have not read the new regulations I imagine them to be putting legal liability onto the data holder to protect it with all reasonable steps which obviously has not been done.

Not sure how anyone would stand seeing such a file on a public site and downloading it would stand, distribution and publication can be covered under copyright but you would have to see if that is done which I doubt as with papers it could be deemed public interest or some crap like that.

[Raptor]

they are fucked. Simple as.

[kracken]

Theres sum interesting stuff to say the least in those emails ....

2. Confidentiality

1. 1. The Licensor and the Licensee mutually undertake to observe secrecy in relation to third parties concerning the existence and -- above all -- the content of this Agreement. This applies in particular to announcements made in relation to the press

and some interesting attatchments to read through , been keeping me entertained since yesterday