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  1. #1
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    goodn ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    Not sure if this should be posted in the Tech news section but it seems to be quite a big story considering the leaked email content containing customer data. I imagine this will boil out to the national news by tomorrow.

    http://torrentfreak.com/acslaw-anti-...emails-100925/

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

    Written by enigmax on September 25, 2010 Earlier this week, anti-piracy lawyers ACS:Law had their website taken down by a 4chan DDoS attack. Adding insult to injury, owner Andrew Crossley was harassed at home in the middle of the night by prank phone calls. Now, through a fault with his website, hundreds of megabytes of private emails have been exposed to the public and uploaded to The Pirate Bay. To those hoping that this is a MediaDefender-type fiasco all over again, trust us – it is.

    After coordinating DDoS attacks against the MPAA, RIAA and anti-piracy company AiPlex Software this week, 4chan turned to a new target.
    Anti-piracy lawyers ACS:Law, who send out tens of thousands of letters demanding cash-settlements from often innocent Internet subscribers, became the new target. The company, which is headed up by lone principal Andrew Crossley, is widely hated among file-sharers and innocents alike and with 4chan’s Operation Payback now in full swing, payback is the operative word.
    After prank telephone calling Crossley in the middle of the night during the week, it now seems that 4chan are aiming to tear his professional life apart, as they have obtained and are distributing a 350mb file of the company’s website which includes countless company emails.
    So how were they obtained?
    “Their site came back online [after the DDoS attack] – and on their frontpage 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. “The email contains billing passwords and some information that ACS:Law is having financial problems.”
    Financial problems? Interesting. Many tens of thousands of people who received letters from ACS:Law are also experiencing the same problem, having already paid up several hundred pounds each to make non-existent lawsuits go away.
    “We’re still sorting through it. There’s a lot of stuff here to go through. But, basically, we were told we were less important than a 10 minute late train, or a queue for coffee by Andrew,” the attackers’ spokesman told us, adding:
    “Payback is a bitch, isn’t it Andrew?”
    The file is currently seeding on The Pirate Bay but most leechers are stuck with less than 60%. It is, however, available publicly on the web already. We have managed to secure one of those copies and are examining it now.
    A little taster from emails read so far:
    - ACS:Law and USCG (of Hurt Locker fame) appear to be cooperating
    - Crossley boasts that his retained lawyer “literally wrote the SRA rules!”
    - Crossley accuses Which? of ‘defamation’ and articles designed to “demean” and “denigrate”
    - Crossley gives veiled warnings to Which? that he could sue them for libel
    - Internal documents reveal intentions to take down Slyck.com
    - Email from ACS:Law client which states the following:
    Andrew,
    Thank you for your email.
    Our client remains concerned over the accuracy of the data that you provide and the methods used to obtain such data. It has been closely monitoring the recent press that your Firm has attracted regarding complaints to Which, in relation to demand letters that have incorrectly been sent to innocent internet subscribers, accused of copyright infringement. Your letter of 30 October 2009 was not satisfactory, in that it did not fully deal with the concerns raised in our letter of 21 July 2009, save as to state that you and your client disagree. Clearly there are flaws in your data gathering process. These are important and valid concerns that need to be satisfactorily addressed, so as to protect the rights of our client and innocent customers.
    - Crossley brags about his financial status:
    Spent much of the weekend looking for a new car. Finances are much better so can put £20-30k down. May go for a Lambo or Ferrari. I am so predictable!
    (later emails reveal he bought a Jeep Compass 2.4CVT)
    - Email evidence that ACS:Law deliberately does not target two UK ISPs, TalkTalk and Virgin Media
    - Crossley writes to monitoring company NG3Sys and says the following:
    You are going to receive on average about £1,000.00 per 150 letters sent. This can be seen from the first tiny batch. Because we have good quality product being monitored and captures are high on the data we have, when the letters get sent out the figures therefore equate as follows:-
    Phase 1: 2,500 letters, estimated revenue to you: £16,666.00
    Phase 2: est. 4,000 letters, estimated revenue to: £26,666.00
    Phase 3: est. 18,000 letters, estimated revenue to you: £120,000.00
    That is data collated to date! I have more titles to give you, more data will be captured.
    Please stay with this.
    After falling out with NG3Sys, ACS:Law sent this out to other potential monitoring companies:
    Dear Sirs,
    I own and operate the most prominent law firm in the UK that carries out file sharing litigation. We are one of only two law firms in the UK currently carrying out this work.
    We have a number of copyright clients and we have one client in particular,with a large number of copyright titles that have been collecting good numbrs of IP addresses. We have two phases run through and the latest phase has been collecting circa 20,000 IP addresses a month for UK alone. Germany also is gathering good figures.
    Our current UK-based data monitoring company has let us down and we need to find another monitoring company to supply our IP data from now. There are currently 300 titles (all adult film titles – all legal and UK certificated) that were being actively monitored.
    If you are interested in monitoring for us and to do so quickly, please let us know and we can talk further. We will be able to supply much more data if this works and would like to push the data into Germany also.
    We are proposing to pay 10% of net revenues (after ISP costs and postage costs of letter=) to the data monitoring company. On current figures that equates to circa £8,800.00 (€9,750.00) to the monitoring company per 1,000 letters sent. Our next phase we anticipate 10,000 letters to be sent in the UK alone. These are estimates only, but based on current collections are accurate.
    I look forward to hearing from you.
    - Series of highly abusive emails from Crossley to his ex-wife, where in part he tells her to “Fuck off and keep out of my life” and accuses her of being with a “drug addled hermit”.
    - Crossley tells his assistant Terence Tsang to “be more discreet with this stuff” when referring to our article where we revealed ACS:Law looked to buy anti-piracy tracking software on the cheap.
    Of course, as with our coverage of the MediaDefender leaked emails back in 2007, TorrentFreak’s coverage of this debacle will be extensive.
    There's a comment on this link that points to a nzb download. (DF Admin, please remove if it breaks any rules).

    http://torrentfreak.com/leaked-email...scheme-100926/

  2. #2
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    I love this shit


  3. #3
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    Aye, the nzb in that second link is supposedly a very interesting read indeed! lol.
    Last edited by ZX7R; 26th September 2010 at 10:27 PM.

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    Default

    Pwned lol


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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

    Don't fuck with 4chan

  6. #6
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    This from the comments section too.

    The SRA are the Solicitors Regulation Authority..

    'Ave it' springs to mind.

    > From: “Andrew Crossley”
    > Date: Fri, Jun 18, 2010 18:26
    > Subject: ACT and Final Warnings
    > To: “Jonathan Miller”
    >
    > Jonathan,
    >
    > Thank you for the update. I can never get hold of you on the ?phone!
    > I
    > called several times today on your blackberry, but it was always
    > switched off. If you can keep it on I some times have a thought that I
    > wish to convey or discuss and being able to speak to you is often very
    > helpful. It is no problem if you would rather forget about work in the
    > evenings and weekends, but I have to think about the work the whole
    > time.
    >
    > Thank you also for coming in on Sunday; your additional efforts over
    > and above your required time is never unappreciated and will be duly
    > recognised.
    > So thank you very much.
    >
    > I am trying to think of ways of wrong-footing the SRA and taking the
    > wind out of their sails. Sorry for the mixed metaphor. My latest
    > wheeze is to contact schools or local authorities and offer to give
    > talks to teenagers at schools about file sharing and why we do what we
    > do. I would offer to do this free of charge and offer it as a service
    > to educate young people not to file share, to prove that the work we
    > do is not all about the money.
    > What do
    > you think? If you like it or have any other ideas let me know and we
    > need to get someone to cold call.write to school authorities to offer
    > this free service. It will improve our profile with the SRA, educate
    > young people and in time reduce file sharing, which will in turn
    > benefit the creative industries.
    >
    > Regards
    >
    > Andrew
    >

  7. #7
    DF VIP Member stimpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    Those emails look very interesting indeed

  8. #8
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    New info is flooding the online news feeds. Hopefully his clients leave, company goes bust and his current partner leaves him. That'll serve the c*nt right

    http://www.unitethecows.com/content/...e-company.html


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

    4chan ftw!

  10. #10
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    grabbed teh NZB very interesting read lol, hope these swines get taken to the cleaners by the SRA

  11. #11
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    See it includes his eFax number and password, guess a few people are faxing on his dime.

  12. #12
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    Quote Originally Posted by koola2 View Post
    See it includes his eFax number and password, guess a few people are faxing on his dime.
    Anyone gonna send 999 pages to a premium rate no

  13. #13
    DF VIP Member lloydi's Avatar
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    just found an email with an attachement of 5,000 Sky customers, their IP addresses, names, home addresses and what file they are being written to about, unbelievable!

    Its in the folder andrew.crossley and dated 20/08/2010 and email subject BSkyB Data Disclosure - MediaCAT Phase 3

    major breach of data protection this

    edit: ok its more than 5,000 by the looks of it,

    Data has been returned back to us from Sky. It's a rather large quantity. Raw data from ISP attached.

    - Approx. 11,000 records under Phase 3 MediaCAT.
    - Approx. 3,500 records under Phase 2 Evidenzia.
    Last edited by lloydi; 26th September 2010 at 10:03 PM.

  14. #14
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    I nearly fell off my chair when I read this.

    The internet strikes back - the thing they monitor just bit them in the arse! You'd think they'd know better!
    Kudos to the person that leaked it!!


  15. #15
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    Quote Originally Posted by lloydi View Post
    just found an email with an attachement of 5,000 Sky customers, their IP addresses, names, home addresses and what file they are being written to about, unbelievable!

    Its in the folder andrew.crossley and dated 20/08/2010 and email subject BSkyB Data Disclosure - MediaCAT Phase 3

    major breach of data protection this

    edit: ok its more than 5,000 by the looks of it,

    Notice how these are all porn downloads....clearly targeting people who are likely to pay up quick rather than suffer the embarrasment in court.

  16. #16
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    Quote Originally Posted by tronads View Post
    Notice how these are all porn downloads....clearly targeting people who are likely to pay up quick rather than suffer the embarrasment in court.
    There is a news article on google about this, can't get the link now though as I am out.


  17. #17
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    im fucked, you think they will find out i downloaded Debbie_does_shepXXX.TorrentDude.com.avi
    A wise man once said " "

  18. #18
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    Quote Originally Posted by evilsatan View Post
    There is a news article on google about this, can't get the link now though as I am out.

    ACS Law Faces Wrath Of Internet Users After Email Data Is Leaked

    26 September 2010 - Steve Lawson - Editors Comment - © Hellmail Postal News


    ACS:Law, a London-based law firm, already reeling from a DDoS attack by 4Chan on its website last week, is now having to pick up the pieces after the content of its email repository was inadvertently displayed on line.

    The content of the email, some of it clearly sensitive and now appearing on forums and Internet news websites across the world, includes the names and in some cases, addresses and credit card numbers of internet users accused of using their internet connection via P2P or Torrent sites to upload copyrighted works, leaving it wide open to prosecution under the data protection act and infuriating thousands of internet users. In addition, private communications within the firm have also been revealed after the entire email folder was, ironically, uploaded via PirateBay.

    The leak could also jeopardise an ongoing investigation by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority which began after the SRA received hundreds of complaints by internet users, accusing ACS:Law of bullying tactics and using unreliable monitoring software to catch file sharers. Which? has also been critical of letters sent to internet users and the reliability of tracking software used to pinpoint users.

    Whilst the ACS:Law web site remains offline, it is unclear just how much data was compromised but it is said to include the names and addresses of internet users accused of using their internet connection to upload copyrighted works, as well as credit card numbers, leaving it wide open to prosecution under the data protection act and infuriating thousands of internet users.

    In an effort to dampen down the SRA investigation, Andrew Crossley who heads ACS:Law said in one email:

    "I am trying to think of ways of wrong-footing the SRA and taking the wind out of their sails. My latest wheeze is to contact schools or local authorities and offer to give talks to teenagers at schools about file sharing and why we do what we do. I would offer to do this free of charge and offer it as a service to educate young people not to file share, to prove that the work we do is not all about the money."

    Clearly a desperate if not imaginative ruse to force the SRA to call off its hounds, it is unlikely to wash with the SRA which regulates more than 110,000 solicitors in England and Wales, and is now racking up costs and trying to resolve a complaint that is potentially giving the legal profession a bad name.

    The investigation, for now, seems to be centered on the wording of letters sent to internet users and the reasoning behind the amounts claimed (which average around £500 per person), but for ACS:Law, which sends thousands of letters through the post, the loss of the data could be enormously damaging for Mr Crossley himself, who bragged of an expensive break in Cannes in May this year which included an evening at one of Cannes most exclusive clubs, a recent purchase of a Bentley Avange and correspondance between Crossley, his wife, and his girlfriend.

    Whilst internet piracy remains a serious problem for the publishing and recording industries, ACS:Law clearly see splatter invoicing as a highly lucrative business model. Former cases handled by law firm Davenport Lyons were dropped, due in part to negative publicity, and some staff as well as paperwork was transferred to ACS:Law. Crossley has already indicated to the SRA that he has no intention of ceasing operations unless the SRA can come up with a good reason for him to desist.

    Crossley has already had to face questions by the SRA for conduct unbefitting a solicitor after failing to file with the Law Society, Accountant’s Reports. He narrowly escaped being struck off, claiming that he had been struck blind with a stroke, and was beset with problems with a rogue accountant.

    The advice by Which? for internet users who receive such letters through the post, is not to ignore them but reply in their own words why they feel they have been wrongly accused. Other support groups have suggested that those accused be careful of any questionaires sent out, refusing to complete them if need be, and keep the reply short and to the point.

    One expert told us:

    "It is up to ACS:Law to prove that you personally have uploaded any files via P2P web sites. As always, an IP address is no categorical proof that any individual is guilty of copyright infringement. If you give the slightest hint that you 'may' have allowed your connection to be used in this way, your case will go to the top of the list of those they feel are more likely to give in and pay up. Its as simple as that. Defended cases are less lucrative and the entire business model relies heavily on trawling a wide net to catch just a few juicy fish."

    http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews...=2423&zoneid=3
    There are 3 types of people in the world - those who make things happen, those who watch things happen; and those who wondered what happened.

    http://newsarse.com/

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  19. #19
    DF Admin 4me2's Avatar
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    Looking at one of the attachments in an email to a German client the greedy cunt charges £395 an hour for his services and is looking to increase them. .

    SCHEDULE ONE

    HOURLY RATES
    [Are these supposed to be our current rates? Can we change?]
    Grade of Fee Earner
    Hourly Rate
    1
    Solicitors with eight or more years post qualification experience including at least eight years litigation experience
    £395
    2
    Solicitors and legal executives with over four years post qualification experience including at least four years litigation experience
    £250
    3
    Other solicitors and legal executives and fee earners of equivalent experience
    £230
    4
    Trainee solicitors, paralegals and other fee earners
    £155
    The hourly rates are reviewed on 1st July of each year and the Legal Representative shall notify the Client of any change in the rates in writing. In accordance with Clause 18 above such notification shall be signed by the representatives of both parties and the revised rates shall be incorporated into this agreement as from 1st July of each year if any change takes place.
    Fuck me that email gets better, check the last sentence !

    Hi Both

    Please find attached 2 X Agreements submitted to you for review and approval for Shaun Baker and Sebastian Wolter owners of the Copyright for the song "POWER" - Evidenzia. The attached docs are:


    1. File sharing Litigation - an Overview.
    2. Retainer letter for Contentious Work
    3. Retainer letter for Non-Contentious Work.
    4. Collective Conditional Fee Agreement.


    Once approved we need to email them to the clients' and I can post the hard-copies to Germany - I have placed 2 copies of the hard copies on your desk Andrew.


    Jon, once sent, we will be waiting for various docs from these two clients i.e.signed pages plus docs such as chain of title and ID information for money laundering purposes


    Thanks
    Leyla
    There are 3 types of people in the world - those who make things happen, those who watch things happen; and those who wondered what happened.

    http://newsarse.com/

    Conservatives. Putting the 'N' into Cuts.


  20. #20
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    Default Re: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails

    Oh please god (or the SRA will do!)...
    Take these greedy, swindling fuckers out of business.


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