UK Anti-Piracy Firm E-mails Reveal Cavalier Attitude Toward Legal Threats 200
Khyber writes "A recent DDoS attack against a UK-based anti-pirating firm, ACS:Law, has resulted in a large backup archive of the server contents being made available for download, [and this archive] is now being hosted by the Pirate Bay. Within this archive are e-mails from Andrew Crossley basically admitting that he is running a scam job, sending out thousands of frivolous legal threats on the premise that a percentage pay up immediately to avoid legal hassles."
Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
What is surprising is that it seems that there is little or no involvement of the police or law enforcement agencies in this.
What appears to have happened is private companies have been granted permission to sample Internet traffic and this information is then made available to these dubious legal firms who just spam people with demands for payment.
Not just piracy... (Score:2)
I once read on the Internet about a guy who sent a bunch of random invoices to mid-size companies and a few of them got paid.
Don't know if it's true or just an Internet story ...
Re:Not just piracy... (Score:4, Informative)
Its been a scam for longer than the internet has been around.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, given that they claim to have "forensic computer evidence" when they do not (sorry, a date and time from a server log, without the hard disk in the server being removed to preserve the "evidence", and a proper chain of custody, is not "forensic evidence").
This is why BritGov is investigating them.
Re:Wow. - Extortion vs Coercion (Score:2, Informative)
There is a difference!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion [wikipedia.org]
Extortion, outwresting, and/or exaction is a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercion [wikipedia.org] /korn/) is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressu
Coercion (pronounced
Re:Wow. - Extortion vs Coercion (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps there's a difference legally, but I don't see any difference for the common man.
"Pay us $5000 or else be prosecuted," is extortion in my mind, especially since it involves money. The law firms are acting like members of The Family. "Pay us money or else we'll rough you up."
Re:Wow. - Extortion vs Coercion (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Be prosecuted" shouldn't be a threat if you're innocent,
Seriously? You couldn't finish reading that sentence to realize I was making your point? If a comment is only 2 sentences long, you might want to read both of them before rushing off to insult someone.
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In the UK, it's called "Monies by Menace."
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Heck, you don't even need to have a real gun.
You don't even have to have a fake gun.
Just the act of saying "I have a gun" is sufficient to be charged with armed robbery once they give you the
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Re:Wow. - Extortion vs Coercion (Score:4, Informative)
Stores had a policy of catching teen-age shoplifters, then sending their parents a demand letter saying they wanted $300 for some nebulous "costs". The judges rightfully threw it out. When someone does you harm, you're entitled to be compensated. You may even be entitled to exemplary damages. However, unless there's an amount that is set by statute (which is why they're known as "statutory damages"), you can't just "pull a number out of the air."
Trying to get what you, as a lawyer, should know the law does not allow, is extortion because your threat of legal action is being used to commit a crime. You no longer enjoy the "except threat of legal action" exemption.
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the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force
And this is not what happens? Let me guess: they pay up in a voluntary manner after being threatened with lawsuits.
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However, when they step beyond the bounds of the law - for example, threatening to sue for monetary damages without actually being able to show any monetary damages OR statutory damages, and falsely claim to have forensic evidence, when the server logs in question were not yet properly analysed (sorry, but saying that a log shows that ip 11.22.33.44 was used at such-and-such a date, without any analysis having been perfor
Re:Wow. - Extortion vs Coercion (Score:4, Informative)
Well let me point this out from Canada. In Canada coercion is illegal(unless it falls under a very limited set of exclusionary rules), and extortion is illegal. Don't do it, don't do it at all here. We will come down on you hard.
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Agreed, but a large part of the server contents could probably be proven legitimate by third parties who received the corresponding emails etc. If someone seizes their server after this and the seized contents don't match what was proven in the posted content, or if
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http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/forensic-evidence.html [businessdictionary.com]
A letter from BT is NOT "forensic evidence". http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Forensic+analysis [thefreedictionary.com]
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It's probably no different than the disgusting "call people up to settle unenforceable debt" tactics by shitty collections agencies all over the US - took me over six months after a change of phone number to get those fuckers to stop calling and admit that no, I was not the person they were looking for, and no, I did not owe them shit.
All the while, they screamed threats into the phone, threats to call employers, threats to call relatives, everything. It was ridiculous. And the local authorities, who are th
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And the local authorities, who are the only ones who can prosecute for it (did you know you can't civilly sue these dickholes for harassment of that nature?), refused to do anything even with copies of what they had left on my answering service!
Well, of course not! The detective/Assistant DA had a background check ran on you, and the check revealed you were a deadbeat with a collection agency after you as well as a pending lawsuit for copyright infringement!
With all that going against your credibility they'
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Re:Wow. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Interesting)
What, you didn't bother downloading the TORRENT and READING THE EMAILS FOR YOURSELF?
I'm on ~3200th e-mail right now. This man is GOING DOWN HARD.
Duh (Score:4, Interesting)
I've gotten, umm.. a dozen or so cease and desist letters over the years.. my response to every single one of them has been to ignore it. No response. They never follow up. Why would they? It's a fishing game, the only way they can get you on the hook is if you take the bait.
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To QuantumG it may concern,
We do hereby demand that you stop ignoring us!! Come on! How are we supposed to pay our immoral & unethical investigators and attorneys if you just ignore us? Is that really fair?
We shall consider your lack of reply acknowledgement of your complete agreement with our claims and that your check is in the mail. We look forward to not hearing from you.
Sinisterly,
Asshat and Associates
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The problem is that if you ignore it and they do proceed, they could have you confused with somebody else you could end up making things worse by ignoring it.
Correct legal terminology (Score:5, Informative)
I'd probably send a "fuck off" reply
Please, if you are replying to a legal letter the correct response is "I refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram [wikipedia.org]".
As many suspected. (Score:5, Insightful)
The submission is a little inaccurate. Crossley didn't admit, even implicitly, to deliberatly running a scam. What he has admitted is that the data upon which ACS sends out it's threatening letters is of poor quality and riddled with inaccuracies so severe even the clients are complaining - but even though he knows that many of those he accuses are innocent, he threatens them anyway because it's faster and cheaper than producing accurate data. Instead, ACS just threatens to sue anyone who criticises this practice for libel. I imagine that works very well, given that the UK arrangement of libel law is quite infamously written in favor of the plaintiff.
Re:As many suspected. (Score:4, Informative)
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That document is about criminal prosecutions, not civil actions for damages. I think you're looking for this [hmcourts-service.gov.uk].
Pointless. (Score:5, Interesting)
And probably all rendered inadmissible in court because they were obtained illegally. Way to immunise a guy against an awful lot of evidence.
I know someone who was threatened by ACS:Law. As with all things serious, we researched it and discovered it was likely a scam, and this was WAY before they were news-worthy. The threat was ignored, except for a polite response, and nothing else happened. If you pay up, you're a moron. If you think this will stop such companies, there are no shortage of other morons willing to pick up such easy work, and they don't even need to be anywhere near a lawyer themselves.
DDOS, hacking, etc. isn't doing anything but legitimising their actions should they go to the mainstream media. Just ignoring their threats and/or inviting them to court, as any sensible person would do (and have done - ACS:Law are under investigation by various high-level UK legal authorities for legal irregularities) does infinitely more.
The guys an scamming idiot, but it's like a playground fight here - I can guess how much a moron he is without having to break into his personal emails and just because they might reveal he is an asshole doesn't mean that you've "won" anything against anti-piracy lawsuits or even against legal threats with zero evidence. All you've done is become nothing more than a publicity generator. How long before I see on the news: "Pirates hack into law-firm's servers, distribute private emails, law-firm says it's represents the mindset of the people they are chasing".
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Re:Pointless. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's actually an excellent question - is a file that was visible in the root directory of a web server for download, illegally obtained?
Re:Pointless. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Pointless. (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's not as clear cut as JD says, as far as I can tell. The courts have more discretion on when to admit evidence and when not. Where there has been a clear abuse of police power, the courts are likely to throw the evidence out.
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'Intent to publish' has nothing to do with whether or not it's legal or not.
Most people do not 'intend' that evidence against them that the public stumbles across becomes public. As long as the person was not working with the police, it cannot, under any circumstances, be excluded.
Even evidence discovered under outright commissions of a crime are legal to use. There have been cases where someone unconnected with law enforcement kidnapped and tortured another person to get evidence out of them. While obvio
Not pointless (Score:2, Insightful)
In what dream world would there ever have been a case against him to begin with? "oh noes, it's rendered inadmissable". Wake up from your fantasy, it's this or it'd never even surface AT ALL.
No, it's a safe bet that destroying his business and his name IS in fact the winning move. As can be seen, he was already being doubted by his clients ("rights holders"), this will likely mean he's dropped like a hot potato. No clients, no income, no income no "Lambo".
Not saying it'll really change anything, but at leas
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Umm, I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that under UK law (as opposed to US law) evidence that has appeared as a result of an illegal act, especially if the illegal act was by a third party unconnected to any investigation/civil action began, is not blanket rendered inadmissible in court. (That's not to argue about whether it should be or not, just what the law is.)
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And probably all rendered inadmissible in court because they were obtained illegally.
Bullpocky. They posted it to a public server, even if it was through incompetence. They're being presented in courts as technical experts, so that little detail should be absolutely no defense.
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How was it obtained illegally?
It was downloaded from a publicly accessible web server by following links on their front page!
Granted, those links only existed because there was a DoS and the real front page was taken down, leaving a directory index.
But if someone commits arson against me, burning down a a wall and exposing stolen artwork to the world, I might be able to get it thrown out if the arsonist takes a pictures of it and tries to have me arrested from that, but anyone else who sees it and takes
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And probably all rendered inadmissible in court because they were obtained illegally.
Ignoring the issue of whether or not this would make the evidence inadmissible (after all, the police can always go and demand the original data via a warrant), which law has been broken by those who obtained the data?
The data was made available to the public by the website's back-up system (likely breaking some laws), not by any hack, and there is no necessity that those who initially downloaded it also carried out the DDoS attack. So there wouldn't seem to be any "misuse of a computer"-type offence.
Distri
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Just for the record (should have posted this originally), I am law student, but not a lawyer, so no guarantees about the accuracy of all of that.
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Not inadmissible in court. Anyone competent can file a records/discovery request now, if they are facing him in court, and the court can compel revelation of the same data.
This "ill-gotten" data can still be used to show whether or not Crossley is going back (as he's likely to do) and trying to "cleanse" his own records, as can a discovery request for the email of the recipient.
Was it gotten in a shady manner? Maybe. Is it useful? Oh, Fuck Yes.
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This evidence was obtained illegally, however it's enough that it could start an investigation where they could then gain the same, or more evidence via legal means (seized computers, lawful investigation with write blockers)
No, it wasn't obtained illegally.
They put the backup of their website on their frontpage.
They made it available. Did they mean to? No. But they did.
Nothing illegal about downloading it.
...deliberately does not target TalkTalk or Virgin (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA: "Email evidence that ACS:Law deliberately does not target two UK ISPs, TalkTalk and Virgin Media"
That's interesting. I'm with Virgin so that's nice to know. I wonder why these two?
Perhaps they don't cave as easily as the others.
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Or perhaps those ISPs *have* caved, and started passing information direct to the studios
meaning there's no need for ACS:Law to target their customers
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No, you're being confused by the Virgin name.
On /. the word 'virgin' usually has a completely different meaning ;-)
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Re:...deliberately does not target TalkTalk or Vir (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because they've both publicly stated that they will challenge requests for subscriber information that don't come complete with a court order - see this Torrentfreak article [torrentfreak.com] from a few days ago.
"While we all know that an ISP must comply with a court order once it’s issued, Plusnet and virtually every other ISP in the UK are giving the likes of Gallant Macmillan and ACS:Law a free ride by agreeing not to contest in advance."
Common strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the same strategy used by police and councils, sending out fines with threats of prosecution for minor motoring offences. Realistically the case is unlikely to go to court, but people pay up anyway because: (1) they want to avoid the months of worry, waiting to find out if they are taken to court or not; (2) often the case would be heard hundred of miles from their home and, even if they win, they can't recover their travel / accommodation expenses; and (3) the court system is notoriously biased against the motorist and appeals are expensive and complicated.
This isn't as off-topic as you may think. People have been convinced by government / police campaigns that paying the fine is "the done thing". For example, someone driving at 67mph in a 60mph zone may be faced with a £30 fine, but if they let it go to court they risk getting 6 points on their license (halfway to losing it!) and a fine in the thousands.
This is what the copyright enforcement industry is now trying to achieve: A form of "justice" based on fear. Not fear of a fair punishment for a genuine offence, but fear of being put in to a situation where right or wrong, win or lose, people suffer significant financial loss and a great deal of worry.
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Other thing is applying a ridiculous intrest rate while the motorist is not paying. (Hungary)
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This is what's wrong with all these threats - the "if you settle now it won't cost much but if you dare to contest it you could be in big trouble and owe a lot of money" approach. The RIAA is a big fan of this approach.
If governments want to pass some laws they should be passing them against people like this, not the paid-for laws they're so fond of lately.
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If governments want to pass some laws they should be passing them against people like this
Aside from being hypocritical, it would be self-damaging for any government to pass laws against this type of scam, because it's exactly this type of scam that governments use as a source of income.
As governments lower taxes to gain popularity and/or win votes, they increasingly criminalise every aspect of our lives so they can fine us.
Have you noticed that nearly every new offence is punishable by a fine, not jail time?
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Rehabilitation never worked in the first place, so that's no great loss. Prison is debilitating.
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Rehabilitation never worked in the first place, so that's no great loss.
The evidence is that for many people, quite possibly even a majority of those in custody, the rehabilitation works just fine. However, there is a significant minority for whom it doesn't work. This sucks, but it's how the world is.
However, the UK government at least is going to try to cut the prison population hard, despite imprisonment being very popular with the Tories, because it's so damned expensive. I don't know what the result of that will be, but I worry.
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Prison turns minor offenders into hardened criminals... Not only is prison hard and unpleasant, but you meet lots of useful criminal contacts who can get you into all kinds of other illegal activities when you get out.
Fines on the other hand, just mean the rich don't have to bother with the law because they can easily afford to pay the fine and carry on.
Neither strategy is effective at rehabilitating or deterring crime.
Re:Common strategy (Score:5, Interesting)
I keep getting chased for debts that aren't mine. The lists get sold, I get a letter. The agencies have never replied to a CCA letter (a legal requesting for information). Bunch of criminal chancers.
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This isn't as off-topic as you may think. People have been convinced by government / police campaigns that paying the fine is "the done thing". For example, someone driving at 67mph in a 60mph zone may be faced with a £30 fine, but if they let it go to court they risk getting 6 points on their license (halfway to losing it!) and a fine in the thousands.
You get 3 points on your licence in any case. I got 3 automated 'average speed camera' charges against me in the course of 2 weeks, for going probably
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You get 3 points on your licence in any case
Sorry, yes, you're right. My only brush with the law was driving on a poorly-marked bus lane, which you don't get points for. Speeding offences do have mandatory points, yes.
An interesting point I've heard about speed cameras: To get permission for a speed camera placement, the police must show that a _majority_ of people speed at that location. How absurd is that? Surely if a majority of people consider it safe to speed there, it probably is. The police should be putting speed cameras where the dangerous _
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When was the last time you ever saw a police officer with a speed camera outside a school?
Areas around schools tend to be too packed with cars for anyone to speed. My mother lives on a hill between two tiny villages. One of the villages has a 20 mile an hour speed limit, but the limit on the road between them is much higher. The reason for the low limit is that it's a narrow road with a blind bend and frequently has pedestrians (often small children) crossing. The doesn't seem to stop people driving into it at around 40. I have seen police with handheld radar guns there.
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I wouldn't say that's entirely fair, because if you ignore a speeding ticket they can and will take you to court and sting you. Countless people can attest to this.
It's more like the private parking companies that issue "tickets" in car parks on private land (eg. supermarkets, leisure and retail parks) - these companies will send you a series of rude letters demanding about £60 for a "fine" because you were in the car park for 5 minutes too long - and if you don't pay up they'll take you to court, ta
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It's the same strategy used by police and councils, sending out fines with threats of prosecution for minor motoring offences. Realistically the case is unlikely to go to court...
For example, someone driving at 67mph in a 60mph zone may be faced with a £30 fine, but if they let it go to court they risk getting 6 points on their license (halfway to losing it!) and a fine in the thousands.
You are contradicting yourself. You say that the case in unlikely to go to court then you say that it will go to court and they risk fines in the thousands.
The latter is more accurate, the case will go to court if you don't pay or contest the fine and you will face additional costs if you lose. Parking and speeding fines are no brainers for the police and councils.
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Don't like the responsibility to drive at or below the posted speed? Don't drive.
I don't speed. I'm looking at the bigger picture. I'm sick of police time being wasted catching motorists coming off a dual-carriageway and not slowing back down to 60mph fast enough, when those same police officers could be on duty outside a school to make sure people aren't speeding there. The person doing 70mph in a 60mph zone is not certain to be a dangerous driver, then or at any other time. The person doing 40mph outside a school _is_ driving dangerously, right there and then.
I want the police to save
Can you hear that? (Score:5, Interesting)
When will the governments of the world finally say "Enough is enough" to these clowns?
It's not like all this litigation and threats are profitable or anything. I believe
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It's the sound of the copyright lobby having another heart attack. When will the governments of the world finally say "Enough is enough" to these clowns?
The lobbying will stop when the money runs out. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to make that happen quickly.
Yes, there is. (Score:2)
Don't watch their films or buy their music.
It's all poisonous, propagandistic crap anyway.
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RIAA is financed by major studios, and the PR value of these cases is quite enough to keep most people away from piracy.
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Me too.
Data protection act hmmm ;) (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a thought, and I am not really too up on it, but by allowing peoples details to be leaked, including address, phone number, account numbers etc isn't this company negligent in its duty to keep such information confidential.
If I was an "Infringer" I would be asking how much for ME to go away after you really screwed up by not even having rudimentary security in place as is required by the DPA and peoples details downloadable my poor data hygiene.
The key thing here isn't this particular firm (Score:2)
But the fact that this firms emails might be the first part of showing a pattern of improper behavior by these firms in general.
If you could show that these firms tend to behave recklessly you might be able to have a shorter trial, hit them for damages, etc.
Not sure, but in some countries, breaking the law removes the corporate shield from your assets too so people can go after your personal assets.
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You have it bass ackwards. If you can prove a pattern of recklessness, you can jack up the damages.
Using prior recklessness to prove present recklessness is problematical. Read Federal Evidence Rule 404(b). If you could get the evidence in (a considerable 'if'), it would make the trial longer, not shorter. No lawyer is going to leave evidence on the table if they can help it.
The DOS did cause leak. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:has resulted? (Score:5, Informative)
The DDoS brought their servers down. They went down in flames so ACS:Law had to reinstall everything and their idiot admin exposed their entire website (mostly tons of confidential information) to the public. I downloaded it myself, the file is called backup-8.24.2010_12-58-28_acslawor and the shit I found in it was very scarry. If it wasn't for the DDoS, we wouldn't have gotten our hands on this file. Go die somewhere and stop posting shit you don't know anything about.
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The fact they left it wholly unencrypted is one of the purest violations of the UK DPA.
Disbarment, plus jail time, is likely.
Re:has resulted? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I know the odds aren't great for that, but it could be possible.
(Just imagine if you had a conscience and were the admin for those scum and a chance like that came up. What would you do?)
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Could there please be one of those rare sudden outbreaks of common sense? This is a clear demonstration that Big Media is contracting with people who are not technically competent, then wanting to turn around and present them as technical experts in court. They're abusing the legal system. Ban this farce already.
For that matter, if anyone needs to get banned from teh internets for life, it's these clowns, not some kid downloading crappy pop music.
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It's hardly "stealing" if something is put up on a public-facing website, such that anyone visiting the website sees a link straight to the file, which does not even have any access restrictions or password protection.
What kind of idiot stores their site backup in the public HTML directory? I guess we just found out.
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fake emails with full headers
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They knew how to do things in the old days. (Score:2)
While 'bad kings' Bush, Cheney and Blair (and hundreds of others - including Kissinger) have certainly earned beheading for their crimes, they won't even be brought before a court. That's progress!
Doing a Ratner (Score:2)
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> But then again... how smart can they be if they put it into emails.
As Eliot Spitzer (remember him?) once said "Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail."
> let alone had their emails all made public... :P
That is a superfluous redundancy ;). Email, by definition, involves at least 2 endpoints. It'll be in the recipient's inbox (or recipients' inboxes), and who knows how many other places. Assume that every email you write will end up being spla
Re:Privacy, there must be a law? (Score:4, Informative)
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Sued - probably not.
Not sure why not. S13 of the DPA gives the data subject the right to sue for damages arising from any breach of the act. That would include damage to reputation, which could be argued to exist in most cases where somebody is accused of participating in an illegal activity.
DPA also requires that the data subject has consented to the processing
There are a number of exemptions to this requirement; see schedule 2 of the Act. The most relevant one is probably this one:
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Yes. Data Protection Act 1988, section 13 [legislation.gov.uk]:
[1]: this would include the requirements (a) not to disclose the data to third parties without authorisation, and (b) to take reasonable steps to ensure the data is secure.