Piracy Phishing Scam Targets US ISPs and Subscribers (torrentfreak.com) 20
According to a report on TorrentFreak, an elaborate piracy phishing operating is tageting US ISPs and subscribers. Scammers are reportedly masquerading as anti-piracy company IP-Echelon and rightholders such as Lionsgate to send fake DMCA notices and settlement demands to ISPs. From the report:TorrentFreak was alerted to a takedown notice Lionsgate purportedly sent to a Cox subscriber, for allegedly downloading a pirated copy of the movie Allegiant. Under threat of a lawsuit, the subscriber was asked to pay a $150 settlement fee. This request is unique as neither Lionsgate nor its tracking company IP-Echelon is known to engage in this practice. When we contacted IP-Echelon about Lionsgate's supposed settlement offer, we heard to our surprise that these emails are part of a large phishing scam, which has at least one large ISPs fooled. "The notices are fake and not sent by us. It's a phishing scam," IP-Echelon informed TorrentFreak. For a phishing scam the fake DMCA notice does its job well. At first sight the email appears to be legit, and for Cox Communications it was real enough to forward it to their customers.U.S. law enforcement has been notified and is currently investigating the matter.
scam masquerades as legal scam (Score:1)
Instant legitimacy!
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
They are sending the messages directly to the ISP. The isp is then forwarding the message to whoever owns it. It's dead simple to find out which ISP owns which IP address.
The phishing part comes in from the X% of people who don't realize copyright infringement warnings don't look like that and will pay the money. Also the ISP being dumb enough to forward it in the first place.
The notices I've seen come in at work have been from Irdeto. And basically don't even ask for the identity, but simply say to warn th
Not even illegal (Score:1)
See, the DMCA operates on a "good faith belief that you represent the copyright holder."
Yeah..we'll get to that..right after HRC's server (Score:2)
Well it certainly sounds like "top men" are on it then! I'm sure they'll hop on it just as soon as they get Hillary's email server matter cleared up. How does December 2016 sound for you?
Re: (Score:2)
So what exactly happens if someone does issue a dmca notice and settlement demand in error, is false, or fraudulent?
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So what exactly happens if someone does issue a dmca notice and settlement demand in error, is false, or fraudulent?
As Apu said to Homer: "Mr. Simpson, I have asked you time and time again not to make shambles out of my candy isle! You leave me no choice, but to ask you once again, not to make shambles out of my candy isle."
Hang on (Score:1)
So how is that different than the RIAA phishing grannies with their letters years ago?
Too funny (Score:3)
There's a certain delicious slipperiness to this whole thing. I was tempted to say "irony" (of which there is some present) but the idea of one scammer masquerading as another scammer is actually pretty damn funny.
It's like Bernard Madoff sending out letters pretending to be Frank Abagnale, lol.
yup went and looked in the crap copyright folder. (Score:2)
Got a few of them in there. When those losers pay us to be their process server i'll roll a truck.