Anti-Piracy Law Firm emails leaked via BitTorrent. (thanks to the 4chan crew)

[torchbearer]

story here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/trends/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227500831&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

torrent of emails here: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5850493/ACS-Law_leaked_emails



story:
After the piracy activist group known as 4can targeted the MPAA and RIAA websites with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack one week ago, a group of activists has locked on a new target: anti-piracy lawyers.
On Friday, according to Slyck, a website dedicated to file sharing, the website root directory of anti-piracy law firm ACS:Law was exposed, creating the possibility of a "cataclysmic data breach" for the company. Sure enough, Slyck noted that "a torrent file claiming to be the internal email database of ACS:Law and solicitor Andrew Crossley has been posted to The Pirate Bay and on the web."

One of the leaders behind the attack told TorrentFreak, a BitTorrent news site, that after the DDoS attack, when ACS:Law's website came back online, "on their frontpage was accidentally a backup file of the whole website (default directory listing, their site was empty), including emails and passwords" and that "the email contains billing passwords and some information that ACS:Law is having financial problems."

Slyck said that several torrent files are now in circulation, one including a month's worth of solicitor Andrew Crossley's email. Another contained other employees' emails as well as the firm's in-box from a longer period of time. All told, the torrent contained roughly 350MB of emails.

According to TorrentFreak, recovered documents "reveal intentions to take down Slyck," as well as an email from one of the law firm's clients. In it, the client raises concerns "over the accuracy of the data that you provide and the methods used to obtain such data" in light of a report by Which?, Europe's largest consumer rights organization, which accused the firm of bullying innocent people.

As noted, ACS:Law was also a target in the so-called Operation Payback about one week ago, in which hackers using the 4chan message boards coordinated attacks against the websites of the MPAA, RIAA and similar entities. The moves reportedly came as a response to comments made by Girish Kumar, the managing director of anti-piracy software company AiPlex Software, to the Sydney Morning Herald. Kumar said that his firm had been hired by copyright holders to launch denial of service attacks against websites that made torrents of their copyrighted material available online, and that his clients included about 30 Bollywood studios.

[torchbearer]

To whom it concerns,

Over the past years we have seen an technological revolution. One where you are free, in the most extreme anarchistic sense, to share ideas. Some of these ideas are shared behind proxies, darknets, or similar "closed doors", but the ideas are out there. This kind of revolution is of the mind, and its effects on respective societies is all but surprising. While the people embrace this revolution, this new "anarchy" of freedom to share, leaders have crushed and seek to crush it before it even begins in earnest.

These "anarchists", who are only anarchists in the minds of leaders seeking to destroy this freedom, have succeeded en-mass in distributing content to the poor, the underpriveleged, the restricted. The most popular pirates are the chinese, whose content filters restrict a vast amount of content from them. The second most popular, the poor, who cannot afford things like college books or entertainment. Indeed, while mostly ignored, a vast amount of educational literature is available to the everyday pirate. Enough that saw me through college, even, when I otherwise could not have afforded it.

It is no different, though, than when these powers that be tried to silence the record player, the cassette, the CD. The same claims were made then, and they were ignored, so why now are they listened to? This flawed application of extremist capitalism upon what is considered sacred by any culture - knowledge - is treason upon every human. All should have the right to listen to that beat, experience that twist in a plot, or learn from the mass volumes of literature now made available.

You already know this, however. You know it when you freely give your unused software, illegally I might add (remember: You don't own the software you buy [1]), to a friend or acquaintence. You know it when you give that old college book to a persin in need. You know it when little girls are basically raped in the name of "justice" [2]. You know it when thousands of bullshit legal letters are sent to SCARE money out of people [3]. You know it when such organizations lie through their teeth, produce false documents, and spread misinformation about its opponents [4]. You know that this is not right when your leaders inexplicably support massive capitalist enterprises over the majority opinion of their own people [5]. You know they are wrong when they use illegal means to get what they want, while simultaneously bashing us for doing the same [6].

If you were to assume the propaganda of various community-reputable organisations such as...

The Motion Picture Association of America [MPAA]
The Recording Industry Association of America [RIAA]
The British Phonographic Industry [BPI]
The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft [AFACT]
Stichting Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland [BREIN]

...you would have heard many a story that if you say, 'pirate' a film or an album, you are depriving a simple artist, actor or crewmember from their rightful wage. They won't be able to break even for their next lot of groceries - and YOU robbed them of THEIR money. Money that they only see a small percentage of, they carefully omit. Do they ever tell you how small of a percentage most script writers, novelists, etc, actually make? No, and there is a reason why. Do they tell you how much THEY, the anti-piracy organizations, make? No, and there is a reason why.

In the end, our DDoS efforts have been compared to waiting for a train [7]. What do we have to do to be heard? To be taken seriously? Do we have to take to the streets, throwing molitovs, raiding offices of those we oppose? Realize, you are forcing our hand by ignoring us. You forced us to DDoS when you ignored the people, ATTACKED the people, LIED TO THE PEOPLE! You are forcing us to take more drastic action as you ignore us, THE PEOPLE, now.

We will not stop.

We will not forget.

We will prevail.

We are anonymous.


[1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/first-sale-doctrine/
[2] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100722/09434710323.shtml
[3] http://technews.am/conversations/techdirt/acs_law_asks_those_who_deny_infringing_to_incrimin ate_themselves
[4] We DID NOT attack the pirate party, we ARE NOT affiliated with anti-scientology activism, and The Pirate Bay has not organized this.
[5] http://www.which.co.uk/news/2010/01/acs-law-letter-writing-continues-197714
[6] http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-boss-denies-dos-attacks-torrent-site-refutes-claim-100912/
[7] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/22/acs_4chan/

[libertarian4321]

I'm not into torrenting, and even I think the RIAA and MPAA act like jack booted thugs.

[ChaosControl]

Good. To hell with the MPAA/RIAA and ACS.

Torrents and freedom of information for the win!

[torchbearer]

..

[BuddyRey]

Vila la P2P revolution!

[youngbuck]

Haha, that is pretty cool. F'k the RIAA and MPAA.

[cindy25]

they should also target the websites of MPAA stooges such as Graham, Waxman and Schumer.