Company Sends Bogus Copyright Takedown Over Hacking Team Docs

from the good-luck-with-that-strategy dept

Tue, Jul 7th 2015 4:12am — Mike Masnick

We've already written about the hack and leak of the Hacking Team and all its emails and files. There are likely to be tons of stories coming out from that hack over the next few days and weeks as people go through everything. However, it appears that someone is at least making a pretty ridiculous and half-hearted attempt to stuff that genie back in the bottle. Security consultant Mustafa Al-Bassam noted on Twitter that he received a copyright takedown notice for his mirror of the files from a different company, Lexsi.

I just got a DMCA complaint from one of Hacking Team's clients (@lexsi). pic.twitter.com/uoLTQySreI
— Mustafa Al-Bassam (@musalbas) July 6, 2015

If you can't read the letter, it clearly shows Lexsi making a copyright claim since it includes the "Copyright Holder's Name" in the list at the top. But in the body of the message, it makes a random claim about "sensitive and confidential information" rather than infringing information:

Hello,

We have just identified that the website musalbas.com/ displays sensitive and confidential information.

We would be grateful if you transmit the identify of the hosting provider in order to retrieve the sensitve documents.

Please confirm the reception of our request by responding to this email.

Thank you in advance for your help and feel free to contact us should you need more information.

At first Al-Bassam thinks that Lexsi must be a Hacking Team client, but then notes that there's no listing of Lexsi in the documents (which include customer rolls). It's possible that the client relationship runs the other way. Lexsi claims it does "cybercrime mitigation," so it's possible that Hacking Team (or others?) hired the company to try to bury the Hacking Team documents -- though that seems like an unenviable, if Sisyphean, task. Either way, whatever Lexsi was thinking here, it seems unlikely to have the desired impact.

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Filed Under: copyright, france, hacking team, mustafa al-bassam, takedown
Companies: hacking team, lexsi

9 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2015 @ 5:24am

That reads more like a general spam email. In fact, I bet my gmail spam filter would have sent it directly to trash. Not to mention that because of situations exactly like that, you can't just contact someone through email for something like that.
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AJ, 7 Jul 2015 @ 5:26am

Nothing like drawing even more attention to something you want to hide... streisand effect in full form!

BTW.. Bonus points for using the word Sisyphean in a sentence..I had to look that one up. Actually, I've had to look up a few words over the last few weeks, you guys got some kind of uncommon word contest going on?
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Anonymous Howard (profile), 7 Jul 2015 @ 5:38am

Copyright takedown?
Maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't looks to me like a copyright takedown request, least of all DMCA complaint.
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 7 Jul 2015 @ 6:39am
  
  Re: Copyright takedown?
  Maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't looks to me like a copyright takedown request, least of all DMCA complaint.
  
  It lists the "copyright holder" in the headers. It's not a "DMCA" takedown because it's in France and they don't have the DMCA in France. However, it is a copyright claim.
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Anon, 7 Jul 2015 @ 5:59am

A Sisyphean task isn't so unenviable if you get paid by the hour ;-)
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- blue skies (profile), 8 Jul 2015 @ 5:23am
  
  Re:
  I'd still be happier doing some more useful than pushing heavy boulders uphill that roll down immediately anyway.
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David, 7 Jul 2015 @ 6:15am

Is that really a DCMA notice?
That doesn't really look like a DCMA notice to me. A lot of the "header" stuff could just be from the Contact form of the site or something. It doesn't look like a request to take down so much as to get more information.
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Spaceman Spiff (profile), 7 Jul 2015 @ 7:28am

Rule #1
Hacking Team (Lexsi) has seemed to have forgotten Rule #1 of the Internet - the Internet never forgets! Take it down, but it will pop right back up, and 1000x more!
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GEMont, 8 Jul 2015 @ 7:53pm

Something Fishy This Way Comes
Is there some way that the lawyers can somehow make the "content" of the documents "unfit for court use", by convincing the law to let them claim copyright on the lot?

While most people fall back on their civilian training and assume the move to be one of gross incompetence, I have to think that there has to be some nefarious purpose behind this move and methinks that this is their real purpose.

Somehow they will try and make the use of these documents to incriminate them impossible, by claiming they were stolen property and cannot be used against the owners.

Dunno how, but I smell a Tuna in the making.

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