Meanwhile, In Japan: More Arrests For Cheating At Video Games

from the h4x0r! dept

Some months back, we noted that something odd was happening in Japan: online gaming cheaters were being arrested. Yes, arrested. Not arrested in a virtual sense, not banned from games, arrested as in picked up by police and charged with a crime. This, in case you are undecided on the matter, is insane. Cheating and online gaming have been a virtual arms-race for going on forever and generally it's been on the gaming companies to win that war. If they can use law enforcement as a new ally, the implications could be scary, especially when it's quite easy to levy accusations of cheating and when simply finding ways to exploit an advantage within a game is often times mistaken for cheating as well.

The latest incident is not an example of the latter. A man in his thirties in Japan, named Akihide Yamamoto, was picked up for running a web-store for cheats to exploit a game titled Alliance of Valiant Arms.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest paper, Yamamoto was arrested for suspected violation of Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Law. Reports state that Yamamoto, a Himeji City resident, is believed to have apparently sold a hacked character and overpowered weapons to a 40-year-old man in Saitama Prefecture for 20,000 yen or US$168. This isn’t a first for Yamamoto, who has also been arrested for using cheats in another game.

Look, on the one hand cheaters are beyond annoying. Add to that the emergence of big-time eSports, the tournaments of which often times include large sums of prize money, and I can see why a gaming ecosystem exploding around online gaming means that cheaters are a bigger problem today than they were ten years ago. That said, c'mon, arresting these people and charging them criminally? For gaming? And, in this case, it's not even the cheater that's being charged, but a person providing the "tools", if you will, for the cheaters. That adds a whole new layer to this, because at what point do we want to chill the tinkering and hacking that goes on with the possibility of criminal charges?

Now, I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses for Yamamoto, who might well be the gaming-world's devil for all I know. But gumming up the legal system with guys who are selling game exploits seems like a massive waste of time and resources.

Filed Under: arrests, cheating, japan, threats, video games, virtual crime

NYTimes Exposes Giant Fake Diploma Mill Operating Out Of Pakistan; Company Threatens Everyone With Defamation

from the yeah-that'll-work dept

For well over a decade, we've written about the rise of diploma mills online. These are generally unaccredited operations that effectively sell you a degree so you can pretend to be more qualified than you really are. Every few years or so, there are big stories about some semi-famous/high-level person whose degree actually came from a diploma mill. Over the weekend, the NY Times exposed a large Pakistani "software" company, Axact, for not only being behind a bunch of diploma mill websites, but also for engaging in heavy handed boiler-room-style tactics to pressure people into paying ridiculous sums of money. The NY Times report is pretty damning, highlighting how Axact has become a big name in Pakistan, but very few people actually understand how or why it's become so successful. The company has done a lot to try to hide the nature of its large diploma mill business. As the NY Times shows, a bunch of the biggest bogus diploma mill sites are really run by Axact, and feature stock imagery, videos of students/administrators who are really actors (some of whom appear in videos for multiple such universities) and websites and names that make them appear kinda sorta like well-known universities. For example, some of the fake sites named are "Columbiana" and "Barkley University."

The whole NY Times article is absolutely worth reading, but here's a snippet demonstrating what's going on here:

Many sites link to the same fictitious accreditation bodies and have identical graphics, such as a floating green window with an image of a headset-wearing woman who invites customers to chat.

There are technical commonalities, too: identical blocks of customized coding, and the fact that a vast majority route their traffic through two computer servers run by companies registered in Cyprus and Latvia.

Five former employees confirmed many of these sites as in-house creations of Axact, where executives treat the online schools as lucrative brands to be meticulously created and forcefully marketed, frequently through deception.

The professors and bubbly students in promotional videos are actors, according to former employees, and some of the stand-ins feature repeatedly in ads for different schools.

The sources described how employees would plant fictitious reports about Axact universities on iReport, a section of the CNN website for citizen journalism. Although CNN stresses that it has not verified the reports, Axact uses the CNN logo as a publicity tool on many of its sites.

Social media adds a further patina of legitimacy. LinkedIn contains profiles for purported faculty members of Axact universities, like Christina Gardener, described as a senior consultant at Hillford University and a former vice president at Southwestern Energy, a publicly listed company in Houston. In an email, a Southwestern spokeswoman said the company had no record of an employee with that name.

The heart of Axact’s business, however, is the sales team — young and well-educated Pakistanis, fluent in English or Arabic, who work the phones with customers who have been drawn in by the websites. They offer everything from high school diplomas for about $350, to doctoral degrees for $4,000 and above.

Elsewhere in the article, it notes that there have been scandals about some of the diploma mills in question, but Axact has been quite careful to keep its own name out of such conversations, often with legal threats:

Axact has brandished legal threats to dissuade reporters, rivals and critics. Under pressure from Axact, a major British paper, The Mail on Sunday, withdrew an article from the Internet in 2006. Later, using an apparently fictitious law firm, the company faced down a consumer rights group in Botswana that had criticized Axact-run Headway University.

It has also petitioned a court in the United States, bringing a lawsuit in 2007 against an American company that is a competitor in the essay-writing business, Student Network Resources, and that had called Axact a “foreign scam site.” The American company countersued and was awarded $700,000, but no damages have been paid, the company’s lawyer said.

The article also notes that when a class action lawsuit was filed a few years ago against two Axact diploma mills (Belford High School and Belford University), some guy in Pakistan named "Salem Kureshi" claimed that he was running the websites:

But instead of Axact, the defendant who stepped forward was Salem Kureshi, a Pakistani who claimed to be running the websites from his apartment. Over three years of hearings, his only appearance was in a video deposition from a dimly lit room in Karachi, during which he was barely identifiable. An associate who also testified by video, under the name “John Smith,” wore sunglasses.

Mr. Kureshi’s legal fees of over $400,000 were paid to his American lawyers through cash transfers from different currency exchange stores in Dubai, court documents show. Recently a reporter was unable to find his given address in Karachi.

“We were dealing with an elusive and illusory defendant,” said Mr. Howlett, the lawyer for the plaintiffs.

In his testimony, Mr. Kureshi denied any links to Axact, even though mailboxes operated by the Belford schools listed the company’s headquarters as their forwarding address.

The lawsuit ended in 2012 when a federal judge ordered Mr. Kureshi and Belford to pay $22.7 million in damages. None of the damages have been paid, Mr. Howlett said.

True to form, the company has gone ballistic in response to the NY Times article, posting an angry threatening rant on its website, claiming that the story is "defamatory" and promising a legal response. The response is... an interesting read as well. It basically tries to smear everyone associated with the article, arguing that it's all some anti-Pakistan plot. It focuses on the claim that the NY Times is partnered with a company that is a competitor to Axact's new plans to create a new media giant named Bol.

The story is authored by some reporter Declan Walsh of NYT who was expelled from Pakistan as Persona non-grata by Pakistan Interior Ministry allegedly due to his involvement in damaging Pakistan’s national interests. Even the media group he is affiliated with, the Express Tribune, published a story against him (click here to read more). Several other organizations have also written about him as well as failure of NYT to deliver credible news (click here to read more). This reporter has worked and devised a one-sided story without taking any input from the company. A last-minute, haphazard elusive email was sent to the company demanding an immediate response by the next day to which the attorney for Axact responded. Click here to view the response.

Moreover, this reporter has not mentioned the conflict of interest which the NYT has due to its association with Express Media as its revenue source in Pakistan. This necessary disclosure regarding the criminal cases on NYT Partner in Pakistan was deliberately omitted and is an injustice to the reader not expected of a publication like NYT.

But it's not just the NY Times that Axact has been apparently threatening. Axact proudly trumpets on its website that "truth prevails" as Forbes was pressured into removing a story about the NY Times story. Indeed, a Google search suggests that Forbes had such a story yesterday, but if you click on the link to a story by James Marshall Crotty, it now takes you nowhere. Separately, a new NY Times report notes that Axact has threatened a Pakistani blog for merely collecting a bunch of tweets that were mocking Axact. You can see the post on Pak Tea House here, as well as its post about the threat letter from Axact. The blog does not appear interested in giving in, noting that "this is against the principles of free speech." As it further points out, "if the company is aggrieved it should present counter-facts and prove that NYT story is wrong," rather than bullying the blog for merely posting tweets of people responding to the NY Times story.

Lashing out with claims of defamation, rather than actually responding to the details in the story, is only going to increase the attention on Axact. One gets the feeling this story is far from over...

Update: Oh, and the Pakistani government has now raided the offices of Axact and arrested a bunch of employees, in response to the NY Times' story.

Filed Under: defamation, diploma mill, fake univerisities, pakistan, threats
Companies: axact, barkley university, belford university, columbiana, ny times

Complaints To FTC About Roca Labs Shows Company Threatening, Ignoring Unhappy Customers

from the '24/7-customer-service'-must-refer-to-the-hours-it-DOESN'T-respond-t dept

Roca Labs says it can help you lose weight by pumping your stomach full of its proprietary Fix-a-Flat-but-for-humans concoction. Once the product sets in, your stomach will have much less room for food. You'll eat less, lose weight, or spend hundreds of dollars trying!

If you find Roca Labs' product suspect or aren't happy with the results, you have a few options available. You can try to get your money back, but that seems to be a route not worth taking. You can complain about the product, but then you'll face the possibility of being sued.

Roca Labs has sued people for posting negative reviews. Roca Labs has threatened to sue people for writing about the lawsuits filed against reviewers. Roca Labs has also sued opposing lawyers, alleging some sort of internet conspiracy to ruin its "good" name. Roca Labs has also threatened to sue us two separate times. Those it hasn't sued, it has hit with bogus DMCA notices.

Judging from its recent history and the complaints filed with the FTC (acquired via FOIA request), Roca Labs appears to spend a majority of its income on marketing and litigation. Customer service expenditures seem to be hovering around $0.

First, there are the legal threats.

Very concerned as this product line is promoted as a "gastric bypass" for children, pregnant women, and overweight persons, but is a ingestible supplement.   I wrote about the product on my site, and was contacted by a lawyer in Israel and threatened to remove it or BUY three containers of the product, USE IT and rescind my posting. Absolutely NOT.

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If you as a blogger write anything about their product ads, which are incredibly outrageous, they send you a letter saying they will sue you. BUT, you can purchase the product, try it out, write a review and then they will refund your money.

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I see the 5th paragraph of section of Merchandise Return & Refund Policy seems to violate the Right of Free Speech. The 5th paragraph says and I quote:"If, for whatever reason, you become dissatisfied with The Formula or The Support, you agree not to make, write, post, distribute or disseminate in any way any negative comments about,or relating to, Roca Labs, The Formula, or The Support. This includes writing anything on the internet and making a complaint with Paypal, your credit card company, the Better Business Bureau, etc... Doing so, in light of these clear terms and conditions, would constitute breach of contract and defamation and would be actionable in Florida court. If you can cannot agree to this, The Company asks you not to purchase The Company’s product.

Sure enough, Roca Labs' Terms and Conditions contain a stupid non-disparagement clause [emphasis mine]:

You agree that regardless of your personal experience with RL, you will not disparage RL and/or any of its employees, products, or services. This means that you will not speak, publish, cause to be published, print, review, blog, or or otherwise write negatively about RL, or its products or employees in any way. This emcompasses all forms of media, including and especially the internet. This paragraph is to protect RL and its current and future customers from the harm of libelous or slanderous content in any form, and thus, your acceptance of these Terms and Conditions prohibits you from taking any action that negatively impacts RL, its reputation, products, services, management, or employees. We make it clear that RL and its Regimen may not be for everyone, and in that regard, the foregoing clause is meant to prevent “one person ruining it for everyone.” Should any customer violate this provision, as determined by RL in its sole discretion, you will be provided with seventy-two (72) hours to retract the content in question. If the content remains, RL would be obliged to seek all legal remedies to protect its name, products, current customers, and future customers.

Noted directly below it is the fact that this clause is unenforceable in California -- the only state that bans non-disparagement clauses. It appears to be linked to a discount Roca will give you should you choose to be its gastric jelly ambassador, but it's worded in a way that it affects anyone who purchases its products. If you choose to disparage the company and have signed up to spread the Roca gospel, you'll forfeit the discount. Note the phrase "should ANY customer violate this provision."

Asking for a refund seems to be impossible. Complaints detail the fact that Roca Labs apparently offers no live customer service. On top of that, the company only gives you three hours to stop the shipment of your order. Anything later than that means you'll be charged the full amount. Roca Labs justifies its "no refund" policy by claiming each shipment is made from scratch and specifically tailored to each customer. Sales and shipments are one way only. If nothing else, customers can be assured their account balances will be thinner by the end of their Roca Labs experience.

[part of a CS chat transcript included in one complaint] Roca Labs Premium Support manager Sharon K. replied Hello (b)(6), There is nothing to cancel as no other shipments are due to you. Your procedural kit was shipped in full on 11413. When you ordered you chose to pay your balance in 3 easy installments, the first payment was taken out on 11313 and you have a balance of $420, which is 2 more payments of $210. You cannot cancel paying your balance as this is what you owe for what is shipped. We are so sorry to hear about the medical condition. The return policy was made clear to you several times before you ordered. http:www.RocaLabs.com/return We will be willing to consider partial refund after all payments are made and you have provided a letter from you doctor verifying your claim. You should note that unpaid balances are forwarded to the legal department and added fees are charged which can end up in Florida court with charges totaling $3,200 or so. We trust and love our customers and hope they will never abuse the credit we extend them so they can afford the procedure. Please get also familiar with the Terms of the purchase.

There are more than 100 complaints, most of which revolve around the fact that once Roca Labs has access to your credit card information (which it acquires during its "qualification" process), your account will be charged for the entirety of the purchase, no matter what. There are no refunds, no returns and -- as its Terms and Conditions state -- the company reserves the right to charge you even more if you make your unhappiness with the product public.

Roca Labs tells customers they need to cancel within three hours of placing an order and then makes it impossible for anyone to do that.

If you wish to cancel your order before it has been shipped, you must immediately contact the Customer Care Department via the Website in writing for a full refund.

But...

Generally, Customer Care/Support is available 24 hours, 7 days a week. We will make every effort to respond to you within one (1) business day of any written contact. For your protection after your order has shipped RL requires that all contact must be in writing with Customer Care/Support through the Website ONLY.

How will you know when your three-hour clock starts? Apparently, you won't. You have to run through Roca's "qualification" process before being approved. But apparently you'll only find out if you've been approved by Roca ringing you up for the purchase you haven't agreed to yet.

Went on line 2/16/14 and did app 2 c if qualify for product. Didn't receive any correspondence or confirmation, just a 210.00 charge on my CC.

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Application' process does not exist and there is no two hour cancellation window. Your acceptance turns out to be supplying your credit card number. Using my credit card, I placed an order for Roca Lab's diet product on May 4th @ 6:04 in the morning. The website discloses a 24 hour 'approval' process. It also states that after receiving 'approval' you have a two hour window to cancel the order. In less than 12 hours, after doing further research on the company, I called customer service to cancel the order. I was advised to send an email to the company. I did that and received an email stating that ' You placed your order on date & time . Your kit went into production on 3/4/2014 6:07 AM . Cancellation can ONLY be done by contacting our support desk at: Support@RocaLabs.com within 2 hours of submitting your health application' The website does not state this in the application screen. In fact it states that cancellation can be done after being 'approved'. I never received 'approval' from the company.

The inability to speak to anyone directly is noted repeatedly in the FTC complaints.

Unable to contact a human to talk about the product effectiveness or to change payment methods.

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I have been having problems because they arent deligently answering my every questions, everything is done by email

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YOU CANNOT SPEAK TO A REAL PERSON - you get messages via email or text, no real person! I even tried contacting the manager option (option 3)and only got a message back saying they know about my call.

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Tried to contact customer service on-line but found no way to do so. Everything was directed to a Nurse which cost money to get support…

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I tried sending the product back and paid $15.62 to return it, (after calling and not being able to talk to a real person) then they would not accept it…

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Charged twice for the 'processing of application fee I found it ironic that when contacted about the additional charge and the fact that we were concerned it may be a scam that we were notified it would be addressed within 24 hours. Their policy says if you cancel within the first 2 hours that they will refund. There is no way to contact them for immediate cancellation.

Then there's this, via Adam Steinbaugh -- taken from a deposition of a former employee of Roca Labs.

Q: At what point did you believe that Roca Labs was -- did you come to believe that Roca Labs was deceptive or unethical?
A. When he asked me to dress up like a fat person so I could talk to his customers online about the product that I had never taken and about the weight loss that I had never lost because I've never been on a diet in my life.

[...]

Q. Now, when -- when you were terminated on October 25th, that followed a conversation with Mr. Juravin; correct?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. And the gist of that conversation was that you refused to sign the contract because of the nondisclosure agreement and the reduction in pay; right?
A. Yes.
Q. And in the course of that conversation you talked about the fat suit incident in connection with the nondisclosure agreement?
A. I did.

And this, which ties into Roca Labs' claims that every product it ships out is made uniquely for the person ordering it (justifying the "qualification" questionnaire and fee):

A. I don't know exactly the time period between the phone call and when I took the product. But we had not been opening the product in the beginning of my employ with him. We just started opening the product towards -- I guess into October he got a second shipment that was not -- he thought it had too much product. So he wanted to take some out and put it in smaller bags and that concerned me when I saw that he was opening the powder.

[...]

A: I just thought that really shouldn't be -- you know, a product that people consume shouldn't be taken out of their packaging and repackaged without any type of sanitary handling of it. The handling of the product was not sanitary at all and there was roaches on the floor and dust everywhere, cars were being parked in the garage. You know, there was nothing sanitary about any of it.

From the FTC complaints:

I received a box that looked like it had been tampered with and when I emailed them about it, they said that I am just 'claiming that'.

The 100+ complaints lodged with the FTC are likely only a small fraction of those actually displeased with the company and its no-refund policy. Its Terms and Conditions have probably deterred others from speaking out, what with the threat of being charged even more for a product that they don't want constantly hanging over their heads. With this in mind, it's tough to take any positive reviews of Roca Labs seriously. Instead, they take the appearance of gunpoint cheeriness, where "participants" have the "option" of vehemently praising the company or watching an additional $500-1000 disappear from their bank accounts.

Filed Under: complaints, free speech, ftc, non-disparagement, reviews, slapp, terms of service, threats
Companies: roca labs

Another Company Thinks The Best Way To Handle A Security Hole Is To Send A Lawyer After The Person Who Discovered It

from the Firmware-Patch-1.3.5,-Esq. dept

Security researcher finds security hole; attempts to report it through proper channels and is ignored/rebuffed/threatened with arrest/lawsuits. Film at 11.

Apparently, handling these sorts of situations in the worst way possible is never not going to be an option.

Security researcher Mike Davis, along with colleagues at IOActive, found a number of security issues with electronic locks made by the Oregon-based firm CyberLock. But after several failed attempts over the last month to disclose the findings to CyberLock and its parent company Videx, they received a letter from CyberLock’s outside law firm, Jones Day, on April 29, a day before they planned to publicly publish their findings.

So, a security researcher did what he was supposed to -- research security -- and tried to inform the company affected. And now the United State's largest law firm (a trademark bully with inordinately thin skin) has responded with threats of the mostly-veiled variety. Davis posted this letter to his Google+ account and let his opinion of the legal threats be known through the editorialized file name (asshat0.png).

And, as if to assure everyone that Jones Days' grasp on intellectual property laws remains less than firm, attorney Jeff Rabkin invokes two very questionable avenues of attack: violation of CyberLock's licensing agreements and the anti-circumvention statues built into the DMCA. As for the first part, Davis purchased the lock secondhand, which means he's not subject to CyberLock's licensing agreements, seeing as he never entered into one by purchasing direct. Secondly, the DMCA contains circumvention exemptions for encryption research and security research, both of which cover Davis' activities.

This security hole Davis found could be a big problem. The electronic locks the firm manufactures secure all sorts of critical structures.

The systems are used in metro stations in Amsterdam and Cleveland, in water treatment facilities in Seattle and Atlanta, Georgia and at the Temple Terrace Police Department in Florida, among other places. The company’s marketing literature also promotes use of the locks in data centers and airports.

CyberLock pretty much claims its locks are ultra-secure. Davis' research proves otherwise. According to what he found, the keys are stored in plaintext in the lock's firmware and this information is transmitted to the key from the lock during the authentication process. This transmission is encrypted, but the encryption used is weak.

With this knowledge in hand, Davis began attempting to contact CyberLock on March 31st. Five more attempts followed but no response was received until the letter from the law firm arrived on April 29th. A second, more aggressive letter followed on May 4th.

Among the things Jones Day attorney Jeff Rabkin took issue with was Davis' "aggressiveness" in demanding that he only discuss the vulnerability with CyberLock's technical staff. Rabkin has actually issued a statement on the incident -- somewhat of a rarity in litigious situations like these -- in which he argues the hole Davis found isn't a big deal because it would take tools and skill to exploit it.

[company name redacted] does not claim, and never has, that a door protected by one of its products is impregnable. It is simply common sense that anyone with the time, sophistication and resources to engage in IOActive's methodology could more simply defeat a [company name redacted] product by drilling the lock off the door, or for that matter chopping the door down with an axe. To suggest, as your report does, that [company name redacted]'s products suffer from "severe" vulnerabilities simply because you were able to develop a bypass in your lab ignores the fact that the exploit in question was not possible without the use of costly and sophisticated lab equipment and highly skiled technicians—not exactly a real-world scenario for the intended use of [company name redacted] products.

While there's a certain amount of truth to his assertions (faster, less-work-intensive "workarounds" will always be preferred by the majority of criminals), it's not exactly as impossible as Rabkin makes it appear. While most criminals will not have access to lab technicians and equipment, some will. And the fact that these are being used to secure sensitive targets means the flaw is far more likely to draw the attention of technically-adept criminals. And the argument itself is somewhat self-defeating. If the hole is so impossible to exploit effectively, it would follow that CyberLock would have had no issue with Davis releasing his findings. The summoning of its legal representation suggests it thinks otherwise.

While CyberLock and its representation may feel exploitation of this security flaw is unlikely, that's no excuse for handling it the way they did. Davis made several attempts to give CyberLock a chance to respond before taking the flaw public, but the company did nothing more than tell him to shut up using its Jones Day proxy.

With few exceptions (companies who participate in bug bounty programs, mostly), it's become hazardous to your freedom and financial security to inform companies of security flaws.

Filed Under: dmca, mike davis, security holes, security research, threats
Companies: cyberlock, ioactive, jones day

Our Response To Sony Sending Us A Threat Letter For Reporting On The Company's Leaked Emails

from the go-pound-sand dept

Yesterday we wrote about how Sony's high-powered lawyer on retainer, David Boies, had apparently been sending major media properties an idiotic letter warning them not to report on the leaked Sony hack emails. And then, what did we find in our mail on Monday afternoon? A copy of the same damn letter of our very own. How thoughtful of David Boies to send us a personally signed copy. I've asked my staff to frame it and hang it on the wall. I hope that he's charging Sony top dollar to send us a letter we'd already mocked as ridiculous, wrong on the law and pointless.

Anyway, given that we've now personally received our own copy, I feel semi-obligated to respond -- and to respond in public.

So, David, Leah and Sony Corp. -- our official response is: go pound sand.

Here's the really astounding thing: In December, Sony tried to turn this whole story into how the hack itself was an attack on free speech. It never was. Even if you believe the (incredibly dubious) story line that North Korea hacked Sony to try to prevent the company from showing a comedy about North Korea, the only "attack" on free speech came when Sony's top execs actually folded and originally agreed to not release the flick. It was only after being widely mocked that Sony worked out alternative plans and then tried to wrap itself in the flag and proclaim itself a true beacon of free speech.

But to take that "we're the bastions of free speech" and immediately turn it around and effectively threaten the media for reporting on newsworthy leaked content -- something that is quite clearly protected by the First Amendment and with some pretty high-profile case law backing that up -- just demonstrates how little Sony actually believes in free speech. Sony "supports" free speech when it's useful to make the company look good and then is willing to throw around a bunch of expensive legal FUD to try to intimidate the press, when actual free speech can be used to embarrass Sony.

Yes, it sucks for Sony that its emails were hacked. It would suck for just about any company, I'm sure. But that doesn't change the fact that the media has every legal right to report on those emails if they find it newsworthy. Threatening the media is not just counterproductive, it makes Sony look incredibly clueless and thin-skinned while at the same time just adding more life to the story itself.

Filed Under: david boies, first amendment, free speech, journalism, reporting, threats
Companies: sony

Complaints To FTC About Rightscorp Detail Robocalls, Harassment And Baseless Threats To Sever Internet Connections

from the you-know,-all-those-things-everyone's-suing-about dept

If these FTC complaints are to be believed, Rightscorp is doing pretty much everything Morgan Pietz's class action lawsuit has accused it of.

Among other wrongful conduct: Rightscorp has engaged in telephone harassment and abuse (15 U.S.C. § 1692d); made various false and misleading representations (15 U.S.C. § 1692e); engaged in unfair collections practices (15 U.S.C. § 1692f); failed to provide validation and required notices relating to the debts (15 U.S.C. § 1692g); and furnished emails and letters knowing they would create false beliefs on the parts of consumers that their Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) were participating in the attempt to collect on the purported debts when in fact the ISPs were not participating (15 U.S.C. § 1692f).

Robocalls, baseless threats, seemingly endless harassment, constantly fluctuating "settlement offers"... it's all included in the FTC complaints. (And turned over with extreme expeditiousness by the FTC -- seven days from the point my FOIA request was received.) [Spreadsheet link. Scroll all the way to the right to see complaint details. Also note there are two tabs of complaints.]

Consumer had his internet turned off and he called his service provider and they told him that Digital Rights Corp sent them a warning telling him that they would shut off his internet if he didn’t contact them and he did and they told him that they had 34 counts against him of uploading a children’s song and they told him that it could be $150 thousand dollars per each count and they have admitted that he didn’t do it but he has to pay it because his service was used to do this and he has to pay teh consumer was told if he gave them $500 they would make everything go away. Advised Consumer to call the State Attorney General.

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Consumer is receiving repeated phone calls from a company claiming to be from Rights Corp and the company claims that the consumer has illegally downloaded music and the company is trying to collect money for the illegal downloads. Consumer states that the company states that the consumer must pay immediately and they tried to obtain a cc number. Consumer states that the company claims that if the consumer does not pay over the phone the amount of the money owed would be mulitplied by 100% and that they would terminate the consumer's internet services.

Every settlement offer looks "reasonable" when compared to maximum statutory infringement damages -- something Rightscorp has no intention of pursuing. As for the claim that the alleged infringer's internet connection could be cut off? It's mostly false. Rightscorp has managed to push around a few small ISPs using its untested theory that the DMCA requires service providers to boot repeat infringers. But at this point, any internet disconnection is a purely voluntary action on the part of the ISP. There's no legal basis for its claims and no court decision that backs its assertions up. And, most importantly, Rightscorp can't actually cut off anyone's internet connection -- at least not on its own. But that doesn't stop it from insinuating that it possesses this power.

How can you tell Rightscorp has far less power than it pretends to have? By how swiftly it resorts to bargaining.

The Digital Rights Corp. has charged us with 216 illegal down loads. They said that 153 sucessfully down loaded. They first wanted us to pay 3,000 dollars. Now everytime we speak to them the amount changes from 3,000, 560.00, 500.00, and the last amount was 390.00.

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Rightscorp, Inc sent us a letter about 6-24-2014 saying we owe $4,060 for copyright infringments. We called to inquire on this accusation. They stated pay $460 by ~6pm (that day ) or pay the full amount. They also pressed for a credit card number. To this day they have been calling about 3x's a week. (They threaten to cut off our internnet service.)

And how can you tell Rightscorp is nothing more than a troll? Because if you feed it, it comes back for more.

Forwarded by the State of Alabama Office of the Attorney General… Consumer responded to first email and paid $20 for the fee requested. She received 27 more emails each requesting $20… Consumer received another email threatening to shut down her internet service demanding settlement. Consumer states she is now getting phone calls from this company.

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Digital Rights started annoying robot calls after I made a $20 payment on behalf of a third party to settle an alleged copyright issue. They decided I "owed" them a lot more, $280. I demanded no further calls...They insisted they can call me as much as they want by any means even though I was not actually involved directly with the internet account.(gift,not at my home) They sent a threatening letter and emails, too...

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I received notification from my internet provider that a report had been made of illegally download. I contacted Charter who offer no assistance they were "only relaying a message" I then contacted the RIGHTSCORP. I was hesitant to give them information but was coerced into giving them our name and phone number. Initially they said they wanted 20.00 or else they would sue us for 150,000.00 dollars. I told them I had checked with the entire family and they did not believe they had downloaded these songs. She , Cecilee, called back and stated the charges were now 180.00.

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I made a single payment on behalf of my son in law to clear a digital rights claim as I gave him a year internet as a gift. Now they won't stop calling me trying to get more money for more "claims."

Rightscorp apparently deploys two tactics with regularity, both unpleasant: threats and harassment.

Rightscorp sent me a letter for copyright infringement so I called the number on the paper they sent and they said that it carries a fine of $150,000 but if I gave them $20 they would settle it. Now they call me every Monday, Wednesday & Friday and are continuing to send me the same letter.

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Rights Corp is claiming that I owe them money because they served my internet service provider with a subpoena for my information. They call 3 or 4 times per day in addition to text messaging…

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This company has been calling my home 3-4 times a day for months, originally threatening me to pay them thousands of dollars or they would sue us. Since the initial call with them, which I refused to comply with, they have called continually, everyday and on weekends, always with a recorded message that I never pick up...

And the company's "collection agents" appear to be disguising the origin of the calls.

False claims of copyright infringement from well-known copyright "troll". Company is California based, but call came from Tennessee.

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...They are trying to intimidate me into giving them money for nothing by harassing me over the telephone. Most of the telephone calls are not live people, but an automated message that leaves me a voice mail from several different numbers with several different area codes..

I've reached out to Rightscorp to see if it has any comment on the FTC complaints. I'm not holding my breath for an answer, considering much of what's alleged in these complaints is the subject of two class action suits. But what's detailed here is nothing more than pure copyright trolling: baseless threats, harassment, and settlement offers. We've seen this deployed by a fair number of supposed rights enforcement entities and most of those are now languishing. Rightscorp isn't looking too healthy itself.

And the most amazing part is that -- despite two lawsuits centering on this abusive behavior -- it hasn't reined in its collection efforts. Many of the complaints filed with the FTC appeared after Morgan Pietz filed his lawsuit in November of 2014, with the latest listed being March 24, 2015. Apparently, it's just going to keep up its questionable tactics until it's forced to stop, even though there's little indication they've resulted in anything more than a few scattered, small settlements.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolling, ftc, harassment, robocalls, shakedown, threats
Companies: rightscorp

ALEC Threatens To Sue Critics That Point Out It Helps Keep Broadband Uncompetitive

from the sloppy-denial dept

As you might have read, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been losing some major clients lately, including Google, T-Mobile and Microsoft. Those companies have been quietly distancing themselves from ALEC, after critics have illustrated its ties to legislative assaults on climate change science and meaningful pollution standards. Before Google announced it was leaving the group last fall, chairman Eric Schmidt went so far as to accuse the legislative grist mill of "literally lying" about its role in climate change denial. In a response letter to Google, ALEC proclaimed Google's departure was "based on misinformation from climate activists who intentionally confuse free market policy perspectives for climate change denial."

With T-Mobile, AOL, and Facebook quietly following in Google's footsteps (but not publicizing the reason for their departures), ALEC has apparently decided that its best course of action is to threaten lawsuits against those claiming ALEC denies climate change. ALEC has sent cease and desist letters (pdf) to a number of critics like Common Cause, the letters directing groups to the ALEC website where the organization insists it's not a opposed to climate change -- it's simply a "market environmentalist" dedicated to the "betterment of human health and well-being."

Apparently climate change isn't the only sensitive topic for ALEC as the outfit tries to stem the flow of client departures. The group has also been sending cease and desist letters to companies like wirelesss MVNO Credo Mobile, which in recent months has been sending its subscribers missives hammering ALEC for its role in fighting community broadband. The small company markets itself as having an activist, pro-consumer edge, and has scored exceptionally well on the EFF's privacy report card.

Credo's been busy pointing out to its subscribers how ALEC's model legislation, clearly visible on ALEC's website, has been used as the framework for roughly twenty state-level protectionist broadband bills nationwide. As we've frequently discussed, these bills are the worst sort of protectionist dreck, shoveled into the legislative bloodstream by the likes of AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and CenturyLink to protect its duopoly power from communities desperate for something better. Credo frames ALEC's participation in these efforts this way in a recent notice to subscribers:

"The American Legislative Exchange Council—a shadowy corporate front group that works to enact discriminatory voter ID laws, weaken gun safety laws and eliminate environmental regulations—is now pressuring state legislatures around the country to ban cities from offering broadband Internet access. ALEC is pushing its anti-municipal broadband agenda through model legislation it has developed, which one municipal broadband advocate described as “the kind of language one would expect to see if the goal is to protect politically powerful cable and telephone company monopolies.” Many perennial funders and members of ALEC, including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner [Cable], stand to gain financially from these state laws because they eliminate the possibility of competition from city-run broadband services."

In its cease and desist letter to Credo, ALEC first proclaims it's a respected think tank, not a lobbying apparatus. It also insists it doesn't "block" municipal broadband, the group simply advocates encumbering towns and cities with "certain steps," should they be interested in building their own broadband:

"We demand that you cease making inaccurate statements regarding ALEC, and immediately remove all false or misleading material from the Working Assets and Credo Action or related websites and action pages within five business days," the letter, dated March 5, reads. "Should you not do so, and/or continue to publish any defamatory statements, we will consider any and all necessary legal action to protect ALEC."

ALEC contends that it does not oppose city broadband but only advocates that certain "steps" be required before a municipality can provide telecom services. Additionally, ALEC takes issue with Credo labeling it as an organization that lobbies state legislatures at all, arguing that it is merely a "think-tank for state-based public policy issues and potential solutions."

How exactly can you claim you don't oppose municipal broadband when you've played a starring role in opposing municipal broadband? Because many of the bills ALEC helps pass don't technically "block" municipal broadband. They are however usually saddled with language by ISP lawyers that effectively does the same thing. For example most of the bills prohibit communities from getting into the broadband business if their market is "served" by an existing provider. They then go on to define "served" to include satellite and cellular connections, while using extremely generous versions of zip code coverage analysis. Similarly ALEC doesn't lobby to pass these bills directly, their incumbent ISPs client do that.

Regardless, Credo Mobile doesn't appear to be too worried about ALEC's threat, sending the organization a response letter (pdf) illustrating that not only does ALEC's own website document its opposition to municipal broadband, but so have numerous news outlets:

"Not only does ALEC attempt to influence legislative outcomes, it clearly succeeds in doing so. As recounted in a 2011 Bloomberg News article, ALEC's model legislation on municipal broadband was the principal reason why cable companies were able to block Lafayette, Louisiana from offering high speed Internet access to its citizens (editor's note: Lafayette was ultimately able to offer gigabit connections via LUS Fiber, but only after a protracted legal fight against regional incumbents Cox and BellSouth (now AT&T)).

"Under these circumstances, the language used in the statements you challenge -- "working to make sure it never happens" and "pressuring state legislatures" -- is well within the bounds of political discourse in making the point that ALEC's model legislation and positions have the intent and effect of encouraging enactment of state legislation effectively banning cities from offering broadband Internet access."

It's not entirely clear what ALEC hopes to accomplish here, as its role in both climate change and municipal broadband is pretty clearly established by documentable history, news reports, and the legislative process itself. It's kind of like the town drunk, after months of being videotaped punching clowns in the face, becoming foul-mouthed and indignant at the mere mention of the odd number of clown black eyes around town. In fact the behavior is only bringing additional critical attention to ALEC's longstanding role as an organization that's useful to corporations looking to quietly shovel bad legislation through financially compromised state legislatures with the bare minimum of fuss or actual public debate.

Filed Under: defamation, free speech, lobbying, municiple broadband, slapp, threats
Companies: alec, common cause, credo mobile

One Year Ago, FBI Insisted That 'Terrorist' Guy It Arrested Last Week Was No Threat At All

from the look-at-that... dept

Last week, we wrote about the FBI arresting John Booker, who was involved in yet another of the FBI's own plots. At the beginning of our post (and the criminal complaint) against Booker, we noted how a year ago Booker had tried to join the army, and had then been denied after posting stuff to his Facebook page about how he was going to "wage jihad" and planned to die. It was noted that the FBI visited him at that time, and we found it odd that if he was such a threat, why wasn't he arrested then. Instead, it appears that months later, the FBI got together and concocted a ridiculous plot for Booker to join, in which the FBI itself did all the planning.

What he hadn't realized was that when the incident happened last year with Booker and his Facebook page, there was actually news coverage about it, with the FBI actually saying that they had investigated and Booker was no threat at all:

The alert, which was sourced to “an FBI agent,” stated it was distributed to “inform and protect officers who may encounter this individual or others exhibiting the same aspirations.”

Four days later, on Tuesday, the FBI downplayed the "routine" alert, saying it was not actively searching for Booker. The agency said it did not believe he posed an "imminent threat," despite the original alert's invocation of the Fort Hood shooting, where an Army psychologist killed 13 and wounded more than 30 on a Texas military base in 2009.

“We have interviewed this individual,” an FBI spokesman said. “There is not a manhunt and there never was one. There is no imminent threat to public safety, nor should the public be concerned that this threat exists from an individual at large."

The reporter who wrote that above now works at the Intercept and has revealed more details, including the FBI's Situational Information Report after it had interviewed Booker a year ago. It notes that not only had Booker checked himself into a mental health facility a month earlier, but also that he basically had no way of carrying out any threat:

BOOKER does not have access to a vehicle or other form of transportation at this time, nor is there evidence he possess firearms.

It appears that Booker only became a real threat... once two FBI informants showed up and created the plot for him.

Filed Under: fbi, john booker, own plots, terrorism, threats

2 Hockey Players And Elisha Cuthbert Want Cash From A TV Station For Airing A Joke Tweet

from the streisand-shoots-and-she-scores! dept

I'm a little surprised to say that we have yet another Streisand Effect story involving NHL hockey players. The previous post had to do with a rookie hockey player who tried to trademark a nickname with some negative connotations to it in order to control how that nickname was being used. This one is a little bit different and, honestly, it sounds like the start to really bad joke: two hockey players and actress Elisha Cuthbert want an apology and cash from a sports station that aired a joke tweet about a love triangle between the three of them during the trade deadline coverage.

That's the joke tweet. It was part of a rolling tweet embed that sports stations do all the time, instructing viewers to use a particular hashtag and then pulling those tweets and putting them on the air. This particular tweet, concerning the Toronto Mapleleafs' Joffrey Lupul, Dion Phaneuf, and Phaneuf's wife, who happens to be Elisha Cuthbert, probably would have made it past any automated filters the station, TSN, had set up. After all, there's no obvious vulgar words or anything like that. So, whether such filters exist or not, the tweet pops up on air.

And the three subjects of the joke are pissed.

"On behalf of our clients Dion Phaneuf, his wife Elisha Cuthbert and Joffrey Lupul, we have sent a letter to TSN demanding that TSN issue a formal apology and pay a significant amount of damages to each of our clients for broadcasting a false and defamatory tweet during their trade deadline show yesterday. We are sending a similar letter to the author of the tweet, Mr. Anthony Adragna.

It is bad enough that there are people who spend their time using social media to publish such false and malicious stories, but it is made much worse when a reputable media outlet like TSN gives broad circulation and credibility to these false stories by republishing them as TSN did. If TSN and Mr. Adragna do not immediately comply with the demands set out in our letters, we have instructions from our clients to immediately commence a lawsuit against them. Our clients will not be discussing this matter with the media. Any questions should be directed to the undersigned."

So, a couple of things here. First, it's questionable how much validity a lawsuit against either party would be. The tweet itself is obviously a joke to anyone who bothers to read the wording of it, which makes a defamation case problematic. TSN has alreay issued an apology to the three of them and they clearly had no intention of defaming anyone at all.

But, finally, and most importantly, what the hell, you three? It was a flash of a joke tweet that was on a Toronto TV station for, like, a couple of seconds. But because you three freaked out about it and got the lawyers involved, there's been national media attention on the very thing you wanted to erase from our collective consciousness to begin with. Talk about Streisanding your way towards the opposite goal.

Filed Under: dion phaneuf, elisha cuthbert, hockey, joffrey lupul, jokes, lawsuits, streisand effect, threats, tv, tweets
Companies: toronto mapleleafs, tsn