And I get a takedown Notice from Aiplex in India

About a year ago (to be exact, September 20^th 2010) members of 4chan started an attack against low yield targets against the MPAA, RIAA and Aiplex. That article was picked up by Cloud Avenue and was an article that flew under the wire, few if any paid attention, and like all events this one was basically forgotten on this side of the world. Bigger and better things happened, like Anonymous.

The original article quoted Panda Security Labs and Torrent Freak, both of which are well respected and widely read, with an awesome reputation for accuracy. Panda pointed off to smh.com.au about the role that Aiplex had at the time. Aiplex on their web site specifically states they do anti-piracy, and clicking on that link they really do explain that they do anti-piracy operations in a number of different ways. This was enough to set 4chan users at the time to target Aiplex as a victim of the generalized attack.

Today I got a takedown notice from Aiplex for the original and well linked reporting from the event that happened a year ago. Since the e-mail had no markings that this was in any way a protected or privileged e-mail to me by the time I got it, it is included here. It does not look like the e-mail they used is public so I’ll blank it out.

From: J <[email protected]>

Date: Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 2:30 AM

Subject: CloudAve Blog Contact: Request

To: [email protected]

To: Admin

From: J [email protected]

Message:

This has reference to the below article on your webpage, we kindly request you to deactivate the link as the article is defaming the company’s image & its prospects. It was mis-interpreted by the news agency which was blown out of proportion by some of the pirates across the globe. And subsequently we have to face damages/threats from the pirates & undergo immense losses due to their attack on our servers/websites etc.

Although, we did declare that we are not involved in any of those activities as published in the article, we still have to face the consequences for reasons unknown.

Below is the link for your reference:

http://www.cloudave.com/5032/the-future-of-cyber-protests-takes-out-riaa-mpaa-and-aiplex/

We kindly request you to deactivate at the earliest possible please. Appreciate your help on this matter.

J

Support Operations

Aiplex Software Pvt. Ltd.

No. 2943/E, 1st floor, Opp Maruthi Mandir,

Service Road, Vijayanagar,

Bangalore – 560 040

Ph : +XXXXX

Email : [email protected]

Website : www.aiplex.com

Akismet Spam Check: passed

Sent from (ip address): 122.181.180.178

(ABTS-KK-Static-ILP-178.180.181.122.airtel.in)

Date/Time: September 30, 2011 9:30 am

Coming from (referer): http://www.cloudave.com/contact/

Using (user agent): Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US;

rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)

So in response, and in going back to fact check things, the Torrent Freak, Panda, and SMH articles are still up on the internet. Without those being taken down, it is difficult to approach a taken down without coordination from sites that were used to originally research the article. I sent this to J in response to their take down request.

Hi J

I am Dan Morrill and I am the person who wrote the article over a year ago, actually 1 year and 10 days ago, 20 September 2010.

The article is carefully linked to data that shows that there were brownouts and drop off’s due to hacking activity aimed at AIPLEX, the Torrent Freak article, the Panda security file is still in place.

There is also an amazing level of information in Google on this event that many reporters have used to craft similar articles. At count, there are over 200 articles that mention this same hactivist attack against AIPlex and other companies.

While I understand you would like this article taken down, this article is actually sympathetic to your company with this direct quote on Indian Cyber security law, and asking the quite legitimate question how the Indian Government using the quoted cyber law below needs to change to manage these kinds of operations. AIPlex performs a legitimate business process, one widely adopted in the USA. I quote a segment of the article

“I am not saying that 4Chan is wrong here, but what I am wondering is why the symbolic protest and not one that would have hit harder and have been more effective in slowing down RIAA operations. AiPlex which is in Bangalore India, their activity falls under the Information Technology law of 2000 that covers all of India. Specifically it looks like AiPlex falls under at least two provisions that would get them into a lot of trouble. As Torrent Freak mentions – the lawsuit is of more interest than the DDoS especially with such low value properties as the web servers for the RIAA and MPAA.”

So I am not sure what you are asking for: You state in your e-mail:

This has reference to the below article on your webpage, we kindly request you to deactivate the link as the article is defaming the company’s image & its prospects. It was mis-interpreted by the news agency which was blown out of proportion by some of the pirates across the globe. And subsequently we have to face damages/threats from the pirates & undergo immense losses due to their attack on our servers/websites etc.

When your own web site states specifically on the front page that you are involved in Anti-Piracy. http://aiplex.com/.

What is it you would like taken down? Have you also asked Panda security Luis Corrons http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/4chan-users-organize-ddos-against-mpaa/ and enigmax from Torrent freak to take down their articles as well? http://torrentfreak.com/4chan-to-ddos-riaa-next-is-this-the-protest-of-the-future-100919/

Have you asked 4chan to take down all their stuff as well?

This is an event based in fact as best known at the time using resources from some of the best sources available. The article was written using resources that are world acknowledged at being accurate and correct. So what are you really asking for? Who else have you asked? What is it you would really like?

Please contact me directly,

Please note that all communications with me are a matter of public record, nothing will be taken in confidence, this is not a private matter, and will be reported on multiple sites with wild abandon, blogged, tweeted, facebooked, g+’d and otherwise disseminated to the widest possible audience.

I look forward to our continued conversation,

Regards

Dan Morrill

I don’t mind take down notices and I have gotten 3 of them in the 7 years I have been blogging, but this one was frankly interesting. It did not follow any forms of the DMCA, which is required, the article was based on reporting from two widely read and widely regarded blog/news sites. And we never linked directly to the SMH article. That is what makes this so unusual, the time involved, the disregard for the DMCA, and the fact that all the other articles are still up and running on the internet.

I’ll update this story as I get more data in, in the mean time, don’t go all vigilante on Aiplex, they are just trying to work out how to do a takedown, and it is worth noticing this process.