Lightspeed password hacking cases
Cases
There are a couple of cases filed by Prenda Law on behalf of a pornographer Lightspeed Media Corp.
Florida Miami-Date county court:
- 12-05673 CA 05
Illinois St Clair countly court
- 11-L-0621 11/03/2011 LIGHTSPEED MEDIA VS AT & T
- 11-L-0683 12/14/2011 LIGHTSPEED VS JOHN DOE
Complaint was amended on 8/2/2012, naming Anthony Smith, AT&T and Comcast representatives as defendants.
On 8/9/2012 removed to Federal Court (ILSD 3:12-cv-00889 – see below).- Complaint — original quality, no exhibits.
- Complaint— scanned, all exhibits.
- Comcast’s motion to quash subpoena and vacate order granting discovery (incl. memorandum in support) (3/19/2012)
- Memorandum in support of motion to quash and/or motion for protective order by Embarq and Verizon — first 16 pages (3/20/2012)
- Consolidated motion & memorandum to dismiss by Jason Sweet (June 2012)
- First Amended Complaint (08/03/2012) — AT&T and Comcast are named as defendants.
- The Supreme Court of Illinois
- Emergency motion to stay (5/22/2012)
- Motion for supervisory order (5/22/2012)
- Explanatory suggestions to the Motion for supervisory order (5/22/2012) — Appendix contains many IL 11-L-0683 filings
- Lightspeed’s Objections to motion for supervisory order (5/29/2012)
- Reply [to objections] brief of moving ISPs (5/29/2012)
- Supervisory Order (6/27/2012)
- Audio recording of the hearing before the Illinois Supreme Court in the LMC v. AT&T
Southern District of Illinois
ILSD Lightspeed Media Corporation v. Smith et al 3:12-cv-00889— state case (11-L-0683) was removed to the Federal level upon defendant’s request. Dismissed 3/19/2013.Lightspeed Media Corporation v. Lukas Shashek 3:12-cv-00860-WDS-DGW— state case (12-L-927) was removed to the Federal level upon defendant’s request. Dismissed 2/15/2013.
Maricopa County Superior Court (State of Arizona)
- CV2012-053230 11/03/2011 LIGHTSPEED MEDIA CORPORATION v. WORLD TIMBERS, INC., an Arizona Corporation, and JOHN DOE
- Defendant World Timbers, Inc.’s Motion to Dismiss (07/03/2012).
- Ruling denying Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (11/02/2012).
- LIGHTSPEED MEDIA CORPORATION v. ADAM SEKORA (CV 2012-053194)
Case history from the Maricopa county state court- 07/10/2012 Answer to complaint
- 12/10/2012 Ruling
- 12/17/2012 Status conference set
- 1/7/2013 Order to compel Lightspeed to produce forensic logs
Superior Court of the State of California
- LIGHTSPEED MEDIA CORPORATION v. Jеssе Nаsоn (voluntarily dismissed)
Defendant attorney: Morgan Pietz of Pietz Law firm (post about this case)
Relevant pages:
Relevant posts:
- Lightspeed Media Corporation v. John Doe: a quick Q & A
- Attorney’s opinion: Lightspeed’s claim is a farce
- Lightspeed Media v. John Doe: a quick follow up Q & A
- Lightspeed v. Doe news. Early Halloween scare: Unusually lame demand letter
- Prenda Law starts using robocalls to intimidate its targets. Will IARDC continue keeping its head in the sand?
- Illinois Supreme Court ends justice mockery, kills the farcical Lightspeed v. Doe case
- Lightspeed Media Corp. v. John Doe, St. Clair county 11-L-683: A behind-the-scenes look (and it ain’t pretty)
- Lightspeed Media v. John Doe: a must-read motion written by a real IP attorney
- “Guava” and “Arte de Oaxaca” scams hit Cook County court
Media coverage:
- ArsTechnica: Illinois Supreme Court nixes latest porn trolling scheme by Timothy B. Lee
- XBiz (may be NSFW due to explicit ads): Lightspeed Media Adds AT&T, Comcast to Lawsuit by Rhett Pardon
- ArsTechnica: Porn copyright troll sues AT&T and Comcast, says they side with pirates by Timothy B. Lee
Announcements
- Please take an effort to document all the interactions with the plaintiff. Copy and file mailings, record conversations, preserve voicemails. This information may really help in a possible counter-action.
- This request does not cancel the advice not to answer any questions over the phone. Be extra careful.
- Mind the state wiretapping laws. Illinois, for example, requires consent of both parties to record a phone conversation, so if you are recording a call, start your conversation with a polite warning and suggest that continuing the conversation implies consent to record. If you reside in a “one-party” state and the incoming call is originated in a “one-party” state or the caller ID is masked, no such warning is necessary. Certainly, preserving voicemails does not violate any laws. Further reading.
Comments
Not in Recap yet, so I uploaded it here:
DEFENDANT COMCAST’S REPLY BRIEF IN FURTHER SUPPORT OF ITS MOTION TO DISMISS PLAINTIFF’S FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT. Enjoy.
this is a good read, nice short and to the point. my favorite is footnote 7
“AF Holdings LLC v. Doe, 2012 WL 3835102, *5 (N.D. Ca. Sept. 4, 2012) (“[c]ourts [] appl[y] CDA immunity … where the claims ha[ve] no connection to offensive speech”). Lightspeed’s counsel claims to be “unaware” of “any case [that] successfully invoked section 230 immunity for … the dissemination of non-offensive material,” Opp. 11. The same firm that represents Lightspeed here was counsel in AF Holdings, see 2012 WL 3835102, *1, and its undersigned counsel here actually represents AF Holdings in similar cases before other courts. See, e.g., AF Holdings LLC v. Does 1-1,058, 2012 WL 3204917 (D.D.C. Aug. 6, 2012).”
i really do think this hogwash will end up being dismissed. i would like to see an attached order to the dismissal ordering any doe info from the case destroyed and any cases that arose from info gathered through this case to receive a copy of the dismissal and the order for the destruction of info, thus making their new cases “fruit of the poisonous tree.”
Seiver filed a reply brief (basically opposition to Duffy’s opposition) today. It’s funny
http://ia600705.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824.42.0.pdf
“In its Opposition, Lightspeed simply fabricates ‘facts’ by stating that Comcast ‘conspired with Defendant Smith and his co-conspirators,’ 1 – the vast majority of whom, including Smith, are not even Comcast subscribers – without a hint of evidence, or a reasonable inference, of any knowledge, cooperation or concerted action, or even any communication between Comcast and such persons, before or after any alleged hacking or infringement by Defendant Smith or any alleged co-conspirator.”
“Lightspeed then admits its state law claims survive Copyright Act preemption only if they include ‘extra elements,’ yet the only claim for which it attempts to show any ‘extra elements’ is its CFAA claim.”
and the ultimate bitch slap….
“The remainder of Plaintiff’s Opposition is sufficiently dealt with in Plaintiff’s Motion
such that no further reply is necessary.” hahahaha
Popcorn will be a poppin on Sunday in anticipation of Buffy and Duffy’s response to Booth/Sweet’s motion to dismiss, which has a Monday deadline.
I have been surfing online more than 2 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours.
It is pretty worth enough for me. In my opinion, if all webmasters and bloggers
made good content as you did, the internet will be a lot more useful
than ever before.
TAD clued me in on this. In Guava v. Doe (DCD 12-cv-1661) Judge Howell on 10-18 denied Troll Duffy early discovery:
“MINUTE ORDER (paperless) denying without prejudice [6] Plaintiff’s Ex Parte Application for Leave to Take Expedited Discovery. In order to take expedited discovery to obtain the identifying information for users of the IP addresses contained in [6-1] Exhibit A, the plaintiff must first submit a sworn declaration setting forth the basis for the plaintiff’s allegation that those IP addresses were used “to hack into, Plaintiff’s protected computer systems.” ECF No. 6, at 1. Signed by Judge Beryl A. Howell on October 18, 2012. “
Very curious what’s going on here. Howell was Prenda’s last, best hope for bringing the mass-Doe cases back to life. She seemed to be giving them carte blanche in the AF case that is on appeal, but this seems to be quite a bit of skepticism and for a single-Doe case no less; why put up roadblocks to discovery in a single-Doe cases when two months ago this was no problem for 1000? Could it be that she was merely clueless before and now Prenda’s reputation has caught up with them? Or is it just that she’s pro-copyright and since this isn’t a copyright case they don’t get to ride the express lane?
no, it’s more that the guava complaints are so vague that they don’t actually state a viable claim. she is a stickler for the rules of law and as such even this trash won’t fly with her (a pro troll judge)
Or was her order a friendly “wink-wink, nod-nod” to the troll on what to submit (declaration from plaintiff) so she’ll allow the discovery? I read that order as once “plaintiff” submits some sort of declaration, she’ll allow the discovery, and the case would move forward. Or maybe I’m just pessimistic when it comes to troll-friendly judges, especially Howell.
I don’t think so: ask any attorney what does it means when a judge orders to file something under oath: it does not happen every day…
Thanks for the explanation SJD
I think the normal progression for us Does goes as follows: petrified–>scared–>angry–>rational
I think you’re youve achieved the rational stage, with a little overlapping anger that gives you the edge to fight and advocate for Does and against the methods that the trolls practice (not anti-copyright BUT the way they try to enforce copyrights)
Me? Earlier this year, I was flat out petrified. Now, I’m mix of a little scared and mostly angry (maybe I’m rational once in a blue moon about this stuff
), and hence the lingering paranoia about expecting the worst out of the legal system without always rationally thinking about the situation.
Have a great weekend!
She’s the judge. If she wanted to be friendly she would have granted discovery.
I believe this is the first time something like this has happened. Maybe the second if you count Fiore having to file a response under oath relating to the Malibu Media bellweather trials, but that is the result of a long chain of events, not something the judge did sua sponte.
It appears the tide has begun to turn in favor of judges forcing Trolls to put their cards on the table early and make their statements under oath which could lead to severe criminal and civil liabilities if they are dishonest. With a judge like Howell getting the ball rolling this is probably the tip of an iceberg, as there has been mounting pressure for some time for judges to find procedural ways to keep these cases from clogging up the docket. Considering their prior history of fraud, copying and pasting, and lack of attention to detail, this is not a good development for Prenda. This could make life much easier for the courts, as they can have Prenda file under oath, let them hang themselves, then refer them to prosecutors and bar associations for further processing.
@marble
That’s the thing with Guava and Arte. The shame part really isn’t there because these cases are so vague. With Lightspeed, the “shame factor” is there and that at least exerts some form of pressure for a DOE to consider settlement (don’t recommend it, but I and see it on some level). If one is named in a lightspeed suit, anyone can read the complaint and VERY EASILY deduce that you’re essentially being sued for looking at XXX that didn’t belong to you, AND that has young women on display that are supposed to look like teens. Kind of taboo and embarassing.
With guava and arte, even if you’re named, nobody can look it up and find anything XXX related. Fuck, nobody can find “anything” related to it. No parent company on record, no names of “works”, no mention of pornography, no nothing. Even with a holding company like AF, you can at least find the names of the works and link it to porn with relative ease.
“What? Did you get into a website for a company that makes Guava juice. Oooooo. That’s bad
”
Because it’s so vague, it looks like bullshit, and a spouse, employer, friend, etc. really can’t take it seriously even if they dug around after finding out you’re party to a suit. they wouldn’t find anything other than this site.
Again, not that I’d encourage it in any way, but I can at least see why someone on some level might entertain the idea of settling a Lightspeed suit because the shame of the content is right out in the open and spelled out in the suit/complaint. With guava and arte, it’s not even close to being as stigmatized as being sued for non-porn like music or regular movies (DISCLAIMER: truly infringing is not a good thing to do). Without the spelled-out porn stigma, there’s really no pressure to settle on the “shame” angle for Guava and Arte. If names, titles, websites, and “works” are disclosed for even one individual suit, then the cat is out of the bag, and the whole idea behind arte and guava seems to be to conceal the identities of the content owners!
I predict all this CFAA shit will fade out in the next few months, and that they’ll refocus the majority of efforts on larger numbers of individual Doe suits and small joined Doe suits within proper jurisdictions for Quad (dba Score) along with AF and Ingenuity. Also, they probably won’t give two shits about bit torrent for their AZ “mom and pops”. I bet they’re gonna kick their AZ connections to the curb now that they have their new darling in Score. On the CFAA twist, I bet Score actually password protects their sites properly and usernames are disabled as soon as a compromise is detected. So there’s gonna be no real CFAA angle with them because I bet they CURRENTLY have a large number of paying customers (unlike Steve Jones) that access their content on the web (and in print) and that they’d stand to lose those web customers if word got out that their websites are continually breached. Those “legit” customers wouldn’t want to think that their personal and payment info was in jeopardy. Anyway, these are the guesses and assumptions on which I’m basing my predictions
BTW @marble, as up-and-coming contributors to this site, you and TAD are great!
I called it with Howell. I knew she was gonna do something like this, but I didn’t expect she was gonna wreck his discovery request so quickly and grab his case by the balls. She’s a stickler for procedure and Duffy just basically said “here’s a list of IPs, they stole shit, give me their addresses” and no federal judge is gonna just allow Duffy to subpoena PII with some BS reason like that because of Constitutional issues. Even if she’s itching to allow discovery, she’s not stupid enough to violate someone’s right to privacy under the First Amendment and commit career suicide. Not to mention remedies for the violation. If they did allow that, I could file a lawsuit against a list of IPs for no reason, file for discovery, get their PII, then proceed to fuck with them. Oh wait, that’s what Duffy wants to do.
She made it a point to state that the declaration needs to be filed under oath. The fact that she used the words “sworn declaration” rather than “declaration” basically equates to her telling him “you better not fucking lie to me.” I REALLY wanna see how Duffy responds to this, though. Will he say fuck it and cut bait? Doubt it. Will he file a motion to reconsider, appeal her motion, or in general, complain and bitch about it? Maybe. Will he bring in Steele? Probably. Or will he put his money where his mouth is and get Hansmeier (I assume) to file a declaration? Probably not because he’d be laying his cards out.
I really think that the reason there’s no declaration in any of the cases is because they have dick and that no sane (or half sane) “forensics expert” (Hansmeier) would ever consider filing a document under oath basically stating that he monitored these IPs when in reality, there’s a very very good chance that he didn’t. It’s one thing for him to file declarations full of half-truths and little lies but a complete fabrication? No, not a good idea if specifically instructed that the declaration is filed under penalty of perjury. There is a reason why Hansmeier (or whoever is doing their shit for Guava) hasn’t filed a declaration and I believe the latter to be the case.
@TAD I’d be willing to bet the “forensics expert” is Arcadia a/k/a Steve Jones a/k/a Lightspeed Media Corp.
That would be just wonderful if Arcadia Security is the “expert.” Of course, if that is the case, no chance in hell that Duffy would have Steve Jones file a declaration because it’d out the owner(s) of Guava which is obviously the last thing he wants. I’d put money on the “bitch, moan, and beg” approach plus a pro hac vice admission for John Steele to get up in front of Howell and do what he does best.
if jones is the expert for guava they are seriously hosed. the first line in any motion to dismiss would be “how can he be an expert when he can’t keep his own sites secure” and then link the cases and motions filed by plaintiff claiming ongoing destruction due to hacking. can’t be a security expert when you obviously don’t know jack @$#( about securing a website.
@marble: Correct. Which is why, if Jones is the “expert,” then Duffy with bitch, bitch some more, moan, groan, complain, and maybe file a petition with the Circuit Court of Appeals for DC (and lose). No chance in hell is he gonna let that cat outta the bag. That’d basically nail every Guava case, state and federal, to the wall. Even if Jones did keep his websites secure, you gotta question the objectivity of someone who’s the witness against those who’ve allegedly infringed on his smut, I mean, broke into his computers and downloaded his smut. Oh, yeah, that’s because he’s about as objective as a bullet shot out of a gun and he definitely stands to gain from every single settlement so he has one helluva motive to incriminate as many people as possible.
Not to mention the points you raise, that he’s woefully incompetent if this is still occurring after almost a year (freely admitted in the complaint, translates to “we’re too fucking stupid to secure our own computers”) and longer for LMC. Jones is a fucking half-wit greedy bastard. He sued AT&T and Comcast, that shows you how stupid he is and Duffy and Steele are even bigger idiots for staying on as counsel. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is the “expert” but they’re gonna try like hell to circumvent Howell…good luck asshats (Howell used to be their hero
). The problem is, Duffy cannot lie to judges, it’s his Achilles heel as an attorney. At least, not blatantly “the sky isn’t blue” type lies that “someone else” can do with no problem whatsoever. That’s why I think a pro hac vice admission for Steele is in order. This is gonna get REALLY interesting.
On the other hand, if Hansmeier is the expert, why didn’t he just file a declaration in the first place? Is it because he’d literally be fabricating evidence? I mean, you gotta draw the line somewhere. Perjuring yourself is one thing but literally making shit up, then swearing under penalty of perjury that it’s not made up and is accurate? No, no one in their right mind would do that. Not in state court, not in federal court. Fabricating evidence is serious shit and results in sanctions, criminal charges, opens the declarant and counsel to civil suits, just not good. Every single Hansmeier declaration would be wide fucking open to scrutiny if he tampered with or fabricated evidence.
Why wouldn’t they have to say who their security expert is right away when filing the suit? When would Duffy have to expose his security expert in Guava to see if its the same as Lightspeed?
Why wouldn’t they file a declaration? Because it’s a fucking scam, that’s why. If LMC is Guava, and the owner of LMC is also the owner of Arcadia, that means that the “independent forensics expert” is also the plaintiff. Ohhh, can anyone see a problem with that one? Howell would chuck his declaration so fast…stickler for rules.
I mean why don’t they have to?
It was more a post of shock that they can get away with all of this crap without any evidence other than “we said so.” Which is all that I think they’re saying. “Someone we might have hired that might have a technology that can see IP addresses maybe thinks that this person maybe infringed. No, we never filed a DMCA notice and the person might have no idea what’s going on but you know….wink”
How is that even allowed?
hey do u know hoow to get passed the lightspeed blocks when your at school cuz even the teachers need you tube and stuff…………????all us are trying to find way around
one other thing TAD posted re:guava, an ohio judge actually took the time to do fact checking on the case sue sponte (or on his own volition, whatever). and ran the ip addy in the case to find it was infact wrong jurisdiction. you know a judge is tired of BS when he actually fact checks your complaint himself (or has his clerks do it) without a motion involved.
I wanna see what Judge Darrah does in Duffy’s Guava case in ILND, especially since three of the five IPs are in ILND while one (the top one) is located in Florida and another one is located in Belleville, IL (ILSD). It’s hard to argue that all five of those IPs are the same person, but that’s exactly what he’s arguing.
the question is will the judge actually geolocate those IP’s? not all judges are prone to fact checking without being prompted for it in the first place. i hope she does but laziness is a judge’s bread and butter it seems from alot of the cases across the country.
DTD-esque “torpedo” in order? File a declaration with the court stating that, based on the exact same geolocation “technology” that Prenda uses, there’re only three of the five located within the jurisdiction. Point out that the suit is against one person so how could someone with five IPs in two different states, three different federal jurisdictions, have committed this “act” over a period of what, like 4 months? According to the complaint, the defendant moved from Florida, to Glenview, to Elgin, to Chicago, then to Belleville, in no particular order. I’d love to see someone argue that.
As of this moment there is no response from Lightspeed/Prenda/Duffy to Booth & Sweet’s motion to dismiss for Smith. It is due today and I’m assuming there’s only 25 min left for business in Central Time.
Oh it’s up and it’s a real great read, likely drafted by Steele.
http://ia600705.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824.44.0.pdf
This little gem…
“The time for Smith to challenge the accuracy of the allegations, of course, is at trial. It is not a proper basis to seek dismissal.”
Insulting opposing counsel…
“Even the most inattentive review of the Complaint clearly demonstrates that this is not a copyright action. Smith chooses to ignore that fact and premises his Motion on arguments that, even if they were correct (which they are not), would be properly argued in an action involving claims for copyright infringement. Smith could have avoided needlessly wasting the Court’s time if he had based his arguments on what is actually in the Complaint, rather than what he may have been charged with if he were in a copyright case action.”
Duffy stating that this is not about copyrights…
“Smith needn’t have bothered making the vast majority of the arguments in his motion, because this is not a copyright case. This case is about computer hacking and theft, Plaintiff alleges that Smith is the primary hacker and thief. Smith is alleged to be the “master hacker” who illegally broke into Plaintiff’s websites with hacked passwords, took protected content, and assisted others who participated in the same “hacking community” as he to do the same.”
Here’s the Joint Report filed by Duffy today as well…looks like this one’s going all the way
http://ia600705.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824.45.0.pdf
From the Joint report:
“Plaintiff’s expert(s): February 1, 2013.”
Steve Jones retained Steve Jones?
So you think this will advance? All the predictions were that these CFAA cases would not survive a motion to dismiss. I know those outstanding motions should still be ruled upon, but are we now expecting that they will be denied and the case will advance? Thoughts?
No that’s just the Joint Report, which shouldn’t have even been docketed as Duffy fucked up (noticing a pattern here?) and basically filed it the same way he’d file a standard legal document. The Clerk pulled it off the docket but it’s forever immortalized on archive.org
I’m not sure on what thread it was on, but I remember someone posted a link to a adult website industry board where the heads of studios talked and Steve Jones was linking password sharing websites trying to figure out who owned them.
I decided to research what I was being accused of and saw that the sites often had links to the websites. Now while a lot of the focus in the bittorrent websites is that they couldn’t possibly have accidentally downloaded something via bittorrent. You’d have to install software, download torrent, click okay, yada yada.
But if you can “hack a website” by simply clicking on a link…how is it not then possible that someone accidentally clicked on the link? Or the link was disguised. I remember disguising links all the time to people to try to get people to go to some of those disgusting memes that they wouldn’t have gone to otherwise.
Not saying its likely, but just pointing out another possible hole in these CFAA cases.
uuummm, so
“Defendant Smith was detected by the T.H.I.E.F. Security System gaining unauthorized access to Plaintiff’s protected websites on November 24, 2011 at 01:09 (UTC). ECF 2-2 at ¶24. This date was the latest time the T.H.I.E.F. Security System detected Defendant’s unauthorized access.”
so are they saying that this date was the first date that anyone hacked their site and that’s why smith is the “ringleader”? because 2 paragraphs later it said
“between August 1 and December 6, 2011 alone, Plaintiff’s software blocked well over 330,000 unauthorized sign-on attempts to its website”
so it was happening b4 smith created the hacking community. or am i not reading this right?
i was not reading this right. though i am curious how the ringleader’s ip was not the first detected breach. the say nov 24 was the latest detection to imply that they have is ip captured on earlier occations so as to avoid this question.
But, how can they know what his IP addies were on earlier dates? As far as we know, his ISP only confirmed his name for 11/24/2011 AND NOT other dates (especially earlier ones). If his ISP issues dynamic IPs, then they can’t claim access at other times by defendant Smith UNLESS they confirmed other dates and times through the ISP or they have some other info of which we’re not aware.
My guess is, the IP address from 11/24/2011 may have been the only one they had in the Aug-Dec time window that could be traced to St Clair County. and they wanted to initiate the suit in that crooked court. IMO, the only reason that they’re claiming Mr Smith is the “master hacker” is that his IP addy is/was from St Clair and nothing else, and they needed to bring suit against “a John Doe” who lives in that county. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t “feel” like I wrong in my gut.
You are not wrong. It is so obvious that St. Clair court was chosen because it is corrupt, and Duffy had prior connections with crooks like O’Malley. I don’t know what kind of IQ and/or Gullibility Index a person must have to believe that the crooks chose this court because Smith lives in its jurisdiction, not the other way around. I will not be surprised that they made up his IP address to secure this court.
I did some looking into Judge Murphy (see below) and I don’t think he’s gonna be too nice to Duffy and company when he starts addressing some these motions, even if he does deny all of the MTDs. Wild guess here too, but I’d bet that he has a low tolerance for bullshit and having his time wasted so when Steele gets up there and starts trying to pull his usual “I’m smarter than the judge” bullshit, he’ll be on the wrong end of the wrath of a Marine infantry veteran of Vietnam.
Another inconsistency:
At the top of page 5,
“Defendant Smith was detected by the T.H.I.E.F. Security System gaining unauthorized
access to Plaintiff’s protected websites on November 24, 2011 at 01:09 (UTC).”
Page 10,
“Plaintiff further alleged that its cost for Arcadia to create the T.H.I.E.F. Security System to identify Defendant and other hackers was in excess of $250,000. Id. It alleged that the cost to host and run that System is $500 per month and that its total cost to host and use the system was $5,500.”
So if I understand this correctly, LMC was forced to spend $250,000 to create the T.H.I.E.F. security system which was used to detect the hacking by Smith, but if the hacking by Smith is what prompted LMC to create T.H.I.E.F., then they didn’t have T.H.I.E.F. in order to detect the hacking by Smith, however that’s the software they used to detect the hacking.
Huh?
$250k was the cost to create the software. i would like to meet the programmer that makes that much $$ just to write a few scripts.
this response does give more info into the hacked passwords. claiming that someone breached their login system and created a bunch of false accounts, as opposed to the claim of brute force hacking that they originally claimed. brute force would have used actually userpasses as opposed to falsifying credencials and inserting it into their authentification system. which one is it??
Son of a bitch I wrote this LONG response while I was at work using this shitty Tor browser on my iPad that I paid $0.99. Anyway, here I go…again.
T.H.I.E.F. is not software. It is nothing more than an IP filtering script that’s a few Regex statements written in PERL or Python…or even JavaScript. I HIGHLY doubt that it’s actual code (C/C++/C#). Someone with half a brain could whip up a script that filters Apache (ProxyPass) logs in a matter of hours, maybe days if they’re a little busy. I know that I could still write something in C that does the same thing but it’d take me a few days since I haven’t written anything in C in a VERY long time. That being said, if he truly paid $250k for that software, he got FUCKED with a capital “FUCKED.” Also, his assertion that it costs $500/month to run the damn thing is likely a load of crap too along with the assertion that hosting it costs $5000 ($5500 minus the $500 it takes to run it). What does he have? A dedicated server and trunk line just for an IP filtering script? Jesus. I don’t know whether he does his own hosting or he farms it out but, based on what I’ve gathered from his “vast array” of knowledge, he runs the whole show including the hosting. So, he makes assignations of value for a script he wrote, the system resources it sucks up, and the cost to host it on his own computers. Yeah, OK. Well, I’m gonna go shit on a canvas, smear it around, then try to sell it for $10k since that’s exactly what Jones is trying to do here.
I’d love to see Huffman depose Jones. Then Seiver would get his shot. Then Booth & Sweet. By the time Huffman gets done with Jones, he’d be crying with two more defendants’ counsel to go. Jones must be truly stupid to be willing to go through all of this if he’s not backing down or Duffy and Steele must be feeding him some VERY VERY bad advice…legal malpractice lawsuit, anyone? No sane person would sue AT&T and Comcast, much less call their non-existent bluff and allow the case to proceed to pre-trial. This stuff isn’t cheap and when Smith, AT&T, and Comcast prevail, they’re gonna make someone pay. Depending on how pissed the judge is, he may award attorneys’ fees under 35 USC § 285 or under 28 USC § 1920. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for Jones, Duffy, Steele, and the rest of the “gang” to fuck with Judge Murphy (see below).
It should be known that Judge Murphy is a bona fide badass. Enlisted in the Marine Corps when he was 17 and shipped off to Vietnam almost right after his 18th birthday, did a 3 year tour there with the 1st Marines. I found this interesting quote from a transcript from a his testimony in a Civil Rules hearing on proposed amendment(s) to FRCP Rules 56 and 26 back in 2009, discussing his dissatisfaction with Rule 26 vs. local rules…
“HON. G. PATRICK MURPHY: ….So I’m a minimus. I’m a minimus. You learn to do a few things very well; keep your weapon clean, make sure it’s loaded, stay awake at night, as one Colonel said, Have a plan to kill everybody.
HON. LEE H. ROSENTHAL: Is that how you approach summary judgment?
HON. G. PATRICK MURPHY: You know what –
HON. LEE H. ROSENTHAL: Never mind.
HON. G. PATRICK MURPHY: I might add that my Marine Corps has worked very well. I have found that simplicity, simplicity works. Keep it simple. Have a few rules. Apply them just ruthlessly and it will work.”
He also uses “sink,” “sinking ship,” “sunk the ship,” and “artillery” as metaphors heh.
so what you are saying is that there is a good chance that murphy loves the smell of napalm in the morning?? (que flight of the Valkyries)
Well I’m 99.9999% sure he doesn’t take shit, especially from puds like Steele and Duffy so when Steele gets up in front of him and starts lying to his face or pulling his little routine, I’m gonna take an educated guess based on the Marines I do know and say that there’s a distinct possibility that we could see another Judge Shadur type incident hehe.
So how is this looking. Honestly. Does the response have a leg to stand on or will the Judge see right through it for what it really is. Sure we know the facts so we know that this is crazy, that arcadia is the same as steve jones and lightspeed and have the same address. Thus blowing holes in their 250,000 claim of how much it costs to protect their website. So what do you think does it have a let to stand on Honestly. If Raul or SJD could comment on this that would be great.
http://www.countyclerk.co.st-clair.il.us/NR/rdonlyres/EA225C0A-56D2-4A1D-9C1C-88C34ED8C326/0/reppc.pdf
As reported a few months ago, Lightspeed Troll Attorney Kevin T. Hoerner is running for office in the upcoming November 6, 2012 for the office of St. Clair County Precinct Committeeman, Stookey 4 as the Democratic candidate. His Republican opponent is DEAN K RICHEY III. It may be a good idea to help Dean’s Campaign by letting him know that his opponent is attempting to extort money & defending the PORN INDUSTRY, something the conservative voters of St Clair County would also like to know. Here’s how to get in touch with DEAN:
Precinct: 090004 STOOKEY 4
REPUBLICAN (*) DEAN K RICHEY III
100 E FAIRWAY DR
BELLEVILLE, IL 62223-2202
PHONE#: 618-236-1318
PAID FOR BY DOE’S OF FIGHT COPYRIGHT TROLLS………..LOL!!
I’m a doe and I agree with this message
Anyone here anything about todays hearing?
Which case? The LMC v. Smith et al? There was no hearing. No hearing is scheduled either. That is, if you’re talking about that case. Yesterday, Defendants (all of them) filed a motion to defer discovery pending ruling on defendants’ outstanding motions to dismiss. Paul Duffy also struck the Joint Report…because he wasn’t supposed to file it to the docket in the first place. The Clerk made sure Duffy knew that too
Too late, it’s been RECAP’d
I thought there was a phone hearing scheduled as its stated:
NOTICE of Scheduling and Discovery Conference: Scheduling/Discovery Conference set for 10/25/2012 at 3:30 PM via Telephone Conference before Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Williams. (amv) (Entered: 10/11/2012)
Was this just to scheduled future dates of action? Do we know when motions to dismiss will be ruled on? Thanks
Oh, that was just to set pre-trial stuff etc. Not an actual “hearing” per se. The Joint Report Duffy accidentally filed on ILSD CM/ECF served the purpose that that teleconference was supposed to serve, as far as I know.
Here’s that motion filed today btw…
http://ia600705.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824.47.0.pdf
case # NC057950 out in cali is looking ugly with motions from both sides for sanctions.
go to http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/civilcasesummary/index.asp and enter case # for docket entries. anyone bored in LA can pic up the doc’s from yee ole court house i am sure…..state cases are such a pain i hate you lightspeed.
So, given that these are CFAA claims and the last documents filed by Prenda said, unequivocally, that they were not copyright infringement, does anyone have any idea what Prenda has to prove then?
I mean, Bittorrent lawsuits at least make some amount of sense in terms of what they have to prove. Prove the person had bittorrent, prove they had the file, prove they were the person on the computer, etc.
But how can they prove that your computer “hacked” a website by using an unauthorized user/pass? And that you did it over six months ago? It almost seems like an excuse for Prenda to get discovery and get cart blanche to scour someone’s hard drive or something.
at this point most of the LSM cases are hitting their 1 year mark from time of the detected breach and logging of IP’s. halfway through the cfaa statute of limitations. there are a few ways they can “prove” your computer did this. #1) if the files they logged your IP downloading are on your computer. #2) if there are sites like pornbb or other sites that had/have password lists on your computer. #3) if you actually have password lists that you downloaded as a big file from a locker site/BT on your computer. they can’t prove with certainty that you did it but civil cases don’t need absolute conviction in their proof, often a plausible inference is all you need.
Yeah, it just seems odd. I’m starting to think that they are doing it in an attempt to get access to people’s hard drives to scour for anything they can use. It just seems like a long shot to actually get someone on the CFAA claims with something like password lists or porn. Money or trade secrets might be a different matter.
So they’re obviously trying to extort/scare then get access to the hard drive to use for other stuff if you don’t settle or something to find other bittorrent stuff to file suit against you.
They aren’t going to scour 6000 people’s hard drives. That costs way too much money to be anywhere near profitable for them, and that’s all this is about.
My guess is either (a) they want it to ride out as long as they can so they can continue to have something to scare people with, or (b) since they haven’t been above sending extortion letters with dead cases cited in the past, maybe they’re just trying to let it ride to make the case look scarier than it really is.
UNDERSTANDING LOST
To obtain a civil remedy under CFAA, a plaintiff must satisfy the jurisdictional prerequisite of establishing a $5,000 loss. Doing so is not as straightforward as it may appear.
But a “loss” under CFAA is not what lawyers generally understand to be damage or damages, each of which has a different meaning under CFAA. For example, stolen intellectual property, regardless of its value, does not count toward the $5,000 loss. Privacy invasions and personally identifiable information, regardless of how valuable, also do not constitute losses under CFAA.
Instead, a loss must be a cost. It must be a reasonable cost to the victim to investigate, respond, or remedy the damage the violation caused to the data or computer, unless the case involves an interruption of service, which is relatively rare.
One example of such a cost would be the fees a computer forensics firm charges to secure the violated computer, to investigate the damage caused to the computer and to restore the data.
The lawyer also should retain a licensed computer forensics firm, which should do two things. First, it should secure the computers so the evidence will not be tainted. Securing the computers includes preventing anyone else from using the computer to investigate on his own. Second, the computer forensics firm should conduct a thorough investigation and perform the work necessary to respond to and remediate the problem. The computer forensics firm actually has to perform the work. Speculation about work that likely will be required in the future will be insufficient to constitute a loss.
Who is LMC’s Forensic Computer Expert That Was Chosen To Investigate?
Steve Jones. According to the complaint at paragraph 14, Plaintiff retained Arcadia Data Security Consultants, LLC (“Arcadia”) to identify IP addresses associated with hackers that use hacked passwords and the Internet to access Plaintiff’s private website and content.
[to do this] Arcadia used forensic software named Trader Hacker and Intruder Evidence Finder 2.0 (T.H.I.E.F.) to detect hacking, unauthorized access, and password sharing activity on Plaintiff’s websites.
An independent computer forensics firm should have been hired instead of using Plaintiff’s own company-ARCADIA DATA SECURITY CONSULTANTS. This created a conflict of interest because the Plaintiff’s computers must be
secured so the evidence will not be tainted. Securing the computers includes preventing anyone else from using the computer to investigate on his own. Since Lightspeed & Arcadia are one & the same, NO INDEPENDENT & NEUTRAL COMPUTER FORENSICS FIRM SECURED THE PLANTIFF’S COMPUTERS TO INVESTIGATE THE DAMAGE NOR WAS ANY EFFORT MADE TO REMEDY THE DAMAGE. Instead Plantiff ACTUALLY PERFORMED THE INVESTGATIVE WORK on his own & HARVESTED THE IP’S. Therefore Plaintiff failed to meet the requirements of a loss under CFAA.
the world timbers case in maricopa county (CV2012-053230) will be having a hearing on the motion to dismiss on november 2nd so we could see the first officially dismissed LSM case in less than a week
also the sekora case has the same judge presiding on it as the world timbers case (Fenzel, Alfred). he is a moderately conservative judge from what i have found. most of his history seems to be with family and juvenile cases. probably not the biggest fan of a “barely legal” porn purveyor with a business address in a family community.
so does anyone have access to anyone in phoenix that has access to the court and can find out how the hearing re: motion to dismiss went for world timbers today?
looks like malibu isn’t the only troll not giving up discovery info. sekora filed a “MOTON FOR ORDER COMPELLING PLAINTIFF’S COMPLIANCE WITH DISCLOSURE OBLIGATIONS AND REQUEST FOR SANCTIONS” on 11/1/12
Nice, now we have some more cowards on records. Come on John and Steve, you guys are such tough talkers, bring it on!
I am intrigued to see where this is going.
Don’t kid yourself. Steele only talks tough when his friend Jack Daniels stops by for a visit. If he was half the man he claims to be he would produce discovery in a heartbeat. The fact is he knows his “evidence” is crap at best and fraudulent at worst and that’s why he’ll fight release teeth and nail. Another joker who can’t back up his words.
there was a ruling in the world timbers case today. stupid !#5$@$#% state dockets are not fully online and all it says is “ruling.” i am sure it is about the motion to dismiss by worldtimbers. i would bet it is at least in some way in favor of the defendant as this is the first ruling on a MTD in LSM (that i know of) if lightspeed won they would have come in here and said something to the effect of “you freetards have a whole post saying our case could not withstand a motion to dismiss well here it is fo0ls!!” since this has not happened i don’t think it was in plaintiffs favor, though i still am curious as hell.
It would be nice if someone in AZ would stop by the courthouse and grab the document — scan and send to me, as Adam S. did before. It would be nice to read the motion to compel in his case too. Alas, we are seemingly bound to stay intrigued forever.
Apologizing in advance, as I seem to be dense at the moment.
But the World Timbers case was like/is the lightspeed cases? Which is also like the Guava and Oaxaca.
But the World Timbers case was filed against an individual?
So if the defendant dismissed the case there it would *likely* follow the same course in all the other hacking cases?
On the county website, you can search for the “minute entries” which gives you some information. In this case, motion to dismiss was denied.
Here’s what I found if anyone else was interested:
http://www.courtminutes.maricopa.gov/JONamesearch.asp?department=Quick+Links%3A+Choose+a+Topic+Below&casenumber=CV2012053230&partydesignator=&lastname=&firstname=&middlename=&joname=&entryfromdate=&entrytodate=&submit=Retrieve+Minute+Entries
Don’t see the ruling on the MTD though.
On the second page of each of the November 2 orders is where it says MTD is denied.
I uploaded the order, but it does not add to the clarity: judge did not bother to explain the reasons.
A lawyer commented that motion to dismiss are tough, rarely granted. Motion for summary judgement is easier to get granted. We’ll see. Judge was dubious about the duty issue, so not all that bad. Not at all.
The post below essentially stated that these cases should not be able to survive a motion to dismiss.
http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2012/04/16/attorneys-opinion-lightspeeds-claim-is-a-farce/
Well, based on what just happened in Maricopa County, should we readjust our reasoning and expectations regarding these password hacking cases? If you think we should or shouldn’t, please explain in either case.
Thanks!
I wouldn’t make any conclusions based on a single ruling by a county judge (didn’t we consider LeChien a caselaw-influencing judge?), especially when we are lacking information. My (and not only my) eyes are on the Lighspeed v Smith, it is 1000 times more important (federal court, best IP lawyers), hence everyone holds their breath. Not saying that everything will go our way, it would be too arrogant, but I’m cautiously optimistic.
So, readjustment is premature IMO.
Any idea of a time from when we hear from the smith case at all?
so because the MTD in world timbers case was denied, does this mean that it now has to proceed to trial or they will have to settle. This is horrible news is it now. Also does the judge have to explain why he denied the motion?
i am sure he explains it in the nov 6th ruling, just that since it is state it is harder to get any doccumentation.
A motion to dismiss, prior to an answer, assumes that all of the facts in the complaint are 100% true but that the complaint still fails to state a cause of action upon which the plaintiff can recover money. In World Timbers (if memory serves) the plaintiff added a twist to the LMC complaint which was the legal theory of respondeat superiour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respondeat_superior which means that to prove it case LMC would have to prove that an employee of World Timbers, as part of his job, was given the task of hacking into porn websites. This is obviously ridiculous but the judge is going to allow the case to move forward on this theory. After depositions, when it is confirmed that no employee at World Timbers has the job title of Master Porn Site Hacker, then you can expect the defendant to move for summary judgement and win on the motion prior to trial. Its a pity because of the waste of money and judicial resources but that’s our legal system.
As many are aware, Booth/Sweet, Huffman and Siever collectively filed a motion to stay discovery until Comcast’s, AT&T’s and Smith’s motions to dismiss are all ruled upon. As you’re probably also aware, Duffy/Steele filed objections on behalf of Lightspeed and some further responses were filed to those objections.
Anyway, on 11/7 Magistrate Judge Williams, who is working this case with Judge Murphy, GRANTED the defendants’ collective motions to stay discovery until the motions to dismiss are ruled upon. That’s good news.
From PACER:
“11/07/2012 53 ORDER. The Motion to Stay Discovery (Doc. 47 ) is GRANTED. Discovery in this case is STAYED pending resolution of the motions to dismiss (Docs. 26, 28, 36). After the motions have been resolved, the Court will set a new scheduling conference to address the scheduling and conduct of discovery. Signed by Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Williams on 11/7/2012. (jls)THIS TEXT ENTRY IS AN ORDER OF THE COURT. NO FURTHER DOCUMENTATION WILL BE MAILED. (Entered: 11/07/2012)”
and that made the upcoming discovery scheduling conference moot:
“11/07/2012 54 NOTICE OF CANCELLATION of Hearing: today’s telephonic scheduling/discovery conference is terminated.(jls)THIS TEXT ENTRY IS AN ORDER OF THE COURT. NO FURTHER DOCUMENTATION WILL BE MAILED. (Entered: 11/07/2012)”
I could be very wrong, but it seems like there’s a good shot that many of the dismissal points raised by all three defendants’ attorneys will be granted. As a judge, if you’re likely or inclined to eventually deny the bulk of those motions to dismiss, you’d let discovery go forward. There’d be no reason to STAY the inevitable unless said inevitable is likely to be unnecessary
Also if the defense attorneys were not confident in eventual dismissal, they’d want discovery to go forward for the same basic reason that plaintiff makes to not stay discovery. That is, the more time goes by, the less likely they will discover any dirt on Jones=Lightspeed=Arcadia. We all suspect that Jones has already attempted to tie up loose ends and cover tracks. Same logic applies for plaintiff. The more time goes by, the less likely they are to get anything incriminating on Smith or his alleged 6500+ co-conspirators. If the collective defense (or the judges for that matter) really thought the case would move forward, Booth/Sweet, Huffman and Siever would want to dig into Jones and engage in discovery much sooner rather than later.
If and when dismissal occurs, that would essentially be judgement in favor of the defendants and they would be able to seek attorneys’ fees from plaintiff, which for Booth/Sweet, Huffman and Siever, are likely pretty high $$$$$$ at this point. Is that correct?
lidpzgjhiudpqzsjhiuuspmmt, Tramadol order online, dYGCURb, [url=http://sscolumbia.org/]Tramadol[/url], LyFuJoq, http://sscolumbia.org/ Tramadol, OynwJNs.
Any update on these cases? Been quiet for a while now on the archive docket
the fact that the florida state case still exists despite NOTHING happening on the docket for over 3 months confuses me. should have been dismissed for lack of service back in june…..here we are after over 280 days and still no one served….gg court system. way to prove you are retarded.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/defendant-asks-judge-to-punish-porn-troll-for-lying-to-the-court/?comments=1
1) Any word on when the motions to dismiss for LSM vs Smith et al will be dealt with and ruled on?
2) What’s new with Adam Sekora’s case in the Arizona state court? How is he doing?
3) Seems like there’s been no activity on LSM vs Shashek for 3 months. Any word on what’s going on with that case?
If you all recall, Lightspeed had an emergency motion for discovery (vs Smith et al) that was denied back in August. Well, Doc #29 – the transcript of that hearing – is finally up on PACER (19 pages). Unfortunately, I don’t have Firefox or RECAP to add it to the online archive.
In short, Steele and the Judge did all the talking (mostly Steele, of course). Huffman and Siever didn’t even say a word other than introducing themselves at the beginning. Troy Bozarth did some talking between pg 9 paragraph 20 and page 11 paragraph 14 (discussion between Judge and Bozarth). Even with Steele essentially monopolizing the floor, that emergency discovery motion still got denied by Judge Murphy. Guess Judge Murphy didn’t buy Steele’s “slick” (and what’s getting to be overused) getaway car analogy (pg 15 paragraphs 11-16)
Judge Murphy’s Final Words (Pg 17 Paragraph 3 through Pg 18 Paragraph 22) when denying the emergency motion for discovery back in August.
“THE COURT: Oh, okay. I see.
Here’s the way I see this case. The — if there is a
case here at the bottom of all this, it’s a case for damages.
You have an adequate remedy at law. Properly understood, what
you are asking me to do here today is grant what is at the
bottom injunctive relief, to make somebody do something that
they would otherwise not have to do to protect this business.
Well, that’s the same problem that every business in the world
has. And for as long as we’ve had a common law, we say, if you
have got an adequate remedy at law, you have got one.
Now, there’s no evidence that’s going to be destroyed.
I’ll be honest about this. I’m skeptical about how this case
could ever be put on, but my feet are not set in stone on it.
I’ve seen some cases that didn’t look too hot at the start that
got better with time. This may be one of those cases. But you
are going to have to go through the regular discovery route
just like everyone else, and then some judge or some magistrate
will have to sit down and very carefully tailor this thing.
I don’t foresee a situation where the Southern
District of Illinois is going to be pulling in cases from all
over the United States. I’m in St. Clair County, and in the
Southern District of Illinois, we’ve got 38 counties. And
that’s — that provides us with about all we can take care of
as it is. Motion denied. Have a good day.
Court’s in recess.”
I read that as: “I’m skeptical about Lightspeed but I’m going to try to remain open-minded. I’m way too fucking busy and I don’t have time for frivolous cases, and this better not turn out to be one of them! Dismissed…for now”
Another little tidbit:
(Pg 5 paragraphs 14-16): “MR. STEELE: All right. Can everyone hear me? Okay.
Your Honor, I represent Lightspeed. John Steele, S-T-E-E-L-E.”
See.By his own admission he does practice law and does have a client, which is not what he essentially told that judge down in Florida. At least he spelled his own name correctly (poor S-O-N-N-Y Leone)!
I look forward to see how the Defendants’ pending motions to dismiss will play out in LSM vs Smith et al
Great! Thank you. Can you send it to me so I could share it for people to enjoy unless someone recaps it!
Yeah this is GOLDEN. Anything in parenthesis in the quotations is my paraphrasing of a quote, paretheses outside the quotes, my thoughts.
“THE COURT: Who’s going to speak for the plaintiff?
MR. STEELE: I am, your Honor.”
(he approaches the mic)
“MR. STEELE: All right. Can everyone hear me? Okay. Your Honor, I represent Lightspeed. John Steele, S-T-E-E-L-E. And to get to the crux of the main question, your Honor, about whether it’s an emergency motion, it is. We actually — to help illustrate the matter, we’ve actually conducted quite a bit of forensic work over the last three days. That’s one of the reasons that my client flew up here.”
RIGHT THERE…no affiliation with Prenda? He represents a Prenda client, not Duffy, he even admits it in open court.
Steele talks about a bunch of bullshit, blah blah blah, then Murphy drops the hammer…
“THE COURT: Let me just stop you there, though. You told me your client is no longer in the business?
MR. STEELE: No, I didn’t say that.
THE COURT: That’s what you said. You said your client has been spending all his time protecting his equipment from these assaults that he is out of business.
MR. STEELE: Well, no. What he has, obviously, people working with him. But what I’m saying is, he spends a grossly disproportionate amount of his time….
THE COURT: I don’t think the problem — we’re not talking about a disposition of the lawsuit here today. What we are talking about today is whether the Court sets aside the general, orderly progression of the federal discovery practice.”
(Steele rambles about how they NEED emergency discovery to STOP these “hackers.” Murphy’s retort, after listening to what Bozarth has to say…that case is meritless)
“THE COURT: Now, do you think that if the Court were to order this discovery today that these attacks would stop?
MR. STEELE: I think it would greatly, greatly decrease and here’s why. Two things. One is, first of all, some of these hackers aren’t aware of this litigation. (they don’t have PACER accounts). When they receive a letter from our firm saying, hey, we just caught you…. My experience has been there is a rapid, very rapid decrease in the amount of hacking because it is almost, oh, shoot, I got caught.”
(Yes, he does say “oh, shoot” but NO mention of settlement demands in those letters, he makes it sound like they’re cease and desist)
Addressing identities of Does (Steele admits that an IP is not a person)….
“THE COURT: Well, you are never going to know who is doing it. You are going to know which computer it comes from.
MR. STEELE: Right.
(Steele rambles)
THE COURT: What happens in the case like this, just a nonpayment of the use?
(Steele then rambles off a bunch of bullshit about the discovery process, citing Judge Howell’s ruling in the course of his rant, Murphy responds with….)
THE COURT: What are you talking about?
(Steele spouts off more bullshit, Murphy rules…)
“THE COURT: ….I’ll be honest about this. I’m skeptical about how this case could ever be put on, but my feet are not set in stone on it. I’ve seen some cases that didn’t look too hot at the start that got better with time. This may be one of those cases. But you are going to have to go through the regular discovery route just like everyone else…. Motion denied. Have a good day.”
page 13 @ line 14
“In fact, I can tell you that I have a client,
Millennium TGA, who when we started this process and we got
discovery on a large case, all the sites that you get these
passwords from and all put up a warning, do not take this guy’s
passwords, he is getting sued.”
i have never seen a millineum tga password case. did we magically miss these cases?? apparently they got large scale discovery and yet no one posted on this site or any other anti troll site talking about them. hrm, can you say “lier lier pants on fire”??
Look in TXSD, it was dismissed by plaintiff back on the 14th but it was the same case that a Judge Wilkins (I believe) curb stomped out in DCD, so they forum shopped and took it down to Texas. I believe there were a few in ILND too but CM/ECF is down up there.
Oh, password case. TXSD is a torrent case. I dunno of any password cases. Would’ve been nice for Steele to actually say which case because for all we know, he made shit up.
In ILSD, LMC v. Smith et al (12-cv-00889), transcript of LMC’s emergency motion for discovery is finally up (thanks to whoever RECAP’d it). This is funny as hell
http://ia600705.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824.29.0.pdf
No problem!
[...] Lightspeed password hacking cases [...]
Is this case essentially dead? I got a notice from Comcast in February of 2012 that they were going to release my info to Prenda. After finding this site, I ignored it and I never heard anything again. Never received any calls or letters from Prenda and never heard anything from Comcast. Few questions.. Am I pretty much out of the woods? This was one of the cases that has a 2 year limit right? Did Prenda change its strategy to the other cases? And is it common for the federal case docket to have no activity for this long of time… I would think it would need to have some action to keep it alive or kill it after a certain amount of time, but I know nothing of law..
Are you talking about the Florida case? I was in the same boat, got the Neustar notice almost a year ago and after reading this and other sites chose not to take any action. I never got any calls or mails from Prenda. I’ve been tracking the case in Miami Dade and there hasn’t been any activity in four months.
The docket linked up top is just an archive; it can be out of date with the “real” docket in Pacer. However, as of a couple days ago, there was still no activity since 11/15.
I’m not sure what’s going on, if anything, besides the statute of limitations creeping up.
For Lightspeed vs Smith et al. (3:12-cv-00889), the civil statute of limitations for the CFAA portion (ie the major portion) is 2 years. The case was originally 11-L-683 from St. Clair County, IL, and there were 6500+ “alleged co-conspirators” listed in the exhibit with dates of hacking/infringement between Aug-early Dec 2011. So the statute of limitations for all those Doe “co-conspirators” who have yet to be named in a CFAA suit should expire between the next 7-11 months.
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice and should be considered for discussion purposes only.
Oh. and I just checked PACER. Correct. There’s been no activity since 11/15, where Paul Hansmeier filed a motion (which was granted) to be terminated as co-counsel for Lightspeed. So the archived docket is still accurate as of this posting.
The longer this drags out, the better it is for all the alleged co-conspirators whose information they have yet to obtained OR who have yet to be named (if they do have one’s info). Time is very much on the side of the Does.
welp atleast we know the username that sekora is accused of using to “hack” into lightspeed’s page (rick14) http://www.courtminutes.maricopa.gov/docs/Civil/012013/m5577913.pdf, and that lightspeed is ordered to give him all the login info relating to that userid.
Nice catch! I believe we are about to be reminded of the old children’s tale: “The Emperor Who Had No Clothes”.
yea they are required to give up the last years worth of account activity for that particular login….this should be interesting, i really need to go to phx and get copies of all the court docs sometime.
It would be heroic. Lawyers from this case won’t send me anything, and I don’t blame them: while IMO there is a very little harm in sending out public documents, some people are more risk averse than others. Look how Gibbs tried to stretch his ill imagination accusing Pietz in sending public documents to me (which he did not — and there is no need: I’m capable of obtaining public federal documents myself).
I have done a simple google search behind a VPN of the user name that is mentioned in the court document above. Turns out it’s on all sorts of password sites. No surprise. I didn’t want to post it here so that people do not get confused, but this is obviously what everyone thought. This username and password was leaked.
I’d be really curious to know if that username/password is still working. It would blow a pretty big hole in their CFAA claim if it is…
Of course now the crooks block leaked, forum listed passwords: only an imbecile wouldn’t do it. The real question is how did they behave at the time of harvesting. And this is the exact answer Sekora’s discovery request is looking for.
the other thing his discover will show is how the login info was created in the first place. was it a legit account that was “leaked” or was it created by someone who breached the sites security and added in their own login credentials. some of the lightspeed suits are insisting that these “hacked” passes where created by someone who was able to breach their auth servers and ad in their own logins. if this was originally a legit account then who created it? did LSM create it and then intentionally “leak” it. these facts will be sussed out by the end of this suit.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/judge-hints-at-jail-time-for-porn-troll-prenda-law-over-identity-theft/?comments=1
[...] Lightspeed password hacking cases [...]
Go directly to jail…….do not pass GO……..do not collect $200……….LOL
Lightspeed Media Corp. v. Shashek is Dead.
On 2-13 Doe Defender Laura Long filed a Motion for Leave to File a Supplemental Brief in Further Support of His Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Complaint http://ia600805.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58695/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58695.17.0.pdf in which she sought to bring to the court’s attention a bombshell of an Order against AF holdings in the CASD which is here http://ia701202.us.archive.org/32/items/gov.uscourts.casd.387721/gov.uscourts.casd.387721.14.0.pdf. Faced with this new authority Duffy killed the lawsuit the next day on 2-14. http://ia600805.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58695/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58695.18.0.pdf
This and Moskowitz’s order deserve more attention, but I absolutely have no time this weekend because of taxes (have reasons to file early), association obligations and some other overdue chores
According to the docket, today marks exactly six months since the LMC vs Doe case has been updated. How long can this case open without any activity? Is Prenda still fishing for settlements for this case or is it basically dead in the water? What will it take for it to be dismissed at this point?
Thanks to whoever recapped this but John Steele filed a motion to withdraw as an attorney in the lightspeed v smith et al case YESTERDAY and it was granted today.
http://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824.57.0.pdf
It seems like, IN MY OPINION, he is dumping association with prenda related cases on the docket as attorney or plaintiff. WHY? Does mr pietz know about him exiting the lightspeed case just prior to the hearing with judge wright in CA? I hope judge wright asks him if he was a party or attorney to any cases in the past week vs now (now meaning Monday the 11th).
what do you all think the chances of this case being dismissed. is it normal for a case just to sit dormant like this
According to pacer (sorry no recap) Duffy dismissed Lightspeed vs Smith et al today without prejudice. Basically, does this signify the end of what used to be 11-L-683 in St Clair County?
Lightspeed v Smith was dismissed according to Booth and Sweet’s twitter.
Looks great. Good news indeed.
If it has been dismissed, then ILSD needs to update their docket.
So is this dismissed or not, can anyone check pacer.
I just checked the docket it is dismissed. Yay!!!!!!!
Dismissed! After all this time being one of the 6600. Thanks SJD & DTD for keeping us calm during the storm in this case.
Congratulations to everyone involved (except the trolls)!
Is this case really over? Do you think they will refile later on as the case was dismissed without prejudice?
Does this include Florida Miami-Dade or just Illinois, Confused.
miami dade case is still lying dormant but not dismissed. in another 4 months the statute of limitations will start to kick in on the cfaa claims for people. the case is effectively dead, just not officially dead.
Yep. AFAIK, the CFAA statute of limitations for the 6600 expires between July and early December
Thank you. 😊
To echo kzw, thank you SJD and DTD and Raul and everyone. Finding this site has been a godsend to my sanity.
Read the Paul Ticen’s declaration in AF Holdings v David Harris case in AZ: it has a lot of interesting details about Lightspeed v. Sekora case.
Like how assholes bring lawsuits without nothing but a hunch and no evidence.
lol he was a tor node. i knew LSM was fuct in az but good lord they really screwed the pooch with that case.
lol indeed. Hopefully those Ticen exhibits will make their way over to Wright’s courtroom.
That’s what I was thinking. Super interesting to get some insight into the Sekora case since it’s been so quiet. Talk about stepping on a landmine, I can’t believe Lightspeed didn’t run for the hills, oh wait, yes I can because they just can’t help themselves.
No wonder Sekora was so confident and went all out with his defense. A guy like him, with the expertise and inclination to run a Tor node, with a brother in the intelligence community… Wow, talk about a worst-case scenario for Prenda. Maybe this is why Steve had Lightspeed Media up for sale.
Also, very good information about Gibbs stepping in for Goodhue, trying to settle the case and lecturing Ticen on Arizona disclosure rules… Didn’t Gibbs just tell Judge Wright under oath that he was just a contractor, only took orders from “senior partners” and was basically a file clerk?
Oops!
my favorite part was where they said according to ccbill the rick14 log in was disabled several years ago. so who re-activated it?
Rhetorical question I’m sure…
Had me wondering if once Steele and Lightspeed dreamed up their scheme, he reactivated years of compromised accounts to function as a premade honeypot.
And Ticen earns a place in my personal Gallery of Heroes for this one:
—
As I mentioned to Brett Gibbs, if you, Mr. Gibbs or any of the other “young attorneys” you
direct to get “crafty” intend on being involved in this case, you’ll need to seek admission pro hac
vice.
—
Can’t wait to see the devastating end of this case for Lightspeed now that Prenda is in full tailspin.
Yesterday Booth & Sweet filed a motion for attorneys’ fees in LMC v. Smith (SDIL 12-cv-889) in which Prenda/Steele vexatious litigation and outright sleaze is bared to the court. A must read and here is but an example of the signature Prenda sleaze:
“Smith first learned of this action on August 20, 2012, when he was served a copy of the
Amended Complaint, along with the summons issued by the Circuit Court. Doc. 33 ¶ 6. The process
server stated to Mr. Smith, “You’re in a lot of trouble.” See Smith Declaration ¶ 2 (“Smith Dec.”)
(Exhibit A hereto). The process server informed Mr. Smith that the case involved computers and
hacking. Id. ¶ 4. The process server handed Mr. Smith his business card, pointing out to Mr. Smith
that Attorney Steele’s name and phone number were written on the back of the card. Id. ¶ 6. The
process server told Mr. Smith that Attorney Steele was an important lawyer from Washington, D.C.
who had no interest in the case, but that Mr. Steele would be able to help Mr. Smith get the situation
resolved. Id. ¶ 7. On that same day, August 20, 2012, Attorneys Steele, Hoerner, Duffy and
Hansmeier appeared in this Court on behalf of Plaintiff for a hearing on Plaintiff’s motion for
expedited discovery. Doc. 29 (hearing transcript).”
http://ia700705.us.archive.org/3/items/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824/gov.uscourts.ilsd.58824.docket.html
“Plaintiff recklessly, vexatiously, and unreasonably placed Smith in the path of its scattershot approach to snapshot litigation.” Pretty much true for most everyone that Prenda has sued. At least in my opinion.
I could wait till the limitations statute is reached for me in the lightspeed case, but what the hell…..Steve…Blow me! You brought unto me (an innocent person) a bunch of stress. I am free of that now, but may your soul be tormented all the remaining days of your miserable existence.
[...] its marks, but it is important not to overlook how it has also used the CFAA to similar ends. It has already filed multiple lawsuits, and a recent defense filing in one of the copyright cases includes an affidavit from defense [...]
Is there a chance that more people will be sued or is this case really over?
Hello,
I am also wondering if this case is over or not. I have been under a lot of stress due to this lawsuit and I would be very happy if it was over. Could someone please let me me know? Thanks
First I am not a lawyer. Second, the case was dismissed WITHOUT prejudice. While I doubt they will proceed further in this matter, they actually can proceed up until the statute of limitations runs out. We’re probably safe, but best to keep all records etc., until that time has passed (two years I think). I suppose it depends on how vengeful John Steele and Steve Lightspeed want to be.
Thanks. I hope you are right.