Cryptome Forced Down Over Microsoft Law Enforcement Surveillance Compliance Document
February 25th, 2010Update: Microsoft Withdraws DMCA Complaint Against Cryptome
Via: cryptome.org:
Subject: DN: www.cryptome.org; Registrar: Network Solutions; Host: Network Solutions – Demand for Immediate Take Down – Notice of Infringing Activity – MS Ref. 304277
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:22:59 -0500
From: “DMCA”
To: “John Young”
We would like to notify you that Microsoft has contacted us regarding www.cryptome.org. Microsoft has withdrawn their DMCA complaint. As a result www.cryptome.org has been reactivated and this matter has been closed. Please allow time for the reactivation to propagate throughout the various servers around the world.
Linda L. Larsen, Designated Agent
Network Solutions, LLC
Telephone: 703.668.5615
Facsimile: 703.668.5959
Email: dmca[at]networksolutions.com
_________
Subject: DN: www.cryptome.org; Registrar: Network Solutions; Host: Network Solutions – Demand for Immediate Take Down – Notice of Infringing Activity – MS Ref. 304277
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:09 -0500
To: “DMCA”
From: “John Young”
Dear Ms. Larsen,
You may know we are publishing our email exchanges to help readers understand the process. Could you describe means by which Microsoft withdrew their DMCA complaint?
Regards,
John Young
__________
Subject: RE: DN: www.cryptome.org; Registrar: Network Solutions; Host: Network Solutions – Demand for Immediate Take Down – Notice of Infringing Activity – MS Ref. 304277
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:24:52 -0500
From: “DMCA”
To: “John Young”
We received an email from Microsoft’s counsel withdrawing the complaint. Accordingly, we restored access and notified you of our action.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call me.
Linda L. Larsen, Designated Agent
Network Solutions, LLC
Telephone: 703.668.5615
Facsimile: 703.668.5959
Email: dmca[at]networksolutions.com
__________
Subject: RE: DN: www.cryptome.org; Registrar: Network Solutions; Host: Network Solutions – Demand for Immediate Take Down – Notice of Infringing Activity – MS Ref. 304277
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:42 -0500
To: “DMCA”
From: “John Young”
Could we get a copy of the Microsoft email? For the public record.
Thanks, John
__________
Subject: DN: www.cryptome.org; Registrar: Network Solutions; Host: Network Solutions – Demand for Immediate Take Down – Notice of Infringing Activity – MS Ref. 304277
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:09:47 -0500
From: “DMCA”
To: “John Young”
Mr. Young,
Pursuant to your request, attached please find the email correspondence containing Microsoft’s withdrawal of its “takedown request”.
Respectfully,
Linda L. Larsen, Designated Agent
Network Solutions, LLC
Telephone: 703.668.5615
Facsimile: 703.668.5959
Email: dmca[at]networksolutions.com
__________
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Subject: Re: Ticket Number 1-452132847
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:46:56 -0500
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From: “Cox, Evan”
To: “DMCA”
Cc: “internet4[at]microsoft-antipiracy.com”
Dear Ms. Larsen:
I am outside counsel to Microsoft Corporation. I am writing to confirm my telephone message left with your nighttime operator at 7:45 PST this evening to withdraw Microsoft’s takedown request with respect to the file available at http://cryptome.org/isp-spy/microsoft-spy.zip which is the subject of the correspondence below.
While Microsoft has a good faith belief that the distribution of the file that was made available at that address infringes Microsoft’s copyrights, it was not Microsoft’s intention that the takedown request result in the disablement of web acess to the entire cryptome.org website on which the file was made available.
Accordingly, on behalf of Microsoft, I am hereby withdrawing the takedown request and asking that Network Solutions restore internet access to http: cryptome.org as soon as possible.
I can be reached at 415-640-5145 if you wish to discuss this request.
Sincerely,
Evan Cox
Counsel to Microsoft Corporation
—End Update—
Update: Cryptome Operating as Subdomain on siteprotect.net
That didn’t take long. HAHA.
—End Update—
The Wired page includes the document.
Via: Wired:
Microsoft has managed to do what a roomful of secretive, three-letter government agencies have wanted to do for years: get the whistleblowing, government-document sharing site Cryptome shut down.
Microsoft dropped a DMCA notice alleging copyright infringement on Cryptome’s proprietor John Young on Tuesday after he posted a Microsoft surveillance compliance document that the company gives to law enforcement agents seeking information on Microsoft users. Young filed a counterclaim on Wednesday — arguing he had a fair use to publishing the document, a full day before the Thursday deadline set by his hosting provider, Network Solutions.
Regardless, Cryptome was shut down by Network Solutions and its domain name locked on Wednesday — shuttering a site that thumbed its nose at the government since 1996 — posting thousands of documents that the feds would prefer never saw the light of day.
Microsoft did not return a call for comment by press time.
The 22-page document (.pdf) contains no trade secrets, but will tell Microsoft users things they didn’t know. (You can read it directly on your own computer from the above link, or read it inline below.)
For instance, Xbox Live records every IP address you ever use to login and stores them for perpetuity. While that’s going to be creepy for some, there’s an upside if your house gets robbed, according to the document: “If your investigation involves a stolen Xbox console, if the console serial number or Xbox LIVE user gamertag is provided and the console has been connected to the Internet, IP connection records may be available.”
The Microsoft® Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook (.pdf) also goes so far as to provide sample language for subpoenas and diagrams on how to understand server logs.
Other things you might not know and which Microsoft (sometimes oddly) doesn’t want you to know?
Microsoft retains only the last 10 login records for Windows Live ID. As for your instant messages, it tells police that it keeps no record of what anyone says over Microsoft Messenger – though it will turn over who is on your buddy list.
And if you like to use Microsoft’s social networking products — like its old-school Group mailing list or its Facebook-like Spaces product, be aware that it’s very social when it comes to law enforcement or court subpoenas.
As Microsoft tells potential subpoenaees, “when you are looking for information on a specific incident like a photo posting or message posting, please request all group content and logs. We cannot retrieve single incident data.” The same holds for Spaces — if you are interested in a single picture, just request the entire thing. Call it Subpoena 2.0.
The compliance handbook is just the latest in a series of leaks of similar documents from other companies. Yahoo, like Microsoft, reacted as if its secret sauce had somehow been spilled by letting curious users know the hows and whys of how the companies deal with lawful surveillance requests. Google, for all its crusading for internet freedom, refuses to say how often law enforcement comes searching for user data.
The one company who has had a stand-up policy for years is the Cox Communications’ ISP, which has had this information and their price list public for years.
But hypocrisy is the name of the game for giant internet companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google that want us to entrust large portions of our lives to Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Buzz, Xbox, Hotmail, Messenger, Google Groups. When it comes to the most basic information about how, why and how often our data is subpoenaed and collected without our knowledge, these online innovators resort to lawyers, abusive legal process and double-talk.
who owns Network Solutions? the NSA? (i’m only half joking)
A Sad Effing Day 🙁
The corporate master WILL bring this internet thing under control. They hate it for its freedoms. And ultimately, access providers are companies themselves, so no matter what manipulations you go through, the system is already owned.
I’ve given support to EFF and Wikileaks over time, but I don’t hold any hope that they’ll actually persevere. Still, you fight the good fight…
On a different note, anyone have an opinion on Tor?
@ lagavulin: Re Tor, see: https://cryptogon.com/?p=624
There’s a bit on the end of Kevin’s article about Tor.
I always appreciated John’s work but had little context to admire him personally outside of that (not coincidentally, I am sure), until I read a page on cryptome that was singularly peculiar for his site,
http://cryptome.org/0001/cybermilitantism.htm
Summarizing the context is a little difficult for me save to say something along the lines of that I believe he was using an email exchange to clarify his position or rectify any dunderheaded notions about cryptome.
What it was that I appreciated most immediately and at the very least was that while he did not suffer fools gladly, he did seem to suffer them beyond what he’d care to or was convenient. There was a hard fairness in the exchange given by him beyond the merit of the inquiry.
Cool enough, but as I say, it seemed to me he used the exchange to greater purpose, a statement of intent. Perhaps a restatement, I don’t know; I never burrowed deep enough there into any archives that may have held similar statement.
What I admire is not the possibly curmudgeonly aspect of the following words but their content on his purposes:
‘Dear Cdn Intel,
Cryptome aspires to be a library not a social media mosh pit, or worse, a blog. Most of its readers use its archive not the daily postings.
It hosts documents for study and informed action to offset ineffective opinionating. Most of its documents are not controversial, attention-mongering leaks, breaking news, ideology peddling, product spin, fund-raising, and to the extent possible, not intended as reputation flogging for readers and the site operator — the most pervasive addiction of the Internet.
The last is hard to avoid with the incessant Internet prowling for somebody to tout or smear or argue with instead of the hard work of research, learning and keeping your mouth shut and mind open.
As with others who have inquired about Cryptome, Ms. Camilien is encouraged to use it as a resource, and hopefully in return to provide material for publication, not pointlessly suck-up to, bait and grotesque its operator — the favorite pasttime of lazy dimwits eyeing themselves performing to a mirror.
This is not to say lazy dimwits do not have a right to their lifestyle — those who have nothing better to do are lucky to have found a hole to hide in along with fellow secret keepers besotted with mirror imaging.
Mosh on elsewhere, best, send hard to get documents.
Regards,
John Young’