Plusnet sent me this emial your opinions for something I did not do?

jamie07971

We're sending you this email to make you aware of a recent incident which may have led to the disclosure of some of your personal information by a third party. This is a particularly complex issue and we recommend that you read this email and the online FAQ thoroughly.

Organisations that publish music, films, etc, are working harder than ever before to ensure that their copyright material is not shared via the Internet in such a way that it is not paid for. A number of these organisations are establishing which Internet connections are doing this. Then via legal firms, are requesting Internet service providers, like Plusnet, through court orders to give them the details of individual customer connections that are alleged to have shared material unlawfully.

Your right to privacy is very important to us and we recognize that when you choose to provide us with information about yourself, you expect that information to be protected.

Unfortunately this particular incident involved individuals gaining access to the private emails of a law firm which was outside of our direct control.

Last week, the law firm ACS:Law had their website taken down by something known as a targeted 'Denial of Service' attack. As a result of this incident, we understand that a backup file of ACS:Law’s servers was made publicly available on the Internet, which contained, amongst other things, a significant amount of ACS:Law’s private email. Included in this backup file were emails that Plusnet sent to ACS:Law containing the names and addresses of a number of our customers who had allegedly shared copyrighted material without permission using peer-to-peer applications on the Internet.

We were legally obliged to provide ACS:Law with this information through the application of a series of court orders brought by ACS:Law against Plusnet. ACS:Law use this information to write to individual ISP customers on behalf of copyright holders seeking recompense for the alleged breach of copyright.

Whilst we don’t condone copyright infringement, it’s important to note that these allegations are being made by the copyright holder and ACS:Law, not by Plusnet.

You may already have received a letter from ACS:Law and you will therefore be familiar with the court order. However, we also believe that some of the information leaked contained the details of customers whom ACS:Law had not yet written to.

Our records indicate that your personal details may have been contained in one or more of the leaked emails.

What should I do?

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If you have never been in contact with ACS:Law then the details that may have been leaked are:

- Your name.
- Your postal address.
- Your Internet 'IP address'.
- The name of the copyright works you are accused of downloading.
- The time of the alleged incident.

If on the other hand you have been in contact with ACS:Law, then it is possible that any information you shared with them may also have been made publicly available. If this includes your financial details then we strongly suggest that you contact your credit card company or bank immediately and advise them of the situation.

Plusnet takes the security of our customers' data very seriously indeed, and we are very concerned that information we were obliged to share in confidence with a third party has been made public on the Internet.

We have expressed our concerns to ACS:Law regarding this, and they have assured us that the incident will be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

You can find further information for customers who have been affected by this issue in the Factsheet we have published to our website - http://www.plus.net/support/acslaw.shtml

If you have any further questions about this email, please don't hesitate to get back in touch using the Help Assistant available on our website - http://www.plus.net/go.html/acslaw

penrhyn

There is some information on ACS Law here:-

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-news-announcements/39332-acs-law-some-sky-broadband-customers-heads-up.html

Plusnet_company_representative

Hi there,

You were sent the email as your details may have been contained in the leaked information.

This means that at some point in the last year your details have been passed to ACS:Law as a result of a court order.

There is more information in the FAQ we've written here: http://www.plus.net/support/acslaw.shtml

I hope that helps, if you'd like particular information about what was allegedly shared then raise a ticket to use here: http://www.plus.net/go.html/acslaw and we'll provide as much info as we can.

Regards
Mand Beckett
Digital Care Team
Plusnet

Sooler

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11425789
Thousands more exposed on ACS:Law file-sharing lists

The UK's Information Commissioner said ACS:Law could be fined up to half a million pounds for the breaches.

The firm is under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) over its role in sending letters to alleged pirates.

Sooler

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1735692/acs-law-threatening-letter-post

ACS:Law had been blanket bombing Internet users armed with little more than an IP address accusing them of illegally sharing files. In some of the emails that had been leaked through the 350MB backup file, ACS:Law's master of ceremonies Andrew Crossley had all but admitted that he was simply scaring people into giving him cash.

concernedPNcustomer

Plusnet_company_representative wrote: »

Hi there,

You were sent the email as your details may have been contained in the leaked information.

This means that at some point in the last year your details have been passed to ACS:Law as a result of a court order.

There is more information in the FAQ we've written here:

I hope that helps, if you'd like particular information about what was allegedly shared then raise a ticket to use here: nd we'll provide as much info as we can.

Regards
Mand Beckett
Digital Care Team
Plusnet

Perhaps Plus Net would care to comment on a couple of matters that relate directly to this and could be of value to MSE members finding themselves in this situation.

Why did Plus Net, via BT, apparently send the information subject of the Court Order as an unencrypted email attachment?

Why did Plus Net apparently allow the Court Order to go unchallenged when lodged by a law firm with actions by their own regulatory body outstanding? Surely it is the responsibility of the company to at least test the claim in court and not simply comply?


A concerned Plus Net customer.

Sooler

Sky sent their data encrypted - yet ACS:Law exposed it unencrypted.

may be Plusnet did the same.

concernedPNcustomer

Sooler wrote: »

Sky sent their data encrypted - yet ACS:Law exposed it unencrypted.

may be Plusnet did the same.

Maybe they did................ it would be good to know!

Sooler

Sooler wrote: »

Sky sent their data encrypted - yet ACS:Law exposed it unencrypted.

may be Plusnet did the same.

... some reports say Plusnet (BT) did not encrypt the data.

spud17

Thanks for the heads up.

Just sent a link to these couple of threads to a friend who is a Plusnet customer, and won't know what's happening if she gets an email.

BTW, my spell checker suggests coleslaw instead of acslaw. :rotfl:

Sooler

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11434809

BT has admitted it sent the personal details of more than 500 customers as an unsecured document to legal firm ACS:Law, following a court order.
The news could potentially put BT in breach of the Data Protection Act, which requires firms to keep customers data secure at all times.