In the latest string of "vigilante" attacks conducted on both sides of the war between copyright enforcement bodies and those so-called pirates they aim to prosecute comes this latest attack against a firm hired by the French government"s anti-piracy wing to conduct monitoring on individuals suspected of net piracy.
The BBC reported on the breach of Trident Media Guard (TMG)"s data servers, exposing a range of information including internal documents of how to avoid detection by them. Some of the leaked information, according to TorrentFreak, were scripts, P2P clients which created fake peers, and even a stored password - all that originated from a virtual machine. The firm"s links with the French government have been suspended for the time being, according to Eric Walter, the head of the French government"s anti-piracy unit.
The breach does not appear to be as widespread as the attack which hit the British anti-piracy outfit ACS Law last October. The law firm saw embarrassing internal communications, including its email database, plus thousands of names and addresses of suspected pirates. A few of those users went ahead and filed a lawsuit against ACS:Law. The firm"s operations are now suspended when they were hit with a £100,000 fine from the UK Information Commissioner. The fine was then reduced to £1100 in fining Andrew Crossley as an individual when ACS:Law ceased operations.