Online piracy users details leaked in UK.
Page last updated at 20:51 GMT+03:00, Monday, 27 September 2010
Adult video-sharing list leaked
The attacks were in retaliation for action against file-sharing site the Pirate Bay
The personal details of thousands of Sky broadband customers have been leaked on to the internet, alongside a list of pornographic movies they are alleged to have shared online.
The list, seen by BBC News, details the full names and addresses of over 5,300 people thought by law firm ACS:Law to be illegally sharing adult films.
It appeared online following an attack on the ACS:Law website.
The UK's Information Commissioner said it would investigate the leak.
Privacy expert Simon Davis has called it "one of the worst breaches" of the Data Protection Act he had ever seen.
Data breach
The documents appeared online after users of the message-board 4chan attacked ACS:Law's site in retaliation for its anti-piracy efforts.
The firm has made a business out of sending thousands of letters to alleged net pirates, asking them to pay compensation of about £500 per infringement or face court.
It uses third-party firms to scour the net looking for possible infringements of music and film copyright.
Armed with IP (internet protocol) addresses - which can identify the internet connection used in any copyright infringement - its lawyers can then apply for a court order to get the physical address of the PC from the service provider whose network has allegedly been used for the file-sharing.
A BBC investigation in August found a number of people saying they were wrongly accused by ACS:Law of illegal file-sharing. UK consumer group Which? says it has also received a number of complaints. Many contest that IP addresses can be spoofed.
ACS:Law is under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority over its role in sending letters to alleged pirates.
The leak contains around 1,000 confidential e-mails, along with the list, which was an attachment on one of the messages.
The collection was then uploaded to file sharing website, The Pirate Baywhere it is being shared by hundreds of users.
The confidential e-mails include personal correspondence between Andrew Crossley - who runs ACS:Law - and work colleagues, as well as lists of potential file-sharers and information on how much the firm has made through its anti-file-sharing activities.
While some of the e-mails, detailing the internal workings of the company, may prove embarrassing, the leaking of an unencrypted document - that lists the personal details of more than 5,300 BSkyB Broadband subscribers alongside a list of adult videos they may have downloaded and shared online - could be a breach of the Data Protection Act.
