Cryptome.org closed down after publishing secret Microsoft document

Feb 25, 2010 14:56 GMT  ·  By
Cryptome.org closed down by Network Solutions after Microsoft DMCA takedown notifications
   Cryptome.org closed down by Network Solutions after Microsoft DMCA takedown notifications

Popular whistleblower website Cryptome.org was forcefully shut down after Microsoft served its hosting provider Network Solution with DMCA takedown notification. The software giant's lawyers took aim at the website after it published the company's "Global Criminal Compliance Handbook."

The "Global Criminal Compliance Handbook" (PDF) is a 22-page guide given by the company to law enforcement agencies across the globe, which describes the procedures to obtain information from Microsoft's online services like Hotmail, Live Messenger, Live Spaces or MSN Groups. It lists what kind of account details are being kept for each service and for how long.

According to Geekosystem, the software giant considers the handbook a copyrighted work and invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in order to force the hand of long-time civil liberties activist John Young, who co-founded Cryptome in 1996. However, since he refused to comply, it took the issue up with the site's ISP, Network Solutions.

"Most repugnant in the MS guide was its improper use of copyright to conceal from its customer violations of trust toward its customers. Copyright law is not intended for confidentiality purposes, although firms try that to save legal fees. Copyright bluffs have become quite common, as the EFF initiative against such bluffs demonstrates," Young commented.

Initially, Network Solutions urged the activist to file a counter-notification and gave him a deadline of February 25. However, the Cryptome.org website was shut down yesterday and a "legal lock" was put on the domain to prevent it from being transferred to another provider.

In the meantime, the site's content was moved to cryptomeorg.siteprotect.net and Microsoft's "Global Criminal Compliance Handbook" is hosted on WikiLeaks, a different whistleblower website that uses mirror servers spread across the world, making it much more resilient to takedown attempts.

It is worth noting that, recently, Cryptome published similar guides for law enforcement agencies from Facebook, Skype and AOL, but Microsoft was the only one to demand the takedown of its document. Cryptome has changed hosting providers before due to legal matters, but always stuck with companies in the United States. Now, WikiLeaks is offering to host the entire website on its "multi-jurisdictional network-outside the US."