Who’s behind Macserialjunkie?
Thankfully for Mac developers everywhere, Macserialjunkie (aka MSJ) has been down for quite a few days now.
Interestingly, though, I notice that it’s now being hosted directly in IP space belonging to Infinite Technologies. For those who don’t know, Infinite Technologies are colluding with the people running MSJ. How do I know this? Well, because we complained about MSJ to the ISP that they were using, who told us that it was being hosted by one of their clients and passed on our complaint.
In response, I got an e-mail from Ganesh Rao, who styles himself “Head of Network Operations/Network Architect”, asking how I was related to the MSJ website and “its activities”.
Seems friendly enough, right? Well I explained what MSJ was and what it did and that I didn’t think that any ISP that claimed to be supportive of copyright should be hosting such a website. Ganesh replied, indicating that he’d contacted the webmaster and that “nothing of what you claim that site hosts is true”.
I found that quite offensive—basically Ganesh Rao was calling me a liar—and I said so. Eventually the conversation ended with an e-mail saying that I was “too confident” and that I wasn’t the first person or indeed the only person chasing MSJ.
Ganesh also claimed to have “connections with multiple Swedish ISPs” and said that in the event of any legal action or complaints to upstream ISPs he would not find it hard to transfer the data over to one of them and “shred” the current ISP.
He ended by saying that “no action will be taken on the site”.
Notice that the tone has changed completely. Originally Mr. Rao was trying to make it seem as if he had no relationship with Macserialjunkie. But in this final e-mail the relationship is obvious. He talks about how “we” have connections with multiple Swedish ISPs, and how any “discomfort” will simply cause him to relocate the site elsewhere.
Anyway, after forwarding this to the upstream ISP, it seems that action was eventually taken to kick MSJ off the servers they were using. It has, of course, resurfaced, but this time at 94.100.27.140, which (surprise surprise) is registered to none other than Infinite Technologies and in particular Mr. Ganesh Rao:
OrgName: RIPE Network Coordination Centre OrgID: RIPE Address: P.O. Box 10096 City: Amsterdam StateProv: PostalCode: 1001EB Country: NL ReferralServer: whois://whois.ripe.net:43 NetRange: 94.0.0.0 - 94.255.255.255 CIDR: 94.0.0.0/8 NetName: 94-RIPE NetHandle: NET-94-0-0-0-1 Parent: NetType: Allocated to RIPE NCC NameServer: NS-PRI.RIPE.NET NameServer: SEC1.APNIC.NET NameServer: SEC3.APNIC.NET NameServer: TINNIE.ARIN.NET NameServer: NS.LACNIC.NET Comment: These addresses have been further assigned to users in Comment: the RIPE NCC region. Contact information can be found in Comment: the RIPE database at http://www.ripe.net/whois RegDate: 2007-07-30 Updated: 2007-08-07 # ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-11-23 19:10 # Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database. % This is the RIPE Whois query server #2. % The objects are in RPSL format. % % Rights restricted by copyright. % See http://www.ripe.net/db/copyright.html % Note: This output has been filtered. % To receive output for a database update, use the "-B" flag % Information related to '94.100.27.0 - 94.100.27.255' inetnum: 94.100.27.0 - 94.100.27.255 netname: INFINITE-TECH descr: INFINITE-TECH country: NL admin-c: ITGR-RIPE tech-c: ITGR-RIPE org: ORG-ITPL2-RIPE status: ASSIGNED PA mnt-by: ITECH-MNT mnt-lower: ITECH-MNT mnt-domains: ITECH-MNT mnt-routes: ITECH-MNT source: RIPE # Filtered organisation: ORG-ITPL2-RIPE org-name: Infinite Technologies org-type: OTHER address: Postbus 964 address: 5000 AZ, Tilburg address: The Netherlands remarks: +-------------------------- remarks: Abuse Complaints = Email Only remarks: Technical Support = Email & Phone remarks: +-------------------------- abuse-mailbox: abuse@infinitetech.in mnt-ref: ITECH-MNT mnt-by: ITECH-MNT source: RIPE # Filtered person: Ganesh Rao address: PO Box 964 address: Tilburg, 5000 AZ address: The Netherlands phone: +31-(0)13-2202617 fax-no: +1 (408) 856-2445 abuse-mailbox: abuse@infinitetech.in remarks: +-------------------------- remarks: Head of Operations remarks: Technical / Sales / Abuse Dept. remarks: +-------------------------- nic-hdl: ITGR-RIPE mnt-by: ITECH-MNT source: RIPE # Filtered % Information related to '94.100.16.0/20AS35017' route: 94.100.16.0/20 descr: PL-SWIFTWAY-20080709 origin: AS35017 mnt-by: swiftway-mnt source: RIPE # Filtered
Their new upstream ISP appears to be Swiftway, a Polish firm that for some reason uses a UK domain name for its site. It seems unlikely that hosting MSJ is something that is allowable under Swiftway’s Acceptable Use Policy, since it (MSJ) clearly is used “to distribute…material in violation of applicable law…in a manner that will infringe the copyright…of others”.
Update 2010-04-26: Due to legal threats from Ganesh Rao, I’ve edited this post to quote from the contents of his e-mails rather than, as we were originally doing, reproducing more substantial portions of them. It is ironic that Ganesh, who provides services for more than one copyright infringement website, has chosen to make legal threats against us based on his copyright.
Post a comment
A live preview of your comment will be displayed below. It should refresh automatically when you stop typing, but if not then the “Preview” button above will update it.