Legality of Password sites
 

Ok, lets start by stating that I have no use for password sites. I won't trade or do any business with with them and I think they are wrong.

That being said, I keep hearing people say they are breaking the law. This is confusing to me. Considering the span of the internet through different countries and legal structures, exactly what law are they breaking? What is considered theft in one country isn't in another. If a password site is located in a country where what they are doing isn't illegial in that country then they are well within the law of where they reside? Are they not?

Comments........

In which countries is password hacking & theft of intellectual property legal? Password sites thrive because the applicable laws aren't being enforced, not because they don't exist.

i believe brad shaw got some sort of judgement against one of the password sites. ultrapasswords (i think).

like every second and thrid world country has intellectual property rights...... right.......... fool

what do you mean 'if a password site is located in another country'? Are you talking about the site itself, the server which hosts the pages?

The law in most of these matters cares where the person resides not where the server is. So running password sites, UCE spam, kp, on foreign servers does nothing to protect you. If it's against the law where you physically reside is what matters.

as far as password sites legality, pretty low risk. when was the last time you saw one sued or shut down?

I believe that guy resided in canada where intellicutial property rights exist.

my question is, what would happen to one of these guys if they resided in a second or third world country that doesn't have a legal system set up to protect intellicutial property rights. I suppose one could always hire the local mafia to go pay him a visit, but baring that, ????????????????????????????

People living in third world countries are concerned with obtaining clean water, not adult site passwords.

Second world countries, you may have a point, but you'll find most of them are participants in various international treaties where anti intellectual property & hacking agreements come into play. Many eastern European countries would probably fall into that category.

So I'll ask you again to be specific, which password sites are operating from countries without any anti intellectual property theft or hacking laws?

servers can be shut down and re-located. I would think the residence of the owner or person ultimatly responsibe for the site would be the concern here.

I really don't know the password site game or many of them at all. Just posing a question is all.

the correct statement would be MOST people living in 3rd world countries are concerned with clean water, not adult site passwords.

There are thousands of very wealthy people in third world countries. There are also many thousands of middle class people in 3rd world countries. There ARE MILLIONS of poor people though.

Ok. So I would say that while its possible in theory to run a password site from a country where its legal to do so, in practice these sites are being run by people in countries where there are such laws, but for one reason or another those laws aren't being enforced.

No matter what country you live in or the laws it has, the internet is still the wild west of the 21st century. In order to draw law enforcement attention in cyberspace you have to be doing something particularly heinous, like kiddie porn, cracking banks, major CC fraud etc. The only other way you're gonna get caught is if someone takes civil action, as in the Shaw/Ultrapasswords thing, and not many people are willing to take the time & trouble to do that.

So password sites exist mostly because of a combination of two conditions. A: Law enforcement agencies have thier hands full dealing with more serious criminals, and B: Adult companies aren't willing to hunt down & close these sites one by one, because more will inevitably pop up. I guess the bottom line is that its far easier to deal with these people using anti-hacker scripts than by shutting 'em down.

I think its something we're just going to have to live with for a while, probably a long while.

Reminds me of the issue we face with piracy. We have our software stolen, posted, and given away every day, and there's nothing at all we can do about it. I see Strip Kittens on warez sites all the time, but a letter from our legal team will only result in pissing off the kiddies and bringing even more attention. We don't even have the luxury of locking out stolen passwords. Once the software is cracked and out there, it's a lost cause.

It's all part of doing business. Like shoplifting is to brick and mortars and warez is to software, password trading is to the pay sites. Figure it into your bottom line and forget it, because it's not going away.

Jak

Ummm guys heres why it works and why they don't get closed down.

"but for one reason or another those laws aren't being enforced. "

Look password sites aren't what they used to be, I remember my friend doing his first password site posting 180 all working passwords in 1997. Now days password sites are mostly full of scams or sites run by the password sites themselfs using there own bandwidth. Only a small percentage are really passwords these days. And most die very quickly within 30 mins so the damage is minimilized

The reason password sites aren't getting closed down now is because the hosts will always accept a few complaints, I mean my mates with pass sites get 1 complaint every 3 months to his Hosting company, who then forward the complaint onto him and he emails the webmasters saying

"Your site has been removed and put into the banned list, it will never be posted again by our automated cgi program, please send me any further URL's you'd like banned so none of your sites will ever be posted on our site again"

The Hosts are very happy with this arrangement and so are the sponsors and paysite owners, if your having passwords posted to your sites by certain pass sites, just email the site owner askign to be put into his banned list. Don't go threaten them or be abusive, some of the 15 year old owners might tell you to GFY.

Most site owners will ban you by putting your URL's into there cgi programs. No more problems.

Why on earth would you sue someone when they email you that?? I mean try to close down a password site and you might do it if you contact the backbone directly and try really really hard but within 1 day that site will be back online and your URL's will be banned by the password site.

Password sites are not that bad and infact my pass site mates are working towards never posting real passwords at all just posting there own sites.

There are of course the bad password sites who go and post
10-20 passes to blacksonblondes and other major sites. They have HUGE cracked lists and just put heaps of new cracks that kill legit members usernames and the pass only works for 5-10 mins.

http://hackxxxpasses.com/index.html is one of those.

I don't support those they are bad for the industry as often they kill the password and the customer charges backs. Losing a monthly recurring sale.

I read something about the FTC being asked about password sites or something back in 1998, they said it wasn't there domain as it was a (business to business) problem. No idea if that was a reputable source or not. One of my mates was interviewed by MNBC for one of there news articles, its still floating around somewhere.

Sammy

Oh and I would FUCKING LOVE to be there when you walk into the Police office and tell the Police Officier:

"Officer my Adult porno paysite which I run on the internet has this other PORNO website linking to mine that on occasian posts some of my members passwords to my porno site and lets people into view all my 100,000's of Hardcore anal fucking, fisting & peeing photos. And I just don't think its fair officer, can you please arrest him for hacking and throw him in jail for 2 years??

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Sammy

What about the password forums?

They have the best working passes and the passes are not posted by website owners.

Is your mate chris adler from passwordcorp?