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@ 2012/06/25A New York based brand protection and anti-counterfeiting law firm the Gioconda Law Group has sued Arthur Wesley Kenzie, who is nothing to do with the Duke of Wellington and accused him of cybersquatting, trademark infringement and hacking.
The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction and over $1 million in damages.
According to the JD Journal, Kenzey claims to be a member of Cyber Warfare and Russian Cybercrime Hacking and Information Warfare groups, but what appears to have got Gioconda's goat is that he had registered an internet domain name GiocondoLaw.com as a misspelling of GiacondaLaw.com.
Kenzie created fake e-mail accounts to intentionally intercept private e-mails addressed to the firm's lawyers and staff.
In the court documents, Giaconda said that it sent several test e-mail messages to see if they were delivered to the misspelled emal addresses, and indeed, they were received by active mailboxes.
Kenzie was rumbled when a complaint to the Internet Registrar exposed him. He has also been harvesting misspelled e-mails intended for many major corporations without their knowledge or permission including MasterCard, McDonalds, NewsCorp and McAfee.
It is not the first time that Kenzie has had a brush with the long arm of the law. He has been found guilty of cybersquatting before.
His defence in that case, which involved Lockheed Martin, was that he was performing "research" about Lockheed's emal vulnerabilities.
The panel that handles domain name disputes found that Kenzie's attempts were motivated by bad faith to extort cash. The panel decided that Kenzie himself had created the vulnerabilities that he was researching and that "his purpose was to offer services to the Complainant."
The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction and over $1 million in damages.
According to the JD Journal, Kenzey claims to be a member of Cyber Warfare and Russian Cybercrime Hacking and Information Warfare groups, but what appears to have got Gioconda's goat is that he had registered an internet domain name GiocondoLaw.com as a misspelling of GiacondaLaw.com.
Kenzie created fake e-mail accounts to intentionally intercept private e-mails addressed to the firm's lawyers and staff.
In the court documents, Giaconda said that it sent several test e-mail messages to see if they were delivered to the misspelled emal addresses, and indeed, they were received by active mailboxes.
Kenzie was rumbled when a complaint to the Internet Registrar exposed him. He has also been harvesting misspelled e-mails intended for many major corporations without their knowledge or permission including MasterCard, McDonalds, NewsCorp and McAfee.
It is not the first time that Kenzie has had a brush with the long arm of the law. He has been found guilty of cybersquatting before.
His defence in that case, which involved Lockheed Martin, was that he was performing "research" about Lockheed's emal vulnerabilities.
The panel that handles domain name disputes found that Kenzie's attempts were motivated by bad faith to extort cash. The panel decided that Kenzie himself had created the vulnerabilities that he was researching and that "his purpose was to offer services to the Complainant."
