[kictanet] Guy Reveals Airtel Secretly Inserting JavaScript, Gets Threatened With Jail For Criminal Copyright Infringement

[cdohnio]

This happened in India and there's no proof it's happening here but it's
not hard to imagine something like this happening here.
So the real question is, if one of our networks pulled this stunt what
recourse do we have as consumers?

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*Guy Reveals Airtel Secretly Inserting JavaScript, Gets Threatened With
Jail For Criminal Copyright Infringement*
<http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~3/t3kjsgayJX8/story01.htm>
// *Techdirt*
<http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~3/t3kjsgayJX8/story01.htm>

Last week, an Indian blogger, Thejesh GN, discovered that mobile operator
Airtel was injecting javascript into subscribers' browsing sessions, which
is both incredibly sketchy and a huge security concern (not to mention
raising net neutrality issues on the side). He posted the proof to GitHub
and tweeted about it <https://twitter.com/thej/status/606126370364649472>:
He posted the evidence showing that javascript was being quietly inserted,
and that it apparently tried to insert some sort of toolbar
<http://www.storypick.com/airtel-sends-legal-notice-indian-coder/>:

That's all super sketchy. But that's just the very beginning of this story.
Because days later, Thejesh received the most ridiculous legal threat letter
<https://archive.org/stream/LEGALNOTICETOTHEJESHGNCEASEANDDESISTINFRINGEMENT/LEGAL%20NOTICE%20TO%20THEJESH%20GN-%20CEASE%20AND%20DESIST%20-%20INFRINGEMENT#page/n3/mode/2up>,
coming from a lawyer named Ameet Mehta from the law firm Solicis Lex. It
claims to be representing an Israeli company, Flash Network, which is
apparently responsible for the code injection software... and it claims
that by merely *revealing to the public* that Airtel was doing these
injections, he had *engaged in **criminal** copyright infringement* under
the Information Technology Act, 2000. If that sounds familiar, that's
because we wrote about
<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140824/06590028306/indian-state-passes-law-that-will-let-police-arrest-your-merely-planning-to-share-copyrighted-content.shtml>
that ridiculous law last year, noting that it would technically allow
people to be put in jail for merely thinking about infringing someone's
copyright.

And the Solicis Lex lawyers, to show they're not messing around, *cc'd the
police* on the letter they sent: The crux of the "copyright" claim seems
fairly ridiculous:

*The said code is closed source software and our client is sole proprietor
of the same. Therefore, no one can use the said code without obtaining
license from our client against payment of fees and/or royalties and on
commercial and legal terms acceptable to our client. Your aforementioned
actions constitute a blatant violation of our client's copyrights and other
proprietary rights in the said code. *


Remember: all Thejesh GN did was *show the code that Airtel inserted into *
*his** browser*. If Flash Network thinks that showing the code that it
dumps into each of your browsing sessions is criminal copyright
infringement, just about anyone who does a "view source" could be guilty.
That's a plainly ridiculous reading of the law.

On top of that, the lawyers sent a DMCA notice to GitHub, which caved in
and *took it down*: This is despite GitHub's recent promise
<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141016/17030128852/github-promises-to-alert-users-to-dmca-notices-before-taking-content-down.shtml>
not to take things down without first alerting the users in question.

Absolutely everything about this is *insane* and bad. The initial
injections by Airtel/Flash are bad and dangerous. Both companies should be
called out for such javascript injections. But, Flash's response to not
only threaten *a completely bogus* copyright takedown/cease and desist
claim, but also to allege *criminal violations* that could lead to jail
time just adds an insane layer on top of all that. Even arguing that merely
posting screenshots of the injected code is civil copyright infringement is
crazy. And then issuing a DMCA takedown to GitHub (not to mention GitHub
agreeing to take the screenshots down...). All of it is ridiculous and a
clear abuse of copyright law to silence someone who revealed Airtel and
Flash Network were up to questionable activities.

For those who argue that copyright is never used for censorship: explain
this story.

Of course, it all seems to be backfiring in a big way. Flash may have
wanted to hide what they were up to, but now it's getting much, much, much
more attention. Maybe, next time, rather than threatening whistleblowers of
your bad practices with claims of criminal copyright infringement, Flash
and Airtel will think more about their own crappy business practices that
put users at risk.

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