The scum of the Earth is suing us! Oh no! Here's a copy of an email sent to info@railbirds.com from a major pw forum.
Posted on 12 Nov 2008 08:15 PM
As members of your forum have repeatedly engaged in a criminal 'denial of service' attack against *****, a formal criminal complaint has now been filed against you.
That's it - nothing more, not even a hello.
Clearly, we'll have to shut down within two months because of our outrageous behaviour and this awfully just and sensible lawsuit. If only we had made sure to comply with the law.
Actually, we do abide by the law wherever we have to. It's, in my view, the only humane and reasonable thing to do and I pity the humans who can but don't.
So I thought to myself, "
This gentleman clearly has been misinformed! But fear not, for I have the necessary knowledge to help him." And then, in a slightly less triumphant moment a few minutes later, I also thought it would be funny reading for all of you guys, so here's my answer below. Take care, Railbirds, and don't ever let anybody bring us down!
Posted on 13 Nov 2008 12:42 PM
Hi [removed name],
That's very nice. You don't seem to understand how this works though - let me explain.
First off, no site can ever be responsible for criminal behaviour, save for when it's done by an employee on a company's order or for that company's gain. We only employ a minimum of people, and none of those have committed DoS attack crimes against anybody as far as I'm aware. Instead, you want to sue those who have actually committed the crime. If I bomb an embassy in the name of the American Cancer Society, I'm sure you wouldn't be stupid enough to sue the ACS.
Second, I must point out that neither I nor any other official on Railbirds have ever encouraged this type of action. We try to remove or censor all posts instructing people on how to commit crimes, and we're nice enough to include competitors and even password thieves in this.
Third, we're not technically American. The next time you're suing somebody, I'd advice you to first look up if you're even eligible to sue them.
Fourth, if you know the ip of the offender, you should give that to the police immediately. They might be able to find the attacker through it. Knowing a fair bit of computer security myself, however, I can assure you that this is clearly a sign of a moronic attacker. If you really are dealing with a moron, congratulations. You'll have him or her arrested in no time. But if you are not, it's more likely that you have been affected by a distributed DoS attack, and ip tracing is not going to help you. I hope for your sake that this is not the case here. Being a target of DDoS attacks sucks.
That said, your lawsuit is obviously targeted against the wrong person or people, and I hope you'll retract it, learn a bit more about DoS attacks, and hire a better lawyer, one who knows the difference between the USA and other countries.
Have a nice day.
Regards,
Joe
Operations manager
Railbirds.com
Edit: I should also point out that I don't think he even understands the concept.
A denial of service attack basically means blocking somebody's internet access unlawfully. if it's distributed, it's done by placing trojans and/or viruses on other people's computers so it can't be traced back to the original attacker.
I think he's confused this with us banning his members from railbirds, which is clearly not illegal, neither in the USA nor in any other country whatsoever.
Oh well. 
© Copyright 2009
132 comments
I have asked, very nicely I might add, that their members not be allowed to share our passwords, but they have chosen to ignore the request.
a formal criminal complaint has now been filed against you.........for Denial of service.....lol....This has to be the lamest excuse for a lawsuit that I have ever heard !....Poor fellow can't get a password to a PRIVATE, free poker tournament !
I guess it is just to much to ask, for someone to join our community, be a little active, and act like an adult ! ...What the hell are we thinking, imposing such stiff requirements to play !
......Tc.....
im in australia and cant play for money on reefer poker, PDC poker, carbon poker - and probably many more sites. now that's denial of service on a grand scale!!!
That's logicial, isn't it?????
So, if I shot him for trying to steal my car, I guess I'd be denying him a joy ride...
I'm afraid that I too might have to sue the site. I think someone on here stole my lunch money.
WHAAAAA!!!
(hehehe)
Thanks for sharing the funny.
TWEET!
This has to be the most funny thing I have ever read.
We sent our thieves to your house and the doors were locked? 
So now we are going to call in a lock smith lmbo
, good luck with that. I guess it's true you can't fix stupid. 
Good going Joe, these people are just tossing emails , to begain with a good lawyer would not even want them to contact you. ( not that they have a reason) but thanks for a smile good way to start a day .