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Ruddy Marvelous!

New Kit Police Investigation

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Exactly the same thing happened a few years ago...The club were building up to announce the new away shirt and put an image up of a few players with the shirts blanked out - someone copied the file and in doing so only took the first layer of the photoshopped image (ie the players in the new kit).What happened? Someone at the club or Perform Group (PTV as was) got told to get their act together.Now a kid gets a phone call at 4am and the police banging on his door. If I were his Mum I''d be terrified/furious.Still, as someone else says it was the same with the beer guy and then there was the NotW fiasco. They said we were on the verge of going into administration (it was Notts County their info was about) and we successfully sued.18 months later McNally says we were "on the verge of administration 18 months ago..." - if the NotW hadn''t closed down they may have had some recourse to recoup the spoils. It''s awkward territory.I know a little of what''s gone on here and am pretty disgusted that the police even acted as quickly as they did - anyone else calling to say they''d been intellectually compromised would be told they''d get around to having a look at it in a few days!!No-one died; no-one lost any money; no-one who shouldn''t have gained any money but a seeming decent lad and his Mum have obviously been pretty scared by all this and that is wrong.I was told on Twitter last night that if this had affected me directly I''d think differently. That''s not the case - I''ve been in a very similar position with my site a few years ago and my response was to thank the person who pointed out the flaw and ensure it couldn''t happen again. And that time someone DID lose money - me! I also learned a valuable lesson about intellectual property and images on the web.All in all what a phenomenal over-reaction and now people everywhere are laughing at our club...

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I can see some value in both sides of the coin tbh.To give an alternative view of what''s happened (based on the limited info available), imagine you walk into a shop, the shop assistant walks away to get something but happens to leave the till open, at which point one of the customers swipes the cash and leaves.It''s clear that the assistants at fault for leaving the till open (here where the IT team haven''t protected the info correctly and allowed access), but it''s also clear that the customer who stole the money has committed a crime here as well.Just because the cash (info) was available to be taken, doesn''t make it right that it has been, and has since been used to buy things (pass the information onto others).Whilst in this situation it''s difficult to clarify the value of the data that was then distributed, it''s obvious that it wasn''t meant to be (if indeed a variable was clearly set to be hidden and has been ''unhidden'' by someone), and this is clearly what the club has pounced on.I think we''d potentially view the whole thing differently if instead of a new kit photo being taken, it was confidential info about a player etc.Yes the club has to accept responsibility for their poor security here, but that still doesn''t justify the actions taken by the young lad.I''m of the opinion that something along the lines of a caution from the police (and the club), is enough in this instance, and that steps be clearly taken to prevent this from being able to happen again. Action does need to be taken, but things like jail time, community services or lifetime club bans would be very harsh in reality.

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Well it looks like common sense and not Legal Recourse has prevailed!! Yipee!!!

Hope the club aren''t too hard on Mr. Brown.

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Can''t see that analogy, as taking money which isn''t yours is always a criminal offence, even if it''s left lying around. What has this boy stolen? Nothing. He was just excited to see the kit, that''s all.

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[quote user="paul moy"][quote user="norfolkbroadslim"][quote user="paul moy"]

[quote user="The Pinkun Role Model"][quote user="paul moy"]Hacking is a serious offence, however there are mitigating circumstances in that the website made itself easy to be hacked and was thus negligent IMO. I agree that the damage here is minimal but this kind of behaviour should be nipped in the bud early before more serious offences are committed if potential future offenders see there is no deterrent.[/quote]

He hasn''t hacked, he''s just viewed the files that were already there. If he hasn''t fraudulently cracked the security I can''t see if a proper crime has been committed.
[/quote]

Well, it depends on the full details of the alleged ''crime'' but as I understand it there was theft of data, which I believe can come under the ''hacking'' heading, depending on how it was achieved.   

[/quote]

 

How was their theft of data?[:^)]

[/quote]

The code etc that the chap took a copy of is data and may well have a copyright tag on it. Having worked in a software house I know this is common practice. Taking it and then using/modifying it for his own use is thus theft of copyrighted data.  

[/quote]

This is right but also you have to counter that with the fact it was in the public domain so the issue is copyright rather than hacking/unauthorized access.

***************************************************

On the site it has the following

All materials on this website © Norwich City Football Club & FLPTV Ltd.

Photographs courtesy of Empics, Action Images, Roger Harris and Aaron Murrell.

CEOP - Report Abuse

************************************************

If the information was not encrypted/on the private folders and or network then really its like any squad photo or icon on the website.

Therefore this is a civil matter as nicely put by the BBC.

"Copyright infringement is only a criminal offence if someone makes money from it or causes the copyright owner serious damage. If that is not the case, it would be up to the club to take action - not the police." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-17767236

Even posting those words there are a form of infringement but since i am not making any money from it and buzz/talk/referencing is good for the content generator .... normally no problem if the bbc dont like it they will ask the forum staff to remove it as they do with other images/links to games etc.

In my role (and as someone who gets a lot of photos used without permission) I would issue a take down request to the individual and hosting provider and get it down asap. The problem with this scenario is that the club feel that this is sensitive commercial information but then you have to measure the size of their alleged security cock up against the use of the image and amounts of money the other party have made/you have lost using the image......which is probably very low.

However this is a concern for the solicitors not the police and frankly its bad PR

a) nobody likes to see companies gang up on kids

b) nobody likes companies covering up their failings by throwing their weight about

c) football "clubs" are businesses masked as community institutions....don''t break this image in public

d) You might get real hackers and when they come to defend this lad your toast expect downtime.

Has this lad been named has he been threatened with police action? Was he named? has he suffered loss being branded a criminal does he feel harassed? Was he harassed by the club calling him?

All a can of worms the club does not need and I will be disgusted if they push it further.

Personally if they ban/sue this kid they will loose more money from him never going to games again than they would ever gain.

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[quote user="Indy_Bones"]I can see some value in both sides of the coin tbh.To give an alternative view of what''s happened (based on the limited info available), imagine you walk into a shop, the shop assistant walks away to get something but happens to leave the till open, at which point one of the customers swipes the cash and leaves.It''s clear that the assistants at fault for leaving the till open (here where the IT team haven''t protected the info correctly and allowed access), but it''s also clear that the customer who stole the money has committed a crime here as well.Just because the cash (info) was available to be taken, doesn''t make it right that it has been, and has since been used to buy things (pass the information onto others).Whilst in this situation it''s difficult to clarify the value of the data that was then distributed, it''s obvious that it wasn''t meant to be (if indeed a variable was clearly set to be hidden and has been ''unhidden'' by someone), and this is clearly what the club has pounced on.I think we''d potentially view the whole thing differently if instead of a new kit photo being taken, it was confidential info about a player etc.Yes the club has to accept responsibility for their poor security here, but that still doesn''t justify the actions taken by the young lad.I''m of the opinion that something along the lines of a caution from the police (and the club), is enough in this instance, and that steps be clearly taken to prevent this from being able to happen again. Action does need to be taken, but things like jail time, community services or lifetime club bans would be very harsh in reality.[/quote]

Its not quite the same as that as its a clear case of copy right rather than theft of cash which is a criminal offence. In your example someone removed another persons property from their legal physical location.

He did not seek to profit

It was a public area in the public folder of the site not encrypted

civil action

did you make any money x ...... no

did you loose money y ...... maybe

guys 17

apology

end of

"Action does need to be taken, but things like jail time, community services or lifetime club bans would be very harsh in reality."

And not likely as the UK is a civilized country where people don''t go to jail for sharing a publicly available image on social media at the whim of medium sized entertainment companies.

I am not solicitor but having sued a few people in my time I am pretty sure threatening a minor with baseless police action is a crime as is calling him a thief or criminal.

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[quote user="Canarino"]Can''t see that analogy, as taking money which isn''t yours is always a criminal offence, even if it''s left lying around. What has this boy stolen? Nothing. He was just excited to see the kit, that''s all.[/quote]

He has allegedly stolen data, as I have explained in an earlier post. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

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http://www.pinkun.com/home/update_police_confirm_norwich_city_kit_leak_case_to_be_resolved_through_face_to_face_meeting_1_1353333

Club and not police now going to resolve matter with a face to face meeting.

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[quote user="paul moy"]

[quote user="Canarino"]Can''t see that analogy, as taking money which isn''t yours is always a criminal offence, even if it''s left lying around. What has this boy stolen? Nothing. He was just excited to see the kit, that''s all.[/quote]

He has allegedly stolen data, as I have explained in an earlier post. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

[/quote]He''s stolen **** all. If you go down that route millions of people each day on the interweb steal data just by hyper-linking and copy n'' pasting images on forums.

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[quote user="Canarino"]Can''t see that analogy, as taking money which isn''t yours is always a criminal offence, even if it''s left lying around. What has this boy stolen? Nothing. He was just excited to see the kit, that''s all.[/quote]This sounds very similar to the argument people downloading torrents use, as in effect ''what have we actually stolen?'',What has the boy stolen? NCFC''s private information regarding the design of our new kit, which in releasing early has an impact on the official reveal in an official press conference. Is it a major crime - of course not, was it done out of excitement as against personal gain or malice - more than likely, but regardless of these factors he''s still done something he shouldn''t have by distributing the information as he did.Whilst my analogy may not be entirely accurate, I stand by my assessment that something untoward has occured, but that the punishment for this should be as minor as the infringement.No-one wants to see the club ''attacking'' kids, and I do think that a 4am phonecall was unnecessary and OTT, but what the club are also demonstrating here is that regardless of who you are, if you mess with private information or make unjustified comments - we will take action. Whether this is meant as a deterrent, or is simply over zealous application of the clubs rights I don''t know, but I do think that it does need tempering to a certain extent to avoid us looking too ''hard'' and preventing things from being blown out of all proportion which can potentially come back to bite us in the ass.

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[quote user="Indy_Bones"]I can see some value in both sides of the coin tbh.

..............I''m of the opinion that something along the lines of a caution from the police (and the club), is enough in this instance, and that steps be clearly taken to prevent this from being able to happen again. Action does need to be taken, but things like jail time, community services or lifetime club bans would be very harsh in reality.
[/quote]

I''ll bet the Old Bill could hardly keep a straight face when the club complained to them about this nonsense. As someone said on here no one died, no one lost anything and the Old Bill really have got better things to do.

 

As it now stands NCFC are a laughing stock. One action that needs to be taken is for Mr McNally to contact Chris Brown for a '' fatherly '' chat explaining that NCFC has to protect it''s interests but there''s no hard feelings the matter can now be put to rest.

 

Remembering the heavy handed farce that City Standers endured when being told that giving their free programmes to anyone else might result in a club ban I doubt Mr Brown will be hearing the ''phone ringing anytime soon........

 

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[quote user="LQ"]Now a kid gets a phone call at 4am and the police banging on his door. If I were his Mum I''d be terrified/furious.

All in all what a phenomenal over-reaction and now people everywhere are laughing at our club...

[/quote]

I can''t believe that our club has handled this so badly, why bother getting the police involved when all the lad has done is copy a picture which was left on the website by mistake which was obviously not protected.

Vent your anger at your web staff Mr Mcnally and accept the apology the lad and his mother has given you and move on.

 

 

 

 

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[quote user="Ruddygore"]http://www.pinkun.com/home/update_police_confirm_norwich_city_kit_leak_case_to_be_resolved_through_face_to_face_meeting_1_1353333

Club and not police now going to resolve matter with a face to face meeting.[/quote]

Translation

Not a matter for police at all as per the law of the land

Damage limitation

Since there have been alleged/implied legal threats police action I would make sure my son had a solicitor present since there is no point sending 17 year old''s in with company directors.

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[quote user="The Pink un Role Model"]He''s stolen **** all. If you go down that route millions of people each day on the interweb steal data just by hyper-linking and copy n'' pasting images on forums.[/quote]Not exactly.The information taken and redistributed was not meant to be public, obviously that''s a screw up by the clubs IT team, but we still reserve the right to take action against potential copyright infringement and distribution of data which hadn''t specifically been made available. If the images hadn''t been hidden in some way, we wouldn''t have a leg to stand on outside of asking for the images to be removed, but they weren''t openly available - they were hidden.I can''t copy and paste an image I can''t see and the new kit design wasn''t technically available to view, so therefore by taking action to reveal this and then distribute it, I am taking direct and unexpected action against the copyright holder.I do think it''s being blown out of proportion, but the kid hasn''t done f**k all, he''s clearly done something, and the argument should be about the severity of this and how inept the club appear to have been to let it happen so easily, not about whether or not we think he''s some criminal mastermind...

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If it was private then it should have been marked as so.

His civil offence was taking the image and posting it to social media the same as sharing any other image on the clubs website.

I have not seen the image in question was it watermarked/and or clearly marked as not for public eyes as you would get with documents or a pre release video?

If its in the public folders of the website and not encrypted/password protected then its publicly view-able and covered by the notice on the footer of the site.

ergo Civil Matter

money made vs loss incurred + possible compensation - damage to clubs reputation - cost- possibility of getting any money = no go

pr department advice = play the bigger man and put to bed...... plan A except it was plan B

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So 24 hours after calling in the Police Norwich City are happy to sit round a table to "resolve"  the problem with a 17 year old lad.It begs the question why the hurry up to get plod to investigate in the first place when to the world and its'' auntie what is about to take place was the most logical,sensible and damage limitation course of action ? Knee jerk reaction early yesterday morning by NCFC with in my opinion everybody involved at Carrow Road attempting to cover their tracks and lay the blame elsewhere for what they basically permitted to happen and now a day later and the dust has settled an attempt to avert a PR disater a far more sensible approach has been taken.Surely if the Police had unearthed an offence under some internet law a prosecution would be taking shape.

Mr.McNally i am sorry but you,your IT Dept supported by the media Office got this one badly wrong.

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[quote user="TIL 1010"]

So 24 hours after calling in the Police Norwich City are happy to sit round a table to "resolve"  the problem with a 17 year old lad.It begs the question why the hurry up to get plod to investigate in the first place when to the world and its'' auntie what is about to take place was the most logical,sensible and damage limitation course of action ? Knee jerk reaction early yesterday morning by NCFC with in my opinion everybody involved at Carrow Road attempting to cover their tracks and lay the blame elsewhere for what they basically permitted to happen and now a day later and the dust has settled an attempt to avert a PR disater a far more sensible approach has been taken.Surely if the Police had unearthed an offence under some internet law a prosecution would be taking shape.

Mr.McNally i am sorry but you,your IT Dept supported by the media Office got this one badly wrong.

[/quote]

 

I agree with virtually all of that all of that apart from blaming the media department. I would be very surprised - to put it mildly - if involving the police was down to Joe Ferrari or his colleagues. That had to have been a decision taken by a director or directors. It is just possible there was a hurried ring-round of all the directors, but much more probably the decision was made by either Bowkett or McNally or Bowkett and McNally.

 

 

 

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If this had been any other day, they would be saying nothing about the distribution of the image, ie free advertising of the new kit.The article on the Pinkun makes it sound like it was not taken from the Canaries.co.uk website. If so, for example if it came from a photography company website, again, the club should be angry with whoever made it available not some kid who decided to post the picture he found of the new kit.    If it was the canaries website, then it is their own stupid fault. It wouldn''t be the first balls up like this, remember the blacked out kit a few years ago on canaries.co.uk, that when you downloaded the image had an un-blacked out version on the thumbnail...If the norwich city football club is dumb enough to put the pictures of the new kit in a place where a 17 year old kid can find it, then they should look at themselves before calling the police in over such a matter.

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So the image the kid found was on http://norwichkit.com/ which is owned by the club.  The club made a big balls up and now some kid has to face the police and a pointless "meeting" to sort out a problem that does not exist.The club comes over extremely badly in this, blaming a 17 year old after their own incompetence.

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[quote user="andyc24_uk"]Very sad to see this. It appears that yesterday was the day Norwich City became a ''nasty'' corporate club.

Not impressed with releasing a new kit which is essentially identical to the previous years'' one, solely to wring more money out of the loyal fans. If it had been a complete redesign of the kit, then fair enough - but it''s virtually identical to this season''s kit, which is in itself fairly average. Clearly they had no interest in the actual design, just in making the smallest possible changes to get away with ripping off the fans.

But what''s really out of order is bringing the police in to investigate something which (a) may or may not have been a crime; and (b) certainly caused no financial damage to the club whatsoever. It''s hardly like this kid was hacking into club accounts and posting financial data online or something - What difference did a handful of people seeing the new kit a few hours early make? Absolutely Zero. Disgusting behavior more reminiscent of money-grabbing multinational corporations or the music industry than the supposedly ''friendly, local club'' which NCFC sells itself as.

I have a lot of respect for what McNally has done to turn the club around, but this is out of order. For the first time in my life, I''m actually ashamed to be a Norwich City fan.[/quote]Brilliant post. Agree 100%.What we also have to remember is that yesterday afternoon McNasty admitted on Radio Norfolk that the incedent probably hadn''t harmed NCFC, and the publicity may have even helped.(or words to that effect). I heard this BEFORE it I heard anything about the police being involved.RIP the ''little Norwich'' that we''ve grown to love. [U]

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[quote user="Citizen Journalist Foghorn"]So the image the kid found was on http://norwichkit.com/ which is owned by the club.  The club made a big balls up and now some kid has to face the police and a pointless "meeting" to sort out a problem that does not exist.

The club comes over extremely badly in this, blaming a 17 year old after their own incompetence.
[/quote]

[Y]

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[quote user="barclaystand"][quote user="andyc24_uk"]Very sad to see this. It appears that yesterday was the day Norwich City became a ''nasty'' corporate club.

Not impressed with releasing a new kit which is essentially identical to the previous years'' one, solely to wring more money out of the loyal fans. If it had been a complete redesign of the kit, then fair enough - but it''s virtually identical to this season''s kit, which is in itself fairly average. Clearly they had no interest in the actual design, just in making the smallest possible changes to get away with ripping off the fans.

But what''s really out of order is bringing the police in to investigate something which (a) may or may not have been a crime; and (b) certainly caused no financial damage to the club whatsoever. It''s hardly like this kid was hacking into club accounts and posting financial data online or something - What difference did a handful of people seeing the new kit a few hours early make? Absolutely Zero. Disgusting behavior more reminiscent of money-grabbing multinational corporations or the music industry than the supposedly ''friendly, local club'' which NCFC sells itself as.

I have a lot of respect for what McNally has done to turn the club around, but this is out of order. For the first time in my life, I''m actually ashamed to be a Norwich City fan.[/quote]Brilliant post. Agree 100%.What we also have to remember is that yesterday afternoon McNasty admitted on Radio Norfolk that the incedent probably hadn''t harmed NCFC, and the publicity may have even helped.(or words to that effect). I heard this BEFORE it I heard anything about the police being involved.RIP the ''little Norwich'' that we''ve grown to love. [U][/quote]A question for you [;)]Would you rather:a) little Norwich constantly fighting it out in the championship to avoid relegation ORb) Nasty corporate Norwich City fighting it in the premier league?

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Great, let''s get Doomy back. A lot on here never wanted him and Munby to go in the first place, as we were told by them what a wonderful job they were doing and that nobody could do it better!No wonder certain people at the club no longer want to entertain people like that.

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C.S.I. Norwich perhaps ?

Would prefer Morse but afraid he has passed on so maybe Lewis or Frost to investigate .

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[quote user="The Gruffalo"]Great, let''s get Doomy back.

A lot on here never wanted him and Munby to go in the first place, as we were told by them what a wonderful job they were doing and that nobody could do it better!

No wonder certain people at the club no longer want to entertain people like that.
[/quote]

To think Tilson accused the club of doing a U turn when they appointed Bowkett and  McNally in 2009.

 

Here’s a couple of the comments from that time:

 

DGC stated:

 â€˜Come on Mr Tilson, just listened to that again and it makes me so angry at the nature of the backward rant.''

 

T stated:

‘Embarrassing nonsense. Just comes across a man with far more ego than understanding. If he has any integrity he should do what he demanded of the former chairman and CEO and recognise he is not up to the job and resign. There were man enough to do so. Is he?’

 

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