Lockdown at Verizon (ZA)

[TheCynick]

http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/business/2006/0608311155.asp?S=Servers%20and%20Server-Based%20Computing&A=SBC&O=FPLEAD

0wned!

[bwana]

Wow. Pretty serious stuff going on by the sounds of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Piller_order

[Glipsie]

Verizon Business's Gallo Manor offices were sealed this morning, and all employees have been locked in, following a court search and seizure order.

http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/business/2006/0608311155.asp?S=Servers%20and%20Server-Based%20Computing&A=SBC&O=FPLEAD

[bwana]

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=51997

[Glipsie]

Yup. Sorry for the double post. No delete function?

[bwana]

Not if you create a thread. I've reported my post as bad - btw is that new being able to report your own post as bad? - so they'll probably merge the two.

[rsachoc]

Anyone got any insight as to why this has happened?

[pope24]

IS must have had some pretty damning evidence to get a court order. When this comes out into the open there is going to be some real fun and games.

[nic777]

I have a server there with Hetzner :/

[AntiThesis]

Oh dear.

[bwana]

I wonder if they would try the same tactics with telkom?

[dnaude41]

Wander what happend?

[NightWulfe]

Hi all, any idea why Verison was locked down this AM? We were trying to get to Hetzner to get greeted by a security lockdown.

[rwenzori]

Very interesting. I can't resist speculating. It does not look like the usual copyright "illegal copies of MS software" raid, as that would come from DD and not their subsidiary IS, and would more likely be criminal not civil. Maybe theft of customer data or something like that?

Time to buy some popcorn!

[BradDC]

Im not sure how one ISP could bring up enough evidence to do that to another company... fraud? who knows, its the only thing that i can guess of. Pity they dont do it to telkom.

[ic]

I'm guessing that it's not so much about Verizon itself, as much as something done by at least 2 Verizon employees whose phones have been bagged & tagged...cracking in all the whole places perhaps?

[Leitmotif]

Intellectual property theft? My company's stuff is all hosted out at Verizon, heard about it this morning. Could be very bad for us.

[terencevs]

Well Hetzner uses them, What happens now....

If they are shut down what does Hetzner do....

SPECULATE SPECULATE SPECULATE

I know of a couple of companies who house their whole data centre with Veriszon

[AntiThesis]

Have spoken to people at Verizon (we do business with them as well) and they assure us that services will not be affected. Apparently it really sucks to be in the lockdown though.

[jontyB]

half our stuff is in Verizon vaults, and the other half is in IS vaults (redundancy and backups)

All our stuff is running fine though

[Highflyer_GP]

If anything, their services should be better than ever since there's nothing else for them to do in a lockdown apart from work :D

[jontyB]

If anything, their services should be better than ever since there's nothing else for them to do in a lockdown apart from work :D

Nah, they're all scrambling to get rid of the pirate software and hordes of mp3s, videos, etc they all spend their time downloading off verizon's backbone everday :D

[LandyMan]

I'm guessing that it's not so much about Verizon itself, as much as something done by at least 2 Verizon employees whose phones have been bagged & tagged...cracking in all the whole places perhaps?

erm, no: "and at least two sources have confirmed Verizon employees have had their mobile phones confiscated."

[ic]

erm, no: "and at least two sources have confirmed Verizon employees have had their mobile phones confiscated.":D I totally misread that thanks for setting me straight there :).

<speculation>
So we don't know that all Verizon employees have had their phones confiscated, but that is what the wording implies in the article, and the evidential intel supporting the request for an Anton Piller must have been extremely serious to effect a such a serious siezure order, which of course fits with the complete lockdown of all Verizon employees already in the building...this is probably more interesting than the launch of NOTel...</speculation>

[GavinMannion]

Maybe Telkom found out they where going to offer cheaper ADSL?

[bwana]

Maybe Telkom found out they where going to offer cheaper ADSL?Fat chance of that. It's Verizon we're talking about.

[Dogpigeoncow]

I think that if IS could now do the same thing to Telkom, completely within the margin of law so that Telkom cant sue for damage, I would be the happiest person alive. Nothing could possibly be better than Telkom been made to look like f@#$*&g idiots. anything to ruin them...:p:rolleyes:

[AntiThesis]

Apparently they're not even allowed to go to the bathroom :D

[BillyBoy]

tried browsing http://www.verizon.co.za/
fails with -
Invalid URL
The requested URL "/", is invalid.
Reference #9.a562a0d5.1157039265.0

[wallace]

http://www.verizonbusiness.co.za/

[BillyBoy]

http://www.verizonbusiness.co.za/about/newscenter/happening/default.asp?id=63&txtAction=R states:
31 August 2006 – Important Customer Information

Verizon Business is operating as usual in South Africa.

On Thursday, 31 August Verizon Business received notice of a document request related to a civil complaint by a competitor. We are cooperating fully with this document request.

This matter does not impact Verizon Business customers.

There has been no impact to our network operations.

Our office in Johannesburg experienced temporary interruptions to normal business communications. Business communications are now functioning as normal.

Verizon Business believes that the allegation by its competitor is unfounded.

Ethical behaviour and compliance with laws are fundamental to everything that Verizon Business does. Verizon Business has focused on winning customers by providing industry-leading products and service in South Africa, which has been met with enthusiasm by our customers.

[PostmanPot]

hectic.

has there been any thing on the news about it?

lol ic, "NOTel"

[UnDead]

I.S. Must be pretty desperate to try something like this...apparently they are trying to prove that Verizon "Stole" Clients from them.

The fact that they're not trying this crap with SAIX (who also have droves of ex IS clients on board now...) due to SAIX'es close relationship with Telkom (who would most certainly make life difficult for IS then).

BTW, Verizon holds 51% of the Worlds IP's, they route more traffic than anyone...employ 250000 people all over the world, and are worth $90 BILLION !!!

I personally Think that IS tried this to interrupt the business, as Verizon's support centre was back online at 11:00 after only 2 hours of being forcefully restricted from answering phones...

Anyway, my mate there says that Life is back to normal at Verizon, there were no outages of any kind, and the lockdown allowed some pretty awesome team building to be held !!!

Talk about making the best of a bad situation !!!!

[JayM]

I cannot help but feel IS has opened a can of worms they won't be able to close. Stealing clients...wtf? If you don't want to lose clients, make your services work properly and sell them at the right price!

[onlyme]

I cannot help but feel IS has opened a can of worms they won't be able to close. Stealing clients...wtf? If you don't want to lose clients, make your services work properly and sell them at the right price!

True, but on the other hand if what this Implies is that Verizon somehow got a list of existing IS clients with thier account details, and where then able to coax some of these clients away from IS by using this information it would be illegal.

However we can only speculate at this stage since we do not know what the real story is.

[NoseWeek]

What really happend.

Here is the story as far as the information has leaked.

"Salesman (x) worked for IS, he then created a CD of all the IS clients, when the contracts end, prices, what the client was paying etc"

"Salesman (x) then applies for a job at Uunet / Verison"

"What does Salesman (x) have to offer, well gues what the CD full of all IS's client details etc"

"Verison gets excited steals more than 30 IS clients with inside informantion"

The Results:
Lock Down

The End Result:
IS will sue for damages "Could be a very large sum"
Salesman (x) will be charged with fraud/theft and about another 20 charges, but wait, lets look deeper, who employed this person and why"
Do we now need to look at the Sales Manager, HR Department.

The fall out will be large, what pissed me off is there statment"

"Ethical behaviour and compliance with laws are fundamental to everything that Verizon Business does. Verizon Business has focused on winning customers by providing industry-leading products and service in South Africa, which has been met with enthusiasm by our customers."

I leave it to you to make up your mind on this one !

[jontyB]

@NoseWeek: All publicity is good publicity. I am sure they will just try and spin this around.

[Insider007]

It would be intresting to see, however this is theft of clients, via insider methods, I dont think this will jsut go away, I am sure IS will make them look as bad as possible.