I see that there has been a statement on the other forum;
We wanted to take a moment to address some of the recent developments and clear up any confusion.
I am sure most of you are aware of the data leak on brandable.uk which was reported on UKDNF. The site was taken down within 30 minutes, issue was fixed an hour later, we sought advice from a senior legal representative from London city firm the very same evening and devised an action plan. All affected users were notified within 6 hours of us becoming aware of the issue and detailed report was filed with ICO before the 72 hour deadline. We also commissioned a full audit by an independent CREST accredited security company.
There’s been some speculation about the recent shutdown of the UKDNF forum, with rumours suggesting that Brandable.uk might have been involved. The report to the ICO included details regarding how the leak was discovered. Therefore we wanted to make Aaron aware that it may make sense to edit any posts that include personal details that were accidentally exposed.
We want to clarify that the shutdown has nothing to do with the data leak, and we did not threaten any legal action to shut down the forum. I had in fact made a number of posts in the thread providing updates on the situation.
There may have been concerns raised about other threads on the forum but the discussion ended with: we will resolve things amicably and move on with our respective lives next week.
We understand that this situation is unsettling, but please rest assured that we are committed to improving and safeguarding our platform as well as promoting the UK domain industry.
I was personally told I "needed" (not asked by Ryan) to remove my blog post immediately, not just to edit out parts that may have contained personal details. Needed to, sounds like there would be consequences if I didn't, otherwise, by the very definition, there is no need.
It's worth noting that there were never any personal details on UKDNF's original post, the user redacted them before they were ever published on UKDNF. There was a possible scenario where my post could have led to someone going on to get details. I edited my GreyWing post immediately when I became aware of it. That scenario would have diminished the next time Google visited one of those landing pages, but regardless I took it out.
I was then told "It falls under ICO and FCA.", and that my acknowledgement was needed, as though I was being put on some kind of vague legal notice for some legal fallout from somewhere.
I was told that I was getting the old owner of UKDNF in a lot of trouble by posting what I had on Saturday night. If that wasn't legal trouble, what kind of trouble was I assume that meant? Trouble from whom? For what? With what I have seen elsewhere, I do think it is reasonable and objective to state that the old Owner was threatened with Legal consequences (direct or indirect) had things not been removed.
This is just what was said to me directly. The rest that I witnessed seems to confirm a more direct type of communication.
Now, whether it was Ryan personally or Brandable that said the old owner would face legal consequences is a fair question, I haven't seen enough to be able to say whether Brandable threatened "Brandable v UKDNF" in Court, so the statement maybe accurate there, or would it have been "Ryan v UKDNF". If Brandable got him in the door, and then Ryan went on his own take down mission, where they switched and whether Ryan overtly declared that he switched entities is for them to deal with.
But what I have seen is enough to say that it was Ryan's (or Brandable's) direct decision whether that forum would be up or down, he felt he was in charge. Therefore, I can reasonably assume that either Ryan or Brandable was threatening something, not the ICO or FCA. Otherwise it would be the FCA or ICO that decided whether the forum was live or not.
"There may have been concerns raised about other threads on the forum but the discussion ended with: we will resolve things amicably and move on with our respective lives next week."
I think I mentioned earlier, I always felt like the Brandable incident was just a way for Ryan to get his presence through the door. The real target was the other thread, this part of the statement seems to suggest that was correct.
--
, I don't know what was on the other two pages, but I do remember there being some pretty forensic stuff from people.
