No, they actually sent it people at Merrill Lynch, General Electric, a few start-ups and some VC firms. I sent notes to all of them and told them the story. I also lied a bit but told them these people steal reports, infect them with viruses and then send them out posing as someone inside the original company's organization. They shouldn't spread the reports around and not should they post them on the server lest they spread the plague.
The next mailing goes out to 4,000 people and it's up on usenet. I take solace in knowing that at least a lot of people out there will see my company's reports and become more familiar with our work. Still, the $100K plus hit is going to be a bit sh*t sandwhich to eat.
Silly question .... The phone book has the Blue pages for reporting extortion and espionage; why did you simply web-file a complaint?
If you call someone, and talk to a real-live person; they can trace the account, and they may even have you pay the amount just so they can then convict the recipients as they 'cash in'.
I'd be all over this with the FBI, local police and your ISP.
I can't see that you'll really lose that much business.
First, how many people on their "mailing list" (and who says that "CoRE" even *has* enough industry savvy to know who would be "high value" contacts and who isn't?) would really be likely buyers of your report in the first place.
Second, unless you've already done business with those companies in the past, odds are that most of the "mass mailings" will end up being looked at by some sysadmin flunky getting the "to no-one in particular" emails, who will either consider the mailing to be some sort of con-game spam and delete it, or at best figure it's worth exactly what the company has paid for it, i.e. nothing -- unsolicited emails seldom contain anything of real value.
Finally, any company who receives it who might actually be in the market for your reports is at least moderately likely to pay you for a legitimate copy if they like what they got illegitimately, or if nothing else will want to contact you to see what other similar products you offer.
So I wouldn't worry *too* much about lost sales, unless these jackasses managed to get a copy of your actual customer list, which I highly doubt.
Fortune 100s receiving stolen property.
Could get ugly.
Anyway, there is an international law with major teeth that can take care of this - I believe you can search the Indymedia server seizure for details about it. If the group is oversears, they aren't protected.