First published: 27th September 2014
Hong Kong's Customs and Excise Department (C&ED) arrested a 40-year old man on 26th September for online copyright infringement based on evidence collected by their new Lineament Monitoring System 1 Plus (LMS1+) software. The man was arrested in Yuen Long and two computers were seized.
The LMS1+ software is jointly developed by the C&ED and the University of Hong Kong Center for Information Security and Cryptography (CISC) and it automatically searches discussion forums and detects suspected intellectual property infringement activities. It can collect evidence of copyright offences committed by file sharing through on-line sites for storage of personal digital files (cyber-lockers).
The C&ED and CISC have had a history of development cooperation, starting from 2007 and resulting in Lineament Monitoring System I (LMSI) in 2007 and Lineament Monitoring System II (LMSII) in 2011. LMSI monitors peer-to-peer infringing activities and LMSII tracks sale of infringing goods on online
auction sites. The C&ED side of the cooperation was strengthened in 2013 with the establishment of the Electronic Crime Investigation Centre (ECIC).
