RSA v. Scott Jarkoff [1]

After Jarkoff posted an entry about the security risks he sees with the login mechanism of the Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU) website on his blog, TechMiso [2], he received an e-mail from the RSA Anti Fraud Command Centre.  RSA Security Inc. is  an encryption and network security company, and the RSA Anti Fraud Command Centre helps the NFCU with online fraud prevention.

The RSA email claimed that Jarkoff's post infringed on NFCU's copyright and trademark rights, and it expressed concern that Jarkoff's site could become a host of phishing attacks against NFCU's clients. The email then proceeded to ask for various kinds of information from Jarkoff, including the tar/zip file of the site's source code. After Jarkoff replied to the email, clarifying the purpose of his post and maintaining that there was no fraudulent activity involved, RSA replied that Jarkoff's post may confuse NFCU's customers and stating that NFCU had asked RSA to take down Jarkoff's blog.

A month later, Jarkoff received an email from Rackspace, his web host, regarding a trademark infringement complaint it received from RSA. Jarkoff replied to the email from Rackspace, explaining that there was no trademark infringement. Soon afterwards, Jarkoff received another email from Rackspace letting him know that RSA had requested that Rackspace disregard the shut down request.