Ashley Madison using copyright law to try to limit attack leak

Hacked dating site has been filing copyright takedown requests to try to keep its leaked database and its customers' personal details out of the public eye

Hacked extramarital dating service Ashley Madison is trying to prevent dissemination of its stolen database by sending copyright takedown notices to social networks and file-sharing sites.

The action, after 33m user records were posted online, mirrors the largely-successful attempt to get an earlier, smaller, leak of user data scrubbed from the internet. But this time, the main dump remains very much online, as the arms race between hackers and hacked has escalated to include the use of technology such as peer-to-peer file sharing protocol bittorrent and the anonymous browsing service Tor.