Police to investigate Net4U leeching

By PETER GRIFFIN

Revelations that Hamilton internet provider Net4U has been stealing internet bandwidth from CallPlus have taken their toll with Net4U's expansion plans put on hold and several staff members bailing out.

CallPlus chief executive Malcolm Dick said last week that the company had laid an official complaint of theft with the police against Net4U.

The complaint follows Net4U's founder, 17-year-old Sahil Gupta's admission in a recorded telephone conversation that he had been using bandwidth "leeched" from CallPlus through an insecure server to provide his customers with internet access.

Net4U has faced severe criticism in IT news groups on the internet.

"It's still very shocking that ISPs in New Zealand would do this to each other ... I understand it's a very tight market but still . . ," said one online message poster.

The company has also upset InternetNZ executive director Peter Macaulay, who said Net4U's conduct highlighted the need for a code of practice in the ISP industry.

Several Net4U staff are understood to have left the company in the last few days, leaving Gupta running the company virtually alone.

Net4U's plans to acquire the customer base of PC Net, another small internet provider, have stalled.

PC Net director Frank Wong said Gupta had approached the company in February and negotiations had begun.

"With the news around Net4U, we certainly will take special caution about Net4U," he said from Hong Kong.

Gupta denied the deal was in trouble.

He told the Herald that negotiations with PC Net had been delayed by a month while Wong was overseas. He would not comment on the staffing situation at Net4U.

Dick said the bandwidth issue was now in the hands of the police.

Despite claims that CallPlus may have been exploited through a "backdoor" into its system left open by departing staff, Dick said it was an honest mistake.

"I don't think it was done maliciously by staff, it was more through incompetence, someone taking the security off the server."

Meanwhile Net4U said it had appointed another Hamilton-based company, Sigel Data Systems, to "audit and oversee the operations of Net4U for a period of three months".