Earlier this month, Conde Nast filed a lawsuit to try to find the identities of hackers who posted images of Conde magazines online in November, prior to their publication. Conde Nast has no patience for electronic chicanery from common layabouts.

The company has now gotten permission to expedite subpoenas to Google and AT&T to get the hackers' names. A generous sort might say that distributing images of GQ, Vogue, Lucky, and Teen Vogue to blogs could be called "publicity," but Conde is not the generous sort; indeed, Keith Kelly reports, these bloggers are scarcely more than the lowest sort of hooligan, lacking in the most necessary refinements and social graces:

"This subsequent posting, mischievously presented under the heading, 'GQ December 2009: The Rest of It,' was willfully done by defendants to thumb their noses at Condé Nast and the copyright law in response to Condé Nast's attempt to curtail defendant's acts of infringement. . .," said the miffed publisher in the suit.

Miffed!