According to staff at a large Russian BitTorrent site, earlier this month their admin was lured to another country under false pretenses, held hostage by a criminal gang and beaten at gunpoint until he handed over the site’s domain name. The plan was thwarted, but not before a ransom was paid by his family.
A new type of malware is riding the wave of file-sharing pre-settlement letters by infecting BitTorrent users’ machines and then demanding payments in order to make imaginary lawsuits go away. ICPP Foundation try to give the impression they are RIAA and MPAA affiliated but the whole thing is a scam to extort cash and obtain credit card details.
As the practice of hunting down alleged file-sharers and then issuing legal threats in order to force money out of them gathers pace, questions are continually raised over the quality of the technical systems used to gather the evidence. According to information on a rent-a-coder site, such a system was bought in 2008 for between $250 and $750.
Over the years would-be game pirates have been targeted in a number of ways such as through draconian DRM schemes and even viruses. Now it appears that file-sharers who thought they were going to download a high-profile interactive erotic novel have been instead treated to a security and privacy breach of epic proportions.
Following a crackdown on dozens of local file-sharing sites last year, it now appears that China has added the Canada-based BitTorrent site isoHunt to their Great Firewall. IsoHunt reports that the site has only seen a few hundred Chinese visitors in recent days, a 99% decrease in traffic in compared to a week ago.
Following a crackdown on dozens of local file-sharing sites last year, it now appears that China has added the Canada-based BitTorrent site isoHunt to their Great Firewall. IsoHunt reports that the site has only seen a few hundred Chinese visitors in recent days, a 99% decrease in traffic in compared to a week ago.
Last month the gaming giant Ubisoft announced their new über-DRM which requires customers to be continuously online in order to play purchased games. Of course, this DRM was circumvented in a few hours and while downplaying this blunder, Ubisoft fails to see that they’ve only increased piracy.
Seeding fake files on BitTorrent is nothing new and the practice has been carried out by anti-piracy groups and malware spreaders for a long time. While many of them choose to use various open and public BitTorrent trackers, others are setting up their own trackers. We take a look at an easy way to find out more about them.
Last week the gaming giant Ubisoft announced their latest DRM invention. In order to play purchased games customers have to be connected to the Internet at all times. Game developers are skeptical of this new anti-piracy solution, but could it actually be a step in the right direction?
Avatar, the long-awaited science fiction epic from James Cameron will launch this week, but already some lucky individuals have seen the movie. The same cannot be said of attendees at a 3D preview showing in Germany yesterday though. The movie’s DRM ‘protection’ system failed and the video could not be decoded.
