However, one of his latest ideas for his jailbreak of Apple’s upcoming iOS 5 is causing excitement of a quite different kind.

The notion of blocking Installous, the software used by millions to install cracked apps on iPhone and iPad, is naturally a controversial one. It’s perhaps needless to say that Apple would quietly welcome such a development. Equally, those using Installous probably wouldn’t be so keen.

Hackulous, the people behind Installous, think it’s an outright bad idea.

“The entire premise behind jailbreaking is that you’re able to do whatever you want with your device. It’s your device, you own it and you should be able to manipulate the software in any way that you like,” Hackulous admin Dissident told TorrentFreak.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean everything you do with it is legal, but that the manufacturer of the software and the hardware has no place in telling you how you use the device.”

Dissident says that when jailbreaks removed Apple’s restrictions, a large and thriving community of developers came along, making plugins, themes and other “cool stuff.”

“If a jailbreak author decides to add [his own] DRM to it, they are being extremely hypocritical,” he concludes.

Dissident told us this week that he believes i0n1c is a really talented guy but the idea that he should introduce new anti-Installous DRM is a significant one since at last count an estimated 11 million iDevice owners are using it. If they are suddenly unable to use Installous resources, they won’t be happy bunnies.

But just as Apple’s DRM gets broken despite their huge coding firepower, Dissident says that any efforts by i0n1c would be neutralized in the same fashion. Not only are several high-profile members of the jailbreaking scene said to be opposed to the suggestion of any new DRM, but Dissident warns that a small army of reverse engineers would appear, all dedicated to breaking any restrictions put in place at the jailbreak level.

While this would remove any obstacles put in place by ic01c, Dissident says this type of situation would be most undesirable.

“Something interesting about this upcoming exploit [from i0n1c on iOS5] is that it’s based on a PDF vulnerability. We’ve seen two of these jailbreaks in the past, on a website called jailbreakme.com. You just go to it on your iDevice and the device is jailbroken using the PDF vulnerability”

Dissident explains that in layman’s terms this means that undesirables can put such an exploit on their website and get root access to a user’s Apple device, opening up the potential for malware attacks.

But the bottom line is that any additional security will be broken eventually and ultimately a jailbreak without restrictions will prove much more popular than one with DRM. Market forces would sideline a crippled jailbreak, Dissident believes.

So what does i0n1c (real name Stefan Esser) have to say on the matter? We put a list of questions to him in the hope of countering some of Dissident’s points and vice-versa, but the response we received was quite unexpected.

Esser began by pointing us towards some of the abuse he’s been getting from some people in the jailbreaking community. These “nasty idiots”, as Esser describes them, certainly overstep the mark; disagreeing with someone’s stance can be achieved perfectly well without a flame war, but some don’t care much for sugar-coating. (It’s worth pointing out that Dissident does not engage in such behavior and was unfailingly polite throughout our discussions about Esser’s work.)

Esser went on to tell us that most of the people who have abused him (the “nasty idiots”) are into jailbreaking for one reason only – they want to pirate applications. In order to deal with their abuse it seems that Esser has developed an interesting payback tool – trolling.

“When I am bored I think up tweets that will maximally annoy these people,” he told us.

So does that mean that having taken the word of Esser at face value, people like Dissident are worried over nothing? Not necessarily.

Esser told us that he is busy with “more important stuff” at the moment and that he is not planning to release any jailbreaks for a while. However, in keeping with his plan to annoy his detractors, there still might be a trick up his sleeve.

“In that line of thought, releasing a jailbreak that is only useful for people not into
piracy would be a way to maximally annoy the bad people inside the jailbreaking community,” Esser told us with a palpable air of mischievousness. Or maybe seriousness, it’s hard to tell.

But perhaps with a nod to Dissident’s earlier predictions, Esser eventually straightened his trollface and appeared to acknowledge the frailty of DRM and even the amusement to be had from it.

The ability to annoy in this way, he concedes, “..would only last for a while.”

Source: Hacker Mulls Banning Pirate Apps With iOS 5 Apple Jailbreak

He was referring to the DRM present in certain versions of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, the hot new title from CD Projekt. His calculations revealed the following:

* With SecuROM: 41 sec game launch, 16 sec savegame, 16-43 fps
* Without SecuROM: 9 sec game launch, 8 sec savegame, 24-73 fps

Although the performance hit is dramatic, only retail versions of the game are affected since Steam versions and those from GOG.com are supplied DRM-free.

“I bought the game from Amazon,” said our concerned reader. “I am an idiot, apparently.”

However, after listening to complaints like these around the web, today CD Projekt will release a patch which will remove DRM from all versions of the game.

“Our goal is to make our fans and customers happy and to reward them for buying our game and DRM schemes does not support our philosophy as they might create obstacles for users of legally bought copies,” reports CD Projekt’s Adam Badowski, refreshingly.

“Our approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version. This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services. So, we felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users.”

Interestingly, TorrentFreak had already been in contact with CD Projekt who told us their main concern was avoiding a pre-release situation, something they achieved.

“Nowadays most PC games are available for download with a working crack at least couple of days before official release,” Agnieszka Szostak of CD Projekt told us. “We’re happy we were able to avoid it with our game.”

While CD Projekt’s approach to DRM in this instance is to be commended, and piracy can indeed be deterred by making it more worthwhile to get the official copy, this announcement should perhaps not be read in isolation.

As reported last year, CD Projekt already warned that DRM aside, they might take another and even more controversial approach to dealing with piracy.

“Of course we’re not happy when people are pirating our games, so we are signing with legal firms and torrent sneaking companies,” CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwinski explained at the time.

“In quite a few big countries, when people are downloading [The Witcher 2] illegally they can expect a letter from a legal firm saying, ‘Hey, you downloaded it illegally and right now you have to pay a fine’,” Iwinski added.

A couple of weeks ago TorrentFreak heard rumors that a pre-released but uncracked version of a Witcher 2 torrent on The Pirate Bay had been put there as “a trap”. Our investigations didn’t show any evidence to back up that claim. So, along with a link to the company’s earlier statements about getting law firms involved, we contacted CD Projekt and asked them outright – is this torrent a trap and do you still intend to go ahead with tracking illegal file-sharers?

We received no answer on the first question, but we did on the second.

“Yes we will track illegal file-sharing hoping people will find the game good enough to actually change their mind and be willing to pay for it,” Agnieszka Szostak told us.

If CD Projekt do indeed go ahead with their threats, this will be the second time that a Witcher title has been involved in these so-called “pay-up-or-else” schemes. In 2008, large numbers of Internet users started receiving letters from notorious file-sharing lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK demanding cash settlements. Among those letters were demands for payment on an Atari game with a familiar title – The Witcher.

We asked CD Projekt if that scheme had been successful. We received no response.

Source: Witcher 2 DRM Dumped, But CD Projekt Is Watching Torrents

SABAM hoped that through aggressive legal action, funded by its paymasters in the international music industry, that it could force Scarlet to install filtering devices in its network to monitor customer communications and stop them if they attempt to send or receive copyrighted music.

In 2007 they succeeded, with the Brussels Court ruling that Scarlet should install the industry-approved Audible Magic music fingerprinting system. The ISP objected, saying that by spying on its customers it would be acting illegally. Adding insult to injury, Audible Magic did not perform meaning that Scarlet could not comply with the court order to stop all infringement with the tools it had been given.

The court reversed its decision and the case went to the Brussels Court of Appeal which immediately handed it over to the European Court Of Justice. The outcome would be crucial, since it would indicate whether ISPs could be held responsible for subscriber behavior and be forced to block or introduce filters.

In the last 24 hours, an advocate general of the European Court of Justice has handed down his advice in the case.

Advocate General Cruz Villalón said that “the installation of that filtering and blocking system is a restriction on the right to respect for the privacy of communications and the right to protection of personal data, both of which are rights protected under the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

“By the same token, the deployment of such a system would restrict freedom of information, which is also protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.”

Villalón said that the rights within the Charter can be restricted, “on condition, inter alia, that any such restriction is ‘in accordance with the law’” and if it were “adopted on a national legal basis which was accessible, clear and predictable.”

Villalón also expressed concern that decisions made by the filter would be made without judicial oversight.

The court order would apply “…in abstracto and as a preventive measure, which means that a finding would not first have been made that there had been an actual infringement of an intellectual property right or even that an imminent infringement was likely.”

Furthermore, Villalón said that a pro-filtering ruling would not only affect Scarlet users in Belgium but those contracted to other ISPs in different countries, since Scarlet customers may very well be communicating with them on the Internet

Taking the above into consideration, Advocate General Cruz Villalón ruled that the installation of this kind of blocking and filtering systems would amount to a restriction on the right to privacy and the right to protection of personal data, both of which are rights protected under the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

“By the same token,” adds Villalón, “the deployment of such a system would restrict freedom of information, which is also protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.”

The European Court of Justice are not obliged to act on the advice given by Advocate General Villalón but his opinion will add significant weighting to the decision process.

Court of Justice Release (.pdf)

Source: ISP Cannot Be Forced To Block Copyright Infringing Files

SABAM hoped that through aggressive legal action, funded by its paymasters in the international music industry, that it could force Scarlet to install filtering devices in its network to monitor customer communications and stop them if they attempt to send or receive copyrighted music.

In 2007 they succeeded, with the Brussels Court ruling that Scarlet should install the industry-approved Audible Magic music fingerprinting system. The ISP objected, saying that by spying on its customers it would be acting illegally. Adding insult to injury, Audible Magic did not perform meaning that Scarlet could not comply with the court order to stop all infringement with the tools it had been given.

The court reversed its decision and the case went to the Brussels Court of Appeal which immediately handed it over to the European Court Of Justice. The outcome would be crucial, since it would indicate whether ISPs could be held responsible for subscriber behavior and be forced to block or introduce filters.

In the last 24 hours, an advocate general of the European Court of Justice has handed down his advice in the case.

Advocate General Cruz Villalón said that “the installation of that filtering and blocking system is a restriction on the right to respect for the privacy of communications and the right to protection of personal data, both of which are rights protected under the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

“By the same token, the deployment of such a system would restrict freedom of information, which is also protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.”

Villalón said that the rights within the Charter can be restricted, “on condition, inter alia, that any such restriction is ‘in accordance with the law’” and if it were “adopted on a national legal basis which was accessible, clear and predictable.”

Villalón also expressed concern that decisions made by the filter would be made without judicial oversight.

The court order would apply “…in abstracto and as a preventive measure, which means that a finding would not first have been made that there had been an actual infringement of an intellectual property right or even that an imminent infringement was likely.”

Furthermore, Villalón said that a pro-filtering ruling would not only affect Scarlet users in Belgium but those contracted to other ISPs in different countries, since Scarlet customers may very well be communicating with them on the Internet

Taking the above into consideration, Advocate General Cruz Villalón ruled that the installation of this kind of blocking and filtering systems would amount to a restriction on the right to privacy and the right to protection of personal data, both of which are rights protected under the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

“By the same token,” adds Villalón, “the deployment of such a system would restrict freedom of information, which is also protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.”

The European Court of Justice are not obliged to act on the advice given by Advocate General Villalón but his opinion will add significant weighting to the decision process.

Court of Justice Release (.pdf)

Source: ISP Cannot Be Forced To Block Copyright Infringing Files

In recent times, however, it has become increasingly clear that these strategies aren’t working. Suing Internet users proved both ineffective and counter-productive and sites like The Pirate Bay, isoHunt and Newzbin simply refuse to give in, despite the studios throwing millions of dollars away trying to destroy them.

So, if sites are to remain online and users refuse to stop accessing them, it’s time for a new plan – get in the middle of sites and their users and physically stop them from communicating with each other.

In the UK, while the faltering Digital Economy Act stumbles around in its own mess, discussions behind the scenes are focused on the entertainment companies and ISPs formulating a voluntary code to have domain names conveniently blocked.

UK communications watchdog Ofcom is currently considering whether or not website blocking is actually feasible, but other countries who already have experience of such measures have decided that it probably isn’t. One of those is Denmark, a country already subjected to court-ordered ISP DNS blocks of both The Pirate Bay and Russian MP3 vendor, AllofMP3.com, various foreign gambling sites and illicit pharmaceutical vendors.

This week, an MPs consultation on blocking sites has been underway in Denmark. There was a broad consensus that DNS blocking is easily circumvented and is therefore not a viable solution to the problem. So where is there left to go?

During the consultation, Niels Elgaard Larsen, Chairman of the IT-Political Association, suggested an alternative – enhanced browser malware filtering.

“We know of course that when Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome visits a page with a virus, we get a warning that there is virus on the site. This is not filtered by the network, but by browser vendors who maintain lists of viral sites, which then sit in the browser,” Larsen subsequently told Computerworld.

“One must of course be critical of suppliers’ blacklists, but it is much smarter that users have a list of banned sites in their browsers because the approach both warns users and respects their privacy,” he added.

Who has the authority to place domains on such a list is a whole new can of problematic worms, but the idea has received cross-party support with Liberal IT spokesman Michael Aastrup-Jensen suggesting that the issue should be raised at the EU level. To have the required effect, he added, agreement and support must be sought from, among others, the United States.

Of course, the United States has its own take on the issue. Rather than blocking domain names it has simply been seizing them, but even that hasn’t had the required effect.

It’s not inconceivable, however, if one looks far enough down the road and amalgamates the UK, Danish and US approaches (voluntary blocking, court-ordered DNS blocks, enhanced ‘malware’ type web browser blocks and domain seizures) it could become quite difficult to access many piracy-related domains.

But this statement is only true for the layman and no matter what route is taken, ways around these blocks will be found by the tech-savvy. Indeed, it’s an absolute certainty that new products and services will appear immediately to circumvent all of these measures.

So as they look to their ideal future of an Internet filtered in their favor, the entertainment industries will find their magic numbers when taking the numbers of subscribers who can’t understand or be bothered learning how to get around blocks, and adding up how many of those will head off to authorized media sources instead. Will it be worth all the effort?

Source: Proposal Suggests Browsers Should Block Users From BitTorrent Sites

In recent times, however, it has become increasingly clear that these strategies aren’t working. Suing Internet users proved both ineffective and counter-productive and sites like The Pirate Bay, isoHunt and Newzbin simply refuse to give in, despite the studios throwing millions of dollars away trying to destroy them.

So, if sites are to remain online and users refuse to stop accessing them, it’s time for a new plan – get in the middle of sites and their users and physically stop them from communicating with each other.

In the UK, while the faltering Digital Economy Act stumbles around in its own mess, discussions behind the scenes are focused on the entertainment companies and ISPs formulating a voluntary code to have domain names conveniently blocked.

UK communications watchdog Ofcom is currently considering whether or not website blocking is actually feasible, but other countries who already have experience of such measures have decided that it probably isn’t. One of those is Denmark, a country already subjected to court-ordered ISP DNS blocks of both The Pirate Bay and Russian MP3 vendor, AllofMP3.com, various foreign gambling sites and illicit pharmaceutical vendors.

This week, an MPs consultation on blocking sites has been underway in Denmark. There was a broad consensus that DNS blocking is easily circumvented and is therefore not a viable solution to the problem. So where is there left to go?

During the consultation, Niels Elgaard Larsen, Chairman of the IT-Political Association, suggested an alternative – enhanced browser malware filtering.

“We know of course that when Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome visits a page with a virus, we get a warning that there is virus on the site. This is not filtered by the network, but by browser vendors who maintain lists of viral sites, which then sit in the browser,” Larsen subsequently told Computerworld.

“One must of course be critical of suppliers’ blacklists, but it is much smarter that users have a list of banned sites in their browsers because the approach both warns users and respects their privacy,” he added.

Who has the authority to place domains on such a list is a whole new can of problematic worms, but the idea has received cross-party support with Liberal IT spokesman Michael Aastrup-Jensen suggesting that the issue should be raised at the EU level. To have the required effect, he added, agreement and support must be sought from, among others, the United States.

Of course, the United States has its own take on the issue. Rather than blocking domain names it has simply been seizing them, but even that hasn’t had the required effect.

It’s not inconceivable, however, if one looks far enough down the road and amalgamates the UK, Danish and US approaches (voluntary blocking, court-ordered DNS blocks, enhanced ‘malware’ type web browser blocks and domain seizures) it could become quite difficult to access many piracy-related domains.

But this statement is only true for the layman and no matter what route is taken, ways around these blocks will be found by the tech-savvy. Indeed, it’s an absolute certainty that new products and services will appear immediately to circumvent all of these measures.

So as they look to their ideal future of an Internet filtered in their favor, the entertainment industries will find their magic numbers when taking the numbers of subscribers who can’t understand or be bothered learning how to get around blocks, and adding up how many of those will head off to authorized media sources instead. Will it be worth all the effort?

Source: Proposal Suggests Browsers Should Block Users From BitTorrent Sites

One line of attack used by anti-piracy groups against The Pirate Bay, for example, has been to try to have its domain blocked by various ISPs. In Italy, police recently went a step further by seizing the domain of a Pirate Bay proxy.

In Russia recently the whole process of taking a domain was streamlined, when the authorities simply took control of the Torrents.ru domain without any court rulings whatsoever. Although some may label these type of actions against BitTorrent domains as “evil”, if news coming out of Russia today is to be believed, anti-torrent activities have just moved to a whole new level.

According to staff at Russian BitTorrent site LostFilm, on May 3rd their owner was lured to neighboring Ukraine under false pretenses. There he had a 3 day ordeal at the hands of a criminal group who apparently had their eyes on some of his property.

The LostFilm.tv domain is close to breaking into the Top 100 sites in Russia and is one of the country’s most popular sites for foreign movies. It seems the criminal group wanted it pretty badly. Reportedly kidnapped then beaten at gunpoint, the site’s owner was ordered to transfer the domain to a third party.

The next day, May 4th, the domain transfer began and at the same time the kidnappers gained access to the site’s servers. But all did not go smoothly.

Instead of being able to take control of the domain in a single day as hoped, the transfer was delayed by its registrar – the process was going to take 5 to 10 days – so the kidnappers decided to move to plan B.

On May 5th, the gang contacted the admin’s family in order to demand a ransom payment, on the understanding that the admin would go free and later transfer the domain to his kidnappers. Later that day an amount was paid via electronic transfer.

The LostFilm owner was subsequently set free and staff at the site were able to block the kidnappers out of their servers. Both are believed to be safe and well and the case has reportedly been handed over to the prosecutor’s office in St. Petersburg.

There is little doubt that if true, this is a sensational story. However, although the Russian press aren’t questioning it, there are those who believe it could be a PR stunt. LostFilm built up its reputation on the series Lost, and everyone knows what happened to that yesterday.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

In fact what they really do is operate a scam to extort money from BitTorrent users.

Right at this moment we are unsure of the exact route of infection, but somehow malware (probably in either fake file or attached virus form) is displaying a “copyright violation alert” on the victim’s screen, locking it, and redirecting users to the ICPP site where they are told they have been caught infringing copyright.

There they are warned their offenses could result in 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine and are given the option to take the (fake) case to court. They are also offered a chance to make the whole thing go away for the payment of a ‘fine’ of around $400. Victims are also prompted to give their name, address and full credit card details – it is unclear how this information is further abused but it doesn’t look good.

If they select the court option, they are scared with this screen:

So that that this evil software (believed to be located at C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\IQManager\iqmanager.exe) more accurately targets BitTorrent users rather than just random users, it appears to scan the user’s hard drive for .torrent files and displays these as ‘evidence’ of an earlier infringement.

In order to boost their credibility, icpp-online.com claim to be affiliated with influential partners – the RIAA, MPAA, and The Copyright Alliance. Of course, this is a complete fabrication.

This whole approach seems very similar to that employed by so-called ‘rogue software‘ or ’scareware’ which attempt to frighten users into parting with cash for often useless software. And it seems the links to malware don’t stop there.

A WHOIS on the ICPP-Online domain reveals some contact data which shows up elsewhere in connection to other questionable activities.

Details on this new threat are scarce at the moment, so if any readers can discover more about this malware or the operation behind it, please collate the information and send it over to tips@torrentfreak.com.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Often when people are wrongfully accused there is speculation that the individual’s wireless router could have been compromised and used to carry out an infringement. However, many other instances of wrongful accusations go unexplained.

Understandably fingers then get pointed at the quality of evidence being gathered. How foolproof are these systems? How much time and effort has gone into their creation? Do they live up to their ‘forensic-quality’ claims?

In the vast majority of cases these questions go completely unanswered, since the innards of such software and systems are never opened up for public scrutiny. This is naturally a concern for those trying to protest their innocence.

Many times here on TorrentFreak we’ve covered the activities of ACS:Law, the lawyers making a huge noise in the UK right now as they chase BitTorrent users for hundreds of pounds each. One person involved heavily in this work at ACS:Law is Terence Tsang, who previously worked on similar file-sharing cases with lawyers Davenport Lyons.

Tsang is also involved in other online businesses, including Japanese car sales and other computing-based projects and regularly requests work from freelancers, as can be seen from these examples on his Freelancer.com page.

One of these – Nonpublic project #245939 (account required, screenshot) – is of particular interest.

“Create a bit-torrent client for me which will obtain details about file sharers of certain torrents. Server is Linux. The torrent client just needs to monitor IP addresses and take information which is then placed in a database,” writes Tsang in his request.

“The information needed is as follows: Host IP, Hit Date and time (GMT time), Provider network name (i believe whois search will help with this – can you think of a better way?), P2P Client, File name, File size, MD5 of file,” he adds.

“So we need to get the software to monitor a number of specific torrents it needs to create a database of the above information. The database needs to be able to import into a database file like csv. I am only interested in UK IP addresses. Easy job if you have the skills,” he concludes.

We cannot confirm if Tsang bought this code on behalf of DL, ACS:Law or indeed himself for some kind of lone operation. Since no information is ever offered about the tracking systems used to gather evidence, we cannot say which cases, if any, this code was used for either. What we do know is that there were 4 bids for the work and the job was eventually awarded.

The average settlement from a single letter recipient is $900, so how much was paid for this valuable piece of code which must clearly perform perfectly?

Between $250 and $750.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

These games often have erotic and downright sexual elements and Cross Days from developer 0verflow is no different. The game suffered several delays before release, apparently so that it could be launched along with a special, ahem, USB ‘hands-free’ device for experiencing ‘climax scenes’ (NSFW: Male and female versions) but it was finally released just a few days ago.

Of course, not everyone would acquire the game through the official channels and many turned to file-sharing networks for their erotic gaming fix. Some, who were not particularly careful about the item they were downloading, were in for a pretty big shock.

Alongside the pirated versions of Cross Days can be found some software which claims to be the installer for the game, but is actually a piece of pretty vicious malware which appears to try to punish would-be pirates.

When run, the installer pretends to be the game but using personal information gathered from the victim’s computer (including IP address), it presents a survey which asks for more personal information – including their email address and password.

Once completed, the information is uploaded to a website for all the Internet to see – accompanied by a screenshot of the victim’s desktop. Samples of the information uploaded by the trojan can be viewed here and although much of it is in Japanese, there’s enough pictures and English text to entertain most readers and thoroughly embarrass the unlucky reader of Keily’s Plant.

Adding insult to injury, according to a report the installer’s terms of service agreement actually states that all these things happen, but as we all know, hardly anyone reads them.

Although it is possible to have the would-be pirate’s personal information taken down from the website, first the user has to effectively apologize for having tried to illegally download Cross Days.

Adding to the confusion, developer 0verflow are reporting that users of Avast! anti-virus software receive a false-positive warning (Win32: Trojan-gen) when installing the real game.

This isn’t the first time Japanese file-sharers have been targeted by malware writers. In 2007 a bizarre virus was released which threatened to kill people who illegally download using P2P.

Article from: TorrentFreak.