While the popularity of torrent sites isn’t as strong as it used to be, dozens of millions of people use them on a daily basis.

Content availability is rich and the majority of the main movie, TV show, game and software releases appear on them within minutes, offering speedy and convenient downloads. Nevertheless, things don’t always go as smoothly as people might like.

Over the past couple of days that became evident to visitors of TorrentDownloads, one of the Internet’s most popular torrent sites.

TorrentDownloads – usually a reliable and tidy platform

Instead of viewing the rather comprehensive torrent index that made the Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Site lists in 2016 and 2017, visitors receive a warning.

“Attackers on torrentdownloads.me may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information (for example, passwords, phone numbers or credit cards),” Chrome users are warned.

“Google Safe Browsing recently detected phishing on torrentdownloads.me. Phishing sites pretend to be other websites to trick you.”

Chrome warning

People using Firefox also receive a similar warning.

“This web page at torrentdownloads.me has been reported as a deceptive site and has been blocked based on your security preferences,” the browser warns.

“Deceptive sites are designed to trick you into doing something dangerous, like installing software, or revealing your personal information, like passwords, phone numbers or credit cards.”

A deeper check on Google’s malware advisory service echoes the same information, noting that the site contains “harmful content” that may “trick visitors into sharing personal info or downloading software.” Checks carried out with MalwareBytes reveal that service blocking the domain too.

TorrentFreak spoke with the operator of TorrentDownloads who told us that the warnings had been triggered by a rogue advertiser which was immediately removed from the site.

“We have already requested a review with Google Webmaster after we removed an old affiliates advertiser and changed the links on the site,” he explained.

“In Google Webmaster they state that the request will be processed within 72 Hours, so I think it will be reviewed today when 72 hours are completed.”

This statement suggests that the site itself wasn’t the direct culprit, but ads hosted elsewhere. That being said, these kinds of warnings look very scary to visitors and sites have to take responsibility, so completely expelling the bad player from the platform was the correct choice. Nevertheless, people shouldn’t be too surprised at the appearance of suspect ads.

Many top torrent sites have suffered from similar warnings, including The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, which are often a product of anti-piracy efforts from the entertainment industries.

In the past, torrent and streaming sites could display ads from top-tier providers with few problems. However, in recent years, the so-called “follow the money” anti-piracy tactic has forced the majority away from pirate sites, meaning they now have to do business with ad networks that may not always be as tidy as one might hope.

While these warnings are the very last thing the sites in question want (they’re hardly good for increasing visitor numbers), they’re a gift to entertainment industry groups.

At the same time as the industries are forcing decent ads away, these alerts provide a great opportunity to warn users about the potential problems left behind as a result. A loose analogy might be deliberately cutting off beer supply to an unlicensed bar then warning people not to go there because the homebrew sucks. It some cases it can be true, but it’s a problem only being exacerbated by industry tactics.

It’s worth noting that no warnings are received by visitors to TorrentDownloads using Android devices, meaning that desktop users were probably the only people at risk. In any event, it’s expected that the warnings will disappear during the next day, so the immediate problems will be over. As far as TF is informed, the offending ads were removed days ago.

That appears to be backed up by checks carried out on a number of other malware scanning services. Norton, Opera, SiteAdvisor, Spamhaus, Yandex and ESET all declare the site to be clean.

Technical Chrome and Firefox users who are familiar with these types of warnings can take steps (Chrome, FF) to bypass the blocks, if they really must.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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As torrents and other forms of file-sharing resolutely simmer away in the background, it is the streaming phenomenon that’s taking the Internet by storm.

This Tuesday, in a report by Canadian broadband management company Sandvine, it was revealed that IPTV traffic has grown to massive proportions.

Sandvine found that 6.5% of households in North American are now communicating with known TV piracy services. This translates to seven million subscribers and many more potential viewers. There’s little doubt that IPTV and all its variants, Kodi streaming included, are definitely here to stay.

The topic was raised again Wednesday during a panel discussion hosted by the Copyright Alliance in conjunction with the Creative Rights Caucus. Titled “Copyright Pirates’ New Strategies”, the discussion’s promotional graphic indicates some of the industry heavyweights in attendance.

The Copyright Alliance tweeted points from the discussion throughout the day and soon the conversation turned to the streaming phenomenon that has transformed piracy in recent times.

Previously dubbed Piracy 3.0 by the MPAA, Senior Vice President, Government and Regulatory Affairs Neil Fried was present to describe streaming devices and apps as the latest development in TV and movie piracy.

Like many before him, Fried explained that the Kodi platform in its basic form is legal. However, he noted that many of the add-ons for the media player provide access to pirated content, a point proven in a big screen demo.

Kodi demo by the MPAA via Copyright Alliance

According to the Copyright Alliance, Fried then delivered some interesting stats. The MPAA believes that there are around 38 million users of Kodi in the world, which sounds like a reasonable figure given that the system has been around for 15 years in various guises, including during its XBMC branding.

However, he also claimed that of those 38 million, a substantial 26 million users have piracy addons installed. That suggests around 68.5% or seven out of ten of all Kodi users are pirates of movies, TV shows, and other media. Taking the MPAA statement to its conclusion, only 12 million Kodi users are operating the software legitimately.

TorrentFreak contacted XBMC Foundation President Nathan Betzen for his stance on the figures but he couldn’t shine much light on usage.

“Unfortunately I do not have an up to date number on users, and because we don’t watch what our users are doing, we have no way of knowing how many do what with regards to streaming. [The MPAA’s] numbers could be completely correct or totally made up. We have no real way to know,” Betzen said.

That being said, the team does have the capability to monitor overall Kodi usage, even if they don’t publish the stats. This was revealed back in June 2011 when Kodi was still called XBMC.

“The addon system gives us the opportunity to measure the popularity of addons, measure user base, estimate the frequency that people update their systems, and even, ultimately, help users find the more popular addons,” the team wrote.

“Most interestingly, for the purposes of this post, is that we can get a pretty good picture of how many active XBMC installs there are without having to track what each individual user does.”

Using this system, the team concluded there were roughly 435,000 active XBMC instances around the globe in April 2011, but that figure was to swell dramatically. Just three months later, 789,000 XBMC installations had been active in the previous six weeks.

What’s staggering is that in 2017, the MPAA claims that there are now 38 million users of Kodi, of which 26 million are pirates. In the absence of any figures from the Kodi team, TF asked Kodi addon repository TVAddons what they thought of the MPAA’s stats.

“We’ve always banned the use of analytics within Kodi addons, so it’s really impossible to make such an estimate. It seems like the MPAA is throwing around numbers without much statistical evidence while mislabelling Kodi users as ‘pirate’ in the same way that they have mislabelled legitimate services like CloudFlare,” a spokesperson said.

“As far as general addon use goes, before our repository server (which contained hundreds of legitimate addons) was unlawfully seized, it had about 39 million active users per month, but even we don’t know how many users downloaded which addons. We never allowed for addon statistics for users because they are invasive to privacy and breed unhealthy competition.”

So, it seems that while there is some dispute over the number of potential pirates, there does at least appear to be some consensus on the number of users overall. The big question, however, is how groups like the MPAA will deal with this kind of unauthorized infringement in future.

At the moment the big push is to paint pirate platforms as dangerous places to be. Indeed, during the discussion this week, Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid claimed that users of pirate services are “28 times more likely” to be infected with malware.

Whether that strategy will pay off remains unclear but it’s obvious that at least for now, Piracy 3.0 is a massive deal, one that few people saw coming half a decade ago but is destined to keep growing.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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^{If you enjoy this episode, consider becoming a patron and getting involved with the show. Check out Steal This Show’s Patreon campaign: support us and get all kinds of fantastic benefits!}

It seems everyone’s getting in on the “fake news” game today, from far-right parties in Germany to critics of Catalan separatism — but none more concertedly than the Russian state itself.

In this episode we meet Ben Nimmo, Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, to talk us through the latest patterns and trends in online disinformation and hybrid warfare. ‘People who really want to cause trouble can make up just about anything,’ explains Ben, ‘and the fakes are getting more and more complex. It’s really quite alarming.’

After cluing us in on the state of information warfare today, we discuss evidence that the Russians are deploying a fully-funded ‘Troll Factory’ across dominant social networks whose intent is to distort reality and sway the political conversation in favour of its masters.

We dig deep into the present history of the ‘Battle Of The Bots’, looking specifically at the activities of the fake Twitter account @TEN_GOP, whose misinformation has reached all the way to the highest tier of American government. Can we control or counter these rogue informational entities? What’s the best way to do so? Do we need ‘Asimov Laws’ for a new generation of purely online, but completely real, information entities?

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Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing copyright and file-sharing news. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary, and analysis.

The guests for our news discussions will vary, and we’ll aim to introduce voices from different backgrounds and persuasions. In addition to news, STS will also produce features interviewing some of the great innovators and minds.

Host: Jamie King

Guest: Ben Nimmo

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Riley Byrne
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Siraje Amarniss

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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The times when pirates were stereotyped as young men in a college dorm are long past us.

Nowadays you can find copyright infringers throughout many cultures and all layers of society.

In the past we’ve discovered ‘pirates’ in the most unusual places, from the FBI, through major record labels and the U.S. Government to the Vatican.

This week we can add another location to the list, Osama Bin Laden’s former Abbottabad compound, where he was captured and killed on 2 May 2011.

The CIA has regularly released documents and information found on the premises. This week it added a massive treasure trove of 470,000 files, providing insight into the interests of one of the most notorious characters in recent history.

“Today’s release of recovered al-Qa‘ida letters, videos, audio files and other materials provides the opportunity for the American people to gain further insights into the plans and workings of this terrorist organization,” CIA Director Pompeo commented.

What caught our eye, however, is the material that the CIA chose not to release. This includes a host of pirated files, some more relevant than others.

For example, the computers contained pirated copies of the movies Antz, Batman Gotham Knight, Cars, Chicken Little, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Home on the Range and The Three Musketeers. Since these are children-oriented titles, it’s likely they served as entertainment for the kids living in the compound.

There was also other entertainment stored on the hard drives, including the games Final Fantasy VII and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, a Game Boy Advance emulator, porn, and anime.

Gizmodo has an overview of some of the weirdest movies, for those who are interested.

Not all content is irrelevant, though. The archive also contains files including the documentary “Where in the World is Osama bin Laden,” “CNN Presents: World’s Most Wanted,” “In the Footsteps of Bin Laden,” and “National Geographic: World’s Worst Venom.”

Or what about “National Geographic: Kung Fu Killers,” which reveals the ten deadliest Kung Fu weapons of all time, including miniature swords disguised as tobacco pipes.

There is, of course, no evidence that Osama Bin Laden watched any of these titles. Just as there’s no proof that he played any games. There were a lot of people in the compound and, while it makes for a good headline, the files are not directly tied to him.

That said, the claim that piracy supports terrorism suddenly gets a whole new meaning…

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Credit: Original compound image Sajjad Ali Qureshi

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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At the end of the year movie industry insiders traditionally receive their screener copies, which they use to vote on the Oscars and other awards.

As is tradition, quite a few of these advance screeners will leak on various pirate sites. Last year the action started late, but eventually more than a dozen copies found their way to pirate sites.

The problem is not minor. Over the past fifteen years, screener copies of more than half of all the Oscar-nominated films have leaked online. Many of them appeared while the movies were still playing in theaters, or even before.

Hollywood has been working hard to contain the problem with watermarks and other security protocols but it seems hard to contain. This isn’t really a surprise when you look at the numbers. According to reports, studios send out 70,000 physical discs every year.

“No matter how much you try to secure your product, if you’re sending out a movie, it will leak online,” an anonymous source at a top awards screeners distributor told Variety, which reported on the issue.

In recent years several new online screening options have been developed. These are much cheaper, less than $4 compared to up to $35 for a watermarked physical disc. On top of that, they’re also much more secure and less likely to be stolen or copied in the distribution process.

Interestingly, however, many studios are reluctant to make this change. Not because they are worried about the technology itself, which works just fine, but because they fear that older voters are not tech savvy enough to handle an online screener.

This is corroborated by Matt Suggs, the executive VP of the online screening platform Mediafly. “The No. 1 concern is the older awards-voter demographic. This is brought up by every one of our customers,” he says.

Apparently, awards votes are more important than security in this instance. This is good news for pirates who have a better chance of seeing advance screener copies leak because of it. The question is, how long will this last?

Technology advances at a rapid pace. Just ten years ago it was pretty much impossible to stream a Hollywood movie online, something that everyone takes for granted today. So, eventually, screeners will all move to the Internet as well.

Suggs compares it to the shift from VHS to DVDs. At first, many older voters were not happy with the change, but eventually, everyone caved in.

“The same concerns existed when the studios moved to DVDs. For several years, they still had older members asking for VHS tapes. It’s just inevitable that they’re going to migrate to eScreeners in the same way. The real solution to this problem is time,” he says.

That said, even when all screeners move to a well-protected online platforms, leaks will still be possible. After all, pirates and hackers tend to be very familiar with the online playground.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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