While millions of users frequent popular public torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and RARBG every day, there’s a thriving scene that’s hidden from the wider public eye.

Every week, private torrent trackers cater to dozens of millions of BitTorrent users who have taken the time and effort to gain access to these more secretive communities. Often labeled as elitist and running counter to the broad sharing ethos that made file-sharing the beast it is today, private sites pride themselves on quality, order and speed, something public sites typically struggle to match.

In addition to these notable qualities, many private sites choose to focus on a particular niche. There are sites dedicated to obscure electronic music, comedy, and even magic, but HDClub’s focus was given away by its name.

Dubbing itself “The HighDefinition BitTorrent Community”, HDClub specialized in HD productions including Blu-ray and 3D content, covering movies, TV shows, music videos, and animation.

Born in 2007, HDClub celebrated its ninth birthday on March 9 last year, with 2017 heralding a full decade online for the site. Catering mainly to the Russian and Ukrainian markets, the site’s releases often preserved an English audio option, ideal for those looking for high-quality releases from an unorthodox source at decent speeds.

Of course, HDClub releases often leaked out of the site, meaning that thousands are still available on regular public trackers, as a search on any Western torrent engine reveals.

A sample of HDClub releases listed on Torrentz2

Importantly, the site offered thousands of releases completely unavailable in Russia from licensed sources, meaning it filled a niche in which official outlets either wouldn’t or couldn’t compete. This earned itself a place in Russia’s Top 1000 sites list, despite being a closed membership platform.

The site’s attention to detail and focus earned it a considerable following. For the past few years the site capped membership at 190,000 people but in practice, attendance floated around the 170,000 mark. Seeders peaked at approximately 400,000 with leechers considerably less, making seeding as difficult as one might expect on a ratio-based tracker.

Now, however, the decade-long run of HDClub has come to an abrupt end. Early this week the tracker went dark, reportedly without advance notice. A Russian language announcement now present on its main page explains the reasons for the site’s demise.

“Recently, we received several dozens of complaints from rightsholders weekly, and our community is subjected to attacks and espionage,” the announcement reads.

While public torrent sites are always bombarded with DMCA-style notices, private sites tend to avoid large numbers of complaints. In this case, however, HDClub were clearly feeling the pressure. The site’s main page was open to the public while featuring popular releases, so this probably didn’t help with the load.

It’s not clear what is meant by “attacks and espionage” but it’s possibly a reference to DDoS assaults and third-parties attempting to monitor the site. Nevertheless, as HDClub points out, the climate for torrent, streaming, and similar sites has become increasingly hostile in the region recently.

“In parallel, there is a tightening of Internet legislation in Russia, Ukraine and EU countries,” the site says.

Interestingly, the site’s operators also suggest that interest from some quarters had waned, noting that “the time of enthusiasts irretrievably goes away.” It’s unclear whether that’s a reference to site users, the site’s operators, or indeed both. But in any event, any significant decline in any area can prove fatal, particularly when other pressures are at play.

“In the circumstances, we can no longer support the work of the club in the originally conceived format. The project is closed, but we ask you to refrain from long farewells. Thank you all and goodbye!” the message concludes.

Interestingly, the site ends with a little teaser, which may indicate some hope for the future.

“There are talks on preserving the heritage of the club,” it reads, without adding further details.

Possibly stay tuned…..

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!}

In this episode, we meet Steve Phillips of The Pursuance Project. Pursuance is a new tool for organising activists and journalists online which springs directly from the work of journalist Barrett Brown and Barrett’s experience handling the Stratfor HBGary leaks around 2012-2013, which resulted in him going to prison.

We discuss the tech behind the Panama Papers and Snowden leaks, the details behind the HB Gary leaks, how Steve was inspired by the story of Anonymous’ first big online hit and how organizational tools are the new frontier online – whether for corporate teams or activist groups.
—

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: Steve Phillips

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 movie industry sees illegally recorded movies as one of the biggest piracy threats and goes to extremes to stop it.

Over the years, movie theaters have used audio and video watermarking tools to detect pirates, for example. And during prominent events, night-vision goggles and other spy tech is used to monitor movie goers.

Most anti-piracy efforts are not particularly pleasing for the public, but a new technology from Philips hopes to change this. In a recent patent application the technology company proposes an ambient lighting system for movie theaters that will hinder pirate recordings.

“The major motion picture studios are losing large amounts of money due to piracy. The worldwide motion picture industry, distributors, theaters, video stores and pay-per-view operators, lose each year billions of dollars as a result of piracy,” the company begins.

Philips notes that many of the current security measures, such as watermarking, make piracy traceable. However, they don’t prevent actual recording and distribution. Watermarks can be simply rendered useless if pirates remove them afterwards, for example.

“The problem with current security measures in digital cinema is that they do not prevent pirates from filming the content from the cinema screen. Watermarks can help to identify the source of pirate content, but it does not prevent the actual copying and spreading of the content.”

The ambient lighting solution is different and Philips believes that it could reduce piracy substantially.

The concept is quite easy. By shining light on the visitors from the side, at a certain frequency, the pirate recordings will be severely degraded up to a point where they’ll become completely unwatchable.

“The solution proposed here is to shine visible light from an (additional) light source with a pre-determined modulation frequency at the cinema screen while the movie plays,” the patent application reads.

“When the frequency is chosen well, a camera will not be able to properly film the content, because the light source runs out of sync with the camera resulting in stripes running through the movie content.”

The idea is partly inspired by Philips existing Ambilight technology for TVs. This generates lighting effects around the TV that correspond to the video content. The cinema setup will do the same while hindering pirates in the process. A win-win situation, according to Philips.

“It is yet a further aspect to provide a more immersive experience when watching video content on a display device in combination with anti-piracy measures,” the patent application reads.

It’s unclear whether there are concrete plans to roll out the technology at movie theaters. Philips, however, is no stranger to these type of anti-piracy solutions. The company previously rolled out CineFence, a forensic marking technology for both image and sound, targeted at digital cinema content.

In any case, it’s a good marketing message to get movie theaters to try ambient lighting. Whether it’s really effective has yet to be seen though.

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

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Tonight, August 26, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Floyd Mayweather Jr. will finally meet UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor in what is being billed as the biggest fight in boxing history.

Although tickets for inside the arena are still available for those with a lot of money to burn, most fans will be viewing on a screen of some kind, whether that’s in a cinema, sports bar, or at home in front of a TV.

The fight will be available on Showtime in the United States but the promoters also say they’ve done their best to make it accessible to millions of people in dozens of countries, with varying price tags dependent on region. Nevertheless, due to generally high prices, it’s likely that untold thousands around the world will attempt to watch the fight without paying.

That will definitely be possible. Although Showtime has won a pre-emptive injunction to stop some sites offering the fight, many hundreds of others are likely to fill in the gaps, offering generally lower-quality streams to the eager masses. Whether all of these sites will be able to cope with what could be unprecedented demand will remain to be seen, but there is one method that will thrive under the pressure.

Torrent technology is best known for offering content after it’s aired, whether that’s the latest episode of Game of Thrones or indeed a recording of the big fight scheduled for the weekend. However, what most ‘point-and-click’ file-sharers won’t know is that there’s a torrent-based technology that offers live sporting events week in, week out.

Without going into too many technical details, AceStream / Ace Player HD is a torrent engine built into the ever-popular VLC media player. It’s available on Windows, Android and Linux, costs nothing to install, and is incredibly easy to use.

Where regular torrent clients handle both .torrent files and magnet links, AceStream relies on an AceStream Content ID to find streams to play instead. This ID is a hash value (similar to one seen in magnet links, but prefaced with ‘acestream://’) which relates to the stream users want to view.

Once found, these can be copied to the user’s clipboard and pasted into the ‘Open Ace Stream Content ID’ section of the player’s file menu. Click ‘play’ and it’s done – it really is that simple.

AceStream is simplicity itself

Of course, any kind of content – both authorized and unauthorized – can be streamed and shared using AceStream and there are hundreds of live channels available, some in very high quality, 24/7. Inevitably, however, there’s quite an emphasis on premium content from sports broadcasters around the world, with fresh links to content shared on a daily basis.

The screenshot below shows a typical AceStream Content ID indexing site, with channels on the left, AceStream Content IDs in the center, plus language and then stream speed on the far right. (Note: TF has redacted the links since many will still be live at time of publication)

A typical AceSteam Content ID listing

While streams of most major TV channels are relatively easy to find, specialist channels showing PPV events are a little bit more difficult to discover. For those who know where to look, however, the big fight will be only a cut-and-paste away and in much better quality than that found on most web-based streaming portals.

All that being said, for torrent enthusiasts the magic lies in the ability of the technology to adapt to surging demand. While websites and streams wilt under the load Saturday night, it’s likely that AceStream streams will thrive under the pressure, with viewers (downloaders/streamers) also becoming distributors (uploaders) to others watching the event unfold.

With this in mind, it’s worth noting that while AceStream is efficient and resilient, using it to watch infringing content is illegal in most regions, since simultaneous uploading also takes place. Still, that’s unlikely to frighten away enthusiasts, who will already be aware of the risks and behind a VPN.

Ace Streams do have an Achilles heel though. Unlike a regular torrent swarm, where the initial seeder can disappear once a full copy of the movie or TV show is distributed around other peers, AceStreams are completely reliant on the initial stream seeder at all times. If he or she disappears, the live stream dies and it is all over. For this reason, people looking to stream often have a couple of extra stream hashes standing by.

But for big fans (who also have the money to spend, of course), the decision to pirate rather than pay is one not to be taken lightly. The fight will be a huge spectacle that will probably go down in history as the biggest combat sports event of all time. If streams go down early, that moment will be gone forever, so forget telling your kids about the time you watched McGregor knock out Mayweather in Round Two.

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

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