TorrentFreak

The cat and mouse game between Microsoft’s army of Xbox 360 programmers and the hacking community not only continues, but becomes ever more fascinating. On the back of the recent announcement that 360 cracking could get a whole lot more difficult due to new disc security measures, some news at the weekend shows that Microsoft [...]

As the United States heads off firmly down the domain seizures route, other countries around the world are also considering how best to deal with the issue of online piracy. Blocking sites via the web’s DNS system has been high on the agenda but doubts exist over its effectiveness. A suggestion coming out of Europe this week would mean that malware filtering in web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome would do the dirty work.

The seizure of file-sharing related domain names by the US Government in recent months have stirred up a lot of controversy. Despite heavy critique from various sides, the responsible authorities justified their actions and claimed that it is an effective tool to clamp down on Internet piracy. However, those who take a good look at the end result soon notice that reality paints a different picture.

Last year the MPAA took legal action against UK ISP BT in an attempt to force it to block the domain of Usenet indexing site Newzbin2. While the government and its communications watchdog run around trying to find out if effective site blocking is feasible, Newzbin2 have just taken steps to neutralize it before it even happens.

Now accused of uploading more than 1,000 movies, a major uploader at one of the world’s oldest BitTorrent sites was arrested at his home last month. Worryingly, the prosecutor in the case has just revealed that tracking the man was simple since he made no effort to hide his IP address, which was both residential and static. Is it now a sign of madness to even go online without some kind of protection?

Sending DMCA takedown notices in bulk has become increasingly fashionable during recent years but thanks to the database at Chilling Effects, we are able to see who is sending what to whom. As concerns mount over the amount of checking carried out before items are taken down, it appears that Fox has managed to get Google to delist DMCA complaints on Chilling Effects, which were originally sent by Fox themselves and submitted to Chilling Effects by Google.

Thanks to malware infecting their machines, last year some BitTorrent users were presented with a screen claiming that they had been caught infringing copyright by groups such as the RIAA and MPAA and needed to pay cash to settle. Now, thanks to leaked documents from the company that processed the credit card payments, we can see how many people fell for the scam.