TorrentFreak

EZTV is arguably one of the largest BitTorrent communities, so any downtime immediately leads to all kinds of horror stories about raids and seizures. This is especially true when the downtime coincides with the start of the new TV-season. However, the site’s users can rest assured as the site will make a comeback soon after its hardware issues are out of the way.

Last week, Usenet indexer Newzbin2 delivered on their promise of delivering a mechanism to circumvent the court-ordered blocking measures set to hit their site in the weeks to come. After releasing a second version of their encryption software in just three days and an OSX version in under a week, the site’s operators now say they are prepared to adapt their client to help other blocked sites stay online.

A teenager who appears to have taken his protest against an anti-piracy law a little too far will find himself in court tomorrow. The 18-year-old allegedly posted a video on YouTube protesting the legislation just passed by New Zealand. In it he claimed that websites would be hacked and that explosives had been planted in government buildings.

The Cybernorms research group at Sweden’s Lund University partnered with The Pirate Bay earlier this year to carry out the largest survey among file-sharers in history. 75,000 people from all over the world participated in the study, and today the researchers revealed some of the initial results. Girls don’t fancy The Pirate Bay, most pirates download movies, and they are increasingly worried about their anonymity.

Earlier this year U.S. lawmakers proposed a draconian anti-piracy legislation known as the PROTECT IP Act. When the proposal becomes law, U.S. authorities and copyright holders will have the power to seize domains, block websites and censor search engines to prevent copyright infringements. But file-hosting service RapidShare have a lot to lose by its introduction and are now spending a great deal of money countering the views of pro-copyright lobbyists.

Canadian authorities are warning Internet users to be vigilant following the emergence of a file-sharing settlement scam operation. West Vancouver police, who have now issued an official fraud warning, say that seniors have been receiving letters claiming they have been caught downloading a range of porn titles. Unsurprisingly, the letters come with an offer to settle for thousands of dollars.

The operators of Usenet indexing site Newzbin2 have introduced measures to circumvent court-ordered web-blocking measures designed to render the site inoperable in the UK. Site staff aren’t revealing how the stand-alone software client works but some basic network packet analysis shows that it defeats ISP BT’s Cleanfeed censorship system by using a handful of techniques including encryption.