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Police in File-Sharing Raids Across Europe, WikiLeaks Host Targeted

Police in up to 14 countries around Europe have coordinated to carry out raids against suspected file-sharing servers this morning. Locations in The Netherlands, Czech Republic and Hungary were targeted but Sweden appears to have borne the brunt of the action. Seven locations including PRQ, which hosts WikiLeaks, have been raided.

This morning news is coming in which indicates that very significant raids against illicit file-sharing are taking place in locations across Europe.

Police in up to 14 European countries are said to be involved in an operation, said to be in the planning for two years, targeting the Warez Scene, the network of individuals and servers at the top of the so-called ‘Piracy Pyramid’.

Details are scarce at the moment, but it is believed that at the behest of Belgian authorities, raids have gone ahead in The Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden.

Not unusually, Sweden appears to have borne the brunt of the activity with a total of seven locations raided including Stockholm, Malmö, Umeå, Eskilstuna and Solna.

Armed with IP addresses, this morning police officers turned up at the Solna premises of PRQ, the company that in part hosts WikiLeaks.There is no suggestion that the controversial whistle-blowing site is connected to the operation.

“At 9:00 this morning, five policemen were here,” explained PRQ’s Mikael Viberg. “They were interested in who were using two IP addresses from 2009 and onwards. We have no records of our clients but we’re handing over the e-mail addresses for those behind the IPs. However, it’s rare that our clients have mail addresses that are traceable.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Update: Swedish Prosecutor Frederick Ingblad told Swedish news outlet Expressen.se, “I can confirm that [this operation] is not about Wikileaks.”

Update 2: Thus far, four people are said to be being questioned on suspicion of breaching copyright law. Servers and computers have been seized in Sweden.

Update 3:Police raided the Umeå University.

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  • Bengt

    Cute.

  • RoestVrijStaal

    It will no help. People will stay going on…

  • ZzzZ

    Which sites were targeted?
    Anybody?

  • politux

    De ja vu

  • Tuxie

    ZzzZ: AFAIK no websites were targeted this time, only nodes in the Scene darknet.

    This won’t have much impact on the Scene hydra but it’s sad for the individuals who will have their lives more or less ruined.

  • Ralonto

    >> “Police in up to 14 European countries are said to be involved in an operation, said to be in the planning for two years, targeting the Warez Scene, the network of individuals and servers at the top of the so-called ‘Piracy Pyramid’.”

    “Four people are said to be being questioned on suspicion of breaching copyright law.”

    Spent millions of tax money to arrest four music/film lovers. Congratulations to the mafia for this massive fail.

  • ern

    hey does anyone know what happened to what.cd?

  • au

    I don’t understand why they even bother. These organised police units will, with luck, take down offending servers then find that within 24 hours, the offending content will be served in countries that are out of their jurisdiction.

  • jovialau

    Attack the people who are putting artists name up in lights.Way to go MAFFIA

  • Motard

    Welcome the police state of Europe! Still they do not realize, how pathetic they are.

  • ps

    According to Swedish police, 48 top sites have been identified by the Belgium police. Witch is also leading this operation..

  • Ratcher

    #3

    The Scene seams to have been the target, and as i can see there have just been some e-mail adresses that the police could get from PRQ so no servers or hardware at all taken from PRQ.

  • Ravenheart

    Well one of the sites that fails to open today for me is ThePirateBay.org, perhaps some of their servers got hit?

  • omfg

    since ThePirateBay.org is okay maybe your isp was hit @Ravenheart

  • Jan Lindgren

    Where did you get the information about Umeå University?

  • Microsd

    TPB is down here as well. Some Eu international routes have most likely been hit.

  • anon

    NEtherlands = legal to share music there if not for profit, prq wow can’t believe they got raided
    thepiratebay.org loads fine for me (us)

  • ps
  • anon

    total effect this will have on piracy = create more of it.

  • Rago
  • jovialau

    Off topic…Piratebay down in Australia

  • lolz

    TPB works from USA.

  • pyros

    tpb is down here in the uk aswell

  • seedbox hoster

    Tpb isn’t down, they’re just horribly slow. I’ve been using it off and on for the past couple of hours.

  • Jonas

    TPB is down right here in Sweden for me now, and also down according to: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/thepiratebay.org

    Let’s see if it persists though.

  • Anonymous

    Thepiratebay.org is down using the US proxy hidemyass.com

    Also, according the the articles in Swedish, it seems that it was an operation to gather evidence more than anything else.

  • Jonas

    #24: Ah, you’re right. Now it’s loading again, and very quickly too.

  • Anonymous

    TPB down in Sweden (tele2)

  • Julius

    Well, this would not have happened if they behaved with more security and privacy in mind. The best scene members never get caught.

  • Dave

    I can get onto the main page of TPB but when I search I’m getting “Could not connect to caching server 00″.

    Could be just very busy.

    In the UK too.

  • nstlgc

    Funny that this raid comes only hours after Belgian Minister of Justice Stefaan De Clerck vows to remove the Dutroux documents from Wikileaks…

  • Gargamel

    Its huge scene busts like this that really make me wonder how ‘secure’ the scene really is.

  • Droopy

    MVGroup seems to be down too.. not sure if it’s related to this

  • t3ngu

    For TPB:
    PORT STATE SERVICE
    80/tcp open http
    443/tcp open https

    Seems available to connect, maybe tech problem since everyone tries with this site?

  • F

    pornbay.org is down also :(

  • seedbox hoster

    Tpb is up, they’re just uber slow. Proof: http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3963/tpbisup.jpg

    As you can see the site is being utterly bombarded by fakes. Coincidence? Draw your own conclusions.

  • Realest

    they will try use this bust to influence legislation …wait and see, most likely with false evidence . tpb is down here too

  • seedbox hoster

    Mvgroup is also up. http://forums.mvgroup.org/ still works. If you don’t add the www. it will error, it’s been like that for a while.

  • swedish torrentsite owner

    whew…my servers are still online :)

  • Fuck you

    This is so retarded… This have nothing todo with the scene!

    This is properly just p2p-sites which have been raided…

    Colo and such shit is NOT allowed…
    How stupid would you be to host warez FTPs at PRQ!!!

    Many siteops block known IP ranges of datacenters which is known to host p2p sites and torrent websites!

    P2P is insecure, and P2p users destroys the scene by their insecure behaviors.

  • Weeeeee

    This is so retarded… This have nothing todo with the scene!

    This is properly just p2p-sites which have been raided…

    Colo and such shit is NOT allowed…
    How stupid would you be to host warez FTPs at PRQ!!!

    Many siteops block known IP ranges of datacenters which is known to host p2p sites and torrent websites!

    P2P is insecure, and P2p users destroys the scene by their insecure behaviors.

  • desuru

    back up in australia…or just faster again

  • Kaptain Krunch

    Ar! Cheese Booger sandwich for the police coming right up. Har har.

  • NeverDieP2P

    Piratebay is back in the UK. Faster too.

  • FreedomVPN

    Avoid all legal conflicts and protect yourself using a VPN or a seedbox! You can find some great deals for both at https://freedomvpn.info

  • shittt

    reminds me of the 2005 busts!

    head for hills, initiate coffe and make a run for it :P

  • Ohnoes

    It’s a huge scene busts and will impact piracy for sure, almost all of the 27 ranked sites are down atm, with confirmation several have been busted, it’s really bad

  • moo

    @23 TPB is up in the UK for me and running smooth as ever, on Virgin Media.

  • moo

    @47
    hmm.. scratch that, now down :(
    new pages are either timing out or just showing “Could not connect to caching server 00″

  • shittt

    This was obviously a highly organised and long operation. The involved infiltrating the scene at its highest levels. Like the 2005 busts.

  • quote commented

    update quote above (“Swedish Prosecutor Frederick Ingblad told Swedish news outlet Expressen.se, “I can confirm that [this operation] is not about Wikileaks.”)

    commented on (copy+paste)

    http://wp.me/psdI6-UI

  • ToKinGarg

    Another article
    http://www.pcworld.com/article/204924/police_in_europe_conduct_raids_over_filesharing_sites.html

    piratebay still working where I am at

    More pointless police action

  • FUCKOFF

    LOST has been busted plus many other topsites, the scene has not taken this lightly.

  • Anonymous

    According to this article (danish)
    http://www.comon.dk/nyheder/Store-razziaer-mod-fildelere-i-hele-Europa-1.370218.html

    There are now 7 arrested people, according to Paul Pintér of the Swedish Police.

    Denmark is confirmed to _not_ be part of the countries involved too.

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  • Jonas

    @50: Yes, Swedish media is reporting they spent a few years in preparation for this.

  • MM

    “our freedoms are infinitely more important then record company profits”

  • HIROSHIMA

    NO ONE WILL STOP THE REVOLUTION THEY WONT STOP US +++++++++++++++

  • Anonymous

    This has been planned since two years? All the data will be copied elsewhere in less than a day and nothing will change.

    Your tax dollars/euros at work. Police losing their time and thus leaving real criminals in peace.

  • Boo Boo

    scene notice

    Site.Busts.07-09-10.READNFO-WARNiNG

    There has been some raids today in .eu many sites got busted, confirmed sites that got hit: BAR LOST SC.

    Anyone who has more infomation on the sites/users that got busted please make a scene notice!

    http://pastebin.ca/1935029

  • Anonymous

    pcworld is reporting that the four people that were taken in for questioning have been released.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/204924/police_in_europe_conduct_raids_over_filesharing_sites.html

  • Johan Krüger-Haglert

    I like PRQs excellent customer records :D

    I wonder where they send the bill? =P

  • Johan Krüger-Haglert

    Weeee: I wouldn’t say P2P is insecure and FTPs are secure.

    As long as you only do common P2P by bittorrent I assume you pass beneath the radar. However if you give an account to someone who work with the police/mafiaa on your “secure” FTP you’re still screwed.

    I wonder if people like Mitnick and such haven’t commented on that aspect of security already ..

    What good is strong protection against the world outside if the danger is already inside?

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  • Flying Dutchman

    @57
    I was thinking the same thing…
    If this is where our hard earned money goes, while in the Netherlands the government wants to save money to reduce international debt, they really need a smack to the head.

    I expect my tax money to be spend on something usefull, like improved Education, Healthcare or combating violent crime (murder, robbery, etc.)

    Ow well, we don’t really have a government yet, so things might change.

  • Johan Krüger-Haglert

    Rolanto: I doubt they trade for their “love of music and movies”, I assume you rather trade for the kicks/stats/glory/being famous in your group/…

    The goal most likely isn’t to destroy the industry or save money on movies .. :D

  • lilars

    TPB is sporadically up and down in Canada.

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  • Bengt

    Press release from Umeå University (in swedish):

    http://www.umu.se/om-universitetet/pressinformation/pressmeddelanden/nyhetsvisning//dator-vid-umea-universitet-beslagtogs-av-polisen.cid138641

    The police took one computer from an office (that many people have access to) at the chemistry department.

  • seedbox hoster

    This raid reminds me of when some hobo broke into my car when I was parked overnight in the city, and all the stole was a banana, $3 in change, and my cheapo sunglasses.

  • Dante.Xaiver

    I am from Canada and I can confirm TPB has been acting weird since last night

  • BLAH

    Its going to suck for a lot of people when the police raid OVH. All those pay 2 leech sites/seedboxes.

  • Militaryrobb

    TPB keeps going up and down for me in the US. Been keeping an eye on it and sending a ping from time to time… I think its so funny how the cops waste so much of there time. Well at least its not just US police wasting there time on dumb $h!t.

  • Dante.Xaiver

    Seriously How can people be so stupid and think filesharing is such a threat to the world . Let the people have a say if they want their tax dollars going to police and do hollywoods dirty work

  • Devanite

    “Four people are said to be being questioned on suspicion of breaching copyright law.”

    Its not copyright law anymore, its culture control in a fascist sense

    might as well call it culture law

  • ghost

    if the movie and record companys were not so greedy then we would have to leach.

    there insane and need to get off of it

  • THG

    STFU about TPB, this has nothing to do with the pirate bay!!

    Which is at the bottom the the pyramid.

  • vbg

    @60 – they are sent to the email, and paid (usually prepaid a few billing periods in advance) via wire, WU, paypal, or something else. iirc they also accept cash sent.

  • Dante.Xaiver

    All you scene supporters get off your high horse this has everything to do with TPB , you see The scene is in accessible to most people and TPB is their only outlet to get Culture

  • giovan

    thepiratebay.org is down for me here in the Philippines.

  • FartFace

    Good to know that there are terrorist attacks going on worldwide, terrorist cells popping up everywhere, school shootings going on etc etc.

    So the police go after people copying a few mp3′s and shit. How about the police stop taking money from record labels and so on and go fight REAL crime? How much must this operation have cost? What exactly have the got back from it? This isnt about fighting crime, this is about record labels finding a scapegoat to scare others with.

  • simm

    and what.cd, any news?

  • @78

    yeah what about what.cd :( !

  • …

    @Dante.Xaiver

    Steal music and movies you mean? How about you come work for me free? After all that’s what you want those to do who are “making culture”

  • Dante.Xaiver

    AM I really costing Hollywood money? they waste money like it grows on trees. they claim bankruptcy yet ticket prices keep getting higher, Box office records keep getting smashed remake after remake after remake. the riaa is dead because artists can now promote and distribute their own work

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  • Militaryrobb

    well at least private tracker sites are still up. TBP still going up and down… *tear*

  • Anon

    What.cd is fine. Will apparently be back up again tomorrow according to IRC. They’re just doing some updates and had a minor malfunction.

  • Cryogen

    Can Americans please do something about this bullshit? All this comes from California and the State Department of the USA…

  • mark

    Kiddies, kiddies..
    The Pirate Bay is NOT a topsite. It’s not even a “site” (nor is usenet/fxp/p2p etc etc..). Please, do some research as to what topsites are before you comment. They are an essential part of piracy.

  • simm

    @Anon

    Thanks.

  • Anonymous
  • Anon
  • Dante.Xaiver

    I am Aware how tpb gets their stuff and that the scene operates at top level, what I dont get is how security can get breached in a big way , big enough to cause crap like this. anyways how big of a drop in the ocean of SCENE is a news event such as this.

  • xxx

    dante.xaiver: Its a big drop, believe me. No small shit, unfortunately.

  • xxx

    dante.xaiver: Its a big drop, believe me. No small shit, unfortunately..

  • ghost

    how about we just boycott movies and music from stores and theaters and just get them from torrents just to drive them mad maybe then there gonna lower prices and make things reasonable.

  • Teapotter

    Perfect, brings some attention to the file-sharing topic right before the Swedish elections.

  • mark

    During previous raids, the feds (whether it’s the FBI or another agency) set up a site on their own and made connections with couriers and other topsites.
    If you maintain this for a year or two you get enough information on these couriers and/or topsites..

  • Anonymous

    The weakest link is always the human element. Everyone becomes lax in their security practices (especially in regards to trusting random people) over the years.
    Which is why the infiltration operations lead to such damage, even when technical security is top-notch.

  • more serious

    according to the Le Monde Diplomatique the razzia case in sweden seems to be a bit more serious, isn’t it?

    http://wp.me/psdI6-UI

  • DoH

    “what I dont get is how security can get breached in a big way ”

    Greedy siteops selling leech to anyone with cash including p2p seeders (Sparta (later known as X is a perfect example))and current sites like GUK who are owned by a torrent site , Lazy siteops who dont check traders historys before adding them, insecure affils who sell their leech slots to anyone with cash. Take your pick.
    The topsite scene is insecure simply because of money greed and laziness

  • xxx

    Anonymous: How true. Now it will all depend on the level of technical security sites have implemented.

  • xxx

    DoH: It could be just one compromised site and they reach alot ips. The weakiest chain can’t be simply removed by checking the traders history or affils history.

  • anon

    “93 Sep 07, 2010 at 17:02 by ghost

    how about we just boycott movies and music from stores and theaters and just get them from torrents just to drive them mad maybe then there gonna lower prices and make things reasonable.”

    @93 BEEN DOING this for years, we all are supposed to be doing this for a long time already

  • ghost

    but it takes more then a handful if a good 30 percent of the world did this it could work lol

  • DoH

    @ xxx:
    @xxx : agreed checking isnt a solution – but its step that too many siteops dont bother with. While it wont make the scene secure- its one step closer to being safer.
    Selling leech is a much bigger security issue- feds can buy leech, mix with traders on the site they p2l- get invites onto other sites as racers ( they dont even need to pass trials- just spend a week logging), and build up chains of other sites to log and bust

  • Dante.Xaiver

    Maybe its time the scene became more secure and stop selling access.

  • crash247

    I don’t think it’s a matter of people not understanding that uploading is wrong and illegal. Anyone savvy enough to figure out how to rip, compress and upload a DVD knows exactly what they’re doing. They simply don’t give a shit.

  • Klasv2

    Good! Nice to see them close down a few crappy scene boxes.

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  • Dante.Xaiver

    Now is making criminals out of a FEW hundred million internet users because hollywood says so with forged figures and reports really the right thing to do?>

  • DoH

    @ KlasV2 :
    Trouble is they werent “some crappy scene boxes” – some of the sites had top affils on them.

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  • Dante.Xaiver

    What kind of people exactly make up the demographic f users of scene and operators too. People in high power? people with connections?

  • Elite

    To be really safe, only get your warez from approved couriers BBS’s running Obv/2 or LSD. ;)

  • new guy

    whats bbs or obv or lsd?

  • JoeDow

    what.cd?

  • Some1

    Yup! What.cd got shut down today.

  • AdaMM

    the sources from Czech Pirate Party claim the academical premises in Prague were raided (this has been confirmed), and harddisks were seen flying from the windows of Strahov dormitories (this might be a rumour).

  • Dante.Xaiver

    Seriously dont people know how to use True Crypt

  • Anonymous

    any news on tpb it’s been up and down all day

  • prospective

    You never know these people could have blown-up a bus full of kids or taken hostages. God damn this is bullshit!

  • feem

    @Dante.Xaiver

    truecrypt is far from the best encryption tool.
    and if the boxes are on, it provides no help at all

  • dj jg

    the pirate bay doesnt work from the netherlands, says server doesnt respond

  • Angry Man

    Dexter season 4 premiered in the u.k last week, exactly a year after it premiered in the u.s.

    This is why I download off TPB. I pay for Sky why do I have to wait a year longer than in the u.s???

    The world is in touch through the internet and for this to be happening is un-acceptable. I will never stop downloading and all these raids has prompted me to is download a few box sets and albums in response.

    I.e, everyone involved in these raids can go fu*k theirselves!

  • Anonymous

    This isn’t about your shitty public trackers. This is about the topsites, who without, your public trackers would be empty. The siteops need more security, getting the IP’s of these sites is not impossible, but pretty difficult.

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  • £2.86

    @ 118 feem
    The boxes are pulled from the rack and then booted elsewhere to retreive any data, i belive in this case the Sweedish boxes are going to Belgian, So encryption does help.

    @120 Angry Man
    Yep it is anoying as hell, we have to wait a year or two for australian and usa shows, which is why i download them, but the uk is not alone in this bullshit, we do the same to them aswell, if the rich fat cat corporations just released the episodes world wide and the tv shows on dvd once the series ends then downloading eps would be reduced, but again downloading eps is just like people taping eps in the old days!!!!

  • Not wikileaks, my arse

    This is 100% about wikileaks and the piratebay is just a smokescreen

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  • Nick

    the pirate bay doesnt work from Norway

  • DonPeanut

    Hope What.CD is just down for today :S

  • argh

    would you just STFU about your f*ng pirate bay crap? you TPB sissies have no idea what goes on above your bottom feeder heads.

  • anon

    folks I dunno what the deal with piratebay not working for some people but I tested it out 3 times (when returning back to this site to read comments) and it works fine from us as others have said

  • LOL

    Y’all need to stop worrying. None of the topsites I have access to are down, so EVERYTHING is fine.

  • NOR
  • BlackMischief

    The scene always has been and will be there. If you have been around since way back you’d know this. But yes it does suck they will take good ppl (some not so good) with them but as a whole as long as there is copy there will be piracy. The human end of it fails on both sides and this war has been going on a long time. You all know this. So kick back and wait a few days….

  • ….

    Reply.Site.Busts.07-09-10.READNFO-ANTi_PENiS2PENiS

    //———————-ORGiNAL NOTE

    Site.Busts.07-09-10.READNFO-WARNiNG

    There has been some raids today in .eu many sites got busted, confirmed sites that got hit: BAR LOST SC.

    Anyone who has more infomation on the sites/users that got busted please make a scene notice!

    http://pastebin.ca/1935029

    //———————-MY REPLY

    Well, this is my reply… SC was just a lame unsecured site, they got what they have deserved. The owner also hosts distro’s to WEBGRPS. He also leaks scenefiles on unsecured sites, p2p tracker. Now lets play this game fair, he got what he asked for. The SC owner is from Poland, he is also known as XES.

    I never had the IP of this fag else there would be a scenenote, but it doesn’t matter now because they are having now some serious problems. This Polish cunt owns even a lame forum named after his lame box:

    http://scteam.org/

    And you might be interested in this as well:

    http://bbs.betabbs.com/lofiversion/index.php?t62926.html

    Puh … his nickname xes1911 how orginal! Take a wild guess what his hotmail account would be?

    xes1911@hotmail.com

    No I need to say more??? Oh no! I think this guy has been exposed before. But you idiots did ingore the scenenote!

    All of you reading this will go trough the same shit some day, just because you “dont care” about those SCENENOTES who got released by fellow sceners! Next time you stupid sitebox owners do fucking read a scenenote when its released, ban/purge the fuckers. Don’t be a P2P lover/friend else you’ll get in some serious shit, be SAFE and SECURE like a CONDOM!

  • Bloud

    http://piratske-noviny.cz/?c_id=32516

    Czech coverage. Police raid in housing centre in students dormitories of Czech Technical University in Prague. These dormitories are called Silicon Hill :) (Strahov)

  • Dante.Xaiver

    So what does Hollywood hope to achieve in going after people with no money like students.

  • catch22

    Well at 18.00 its certainly back up and working!

  • Frank

    They should just give up. Raiding those servers does not seem to have any effect in long run. They just keep on coming back again and again. They should focus on REAL CRIMES and leave they pirates alone.

  • Frank

    They should just give up. Raiding those servers does not seem to have any effect in long run. They just keep on coming back again and again. They should focus on REAL CRIMES and leave the pirates alone.

  • Dutch

    off-topic: about the Netherlands (# 17: http://torrentfreak.com/police-in-file-sharing-raids-across-europe-wikileaks-host-targeted-100907/#comment-703035)
    It IS illegal in the Netherland to UPLOAD files. Downloading for home-use is allowed, as is making copies for your self. You aren’t allowed to let someone else make copies for you. In other words; if you want a copy of a cd of mine, I will have to lend you the cd so-that you can create a copy of it. However, when I make a copy of it and give it to you, that will be illegal.

    Usenet is being used a lot here, since you don’t have to share.

  • Anonymous

    I wonder if these corporate parasites know that it will never make us go back and buy their shit ever again.

    Not only that but it is helping us convince others not yet aware of what type of piece of shit they are to expend the boycott to movies and DVDs.

    The music is pretty well boycotted by now and save for few all fogies and few other morons still buying Cds and crapy music files infested with DRM no one is buying.

    We have to focus on the movie theaters and DVDs now. They still make money with that.

  • Anonymous

    “However, when I make a copy of it and give it to you, that will be illegal.”

    Fuck the law.

    The corporate parasites and the authorities who do not work for us can go and fuck themselves.

    WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE?

    Once the coming insurrection is over and once we will have reclaimed our respective countries we will hang them high.

    Meanwhile I am constantly giving copies of DVD to my friends.

    Sorry!

  • anon
  • Jay

    I got the email from PRQ just a few mins ago lol:

    “Hi.

    As many of you might have heard in the media there have been a big
    police raid around Europe.
    The raid was about the usual file-sharing crack-down, which they have
    each year, so not directed directly against PRQ or it\’s customers.
    PRQ was visited by 5 policemen and a locksmith at 9 AM (CET), they
    where not allowed to enter the premises until our legal representative
    was present at the office.
    When he arrived they (the police) just wanted to know who or whom had
    used 2 different IPs during a couple of dates in 2009.
    Since we did not have this information (no logging) there was no
    information and/or hardware for them to seize.
    The police did not enter the datacenter, only the office, so no
    servers or network have been touched by them.
    No information given or hardware removed.

    So you can all rest easily.

    The only impact it have had, is that we lost some working hours,
    which means that we have a little backlog on the tickets. We are
    working through the que, expect to be back on track withing 24 hours.
    –
    Periquito AB / PRQ
    info@prq.se“

  • anon.

    Hopefully those affected won’t be harrassed by the the authorities too much, the sacrifices they have to make for the rest of us, it will take time, but as always we always recover.

  • Dutch

    @138, as a collector, I still purchase cd’s… That still doesn’t make me a moron.

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  • .

    Don’t hate, folks. Public trackers and private trackers are mutually beneficial. We need you all!

  • DRuNKeN MaSTeR

    “The server at thepiratebay.org is taking too long to respond.” – from Hungary / DigiCable.

    Do you know anything about which Hungarian sites were targeted, which providers?

  • TRVillager

    Black Day for file sharers, hope they r safe and will bounce back.Thay r the only light bearer in this dark world

  • YNDA

    What.cd is down :(

  • frank

    Looks like notting spacial….
    http://www.thepiratebay.org workes fine from ukraine…
    no problems here have the feeling poeple are overloading sites who are up…
    beacuse of the panic created by cluless mass media…
    top sites of a dark network are just as not importent as 1 exitnode in the tor network…
    if you take a few down it slows down the network…
    but does niet stop it.

  • YNDA

    turns out what is having an upgrade or something

  • serbian pirate

    pirate bay works fine in serbia! long live TPB!!!

  • dodi

    it seems police are nowadays nothing but a programed robots

    they can’t right a wrong but follow instructions like dumb fucks

    the Manila hostage crisis is an example

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  • Anonymous

    What.CD has a database corruption, no legal troubles.

    “The what.cd site has been down for nearly 24 hours now due to a database corruption problem. The site was getting super hammered due to new updates and some freeleech torrents, and apparently some staff member cleared the site cache to upgrade some part of it, and the combination of the two made mysql crash.
    There isn’t any estimated ETA on the site coming back up again, but they say it’s being worked on as I type this. Just thought I’d let people know, because they haven’t updated their twitter or anything.”

  • Sean

    The fact that out of tens of millions of people that fileshare, they managed to arrest 4 people… or about 0.00001% of all filesharers.. just proves how fail MAFIAA is. Arrest 100,000 people and that’s still only 0.1% of filesharers, and no one is going to arrest 100,000 people.

  • Anonymous

    We some fracking info. 90% of the stuff us bottom feeders suck off comes from the top sites. All the cracked apps, a lot of movies and other stuff comes from these sites.

    These sites provide some quality control without them downloading stuff would be a real crap shoot.

    After the dust settles we will see the results. After each big hit some groups go away and new ones appear but the flow of quality stuff is hurt for awhile.

    F the copyright police, and greedy corps. Long live file sharing. They are freaking retards if they think they are doing any good. They are wasting time and money. For example 99.9% of those that download photoshop would never ever buy it we just want to play with it. So all the copyright policing in the world will not make them any more money.

    Music sites like what.cd are a red flag with a target. They will never last long but there has never been a lack of free music on the internet. I have terabytes of music, a lot I may never listen to. The music industry is selling selling buggy whips in the era of the auto. Who wants to fill up the house with plastic (cd’s and Dvd’s) when one large hd will do.

    All raids against top sites have always been a colossal fail. So all the investigators on this case just wasted two years of their worthless lives.

  • Su

    From the T.O.S of freedomvpn

    “Uploading, downloading, posting, reproducing, or distribution of any content protected by copyright, or other proprietary right, without first having obtained permission of the copyright owner.”

    and

    Violations of this Usage Policy will result in termination of your Account, without any refund of amounts previously paid for this service. Additionally, Account Holder will be held responsible for any and all damages incurred by Freedom VPN including any amounts charged by any outside entity due to said violation(s) including without limitation attorney fees and costs.”

    Money leechers ;)

  • coward and anonymous

    update quote above (“Swedish Prosecutor Frederick Ingblad told Swedish news outlet Expressen.se, “I can confirm that [this operation] is not about Wikileaks.”)

    Good because his investigation notes will probably be appearing on wikileaks tommorrow.

  • anon

    “If an individual uses P2P networks like eDonkey or BitTorrent to obtain copyright material for non-profit reasons, the act is completely legal.

  • Dante.Xaiver

    Whats the status report on the SCENE Raid? or is this maybe a publicity stunt to let the naysayers know your out there HA!

  • theamp

    TPB is slow from the USA, but it’s certainly there.

  • 300113

    I’m allmost glad that P2P-users are raided. Not because they would deserve it, but because the scene will continue to function without harm. And if current sharing methods are banned there will be new and better ways to share data.

  • Canada

    TPB isn’t loading in Canada (Bell Aliant)
    But doubt it will be long, sometimes the ship becomes lost for a bit.

  • piggy bunni

    what about iran? hasn’t their filesharing deviance been proven?

    http://torrentfreak.com/iranian-government-runs-public-warez-server-100824/

  • Anonymous

    eDonkey does not require any central server.

  • Smeagool

    Don’t Know About Iran….
    But tpb is going offline in Pakistan

    F**K Raiders

  • mack

    Raiding universities ftw.

  • Bunny

    Because prohibition works, I mean drugs have been wiped out, prostitution is long crushed, people never exceed speed limits and there is no such thing as a criminal underworld.

    Criminality is a thing of the past!

    Oh, wait sorry, I was repeating bullshit off the TV instead of quoting reality, my bad.

  • DataDuden

    Piratebay works in Norway.

  • Antisocial hikikomori from the Czech Republic.

    It seems it is time to setup some network like Perfect Dark, with better encryption. Well, we might suppose that police won’t be able to get anything from those servers, because of encryption. If the servers were setup correctly, and even swap was encrypted, then they have a problem.

    I would like to know, how do the police solve the problem, that they cannot shutdown the system, because they would lost access to it. Do they freeze memory in such cases? And what if the administrator created a very large encrypted swap only in a memory so that there is not much memory for a system unencrypted, if they are able to get the data, or is it possible to encrypt whole memory of a server without specialized hardware? The key should not be in an unencrypted memory, but to decrypt it cannot be in there… heh.

    Anyway, I watch only an anime, so the raid did not affected me much, but I would not like fansubbing sites raided…

  • Antisocial hikikomori from the Czech Republic.

    The freezing of memories is really simple, so they can do it. It is simple enough it could be used even against home user…

    hXXp://hackaday.com/2008/02/21/breaking-disk-encryption-with-ram-dumps/

  • Andrew Wilson Bolton

    @168, don’t worry, it’s okay. The MAFIAA does it all the time, and no one seems to care. It’s alright.

  • townie2

    too bad all these police forces that co-operated so well together to raid servers, couldn’t coordinate like this for, oh, maybe heroin smugglers, organized crime, prostitution rings, biker gangs, etc. then again, i guess the hosts don’t threaten or bribe them.

  • Dogmeat

    Bah, P2P takes the limelight away from topsites. They aren’t going after those releasing stuff; they’re going after the bulk of the shares. If not for P2P, the AP police will be focusing on the topsites. And if the topsites go, it just means things take a little longer to get out but it won’t stop things from being released or shared.

    The scene’s for elitists and bragging rights. P2P is for commoners and fair use.

  • lee

    Wtf is “The Scene” ? Thought that was a lame video years ago? Remember, commerce gains are bad, centralized distribution counters terrorist threats to global infrastructure.

  • ToKinGarg

    @174
    I agree completely, they may take down some top sites (its not like they are secret anyways), but they are not going to get every predb ftp site, they are not going to shut down usenet(already tried and failed), and with secure vpns and seed boxes, any group will continue release anonymously pretty much unabated.
    It’s like kicking the ocean.

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  • anon

    Any news on TopHos?

  • Anonymous was here

    the scene is designed that you can gt a few or most and guess what there will always be more
    this is why its so funny

    i release stuff have you got me ?

  • Anonymous

    it’s a headline nothing more. If people can openly brag about smoking weed on twitter and facebook..

  • Anonymous

    I think the only thing that will stop P2P is the crappy content that is being produced from Music and Movie industry

  • Phail_Saph

    They’re back up.

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  • Ninja

    You don’t see coordinated actions against real crimes…

    And the WikiLeaks thing smell..

    Let’s see what happens now.

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  • Momba

    Considering that much of Europe is overrun with illegal Arabs from north Africa, I’d say that police are not focusing their efforts where they should!

  • Anonymous was here

    do yo rememeber the drink or die raids

    world wide
    they arrested about 14 people
    rided a unniversity or two and seized 300 computers form said unniversity

    14 people out of a group that had 350 members
    and none of those other members got caught

    14 people
    as suspects
    there are hundreds in the scene

  • Anonymous

    they are thousands in the scene
    however the site LOST was one of the best sites around if not the best, so this is a big raid

  • whatever

    long live the pirate bay

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  • Anonymous

    Wonder whats up with the bay….

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  • Anonymous

    @183

    …keep ur racist shit for urself!

    …TPB is fine today!

  • TerribleTony

    Ah the power of decentralised cross-border governmental organisations.

    More corruption from our great leaders. Their positions too are tenuous, unless they can strong-arm the populace with judicuous usage of riot police and guns.

  • ralph

    The cops shut down a few servers but Osama is still on the loose. I feel safer already.

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  • G0mba

    TPB is still down in Hungary.

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  • Anonymous

    @183

    Fortunately there is only one of you because the illegal moron like yourself are very damaging.

  • Jimmy

    Nobody seems to realize that the scene is very quickly becoming outdated. Everyone can post and share anything now. Take a cheap capture card, have a sattelite or cable subscription, and high speed internet. Voila, the scene is everywhere now people. spending tons of cash against 4 people is a waste of time.

    But it’s up to the government’s discretion… They have the authority so I say let them do what they want. Eventually they’ll come around, and if they won’t come around, they’ll drive themselves into the ground without any outside provocation. The govts of the world can’t be fighting the RIAA’s and US’s battles, in fact no-one can because it’s an inherent human tendency to imitate. It’s like trying to tax (and quantify specifics for taxation of) air. Fighting against human tendencies from the outside (not from within a person) is useless.

  • godspeed

    @193 What about inside contacts? I thought the scene still gets supplied by for example DVD Stamping factory workers, that’s why a lot of movies and/or games are released before their actual public release date. Isn’t that after all what it’s all about, to be the first one? To beat the publishers. Besides, all these home made releases are pissing me off. There’s not one home releaser that respects any form of standards causing public trackers and sites to be a total mess of selfmade crap.

    Also, I’m very surprised that the Belgian government managed to organize a raid this big and coordinated. This worries me too, as the newspapers here wrote today that this same government is warning the people for a “new” form of fraud, called social engineering. Mitnick, Poulsen, anyone? I just hope for those 5 arrested individuals they don’t blow this up out of ignorance.

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  • Doink

    hmmm, the internet seems to be a hell of a lot faster today.

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  • shved

    I am a 35-year-old professional in Sweden. I will be voting PIRATE in the general election in two weeks.

    I can’t stand to see tax financed Swedish police officers running the errands of American multinational corporations. It is disgusting.

    That’s one less egoistical vote for the alliance.

  • Jimmy

    @194.

    The scene is not just about being the first, that’s just a perk. Really, all that matters is content – information. Let’s face it, an R5 copy is easy. You go in with a voice recorder, pick up the sound of the movie, and then sync it up with dvd quality picture. Sure it’s a few months down the road, but that’s OK. It’s not about a race, the competition is just part of the fun.

    What I meant was, when dvd’s come out, the game is over. When games come out, the game is over. So what if the game dies? The game is not the scene, the scene was always about content, and being the first was added prestige. Most people should know that divx/xvid is the way to go, and with increasing bitrates, special filters and fine-tuning of codecs is becoming more and more obsolete. Just don’t make my content in a RATDVD (or RA) format and I’m good, and most will feel the same way. What you’re complaining about is not the independent world distributing content, you’re complaining about the consistency. What I’m simply saying is, consistency is becoming less and less important as bitrates and codecs get better.

    As for home releasers, what about aXXo? I’m sure there’s more but I just can’t think of it right now.

  • Pingback: Pirate Bay goes down after police raids in 14 European countries : Infowars Ireland

  • everlapping unilope

    “…These ‘rich’ claim they own land, and the ‘poor’ are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper…
    …Those in power rule by force [violence], and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist.”
    ~ Derrick Jensen,
    Author of ‘Engame’

    “The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself… Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable…”
    ~ H.L. Mencken

    Resistance= Permaculure/Transition Network

  • Momba

    @188

    First – learn the definition of term “racist”.

    Second – the fact that you get your panties in a bunch doesn’t change the reality.

    Third – what is “urself”?

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  • turtlethere

    You guys claim you are after culture, but what you really are after is entertainment. Culture is something you do yourself, and entertainment is poison to culture because it makes you passive.

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  • TPB is down!?

    The Pirate Bay is not working for me. I’m in the US

  • excop

    Some real truth to all this.
    I was told that I had to give so many tickets each month or I would be on review.
    At a crime scene if it looked like there was a bad bust I was told to talk to a special phone # and do what ever they told me to do.
    I would drive and speed run stops ect just because I could.
    Bribe is a word never used it is gifts.
    And the movie Co. has a police force and unit in cali all for personal use.
    We had places to go to eat, play, and have sex all paid for by movie ceo’s.
    The most power I had ever seen was on movie sets. Even a killing could go unreported for days with no issue. There payroll is deep and they pay for most of the states debt. So touch there pocket in any way and they will find a way to bother you. If you were a employee they might just have you hurt on a set or have false charges on you.

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  • Damager

    TPB is down here in Nigeria. Seems all internet traffic from Africa is routed via europe anyway. If its down in europe, its down in Africa.

  • centurion

    piratebay down in canada

  • boots

    was up yesterday in the us, down today.

  • Zlick

    Whats the point?

  • Pingback: Inside Yesterday’s European Warez Piracy Raids @ blog.idtorrent.org

  • Anonymous

    the point is… less

  • 3Salomon3

    @201/excop:

    Most people don’t know that or rather, don’t want to know or believe what you’re saying.
    It’s sad but it’s the truth, people need to think that they are living in a caring world where every politics/cops are nice cuddly bears protecting the people’s interest, and not their own.
    There are mutliple proofs every year that the world leaders act like the true mafia, lie to us, treat us like cash cows, it’s obvious, but what can we do to change the world’s order, a revolution? There will always be people to prefer their little way of life, even if it means that half of their hard earned money will go in the leader’s pockets.

    When there’s a bust like this one, they (the media,politics,etc..) never emphasize on the money it will cost us and the tax they will have to raise to cover that, but how it is supposed to protect us and our jobs, our artists etc.. Artists who, by the way, earn 1000 times more than any of us in 1 year, at least, and I’m not even talking of the producers.
    Small labels, indie artists, at the contrary, know that they always benefit from the free advertisement they get from file sharing/piracy, that’s why some of them are releasing themselves their own movies/music on P2P sites.

  • Zunglowf

    What waiste of peoples money doing the wishes of a few companies.

    Welcome to “u never win this…” game

  • Obama

    These raids are a joke….the people behind these raids are jokers…its useless… take one down, u get dozen up in the same day…this is a war they cant win.

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  • matt

    its due to the jackasses that can’t but help sell/profit from scene releases.

  • Oli

    Holy shit, I go to Umeå Uni! Thank god I stayed at home that day!

  • AC

    *yawn*

    Some elitist faggots got their precious servers taken away from them for doing something that they knew was illegal and immoral.

    The only respect I have for anyone in the scene are the groups or individuals cracking software, because that takes some intelligence.

    The rest are expendable.

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  • Zephyr

    And so eventually when the Scene has won and piracy has drained all the profitability from entertainment, the big entertainment firms will dry up and blow away. Why bother making movies or videogames if they’re just going to be massively pirated? Then what will you do? I suppose you’ll have to actually read a book to entertain yourselves.

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