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Pirate Bay Founder’s Computer Was “Hacked,” Investigation Reveals

Ernesto — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 13:44:48 +0000

Late last year Gottfrid Svartholm was extradited to Denmark, where the Pirate Bay founder stands accused of hacking into the mainframe computers of IT company CSC.

After several custody extensions Svartholm appeared in court again a few days ago. During the court session the court presented new evidence, backing up the theory that someone else used Svartholm’s computer to carry out the hacks.

The court released the results of an investigation into Svartholm’s computer, which was carried out in February. The released data cover the results of several antivirus scans and the identification of hundreds of suspicious files.

TorrentFreak spoke to Svartholm’s lawyer Luise Høj, who explained that the computer contained several threats, some dating back to 2011. The list includes trojans and exploits that could have allowed an outsider to take control over the machine.

“This is definite evidence that the computer has been compromised – and that the attacker has gained administrator privileges, no less,” Høj informs TorrentFreak.

Despite being aware of the evidence for several months the court maintains the position that Svartholm should remain in custody. His lawyer, however, is convinced that the investigation can plead the Pirate Bay founder free.

“For me this is a clear evidence that Gottfrid has been telling the truth all along – and in my opinion it shows that the Danish legal system has big difficulty handling cases which require a certain level of technical insight as regards computers,” Høj tells us.

Gottfrid’s mother Kristina Svartholm shares this opinion. She can’t understand why it took the court several months to present the evidence. According to her, this may not be just a simple mistake.

“Perhaps ‘malice’ is a more appropriate word,” Kristina Svartholm tells us. “Their methods leave me more and more worried.”

“Gottfrid’s own conclusion is that they have tried to hide them as long as possible just because everything points in his favor,” she adds.

The next hearing in Denmark is currently scheduled to take place at the end of this month. Both Svartholm’s lawyer and mother hope that he will be released, in part based on the new information. The hacking trial is expected to start in September.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

‘Skidrow’ Pirates Get Pirated After Removing Their Own ‘DRM’

Andy — Sun, 04 May 2014 10:30:46 +0000

It’s very common for the entertainment industries to get their collective undergarments in a twist over piracy, so it makes an interesting change to see the same kinds of emotions spill over onto the other side of the piracy fence.

It all began a couple of weeks ago with the release of the Redlynx / Ubisoft motorcross game Trials Fusion. Released on all the top platforms mid April, the race was immediately on for a so-called ‘Scene’ group to remove its copy protection and release a pirated version. On April 16 the group ‘MoNGoLS’ released the game on XBox 360 and eight days later a group called ‘CODEX’ released the Windows version.

Scene records show that CODEX have only been around since February this year yet they managed to beat other leading groups on this particular release. Was that due to them being clever and working hard, or was there another explanation? According to one of the most famous cracking/piracy groups on the Internet, CODEX cheated their way to the win.

Skidrow is one of the most famous groups around and is responsible for the cracking and release of hundreds of games over the years. On April 27, three days after the CODEX release of Trials Fusion, Skidrow released their own version. Then, the day after, revealed why that had been necessary.

According to Skidrow, CODEX had – shock, horror – PIRATED Skidrow’s work.

“While looking inside their emulation code, we discovered something that was about to shock us completely,” Skidrow explained in an announcement this week.

“It was OUR work, OUR emulator.”

But how could Skidrow be so sure? Apparently the group employs rudimentary watermarking.

“CODEX must be stupid to think that we don’t mark our code, but we had it clean on our screens, that CODEX are thieves of our Ubisoft emu. 99 percent of all their API calls in the code are identical with ours.”

Just to be sure, Skidrow say they also plant “several stealth API calls, that identify and tag” their work. Those were apparently found inside CODEX emulation DLLs. For those who understand it, the proof is apparently revealed in the image below.

“[The image] shows the original function written by the coder, using a global variable for another function. Basically, the way the coder wrote the API to set the flag is unique, and [this is] simply copy and paste of our code by CODEX,” Skidrow say.

But while the irony of one group complaining about the pirating (or plagiarizing) of another’s work is pretty obvious, this week Skidrow revealed something else of interest. The group said that while previously it had taken measures to protect its cracks and emulators and obfuscate their code, it had decided to stop doing so when the code got in the way of enjoying the release.

“In the past we used to protect our creations, but lately we have found out that even the most functional [encryption] tools have certain limits when it comes to preventing them from stealing CPU resources,” Skidrow revealed.

“Furthermore we have noticed that some people that use our releases, sometimes have issues with our work being notified as dangerous, when they run them on machines with certain antivirus, spam, spyware programs etc. Therefore we have decided to let our work, which is OUR work, be as clean and direct as you can get it.”

So there you have it. Even the swarthiest of game pirates get upset when people “steal” their code, and not even leading experts in consumer DRM cracking can get their own ‘DRM’ working without negatively affecting the gaming experience. Intriguing indeed…..

Note: For clarity some of Skidrow’s English translation errors have been tidied up.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Antivirus Software Starts Blocking Pirate Websites

Ernesto — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 10:54:09 +0000

For years the MPAA and RIAA have been warning people not to visit The Pirate Bay and other sites where pirated files are traded. These sites pose a threat to the public, they argue, and Russian anti-virus vendor Dr. Web agrees.

The company, whose products are installed on millions of devices around the world, added a new feature to its anti-virus suite which can block copyright-infringing content.

The new feature, which is included in the latest release of Dr.Web 9.0, is the first of its kind. Unlike other blocklists Dr. Web’s database of pirate URLs is built based on reports from copyright holders.

Rightsholders can submit “takedown” notices to the antivirus vendor, who will then block access to the URLs if the copyright claim holds up. TorrentFreak talked to Dr. Web CEO Boris Sharov who sees the new feature as a natural extension of anti-virus products.

“Antivirus products have a built-in web-filtering system, therefore it’s no problem to block URLs. In the parental control module many malicious URLs have already been blocked for years,” Sharov tells TF.

According to the CEO, the purpose of the new feature is to not only prevent piracy, but also to minimize security risks for users.

“Copyright protection is not just about blocking some URLs. In fact, the new feature is completely in the line of our main functionality – we warn users about possible fraud when they access a copyright-infringing site.”

The company explains that the public is sometimes unable to distinguish infringing files from legal ones, which can lead to all sorts of problems.

“It is both anti-phishing and anti-malware protection – we let people know that someone is going to fool them,” Sharov tells us.

Several copyright holders have submitted takedown requests to Dr. Web recently, and more are expected to follow in the near future. However, the anti-virus company says that it isn’t necessarily out to block all pirated content.

“We have just launched the service and there are some copyright holders who have already asked us to include URLs that are infringing on their copyrights,” Sharov says.

“It’s not our goal to include as many URLs in the database as possible. We just want copyright holders to know that there is a service for them in Dr.Web products,” he adds.

Dr. Web stresses that it will only add URLs to the database upon request from copyright holders. The company won’t use algorithms to detect and block infringing content, such as McAfee recently suggested.

Copyright holders who are interested in the feature can file requests on Dr. Web’s Brand Protection page. Users of the software who prefer an unfiltered web have the option to disable the feature at their own risk.

Whether other anti-virus vendors will follow Dr. Web’s example has yet to be seen.

_{Photo: Dan Zen}

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Mega Resellers Take Down PayPal Payment Option

enigmax — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 12:14:05 +0000

As reported in our earlier article, Kim Dotcom and his associates are showing all the signs of being the “good corporate citizens” they’ve claimed to be all along.

Mega has launched under the best possible legal advice and has already shown this week that it will take content down when rightsholders submit complaints. Nevertheless, there are still entities watching the site for signs of the tiniest false move and some are even prepared to act first and ask questions later.

On Monday anti-piracy group StopFileLockers began a campaign a few days ago to have Mega resellers withdraw PayPal processing for the site. It hasn’t taken them long to claim results.

According to SFL head Robert King, out of Mega’s pool of ten resellers a total of four have now removed customers’ ability to pay for Mega via PayPal. The resellers are Pay.mobi, GratisAntivirus, VoucherReseller and Hosting.co.uk.

Pay.mobi earlier this week, with Paypal

When asked about the resellers withdrawing their PayPal services King suggested that once alerted PayPal had simply applied their own terms of service.

“It’s been widely publicized that file sharing sites need to obtain pre-approval in order to process payments with PayPal,” King told TorrentFreak in a comment.

“Whilst we cannot speak for PayPal, we would expect that PayPal would simply be applying their standards fairly to all file sharing sites and that includes Mega and its resellers.”

As noted earlier, Mega has been taking down content this week following requests from rightsholders. When we put this to King he welcomed the news.

“If Mega is acting in full compliance with what is expected under law then we would see that as a step in the right direction,” he responded.

“We will co-operate with any file sharing or cloud storage provider to ensure that world’s best practice is observed when it comes to preventing the distribution of copyright infringing content. We are not in the business of targeting sites that are serious about preventing the mis-use of their services.”

Mega isn’t the only large file-sharing site to have its PayPal processing hit this week. After a long period of maintaining its account despite King’s efforts, Hotfile finally succumbed this week.

“While the MPAA was taking Hotfile to task for breaches of copyright, we took a holistic view of the systemic problems with the Hotfile service. After substantial examination and research we came up with one simple conclusion. Hotfile is a haven for the sharing of copyright and illegal content,” King explained.

“PayPal took the appropriate action against Hotfile and we would encourage any other payment processor considering doing business with this site to think twice before allowing Hotfile to continue.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

uTorrent Plus Goes on Pre-Sale for $24.95

Ernesto — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:12:45 +0000

With well over 100 million active users a month, uTorrent is without doubt the most-used BitTorrent client.

Thus far all versions of uTorrent have been free of charge, but earlier this year uTorrent’s parent company announced the forthcoming release of ‘Plus’, a paid version of the client with additional features.

Plus will enable users to convert videos and transfer files to external devices. It also comes with built in anti-virus, remote file-transfers and a built in media player. Today BitTorrent Inc. announced that Plus will be released before the holidays and the client has been put on pre-sale for $24.95 a year.

“uTorrent Plus was specially designed to give our users access to often-requested features. If they are seeking a very easy way to convert files to popular formats to watch on other devices, plus a safer torrenting experience with integrated antivirus (and more), it’s a no-brainer,” BitTorrent spokesperson Allison Wagda told TorrentFreak.

“The free uTorrent client still offers all the essential functionality and continues to receive significant attention from the development team. uTorrent Plus is exactly what its name implies: everything you love about uTorrent *plus* great new features,” she added.

For the San Francisco company uTorrent Plus is a attempt to add an additional revenue stream aside from the money it makes from toolbar installs. How much is guesswork, but considering the target audience they will probably “suffer” a bit from piracy, although we doubt that they will complain much about that.

uTorrent Plus sale

uTorrent is not the first mainstream file-sharing application to be launched with a paid version. Before it was shut down LimeWire sold a pro version, and uTorrent’s main competitor Vuze also sells a pro version of their client for $24.99 which enables users to burn DVDs.

Generally these pro-clients are not targeted towards savvy BitTorrent users, but to relative newcomers who are willing to pay a little bit to make their lives easier. That said, paid BitTorrent clients are certainly not the norm, so it will be interesting to see how uTorrent Plus will be received by the public.

Are you a uTorrent user? Let us know what you think about Plus in the comments.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Hackers Target uTorrent and Bittorrent Websites

Ben Jones — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:20:44 +0000

Earlier today, the websites of BitTorrent Inc. (utorrent.com and bittorrent.com) were hacked.

In what would seem (but isn’t) to be a vindication of the many ‘studies‘ equating P2P with malware, downloads of the torrent clients µTorrent and BitTorrent (aka mainline) were replaced with malware downloads.

Shortly after this had happened, BitTorrent Inc. took the servers offline, to both investigate and fix the issues.

“This morning at approximately 4:20 a.m. PT (11:20 UTC), the uTorrent.com and BitTorrent.com Web servers were compromised. Our standard software download was replaced with a type of fake antivirus “scareware” program,” BitTorrent’s VP of Software Simon Morris told TorrentFreak

“Just after 6:00 a.m. PT (13:00 UTC), we took the affected servers offline to neutralize the threat. Our servers are back online and functioning normally.”

“We have completed preliminary testing of the malware. Upon installation, a program called ‘Security Shield” launches and pops up warnings that a virus has been detected. It then prompts a user for payment to remove the virus,” Morris said.

“We recommend anyone who downloaded software between 4:20 a.m. and 6:10 a.m. PT run a security scan of their computer. We take the security of our systems and the safety of our users very seriously. We sincerely apologize to any users who were affected.”

The malware was downloaded approximately 28,000 times, but would have been many more it hadn’t been swiftly dealt with.

One of the reasons for the prompt response is the involvement of the community. Initial reports via IRC and Twitter enabled a speedy reaction, despite the early time.

In addition, the forums have been taken offline while their security is investigated. BitTorrent inc. has told TorrentFreak that while forum usernames might have been accessible, the passwords are encrypted. µTorrent Remote servers are not affected at all, as they are completely separate.

UPDATE: it seems that downloads for the BitTorrent (‘mainline’) client may not have been affected after all. However we would still recommend anyone who has attempted to download the client today to run system scans, and we will update this article as more news becomes available.

UPDATE: File Removal Instructions

This particular piece of malware renames itself as a different .exe file every time it installs on a new machine. Therefore, first you need to determine the file name. To do this, visit the following File Directory on your Windows hard drive:

Windows XP: Click Start, click Run, and then type in “%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\” without the quotes. The file will be called [random].exe
Windows Vista and Windows 7: Click Start, in the search box type in “%localappdata%” without the quotes. The file will be called [random].exe.

To delete the file, first you need to make sure to kill the application first:
– Open your Task Manager (Control-Alt-Delete), select the [random].exe (the name you found in the file directory). Click “End Process” and select “Yes.”

- Next: select the file name (or right-click on the name) and hit Delete.

- Empty your trash.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Malware Toolkits Guarded With Stolen DRM

enigmax — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:40:24 +0000

Malware writers are pinching anti-pirate technology embedded into some of the world’s most popular software to protect their own, according to Symantec.

The antivirus company said writers of complex malware toolkits can embed measures to prevent users from stealing their work.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Pirate Bay Returns With Guns Blazing

Ernesto — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:33:44 +0000

When The Pirate Bay was shut down yesterday many believed that this was the end for the Internet’s largest BitTorrent tracker.

However, despite the fact that the site is set to be sold later this week, the Pirate Bay team worked around the clock to serve their users in these final hours.

A mere three hours after it went offline the site reappeared from a different location, but because of technical issues at the new ISP a full comeback took almost a day. The site is back online and the tracker is expected to follow soon.

The Pirate Bay team has always anticipated an unwanted disconnection of the site. After their servers were raided in 2006 several measures were taken to ensure that the site could simply come back online from a new location in a few hours, and this is the first time that this backup plan had been executed.

With its reemergence the people behind the site hope to show the authorities and the entertainment industry that the war is not over just yet. Perhaps it’s only the beginning of a battle on a different front. The future will tell.

A few minutes ago, the Pirate Bay team released the following statement, adapted from Churchill’s famous “We Shall Fight On the Beaches” speech. Make of it what you will.

We have, ourselves, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Internets, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the ef-nets and darknets, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Internets, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the baywords.org, we shall fight on the /. and on the digg, we shall fight in the courts; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, the Internets or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Anon Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in Cerf’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Signed;

The Pirate Bay Crew – Now until needed.

Update: Users of the anti-virus program Avast report that TPB has been blacklisted as a malicious site after the site returned.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

uTorrent Marked as Trojan by Avast Antivirus

Ernesto — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:15:43 +0000

Of course, there is nothing wrong with uTorrent. The application somehow got listed in Avast’s list of trojans, resulting in a false positive. uTorrent 1.7.7 was mistakenly listed as “Win32:Poison-DU [Trj]“, whereas the newer Beta’s were unaffected.

Such ‘false positives’ often happen with other harmless applications – better safe than sorry- but since uTorrent doubled its user base in just 12 months and is installed on millions of computers, this problem affected a sizable number of people. It didn’t take long before the issue was reported to Avast, and after approximately 5 hours the problem was fixed.

Earlier this week it became clear that uTorrent’s WebUI (+ Azureus and TorrentFlux) were vulnerable to several exploits. Apparently the vulnerabilities in the webUI, allow outsiders to take over uTorrent and download random content onto one’s system.

uTorrent developer Greg Hazel told TorrentFreak that he is aware of the issue and working on a fix. For now, the BitTorrent client itself is perfectly safe and secure.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Asia ‘pirates’ out of necessity, not choice

Smaran — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 20:12:29 +0000

Asia is associated with piracy. This association isn’t off the mark. People here use P2P networks to download copyrighted music (among other things), and having bootleg software on one’s computer is a completely normal thing. The idea of paying $100 for an original copy of Windows is considered wild. People are laughed at when they ask a computer salesman for original copies of Windows XP, Microsoft Office or Norton Antivirus. The general consensus is, when you can get it so easily for free, why bother? Well, many of us do bother.

Why is piracy widespread in Asia?
This question has two simple answers. Firstly, there aren’t viable legal competitors. Piracy can only be overcome if the customer feels he/she is getting something better by buying content, instead of downloading it for free. There are moral issues involved as well, and each person has a different breaking point. For some it might be being able to purchase songs from the iTunes Store, for others it might be getting a better deal, like an all-you-can-download monthly subscription service.

Secondly, Asia comprises mostly of ‘third world’ countries, most of whose citizens can’t afford the exuberant rates companies like Sony ($700 for a 512MB mp3 player) charge for their products. Multi-nationals are slowly understanding this and are starting to sell their products at a cheaper rate in Asia. The XBOX 360 is one of these. Also, many countries charge extraordinary import taxes on goods. This makes an imported good purchased in the grey market almost 1/3 the price of one bought legally. For example, iPods bought in the US and sold in India are considerably cheaper than those sold by authorised dealers here. Wired News published a mostly accurate piece on the booming grey market of iPods in India.

Pirates will be pirates
Pirates will be pirates. But people who want to purchase digital content legally will only be pirates if they have no other choice. Accusing an entire continent of being law-breakers is outrageous. Everyone’s favourite example these days is the iTunes Store. If Apple would expand into more countries, I am sure we would see a noticeable drop in the amount of music shared over P2P networks. Companies like Apple need to start trusting Asia. They can only gain from this. Piracy will continue with or without them. Their presence might actually reduce it. Apple Asia’s marketing director said that they “cannot comment on the specifics but it is true that iTunes is not available in Asia” and that the continent’s attitude towards copyrighted material is “relaxed.”

In April we reported on how a leading Indian newspaper, the Hindustan Times was openly promoting BitTorrent and the downloading of copyrighted files. Do they have another good legal alternative to recommend to their tech-savvy readers? No, they do not.

Asia now has the money. We’re just not being recognised as a potential market. Don’t turn away from us. We don’t want to be forced to pirate. “Do you want more frickin’ pirates?” asked Joey Alarilla, writing for CNET Asia. My answer is no, we do not.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.