In a nutshell, some time ago LetMeWatchThis changed its name to 1Channel. Then more recently it changed back again after the 1Channel domain was hijacked. After more shenanigans the site changed its domain to PrimeWire.ag and then this week, reportedly changed to Vodly.to

After receiving lots of emails on the topic, mostly asking which is the real site, we have now unraveled the mystery. We can confirm that of the domains currently operating, PrimeWire.ag and LetMeWatchThis.ch are ‘real’ and the others should all be disregarded as either dead or fake.

So what on earth has been going on?

On Friday, TorrentFreak managed to get in touch with the admin of the real sites who told us a quite astonishing story of how his domains were stolen from under his nose – not once, not twice, but an amazing three times.

It all started off a year ago when the site was operating from LetMeWatchThis.com, a domain that was hijacked and now diverts to WatchFreeMovies.com, a clone site presumably operated by the hijackers.

Then in May, after the site had moved to the replacement 1Channel.ch, that domain was also hijacked. LetMeWatchThis.ch, yet another replacement, suffered the same fate. This week PrimeWire.ag, the latest substitute domain, was hijacked too but is now back in safe hands.

So is poor security on the admin’s side to blame here or are there other factors at play? Apparently, domain name registrars are very easy to fool if you know how.

“The state of domain registrars is simply terrible,” the PrimeWire admin explains.

“We have had three domains hijacked from three separate registrars in the past two years. Every single registrar was given very specific instructions to prevent these hijackings, however every single one simply handed over the domain based on badly doctored ‘proof’, completely disregarding the warning given to them in regards to scenarios exactly like this.”

So how exactly are the registrars being convinced to hand over domains to impostors?

“This is actually a scary thing, since you can pretty much gain control (at least temporarily) of any domain you choose by pretending to be the owner of the domain,” our admin reveals.

“You don’t have to have access to any emails, passwords, or any other credentials. You simply grab the information from the WHOIS, write a letter with an attached photo-shopped ID with the same name, send it from a random email address, and the domain will be handed to you fairly quickly.”

So what can be done to avoid having your domain taken?

“Domains with no WHOIS at all (.to .so, etc) or protected WHOIS would probably do the trick, however after seeing how registrars just hand over domains without warning to random people, I wouldn’t bet on this 100% either,” the admin says.

“I think the best thing to do is build a strong community on the site, which cannot be stolen, and they will always keep the site alive no matter how many name changes it goes though,” he concludes.

So finally, the wrap up users of the sites have been waiting for:

LetMeWatchThis.com – Hijacked in 2012, still hijacked – AVOID
LetMeWatchThis.ch – Hijacked in 2013, now retrieved – BACK IN SAFE HANDS
1Channel.ch – Hijacked in 2013, now frozen – FROZEN
Vodly.to – Owned by hijackers – AVOID

PrimeWire.ag – Hijacked in 2013, now retrieved – BACK IN SAFE HANDS (Official site)

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

These sites, which in appearance are not dissimilar to YouTube, provide links to all the latest movies and TV shows. This content, usually held on 3rd party file-hosting services, is then displayed in a window, accessible at the touch of the button. No need to download the whole thing before viewing and no wait times.

But for reasons that are not entirely clear, some of the leading sites in this field – which at times have been among the most popular sites on the Internet – have been involved in activity that has undermined confidence in their services and damaged their rankings.

The problem appears to be that they have rivals, enemies who are prepared to hack their domain names, hijack their sites and pass themselves off as the real thing.

The biggest disaster by far involves the famous 1Channel.ch. This site, which grew out of the LetMeWatchThis this domain, was apparently hacked back in May. 1Channel then pointed to a fake site which looked almost identical, which left the original site owner to revert back to the original LetMeWatchThis domain.

Then in June, LetMeWatchThis went down without explanation, only to reappear a few days later with a new domain – PrimeWire.ag. If you’re keeping up by this point you’re doing well – hold tight.

Now, just two months later, PrimeWire.ag is redirecting to a brand new domain – Vodly.to. There’s a notice on the front page as follows:

But there’s a problem. If 1Channel.ch was hijacked earlier this year and became a fake site, why would the owners of Vodly.to associate themselves with it? Why would they say that 1Channel.ch, PrimeWire.ag and now Vodly.to are one and the same? Why is there no mention of LetMeWatchThis.ch, a hugely popular domain that preceded 1Channel in its first incarnation, PrimeWire.ag in its second and it still online at this very moment?

Perhaps the most important question is this: are these all the same sites? The short answer to that is ‘No’.

Earlier this year the admin of LetMeWatchThis showed TorrentFreak a detail present on his site which enabled us to confirm he was the admin after 1Channel.ch was hijacked. That feature was also present on PrimeWire.ag which led us to feel moderately comfortable (entire server/backup takeover excepted) that PrimeWire was in fact the new name for LetMeWatchThis.

But now, if one goes to PrimeWire.ag (which diverts to the new name of Vodly.to) that feature is not present, which suggests that Vodly.to is probably a whole new site and nothing to do with the sites it claims to succeed. In the meantime the Twitter account for PrimeWire is advising people to use LetMeWatchThis.ch again.

So in summary…..no, let’s not even go there. This entire episode is a disaster from start to finish which has caused more uncertainty and doubt than any anti-piracy campaign could hope to achieve. There are countless users online wondering whether these sites are some sort of trap or have been set up for malicious purposes. Very few people know the answer to that question and those that do are not responding to their mails…..

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

1Channel.ch is one of the most popular streaming portals on the Internet. The site is ranked the 293rd most-visited website according to Alexa with millions of pageviews every single day.

However, over the past 24/36 hours, things haven’t been going to plan.

The site usually operates from the Swiss-based 1Channel.ch domain but for the past day at least and at the time of writing it remains completely non-functional.

The site’s operator has given no detailed explanation for the outage in response to our request for comment, but did offer the following announcement.

“We are having some issues with the 1channel.ch domain, please use letmewatchthis.ch domain in the mean time,” the site said.

LetMeWatchThis was the site’s former name, a brand which still appears on the site today.

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