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.

However, in recent years bandwidth has become more easily available at the right price and as a result streaming sites of all kinds have flourished. One only has to look at YouTube for the Internet’s best example.

But in the backwaters of the Internet less official sites have been flourishing. Streaming portals offering all of the latest movies and TV shows have grown from a niche experience into one enjoyed by millions of people everyday.

One of the biggest sites around is 1Channel.ch. The site is used by millions of people every week – probably every day – but most of its users have no idea of the site’s recent history. If they did, they may not feel so comfortable visiting the domain.

Early May, 1Channel.ch (which at the time was also known under its former name of LetMeWatchThis.ch) disappeared from the Internet without warning.

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

Behind the scenes all was not well.

“The [1Channel.ch] domain was hijacked from our registrar with a combination of falsified documents and a major security exploit in the registrar’s control panel, that allowed attackers to access any account in their system without a password,” the admin of the site told TorrentFreak.

From this point, 1Channel.ch – which is still running today – became a cloned site using a hijacked domain. Browsing through the site’s forums it’s clear that sections of the site are missing or have been removed while other errors persist. Obviously things are still not working properly for the domain’s new ‘owners’.

With no chance of getting the domain back, the real site was forced to revert to LetMeWatchThis.ch exclusively. As can be seen from the Alexa stats below, the hijackers are doing very well indeed.

On the other hand, the real site – LetMeWatchThis – has taken quite a hit. The site’s global rank with Alexa is now 5,527 while the fake is enjoying its status as the world’s 347th most popular site.

The woes don’t stop there. Anyone attempting to do a Google search for LetMeWatchThis draws a complete blank. Not only is the site completely absent from at least the first 10 pages of results, an even worse problem soon becomes apparent.

The first result for the domain is a link to 1Channel.ch, the hijacked site. What follows are results for perhaps a dozen or so other sites trying to pass themselves off as LetMeWatchThis with varying degrees of success. Some are very convincing indeed and most would easily fool a casual user.

So, faced with hijackers, clones, fakes and damn, damn pirates, LetMeWatchThis has decided to make a clean break to end all the confusion with a complete renaming of the site to PrimeWire.ag.

“We have switched to the new domain name to differentiate ourselves from all the clone sites out there,” the admin told TorrentFreak. “We would like to ask our fans not to use 1channel.ch as it is potentially spreading malware and collecting users personal log in information.”

Whether 1Channel is doing either of those things is a matter for debate, but it seems clear that so far its users either don’t know or don’t care about the hijacking situation. The site is doing very well and appears to have momentum that won’t be held back anytime soon. After all, going to the police for help is hardly an option.

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

After Movie2k disappeared earlier this week, with all its mysteries, LetMeWatchThis.ch has become unreachable as well today.

There is no official explanation for the downtime yet but the DNS servers don’t appear to be responding anywhere in the world.

The site disappeared roughly 12 hours ago for most people.

LetMeWatchThis’ former sister domain 1channel.ch is still up and running but the owner previously warned users not to use that because it’s compromised.

When we receive more information this article will be updated.

Update: Letmewatchthis came back online for most people after nearly 24 hours of downtime.

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.