Strike 3 Holdings is one of the most active copyright trolls in the United States, filing more than 1,800 copyright infringement cases in the past 13 months.

Its modus operandi is familiar – harvest allegedly infringing IP addresses from BitTorrent swarms, obtain the identities of the people behind the ISP accounts, then chase them down for a cash settlement.

While it’s unknown how many people have settled with the company for hundreds to thousands of dollars, the alleged ‘John Doe’ infringer featuring in a case filed in the District of Columbia seems destined not to join their ranks.

In common with similar cases, Strike 3 Holdings asked the Court to help unmask the identity of an alleged pirate of the company’s porn, who used a Comcast connection to do the dirty deed. However, a scathing and entertaining memorandum opinion from Judge Royce C. Lamberth explains why that is not going to happen.

The Judge begins by speaking of Strike 3 in disparaging terms, noting that the company’s geolocation technology is “famously flawed”, adding that it simply cannot identify an alleged infringer.

“Simply put, inferring the person who pays the cable bill illegally downloaded a specific file is even less trustworthy than inferring they watched a specific TV show,” Judge Lamberth writes.

The Judge notes that ISPs have been forced to unmask alleged infringers in the past but says this can make the currently innocent defendant visible in a Google search, associated with the websites “Vixen, Blacked, Tushy, and Blacked Raw” through which Strike 3’s DVDs are distributed.

“The first two [website titles] are awkward enough, but the latter two cater to even more singular tastes,” he says.

“Imagine having your name and reputation publicly – and permanently – connected to websites like Tusky and Blacked Raw. (Google them at your own risk). How would an improperly accused defendant’s spouse react? His (or her) boss? The head of the local neighborhood watch?

“The risk of a false accusation are real; the consequences are hard to overstate and even harder to undo. And Strike 3’s flawed identification method cannot bear such great weight.”

Going on to criticize Strike 3 for filing 1,849 cases in the past thirteen months, including 40 in his district, Judge Lamberth says that such serial litigants prey on low-hanging fruit then run away at the first sign of resistance.

“They don’t seem to care about whether defendant actually did the infringing, or about developing the law. If a Billy Goat Gruff moves to confront a copyright troll in court, the troll cuts and runs back under its bridge,” he writes.

“Perhaps the trolls fear a court disrupting their rinse-wash-and-repeat approach: file a deluge of complaints, ask the court to compel disclosure of the account holders; settle as many claims as possible; abandon the rest.”

Unfortunately for Strike 3, Judge Lamberth doesn’t intend to play ball. He explains that Strike 3’s call for discovery does not outweigh the potentially non-infringing defendant’s right to be anonymous, while denying Strike 3’s ex parte motion to subpoena Comcast for the defendant’s identity and dismissing the case without prejudice.

According to the Judge, Strike 3 has little chance of identifying a defendant who can be sued without resorting to aggressive discovery, including examinations of all computers, phones, and tablets belonging to the owner of the home and anyone who used its Internet connection.

In further detailing why he denied Strike 3’s request, the Judge notes that of the forty cases filed in his district, none have reached the Court of Appeals. A total of 22 were voluntarily dismissed, with all but one following the same formula.

“Strike 3 files a complaint (identical in every case except for the infringing IP address). A few weeks later, Strike 3 files a motion to subpoena the anonymous defendant’s ISP,” the Judge writes.

“Satisfied by Strike 3’s showing of likely personal jurisdiction, the court grants the motion, usually providing at least twenty days for the defendant to move to quash the subpoena and sometimes providing for the defendant’s continued anonymity. Nothing happens for a few weeks, and then Strike 3 voluntarily dismisses the suit.”

In the one case that bucked the trend, a defendant was allowed by the court to proceed anonymously – but then Strike 3 dropped the case.

In his conclusion, Judge Lamberth takes one final swipe at Strike 3, describing the troll outfit in some of the most explicit terms ever used in court and leaving little to the imagination.

“Armed with hundreds of cut-and-pasted complaints and boilerplate discovery motions, Strike 3 floods this courthouse (and others around the country) with lawsuits smacking of extortion. It treats this Court not as a citadel of justice, but as an ATM.

“Its feigned desire for legal process masks what it really seeks: for the Court to oversee this high-tech shakedown. This Court declines,” the Judge concludes.

The full memorandum opinion can be found here (pdf)

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Earlier this year a series of allegations were lodged against NordVPN.

The company was being linked to Lithuanian tech company Tesonet, which offers a wide range of services and products. According to the allegations, Tesonet owns NordVPN, a claim the latter denied.

The issue raised alarm bells with some people because Tesonet is involved in data mining practices, and the company also runs a residential proxy network. There is no evidence that NordVPN is involved in any of that, but it was enough to feed speculation.

When we reported on the saga, NordVPN committed to hiring a prominent third-party auditing firm to test its “no-logging” claims. The result of this audit was released with customers yesterday, and a few journalists also got a chance to read it.

As part of an agreement with the auditing firm, the report can’t be published in public. NordVPN can’t cite from it either so the company released a blog post with a summary instead.

“The auditors’ goal was to see if our service lives up to our claims of providing a no-logs VPN service, and we believe we’ve passed the test,” NordVPN’s Daniel Markuson writes.

TorrentFreak has seen a copy of the report which is relatively concise. It’s limited in the sense that it only reviews the situation at the time of the audit, which may change at any given time.

Overall, it confirms that the company doesn’t store personal IP-address logs of users, nor does it keep track of subscribers’ Internet activities. This is what’s typically understood to be a ‘no-log’ policy.

That said, NordVPN, like other VPNs, does process some personal information. For example, it keeps track of the user’s concurrent active user sessions. This information is stored for 15 minutes. There is no sign of any proxying services.

It’s unfortunate that the information can’t be shared with a broader public. However, users who had a NordVPN account before November 1st can read it in full in their user panel.

According to NordVPN, this is the first time a VPN’s no-logging policy has been audited. However, VPN audits are not uncommon. Earlier today, Surfshark announced the results of an audit of its browser extensions, for example. To date, TunnelBear has also conducted two security audits.

While these efforts are laudable, the various audits are not hard to compare. NordVPN focused on its logs, not looking at security flaws, while the other audits are more security focused. Such audits may help to build trust, of course, but there are no guarantees.

Even if a company’s own services and policies are all in check, it is possible that some vulnerabilities will remain.

While audits have some value, it’s not a given that audited companies are any better than non-audited ones. In this case, NordVPN wanted to reassure users following several damning allegations.

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TF note: We don’t intend to make a habit of reporting on audits. Considering the earlier controversy and the fact that NordVPN is one of our sponsors, we chose to address it in this case. This article was written independently, as per standard TF policy..

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Configurable set-top boxes are a continuing thorn in the side of entertainment industry groups everywhere.

Such devices often come pre-loaded with software applications that provide access to infringing copies of movies, TV shows, and other content. They’re also the weapon of choice for pirates looking to obtain live television, particularly sports, without paying the going rates from official suppliers.

As a result, content companies around the world are responding to the threat, either by tackling app developers head on or via applications for Internet service provider blocking orders.

Over in Singapore, the latter has now been achieved. On November 2, 2018, the High Court ordered several local ISPs to block access to several popular ‘pirate’ applications.

The order has not yet been made public but Neil Gane, General Manager of AVIA’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP), informs TorrentFreak that the plaintiffs were Singnet PTE Ltd, Fox Networks Group Singapore PTE Ltd, NGC Network Asia LLC, Fox International Channels (US) Inc, and The Football Association Premier League Limited.

The applications to be blocked will be revealed in due course but Gain says the application was heard earlier this month.

“The motion was heard at the Singapore High Court on 2nd November. Judicial Commissioner Dedar Singh Gill subsequently granted the proposed Orders against eight authentication server domains,” Gain explains.

“Singapore has been considered a bastion of Intellectual Property rights across the region, and the court’s decision to block access to popular illegal applications preloaded onto ISDs and sold in Singapore reaffirms this contention.”

Moving forward, Gain says the content industry will continue its efforts to “prevent and disrupt” illegal feeds featuring live sports, TV channels, and VOD content, which are currently being monetized by “crime syndicates.”

“Consumers who buy ISDs are not only funding crime groups, but also wasting their money when the channels stop working. ISDs do not come with a ‘service guarantee’, no matter what the seller may claim,” he adds.

While the plaintiffs listed above are members of AVIA’s Coalition Against Piracy, the group’s reach is more extensive. In addition to the above, members include beIN Sports, Discovery, The Walt Disney Company, FOX Networks Group, HBO Asia, La Liga, NBCUniversal, Netflix, BBC Worldwide, CANAL+, the NBA, Sony, and several other content providers.

As far as public records show, this is the third blocking injunction handed down by the High Court in Singapore in recent months.

Back in May, it was revealed that ISPs had blocked dozens of torrent and streaming platforms (including The Pirate Bay plus KickassTorrents and Solarmovie variants) following a successful application from the MPAA.

Early October, a so-called ‘dynamic‘ blocking order was made public, with Hollywood studios given the ability to block sites more efficiently when they attempt to circumvent the earlier order.

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After a series of high-profile hacks, trusting social media corporations to store and safeguard our personal information looks an increasingly bad idea. And many are understandably wary about letting platforms look after their cryptocurrency investments. Custody of our digital assets, it seems, is shaping up to be a key issue for network citizens.

Enter Dark Crystal, an Ethereum Foundation-funded project enabling users to store private keys — from Bitcoin to email encryption and beyond — with and inside their communities and social networks. To do this, Dark Crystal makes use of the mathematical magic behind Shamir’s Shared Secret, allowing groups of friends to safely store different ‘shards’ of a key, bringing it together as and when needed.

In this episode, we meet Peg and Kieran from Dark Crystal to discuss the implications of the project: what happens when custody of our most precious digital resources can be taken away from banks and megacorps and entrusted to friends, family and community? And do projects like Dark Crystal signal the beginning of a new, cryptography-based ‘information commons’?

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Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing crypto, privacy, copyright and file-sharing developments. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary, and analysis.

Host: Jamie King

Guest: Peg and Kieran

^{If you enjoy this episode, consider becoming a patron and getting involved with the show. Check out Steal This Show’s Patreon campaign: support us and get all kinds of fantastic benefits!}

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Lucas Marston
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Eric Barch

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When it comes to piracy, Mexico is high on the list of illicit global content consumers. The country has been criticized in numerous USTR reports, with enforcement progress rated low.

Reports suggest that piracy is still a big deal in Mexico. Data cited in local media sourced from the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) indicates that eight out of ten Mexicans who consume pirate content believe that it’s not a serious offense. AmCham sees things differently, however, citing huge losses to local entertainment industries.

If the headline figures are to be believed, music piracy is a particular problem. A staggering 97% say they’ve obtained music illegally, with 50% claiming to have used stream-ripping tools and services to acquire music from YouTube. Globally, Mexico is in the top five piracy-consuming nations, says Alfredo Tourné, general director of the Association for the Protection of Phonographic Rights (APDIF).

With this apparent doomsday scenario playing out, it’s interesting to note that not everyone sees the situation as negative.

A report from Billboard yesterday suggests that Spotify is extremely happy with customers in Mexico, labeling Mexico City as the “streaming music capital” of the world. The 22 million population city has more Spotify listeners than New York, London, or any other city.

After launching in Mexico during 2013, Spotify says that the Latin American country now has “the biggest listener base in the world.” This suggests that the situation is pretty healthy nationwide, not just in the capital, even in the face of high piracy rates.

But despite the success in music, other rightsholders are still disappointed with piracy of their products.

According to Ana Maria Magaña, director of Motion Picture Association, 77% of Mexican Internet users have watched movies illegally online, with 64% declaring themselves proud of their illicit consumption. Indeed, Mexico was recently named as a prime source of illegally recorded movies.

“Mexico is now reportedly the second largest foreign source of unauthorized camcords in the world, fueling unlawful availability of first-run movies online, which damages the market for new releases,” the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce reported in October.

“Although Mexico ratified the WIPO Internet Treaties in 2002, Mexico has not enacted legislation to protect against the circumvention of TPM [Technical Protection Measures] and RMI [Rights Management Information. Investigation and prosecution of IP crimes, particularly regarding online IP crimes, continues to be inadequate, due in part to continued government-wide budget cuts.”

Back in August, the US Government reached a new NAFTA trade agreement with Mexico. The arrangement is supposed to provide strong and effective copyright protection and enforcement, including criminal sanctions against movie cammers.

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