Last summer Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince decided to terminate the account of controversial neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer.

“I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet,” he announced.

The company’s lawyers later explained that the move was meant as an “intellectual exercise” to start a conversation regarding censorship and free speech on the internet. However, this discussion went much further than Prince had planned.

For years, Cloudflare had a policy not to remove any accounts without a court order, so when this was exceeded, eyebrows were raised. In particular, copyright holders wondered why the company could terminate this account but not those of the most notorious pirate sites.

This is also why The Daily Stormer removal became an issue in the piracy liability case previously filed by adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan. After Cloudflare’s CEO was questioned on the matter, it could be raised before a jury during the trial as well.

Cloudflare didn’t fancy this prospect. In March, the company asked the court to preclude any evidence related to Daily Stormer or other hate groups from the upcoming trial, fearing that it would lead to “guilt by association.”

“The apparent reason that ALS seeks to offer is not for its probative value but rather for its distracting emotional impact,” Cloudflare argued.

“Given the strong feelings such evidence would almost certainly arouse among members of the jury, this evidence creates an unwarranted and impermissible risk of unfair prejudice to Cloudflare.”

However, California District Court Judge George Wu was not receptive to this argument. Following a hearing on the matter last week the Judge denied the motion, which means that ALS is allowed to use the Daily Stormer case at trial.

“[Cloudflare’s motion] to Exclude Evidence Relating to Provision or Termination of Services to Hate Groups is DENIED.”

Motion denied

In hindsight, Cloudflare’s decision to disconnect Daily Stormer the way it did might not have been the best option, but t’s too late now.

According to recent court filings AS and Cloudflare have tried to reach a settlement but thus far that hasn’t happened. This means that the case will move to the scheduled trial, unless both sides can make peace beforehand.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Any entity operating an encrypted messaging service in Russia needs to register with local authorities. They must also hand over their encryption keys when requested to do so, so that users can be monitored.

Messaging giant Telegram refused to give in to Russian pressure. Founder Pavel Durov said that he would not compromise the privacy of Telegram’s 200m monthly users, despite losing a lawsuit against the Federal Security Service which compelled him to do so. In response, telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor filed a lawsuit to degrade Telegram via web-blocking.

After a Moscow court gave the go-ahead for Telegram to be banned in Russia last month, chaos broke out. ISPs around the country tried to block the service, which was using Amazon and Google to provide connectivity. Millions of IP addresses belonging to both companies were blocked and countless other companies and individuals had their services blocked too.

But despite the Russian carpet-bombing of Telegram, the service steadfastly remained online. People had problems accessing the service at times, of course, but their determination coupled with that of Telegram and other facilitators largely kept communications flowing.

Part of the huge counter-offensive was mounted by various VPN and anonymizer services that allowed people to bypass ISP blocks. However, they too have found themselves in trouble, with Russian authorities blocking them for facilitating access to Telegram. In an announcement Thursday, the telecoms watchdog revealed the scale of the crackdown.

Deputy Head of Roskomnadzor told TASS that dozens of VPNs and similar services had been blocked while hinting at yet more to come.

“Fifty for the time being,” Subbotin said.

With VPN providers taking a hit on behalf of Telegram, there could be yet more chaos looming on the horizon. It’s feared that other encrypted services, which have also failed to hand over their keys to the FSB, could be targeted next.

Ministry of Communications chief Nikolai Nikiforov told reporters this week that if Viber doesn’t fall into line, it could suffer the same fate as Telegram.

“This is a matter for the Federal Security Service, because the authority with regard to such specific issues in the execution of the order for the provision of encryption keys is the authority of the FSB,” Nikiforov said.

“If they have problems with the provision of encryption keys, they can also apply to the court and obtain a similar court decision,” the minister said, responding to questions about the Japanese-owned, Luxembourg-based communications app.

With plenty of chaos apparent online, there are also reports of problems from within Roscomnadzor itself. For the past several days, rumors have been circulating in Russian media that Roskomnadzor chief Alexander Zharov has resigned, perhaps in response to the huge over-blocking that took place when Telegram was targeted.

When questioned by reporters this week, Ministry of Communications chief Nikolai Nikiforov refused to provide any further information, stating that such a matter would be for the prime minister to handle.

“I would not like to comment on this. If the chairman of the government takes this decision, I recall that the heads of services are appointed by the decision of the prime minister and personnel decisions are never commented on,” he said.

Whether Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will make a statement is yet to be seen, but this week his office has been dealing with a blocking – or rather unblocking – controversy of its own.

In a public post on Facebook May 1, Duma deputy Natalya Kostenko revealed that she was having problems due to the Telegram blockades.

“Dear friends, do not write to me on Telegram, I’m not getting your messages. Use other channels to contact me,” Kostenko wrote.

In response, Dmitry Medvedev’s press secretary, Natalia Timakova, told her colleague to circumvent the blockade so that she could access Telegram once again.

“Use a VPN! It’s simple. And it works almost all the time,” Timakov wrote.

Until those get blocked too, of course…..

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Four years ago Popcorn Time took the Internet by storm.

The software amassed millions of users by offering BitTorrent-powered streaming in an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface.

While the original developers shut down their project after a few months, following pressure from Hollywood, others forked the application and took over.

PopcornTime.io swiftly became the main Popcorn Time fork. The spin-off soon had millions of users and updates were pushed out on a regular basis. At the end of 2015, however, this fork also disappeared from the web.

The MPAA took credit for the fall announcing that it had filed a lawsuit against several people in Canada. In response to these legal threats, several key developers backed out.

Soon after, the MPAA also assumed control of the main domain name, ensuring that it could not fall into the wrong hands.

This worked well, initially, but this week we noticed that PopcornTime.io is active again. The domain now links to the pirate streaming site Stream.cr, which welcomes its new visitors with a special message.

Redirection landing page

“Notice: If you’re looking for Popcorn Time(App) for it’s P2P torrent streaming, it’s over at popcorntime.sh. Otherwise, if you’re looking for streaming. Welcome to StreamCR!” a message on the site reads.

This is odd, considering that the PopcornTime.io domain name is still registered to the MPAA.

Popcorntime.io Whois

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that the PopcornTime.io domain registrar is listed as MarkMonitor, which is a well-known brand protection company, often used to prevent domain troubles.

“Protect your critical assets by partnering with a corporate-only domain registrar who has a strong security culture and is committed to providing the most secure and reliable solution in the industry,” MarkMonitor writes

However, since PopcornTime.io now links to a pirate site, something clearly went wrong.

It’s hard to say with certainty what happened. A likely option is that the domain’s nameservers, which point to DNS Made Easy, were not configured properly and that the people behind Stream.cr used that oversight to redirect the domain to their own site.

TorrentFreak spoke to a source unrelated to this case who says he was previously able to redirect traffic from a domain that was seized by the MPAA, simply by adding it to his own DNS Made Easy account. That worked, until the nameservers were updated to MarkMonitor’s DNS servers.

Whether the fault, in this instance, lies with the MPAA, MarkMonitor, or another party is hard to say without further details.

In any case, the MPAA is not going to be happy with the end result, and neither is MarkMonitor. The Stream.cr operators, meanwhile, are probably celebrating and they can enjoy the free traffic while it lasts.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Sci-Hub is often referred to as the “Pirate Bay of Science”. Like its namesake, it offers masses of unlicensed content for free, mostly against the wishes of copyright holders.

While The Pirate Bay will index almost anything, Sci-Hub is dedicated to distributing tens of millions of academic papers and articles, something which has turned itself into a target for publishing giants like Elsevier.

Sci-Hub and its Kazakhstan-born founder Alexandra Elbakyan have been under sustained attack for several years but more recently have been fending off an unprecedented barrage of legal action initiated by the American Chemical Society (ACS), a leading source of academic publications in the field of chemistry.

After winning a default judgment for $4.8 million in copyright infringement damages last year, ACS was further granted a broad injunction.

It required various third-party services (including domain registries, hosting companies and search engines) to stop facilitating access to the site. This plunged Sci-Hub into a game of domain whac-a-mole, one that continues to this day.

Determined to head Sci-Hub off at the pass, ACS obtained additional authority to tackle the evasive site and any new domains it may register in the future.

While Sci-Hub has been hopping around domains for a while, this week a new development appeared on the horizon. Visitors to some of the site’s domains were greeted with errors indicating that the domains’ security certificates had been revoked.

Tests conducted by TorrentFreak revealed clear revocations on Sci-Hub.hk and Sci-Hub.nz, both of which returned the error ‘NET::ERR_CERT_REVOKED’.

Certificate revoked

These certificates were first issued and then revoked by Comodo CA, the world’s largest certification authority. TF contacted the company who confirmed that it had been forced to take action against Sci-Hub.

“In response to a court order against Sci-Hub, Comodo CA has revoked four certificates for the site,” Jonathan Skinner, Director, Global Channel Programs at Comodo CA informed TorrentFreak.

“By policy Comodo CA obeys court orders and the law to the full extent of its ability.”

Comodo refused to confirm any additional details, including whether these revocations were anything to do with the current ACS injunction. However, Susan R. Morrissey, Assistant Managing Editor at ACS, told TorrentFreak that the revocations were indeed part of ACS’ legal action against Sci-Hub.

“[T]he action is related to our continuing efforts to protect ACS’ intellectual property,” Morrissey confirmed.

Sci-Hub operates multiple domains (an up-to-date list is usually available on Wikipedia) that can be switched at any time. At the time of writing the domain sci-hub.ga currently returns ‘ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH’ while .CN and .GS variants both have Comodo certificates that expired last year.

When TF first approached Comodo earlier this week, Sci-Hub’s certificates with the company hadn’t been completely wiped out. For example, the domain https://sci-hub.tw operated perfectly, with an active and non-revoked Comodo certificate.

Still in the game…but not for long

By Wednesday, however, the domain was returning the now-familiar “revoked” message.

These domain issues are the latest technical problems to hit Sci-Hub as a result of the ACS injunction. In February, Cloudflare terminated service to several of the site’s domains.

“Cloudflare will terminate your service for the following domains sci-hub.la, sci-hub.tv, and sci-hub.tw by disabling our authoritative DNS in 24 hours,” Cloudflare told Sci-Hub.

While ACS has certainly caused problems for Sci-Hub, the platform is extremely resilient and remains online.

The domains https://sci-hub.is and https://sci-hub.nu are fully operational with certificates issued by Let’s Encrypt, a free and open certificate authority supported by the likes of Mozilla, EFF, Chrome, Private Internet Access, and other prominent tech companies.

It’s unclear whether these certificates will be targeted in the future but Sci-Hub doesn’t appear to be in the mood to back down.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Last year, Epic Games released Fortnite’s free-to-play “Battle Royale” game mode, generating massive interest among gamers.

Unfortunately, not all players stick to the rules. Thousands of people are trying to gain an advantage through cheats, ruining the game for those who play fair.

The same is true for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), which predates Fortnite and shares many of the same characteristics. While the games are very much alike, the same can’t be said for the way cheaters are treated.

Over the past month, Epic Games has filed lawsuits against several people who violated the company’s copyrights, by creating, promoting – and in some cases – selling cheats. While copyright infringement cases can easily bankrupt defendants, that’s not what Epic is after.

This week the company signed another ‘settlement.’ This time with Joseph Sperry, a.k.a. “Spoezy,” in a North Carolina federal court. Sperry, who stood accused of creating and selling cheats, admitted to the copyright infringement allegations and signed a consent judgment.

“Defendant directly infringed Epic’s copyrights in Fortnite. Defendant used the cheats. His use of the cheats created unauthorized derivative works of Epic’s copyright protected Fortnite code that are substantially similar to Epic’s copyrighted work,” the judgment reads.

“In addition to creating and using the cheats, Defendant promoted, marketed, and sold these cheats to third parties, and actively encouraged and induced these other cheaters to purchase and use the cheats to gain an unfair advantage in Fortnite.”

The order includes an injunction which bars Sperry from cheating or promoting cheats in the future, but it doesn’t list any damages. Only if Sperry breaks the agreement will he be required to pay $5,000.

From the various Fortnite settlements we’ve seen to date, it’s clear that Epic Games is not after money. Its main goal is to stop the cheating and to hold cheaters accountable, but the company doesn’t go any further, for now.

This is quite a large contrast between several enforcement actions that were taken against alleged PUBG cheaters in China a few days ago.

Although there were no specific copyright infringement charges mentioned, Chinese authorities reported that fifteen people were arrested in connection with PUBG cheating.

“15 major suspects including ‘OMG’, ‘FL’, ‘火狐’, ‘须弥’ and ‘炎黄’ were arrested for developing hack programs, hosting marketplaces for hack programs, and brokering transactions. Currently the suspects have been fined approximately 30mil RNB ($5.1mil USD),” a statement reads.

PlayerUnknown shared the developments late last week and added that it will continue to crack down on those who continue to cheat.

“We take cheating extremely seriously. Developing, selling, promoting, or using unauthorized hacking/cheating programs isn’t just unfair for others playing PUBG—in many places, it’s also against the law,” the company said, commenting on the news.

Without further details, it’s hard to compare the Chinese cheating ‘operations’ to the Fortnite cases. However, Epic’s moderate approach clearly differs from the Chinese crackdown against PUBG cheaters.

—

A copy of the consent judgment against Sperry is available here (pdf).

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.