With monitoring and spying now a fact of life on the Internet, millions of privacy conscious individuals have taken to protecting their online identities. Many choose to do so by using companies that offer a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service.

In layman’s terms a VPN replaces the user’s IP address with one under the control of the company, meaning that their own IP is kept private when accessing services online. However, some VPN companies carry extensive logs which mean that when put under pressure they are able to link a user’s account to specific online activity.

This kind of setup is clearly self-defeating from a privacy perspective so in recent years it has become common for VPN providers to disclose their logging practices, as detailed in our annual report, for example.

But still, the big question remains: how can a prospective customer be sure that their VPN provider really keeps no logs? In reality the answer to that question is largely a matter of trust, weighed up against the goodwill the company has built up over its time in business.

That being said, an interesting case that appeared in a Florida district court this week has seen one provider’s no-logging policy being officially tested.

The criminal complaint (here) details the FBI’s suspicions that 25-year-old Preston McWaters had conveyed “false or misleading information regarding an explosive device”. In other words, he made a false bomb threat.

The investigating FBI agent goes into some detail on the case, which begins with claims that McWaters stalked former co-worker Devon Kenney by calling her, texting her, sending her messages on Facebook and showing up at her house. In all, it’s estimated that McWaters contacted his former co-worker more than 100 times.

In December a number of hoax bomb threats were sent to a variety of locations including schools and airports, generally in the name of Eric Mead or a variation thereof, via Twitter and email. Eric Mead is the name of Kenney’s current boyfriend and he denies making any of the threats.

So the FBI started digging and in February 2016 two search warrants against Twitter and Facebook required them to turn over information on several accounts. Both did and the criminal complaint makes it clear that the FBI believes that McWaters was behind the accounts and the threats.

With McWaters apparently leaving incriminating evidence all over the place (including CCTV at Walmart where he allegedly purchased a pre-paid Tracfone after arriving in his own car), the FBI turned to IP address evidence available elsewhere.

“During the course of the investigation, subpoenas and search warrants have been
directed to various companies in an attempt to identify the internet protocol (IP) address from where the email messages are being sent,” the complaint reads.

“All of the responses from [email provider] 1&1, Facebook, Twitter, and Tracfone have been traced by IP address back to a company named London Trust Media [doing business as] PrivateInternetAccess.com.”

By this point in the complaint it’s clear that even without the IP address information the FBI already had enough evidence to pin the threats on McWaters. Nevertheless, they ordered PIA to hand over its logs.

“A subpoena was sent to London Trust Media and the only information they could provide is that the cluster of IP addresses being used was from the east coast of the United States,” the FBI’s complaint reads.

“However, London Trust did provide that they accept payment for their services through credit card with a vendor company of Stripe and/or Amazon. They also accept forms of payment online through PayPal, Bitpay, Bit Coin, Cash You, Ripple, Ok Pay, and Pay Garden.”

In the event the FBI was unable to link McWaters to any payment to the company. However, they did find a payment to another provider.

“Although the investigation has not revealed any payment by McWaters to London Trust, he did make a purchase from AnchorFree Inc [HotspotShield VPN] on October 23, 2015,” the complaint notes.

While McWaters is yet to be found guilty, it’s a sad fact that some people will use anonymizing services such as VPNs, pre-paid phones and anonymous email providers to harass others. And thankfully, as this case shows, they’ll need to hide a lot more than their IP address to get away with that level of crime.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of decent people using services like PIA’s and those users will be comforted that their privacy remains intact.

“Our company was subpoenaed by the FBI for user activity logs relating to this matter,” London Trust Media Executive Chairman Andrew Lee informs TorrentFreak.

“After scrutinizing the validity of the subpoena and confirming it, we restated as we always do the content of our privacy policy and then we notified the agent that we do not log any user activity. The agent confirmed his understanding of our company’s policy and position and then pursued alternative leads.

“This report makes it clear that PIA does not log user activity and we continue to stand by our commitment to our users.”

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Disclosure: PIA is a TorrentFreak sponsor

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Earlier this week a leading Australian anti-piracy outfit announced a rebranding exercise. Previously known as the IP Awareness Foundation (IPAF), the Hollywood affiliated group became Creative Content Australia, a name more closely associated with the support of artists.

At the same time the group announced several additions to its upper management, including the appointment of Graham Burke as chairman. Burke is the co-chief of Australia-based movie giant Village Roadshow and his aggressive stance towards piracy Down Under has been notable in recent years.

However, this week Creative Content Australia said its upcoming anti-piracy scheme would be education-based and would seek to target more casual downloaders. Re-educating hardcore pirates is not its aim, the group said. So does it necessarily follow that other file-sharers will be getting a free pass? Apparently not.

In an interview published by Crikey today (subscription), Burke (wearing his Village Roadshow hat) said that his company could take legal action against pirates in the future.

Noting that his company is already monitoring people sharing Village Roadshow content via peer-to-peer networks, Burke confirmed that his company could go down the legal route to identify pirates.

“It’s something we’re having a closer look at,” he said.

Given the recent failure of the Dallas Buyers Club case in Australia it was widely believed that Aussie companies would stay away from trying to mass identify pirates through the courts. However, Burke suggests that Village Roadshow would take a more considered approach.

“If we were to pursue it, we’d be doing it on the basis of a fair and reasonable approach. I think [Dallas Buyers Club] have a different approach,” he said.

According to the Crikey report Burke wouldn’t be drawn on when any case might be launched, instead noting that the option was “under active consideration”. That being said, Burke’s comments will come as a surprise to those who recall remarks he made during the summer of 2014.

“We don’t want to sue 16-year-olds or mums and dads,” Burke said. “It takes 18 months to go through the courts and all that does is make lawyers rich and clog the court system. It’s not effective.”

Perhaps the movie boss has something cheap, quick and effective up his sleeve now. If he has he could license it to Dallas Buyers Club, whose case enjoyed none of those qualities.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Late last year leaked documents from the Sony hack revealed that the MPAA helped Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood to revive SOPA-like censorship efforts in the United States.

In a retaliatory move Google sued the Attorney General, hoping to find out more about the secret plan. The company also demanded internal communication from the MPAA and its lawfirm Jenner & Block, as well as several movie studios.

More recently Google requested a deposition of MPAA lead counsel Steve Fabrizio, who could possible provide additional details on the case. These type of interrogations are part of the discovery process, but according to the MPAA Google’s recent request goes too far.

The MPAA believes that the deposition should be quashed, as it would put its anti-piracy strategies at risk and violate its First Amendment rights.

In a motion to refuse the deposition, the MPAA notes that their lead counsel only sent two emails to the Attorney General. The group therefore suspects that Google has an alternative motive to hear its counsel.

More specifically, the MPAA fears that Google may use the discovery process to uncover its legal anti-piracy strategies.

“…the conclusion is inescapable that Google seeks his deposition not to advance any legitimate discovery goal, but rather to satisfy Google’s curiosity about, and potentially undermine, the MPAA’s anti-piracy legal strategies..,” they write.

MPAA’s opposition

In recent months Google has already requested numerous documents and deposed several people who are or were connected to the group, with a particular interest in its anti-piracy efforts.

“Google has shown a keen interest in learning more about the MPAA’s content protection activities, and is using discovery in this case to that end,” the MPAA’s filing reads.

“Even before its latest salvo, Google had served six subpoenas on the MPAA, its law firm, three of its member companies, and two of its employees or former employees.”

In addition to breaching its anti-piracy strategies, the MPAA doesn’t want to reveal any details on their strategy to ask government law enforcement officials for help in copyright infringement cases.

Having to reveal these internal strategies would violate their First Amendment right to free exercise of political speech and association, the MPAA argues.

“…inquiry by Google into the MPAA’s decisions to petition government law enforcement officials for assistance regarding Google’s conduct threatens to chill the First Amendment associational rights of the MPAA, its employees (including Mr. Fabrizio), and its members,” they write.

It’s now up to the judge to decide whether Google should be allowed to interrogate the MPAA’s lead counsel. Deposition or not, based on the stakes at hand this case isn’t going to blow over anytime soon.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

While some great things happen on the platform, Kickstarters aren’t widely covered here on TF. There are an awful lot of them and most in our niche rarely grow into anything noteworthy.

Today, however, we’re going to make an exception because if this particular project takes off, it’s going to blow up – probably in the most spectacular way.

“What if you had an unlimited access to the LARGEST ONLINE MOVIE LIBRARY EVER? A community based library, where you could watch any movie online. A library where you could swap films with contributors all over the world and discover an infinite number of stories. This is the revolutionary idea behind MovieSwap,” the Kickstarter begins.

MovieSwap, should it get off the ground, will be a subscription service, presumably a little like Netflix. However, instead of teaming up with studios and distributors to offer content, MovieSwap intends to take the idea of swapping a physical DVD with friends to its logical, Internet-powered conclusion.

Noting that more than 25 billion DVDs have been sold in the past 15 years, MovieSwap wants to take this dying format and breathe new life into it.

“Because people already PAID for them, we invented a fair way to give [DVDs] a brilliant second life,” the promo material reads. But how? Well, this is where it gets interesting.

MovieSwap says it will collect millions of genuine DVDs from all over the world and register them with the service on behalf of their owners. The team claims to already have 200,000 in its warehouse.

Once in their possession, MovieSwap will digitize/rip the DVDs and place them in the cloud for members to play on any device, anywhere. But that’s not all.

“Then, just like you can legally lend, swap, or offer a DVD to a friend, MovieSwap works in the same way, but on a much larger scale thanks to its remote playback technology,” the team says.

“Additionally, users can get the full DVD experience including bonuses, deleted scenes, director’s commentaries, and other unique features not available when streaming videos online.”

According to the MovieSwap team, the service will be available on PC, Mac, Android tablets and even on a Firestick-style HDMI Android dongle. Interestingly the PC version will utilize VLC Media Player to read DVDs “over the Internet”, with VLC’s president Jean-Baptiste Kempf already on record as financially backing the project.

Hats off to the MovieSwap team for having the guts to put together something as innovative as this. It’s not only a brilliant use for a dying format but also an excellent way to make use of already-paid-for content that people have lying around their homes. There’s no doubt that the public will absolutely love this service.

Trouble is, Hollywood will hate MovieSwap in similar measures and at the first opportunity will begin torching it to the ground.

Somehow, however, MovieSwap insist they’re on solid ground. They have an intellectual property graduate on board and they believe that their business model is entirely legal.

“MovieSwap is also strongly advised and based its approach on a fully legal basis, combining two legal concepts known as ‘first sale doctrine’ and ‘fair use’,” they state.

At the moment MovieSwap has a 35,000 euro funding goal and at the time of writing they’re only 5,000 euros short. While that might be enough to get them off the ground, it won’t be enough to fight an even moderately bitter fight with Hollywood, even if they were to spend all of it on lawyers.

This seems like a classic case of brilliant minds running wild in order to create a service that everyone will love, but also one that’s a prime candidate for a messy legal battle that enriches only the lawyers. This is definitely one to watch, in every sense of the word.

The Kickstarter can be found here.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

While the largest file-sharing sites are targeted at an international audience, there are also many localized versions tailored to users in smaller regions.

This is also the case for the file hosting services Lolabits.es, Abelhas.pt and Partageurs.com.

The three sites, which are linked, target users in Spanish, Portuguese and French respectively and have grown to become very popular in countries where these are the native languages.

However, this will soon end. After several years of operation the file-sharing portals have announced they will close their doors at the and of the month.

In a message to its users, Lolabits says that the closure is due to reasons beyond their control. The other two sites have put up a similar message, urging users to back up their files before the and of the month.

“We regret that LOLABITS.es closes on March 31, 2016 for reasons beyond our control. Download your important files this month, because from that date they will no longer be available,” Lolabits notes.

TorrentFreak reached out to the Lolabits operator who informed us that there are no legal issues. Instead, the sites have problems monetizing their service, suggesting that it’s no longer sustainable to keep them online.

Lolabits will close

Most copyright holders will be happy to see the sites gone, as they were common targets for various takedown requests.

Google’s transparency report shows that rightsholders asked to remove over a million links pointing to the sites, with Abelhas being flagged the most, more than 800,000 times in recent months.

Interestingly, the original Polish version of the file-hosting services shows no shutdown notification and lives on for now. Chomikuj.pl has been in operation for over a decade and is currently among the top 30 most-visited sites in the country.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.