Just one week ago, customers and resellers of ‘pirate’ IPTV service Helix Hosting were handed bad news via the service’s homepage.

A message, placed there by a hacker, warned that Helix had been hacked and its operator had been given the option to either pay a ransom or face the personal details of his subscribers being leaked out onto the Internet.

Initial reports suggested that Helix refused to pay but precisely what went on behind the scenes was hard to confirm. Nevertheless, just a week later, a second IPTV service has found itself in a similar position and has cast some additional light on the earlier attack against Helix.

Last evening the operator of IPTV service PrimeStreams made an announcement to its customers that it too had suffered a hack, albeit not a very complex one. The attacker exploited a password on the service’s billing panel and then advised the service through its own ticketing system what had happened.

“Well you have changed the password so it is obvious you have ready my ticket [sic],” a communication from the hacker read, according to a screenshot of the discussion. “Do I not get a reply or a thank you.”

The operator of PrimeStreams was polite in response, thanked the hacker for the heads-up, and offered a free account for advising the vulnerability. But that wasn’t enough.

“The bad news for yourselves is that this mistake is going to cost you,” the person replied.

Detailing internal information about how many subscribers’ the service has on the books, including around 121,000 with active subscriptions, the attacker went on to state that the business had a responsibility to protect its customers “and this is a responsibility you have failed.”

PrimeStreams’ operator did the responsible thing and didn’t attempt to hide anything from his customers. Knowing that the information would probably leak out anyway, he took full responsibility for the breach.

“100% my fault and I accept 100% responsibility,” he wrote.

Nevertheless, the attacker wanted to make PrimeStreams pay. Claiming that he/she was the same person that had targeted Helix last week, the person demanded that PrimeStreams should either shut down or pay a significant ransom.

“They are now demanding 10BTC from me 70K lol,” PrimeStreams’ operator wrote. “I have no idea if it’s the same person, I have no idea if they actually were able to use the info in the store site to get into the [database] and download it, I will say that it would be possible though.”

Interestingly the brief chat with the hacker also revealed two further pieces of information. Firstly, it claims that Helix tried to “outsmart” the attacker last week so, in response, the attacker “made a leak to torrentfreak that destroyed there business [sic].”

While we have no information about Helix’s actions behind the scenes, we can categorically deny the claim that any leak of any kind was made to TF. All of the information in our earlier report came from the notice placed by the attacker on Helix’s homepage or was culled from other public sources. At no time have we been offered, seen, or published any private information relating to the alleged hack.

The final detail is that Helix allegedly paid the ransom after the attacker began leaking information online, claims that we have been unable to confirm. Equally, we have been unable to confirm whether PrimeStreams paid a ransom after they were given just six hours to pay a huge amount in bitcoin or shut down their business.

Last evening, PrimeStreams was said to be “working diligently” to see if any logs could be found to indicate what the attacker may have downloaded or had obtained access to. This, its operator said, was to see “if this is a legit threat or just someone trolling.”

The outcome of that work isn’t clear but the latest report from PrimeStreams indicates that the issue has now been sorted out.

Given this is the second time in a week that an IPTV provider has suffered a security breach, questions will no doubt be raised about security at other suppliers.

We spoke to someone involved in the IPTV supply chain who informs us that while he prefers not to comment on operational security matters at specific providers, at the bare minimum customers should be signing up to services with a fake name and address, using a ‘clean’ email address, while avoiding PayPal, whenever possible.

“It won’t stop these low-level attacks but if they happen again only less useful info will be dumped,” he concludes.

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

While most people behind unlicensed IPTV services prefer to sit in the shadows, popular YouTube celebrity OMI IN A HELLCAT took an entirely different approach.

Real name Omar Carrasquillo, OMI flaunted massive wealth in his videos, many featuring his beautiful houses, huge supercar collection, not to mention masses of jewelry. Last month, however, OMI revealed that a combination of his position as founder of IPTV service Gears Reloaded, an unpaid tax bill, and allegations of money laundering, had led to an unwelcome visit from the FBI “who took pretty much everything.”

Right from the very beginning, a small number of vocal individuals took to YouTube and social media platforms declaring that the whole thing was either a giant publicity stunt or an elaborate scam designed to fool the masses. However, around a week after the news was first reported, a reporter from local TV outlet Fox 29 appeared on air with some of OMI’s neighbors who witnessed the whole thing.

Despite there being no obvious reason why OMI would immerse himself in a month-long multi-level lie laid out in many more videos published since the authorities came in November, he says he’s still under pressure to show that he isn’t lying about the whole thing. That resulted in a new statement over the weekend where he attempted, once again, to provide irrefutable evidence.

“I don’t let things bother me, I’m not that kind of person to listen to outside noise. But the one thing that does bother me is that my life is in jeopardy and there are a lot of people who believe that this shit is fake,” OMI said.

“Like I don’t get it, I don’t understand it. There are so many people affected by this: 30 employees, good families – people who right now aren’t going to have Christmas.”

OMI says he believes the FBI is sitting back and laughing at his YouTube videos. He says they want people to believe that what happened is fake and they don’t want the attention. According to him, however, there will be plenty of attention very soon due to an upcoming high-profile interview. In the meantime, he’s been providing more detail on what happened last month.

“My friends…we all got hit simultaneously. I got hit in this house [Philadelphia], my kids’ mom got hit in the house in Swedesboro where they took all my cars. Here, they took my Mercedes, my Bentley, my work van. They took the Dodge Caravan [used by OMI’s video guy],” OMI explains.

“They went to one of my friend’s house a few blocks away from the house I’m currently living in. I sold him a Jeep Trackhawk a while ago and we never transferred it to his name and they took that from their house.”

According to OMI’s statement, the impact of what happened stretches far beyond him. The FBI allegedly took another friend’s car and then had to give it back. OMI says his nephew, who worked for him in construction, also had his car seized and all of his money and savings. But that wasn’t the end.

“They hit my friend Wolfie in Los Angeles. They hit some of the houses in Philly trying to look for servers and all this other stuff,” he added.

OMI’s long video statement (linked below) also contains CCTV footage that OMI says was given to him by his neighbors which apparently shows the FBI arriving at one of the addresses in several SUVs, cars, and pickup trucks. Shouts of “FBI, police,” can be heard after officers approached an address (identified as 3412 N Hope St, Philadelphia) after blocking a nearby street with their vehicles.

OMI says the show of force was extreme, with around 60 FBI agents and police officers targeting the address detailed above. The commotion in the street was recorded by at least one witness who uploaded the footage to the Internet and later shown briefly on OMI’s channel. Around 30 officers and agents raided OMI’s property in Philadelphia, which according to him was a terrifying experience.

“Can you imagine looking out this door, watching this whole driveway full of cars, and all these agents right here with their guns drawn?” he asks.

In his video, a clearly exasperated OMI explains that he feels the need to prove this isn’t an elaborate scam. However, since he hasn’t actually been charged with anything yet, he doesn’t want to release his case number in public. That being said, he believes the authorities’ strategy is to take everything he has so that he can’t afford to defend himself and ensure that he doesn’t run away. He will not do that, he insists.

Included in a five-page Department of Justice receipt detailing the many cars, pieces of jewelry, electronic and other sundry items seized, appears two items described as “lists of channels and email accounts” plus bank account information under the name “Bill Castillo” linked to “streaming video”.

“The only thing I have now is my YouTube [channel],” OMI says. “Honestly speaking, everything else is shut down. I have nothing else. My assistant hasn’t been paid, my secretary hasn’t been paid, my manager hasn’t got paid, my right-hand man in construction hasn’t got paid.

“And everyone’s like ‘But what did they do? He was committing fraud’. I never committed fraud a day in my damn life. This is for not paying taxes on a service. A service, not a Ponzi scheme, none of that shit. On a service.”

Interestingly, OMI claims that the FBI told him not to talk about the case in public but he refused to agree to that. But keeping things quiet wouldn’t be possible, not least since someone on Instagram posted a video of a convoy of his vehicles being taken away on trucks, including a Lamborghini that OMI previously had wrapped in very distinctive Power Ranger graphics.

Finally, in addition to all of the physical items that were seized, the FBI was looking for OMI’s money. He doesn’t reveal exactly how much was taken but he did show a screenshot from just one of his accounts that shows that on the day of the raid, more than $5.2m was removed, a transaction that left him in the red.

A second account, the details of which weren’t revealed, was also the subject of a seizure according to OMI. The ‘transaction’ reportedly left him $126,000 “in the negative”.

While all of the items presented in evidence can still be disputed, it seems unthinkable that OMI would destroy the most valuable thing he has left – the trust of his still-loyal fanbase. The authorities still refuse to confirm or deny any action against the YouTuber but at some point, they will probably have to go on the record, one way or another.

The entire 24-minute video can be viewed here

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

Pirated copies of the latest Hollywood movies leak all year round, often ripped from DVDs, Blu-rays or online streaming platforms.

Towards the end of the year, however, some real ‘gems’ appear online in advance of their theatrical debut in what many have dubbed “screener season.”

Screeners are advance copies of recent movies that are generally sent out to critics and awards voters. These high-quality releases are subjected to intense security precautions by the studios, as they are highly sought after by online pirates.

The start of these leaks is usually around December, which is also the case this year. Just a few hours ago a copy of the crime thriller “Uncut Gems appeared online. The movie, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival this summer, is scheduled for a nationwide release in the US on December 25.

The leak comes with the typical screener “for your consideration” mark and no other marks are visible, as far as we know. Early reports of the leak came in yesterday and a few hours later the first public torrents appeared online.

Interestingly, there is both a DVD screener release and a (seemingly) higher-quality Web Screener available. The latter is likely sourced from an online screening platform. Both releases carry the tag of the pirate release group EVO, which may have access to both formats.

TorrentFreak reached out to EVO for more information on this release but, at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. The release notes don’t provide much detail either, as it merely mentions “Thanks friend!” in the source section.

If this is indeed a leak from an online screener then it shows that they may not be as secure as some had hoped. This is notable, as the Emmys announced a few months ago that DVD screeners would be replaced with online streaming versions in an effort to curb piracy.

At the time we doubted that this move would make much of a difference, partly based on comments from the pirate release group EVO.

“We had access to digital screeners and they are indeed easy to leak. The DRM on it is a joke. We had an account last year with three screeners on it and they were pretty much MP4 ready to encode,” the EVO team told us at the time.

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

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) was founded more than 50 years ago with the aim of protecting intellectual property.

The organization, which is part of the United Nations, brings countries together to share ideas about important copyright issues, including combating online piracy. In addition, it also helps to shape new policy by facilitating information sharing.

A hot topic in the intellectual property world at the moment is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Specifically, everything that is created by such ‘autonomous’ technologies, without concrete input from human beings.

In recent years AIs have advanced quickly and they are now very capable of creating content on their own. This includes unique material that would otherwise qualify to be copyrighted by persons. The question is, can it still be copyrighted if an AI creates it?

These and other questions are at the center of a public consultation that was just launched by the WIPO. The organization is asking the public for input on a wide range of topics which are detailed in a related draft issues paper.

The topics include patents, data, and designs, but our interest is focused on the copyright section. While it is still early days for most AIs, the WIPO’s involvement shows that this is an issue that will be part of future copyright law.

One of the WIPO’s most basic questions is whether content autonymously created by an AI should enjoy copyright protection. This is a crucial question, as it determines whether human and machine creativity is valued equally, or not.

“If AI-generated works were excluded from eligibility for copyright protection, the copyright system would be seen as an instrument for encouraging and favoring the dignity of human creativity over machine creativity,” the WIPO writes.

This automatically leads to the crucial question, whether or not AI-generated works can be copyrighted in a similar way as their human-created counterparts.

“Should copyright be attributed to original literary and artistic works that are autonomously generated by AI or should a human creator be required?” And if copyright can be attributed to AI-generated works, “in whom should the copyright vest?”

The WIPO requests input on these and several related questions. The organization also has a special interest in ‘deep fakes’. While these are generally created based on human input, they often rely on copyrighted content from third-parties.

Do the owners of the deep fake sources have a claim to any copyrights? Should they be otherwise be compensated?

“Since deep fakes are created on the basis of data that may be the subject of copyright, to whom should the copyright in a deep fake belong? Should there be a system of equitable remuneration for persons whose likenesses and ‘performances’ are used in a deep fake?” WIPO writes.

These questions also apply in a broader sense. A lot of AI-generated content relies on data-input from other copyrighted content. If AIs use third-party content, can they then infringe copyrights as well?

Similar topics were also raised in a related public consultation that was launched by the US Patent and Trademark Office a few weeks ago. This consultation is still open for submissions.

The full list of the WIPO’s questions and issues, including additional background information, is available on the WIPO website. For those who want to chime in, the comment period closes on February 14.

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

This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

6 Underground is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(…)	6 Underground	6.2 / trailer
2	(1)	Ad Astra	6.9 / trailer
3	(2)	Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood	7.9 / trailer
4	(…)	Code 8	6.4 / trailer
5	(3)	Rambo: Last Blood	6.6 / trailer
6	(4)	The Irishman	8.4 / trailer
7	(6)	Gemini Man	5.7 / trailer
8	(7)	Doctor Sleep	7.6 / trailer
9	(5)	Abominable	7.0 / trailer
10	(9)	Joker (Subbed HDRip)	8.8 / trailer

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