Hale Stewart is a former bond broker who has been writing about economics and financial markets since 2006 on the Bonddad Blog. He is also a tax attorney with a domestic and international practice while also forming and managing captive insurance companies for US companies. You can follow him on twitter at:@captivelawyer
When a user loads a .torrent file into his or her torrent client for the first time, the software looks inside to find out which trackers know about the torrent. Then the torrent client contacts the tracker to find out which other clients (or ‘peers’) are already sharing the content. This enables all sharers to be put in contact with each other to upload and download content. It’s an elegant system that works exceptionally well.
Some of the most influential trackers of recent years, all of which use the same software, have had their share of ups and downs. Having disappeared last year, PublicBT appears to have been consigned to history, OpenBitTorrent has just returned after months offline, and Demonii battles on, legal threats not withstanding.
Earlier this month we reported how Demonii smashed its own record by tracking in excess of 36 million simultaneous peers while managing 4.8 million torrents. But just over three weeks later, the tracker is again in the record books.
New stats published by the site show that Demonii is now tracking a seriously impressive 56 million simultaneous peers making around 3.7 billion connections every single day.
That’s a 55% uplift on the record set earlier this month and 86% more than the figures published in February. And, as can be seen in the image below, the number of torrents being tracked is up to, from 4.8 million to 5.2 million.
After its recent return, OpenBitTorrent is riding high too. Although the site isn’t as open with its stats as Demonii, the tracker is also handling between 50 and 52 million peers (approx 36m seeds and 16m leechers) while handling between 5.2 and 5.4 million torrents.
From previous discussions we know that the OpenTracker software used by both sites tends to max out at around 35 million torrents, so what has enabled these massive boosts in recent weeks?
“The reason for the sudden spike is due to the fact that we have upgraded our infrastructure,” one of Demonii’s operators informs TF.
“Since [mid May] we switched our tracker to a different hosting provider and at the same time we added two servers, instead of the single one we used before hand.”
With two servers/trackers now working in sync the numbers of peers have increased dramatically. But despite Demonii’s efforts, yet more ceilings may soon be reached.
“We are estimating that there are still limitations, this time on one of the two servers rather than the software. One of the two servers is getting maxed out at 100mbit (which is its max),” Demonii explains.
For now the tracker will continue using OpenTracker since in Demonii’s own words “it’s the best software out there”, but changes could be made in the future.
“We are still working with Chihaya (github) to hopefully have their software replace OpenTracker, but it’s not ready just yet,” Demonii concludes.
Even though the community transparently falls back on the slower DHT and PEX when the main public trackers go down, it is clear that the demand for fast and dedicated public trackers is still huge. As always, however, the BitTorrent ecosystem is still served by a relatively small number of trackers and that doesn’t look like it will change anytime soon.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
Headed by the RIAA, the operators of the new site were quickly taken to court.
The group filed a sealed application for a temporary restraining order (TRO) targeting the site’s domain name and hosting services.
The court granted the RIAA’s request earlier this month, allowing the music group to demand that hosting companies and registrars stop offering their services to the ‘rogue’ site.
Namecheap swiftly complied and seized the initial domain name. However, popular CDN service CloudFlare refused to take any action, claiming that the TRO doesn’t apply to them.
The new Grooveshark, meanwhile, moved to another domain and is still using CloudFlare’s services.
Hoping to compel CloudFlare to comply with the order, the RIAA asked the court to expand it by specifying that the CDN service has to take action. According to the RIAA, CloudFlare is “aiding and abetting” piracy.
However, in an opposition brief CloudFlare clearly disagrees. With help from the EFF, the company argues that even if it terminates its services, the ‘Grooveshark’ site would remain available.
“Even if CloudFlare—and every company in the world that provides similar services—took proactive steps to identify and block the Defendants, the website would remain up and running at its current domain name,” CloudFlare argues (pdf).
The request to include CloudFlare in the restraining order goes way too far, the company believes. If granted, this may lead to a snowball effect of orders against automated Internet services that are not actively assisting illegal activity.
“Given that CloudFlare clearly is not in ‘active concert or participation’ with Defendants, it appears Plaintiffs are effectively attempting to expand the traditional boundaries of Rule 65,” the lawyers write.
“That attempt, if accepted by this Court, could have implications well beyond this case. Other parties may seek the same remedy, using allegations of trademark or copyright infringement to obtain orders against the world.”
The RIAA is demanding SOPA-like powers with its request, CloudFlare argues. The company highlights that the SOPA bill was turned down after heavy criticism, but that the RIAA is now acting as if it’s become law.
“The [SOPA] bill was met with widespread public criticism from Internet users, technology companies, law professors, and software pioneers who helped create the Internet. Congress tabled the bill and did not advance it further,” CloudFlare notes.
“Here, Plaintiffs ask the Court to construe its injunction power as though H.R. 3261 had in fact become law. But lacking explicit statutory authority for such an order against a nonparty, the TRO cannot be construed to reach so far.”
CloudFlare therefore asks the court not to expand the restraining order. The company warns that any contrary ruling could set a dangerous precedent, putting many infrastructure providers and other services at risk.
For the RIAA and other copyright holders the case is an important test for future anti-piracy efforts against other pirate sites. The new Grooveshark is barely getting any visitors after the initial hype, but it has certainly triggered a crucial legal battle.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
One country where the process is becoming ever more streamlined is Russia. The country blocks hundreds of websites on many grounds, from copyright infringement to the publication of extremist propaganda, suicide discussion and the promotion of drugs.
Keeping a close eye on Russia’s constantly expanding website blocklist is RosComSvoboda. The project advocates human rights and freedoms on the Internet, monitors and publishes data on blockades, and provides assistance to Internet users and website operators who are wrongfully subjected to restrictions.
Now, however, RosKomSvoboda will have to fight for its own freedoms after a local court ordered ISPs to block an advice portal operated by the group.
The site, RUBlacklist, is an information resource aimed at users who wish to learn about tools that can be used to circumvent censorship. It doesn’t host any tools itself but offers advice on VPNs, proxies, TOR and The Pirate Bay’s Pirate Browser.
Also detailed are various anonymizer services (which are presented via a linked Google search), Opera browser’s ‘turbo mode’ (which is often used in the UK to unblock torrent sites) and open source anonymous network I2P (soon to feature in a Popcorn Time fork).
Unfortunately, Russian authorities view this education as problematic. During an investigation carried out by the Anapa district’s prosecutor’s office it was determined that RosKomSvoboda’s advice undermines government blocks.
“Due to anonymizer sites, in particular http://ift.tt/1COX7V5, users can have full access to all the banned sites anonymously and via spoofing. That is, with the help of this site, citizens can get unlimited anonymous access to banned content, including extremist material,” a ruling from the Anapa Court reads.
Describing the portal as an anonymization service, the Court ordered RosKomSvoboda’s advice center to be blocked at the ISP level.
Needless to say the operators of RosKomSvoboda are outraged that their anti-censorship efforts will now be censored. Group chief Artyom Kozlyuk slammed the decision, describing both the prosecutor’s lawsuit and the Court ruling as “absurd”.
“Law enforcement has demonstrated its complete incompetence in the basic knowledge of all the common technical aspects of the Internet, though even youngsters can understand it,” Kozlyuk says.
“Anonymizers, proxies and browsers are multitask instruments, helping to search for information on the Internet. If we follow the reasoning of the prosecutor and the court, then the following stuff should be prohibited as well: knives, as they can become a tool for murder; hammers, as they can be used as a tool of torture; planes, because if they fall they can lead to many deaths.
“To conclude, I would love to ask the prosecutor of Anapa to consider the possibility of prohibiting paper and ink, because with these tools one can draw a very melancholic picture of this ruling’s complete ignorance.”
RosKomSvoboda’s legal team say they intend to appeal the ruling which was the result of a legal procedure that took place without their knowledge.
“We can only guess why the project is considered to be an anonymizer. It’s likely that no one in Anapa city court understands what they are dealing with,” says RosKomSvoboda lawyer Sarkis Darbinian.
“We see that these kinds of rulings are being stamped on a legal conveyor belt. Moreover, we see the obvious violation of the fundamental principles of civil procedure – an adversarial system.”
The court ruling against RUBlacklist arrives at the same time as a report from the United Nations which urges member states to do everything they can to encourage encryption and anonymity online.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
The site was founded over a decade ago and has been running without any significant problems since. Starting a few days ago, however, the site’s fortunes turned.
Without prior warning or an official explanation the site went offline. Instead of listing the latest torrents, an ominous message appeared with a broken TV signal in the background.
“Error 791-the internet is shutdown due to copyright restrictions,” the mysterious message read.
Initially is was unclear whether the message hinted at hosting problems or if something more serious was going on. Many of the site’s users hoped for the former but a BT-Chat insider informs TF that the site isn’t coming back anytime soon.
The site’s operators have decided to pull the plug after receiving a hand delivered letter from the Canadian MPA, which acts on behalf of its American parent organization the MPAA.
In the letter, shown below, Hollywood’s major movie studios demand that the site removes all infringing torrents.
“We are writing to demand that you take immediate steps to address the extensive copyright infringement of television programs and motion pictures that is occurring by virtue of the operation of the Internet website http://ift.tt/1eE4h7P;
The MPAA makes its case by citing U.S. copyright law, and states that linking to unauthorized movies and TV-shows constitutes contributory copyright infringement.
Referencing the isoHunt case the movie studios explicitly note that it’s irrelevant whether or not a website actually hosts infringing material.
“It makes no difference that your website might not have infringing content on it, or only links to infringing content,” the letter says.
The threats from Hollywood have not been taken lightheartedly by the BT-Chat team. While giving up a site that they worked on for more than a decade is not easy, the alternative is even less appealing.
In the end thry decided that it would be for the best to shut the site down, instead of facing potential legal action.
And so another popular site bites the dust…
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
Due to the severe weather in Houston, Texas, this version is somewhat truncated.
The dollar was largely range bound in N.Y. trade on Friday, as it showed brief signs of strength following weak, but not as bad as expected Q1 GDP revisions. Gains were fleeting however, as a soft Chicago PMI weighed on the buck soon after. EUR-USD shuttled between 1.0955 and 1.1006 through the session, ultimately closing over the 50-day moving average of 1.0969. USD-JPY gave back the 124 handle on its way to 123.72 lows, though showed resiliency in reclaiming the figure into the close. USD-CAD spiked up to 1.2527 highs after a very disappointing U.S.
In the preliminary report, real private residential investment was reported to have increased to a new post-recession high. That was confirmed this morning, and is consistent with the new highs in housing permits and starts that we saw in April, after February permits tied the previous November high.
The Court ruled against local anti-piracy outfit BREIN, concluding that the blockade was ineffective and restricted the ISPs’ entrepreneurial freedoms.
Responding to the verdict the two ISPs quickly unblocked the site and various other Dutch ISPs followed suit.
Meanwhile, the Hollywood-backed group took its case all the way to the Supreme Court and today Advocate General Van Peursem published his conclusion after a careful review.
The Advocate General advises the Supreme Court to stay the proceedings between BREIN and the Internet providers in order to seek clarification from the EU Court of Justice on several matters.
The first question that requires a European review is whether The Pirate Bay is actually communicating illegal content to the public. If this isn’t the case then the EU Court should rule whether ISPs can be ordered to block the site on other grounds.
A decision at the European level will be important, as it may also affect court orders in other countries, such as the UK, Italy and Belgium.
When the questions are resolved at the EU Court, the Advocate General advises to redo the entire trial noting that The Court of The Hague was too strict when it concluded that the blockade was ineffective and disproportional.
The Advocate General’s advice is not binding so it’s not yet certain whether the case will be referred to the EU Court of Justice. However, in most cases the recommendations are followed by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is expected to release its verdict on October 9th.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
EUR-USD is firmer following Eurozone data. The high so far is 1.0989, and euro earlier pierced the 50-day moving average, which is presently sitting at 1.0969. EUR-JPY is trading at three-week highs near 136.00. Italian and Spanish HICP numbers came in higher than expected, the former at +0.2% y/y from -0.1% y/y in the harmonized figure, and the latter lifting to -0.3% y/y from -0.7% y/y.
More than ever before the ability to send and receive information both privately and anonymously is viewed as crucial in the digital age, enabling all corners of society – especially those most persecuted – to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression.
On the other hand, however, there are those who abuse those freedoms and the rights of others. And then, rightly or wrongly, there are those who communicate privately in order to undermine their governments. This leads some nations to restrict or even ban encryption, while others seek to introduce laws which allow law enforcement to tap into citzens’ communications.
A new report from David Kaye, a UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, seeks to shine light on these complex issues by asking two questions:
– Do the rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression protect secure online communication, specifically by encryption or anonymity?
– Assuming an affirmative answer, to what extent may Governments, in accordance with human rights law, impose restrictions on encryption and anonymity?
Acknowledging that some states impose draconian measures to restrict citizens’ abilities to send and impart knowledge without fear, Kaye says that journalists and activists often need specialist tools to make their voices heard.
“A VPN connection, or use of Tor or a proxy server, combined with encryption, may be the only way in which an individual is able to access or share information in such environments,” Kaye says.
Noting that individuals should be able to send and receive information beyond their borders, the rapporteur states that some member states act to deny those freedoms by restricting communications using aggressive filtering.
“Encryption enables an individual to avoid such filtering, allowing information to flow across borders. Moreover, individuals do not control — and are usually unaware of — how or if their communications cross borders. Encryption and anonymity may protect information of all individuals as it transits through servers located in third countries that filter content,” Kaye writes.
Of course, in the online environment encryption and anonymity are often spoken of in the same breath, and just as encryption can often beat the censors, in some cases staying anonymous is vital to continued freedom of expression.
“Anonymity has been recognized for the important role it plays in safeguarding and advancing privacy, free expression, political accountability, public participation and debate,” Kaye writes.
“Some States exert significant pressure against anonymity, offline and online. Yet because anonymity facilitates opinion and expression in significant ways online, States should protect it and generally not restrict the technologies that provide it.”
Kaye notes that several states have attempted to combat anonymity tools such as TOR, VPNs and proxies, with Russia even offering significant cash bounties for techniques which would enable it to unmask TOR users. However, due to their human rights value, use of such tools should actually be encouraged.
“Because such tools may be the only mechanisms for individuals to exercise freedom of opinion and expression securely, access to them should be protected and promoted,” Kaye advises.
“States should revise or establish, as appropriate, national laws and regulations to promote and protect the rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression.”
In respect of encryption and anonymity, Kaye says that member states should adopt policies of “non-restriction or comprehensive protection”, and only introduce restrictions on a proportional, court-order supported, case-by-case basis.
Adding that states and companies alike should actively promote strong encryption and anonymity, Kaye says that measures that weaken individual’s online security, such as backdoors, weak encryption standards and key escrows, should be avoided.
Finally, Kaye advises member states to not only encourage the use of encryption, but also make it the norm.
“The Special Rapporteur, recognizing that the value of encryption and anonymity tools depends on their widespread adoption, encourages States, civil society organizations and corporations to engage in a campaign to bring encryption by design and default to users around the world and, where necessary, to ensure that users at risk be provided the tools to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression securely,” the report concludes.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
EUR-USD logged a new rebound high of 1.0974 in Asian trade, piercing the 50-day moving average, which is presently sitting at 1.0969. The 1.1000 and Monday's high at 1.1013 provide near-to upside markers. Today makes it the third successive up day after hitting a one-month low at 1.0819 on Wednesday. USD-JPY settled back under 124.00 after capping out on Thursday at 124.46. Japan's finance minister Aso said late Thursday (from London) that recent yen weakness had been "rough" that we will "carefully monitor" currency moves.
The dollar firmed up in N.Y. trade on Thursday morning, taking EUR-USD down to 1.0867, from 1.0950 highs in London. Despite the lack of Greece progress however, the pairing rallied back to match the overnight high in afternoon trade. USD-JPY made new highs, rallying over 124.45, though later falling back into 123.60 on Aso remarks, who voiced concerns over the speed of the yen's fall. USD-CAD traded over 1.2535 on weaker oil prices, though later eased under 1.2440 as crude rallied back. Cable posted a three-week low of 1.5360. Softer U.S.
With prices plummeting to just a few dollars a month in recent years, VPNs are now within the budgets of most people. However, there are always those who prefer to get such services for free, without giving much consideration to how that might be economically viable.
One of the most popular free VPN/geo-unblocking solutions on the planet is operated by Israel-based Hola. It can be added to most popular browsers in seconds and has an impressive seven million users on Chrome alone. Overall the company boasts 46 million users of its service.
Now, however, the company is facing accusations from 8chan message board operator Fredrick Brennan. He claims that Hola users’ computers were used to attack his website without their knowledge, and that was made possible by the way Hola is setup.
“When a user installs Hola, he becomes a VPN endpoint, and other users of the Hola network may exit through his internet connection and take on his IP. This is what makes it free: Hola does not pay for the bandwidth that its VPN uses at all, and there is no user opt out for this,” Brennan says.
This means that rather than having their IP addresses cloaked behind a private server, free Hola users are regularly exposing their IP addresses to the world but associated with other people’s traffic – no matter what that might contain.
While this will come as a surprise to many, Hola says it has never tried to hide the methods it employs to offer a free service.
Speaking with TorrentFreak, Hola founder Ofer Vilenski says that his company offers two tiers of service – the free option (which sees traffic routed between Hola users) and a premium service, which operates like a traditional VPN.
However, Brennan says that Hola goes a step further, by selling Hola users’ bandwidth to another company.
“Hola has gotten greedy. They recently (late 2014) realized that they basically have a 9 million IP strong botnet on their hands, and they began selling access to this botnet (right now, for HTTP requests only) at https://luminati.io,” the 8chan owner says.
TorrentFreak asked Vilenski about Brennan’s claims. Again, there was no denial.
“We have always made it clear that Hola is built for the user and with the user in mind. We’ve explained the technical aspects of it in our FAQ and have always advertised in our FAQ the ability to pay for non-commercial use,” Vilenski says.
And this is how it works.
Hola generates revenue by selling a premium service to customers through its Luminati brand. The resources and bandwidth for the Luminati product are provided by Hola users’ computers when they are sitting idle. In basic terms, Hola users get their service for free as long as they’re prepared to let Hola hand their resources to Luminati for resale. Any users who don’t want this to happen can buy Hola for $5 per month.
Fair enough perhaps – but how does Luminati feature in Brennan’s problems? It appears his interest in the service was piqued after 8chan was hit by multiple denial of service attacks this week which originated from the Luminati / Hola network.
“An attacker used the Luminati network to send thousands of legitimate-looking POST requests to 8chan’s post.php in 30 seconds, representing a 100x spike over peak traffic and crashing PHP-FPM,” Brennan says.
Again, TorrentFreak asked Vilenski for his input. Again, there was no denial.
“8chan was hit with an attack from a hacker with the handle of BUI. This person then wrote about how he used the Luminati commercial VPN network to hack 8chan. He could have used any commercial VPN network, but chose to do so with ours,” Vilenski explains.
“If 8chan was harmed, then a reasonable course of action would be to obtain a court order for information and we can release the contact information of this user so that they can further pursue the damages with him.”
Vilenski says that Hola screens users of its “commercial network” (Luminati) prior to them being allowed to use it but in this case “BUI” slipped through the net. “Adjustments” have been made, Hola’s founder says.
“We have communicated directly with the founder of 8Chan to make sure that once we terminated BUI’s account they’ve had no further problems, and it seems that this is the case,” Vilenski says.
It is likely the majority of Hola’s users have no idea how the company’s business model operates, even though it is made fairly clear in its extensive FAQ/ToS. Installing a browser extension takes seconds and if it works as advertised, most people will be happy.
Whether this episode will affect Hola’s business moving forward is open to question but for those with a few dollars to spend there are plenty of options in the market. Until then, however, those looking for free options should read the small print before clicking install.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
USD-JPY logged traded at its highest since 2002, the AUD took at hit on unambiguously weak Australian capital expenditure data, while a general euro rebound saw EUR-USD recoup to the mid-1.09s after leaving a one-month low at 1.0831 yesterday. An above-forecast Eurozone ESI confidence reading for May, of 103.8, aided the euro's rebound, even though the ECB stated in its latest Financial Stability Review that "sovereign risks emanating from Greece" had "increased sharply." USD-JPY logged a 12-year peak at 124.30 on the nominal price chart after taking out the June 2007 high at 124.16.
The United States hopes that New Zealand will extradite Kim Dotcom and his colleagues, but the hearings have been delayed several times already.
Meanwhile, several domain names including the popular Megaupload.com and Megavideo.com remain under the control of the U.S. Government. At least, that should be the case. In reality, however, they’re now being exploited by ‘cyber criminals.’
Instead of a banner announcing that the domains names have been seized as part of a criminal investigation they now direct people to a Zero-Click adverting feed. This feed often links to malware installers and other malicious ads.
One of the many malicious “ads” the Megaupload and Megavideo domain names are serving links to a fake BBC article, suggesting people can get an iPhone 6 for only £1.
And here is another example of a malicious ad prompting visitors to update their browser.
The question that immediately comes to mind is this: How can it be that the Department of Justice is allowing the domains to be used for such nefarious purposes?
Looking at the Whois records everything seems to be in order. The domain name still lists Megaupload Limited as registrant, which is as it was before. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The nameserver PLEASEDROPTHISHOST15525.CIRFU.BIZ, on the other hand, triggers several alarm bells.
CIRFU refers to the FBI’s Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit, a specialized tech team tasked with handling online crime and scams. The unit used the CIRFU.NET domain name as nameserver for various seized domains, including the Mega ones.
Interestingly, the CIRFU.NET domain now lists “Syndk8 Media Limited” as registrant, which doesn’t appear to have any connections with the FBI. Similarly, CIRFU.BIZ is not an official CIRFU domain either and points to a server in the Netherlands hosted by LeaseWeb.
It appears that the domain which the Department of Justice (DoJ) used as nameserver is no longer in control of the Government. Perhaps it expired, or was taken over via other means.
As a result, Megaupload and Megavideo are now serving malicious ads, run by the third party that controls the nameserver.
This is quite a mistake for one of the country’s top cybercrime units, to say the least. It’s also one that affects tends of thousands of people, as the Megaupload.com domain remains frequently visited.
Commenting on the rogue domains, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom notes that the people who are responsible should have known better.
“With U.S. Assistant Attorney Jay Prabhu the DOJ in Virginia employs a guy who doesn’t know the difference between civil & criminal law. And after this recent abuse of our seized Mega domains I wonder how this guy was appointed Chief of the Cybercrime Unit when he can’t even do the basics like safeguard the domains he has seized,” he tells TF.
“Jay Prabhu keeps embarrassing the U.S. government. I would send him back to law school and give him a crash course in ‘how the Internet works’,” Dotcom adds.
Making matters worse for the Government, Megaupload.com and Megavideo.com are not the only domain names affected. Various poker domains that were previously seized, including absolutepoker.com and ultimatebet.com, also link to malicious content now.
While the Government appears to have lost control of the old nameservers, it can still correct the problem through a nameserver update at their end. However, that doesn’t save those people who had their systems compromised during recent days, and it certainly won’t repair the PR damage.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
USD-JPY logged the highest level since 2002, the AUD took at hit on unambiguously weak capital expenditure data out of Australia, while EUR-USD recouped to the 1.0900 area after leaving a one-month low at 1.0831 yesterday. There has been no change in the dominant bearish EUR-USD narrative: a continued lack of substantive progress in Greece's bailout negotiations with its creditors, and a dollar benefiting from the rekindled Fed tightening narrative. EUR-USD's high at 1.0929 and the 50-day moving average at 1.0955 provide upside markers.
The dollar rallied in morning U.S. trade on Wednesday, and while there was no U.S. data to drive the market, a rebound on Wall Street helped sentiment to a degree. taking EUR-USD to trend lows of 1.0820, as Greece concerns remained front and center. USD-JPY meanwhile rallied to near eight-year highs, cracking the 124 mark, and coming within a few points of levels last seen in June of 2002. USD-CAD rallied ahead of the BoC announcement, stopping just short of 1.2500. Weaker oil prices weighed on the CAD through the session, though the BoC didn't offer up any surprises.
Facing hundreds of millions in damages, the music streaming service settled the dispute for $50 million while offering an apology for the mistakes that had been made in the past.
The RIAA heralded the outcome as a major victory, but the joy didn’t last long. A few days after Grooveshark shut down unknown persons launched a new music service using the familiar Grooveshark brand.
Recognizing the new Grooveshark.io service as a considerable threat, the RIAA didn’t waste any time taking countermeasures. The group filed a sealed application for temporary restraining and seizure orders, targeting the site’s domain name and hosting services.
The court granted the RIAA’s request earlier this month and this week the documents were unsealed. They reveal how the music group intends to drag both Cloudflare and hosting provider LeaseWeb into the fight.
In his declaration, RIAA’s VP Online Anti-Piracy Mark McDevitt describes the new Grooveshark as a “blatantly illegal” site that hides its true location behind CloudFlare’s service.
“Because of the presence of CloudFlare’s servers, it is impossible to identify the location of the actual server supporting those aspects of the website absent the disclosure of this information by CloudFlare,” McDevitt writes (pdf).
While CloudFlare doesn’t host any of the infringing files, it’s accused of helping Grooveshark to evade detection. The RIAA alerted CloudFlare of this role early May and asked the company to take action, without the desired result.
“In response to this notice, CloudFlare informed the RIAA that it had notified the operator of the Grooveshark.io website of the RIAA’s complaint, but did not discontinue providing its services to the website,” McDevitt writes.
In an email seen by TF, CloudFlare informs the RIAA that it’s merely a pass-through provider, and that they’re not offering any hosting services.
“Please be aware CloudFlare is a network provider offering a reverse proxy, pass-through security service. We are not a hosting provider. CloudFlare does not control the content of our customers,” the company replied.
Even today, the new Grooveshark remains active on the Grooveshark.li domain name, and it’s still hiding behind CloudFlare. The site did lose its original domain name, which Namecheap seized after receiving the court order, but new domains are easily registered.
It’s unclear at this point whether CloudFlare is actively refusing to comply with the restraining order that’s targeted at Grooveshark’s Internet service providers, but the company’s counsel did attend a court hearing yesterday to discuss the matter.
Besides CloudFlare, the RIAA also names web company LeaseWeb, which they suspect of offering hosting services to the new Grooveshark. In its presentations to the court the RIAA lashes out hard against the Dutch company.
“LeaseWeb has a long history of hosting major pirate sites. For example, LeaseWeb once hosted the notorious (and now shuttered) pirate website ‘MegaUpload,’ which was the subject of the largest criminal copyright law enforcement action ever undertaken,” McDevitt writes.
“Other examples of LeaseWeb’s involvement with pirate sites are also well known in the antipiracy community,” he adds, after summing up several other examples.
Neither CloudFlare nor LeaseWeb are named as defendants, but the language used makes clear that the RIAA isn’t happy with how they respond to copyright complaints.
While Grooveshark.li is a relatively small fish, the case may set a crucial precedent for future anti-piracy efforts. With relative ease the Court has issued temporary restraining and seizure orders. If these hold up, more sites may be targeted in a similar fashion.
This outlook may also be the reason for CloudFlare to have their say in the matter. As a service provider to some of the largest piracy havens, including The Pirate Bay, there’s a lot at stake.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
Last Friday's consumer inflation report was something of a puzzle. Normally when producer prices decline, particularly as much as they did in April, consumer prices decline as well:
The below avove just shows the last 6 years, but the same has obtained in prior periods, and in particular during the gas price swoon of 1986.
EUR-USD settled around 1.0900 after an early London run higher stalled at 1.0919, which seems to be tell-tale price action of bearish market sentiment. Yesterday's low at 1.0863 remains in scope. EU's Junker suggested Greece may be given more time, but, of course, time is not the problem, rather the seemingly intractable differences between Athens and Greece's creditors is. USD-JPY rallied to a fresh eight-year peak of 123.77 during the London AM session on the nominal price chart.
The dollar gave back some of its recent gains. EUR-USD has recouped the 1.0900 level during Asian trade after leaving a one-month low at 1.0863 yesterday. The pair has fallen some 4% in seven of the last eight trading days after making a three-month peak 1.1486 on May-15. USD-JPY has dipped back under 123.00 as the dollar corrected after yesterday's surge to an eight-year peak of 123.32 on the nominal price chart. BoJ deputy governor Iwata said today that he sees no need for further easing, which is the same message being delivered by his boss Kuroda of late.
It’s currently not clear what’s causing the problems. There might be a hardware issue, hosting problem or a software glitch, issues that have occurred many times in the site’s history.
What we do know is that the site’s domain names are not the culprit.
The Pirate Bay currently displays a CloudFlare error message across all domain names, suggesting that TPB’s servers are unresponsive.
With the raid of a few months ago still fresh in memory some fear the worst, but these concerns are unwarranted for now.
In fact, the site is still accessible via the Tor network, including the popular Pirate Browser.
The Tor traffic goes through a separate server, and it appears that this part of the site’s infrastructure is not going through CloudFlare.
TorrentFreak reached out to The Pirate Bay team for a comment on the situation and we will update this article if we hear back.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
U.S. traders came back from the Memorial Day holiday to find the dollar broadly higher, and it was higher still when the session came to an end. Incoming U.S. data was mostly better than expected, which brought Fed Yellen's Friday comments, on the possibility of raising rates at some point this year, back to center stage, lifting the Greenback's fortunes. EUR-USD traded under 1.0870 after peaking near 1.0935 into the open, while USD-JPY made eight-year highs 0ver 123.30.
While citizens of the U.S. largely enjoy unfettered access to any site, file-sharers in Europe have to deal with website blocking on a grand scale. Add domain seizures, pressure on webhosts and sundry raids that effect everyone into the mix, it’s perhaps surprising just how well sites are coping.
One site with a checkered recent uptime history is H33T. At times one of the world’s Top 10 torrent sites, H33T has fought through some very public spats with copyright holders and has been blocked in the UK since 2013 after music industry group BPI obtained a High Court order against the country’s six ISPs.
Recently H33T disappeared again but with no comment from anyone running the site (if anyone is, day to day), millions of the site’s users were left wondering what the following message from Cloudflare means for the future.
“You’ve requested a page on a website (h33t.to) that is on the CloudFlare network. CloudFlare is currently not routing the requested domain (h33t.to). There are two potential causes of this,” Cloudflare explains.
From the above it’s clear that Cloudflare isn’t currently a helpful service for those trying to access the site. The big question, however, is whether H33T is functioning somewhere and Cloudflare is the issue, or whether it’s gone altogether. Time to bypass Cloudflare to find out.
A few minutes of detective work turn up two potential direct IP addresses for H33T, one registered to a Canadian datacenter and the other located in the tiny 115-island country of Seychelles. At first, both appear useless, with the Canadian IP doing nothing and the Seychelles IP directing straight back to Google.
However, by adding the latter IP to the Windows hosts file and then accessing H33T.to in the usual way……
….H33T magically springs to life.
Perhaps surprisingly the site seems entirely operational, with torrents uploaded as recently as today. Exactly what the problem is remains unclear, but serious issues with Cloudflare that have persisted for many days seem to be the culprit.
Why these haven’t been fixed is a question likely to go unanswered. The site’s once-popular Facebook page hasn’t been updated since October 2014 and still lists the long-defunct URL H33T.com as the site’s main domain.
In the meantime and not withstanding hosts edits, proxies such as this one are keeping the site alive. Only time will tell if Cloudflare will re-enable the site – the company does not discuss individual cases.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.
