Friday, 10 August 2012

TorrentFreak Email Update

TorrentFreak Email Update

FBI Monitored Dotcom Raid Via Live Video Link, Secret Govt Group Involved

Posted: 10 Aug 2012 03:43 AM PDT

This week Kim Dotcom, police and other officials have been giving evidence in the Auckland High Court as part of a hearing to determine what happened during the January raid on his New Zealand mansion.

By now the backdrop to the story is well-known, particularly after a video recorded during the raid was published online this week.

It largely confirmed what has been reported thus far – armed anti-terrorist officers, helicopters and significant force were all used in the pursuit of individuals alleged to have been involved in copyright infringement in the United States.

It is known that U.S. authorities had “boots on the ground” in New Zealand in pursuit of Dotcom and his associates and today that assertion was further underlined.

Under questioning from defense lawyer Guyon Foley, Detective Inspector Grant Wormald of the NZ Organized and Financial Crime Agency had to reveal how senior police officers and the FBI had received their information as the raid panned out.

"What information was coming back to your headquarters group in relation to what was happening as to progress of the raid?" Mr Foley asked.

"We received phone calls from the scene in respect to the fact that at least three of the defendants apart from Mr Dotcom have been located," Mr Wormald said, initially stumbling over his words.

"Radio contact with officers on the ground?" Foley questioned.

Wormald said that due to the raid being carried out by the Special Tactics Group they did not have direct radio contact since STG, New Zealand’s anti-terror force, use only encrypted communications.

"Any video feed from anywhere?" Foley pushed. After another pause, Wormald said that there had indeed been live video.

"We had a video feeding back to the police station," Wormald said.

“Really?” Foley added with a surprised tone. “From where?”

“I’m not going to discuss that,” Wormald responded.

What happened next was hidden from the media but the intrigue didn’t stop there. Detective Inspector Wormald also admitted that a secret government organization had been involved in the raid on the Dotcom mansion.

Paul Davison, QC, acting on behalf of the defense, asked Wormald if the group of people at the pre-raid meeting belonged to the Security Intelligence Service. He denied that, but refused to say exactly who they were.

“They work for the government,” he said.

On Twitter, Kim Dotcom said people should expect some big news in the coming weeks.

“The truth is coming out!” he said. “And we are just getting started.”

Watch the 3News video from the hearing here.

Source: FBI Monitored Dotcom Raid Via Live Video Link, Secret Govt Group Involved

Efficiency Tests Delay U.S. “Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme

Posted: 09 Aug 2012 02:30 PM PDT

The MPAA and RIAA, helped by five major Internet providers in the United States, will start to warn and punish copyright infringers later this year.

The parties launched the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) and agreed on a system through which copyright infringers are warned that their behavior is unacceptable. After five or six warnings ISPs may then take a variety of repressive measures.

Initially the first ISPs were expected to send out the first copyright alerts by the end of 2011, but for reasons unknown this deadline silently passed, as did the revised July 2012 start date.

TorrentFreak learned that all Internet providers now plan to roll the scheme out whenever they see fit, but still no official explanation has been given for the apparent delay. Luckily, Public Knowledge president and co-founder Gigi Sohn is offering a helping hand.

Sohn is one of the public rights advocates who were invited to join the CCI Advisory Board earlier this year. After noticing many questions about progress on the “six strikes” scheme she has decided to release some more details.

The first reason for the delay, according to Sohn, is that the Internet providers need time to get the technology ready to alert pirating subscribers via email.

In addition, the CCI is also undecided on what language to use in the alerts. They are currently running tests to find out what works best.

“The Board, with the Advisory Board's advice, has been testing messages for the alerts to see what will be effective and what will not. This testing has included focus groups with parents and young adults,” Sohn explains.

Judging from some of the anti-piracy messages DVD-viewers get to see, the emails could include a list of scary threats mentioning jail time and massive fines. However, Sohn notes that CCI will most likely choose a softer approach.

“The CCI's alert methods and messaging will almost certainly be shaped by the recent reports from France that discuss the demise of the ’3 strikes’ Hadopi law,” she writes.

As we reported last week, the French Culture minister said that Hadopi failed because it didn’t point people towards sites where content could be bought legally.

It is expected that the U.S. emails will focus less on punishments and more on legal options, but the testing panels are currently figuring out the best strategy.

The third and final reason for the delay is down to the American Arbitration Association, who have yet to finalize the appeal procedure. The expectation is that many people who receive a warning will not have actually downloaded anything personally and will therefore require an easy way to appeal “strikes”.

It will be interesting to see whether the first alerts will indeed go out before the end of the year, what language they include, and how effective they will be.

Source: Efficiency Tests Delay U.S. “Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme

Demonoid Raid Credited To IFPI, Multiple Arrests In Mexico Reported

Posted: 09 Aug 2012 07:09 AM PDT

Earlier this week it became evident that after the popular BitTorrent tracker Demonoid had suffered a DDoS and hacker attack, it ultimately had bigger things to worry about.

Sergei Burlakov of Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs said that following a request from Interpol, Ukrainian government investigators had arrived at Demonoid's hosting provider ColoCall and had the site taken offline. ColoCall said that ultimately the decision to remove the site had been theirs.

Until now, information on the raid has only come from Ukraine, prompting some to question why the music and movie industries have remained silent on such a prominent takedown. The wait for that is now over. The IFPI said their complaints have finally delivered results.

"Demonoid was a leading global player in digital music piracy which acted as unfair competition to the more than 500 licensed digital music services that offer great value music to consumers while respecting the rights of artists, songwriters and record companies,” the IFPI’s anti-piracy director Jeremy Banks said in a statement.

“The operation to close Demonoid was a great example of international cooperation to tackle a service that was facilitating the illegal distribution of music on a vast scale. I would like to thank all those officers involved in this operation to close a business that was built on the abuse of other people's rights."

As detailed in our article last evening, there have been clear links to Mexico at several stages of the operation to take down Demonoid. Today those links have only been further underlined.

We already knew that Mexican authorities had launched a criminal investigation into the owners of Demonoid and that the Attorney General of Mexico had become involved in the case last year, but today it was confirmed that there have been a number of arrests and asset seizures in the country.

John Newton head of INTERPOL's Trafficking in Illicit Goods Sub-Directorate said that international cooperation is key to ensuring that “organized criminals” are stopped.

“In this instance police forces on different sides of the world worked together with INTERPOL and the music industry to successfully disrupt the distribution chain for illicit digital music products,” he said.

Since many Demonoid members are worried that they may be at risk TorrentFreak asked IFPI whether any users are or will be targeted. However, the group told us that they can't comment any further on an ongoing investigation.

In the meantime and in retaliation for the raids on Demonoid, elements of the Anonymous collective have launched a number of DDoS attacks on websites operated by the Ukrainian authorities. But a member of the group said that they may go much further, if they can get their hands on the site’s code.

“By getting the .torrent files and website [we would be able to reinforce] Demonoid’s mark on history with a permanent mirror arrangement,” he told TorrentFreak.

Source: Demonoid Raid Credited To IFPI, Multiple Arrests In Mexico Reported

New Data Exposes BitTorrent Throttling ISPs

Posted: 09 Aug 2012 05:15 AM PDT

throttlingHundreds of ISPs all over the world limit and restrict BitTorrent traffic on their networks. Unfortunately, most companies are not very open about their network management solutions.

Thanks to data collected by Measurement Lab (M-Lab) the public can learn if and how frequently their Internet provider limits torrent traffic. Among other tools, M-Lab runs the Glasnost application developed by the Max Planck Institute.

Previously the researchers published data up until 2010, and now the results have been updated to include the first quarter of 2012. This allows us to give an overview of trends and changes that have emerged in recent years.

United States

BitTorrent throttling in the US is not as prevalent as it used to be. The main reason for this is the Comcast BitTorrent blocking controversy which started in 2007. The FCC eventually ruled that Comcast had to stop its targeted interference of customers’ BitTorrent traffic.

As a result of this ruling, the throttling percentage took a dive from nearly 50 percent to only 3 percent in 2010. In the first quarter of 2012, Comcast’s throttling level was still at 3 percent, which puts the provider among the best behaving ISPs.

Throttling was also greatly reduced at Charter over the last year, from 11 percent down to 4 percent. Cox is exposed as the most heavy throttler among the major ISPs, but with 6 percent this is still rather acceptable.

Worst: Cox (6%)

Best: Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and others (3%)

UK

In the UK BitTorrent throttling in on the rise, at least among some providers. BT is the worst offender by limiting 65 percent of all BitTorrent transfers during the first months of 2012. This is up from 57 percent last year and almost twice as much as the 35 percent in 2010.

At O2 and BSkyB BitTorrent users are better off with throttling percentages of 2 and 4 percent respectively. For O2 this is a significant decline compared to their 13 percent last year.

Virgin Media sits somewhere in the middle after it interfered with 22 percent of all BitTorrent transfers in the first quarter of 2012. This is down from 33 percent during the same period last year.

Worst: BT (65%)

Best: O2 (2%)

Canada

Canada is not the most friendly country for BitTorrent users. Nearly all of the major Internet providers are heavy throttlers and Rogers tops them all. For more than half a decade Rogers has continuously throttled more than three-quarters of all BitTorrent traffic.

During the first quarter of 2012 the provider interfered with 80 percent of all BitTorrent transfers, showing that there has been no improvement. Bell is a good second with 77 percent, up from 56 percent last year.

BitTorrent users in Canada are best off at Cogeco and Telus with 3 and 0 percent respectively.

Worst: Rogers (80%)

Best: Telus (0%)

Australia

BitTorrent is extremely popular in Australia, but according to the Measurement Lab data ISPs are throttling less than last year.

iiNet is the worst offender interfering with 11 percent of BitTorrent downloads during the first months of 2012, down from 32 percent last year. Dodo hasn’t been caught throttling at all in 2012, a healthy improvement compared to the 14 percent score last year.

The rest of the Aussie ISPs are also throttling considerably less than in 2011.

Worst: iiNet (11%)

Best: Dodo (0%)

The Rest

A quick look at some other countries shows that in Sweden none of the large ISPs have been throttling BitTorrent traffic heavily so far in 2012. The same is true for other European countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands.

In Germany, Kabel Deutschland limited more than one-third (37%) of all BitTorrent transfers, a major improvement on the 69 percent from a year ago.

For Brazilian BitTorrent users Net Servicos appears to be the worst option with a throttling percentage of 13, and in Japan Infoweb Fujitsu and J:COM should be avoided with 60 and 83 percent respectively.

If we haven’t mentioned your Internet Provider here, a full overview of all the data is available here. If you want to know whether your BitTorrent traffic is being limited you can test your connection with the Glasnost tool.

For those BitTorrent users who have a choice, the overview may help to make the right decision when signing up with an Internet provider.

Source: New Data Exposes BitTorrent Throttling ISPs
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