TorrentFreak Email Update |
| TVShack Staff in U.S. Worked With Feds To Nail Richard O’Dwyer Posted: 11 Aug 2012 02:50 AM PDT
The ongoing extradition battle of former TVShack admin Richard O’Dwyer has made big headlines recently, particularly due to the support he’s receiving from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. What hasn’t received any attention is how O’Dwyer came to be identified and have evidence collected against him by U.S. authorities in the first instance. Perhaps unsurprisingly considering the developments in the SurfTheChannel case, two people O’Dwyer appears to have trusted were working with ICE Homeland Security Investigations in the United States prior to the British student’s arrest. The revelations appear in U.S. court documents which reference the activities of two individuals named “CC-1″ and “CC-2″. CC-1 worked as a moderator on TVShack while CC-2 worked on technical aspects of the site. CC-1 told Special Agent Marcello Di Laura of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) that he communicated with O’Dwyer on email and MSN via the address rjodwyer@hotmail.com, an address also linked to O’Dwyer’s Facebook page. CC-1, who received his TVShack login as far back as December 2007, gave HSI a copy of at least one email showing O’Dwyer’s Hotmail address, but he was to provide much more information. CC-1 said that O’Dwyer lived and attended school in the UK and used the alias “Duffman” on TVShack. He also shared a picture given to him by O’Dwyer which showed the TVShack admin’s Mini Cooper. HSI inquiries with UK police confirmed that O’Dwyer owned such a car. CC-2, who worked on the technical side of TVShack, was also very helpful to U.S. authorities. He too confirmed that O’Dwyer used the Hotmail account detailed above but also used a second Gmail account. CC-2 shared emails from that account with HSI which allowed them to cross-reference another website domain to O’Dwyer. This domain led to a second Gmail account and Google subsequently provided HSI with information including IP addresses cross-referenced to the first Gmail account. According to the documents, O’Dwyer was aware that having a Gmail account might lead to his details being handed over to the authorities by Google. In September 2010 he wrote the following to CC-2: hi, i’m looking to change the site email address from gmail as i think govt. can access that right? can you setup like info@tvshack.cc? also make it so i can reply without my ip going with the mail i reply to? atm i dont reply to any emails on the gmail account due to that. But in addition to working with and getting paid by O’Dwyer, CC-2 was already working with HSI. O’Dwyer allegedly owed CC-2 money for work he’d carried out on TVShack but had experienced some kind of problem with the bank. O’Dwyer told CC-2 he’d have to use PayPal to make the transfer – HSI were informed and Special Agent Marcello Di Laura told CC-2 to go ahead and accept the money. Subsequent HSI inquiries with PayPal revealed connections between several accounts allegedly operated by O’Dwyer. Even though they are listed as O’Dwyer’s co-conspirators, court documents reveal that CC-1 and CC-2 worked with ICE Homeland Security Investigations with the aim of entering into “non-prosecution agreements” with the U.S. government. Whether they will walk away from this free men remains to be seen, but there is no indication thus far that either man has been charged with anything. Source: TVShack Staff in U.S. Worked With Feds To Nail Richard O’Dwyer |
| Google Starts Punishing “Pirate” Sites In Search Results Posted: 10 Aug 2012 01:51 PM PDT
The search engine will soon take into consideration the number of DMCA takedown notices it receives against sites to determine the ranking of those websites in its search results. “Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results,” Google’s Amit Singhal writes in a blog post. Earlier this year Google decided to publish all takedown requests online as part of their transparency report, and they will now use this data as part of their search algorithm. This means that websites for which Google receives a high number of valid takedown requests will be penalized. The top receivers of these notices over the past year were filestube.com, extratorrent.com, torrenthound.com, bitsnoop.com and isohunt.com. They can expect to appear lower in future search results and will therefore receive less traffic through Google searches. Whether Google will downgrade YouTube, where (tens of) thousands of videos are routinely disabled because of alleged infringements, is unknown at this point. Google stresses that it doesn’t know whether content is authorized or not, so removal of pages from its search results will only take place following a valid DMCA takedown notice. “Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law,” Singhal writes. “So while this new signal will influence the ranking of some search results, we won't be removing any pages from search results unless we receive a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner.” One of the main problems with Google’s new ranking is that perfectly legitimate content on sites with a high number of takedown requests will be degraded as well. Taking YouTube as an example, millions of relevant and legal search results will be degraded simply because there are a high number of “unauthorized” videos posted to the site. Adding the high number of bogus DMCA notices which Google sees as valid, many sites may also be punished for the faulty takedown requests that copyright holders send. That’s worrying to say the least. For Hollywood and the major music labels Google’s announcement is a clear win. In fact, it was one of the three demands they handed out to Google, Bing and Yahoo last year during a behind-closed-doors meeting. The other two demands were “prioritize websites that obtain certification as a licensed site under a recognized scheme” and “stop indexing websites that are subject to court orders while establishing suitable procedures to de-index substantially infringing sites.” Whether Google will also adopt these suggestions remains to be seen. Source: Google Starts Punishing “Pirate” Sites In Search Results |
On many filesharing-type sites there is great camaraderie and friendship to be found between site operators and their staff. Because of this, some believe that security only exists to protect against outsiders. It’s a dangerous assumption.
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