Month: April 2018

Tencent, Visa und andere Konzerne investieren stark in deutsche Startups, die sich auf Finanzdienstleistungen spezialisieren. Allein im ersten Quartal 2018 sollen fast 300 Millionen Euro an die Fintechs gegangen sein. (Fintech, Bertelsmann)

Die Roadmap steht: 2019 will Square Enix noch vier Erweiterungen für das Rollenspiel Final Fantasy 15 veröffentlichen. Erst in der letzten steht erneut der eigentliche Protagonist Prinz Noctis im Mittelpunkt - und ein finaler Kampf. (Final Fantasy, Rollenspiel)

Keine Updates mehr für Treiber und Geforce Experience: Ab sofort will Nvidia ausschließlich die die 64-Bit-Versionen von Windows und Linux unterstützen. Auch der Support der Fermi-Architektur läuft aus. (Nvidia, Grafikhardware)

For more than a decade EZTV has been a widely recognized brand among many BitTorrent users and known as one of the main TV-distribution groups.

While the original EZTV shut down following a hostile takeover, the people who took over are still serving torrents to millions of people every month.

Generally speaking, EZTV takes releases from outside encoders which they then distribute with their own nametag. It’s been like this for years and has never caused any real problems.

Last week, however, a disturbing release was added to the site, sending a message to EZTV users. What appeared to be a regular release of Lucifer S03E19, turned into something darker.

Ten minutes into the episode, a red warning appears, telling viewers that EZTV.ag is a huge security risk.

Huge Security Risk

Throughout the rest of the episode, a few dozen IP-addresses appear plastered across the screen. Needless to say, this makes the program rather unwatchable.

According to the earlier message, these IP-addresses are “used on EZTV.ag.” This seems to suggest that the website has a leak somewhere unless it refers to IP-addresses of downloaders, which are public anyway.

IP-addresses

It is hard to grasp what’s really going on here and there is no direct evidence that the site has been breached in any way. Not directly at least.

At the end of the episode, a final message appears, adding to the intrigue. The message comes from the encoder DeXoX and offers up a complete IP-address database, email addresses of registered EZTV users, and more.

DeXoX

Again, we have not been able to verify the validity of these claims but it’s certainly not good PR for EZTV. The spooky torrent has been downloaded by thousands of people already and is still listed on the site several days after first appearing.

We are not familiar with DeXoX, but it appears that the person behind the handle is not a fan of EZTV.ag, to say the least.

It remains unclear how the torrent was added to the site. It could be that the EZTV site has indeed been breached in some way, or DeXoX has access to the site where EZTV sources its material. In any event, the release page or the site itself contains no warnings, only the video itself.

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

From the music industry to the movie industry, things are looking rosy - read the news roundup for the week ending April 8, 2018

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Beim Ausbau der digitalen Breitband-Infrastuktur fühlen sich ländliche Gebiete abgehängt. Sie verlangen mehr Hilfen vom Bund sowie eine Gesamtstrategie zur Entwicklung der städtischen und ländlichen Gebiete vom neuen Heimatministerium. (Breitband, Glasfaser)

The Chinese government is known to keep a tight grip on the websites its citizens are allowed to see on the Internet.

The so-called ‘Great Firewall’ blocks pirate sites, but also a wide variety of other websites which the government believes could have a negative influence on society.

While the exact scope of the blocking effort is unknown, it’s certain that thousands of websites are affected.

The US Government, however, is not happy with this type of censorship. In its latest Trade Barriers report, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) notes that it has a detrimental impact on businesses around the world.

“China continues to engage in extensive blocking of legitimate websites, imposing significant costs on both suppliers and users of web-based services and products,” the report reads.

The Chinese blocking efforts are affecting billions of dollars in business according to the US. The services that are affected include app stores, news sites, as well as communication services.

While many of these are targeted intentionally, some are hit by over-blocking. This happens when a blocked site shares an IP-address with other sites, which are then censored as collateral damage.

“While becoming more sophisticated over time, the technical means of blocking, dubbed the Great Firewall, still often appears to affect sites that may not be the intended target, but that may share the same Internet Protocol address,” USTR writes.

According to industry figures, twelve of the top thirty most popular sites on the Internet are currently censored in China. And while it used to be relatively easy to bypass these measures with a VPN, that is changing too.

Starting this month, all unauthorized VPN services are banned. Companies can only operate a VPN if they lease state-approved services via the Government. This is hurting even more businesses, according to the US. Not just in their pockets, but also in terms of privacy.

“In the past, consumers and business have been able to avoid government-run filtering through the use of VPN services, but a crackdown in 2017 has all but eliminated that option, with popular VPN applications now banned,” USTR writes.

“This development has had a particularly dire effect on foreign businesses, which routinely use VPN services to connect to locations and services outside of China, and which depend on VPN technology to ensure confidentiality of communications.”

Ironically, US companies are assisting the Chinese Government to keep their Great Firewall up. For example, last year VPN applications started to disappear from Apple’s iOS store following pressure from Chinese authorities.

It’s clear that the United States is not happy with China’s censorship regime. However, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a reversal anytime soon. As long as China is willing to jail its citizens for operating VPN services, there’s still a long way to go.

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A copy of USTR’s 2018 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers is available here (pdf).

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

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Die Bundesregierung hat erläutert, wie das Bundeskriminalamt und die Zollverwaltung versuchen, Passwörter herauszufinden oder Verschlüsselung zu brechen. (Zitis, Instant Messenger)