Month: July 2018

Sony tries to upload movie trailer to YouTube, posts entire movie instead

The video has since been taken down, though it stayed up for hours.

Enlarge / Khali the Killer from Sony Pictures Entertainment. (credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Sony Pictures Entertainment endeavored to post a trailer for its limited-release film Khali the Killer on YouTube to encourage viewers to watch the movie on Blu-ray, on streaming platforms, and in select theaters. Instead, the company uploaded the film in its entirety—apparently by accident.

Khali the Killer is a violent crime drama that, based on the actual trailer, seems to draw a lot of influence from westerns and '70s exploitation films. It was released on DVD in 2017, but in the odd reverse-order world of some indie films, it's not slated for a theatrical release until later this year. In any case, this is not an example of the film being unavailable until it suddenly appeared on YouTube.

Clocking in at a feature-length one hour and 30 minutes, the video has since been removed, but it stayed up for several hours. That was long enough to earn a heavily upvoted Reddit thread making fun of the error.

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Filmmakers Settle Piracy Lawsuit With Dragon Box

Filmmakers behind the movies “Mechanic: Resurrection” and “Once Upon a Time in Venice” have signed a settlement with Dragon Box and two of its resellers in Hawaii. It’s unclear whether the defendants in the piracy lawsuit agreed to pay compensation, but the legal paperwork suggests that the boxes will be altered to prevent future infringements of works owned by the filmmakers.

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

Streaming set-top boxes have been selling like hot cakes over the past several years.

While these devices can be used to consume content legally, the entertainment industry also sees them as a potential threat.

For many copyright holders, the threat is viewed as a top enforcement priority, one that has already led to several arrests and lawsuits. Dragon Box is one of the devices that got into legal trouble recently.

Dragon Media and two of its resellers in Hawaii were added to a lawsuit by the rightsholders of the films “Mechanic: Resurrection” (ME2) and “Once Upon a Time in Venice.” This case started out as a ‘classic’ BitTorrent piracy case but switched focus to the streaming box.

The complaint describes how the Dragon Box can be used to access copyrighted material, including the works of ME2 and Venice. The defendants were well aware of this, it argues, adding that the defendants promoted the box with terms hinting at infringing uses.

“Simply put, Dragon Box is intentionally inducing infringement. Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court enter a preliminary injunction that requires the Dragon Box Defendants to halt their flagrantly illegal conduct immediately,” ME2 and Venice stated.

Dragon Box and its owner Paul Christoforo, as well as the resellers Naino Bettencourt and Jason Barnhart, who run “The Dragon Box Hawaii” and “JB Dragon Box-Hawaii Kai” respectively, all stood accused of contributory copyright infringement.

While copyright infringement cases can drag on for years, this lawsuit was resolved rather swiftly.

Yesterday, ME2 and Venice dismissed their claims against Dragon Media and its owner Paul Christoforo. The dismissal follows a settlement agreement by the parties involved, the terms of which have not been publicly released.

The two resellers also resolved their dispute with the filmmakers. Both Naino Bettencourt and Jason Barnhart reached a settlement and signed a consent judgment. The latter includes an injunction, preventing both from infringing any of ME2 and Venice’s works going forward.

Since the settlement agreements have not been published, we don’t know whether any compensation was paid. The injunction issued against defendant Barnhart does suggest, however, that the Dragon Boxes he sells will be ‘modified.’

“Defendant is ORDERED to refrain from directly or indirectly selling any of said streaming devices made by Defendant Dragon Media, Inc. including but not limited to the Dragon Box DB4 and the Dragon Box DB5 until notified by Plaintiffs’ counsel that a software modification has been performed to said streaming devices.”

While this matter is now resolved, the trouble for Dragon Box is not over yet. After all, this isn’t the first lawsuit the company and its owner have been dragged into this year.

The company was previously sued by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which represents several Hollywood studios, Netflix, and Amazon. That case is still ongoing.

—

The stipulation for dismissal against Dragon Media and Paul Christoforo is available here (pdf). And here are the consent judgments of Naino Bettencourt (pdf) and Jason Barnhart (pdf).

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

Filmmakers Settle Piracy Lawsuit With Dragon Box

Filmmakers behind the movies “Mechanic: Resurrection” and “Once Upon a Time in Venice” have signed a settlement with Dragon Box and two of its resellers in Hawaii. It’s unclear whether the defendants in the piracy lawsuit agreed to pay compensation, but the legal paperwork suggests that the boxes will be altered to prevent future infringements of works owned by the filmmakers.

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

Streaming set-top boxes have been selling like hot cakes over the past several years.

While these devices can be used to consume content legally, the entertainment industry also sees them as a potential threat.

For many copyright holders, the threat is viewed as a top enforcement priority, one that has already led to several arrests and lawsuits. Dragon Box is one of the devices that got into legal trouble recently.

Dragon Media and two of its resellers in Hawaii were added to a lawsuit by the rightsholders of the films “Mechanic: Resurrection” (ME2) and “Once Upon a Time in Venice.” This case started out as a ‘classic’ BitTorrent piracy case but switched focus to the streaming box.

The complaint describes how the Dragon Box can be used to access copyrighted material, including the works of ME2 and Venice. The defendants were well aware of this, it argues, adding that the defendants promoted the box with terms hinting at infringing uses.

“Simply put, Dragon Box is intentionally inducing infringement. Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court enter a preliminary injunction that requires the Dragon Box Defendants to halt their flagrantly illegal conduct immediately,” ME2 and Venice stated.

Dragon Box and its owner Paul Christoforo, as well as the resellers Naino Bettencourt and Jason Barnhart, who run “The Dragon Box Hawaii” and “JB Dragon Box-Hawaii Kai” respectively, all stood accused of contributory copyright infringement.

While copyright infringement cases can drag on for years, this lawsuit was resolved rather swiftly.

Yesterday, ME2 and Venice dismissed their claims against Dragon Media and its owner Paul Christoforo. The dismissal follows a settlement agreement by the parties involved, the terms of which have not been publicly released.

The two resellers also resolved their dispute with the filmmakers. Both Naino Bettencourt and Jason Barnhart reached a settlement and signed a consent judgment. The latter includes an injunction, preventing both from infringing any of ME2 and Venice’s works going forward.

Since the settlement agreements have not been published, we don’t know whether any compensation was paid. The injunction issued against defendant Barnhart does suggest, however, that the Dragon Boxes he sells will be ‘modified.’

“Defendant is ORDERED to refrain from directly or indirectly selling any of said streaming devices made by Defendant Dragon Media, Inc. including but not limited to the Dragon Box DB4 and the Dragon Box DB5 until notified by Plaintiffs’ counsel that a software modification has been performed to said streaming devices.”

While this matter is now resolved, the trouble for Dragon Box is not over yet. After all, this isn’t the first lawsuit the company and its owner have been dragged into this year.

The company was previously sued by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which represents several Hollywood studios, Netflix, and Amazon. That case is still ongoing.

—

The stipulation for dismissal against Dragon Media and Paul Christoforo is available here (pdf). And here are the consent judgments of Naino Bettencourt (pdf) and Jason Barnhart (pdf).

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

Really dumb malware targets cryptocurrency fans using Macs

A command spread through Slack and Discord channels to cryptocurrency users is a trap.

Enlarge (credit: Lucasfilm)

Someone impersonating administrators of cryptocurrency-related discussion channels on Slack, Discord, and other social messaging platforms has been attempting to lure others into installing macOS malware. The social-engineering campaign consists of posting a script in discussions and encouraging people to copy and paste that script into a Terminal window on their Macs. The command downloads a huge (34 megabyte) file and executes it, establishing a remote connection that acts as a backdoor for the attacker.

Peter Wardle, a Mac malware expert, also examined the malware and dubbed it "OSX.Dummy" because, as he wrote:

  • the infection method is dumb
  • the massive size of the binary is dumb
  • the persistence mechanism is lame (and thus also dumb)
  • the capabilities are rather limited (and thus rather dumb)
  • it's trivial to detect at every step (that dumb)
  • ... and finally, the malware saves the user's password to dumpdummy

The attack, first noted by Remco Verhoef of SANS today, downloads its awkward payload from a remote server, makes that file executable, and runs it. It looks something like this:

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FCC filings give further credence to new $400 Surface reports

Documents imply a low power Intel processor rather than an ARM chip.

The Surface 3's non-LTE version. (credit: Peter Bright)

Earlier this year, there were reports that Microsoft plans to make a new attempt at producing a low-price Surface tablet. Some new FCC filings spotted by WinFuture suggest that this tablet does indeed exist and that Microsoft has sought the necessary regulatory approval to bring it to market.

The FCC paperwork doesn't include pictures or full specs of the device—those parts are kept confidential for now—but it does disclose a few details that give some hints about the new device.

The system is using a driver for a discrete Qualcomm Atheros Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module. The use of a separate chip makes it all but certain that the new machine has an Intel processor—if it had a Qualcomm ARM chip then the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth would be integrated into the system-on-chip and use a different driver.

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Rash of Fortnite cheaters infected by malware that breaks HTTPS encryption

Malware can read, intercept, or tamper with the traffic of any HTTPS-protected site.

Enlarge (credit: Rainway)

Tens of thousands of Fortnite players have been infected by malware that hijacks encrypted Web sessions so it can inject fraudulent ads into every website a user visits, an executive with a game-streaming service said Monday.

Rainway CEO Andrew Sampson said in a blog post that company engineers first detected the mass infections last week when server logs reported hundreds of thousands of errors. The engineers soon discovered that the errors were the result of ads that somehow were injected into user traffic. Rainway uses a technique known as whitelisting that permits customers to connect only to approved URLs. The addresses hosting the fraudulent addresses—hosted on the adtelligent.com and springserve.com domains—along with unauthorized JavaScript that accompanied them made it clear the traffic was generated by malware infecting a large number of game players using the Rainway service.

“As the errors kept flowing in, we took a glance at what these users had in common,” Sampson wrote. “They didn’t share any hardware, their ISPs were different, and all of their systems were up to date. However, one thing did stand out—they played Fortnite.”

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Dealmaster: 4th of July sales on various gadgets and gear are underway

Including deals on laptops, computer speakers, Amazon services, games, and more.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Because there's nothing more American than mass consumerism, today's list is the Fourth of July edition of the Dealmaster.

We've got a wide variety of discounts to celebrate our national birthday below, including deals on Bose noise-cancelling headphones, desktops and PCs from the likes of Dell and HP, big sales from retailers like GameStop and Best Buy, a bunch of 4K TVs, a few home goods, and the first handful of Prime Day deals rolled out by Amazon. You can take a look at the full rundown below.

(credit: TechBargains)

Note: Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

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GigabitGipfel.NRW: Nordrhein-Westfalen will irgendwie gigabit werden

Nordrhein-Westfalen will Gigabit-Netze. Doch dass dazu Glasfaser an allen Mobilfunkstationen, WLAN-Zugangspunkten, Unternehmen und Haushalten liegen muss, wurde nicht festgelegt, kritisiert der Buglas. (Buglas, Telekom)

Nordrhein-Westfalen will Gigabit-Netze. Doch dass dazu Glasfaser an allen Mobilfunkstationen, WLAN-Zugangspunkten, Unternehmen und Haushalten liegen muss, wurde nicht festgelegt, kritisiert der Buglas. (Buglas, Telekom)

Landgericht Düsseldorf: Verbraucherschützer klagen gegen Vodafone Pass

Nicht nur die Beschränkung auf das Inland lässt die Verbraucherzentrale gegen das Zero-Rating-Angebot Vodafone Pass vor dem Landgericht Düsseldorf klagen. Auch das Verbot der Nutzung der Vertrags-Apps auf einem anderen Endgerät mittels Tethering sei ei…

Nicht nur die Beschränkung auf das Inland lässt die Verbraucherzentrale gegen das Zero-Rating-Angebot Vodafone Pass vor dem Landgericht Düsseldorf klagen. Auch das Verbot der Nutzung der Vertrags-Apps auf einem anderen Endgerät mittels Tethering sei ein Verstoß. (Vodafone, Rechtsstreitigkeiten)

Honor 10 GT is Huawei’s first smartphone with 8GB of RAM

Chinese electronics company makes some fancy smartphones with high-end specs like triple cameras, dual fingerprint sensors, and up to 512GB of storage. There’s one thing the company hasn’t offered until now though… a smartphone with 8…

Chinese electronics company makes some fancy smartphones with high-end specs like triple cameras, dual fingerprint sensors, and up to 512GB of storage. There’s one thing the company hasn’t offered until now though… a smartphone with 8GB of RAM. Even the $2,100 Huawei Porsche Design Mate RS has just 6GB. But now the company has unveiled […]

The post Honor 10 GT is Huawei’s first smartphone with 8GB of RAM appeared first on Liliputing.