Month: December 2018

Die Minikonsolen NES und SNES Classic von Nintendo sind in puncto Emulation und Software Problemkinder. Im Vergleich zu Sonys Versuch an einer Retrokonsole, der Playstation Classic, wirken sie aber geradezu wie Luxusgüter. Wir vergleichen Sonys Mini mit der Originalhardware und dem Retro Pi. Von Michael Wieczorek (golem retro_, Spieletest)

As first reported here on TorrentFreak, popular streaming application Showbox hit turbulent times recently.

In May we revealed that a group of independent movie studios (Dallas Buyers Club, Cobbler Nevada, Bodyguard Productions, and others) were targeting sites and individuals said to be behind or offering Showbox.

Back in September, a DMCA subpoena filed by the same companies ordered Cloudflare to expose the people linked to various sites offering the application.

It is important to know that the companies behind this request are known serial litigants and have been involved in many “copyright trolling” cases against BitTorrent users in the US and elsewhere.

Last month we reported that two websites connected to Showbox had settled their legal dispute with the companies previously mentioned. The terms of the settlement were not made public and the sites in question now display an ominous warning.

Showbox warning

While some will undoubtedly view these messages as scaremongering, it’s surprising that former Showbox users want anything to do with the application moving forward, given recent history. Nevertheless, dozens of threads online feature users asking whether new versions of Showbox popping up here and there are ‘safe’ to use.

It is a difficult – if not impossible – question for anyone to answer conclusively.

First of all, many of the individuals who previously used the app don’t even seem to know where they downloaded it from. This means they could’ve been using the original version or a modified variant from an unknown developer, with both options raising security issues but for different reasons.

It appears that the original app is in trouble and as for the clones, who knows what their motivations are? And, with known copyright trolls heavily in the mix here, alarm bells of all kinds should be going off. That said, people clearly want their movies and TV shows for free and are happy to carry on doing that as long as someone says “yeah, this version is safe.”

At this point, it might interest readers to learn that several times in the past few months we’ve been asked by random emailers to ‘update’ our old Showbox (and indeed TerrariumTV) articles with new links to what they claimed to be the original apps.

There seems little doubt that this was an attempt to misdirect, so unlike some other news outlets who did change their links, we ignored the requests. We don’t know whether this was simply an attempt to drive more traffic to ‘safe’ clones, websites offering the original, or whether something more sinister was at play. It is something to think about, however.

There are so many variables at play here (including what happens to data gathered from Showbox users’ machines, plus IP addresses etc) that to recommend a certain variant of Showbox as ‘safe’ would be pretty irresponsible. There’s also the fact that Showbox not only uses file-hosting links but also torrents, which are inherently ‘unsafe’ unless people use a VPN.

Admittedly, certain versions and updates of Showbox may be completely benign but short of having a detailed analysis done on each app, plus having access to what happens behind the scenes, it’s a potential minefield that users will have to walk through at their own risk.

Some seem very happy to do that, others are less keen. Only time will tell who made the ‘safe’ decision.

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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Nach der Festnahme in Kanada drohen Meng Wanzhou, der Finanzchefin von Huawei, offenbar bis zu 30 Jahre Haft. Die USA fordern die Auslieferung der Managerin, deren Antrag auf Kaution vorerst abgelehnt wurde. (Huawei, Telekom)

Website blocking is without a doubt one of the favorite anti-piracy tools of the entertainment industries.

India is no stranger to this measure either. Over the years, local courts have issued a variety of blocking orders, often to protect films upon their initial release.

This also happened last week. Following a request by Lyca Productions, the company behind the film “2.0,” the Madras High Court ordered 37 local ISPs to block access to a list of 12,564 domain names, should that be necessary to stop the film from being pirated.

When the news broke it was unknown whether this number referred to separate sites or domains. Local reports only indicated that 2,000 of the ‘websites’ are operated by notorious Tamil movie website TamilRockers.

This didn’t help, as we’re not aware of that many sites being operated by TamilRockers. Luckily, however, we managed to obtain a copy of the court order that explains what’s really going on here.

As it turns out, the Madras High Court didn’t list more than 12,000 separate websites. The order really only targets 16 prime targets, which we can easily list in a single paragraph.

These are Tamilrockers, Movierulz, Tamilmv, 1337x, Worldfree4u, Tamildbox, Tamilgun, Tamilrage, Isaimini, Filmlinks4u, Madrasrockers, Tamilyogi, Thiruttumovies, Mtamilrockers, Hiidude, and Mymoviesda.

So how did the court order get to 12,564 domain names? As it turns out, for each of the targeted ‘sites’ it lists hundreds of domain names. Quite exotic ones too, as can be seen below.

From the order

The person who came up with this idea must have thought that this was a great way to prevent pirate sites from simply registering a new domain. The majority of the domains are not even registered yet, which is something we’ve never seen before.

While the makers of 2.0 probably saw this as an ingenious plan, the reality is quite different.

Take the site Hiidude for example. They previously operated from Hiidide.biz and Hiidude.in. These are covered by the court order and so are other unregistered domain options, such as Hidude.lgbt, Hiidude.wtf, and even Hiidude.fail.

However, the site is not without additional options. Whether it’s in direct response to this court order or not, today Hiidude is operating from Hiidude1.in. It only took a single character to circumvent the entire court order.

In addition, it’s worth mentioning that the court order is not permanent. Instead, it only lasts until December 13, noting that the companies should block the domain names if that becomes necessary.

Perhaps more importantly, the order didn’t prevent the movie “2.0” from being leaked. Last weekend, Venkat informed TorrentFreak that a high-quality copy had leaked online. It reportedly came out first on the site TamilRockers, but it spread to other sites soon after.

This prompted Lyca Productions to retain the anti-piracy outfit “BLOCK X” to issue strongly-worded takedown requests to a variety of sites where “2.0” appeared.

“We demand that you expeditiously remove or disable access to the material in question. In the event of your non-compliance you will no longer be protected by the veil of safe harbor,” it reads, referencing the US DMCA.

Meanwhile, it appears that Indian law enforcement is also continuing to put pressure on Tamilrockers. Local news sites report that “a few” admins were arrested last week, while others state it was just one. The site remains operational though.

Interestingly this isn’t the first time that TamilRockers admins or members have been arrested. The same ‘reportedly’ happened early November, in July, in March, September 2017, and even years earlier.

Apparently, the site not only has a lot of domain names, but also plenty of admins.

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A copy of the court order, obtained by TorrentFreak, 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.

Probleme mit dem Media Player, vor allem aber mit dem hauseigenen Surface Book 2 sind der Grund dafür, dass Microsoft das Ende Oktober 2018 veröffentlichte Update für Windows 10 zurückzieht. Wer es erfolgreich aufspielen konnte, soll es aber nicht deinstallieren, rät der Konzern. (Windows 10, Microsoft)

Mit Hilfe von Deep Learning untersuchen die Finanzbehörden unter anderem die Panama Papers. Die Fahnder können mit Hilfe des Computers trotz der immer größeren Datenflut auffällige Steuererklärungen erkennen. (Deep Learning, KI)

Schiffe mit Hunderten von menschlichen Besatzungsmitgliedern, zehn riesige Zonen und bis zu 40.000 Piraten: Die Macher von Ark Survival Evolved haben ihr nächstes Großprojekt Atlas vorgestellt - schon Mitte Dezember 2018 können PC-Spieler in See stechen. (MMORPG, Rollenspiel)

Kämpferische Zeiten: Die USA verschärfen den Handelskrieg gegen China und bei C&C werden Atombomben gezündet. Die Bundesländer stellen sich beim Digitalpakt für die Schulen quer. Und wir schicken einen Redakteur zum Jagen in die Wüste. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Elektroauto)

Controversial anti-tampering system Denuvo has met with another major setback, as another "AAA" games has been cracked in less than 24 hours after release.

Despite lauding their own achievement in regards to preventing early release piracy for AAA games only a few weeks ago, the latest AAA game to use Denuvo, 'Just Cause 4', was cracked in less than 24 hours.

To emphasize just how ineffective Denuvo has become in recent times, 'Just Cause 3', which was also protected by Denuvo, took more than a year to crack. 

Ironically, both games were cracked by the same cracking group, CPY.

According to Irdeto, the owners of Denuvo, the first two weeks of a game's release is the most crucial period in terms of piracy prevention. And the first day of release is also crucial, with as much as 12% of pirated downloads occurring during that time, for games that were protected by effective anti-piracy measures. The losses due to piracy could add up to millions of dollars, according to Irdeto.

The fact that the publishers of 'Just Cause 4', Square Enix, spent money to license Denuvo, the fact that the game has been cracked in just a day seems to suggest that the money, which could have gone towards the development of the game, was not well spent.

Early reviews suggest that the game could have used the extra money, as purchasers of the game on Steam are reporting a myriad of problems with the game. The game currently has a "Mostly Negative" rating on Steam, with only 33% of users reporting a positive experience with it.

The poor reviews plus the fact that the game is available as a pirated download so early, could seriously affect the game's profitability.

[via TorrentFreak]