Month: July 2019

It is fairly common for anti-piracy outfits to describe pirate sites and devices as “scams” but despite being mostly illegal, they deliver what they promise and rarely attempt to defraud the public.

Over in Germany, a much more sinister operation is being reported, one that involves more than a couple of hundred sites that claim to be legal but are actually a huge money-making scheme for fraudsters.

In the example shown below, AsoFlix looks like a regular pirate streaming platform. However, the site claims to be legitimate, despite the fact that the irregular capitalization of its various movie categories suggests an unprofessional offer.

No content can be accessed before registering and when users try to sign up, they are asked to enter all of their personal details. This is where the trouble starts.

In return for handing over their names, addresses, credit card and cellphone numbers, users are given a five-day free trial but according to police, this amounts to a so-called “subscription trap”. Buried away in the terms and conditions is a note that if “users do not unsubscribe during the free trial, your account will automatically be upgraded to a one-year premium account.”

In the case of Asoflix, that’s the princely sum of € 395.88 per year, charged in one transaction. Worst still, local news outlet Tarnkappe reports that the sites actually have “little to no works” on offer, which means a huge bill and no return for those unfortunate enough to sign up. Police add that they cannot say whether any content offered is licensed, although that seems unlikely.

The scam was first uncovered in 2018 but according to police, it is very much ongoing. They have published a list of the domains involved in the fraud which number around 220 (TF tests reveal that a number are now inactive), alongside warnings not to pay up.

The problem is that many victims are receiving pressure from the sites to do just that via bogus debt collection letters threatening to seize property, pensions, bank deposits, and even unemployment benefits. And in a sign of how sophisticated the scam is, police say that videos have been posted to YouTube supposedly featuring lawyers who advise that the demands for cash are legitimate.

It’s worth noting that AsoFlix and GadaFlix (the site referenced in the YouTube screenshot above) are identical, yet they claim to be owned by different companies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a report from Germany connects this scam with an earlier one involving bogus copyright infringement notices.

Since we highlighted AsoFlix above, we took a closer look at who might be behind the service. Strangely, given the heat this and similar platforms are under in Germany, the AsoFlix site actually lists its owning company as FOXRUSH FILMS LTD, England.

Whether this is actually the owning company is unknown, but a company by that name does exist in the UK having been incorporated in 2013. It is currently listed as dormant and since its inception has never reported any trading. Google Maps shows the address as a small mid-terrace house in a residential area of Coventry. According to EU databases, the VAT number provided by AsoFlix doesn’t exist.

TorrentFreak checked a number of the companies listed on these scam sites as their owners and many are incorporated entities in the UK. While it’s possible the scammers trawled Companies House in search of random companies to blame, further investigation by the authorities is needed to draw a definitive conclusion.

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

Die chinesische Internetzensur wird derzeit auf immer mehr deutsche Medien ausgedehnt. Hintergrund sind offenbar die politischen Spannungen in Hongkong. (Google, Zensur)

Die Einzelhandelskette Lidl testet derzeit in Spanien ein eigenes Bezahlverfahren. Ob und wann Lidl Pay nach Deutschland kommt, steht aber noch nicht fest. (Apple Pay, Wirtschaft)

Nach dem Aachener Hersteller e.Go will nun auch Ford den Elektrifizierungsbaukasten von VW nutzen. Das würde die Kooperation zwischen beiden Autoherstellern weiter vertiefen. (VW, Technologie)

Am Vortag der Veröffentlichung hat AMD niedrigere Preise für die Radeon RX 5700 XT und die Radeon RX 5700 genannt: Die schnellere Grafikkarte sinkt 50 US-Dollar im Preis, die etwas langsamere wird 30 US-Dollar günstiger. Beide Navi-Modell zielen damit auf Nvidias neue Geforce RTX 2060 Super ab. (AMD Navi, AMD)

Pirated copies of movies appear online every day in a variety of formats, such as CAM, DVDRip, WEBRip, and Web-DL.

The latter, which usually come from streaming and download services such as Netflix, Amazon, or iTunes, have proven to be a reliable source for pirates over the years.

In general, that doesn’t apply to 4K releases. These are protected by the highest encryption standards. In the case of Netflix, this is Widevine’s highest level DRM. Cracking this is seen as the holy grail by pirates.

While there is no confirmation that the keys have been cracked, a flurry of new 4K Netflix leaks suggests that there’s at least some type of vulnerability that allows outsiders to decrypt the original steams.

Over the past 24-hours several 4K releases of prominent Netflix titles spread across various pirate sites. It started with the entire third season of the Netflix exclusive “Stranger Things,” which came out yesterday.

The leaked episodes originate from the DEFLATE release group and are all marked as ‘INTERNAL’ releases, such as “Stranger Things S03E01 INTERNAL 2160p WEB H265-DEFLATE.”

In the past, we have seen several 4K videos being ripped from Netflix. In fact, the first rips came out four years ago. However, the WEB tags on today’s releases indicate that these files were directly decrypted from the original files, which means that there’s no loss in quality. 

“Untouched releases must be considered as anything that has been losslessly downloaded by official (offered) or unofficial (backdoor) methods,” official Scene rules dictate.

These untouched releases are rare. We’ve only previously seen these types of Netflix leaks for a brief period in 2017. At the time, the releases stopped following a Widevine update, a source informed TorrentFreak.

Exactly how the release group was able to pull off these new leaks is unknown. TorrentFreak reached out to Netflix for a comment on the matter, but at the time of publication, we have yet to hear back. 

The DEFLATE release group is no stranger to novel 4K leaks. Earlier this year the same group also released several movies from iTunes, including the entire James Bond collection. That was the first breach of its kind on iTunes. 

The first Stranger Things leak was pointed out by Tarnkappe but several other titles have appeared online as well. The release group UHDCANDY, for example, also posted the first episodes from the latest seasons of Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Black Mirror.

The fact that two groups have been able to decrypt the 4K releases indicates that this ‘breach’ is widespread. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see more titles appear during the coming days, until the hole is patched again.

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

Raspberry Pi’s latest small and cheap single-board computer is the most powerful to date. The recently launched Raspberry Pi 4 features a quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 processor, an upgraded GPU, faster Ethernet, and for the first time it comes with three memory configuration choices: 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB. The new model is also the first to feature two […]

The post Lilbits 372: Raspberry Pi 4 charging issues (and USB-C confusion) appeared first on Liliputing.

Die Daten von Millionen Smart-Home-Geräten und ihren Eigentümern waren öffentlich über das Internet abrufbar. Mit den Zugangsdaten hätten Angreifer die Konten und Geräte übernehmen können. Auch Einbrecher hätten leichtes Spiel gehabt. (Datenleck, Datenschutz)

Keine Strafe von 250.000 Euro und trotzdem wieder online: Die einstweilige Verfügung gegen die Veröffentlichung des Glyphosat-Gutachtens wurde vom Kölner Landgericht kassiert - wegen Formfehlern. Frag den Staat will weiter klagen. (Urheberrecht, Rechtsstreitigkeiten)

Keine rechtliche Grundlage, wenig Feingefühl für Privatsphäre und dazu auch noch grottenschlechte Ergebnisse: Zwei britische Wissenschaftler haben den Einsatz von Echtzeit-Gesichtserkennung durch die Londoner Polizei untersucht. Die sollte wohl darauf hoffen, dass sich kein Gericht damit befasst. (Gesichtserkennung, Technologie)