Month: September 2019

Mit ihrer Rakete haben Wiener Studenten den bestehenden Höhenrekord für studentische Raketen überbieten wollen. Wegen eines technischen Problems nach dem Start gelang das jedoch nicht. (Rakete, Technologie)

Die für viele Display-Standards zuständige Organisation CTA will ab 2020 TV-Geräte für 8K UHD zertifizieren und entsprechende Logos vergeben. Bei der Spezifikation gibt es wenige Überraschungen. (8K, Heimkino)

Mit dem Stratix 10 DX erweitert Intel sein Portfolio an Chips mit programmierbaren Schaltungen (FPGAs) um eine Modellreihe, die PCIe Gen4 und nicht-flüchtigen Arbeitsspeicher unterstützt. (FPGA, Intel)

Systemd-Entwickler Lennart Poettering hat Pläne präsentiert, Home-Verzeichnisse künftig über einen speziellen Systemdienst portabel zu machen und zu verschlüsseln. Nutzer sollen das Verzeichnis etwa auf einem USB-Stick dabei haben können. (Systemd, Linux-Kernel)

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Spider-Man: Far from Home is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(2)	Spider-Man: Far from Home	7.8 / trailer
2	(…)	Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw	6.7 / trailer
3	(9)	Toy Story 4	8.1 / trailer
4	(1)	Dark Phoenix	6.0 / trailer
5	(3)	John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum	7.8 / trailer
6	(5)	Avengers: Endgame	8.7 / trailer
7	(4)	Aladdin	7.3 / trailer
8	(…)	Running with the Devil	5.4 / trailer
9	(8)	Godzilla: King of the Monsters	6.5 / trailer
10	(…)	Annabelle Comes Home	8.0 / trailer

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

Netflix war noch neu, da hatten sie bereits ein Übernahmeangebot von Amazon auf dem Tisch. Seinerzeit gab es noch keinen Streaming-Markt und Netflix fing gerade an, ein DVD-Verleih-Angebot aufzubauen. Die Netflix-Gründer lehnten das Geld von Jeff Bezos ab. (Netflix, Amazon)

Schmelzendes Packeis, steigende Meeresspiegel, zerstörte Ökosysteme und schrumpfende Fischgründe: Die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf die Ozeane sind gewaltig. Aber auch umgekehrt gibt es große Einflüsse. Von Jan Oliver Löfken (Klima, Tracking)

Akkus im Hausmüll können Müllfahrzeuge und Recyclinganlagen stark beschädigen. Deutschlands Entsorger fordern daher, ein Pfand für Akkus von Fahrrädern und anderen Geräten zu verlangen. (Akku)

Daimler wird zunächst keine neuen Verbrennungsmotoren mehr entwickeln, sondern sich auf den Elektroantrieb konzentrieren. Für einige Anwendungszwecke werden jedoch auch Hybrid-Fahrzeuge weiterentwickelt. (Elektroauto, Technologie)

The Pirate Bay has been both an early adopter and a pioneer when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

The popular torrent site first embraced Bitcoin in 2013 and soon after many other pirate sites followed suit.

The advantage of bitcoin donations is that they are relatively anonymous. This is an upside for the operators, but also a major concern for rightsholders who feared that it may become a stable revenue stream that can’t be touched.

The RIAA, for example, previously told the U.S. Trade Representative that Bitcoin could make it harder to crack down on pirate sites.

“There are no central authority or banks involved which makes it very difficult to seize or trace Bitcoin funds,” the music industry group wrote in a letter.

While it’s no secret that Bitcoin is indeed fueling some criminal operations, The Pirate Bay’s donations certainly can’t keep the notorious torrent site afloat. Today, more than six years after the site first accepted cryptocurrency donations, it adds up to little more than a small daily tip.

If we take a look at The Pirate Bay’s most recent Bitcoin legacy address, which it started advertising late 2017, we see that a total of 0.49 Bitcoin was received. Translated to US dollars (current value for simplicity purposes), this is $4,838, or $7.63 per day.

The Bitcoin Segwit address looks more promising. Here we see a total of 1.48 BTC coming in. However, on closer inspection, most of that comes from one transaction which was sent by TPB’s old Bitcoin wallet, so we scrapped that.

This leaves us with 0.33, or $3,255, which adds another $5.13 per day. It’s worth noting that more than half of this came from one donation. It came from a rather generous person apparently, as he or she also sent roughly the same amount to ProtonMail.

Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency The Pirate Bay accepts of course. The torrent site also lists a Litecoin and Monero address. Monero can’t be tracked, but the Litecoin address received 3.40 LTC, or $252, which is $0.40 per day.

When we add up all these figures we come to a total of $13.16 per day, which clearly can’t keep The Pirate Bay afloat.

That said, the Bitcoin donation income is relatively stable. When we did the same calculations a few years ago, we arrived at a donation average of $9.34 per day. At the time, one Bitcoin was about $425, so if the site didn’t sell any, the value will have gone up remarkably.

That brings us to the unavoidable “what if.” Looking back further, we see other Pirate Bay Bitcoin wallets dating back as far as 2013, which received dozens of BTC. At the time that wasn’t worth that much (1BTC ~ $120, May 2013), but the position is different today. If the team kept those, of course.

Perhaps that’s TPB’s long-term exit strategy. If one Bitcoin eventually reaches a value of over a million dollars, The Pirate Bay crew may start thinking of their retirement and buying an island. Sealand anyone?

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