Month: September 2019

Like every general search engine on the web, Google indexes every page it can find. That’s what it’s for, after all.

Torrent meta-search engines do things quite differently. These sites are only interested in torrent links found on external sites.

This includes Torrentz2, which is without a doubt the most popular torrent meta-search engine on the Internet. The site took over from the original Torrentz site, which after it surprisingly closed its doors during the summer of 2016.

Over the past three years, the site has rolled out some updates, most of which have gone unnoticed. However, recently our interest was piqued by a rather unusual addition to the Torrent2’s indexed sites.

Starting a few weeks ago, Torrentz3 began listing “Google” as a ‘source’ in its search results. Not somewhere down the bottom, but as the top result for every piece of content. Here’s what shows up on the “Ubuntu desktop 19.04” page.

The Google link on top leads to a Google search for the associated torrent hash, which finds dozens of pages where the Ubuntu torrent is available as well. This works the same for all other results. Usually, Google returns plenty of options, including several sites that Torrentz2 doesn’t search.

What’s also interesting to note is the number of hashes Google has listed in its search engine. According to Torrentz2, Google is currently able to find 82,085,976 unique torrent hashes.

While that’s already an impressive amount, the number of torrent pages indexed by Google is actually much higher, as it often has dozens of pages for each torrent hash. After all, the same torrents generally appear on several torrent sites.

Google, like any other search engine, has always indexed torrent sites. In fact, it even has a dedicated filetype:torrent command. This allows users to search for .torrent files directly on Google, but it isn’t as effective as the hash-based method.

Also, in recent years the site took several measures to make copyright-infringing content harder to find. Nowadays it can be quite a challenge to find something in Google by simply assing “torrent” to a search query.

With Torrentz2 + Google, however, that doesn’t appear to be an issue.

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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N26 will die angeschlagene Deutsche Bank beim Börsenwert überholen. Da der Wert bei neuen Finanzierungsrunden weiter steigt, ist das Ziel nicht utopisch. (N26, Wirtschaft)

Even when one has visited many countries around the world, subtleties of cultural differences can be difficult to grasp.

What’s funny or makes sense in one country may draw a blank expression in another, which is why a recent set of stories from Nigeria catch the eye.

Music industry group IFPI describes Africa as a whole as an emerging opportunity for business, with digital music services sometimes available alongside mobile phone services. Nevertheless, the physical music market, while dwindling, is still going strong – even if piracy remains a big problem.

Enter stage left popular musician and comedian Koffi Idowu, who in sits on the board of the Copyright Society of Nigeria. COSON, as it’s known locally, describes itself as Africa’s fastest-growing copyright collective management organization.

While ‘Koffi’ is known locally for his comedy, one might think that joking about piracy would be off-limits, considering his position. However, it’s almost impossible for outsiders to determine whether his recent comments are serious or not.

Content leaks from manufacturing and distribution processes can sometimes be tackled using watermarking, for example. However, Koffi is publicly advocating the use of a “modern technology” that actually debuted in the 1970s.

“Modern trends need to be applied by the right commissions to successfully combat piracy. People in the creative industry need to start barcoding their works,” he said, according to several local sources.

“We also need to start tracing these works from the sources where they were being stolen. We cannot monitor them physically but with technology, we can go a long way,” he added.

Without being disrespectful to Nigeria’s position as an emerging nation (and, of course, presuming this isn’t a joke that doesn’t translate across borders), it seems bizarre to think that a barcode could prevent music piracy in any way. One CD out, and it gets copied, barcode or not.

But then Koffi advocates getting the military involved to deal with the problem.

“When we discover warehouses where piracy is being carried out, arrests and sanctions can only be done by the appropriate officials,” he said.

It all sounds real enough, but it’s only when one takes a look at articles on Nigeria’s market published in the West that one gets a grip on just how different things are in the African nation. Not just different, but also bizarre.

An article in Billboard published in April describes how local digital music streaming service uduX is making progress in Nigeria. We’re all used to installing apps for music and banking, for example, but what if they were the same thing?

“Through GTBank’s Habari app, a platform for shopping and lifestyle content, uduX, whose name derives from a musical instrument played in Nigeria called udu, will gain access to a community of 16.8 million users,” the Billboard piece reads.

“Since consumers have already entered their banking information, they can subscribe to the streaming platform in a few clicks.”

Now while this makes sense on a basic level, the privacy-conscious among us might be thinking “what could possibly go wrong?” As it turns out, those fears appear to be not only well-founded but considered a feature in Nigeria.

That’s according to Chidi Okeke, the CEO of Groove Platforms, the company behind uduX.

“I want to get people to pay for my service and for that, I just needed to be close to where the money is,” Okeke said.

And thanks to the partnership with the bank, the streaming service can get information on the bank’s customers, including their ages and location, and perhaps a whole lot more.

“We know how they spend their money, so it’s easier for us to target people,” said Okeke.

That doesn’t sound like a joke. But the barcodes and military are up for debate, potentially. Or maybe not.

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

Vor der Einführung von Telefonieflatrates gab es ein Rabattprogramm bei O2. Damit hat der Netzbetreiber nun große Probleme. (O2, Telefónica)

Grünenchef Robert Habeck fordert wie Donald Trump, dass die Bundesregierung Huawei vom deutschen Markt ausschließt, weil China weltweit aggressiv auftrete. Doch die Rechnung geht laut Experten nicht auf. (5G, Rechtsstreitigkeiten)

Der Verlegerverband BDZV will nichts davon gewusst haben, dass die Verwertungsgesellschaft Media mit einer Kampagne gegen US-Digitalkonzerne Richter und Beamte "ertüchtigen" wollte. Doch die beiden Organisationen sind personell eng verbandelt. (Leistungsschutzrecht, Google)

The latest E Ink device from Onyx features a 13.3 inch, 2200 x 1650 pixel E Ink display with support for capacitive touch input or a pressure-sensitive Wacom pen. The Onyx BOOX Max3 looks like a big eReader. But it’s got a bunch of features that make it more like a multi-purpose tablet. It features […]

The post 13.3 inch Onyx BOOX Max3 is more E Ink tablet than eReader appeared first on Liliputing.

Back in June we reported on massive waves of what appeared to be bogus DMCA notices targeting various adult-focused sites.

Some of the sites hit hard in these earlier waves were so-called ‘hentai’ sites which focus on adult-orientated comics and cartoons.

They complained that a ‘company’ called Copyright Legal Services Inc. (there’s no obvious record of such an entity online) was the author of many notices which attempted to delist thousands of URLs and in some cases homepages and even entire sites from Google. It claimed to be working on behalf of DLSite.com, a platform operated by Japan’s EYSIS, Inc.

Since the initial reports, the same kind of activity has continued, with force. However, notices similar to the ones originally sent by Copyright Legal Services are now being sent by a new entity, Right Protection Corporation, which not only target the main domain pages of various sites but also their entire web structures.

In common with Copyright Legal Services before them, Right Protection Corporation (RPC) doesn’t appear to exist on the web, even though their notices claim they have bases in at least three countries – United States, Japan and China. They are sending volume requests to delete countless thousands of URLs from Google, even though they appear to have no right to do so.

One takedown notice pointed out to TF reveals a notice that has been sent in the form of a PDF, meaning that it can’t easily be searched for using the tools offered by DMCA transparency portal Lumen Database.

However, looking inside proved useful as it reveals that the ‘RPC’ is attempting to have thousands of URLs delisted from a single site – rule34.paheal.net – including its main page which displays nothing but a warning that it carries adult material and a note about cookies. There are many other examples, such as this one, which attempt to do the same thing.

TorrentFreak is informed that some operators of the affected sites, including the operator of Konachan.com, have filed counter-notices with Google and have achieved some success in having their URLs reinstated.

However, the operator of Gelbooru.com, which was hit hard in the first wave, says he’s had huge difficulties in getting touch with Google’s legal team for them to take restorative action, as required when a proper DMCA counter-notice is filed.

“Their [Standard Operating Procedure] is ignore until sued, so we are moving forward with trying to get anyone who runs a website that was affected by this whole situation to contact us directly if they’d be interested in joining a class action that will be filed,” he informs TF.

“We require at least three others to be a class action, and Google must have ignored or denied any counter DMCA notices sent to them to be able to join. Message me, ‘lozertuser’, directly on our Discord.”

The overall aim appears to have Google either respond to the counter-notices or preferably get in touch with Gelbooru’s lawyers, in order to sort out the issue without either company having to waste any more time on the problem. Hopefully, no class action will be required but it remains a possibility.

In the meantime, it’s worth highlighting that DLSite.com, the platform which the notices claim to protect, has categorically denied it is behind the mass notices sent in its name.

A statement sent to the OneAngryGamer site, which covered our earlier report, has the company stating that it had reviewed our article and noted that “EISYS, Inc. / DLsite is not involved in this matter. When we send a DMCA request it will be via: Eisys, Inc. We do not know anything about the company: ‘Copyright Legal Services INC’.”

Them and everyone else, then…

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