Month: January 2020

Ebook.bike Owner Risks Crippling Sanctions Over Piracy Case Discovery Failures

Former Pirate Party Canada leader and Ebook.bike operator Travis McCrea is facing the possibility of crippling sanctions if the plaintiff in his copyright infringement lawsuit has his way. After McCrea failed to produce discovery as ordered by the court, the legal team of author John Van Stry are moving in for the kill, demanding sanctions that have the potential to undermine any chance of McCrea winning his case on the merits.

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

In March 2019, author John Van Stry filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States against former Pirate Party Canada leader Travis McCrea, the operator of eBook download platform eBook.bike.

The complaint alleged that McCrea infringed the copyrights of Van Stry by making “at least twelve” of his works available for download without his permission, along with other titles by Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Joanne Harris, Tom Clancy, and thousands more.

It took months for McCrea to file an answer to the complaint and progress since then has been pedestrian, with Van Stry’s legal team claiming that McCrea frustrated and failed to comply with the requirements of the discovery process.

As previously reported, Judge Bryson gave McCrea a December 2019 deadline to respond, warning that the court would take action if no significant progress was made. According to Van Stry’s team, nothing positive has happened since and as a result, the court should subject him to the most serious of sanctions.

In summary, the plaintiff is asking for a number of facts to be taken as a given in the case moving forward and it’s clear he wants no prisoners taken.

Among other things, in a proposed order Van Stry wants the court to find that McCrea was the sole operator of eBook.bike, wrote the site’s software, and reproduced copyrighted content (eBooks and covers) by shifting it from server to server and converting from one format to another.

He also wants the court to find that McCrea knowingly distributed millions of copyright-infringing works in the United States, knew that Van Stry’s copyrights were being violated via the site, and was aware that users of eBook.bike did not have permission to upload or download Van Stry’s works.

The proposed order further asks the court to rule that McCrea knew about the copyright infringement notices sent by Van Stry, could have taken the relevant content down quickly and easily in response but failed to do so, all while generating advertising revenue from the pirated copies.

On top, Van Stry asks the court to declare that McCrea was the domain registrant and administrator of a second site called Books.cat where he allegedly coordinated with “hunters” to obtain eBooks, remove their DRM, and upload the resulting files to eBook.bike.

In the face of no discovery to the contrary, the order also wants the court to find that McCrea made “hundreds of thousands of dollars” through eBook.bike, used the revenue to buy an airplane, and destroyed evidence after receiving a document retention notice. Finally, it demands that McCrea be prohibited from supporting the defenses he previously presented to the court.

“Given the discovery at issue is all of Plaintiff’s written discovery, Plaintiff found this motion a difficult exercise,” the motion reads.

“[H]owever, Plaintiff endeavored to (1) accurately capture the truth as Plaintiff understands it when proposing its summary of facts to be taken as a given; and (2) strike a balance by putting forth high-level facts without overwhelming with minutia, on one hand, while maintaining that the proposals remain facts rather than the ultimate conclusions of law, on the other.”

Only time will tell whether Van Stry will get all his own way on these proposals.

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

‘Local’ Pirate Sites Are Thriving Around the World

The Pirate Bay, YTS and Animeflv are well-known pirate brands that are hugely popular in many countries. The same can’t be said for Mrpiracy, Filma24, and Cimaclub. However, the latter and many other ‘local’ sites dwarf these major brands on their ‘own’ turf.

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

When the hugely pirate site IndoXII announced that it would shut down a few weeks ago, drama ensued in Indonesia where most of its multi-million-user audience was based.

This fuss was hardly noticeable in other countries, where even some of the most die-hard piracy ‘experts’ had never heard of it.

Apparently, piracy habits are not as global as the Internet itself. Many countries have their local favorites. Sometimes because these are in the native tongue, but different piracy habits also play a role.

Today we’re going to illustrate this phenomenon by pointing out the most popular pirate sites in a wide variety of regions. Helped by data from piracy tracking firm MUSO and public tracking websites, highlight some local favorites.

Our quest starts in Europe, Bulgaria to be precise, where torrent site Zamunda.net takes the lead. This is a typical example of a local pirate site, with most visitors coming from Bulgaria, where it’s listed among the country’s 10 most-visited websites.

If we cross the border into Romania, a different picture emerges. Local streaming site Filmeserialeonline.org comes out on top there. More than two-thirds of the site’s visitors come from Albania, making it the most popular pirate site in the country.

Staying in the region, we find that Albania favors Filma24.cc, which appears to be a linking site. More than half of the site’s visitors come from Albania.

Local favorites emerge in other European countries as well. In France, Zone-telechargement.net is very popular, Spain goes for Elitetorrent.li, and Portugal favors Mrpiracy.site. All these sites are not commonly known outside these borders.

Moving to another continent, Africa, we see a similar trend in several countries. In Nigeria, for example, 9jaflaver.com, is extremely popular. The site also offers news but is listed as a pirate site by industry experts.

In Nigeria’s neighbor Chad, sports streaming site Yalla-shoot.com comes out on top. This is also the most-visited site in Egypt. Libya, which sits between Chad and Egypt, prefers the streaming site Cimaclub.com, which is also loved in Saudi Arabia.

Over in the Middle East, we see that Iranians prefer the local site Nex1music.ir. On the other side of the border, in Iraq, Kurdcinama.com is doing very well as the country’s 33rd most visited website.

Going further east, we see more of the same. Many countries have clear local favorites, which are often in native languages. This includes torrent portal torrentwal2.com in South Korea, as well as b9good.com in Japan.

When we move over to the Americas things get less interesting. While there are local pirate sites there as well, it is mostly familiar names that come out on top.

In the US the most popular ‘pirate’ site is Kissanime.ru, for example. Mexico also favors an anime site with animeflv.net coming out on top there. In fact, if we go further south, anime sites are on top in pretty much every country, all the way to Argentina.

Haiti is one of the few exceptions, as torrent9.pl is most popular there. While it’s not a local site, Haiti is the site’s second-largest traffic source, close behind Cameroon.

The above clearly shows that even though the Pirate Bays of the world make most news headlines, smaller sites can still be massively popular locally, perhaps more than most people realize. It also reveals that preferences for different types of piracy vary from country to country.

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

Elektroauto: Sono Motors erreicht Crowdfunding-Ziel von 50 Millionen Euro

Am Samstagabend wurde das Ziel der Crowdfunding-Kampagne für das Elektroauto Sion von Sono Motors erreicht: 50 Millionen Euro wurden zugesagt. Nun kommt es auf die Zahlungsmoral der Unterstützer an. (Elektromobilität, Technologie)

Am Samstagabend wurde das Ziel der Crowdfunding-Kampagne für das Elektroauto Sion von Sono Motors erreicht: 50 Millionen Euro wurden zugesagt. Nun kommt es auf die Zahlungsmoral der Unterstützer an. (Elektromobilität, Technologie)

A Georgia election server was vulnerable to Shellshock and may have been hacked

Vulnerable server distributed election and voter files to counties throughout the state.

Closeup photograph of a Georgia voter access card.

(credit: Jason Riedy / Flickr)

Forensic evidence shows signs that a Georgia election server may have been hacked ahead of the 2016 and 2018 elections by someone who exploited Shellshock, a critical flaw that gives attackers full control over vulnerable systems, a computer security expert said in a court filing on Thursday.

Shellshock came to light in September 2014 and was immediately identified as one of the most severe vulnerabilities to be disclosed in years. The reasons: it (a) was easy to exploit, (b) gave attackers the ability to remotely run commands and code of their choice, and (c) opened most Linux and Unix systems to attack. As a result, the flaw received widespread news coverage for months.

Patching on the sly

Despite the severity of the vulnerability, it remained unpatched for three months on a server operated by the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State University, the group that was responsible for programming Georgia election machines. The flaw wasn't fixed until December 2, 2014, when an account with the username shellshock patched the critical vulnerability, the expert’s analysis of a forensic image shows. The shellshock account had been created only 19 minutes earlier. Before patching the vulnerability, the shellshock user deleted a file titled shellsh0ck. A little more than a half hour after patching, the shellshock user was disabled.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Nemesis brings alien impregnation horror to your tabletop—and it works

Beware both the chestburster and your fellow players.

The intruders are... unpleasant.

Enlarge / The intruders are... unpleasant. (credit: Awaken Realms)

Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage at cardboard.arstechnica.com.

You’re roused early from cold sleep. The ship’s hibernatorium—and likely the remainder of the ship—is running on half power. There’s a body nearby. More accurately, there’s a body all over. For a moment, your sleep-fogged brain assumes somebody has splashed BBQ pork all over the floor and walls. Nope; that’s the crew member who was supposed to be on watch while everyone else slumbered.

Welcome to Nemesis, a board game with strong (but decidedly unofficial!) echoes of Ridley Scott’s Alien. It raised millions on Kickstarter—but is it any good?

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Beschlagnahmt: Webseite bietet 12 Milliarden Zugangsdaten an

Betreiber verhaftet, Domain und Server beschlagnahmt: Die Webseite Weleakinfo.com hat im großen Stil mit Zugangsdaten gehandelt, die aus mehr 10.000 Datenlecks gestammt haben sollen. (Polizei, Internet)

Betreiber verhaftet, Domain und Server beschlagnahmt: Die Webseite Weleakinfo.com hat im großen Stil mit Zugangsdaten gehandelt, die aus mehr 10.000 Datenlecks gestammt haben sollen. (Polizei, Internet)

“Living concrete” is an interesting first step

It’s not really self healing and can’t grow once it’s structural.

Small flasks of green liquid on a lab bench near a sand-colored arch.

Enlarge / The cyanobacteria in flasks contribute to the structure at right. (credit: Cell Press)

It seems like every week, I can do an article on some interesting science that ended up buried under hyperbolic headlines and overly credible coverage. This week's victim is "living concrete." It only sort of exists, in that the material can either be living or concrete, but not really both. It doesn't heal itself either. But none of that means the publication has no merit, as it does show that the concept more or less works, and it identifies a number of areas that need further study in order for "living concrete" to actually become useful.

La vida concrete

The idea of mixing living things and concrete isn't quite as strange as it sounds. Part of concrete's strength comes from carbonates that are formed during the curing process. Lots of living things also produce structures made of carbonates; these include some very robust structures that are a mix of proteins and carbonates, like the shells of many aquatic animals.

As such, there's been a lot of research around the periphery of structural concrete that's involved biology. This has mostly involved lots of work on trying to figure out how the shells of living creatures get some of their impressive properties. But it's also included the idea that living things could form structural carbonates, including a few attempts to make concrete that self-heals thanks to the presence of carbonate-producing microbes embedded in it.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

“Living concrete” is an interesting first step

It’s not really self healing and can’t grow once it’s structural.

Small flasks of green liquid on a lab bench near a sand-colored arch.

Enlarge / The cyanobacteria in flasks contribute to the structure at right. (credit: Cell Press)

It seems like every week, I can do an article on some interesting science that ended up buried under hyperbolic headlines and overly credible coverage. This week's victim is "living concrete." It only sort of exists, in that the material can either be living or concrete, but not really both. It doesn't heal itself either. But none of that means the publication has no merit, as it does show that the concept more or less works, and it identifies a number of areas that need further study in order for "living concrete" to actually become useful.

La vida concrete

The idea of mixing living things and concrete isn't quite as strange as it sounds. Part of concrete's strength comes from carbonates that are formed during the curing process. Lots of living things also produce structures made of carbonates; these include some very robust structures that are a mix of proteins and carbonates, like the shells of many aquatic animals.

As such, there's been a lot of research around the periphery of structural concrete that's involved biology. This has mostly involved lots of work on trying to figure out how the shells of living creatures get some of their impressive properties. But it's also included the idea that living things could form structural carbonates, including a few attempts to make concrete that self-heals thanks to the presence of carbonate-producing microbes embedded in it.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Bürogebäude Karl: Apple baut Standort in München deutlich aus

Apple wird seine Aktivitäten in München offenbar deutlich ausbauen und auch ein neues Bürogebäude beziehen, das Platz für 1.500 Beschäftigte bietet. In München betreibt Apple bereits das Bavarian Design Center mit 300 Mitarbeitern. (Apple, Internet) …

Apple wird seine Aktivitäten in München offenbar deutlich ausbauen und auch ein neues Bürogebäude beziehen, das Platz für 1.500 Beschäftigte bietet. In München betreibt Apple bereits das Bavarian Design Center mit 300 Mitarbeitern. (Apple, Internet)

Seehofer: 5G-Netz ohne Huawei kurzfristig nicht machbar

Bundesinnenminister Horst Seehofer spricht sich “gegen globale und pauschale Handelsbeschränkungen” aus. In Bezug auf Huawei wurde er noch deutlicher. (Huawei, Internet)

Bundesinnenminister Horst Seehofer spricht sich "gegen globale und pauschale Handelsbeschränkungen" aus. In Bezug auf Huawei wurde er noch deutlicher. (Huawei, Internet)