Month: June 2020

Teams-Konkurrenz: Amazon setzt auf Slack

Künftig können alle Amazon-Mitarbeiter die Kooperations-Software Slack verwenden. Slack selbst weist trotz Coronakrise kein starkes Wachstum auf. (Amazon, Cloud Computing)

Künftig können alle Amazon-Mitarbeiter die Kooperations-Software Slack verwenden. Slack selbst weist trotz Coronakrise kein starkes Wachstum auf. (Amazon, Cloud Computing)

Corona-Konjunkturpaket: Irgendwas mit Digital und Klima

Mit ihrem Zukunftspaket will die Bundesregierung Deutschland “modernst” und “zukunftsweisend” machen. Der entscheidende Kurswechsel bleibt aber aus. Eine Analyse von Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti (Bundesregierung, Wirtschaft)

Mit ihrem Zukunftspaket will die Bundesregierung Deutschland "modernst" und "zukunftsweisend" machen. Der entscheidende Kurswechsel bleibt aber aus. Eine Analyse von Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti (Bundesregierung, Wirtschaft)

Torrent Site BTDB.io Has Domain Suspended By Registry Without Warning

Torrent site BitTorrent Database has lost control over its BTDB.io domain after the .io domain registry marked it with a serverHold status code. The suspension was put into place without any warning, leaving the site to fall back on a previously-registered .eu domain.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

BTDB logoIn terms of sheer traffic, BitTorrent Database (BTDB) doesn’t rub shoulders with The Pirate Bay and RARBG but with seven million visitors per month, it’s certainly no slouch.

The site began by allowing people to search BitTorrent’s Distributed Hash Table (DHT) but has more recently allowed users to upload their own torrents into categories including movies, TV, music, games and others.

According to its search engine there are more than 27.6 million torrents to choose from but this week, completely out of the blue and literally overnight, the site’s traffic dropped by 90%.

BTDB

At least initially, the site’s operator thought that some kind of ISP blocking might have struck his site but when other techniques to access his main domain at BTDB.io failed, attention turned elsewhere. Indeed, after running a closer check on the domain in question, the problem soon became apparent.

As the following image of BTDB.io’s WHOIS entry shows, the final line of the ‘Domain Status’ section contains a code site owners dread – ‘serverHold’.

BTDB Whois

According to ICANN the serverHold domain status is something people shouldn’t come across very often but, when it appears, it’s usually the result of “legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion.”

Domains such as BTDB.io are assigned to the British Indian Ocean Territory and administered by the Internet Computer Bureau. In this case the domain was registered via Njalla, the domain privacy company associated with former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde. However, neither BTDB’s operator nor Njalla were informed of any issues before the domain was suspended.

A support email seen by TorrentFreak shows a Njalla team member explaining the serverHold status code while confirming that it had been set by the registry. Njalla had no idea what the BTDB.io domain was being used for but did offer to try and find out what the issue was. At the time of writing, BTDB’s operator is still in the dark.

Given the nature of the platform, however, it seems possible that some kind of copyright dispute could be the underlying reason for the suspension. Google reports that 1,387 copyright holders have filed DMCA notices targeting 235,806 URLs on the BTDB site, meaning that there is no shortage of suspects when it comes to considering who may have thrown a spanner in the works.

The top notice-senders are all very well-known too, including the BPI, CBS, Disney, BREIN, and the RIAA, although at this stage there is no suggestion that any of these are responsible for the issues.

While BTDB’s .io domain is currently out of action, its alternative BTDB.eu domain is still operational. The underlying BTDB site is currently restoring its database but should be fully functional at that URL moving forward.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Sars-CoV-2 scheint ein durch Rekombination entstandener Hybrid zu sein

Streit gab es, ob der neue Coronavirus von Fledermäusen oder Schuppentieren abstammt, amerikanische Wissenschaftler wollen nachgewiesen zu haben, dass beides stimmt

Streit gab es, ob der neue Coronavirus von Fledermäusen oder Schuppentieren abstammt, amerikanische Wissenschaftler wollen nachgewiesen zu haben, dass beides stimmt

A lost Maxis “Sim” game has been discovered by an Ars reader [Updated]

The clearly incomplete prototype was uploaded to archive.org, then removed.

Wow. It may only be an incomplete prototype, but in a breathtaking span of time, <em>SimRefinery</em> has gone from a seemingly lost legend to a playable, downloadable video game. (That's its real, full-resolution opening screen, as captured using a DOSBox emulator.) And it's all thanks to an Ars Technica commenter.

Wow. It may only be an incomplete prototype, but in a breathtaking span of time, SimRefinery has gone from a seemingly lost legend to a playable, downloadable video game. (That's its real, full-resolution opening screen, as captured using a DOSBox emulator.) And it's all thanks to an Ars Technica commenter. (credit: archive.org / Maxis / Chevron)

Update, June 9, 2020: In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, the original upload for this recovered copy of SimRefinery's prototype was taken down from archive.org. As site administrator Jason Scott announced:

The anonymous uploader who put SimRefinery up on Archive got cold feet, asked his stuff to be taken down, and will either track down if someone lays claim to it or not. If they change their mind, it'll go up. Until then, we'll have to console ourselves with the 20,000 downloads. This is not out of the ordinary when something blows up like this—not everyone is comfortable in their place of work or has a family they want to protect, and this amount of attention could potentially be detrimental to them and the engineer who let them make a copy. I get it. I have found that people who worked or work for very long-lived companies tend to get a random panic attack after these sorts of altruistic efforts and convince themselves of terrible, terrible ramifications.

In a follow-up tweet, Scott opined, "Don't worry. It'll be back." As of press time, that guess has borne out, with at least one SimRefinery file upload appearing once again at the site. Whether that will remain on the site in the weeks to come remains to be seen.

Original story, June 5, 2020: We at Ars Technica are proud to be members of video game archiving history today. SimRefinery, one of PC gaming's most notoriously "lost" video games, now exists as a fully playable game—albeit an unfinished one—thanks to an Ars Technica reader commenting on the story of its legend.

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