Month: September 2020

Lukaschenko sitzt die Proteste aus

Vier Wochen nach den Präsidentschaftswahlen in Weißrussland geht die Protestbewegung gegen angeblich gefälschte Wahlen weiter. Doch die Bewegung stagniert. Eine massenhafte Streikbewegung gibt es nicht und es fehlt ein klares politisches Programm

Vier Wochen nach den Präsidentschaftswahlen in Weißrussland geht die Protestbewegung gegen angeblich gefälschte Wahlen weiter. Doch die Bewegung stagniert. Eine massenhafte Streikbewegung gibt es nicht und es fehlt ein klares politisches Programm

TVZion Piracy App Ordered to Shut Down By Global Anti-Piracy Group ACE

Several members of the team behind pirate streaming app TVZion have been reportedly served with cease-and-desist notices by global anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment. A partial copy of a letter seen by TF orders domains to be handed over but according to a source familiar with the situation, the app won’t be shutting down.

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

TVZionOver the past several years there has been an explosion of piracy apps that run on mobile devices, mostly on the Android platform.

Most of the big-name piracy apps such as Popcorn Time have an Android variant and due to the relative ease of development offered by the OS, dozens of similar tools for viewing the latest content are available online.

One that has been gaining traction since it appeared a couple of years ago is TVZion. It offers access to movies and TV shows hosted on various external platforms and presents them in a slick Netflix-style interface. However, according to copies of documents shared with TorrentFreak, TVZion may be in for a bumpy ride.

Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment

Global anti-piracy group ACE is a massive coalition of the world’s major entertainment companies, encompassing the main Hollywood studios under the MPA alongside Netflix, Amazon and dozens of other content producers. Since its inception, ACE has been working to shut down apps like TVZion with some success. Now, however, TVZion itself seems to be under the spotlight.

A source who requested anonymity shared partial documents with TF on Thursday, which bear all the hallmarks of an ACE ‘shut down or else” settlement letter.

The first page of the document, which was heavily cropped to obscure personal details, reveals that it was sent by Jan van Voorn, Chief of Global Content Protection at the MPA, on behalf of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.

Cease and Desist / Settlement Agreement

It’s unclear how many people received the cease-and-desist letter but our source estimates that perhaps four people were targeted. It demands that multiple social network and support accounts for TVZion are shut down, including at least four on Facebook, TVZion’s Discord channel, its Telegram group, Twitter channel and sub-Reddit.

TVZion

From the documents reviewed by TF, it appears that MPA/ACE are currently prepared to let TVZion’s these individuals go quietly, but with many strings attached.

“Within ten (10) days of the Effective Date [REDACTED] shall transfer the domains Zionapp.live, Tvzion.me, Tvzionapk.com, and Tvzion.io, and all trademarks related to the Infringing Service, to the Rightsholders at no cost, and shall execute whatever documents and take whatever actions are necessary to effect the transfer,” the settlement offer reads.

“Following transfer of the domains, Rightsholders shall have all rights to the domains, including, but not limited to, posting a message of their choosing on the domains.”

This seems like a reference to the usual ACE seizure banner that’s currently posted on several dozen other domains that were previously shut down following legal pressure.

Developer Overlooked and the Show Goes On

Late Thursday, even the developer of TVZion claimed to be oblivious to what is unfolding. While lower tier mods and support staff were apparently disappearing, deleting YouTube and other support accounts as they went, he told users on Reddit that he was as “clueless” as they are about what is happening. No mention was made of him receiving a similar letter.

However, he did acknowledge that he was longer able to contact the people in his own team but during the past few hours, that position seems to have changed.

“The moderators finally responded back. They said that they enjoyed maintaining the groups but they recently had a change of heart and for personal reasons they no long want to maintain groups,” TVZion’s developer wrote on Reddit.

“I am as surprised as you are. But it’s possibly a burn out issue and this has happened before with the last group. They worked a lot on those groups, attending to everyone, defending when they faced toxic people, it’s possible that they are just burnt out and just wanted out.”

At least from the tone of statements issued thus far, the developer seems intent on carrying on with TVZion. At the time of writing the app appears to be functional albeit with a few hiccups, but users in need of assistance currently find no support staff available.

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

Pentagon: China will USA bis 2049 militärisch einholen

Dem amerikanischen Verteidigungsministerium nach möchte Peking unter anderem durch nukleare Aufrüstung zur “dominierenden Macht im asiatisch-pazifischen Raum” werden

Dem amerikanischen Verteidigungsministerium nach möchte Peking unter anderem durch nukleare Aufrüstung zur "dominierenden Macht im asiatisch-pazifischen Raum" werden

A single text is all it took to unleash code-execution worm in Cisco Jabber

Proof-of-concept exploits demonstrated the severity of bugs Cisco just fixed.

Promotional screenshot of collaborative video conferencing app.

Enlarge (credit: Cisco)

Until Wednesday, a single text message sent through Cisco’s Jabber collaboration application was all it took to touch off a self-replicating attack that would spread malware from one Windows user to another, researchers who developed the exploit said.

The wormable attack was the result of several flaws, which Cisco patched on Wednesday, in the Chromium Embedded Framework that forms the foundation of the Jabber client. A filter that’s designed to block potentially malicious content in incoming messages failed to scrutinize code that invoked a programming interface known as “onanimationstart.”

Jumping through hoops

But even then, the filter still blocked content that contained <style>, an HTML tag that had to be included in a malicious payload. To bypass that protection, the researchers used code that was tailored to a built-in animation component called spinner-grow. With that, the researchers were able to achieve a cross-site scripting exploit that injected a malicious payload directly into the internals of the browser built into Jabber.

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Evidence slowly building for long-term heart problems post-COVID-19

While there are anecdotes aplenty, there’s also some solid science behind the worries.

Image of small blue spheres surrounded by long green fibers.

Enlarge / A fluorescent image of cardiac muscle cells in culture. (credit: Douglas B. Cowan and James D. McCully, Harvard Medical School)

Coronaviruses spread primarily through material released when we breathe, and they cause respiratory symptoms. And SARS-CoV-2, with part of its name coming from "severe acute respiratory syndrome," didn't appear to be an exception. But as time went on, additional symptoms became clear—loss of smell, digestive-tract issues—and these weren't likely to be due to infection of the respiratory tract. And over time, what also became apparent is that the symptoms didn't necessarily fade when the virus was cleared.

As we've studied the virus more, we've learned that the protein it uses to latch on to cells is present in a lot of different tissues in the body, suggesting that a wide variety of different effects could be the direct product of infections of the cells there. This week, the effect that seems to be grabbing attention is heart problems, spurred by a Scientific American article that (among other things) considers the stories of professional and college athletes who have been infected. That was followed by a report that roughly 30 percent of college athletes who've contracted the virus end up with inflammation of the heart muscle called myocarditis.

Both reports are heavy on anecdote, but this is not a new thing; ESPN had reported on myocarditis in college athletes back in early August. And, more significantly, the scientific community has been looking into the issue for months. So far, its conclusion is that there are likely to be heart complications, even in patients who had mild COVID-19 symptoms. But the long-term implications of these problems aren't yet clear.

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