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A series of takedown notices, sent under the guise of the FBI and other mysterious anti-piracy forces, aims to wipe APK sites from Google’s search results. Most bizarrely, perhaps, are threats warning of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and even prison time for the accused site operators. Add in an unverified extortion threat, and things start to look quite grim.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Over the years we have seen our fair share of bizarre DMCA takedown notices, but we continue to be surprised by new schemes.
This week we can add another to the list, one that has some serious threats attached.
The notices in question were sent to Google but the accompanying message appears to be directed at the targeted sites, many of which offer APK versions of apps. These sites may or may not offer pirated software, but the takedown notices are unusual nonetheless.
The sender claims to represent unnamed game developers and, in broken English, says they went all the way up to the Supreme Court to go after the infringing websites.
“We are reaching you in behalf of a very, very long list of Game Developers who repeatedly denounced your illegal activities and asked the supreme court of the USA to take legal action,” one of the notices reads.
There is no reference to the supposed legal action or the related lower court judgment but the consequences are very real, at least according to the takedown sender.
In addition to a potential ‘fine’ of at least half a million dollars, the targeted site operators are apparently facing prison sentences as well.
“This is an official warning of takedown, therefore you are requested to immediately proceed with deleting every illegal/pirate page from your website. Don’t play with law, or next time we’ll not be so kind with you: we’ll directly take you to jail instead, after a fine of 500,000 USD, at least.”
As if the above isn’t enough, some notices want us to believe that the “FBI” is the sender. We’re not sure which FBI the notice refers to but the Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t get involved in these issues.
Interestingly, the threatening language isn’t only used by this mysterious FBI entity. Someone using the name “Anti-piracy Protection” is also targeting APK sites, warning of Supreme Court action.
“We request to immediately cease and desist, or we will be forced to file a legal case to the supreme court of the United States of America to have our customers’ rights indemnified and ask the Hosting Provider to delete the website and all associated domains,” these notices read.
This “Anti-piracy Protection” outfit shouldn’t be confused with APP Global, which uses the same name for its legitimate takedown notices and has nothing to do with the above. The dubious notices come from another outfit, one that has targeted more than 100,000 URLs.
TorrentFreak spoke to the operators of two affected sites who clearly believe that something is off here. One site operator informed us that 7,000 of his site’s URLs were removed from Google as a result of these notices.
Another site owner was targeted by the same scheme, which took pretty much his entire website out of Google’s search results
“This guy ransacked my entire index through sitemap.xml, then got all my URLs from there,” the site operator tells us.
“He then created dozens of gmails and sent fake DMCA notices under the [imposter] names ‘Anti-Piracy Protection’, ‘Intercorp Security, ‘International CyberCrime Investigations – FBI’. This has been going on for a long time.”
To clarify, these names are likely used in bad faith. If our hunch is right, these bizarre takedown notices are not coming from actual copyright holders but from malicious senders. Their notices could be a tool to remove search results of competing sites, or worse.
One of the site operators also shared an extortion message that he received, referencing the takedown scheme. We weren’t able to independently verify the legitimacy of this email, but it wouldn’t surprise us if it’s real.
Thus far Google’s response to these notices has been mixed. The company rejected quite a few but tens of thousands of URLs were indeed removed.
One of the site operators informed us that several of his URLs were restored after he complained to Google, but he fears that the ‘senders’ are not going to give up that easily. For now, suspicious notices keep coming in, using the aforementioned names but also strange labels such as “Reporter Badguys” and “Anti Game Publisher.”
Bizarre indeed…
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Neue Studie: Trotz 34.000 Corona-Toter in Deutschland blieb Letalität unter der befürchteten Schwelle. Wissenschaftler sprechen sogar von Untersterblichkeit
Supply chain for plastic production is rife with carbon emissions.
Enlarge / Smoke billows from one of many chemical plants near Baton Rouge, La. 'Cancer Alley' is one of the most polluted areas of the US and lies along the once pristine Mississippi River that stretches some 80 miles from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, where a dense concentration of oil refineries, petrochemical plants, and other chemical industries reside alongside suburban homes. (credit: Giles Clarke/Getty Images)
Plastic pollution usually conjures images of grocery bags blowing in the wind or nurdles lodged in a seabird’s stomach. But soon, plastic pollution may take on another meaning, as a new report forecasts that the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions in the US will outpace those of coal by the end of the decade.
“Unlike the plastic trash choking our waterways and littering our communities, the plastic industry’s devastating impact on our climate is taking place under the radar, with little public scrutiny and even less government accountability,” Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and a former EPA regional administrator, said in the report.
Plastic is a large but often overlooked source of carbon pollution. Production in the US creates at least 232 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, according to the report by Bennington College and the nonprofit organization Beyond Plastics. Plastic production is expected to emit another 55 million tons by 2025 if the 42 plants currently planned or under construction come online.
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Käufer des Macbook Pro mit M1 Max können wohl in MacOS Monterey per Klick noch mehr Leistung aus dem Gerät herausholen. (Apple Silicon, Apple)
Käufer des Macbook Pro mit M1 Max können wohl in MacOS Monterey per Klick noch mehr Leistung aus dem Gerät herausholen. (Apple Silicon, Apple) Mehrere US-Bundesstaaten haben Klage gegen Google eingereicht. Das Unternehmen rühmt sich derweil, Regulierungen verlangsamt zu haben. (Google, Ad-Server)
Die Opposition kritisiert die massiven Kosten, Nutzer bewerten die App schlecht. Dennoch soll die Autobahn App nun erweitert werden. (Verkehr, Auto)
Welche Möglichkeiten und Grenzen die Modern Monetary Theory hat. Und warum Schuldenbremse und Maastricht-Kriterien neu bewertet werden müssen
Apple execs talk on the record about the new Apple silicon.
This week Apple introduced a set of new MacBook Pro laptops. During the prerecorded launch event, Apple’s engineers and executives made it clear that the MVPs in these new products are the chips that power them: the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. With 34 billion and 57 billion transistors, respectively, they are the engines powering the new Mac devices' super hi-res displays, providing blazing speed, and extending battery life. The laptops represent the apotheosis of a 14-year strategy that has transformed the company—literally under the hood of its products—in a massive effort to design and build its own chips. Apple is now methodically replacing microprocessors it buys from vendors like Intel and Samsung with its own, which are optimized for the needs of Apple users. The effort has been stunningly successful. Apple was once a company defined by design. Design is still critical at Apple, but I now consider it a silicon company.
A couple days after the keynote, I had a rare on-the-record conversation about Apple silicon with senior worldwide marketing VP Greg Joswiak (aka “Joz”), senior hardware engineering VP John Ternus, and senior hardware technology VP Johny Srouji. I had been asking Apple to put me in touch with Srouji for years. His title only hints at his status as the chip czar at Apple. Though he’s begun to appear on camera at recent Apple events, he generally avoids the spotlight. An Israeli-born engineer who previously worked at Intel and IBM, Srouji joined Apple in 2008, specifically to fulfill a mandate from Steve Jobs, who felt that the chips in the original iPhone couldn’t meet his demands. Srouji’s mission was to lead Apple in making its own silicon. The effort has been so well executed that I believe Srouji is secretly succeeding Jony Ive as the pivotal creative wizard whipping up the secret sauce in Apple’s offerings.
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Nach monatelangen Verzögerungen können nun Gespräche in Teams Ende-zu-Ende verschlüsselt werden. Die Funktion bleibt aber eingeschränkt. (Teams, Microsoft)
Mehrere US-Bundesstaaten haben Klage gegen Google eingereicht. Das Unternehmen rühmt sich derweil, Regulierungen verlangsamt zu haben. (
Die Opposition kritisiert die massiven Kosten, Nutzer bewerten die App schlecht. Dennoch soll die Autobahn App nun erweitert werden. (
Nach monatelangen Verzögerungen können nun Gespräche in Teams Ende-zu-Ende verschlüsselt werden. Die Funktion bleibt aber eingeschränkt. (
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