Month: May 2024

Verbraucherschützer haben eine Hilfestellung für die Sammelklage gegen Amazon veröffentlicht. Es geht um eine einseitige Änderung des Prime-Abos. (Amazon Prime, Amazon)

Eine Umfrage in sechs Ländern zeigt, dass ChatGPT bislang kaum im Alltag genutzt wird. Dabei ist OpenAIs Chatbot noch der am häufigsten verwendete. (KI, Google)

Immer mehr SUVs und kaum noch Kleinwagen werden in Deutschland angeboten. In den letzten zehn Jahre sind Autos im Schnitt 200 Kilogramm schwerer geworden. (Auto, Elektroauto)

Z-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries on the Internet, hosting millions of books and articles that can be downloaded for free.

The site defied all odds over the past two years. It continued to operate despite a full-fledged criminal prosecution by the United States, which resulted in the arrest of two alleged operators in Argentina.

According to the latest available information, these two defendants are still fighting their extradition. Meanwhile, the Z-Library service has continued to operate as if nothing ever happened, serving books to millions of people all over the world.

FBI Seizes More Domains

The feds are not standing idly by and have seized hundreds of domain names belonging to the site. The first wave of seizures took place in November 2022, shortly before the criminal case was made public. Another round followed in the spring, and a third wave came last November.

With these seizures, the FBI aims to frustrate Z-Library’s operations. Thus far, however, the library has always returned. U.S. law enforcement isn’t giving up though and, a few hours ago, it quietly carried out a new round of domain seizures.

These new seizures cover z-library.se and z-library.sx, two of the three main domain names recently promoted by the site. The third, singlelogin.re, remains unaffected at the time of writing.

The seizure banner above suggests that in addition to the U.S. authorities, Austria’s Criminal Intelligence Service played a role too. The same applies to Austria’s Cybercrime Competence Center, C4, but since the banner hasn’t been updated since the last round, this information could be dated.

Email Hit

The full list of seized domains is much longer and includes names such as zlibrary-redirect.se, zlibrary-africa.se, and zlibrary-china.se. More may follow in the near future as the enforcement action might be ongoing.

Z-Library has yet to officially comment on the enforcement action. Communication though the regular ‘support’ email will be hard, however, as the site’s email domain z-lib.se is also part of the new seizure round.

At the time of writing, Z-Library’s Telegram channel remains online, with nearly 450,000 subscribers waiting in anticipation for an update.

No Surprise

The new seizures shouldn’t come as a surprise to the Z-Library team, considering the three earlier attempts. Previously, the site simply diverted users to new domains and ones that are still operational, including the .onion domain for the Tor network.

Whether U.S. authorities have made progress on locating the whereabouts of the remaining Z-Library team is unknown. For now, however, it doesn’t appear that any of the site’s server infrastructure has been taken down.

While all this plays out, the criminal prosecution in the U.S. shows little progress. The extradition process in Argentina hasn’t been finalized yet, it seems. In addition, a federal court in New York has yet to rule on a motion to dismiss filed by the Z-Library defendants last year.

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

Eine Stellenausschreibung weckt Hoffnungen, dass Apple Milliarden potenzieller Kunden für Apple TV+ nicht länger ignoriert. (Apple TV+, Smartphone)

Youtube erklärt den Grund für die kürzlich bei Adblocker-Nutzern aufgetauchten Video-Skips - eine Absicht steht demnach nicht hinter dem Verhalten. (Youtube, Google)

Peter Jackson hat bei seinen Verfilmungen eine Figur ausgelassen, bald debütiert sie aber in der Herr-der-Ringe-Serie. (Der Herr der Ringe, Audio/Video)

Das Jahr 2024 ist das Jahr des KI-PCs, dabei sind sich alle Hersteller von Komponenten und Software einig. Was genau jedoch ein KI-PC ist, sieht jeder anders. Oder etwa nicht? Von Martin Böckmann (KI, Microsoft)

Volkswagen hat einen ersten Blick auf das Design der kommenden siebten Generation des Transporters gewährt. (VW, Auto)

Die FDP hat sich für eine vollständige Abschaffung der europäischen CO2-Flottengrenzwerte für Autohersteller ausgesprochen. (Auto, Mobilität)