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After reporting on thousands of file-sharing related stories around the globe for almost ten years, the folks here at TF have a ‘feel’ for how certain scenarios play out. With that in mind, something doesn’t feel right with the ongoing drama involving YTS / YIFY.

When sites as big as YTS get taken down by the MPAA, RIAA, or their partners around the world, these organizations usually order their PR departments to repeatedly bash the big button marked “CONGRATULATIONS TO US”. Yet for weeks following the YTS shut down there was complete silence.

Details of the multi-million dollar lawsuit supposedly filed in New Zealand are nowhere to be found either. And if one was expecting the usual “Shut down by ICE/FBI/DELTA FORCE” banner to appear on YTS.to instead of the usual YIFY movie rips, then there’s only disappointment there too.

Ok, the MPAA have this week admitted they’re behind the shutdown, but the way it’s being handled is extremely puzzling. The announcement from MPAA chief Chris Dodd was muted to say the least and the somewhat compulsory gloating at having taken down one of the world’s most important piracy sites is almost non-existent.

This is odd for a number of reasons, not least when one considers the nature and scale of the operation. YIFY / YTS released as many as five thousand copies of mainstream movies onto the Internet. Between them they were shared dozens of millions of times, at least. Over the past decade those kinds of numbers – and a lot less – have seen people jailed for up to five years in the United States and elsewhere.

Yet according to credible sources the operator of YTS – a 21-year-old who for unknown reasons isn’t even being named – has already settled his beef with the MPAA. This, despite running a site that has been repeatedly listed as a worldwide notorious market in the USTR’s Special 301 Report.

Of course, the operator of YTS isn’t in the United States, he’s in New Zealand, but geographical boundaries are rarely an issue for Hollywood. Take the drama surrounding Kim Dotcom and his former site Megaupload, for example.

Like the operator of YTS, Dotcom also lives in New Zealand. Importantly, it’s never been claimed that Dotcom uploaded anything illegal to the Internet (let alone thousands of movies) yet he was subjected to a commando-like raid on his home by dozens of armed police. He’s also facing extradition to the United States where he faces decades in jail.

Now, think of the flamboyant Dotcom what you will. Then feel relieved for the admin of YTS, who by many accounts is a thoroughly nice guy and has somehow managed to save his own skin, despite providing much of the content for global phenomenon Popcorn Time.

But then try to get a handle on how differently these two people are being treated after allegedly committing roughly the same offenses in exactly the same country. One case is still dragging on after almost four years, with tens of millions spent on lawyers and no end in sight. The other was a done deal inside four weeks.

Earlier this week TorrentFreak spoke with Kim Dotcom who told us he’d been following the YTS story in the media. Intrigued, we wanted to know – how does it feel to be raked over the coals for close to four years, have all your property seized, face extradition and decades in jail, while someone just up the road can walk away relatively unscathed from what would’ve been a slam-dunk case for the MPAA?

“It’s a double standard isn’t it?” Dotcom told TF.

“I think our case has chilled law enforcement and Hollywood against pursuing the criminal route in cases such as this. Quick civil settlements seem to be the new way to go.”

Dotcom may well be right and the fact that New Zealand already has a massive headache because of his case may well have been a factor in the decision not to make a huge example of the YTS operator. At the moment no one is talking though, and it’s entirely possible that no one ever will.

That makes a case like this all the more unsettling. Are we witnessing Hollywood’s ability to switch on a massive overseas law enforcement response in one case and then reel in the United States government in another? It’s worth saying again – YTS was a ‘notorious market’ in the eyes of the USTR yet apparently that be dealt with privately these days.

But with all that being said, it is quite possible that the U.S. government has learned lessons from its heavy-handed actions in 2012 and doesn’t want to repeat them again, least of all in New Zealand, a country whose judges must be growing tired of the Dotcom debacle.

“As the DOJ admitted the Megaupload case is a test case. The test isn’t going well for them,” Dotcom concludes.

And for that the guy behind YTS must be thanking his lucky stars.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

From the MPAA's great victory to a great loss for consumer fair use rights, read this and other news stories for the week ending 8 November 2015

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Some BlackBerry Priv apps can run on other Android phones (keyboard, calendar, launcher) is a post from: Liliputing

Samsung sieht sich mit einer Klage der Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen konfrontiert: Die Verbraucherschützer bemängeln nicht genehmigte Datenübertragungen von Smart-TVs des Herstellers. (Smart-TV, Rechtsstreitigkeiten)

Vier Monate mussten deutsche Kunden warten, jetzt kann der Ethernet-Adapter für Googles Chromecast auch hierzulande gekauft werden. Vorerst gibt es den Adapter nur im Google-Store. (Chromecast, Google)

The Internet is littered with torrent indexes and search engines, all offering a wide range of content to their visitors.

For this content to travel from A to B the BitTorrent ecosystem needs reliable trackers. Sadly, good public torrent trackers are a rarity these days.

Earlier this year OpenBitTorrent and PublicBitTorrent disappeared for good, and the same is about to happen to Demonii. This means that all trackers with more than 30 million active peers are gone.

So who will fill this gap? Running a large standalone tracker doesn’t come cheap, but this week we spotted a worthy contender.

To our surprise, the largest telecoms company in Kazakhstan is running a fully functioning tracker powered the well-known Opentracker software.

Kazakhtelecom, which has the local Government as a majority shareholder, can certainly afford to run it. The company has a yearly revenue of half a billion U.S. dollars.

At the time of writing the ISP already tracks 461,274 torrents, coordinating the transfers of more than 2.5 million people worldwide. The tracker can be used by anyone and supports both http and udp connections.

The retracker.telecom.kz:80/announce URL appears in torrents of all shapes and sizes and had been in use for at least a few months.

It’s not clear whether the ISP’s higher level management is aware of the tracker, or if it was configured by a torrent-friendly employee, but for now it works just fine.

The connection to the Kazakh Government may become a problem though, since peer-to-peer services and torrent trackers are not allowed under current law. Whether the Government will enforce that policy against itself has yet to be seen.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Das Bundesinnenministerium plant eine neue Sicherheitsbehörde mit dem Schwerpunkt Abhörtechnik. Damit soll die Internetkommunikation effektiver und umfassender überwacht werden können. (Überwachung, Datenschutz)

Das Spähprogramm des Bundesnachrichtendienstes soll auch viele befreundete Staaten im Visier gehabt haben - dazu zählte etwa der Vatikan. Aber auch Nichtregierungsorganisationen wie das Komitee des Roten Kreuzes wurden vom deutschen Auslandsgeheimdienst systematisch ausgespäht. (BND, Datenschutz)

Innodisk hat zwei Netzwerkmodule vorgestellt, die sich einfach in einen M.2-Slot einstecken lassen. Zur Wahl gibt es ein Modell mit einem und ein Modell mit zwei GbE-Anschlüssen. So einfach ist es mit dem Netzwerkkabelanschluss allerdings größenbedingt nicht. (Netzwerk, USB 3.0)

Deterring online piracy has become one of the main goals of City of London Police in recent years.

In September 2013 the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit was founded, marking the start of a broad enforcement campaign to decrease online piracy rates.

PIPCU initially began by sending out warning letters to pirate site owners, asking them to go legit or shut down. This was soon followed by a campaign targeted at domain registrars, asking them to suspend the domain names of several “illegal” sites.

The domain suspension requests haven’t been particularly effective. Information obtained by TorrentFreak following a Freedom of Information request filed last year revealed that only 5 out of 70 domain registrars complied with police requests.

This year we asked PIPCU for an update to see if any progress was being made, but months passed by without a response. Normally, police must respond within 20 working days but this request proved to be more difficult.

After several delays and passed deadlines we finally received a response this week. However, it was not the number of rejected domain suspensions we asked for. Instead, PIPCU sent a statement explaining that domain suspensions are no longer a top priority.

“Whilst PIPCU continues to make domain suspension requests as a component of Op Creative, more emphasis is now placed onto other disruption activities,” they note.

“This decision was taken following an adverse response by ICANN to a challenge to our domain suspension requests.”

This response suggests that the police changed their strategy after a successful challenge by domain registrar EasyDNS, who they accused of facilitating criminal activity by its refusal to suspend several websites.

In response EasyDNS took the matter to the overseeing body ICANN which ruled that registrars are not required to suspend a domain name without a valid court order.

ICANN’s decision was a blow to the police who therefore decided to place less emphasis on domain suspension efforts.

However, even though PIPCU has changed its enforcement priorities we previously learned that it still sent shutdown requests for 317 ‘pirate’ domain names, which is much more than the year before.

Again, we asked PIPCU how many of these were rejected.

Just before publishing we received what appears to be the final answer. Despite earlier indications that the numbers are available, PIPCU now says they are no longer recorded.

One thing’s obvious though, the efforts weren’t very effective.

“Whilst information is recorded on the number of suspension requests sent out, information is no longer recorded on registrar responses to individual domain suspension requests, however as a guide these requests have predominantly refused,” PIPCU concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.