Over the past couple of weeks, two of the largest torrent sites on the Internet shut down. After KickassTorrents was shut down by the U.S. Government, meta-search engine Torrentz.eu also said farewell yesterday. Looking back over the years, they are not the only torrent giants to have fallen. At TorrentFreak we have been keeping a close eye on the torrent ecosystem for more than a decade. During this time, many sites have shut down, either voluntarily or forced by a court order. This week meta-search engine Torrentz joined this ever-expanding list. In what appears to be a voluntary action, the site waved its millions of users farewell without prior warning. The site’s operators have yet to explain their motivations. However, it wouldn’t be a big surprise if the continued legal pressure on torrent sites played a major role, with KAT as the most recent example. And let’s be honest. Running a site that could make you the target of an FBI investigation, facing over a dozen years in prison, is no joke. Looking back at the largest torrent sites of the past 15 years, we see a familiar pattern emerge. Many of the sites that make it to the top eventually fall down, often due to legal pressure. SUPRNOVA (2004) Suprnova was one of the first ever BitTorrent giants. Founded by the Slovenian-born Andrej Preston, the site dominated the torrent scene during the early days. It was also one of the first torrent sites to be targeted by the authorities. In November 2004 the site’s servers were raided, and a month later Preston, aka Sloncek, decided to shut it down voluntarily. The police investigation was eventually dropped a few months later. LOKITORRENT (2005) When Suprnova went down a new site was quick to fill its void. LokiTorrent soon became one of the largest torrent sites around, which also attracted the attention of the MPAA. LokiTorrent’s owner Ed Webber said he wanted to fight the MPAA and actively collected donations to pay for the legal costs. With success, as he raised over $40,000 in a few weeks. However, not long after that, LokiTorrent was shut down, and all that was left was the iconic “You can click but you can’t hide” MPAA notice. TORRENTSPY (2008) In 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular than any other BitTorrent site. This quickly changed when it was sued by the MPAA. In 2007 a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data and the site opted to ban all U.S. traffic in response. March 2008 TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnell decided to shut down completely and not much later his company was ordered to pay the Hollywood studios $110 million in damages. MININOVA (2009) After TorrentSpy’s demise, Mininova became the largest torrent site on the net. The name was inspired by Suprnova, but in 2008 the site was many times larger than its predecessor. Its popularity eventually resulted in a lawsuit from local anti-piracy outfit BREIN, which Mininova lost. As a result, the site had to remove all infringing torrents, a move which effectively ended its reign. Today the site is still online, limiting uploads to pre-approved publishers, making it a ghost of the giant it was in the past. BTJUNKIE (2012) In 2012, shortly after the Megaupload raid, torrent site BTJunkie shut down voluntarily. Talking to TorrentFreak, BTjunkie’s founder said that the legal actions against other file-sharing sites played an important role in making the difficult decision. Witnessing all the trouble his colleagues got into was a constant cause of worry and stress. “We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best,” he wrote in a farewell message. ISOHUNT (2013) The shutdown of isoHunt a year later wasn’t much of a surprise. The site had been fighting a legal battle with the MPAA for over a decade and eventually lost, agreeing to pay the movie studios a $110m settlement. As one of the oldest and largest sites at the time, the torrent ecosystem lost another icon. However, as is often the case, another site with the same name quickly took over and is still operating today. EZTV (2015) The story of EZTV’s demise is quite different from the rest. The popular TV-torrent distribution group shut down last year after a hostile takeover. Strangely enough, many people don’t even realize that it’s “gone.” The site continued to operate under new ownership and still releases torrents. However, in solidarity with the original founders these torrents are banned on several other sites. YIFY/YTS (2015) What started as a simple movie release group in 2010 turned into one of the largest torrent icons. The group amassed a huge following and its website was generating millions of pageviews per day early last year. In November 2015 this ended abruptly. Facing a million dollar lawsuit from Hollywood, the group’s founder decided to pull the plug and call it quits. Even though various copycats have since emerged, the real YIFY/YTS is no more. KICKASSTORRENTS (2016) Three weeks ago Polish law enforcement officers arrested Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of KickassTorrents. The arrest resulted in the shutdown of the site, which came as a shock to millions of KAT users and the torrent community at large. Out of nowhere, the largest torrent index disappeared and there are no signs that it’s coming back anytime soon. The site’s community, meanwhile, has found a new home at Katcr.to. TORRENTZ (2016) Torrentz is the last torrent site to cease its operations. Although no official explanation was given, some of the stories outlined above were probably weighed into the founders’ decision. — So what will the future bring? Who will be the next giant to fall? It’s obvious that nearly nothing last forever in the torrent ecosystem. Well, apart from the ever-resilient Pirate Bay. And there are several other alternatives still around as well. ExtraTorrent has been around for a decade now and continues to grow, and the same is true for otherpopular torrent sites. Source : Torrentfreak

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Every artist on the planet is prone to having their music leaked in advance of its commercial release and of course that's a real headache for all involved. Last week it happened to Drum and Bass legends Noisia but instead of going off the deep-end, the trio managed the problem and even managed to slip in some humor. For closing on 20 years, online piracy has been the bane of the music industry. Starting off relatively small due to limited speed Internet connections, the phenomenon boomed as broadband took hold. In the years that followed, countless millions of tracks were shared among like-minded Internet users eager to keep up with their favorite artists and to discover those they never knew existed. But with 2016 almost two-thirds done, legal music availability has never been better and the excuses for obtaining all content illegally are slowly disappearing over the horizon, for those who can afford it at least. Nevertheless, one type of piracy refuses to go away, no matter how well-off the consumer. By definition, pre-release music is officially unavailable to buy, so money is completely out of the equation. Such leaks are the ultimate forbidden fruit for hardcore fans of all standing, including those most likely to shell out for the real thing. This means that the major labels regularly cite pre-release leaks as the most damaging form of piracy, as they are unable to compete with the unauthorized copies already available. Release plans and marketing drives are planned and paid for in advance, and record companies are reluctant to change them. As a result, such leaks are often followed by extreme outbursts from labels which slam leakers and downloaders alike. That’s perhaps understandable but there are better ways of getting the message over without attacking fans. Last week, drum and bass, dubstep, breakbeat and house stars Noisia showed how it should be done after their long-awaited album Outer Edges leaked online six weeks early. “Friday night, while we were in the final minutes of setting up the stage for our first ever Outer Edges show, we received the news that our album had been leaked. We think you can imagine how bad we felt at that moment,” the trio told fans on Facebook. “We realize it’s 2016, and things like these happen all the time. Still, it’s quite a setback. All the plans we’ve made have to be scrapped and replaced by something less ideal, because we have to react to this unfortunate situation.” In the DnB scene Noisia are absolutely huge but despite their success have chosen to stay close to their fans. The trio run their own label (Vision Recordings) so have more control than many artists, thus allowing them to give fans unprecedented access to their music. “So far in releasing this album, we’ve made a conscious effort to make every track that’s available somewhere, available everywhere. If you pre-ordered the album on Itunes or our webstore, you received the new track the same day it was first premiered on Soundcloud,” Noisia continue. “We believe that users of all platforms should be able to listen to our music pretty much the minute it’s available anywhere else. In this philosophy, the availability of our whole album on illegal download sites means that we have to make it available on all platforms.” So, instead of going off on a huge rant, Noisia leapt into action. “We have immediately changed all our previous plans and made the whole album available to buy on our web store right now,” the band announced on the day of the leak. Sadly, other digital platforms couldn’t move as quickly, so most only got the release on Friday. Physical products couldn’t be moved either due to production limitations, so they will appear on the original schedule. “Even though we are unhappy about this leak, we’re still really happy with the music. We really hope you will enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed making it,” Noisia said. With this reaction to what must’ve been a hugely disappointing leak, Noisia showed themselves to be professionals. No crying, no finger pointing, just actions to limit the impact of the situation alongside a decision to compete with free, both before and after the leak. Nevertheless, Thijs, Martijn and Nik are human after all, so they couldn’t resist taking a little shot at whoever leaked their music. No threats of lawsuits of course, but a decent helping of sarcasm and dark humor. “Thanks to whoever leaked our album, next time please do it after the album is out, maybe we can coordinate? Oh wait, that wouldn’t really be leaking… And besides, we don’t negotiate with terror..leaking persons,” they said. “No, instead we will fold, and adjust our entire strategy. Take that! We hope you get stung by a lot of mosquitoes this summer, and maybe also next summer.” Noisia’s next album will probably take years to arrive (Outer Edges took six years) but when it does, don’t expect to be warned months in advance. The trio are already vowing to do things differently next time, so expect the unexpected. Noisia make a lot of their music available for free on Soundcloud, YouTube and ad-supported Spotify.

A COMPREHENSIVE NEWS POST FOR THOSE THAT DON'T READ SOME OF THE GREAT FEATURES WE HAVE.THIS IS HOW OUR SEARCH TORRENT / BROWSE WORKS! Here's the details on the search controls today.+ operators join words into phrases.- operators exlude words from the search, and can be used with + operators to create exclusion phrases. If you don't use operators, you match on words only. Some Examples : we have as our target #1 painkiller.jane.115.ws.dsr.xvid-sys.avi #2 painkiller.jane.110.dsr.xvid-notv.aviPainkiller Jane would match Painkiller Jane and Jane Painkiller and Jane the big Painkiller - anything with the words painkiller and jane.So we would find both one and two abovePainkiller+Jane would match Painkiller Jane but not match Jane Painkiller or Jane the big PainkillerSo we would find both #1 and #2 aboveJane+Painkiller would match Jane Painkiller but not match Painkiller Jane or Jane the big PainkillerSo we would not find either #1 or #2 abovePainkiller+Jane -110 would match Painkiller Jane but not match Painkiller Jane 110 or Jane the big PainkillerSo we would only find only #1 abovePainkiller+Jane -115+ws would match Painkiller Jane and would also match Painkiller Jane 110So we would only find #2 above.Finally +painkiller -jane would find nothing. The leading + is not really needed - it effectively has nothing to join with it.Remember this feature can also be used to search for a list of files and exclude a format so you could search all the dsr and exclude x264.I hope that explains the new search a bit - if you think in term of using + to join words into phrases, and - into excluding words or phrases joined with +, I think it makes sense.NEXT. THIS IS HOW YOU JOIN OUR IRC AND MEMBERS ROOM, ANNOUNCE ROOM, AND PRE ROOM. IMPORTANT If people look in their profiles There is an IRC KEY that they can activate via their USER/CP. Only staff (moderator or higher) can reset the key and the key is auto generated once made active by a member. Currenty - unti it gets put into a tcl bot that we have an eggdrop for.. the required invite format is... /msg BitMeTV !invite sitenick myirckey This will invite you to the members room, pre room, and irc rss room. You irc nickname MUST be a registered nickname and preferably the same as your site(sitenick) one bit it will allow an alternate nickname. eg: /msg nickserv REGISTER APASSWORD ANEMAILADDRESS ^this only needs to be done the first time you join^ When using your site nickname. When joining the irc you will need to IDENTIFY your name first in future every time you join. (unless you just want the open #bitmetv room or #bitmetv.help)/msg nickserv IDENTIFY APASSWORDDo NOT use the same password as you use for your site account.//BitMeTV.org Staff

Torrentz.eu, one of the world's largest torrent sites, has announced "farewell" to its millions of users. The meta-search engine, which hosted no torrents of its own but linked to other sites including The Pirate Bay, has decided to cease its operation. The surprise shutdown marks the end of an era. Founded in 2003, Torrentz has been a stable factor in the torrent community for over 13 years. With millions of visitors per day the site grew out to become one of the most visited torrent sites, but today this reign ends, as the popular meta-search engine has announced its shutdown. A few hours ago and without warning, Torrentz disabled its search functionality. At first sight the main page looks normal but those who try to find links to torrents will notice that they’re no longer there. Instead, the site is now referring to itself in the past tense, suggesting that after more than a decade the end has arrived. “Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines,” the text reads. The site’s user are no longer able to login either. Instead, they see the following message: “Torrentz will always love you. Farewell.” Torrentz.eu says farewell TorrentFreak was contacted by the operator of Torrentz, who prefers not to comment at the moment. It’s clear, however, that another major torrent site is shutting down, leaving a gaping hole. Torrentz itself never hosted any torrent files but did have a takedown procedure in place, allowing copyright holders to take down infringing links. Not all rightsholders were happy with the site though. Both RIAA and MPAA have reported the site to the U.S. Government in recent years, which repeatedly placed it its annual “Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets.” With Torrentz.eu and KickassTorrents both shutting down, the torrent comunity lost two of the largest sites in a period of three weeks. This means that millions of users will have to find new homes. Founded a few weeks before The Pirate Bay, Torrentz was one of the oldest torrent sites still around. When Torrentz first came online the site was hosting torrent sites, but it swiftly reinvented itself as a meta-search engine, the biggest of its kind. source : Torrentfreak Breaking story, more updates will follow Tagged in:

Kim Dotcom is teasing fresh information about his Megaupload 2.0 project set to launch in January 2017. Noting that every file transfer will be linked to a bitcoin transaction, Dotcom says the new platform will take decentralization, anonymity & encryption "to the next level". Following a few hints dropped early last month, Kim Dotcom later confirmed he was working on a brand new file-sharing platform with a familiar name. Now partially confirmed as Megaupload (or possibly Megaupload 2.0), the site is set to launch in January 2017, an event that will coincide with the 2012 closure of the original site and the massive police raid against its operators. Over the past few days Dotcom has taken to Twitter to drip feed various nuggets of information about his upcoming service. The first came on Tuesday when he said that he couldn’t wait to launch “groundbreaking innovations” that will take Bitcoin “mainstream.” After concentrating on his usual array of political tweets, a few hours ago Dotcom stepped on the Megaupload gas, underlining its links to Bitcoin. The suggestion that there will be currency changing hands for people sharing files using Megaupload 2.0 is certainly an intriguing one. Dotcom previously said the site will launch with Megaupload 1.0’s user database, which could amount to 100 million users. That’s a lot of users, a lot of files, and potentially lots of money. The term ‘Bitcache’ also raises questions. A project of the same name already exists but Dotcom appears to have something else in mind. “Nobody will upload to any other cloud after Megaupload’s Bitcache goes live. 100 million Bitcache wallets,” he said this morning. For now, Dotcom doesn’t seem interested in revealing solid information about Bitcache. However, in response to a user who asked whether Dotcom had considered Bitcoin’s block size issues, the German suggested that ‘bitcache’ would solve the problem. The links between the under-development file-sharing platform and Bitcoin are clearly ones Dotcom is keen to promote. The entrepreneur often suggests that his followers should invest in this, or avoid that, but this morning his message was clear. Buy Bitcoin. Now. “Buy Bitcoin while cheap. Like right now. Trust me,” he said. “Bitcoin = $2000+ 2017.” Further details will be revealed on January 20, 2017, during the launch of Megaupload 2.0, an event that is already developing an interesting guest list. This morning, financial journalist and guru Max Keiser said he will be in attendance,declaring the project “Big news for Bitcoin.” Also of interest is new information which suggests that developers will be able to build their open projects using the cloud-storage features of Dotcom’s new platform. “Megaupload 2.0 will be available ‘white label’. You can use any domain, free of charge, for your cloud sharing needs. Bitcache enabled,” he adds. The launch date for Megaupload 2.0 is a little over five months away so Dotcom and those collaborating with him certainly have their work cut out if they are to deliver as promised. That being said, if they can pull this rabbit out of the hat it could be the shot in the arm the file-sharing world has been longing for. “Megaupload 2.0 takes decentralization, anonymity & encryption to the next level. A nightmare for those who want to mass surveil & censor,” Dotcom concludes. Tagged in:

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Hello Torrentshackers It has been a while since the last news but here is a catch up!Hopefully by now you have noticed an improvement to the sites pre times, there has been a lot of work in the background improving this and thanks to all involved.The ability to upload P2P releases has been added to the Pre page so why not have a look.You can now view your Upload and Download ratio on your profile page. This can also be hidden should you wish by using the paranoia setting. Please note this does not alter the way the site works and we are still ratioless.Fancy joining the team ? We are currently looking for First Line Support to assist with the sites invite channel. This will involve interviewing potential new site users. IRC knowledge is a must. If interested please send a staff message with expression of interest.Invites can now be purchased from the Store for 250000 BP's !Staff Changes:Truebanger has stepped down from the staff position We all want to thank him for all his time and effort on the team. Thank you and we will all miss you.finagle69 has joined the staff team so please all welcome him to the team. Closing note:Torrentshack relies entirely on donations to survive, currently we are idling along on life support despite pushing through new features and trying our best to give the end user the site they want. As a result of this we cannot bring content in the way and speed you all want. We have however made leaps and bounds from where we were and this is only thanks to the commitment of our upload team. It is extremely disappointing when we see site users disrespecting the site and staff on places like reddit. We want to give the content and the speeds but without funding this is just not possible so please believe us when we say we are doing our best and often at personal cost. We do not wish to be begging every month. We are solely relying on the donations of a hand full of regulars and we are so grateful for this, these are the people along with the staff who keep this site afloat.

DTians, Please join me to congratulate Team DUS on their 8th anniversary. They have maintained great consistency all these years and have provided enjoyment for countless people everywhere. On this occasion all the Movie sections of DT will be on Freeleech till August 15th.

The tech giant could be liable to pay from $3bn to $5bn in extra tax in the United States following the investigation by the tax agency into the way Facebook transferred assets to Ireland. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been looking into whether Facebook deliberately deployed complex financial processes in order to minimize the amount of US tax to be paid. According to Facebook’s quarterly financial filing, the tax agency issued the company with a “statutory notice of deficiency”, pointing out that it could have a “material adverse impact” on its balance. The company estimated the possible loss in its earnings report as $3bn to $5bn. Besides, Facebook would also be liable for interest lost, though no additional penalties were discussed. In the meantime, Facebook spokesperson claims that the company complies with all applicable rules and regulations in the countries where it operates. The US tax agency started investigating Facebook 3 years ago over assets it had transferred in 2010 to its headquarters in Ireland. The European country is well known for its corporation-friendly tax structures, charging a corporate tax at the rate of 12.5%, compared to the rate of 35% in the United States and 21% in the United Kingdom. The public learned about the investigation just a few weeks ago, when the Internal Revenue Service filed a lawsuit in San Francisco, suing the tech giant over access to records related to the transfer. The IRS investigation described the valuation of the assets as “problematic”, suggesting that Facebook had undervalued the assets to pay less tax. Besides, the tax agency has stated that Facebook has failed to attend 7 appointments at its office located 19 miles away from the company’s headquarters.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation looks into a hack of the fundraising Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The rumors are that the cyber attack may be related to an earlier intrusion in the Democratic National Committee. The DCCC is engaged in raising money for Democrats running for seats in the US House of Representatives. The hack of the committee may have been intended to collect information about donors, rather than to steal money. As usual, Russian hackers are suspected, though so far the concerns are unproven. It is known that the DCCC intrusion could have begun back in June, when a spoof website was registered with a name closely resembling that of a main donation site connected to the DCCC. For a while, Internet traffic associated with donations went to the spoof site instead of a company that processes campaign donations. Security experts noted that the Internet protocol address of the spoof site resembled one used by a Russian government-linked hacking group. In fact, private cyber experts and the government knew about the DNC hack many weeks ago, but the public was notified just a few days ago by the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group, which disclosed information about embarrassing emails leak when the party prepared to anoint Hillary Clinton as its presidential candidate. The disclosure of the breach may further stoke concerns among Democratic party operatives, who have acknowledged they are afraid of further dumps of hacked files that could harm their candidates. In the meantime, WikiLeaks claimed it had more information related to the US election that it promised to release. The DNC chair had to resign after the leaked emails showed that the party leaders favored Clinton over her rival, while the committee has to be neutral. According to cybersecurity experts and US officials, there is strong evidence that Russian hackers are responsible for the DNC breach, although the US intelligence community was not ready to accuse anyone officially of the DNC hack. The FBI has not disclosed any information about who was behind the hack either, only suggesting that it was likely the work of a state actor rather than an independent hacking group. In response, Russian officials have dismissed the allegations of Moscow’s involvement.

The final version of the proposed “three strikes” anti-piracy code for Australian internet service providers (ISPs) has been published recently. Under the Copyright Notice Scheme code (PDF), residential Internet users that are found pirating content will be subject to a series of "escalating" warning notices from rights holders, sent via ISPs. The notices will warn users that they are infringing copyright, and that they will face legal action if they get three strikes recorded against their IP address -- that is, if they receive an Education, Warning and Final notice -- within a 12 month period. If a user gets three warning letters, or "strikes", in a 12-month period, ISPs will help copyright owners identify them for potential legal action after a hearing in a prescribed court. Up to 200,000 notices can be processed and sent each year. An industry code has to be in place by September 1Over the past few months, thousands of Canadians have received ‘Piracy Notices’ in their mailbox asking for cash settlements. The new law aims to reduce piracy in Canada, but it seems Canadians are not ready to give up on their habits. After paying no attention to hundreds of notices from anti-piracy group named Rightscorp, the users are now sued over sharing the 20+ year-old music albums. French government agencies sent out over 5 million warnings to alleged pirates. 169 Internet users were referred to the public prosecutor in the first half of 2015, which is 4 times for than in the same period last year Such regimes are used in many countries and are commonly known as “three-strikes”. However, they are promoted as educational in nature, because suspected pirates just receive notifications of breach, which are meant to discourage further infringing behavior. To prevent their IP-addresses from being visible to the rest of the Internet, millions of people have signed up to a VPN service. Using a VPN allows users to use the Internet anonymously and prevent your ISP from tracking your online activity. The best VPN services don’t log any traffic nor session data of any kind. Besides, 100% anonymous VPN should accept payments via anonymous payment methods like Bitcoin. Recently, a part of ExtraTorrent community launched a VPN called by Trust.Zone VPN for safe torrenting. This VPN project cares about safety of ET members and every downloader. Trust.Zone VPN prevents your ISP from sending Copyright Infringement Notices by hiding your real location and your real IP address. What's a VPN? It's a tool that hides your IP address and your identity, it encrypts traffic and has no logging, so, your IP address will never be revealed and you will be 100% anonymous while torrenting. Government or your ISP can't track your activity. With a VPN, you are free to download any files you need without any risk. Trust.Zone has founded by the part of ExtraTorrent community. The tool is free to use first 3 days of usage. If test period ends, unfortunately, the service asks for the money from you but..... our partners tried to make it as CHEAP as possible, you can catch EXCLUSIVE DEAL specially for ExtraTorrent Fans for only $2.99/mo (click here) - it's the cheapest price among all popular VPN providers. Protect yourself with VPN - Save ExtraTorrent!

Cyber criminals have attacked the website of Vietnam Airlines and flight information screens at the biggest airports in the country. They posted notices criticizing the Philippines and Vietnam over the claims of the two countries in the South China Sea. According to local media reports, operators of airports in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City had to halt electronic check-ins after their systems were hacked. Besides, the hackers breached the website of Vietnam Airlines and directed browsers to some other websites overseas. According to the state-run media, the messages posted by the intruders related to the South China Sea and denounced Vietnam and the Philippines, which are at odds with Beijing over maritime sovereignty. The hack was claimed by a group named 1937CN. In the meantime, local reporters explain that the region is virtually on edge, facing diplomatic dilemmas after a recent court ruling, which declared Chinese claims to most of the South China Sea as having no legal grounds. In response, China has called the ruling farcical and refused to recognize it. However, the court ruling was favorable to the plaintiff, Manila, and by extension Hanoi, as it has similar disagreements with China about its island-building and the conduct of its vast coastguard fleet. According to Vietnam’s vice transport minister, the content displayed by the hackers on the flight information screens offended Vietnam and the Philippines. It is also known that the same picture was posted on the Vietnam Airlines website, along with publishing “distorting content” about the situation in the South China Sea.

This week, Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde reiterated his belief that the pirate scene and its sites will need to innovate and collaborate to stay alive. Intrigued, TF spoke with several players in the torrent scene to see if something like this might emerge sometime soon. The upshot: don't hold your breath. Every time a major torrent site goes down, millions of people mourn the loss. Last week, when the owner of KickassTorrents was arrested in Poland, was no exception. Following events like these, several repeat questions come to the forefront. Will the site come back? Will there be a replacement? How can other torrent sites avoid the same fate? While the first two questions mostly originate from users, the latter is perhaps the most important in terms of the torrent scene in general. After all, if people don’t learn from history, how can they stop it repeating itself? And if it does indeed repeat, how much more damage can the scene take? In response to the KAT shutdown, this week Peter Sunde called for action. Speaking on the Steal This Show podcast, the Pirate Bay co-founder said that innovation, decentralization, and cooperation is needed to safeguard the future of piracy. “If one of the big sites goes down a lot of smaller sites are hit as well because they are just a copy of the original database. We need lots of sites that federate all the data instead of having to depend on the higher-ups,” Sunde said. But just how likely is it that Sunde’s dream will come true? To find out, TorrentFreak spoke with some large and long-standing smaller players in the torrent scene. The operator of one major site outlined many perceived weaknesses in the way that sites operate and provided some interesting thoughts on how these issues might be fixed. Interestingly, he doesn’t believe that decentralization is the key, instead preferring a “network-over-network” model for both server operation and downloads. “Decentralization is not the key here. A network-over-network is. Decentralization means no back-updates and [issues with advertising],” he explains. “Instead, imagine a private network running on the normal internet. You connect to a node, which joins you into a VPN-like network. Like TOR, but you don’t actually use the users to push the traffic.” The site operator also went into considerable detail about other aspects, particularly in respect of preserving the security of users with a similar “network-over-network” model. However, overcoming technical issues doesn’t appear to be the main stumbling block. Instead, there’s a problem with cooperation. “You have to understand that torrents are no longer the answer to these type of threats. Sure you can upgrade everything related to torrents to a more secure and better way of usage by promoting to users how they should use you through your new type of network etc, but at some point the protocol should upgrade,” he says. “However, unless there is an agreement from at least three major sites, none of the requirements to push this new system to enough users will be done. There is currently no agreement to do anything between any torrent site.” And it appears that even in the wake of KAT’s demise, there is still no momentum to innovate. “[The major sites] are not interested in building a non-raidable, permanent domain system for users. They are not interested in a new protocol. No one works with anyone. They simply don’t care,” he says. “Only [one major site, redacted] expressed some basic interest, but that’s only if all [other sites] agree. Which will never happen?” In parallel, TF spoke with some site operators further down the chain but anyone hoping for some good news there will be pretty disappointed. While most agreed that doing something innovative would be a positive thing, most expressed a combination of pessimism and apathy. “I find it hard enough to work with my own staff, so working with several other sites will not be possible I’m sure,” one said. “My site is a dictatorship (LOL) so I don’t need others outside telling me what I must do.” Another admin, who operates two sites in the private scene, said that even building trust across sites will be an almost impossible task. “It won’t happen. Why should any sysop trust [other sysops]? Who are they? I don’t know who they are. They don’t know who I am. And do you think that the bigger sites will agree to what smaller sites say? No. They will keep their [dominant] position and keep the best pie for themselves no matter what great system someone can make. I would. Who wouldn’t?” he said. Generally, however, the overall feeling is that while there’s always a threat, things aren’t quite that bad yet. TF asked when people might feel compelled to do something dramatic. The answer seems to be “when people really have to.” That notion is shared by Peter Sunde. He’s repeatedly called for the closure of The Pirate Bay to spark innovation but the closure of KickassTorrents alone (which was a bigger site) failed to have the desired effect. Maybe it will take another really big bombshell to finally provoke people into action but until then it seems unlikely that much will happen. In the meantime, however, most of the people we spoke with were enthusiastic about the potential offered by Zeronet and IPFS. In the absence of any coordinated effort, perhaps the future is already here.

If you want to help the site/community and want to be safe from the purging that will be in a few days this is the moment for YOU. We just opened the donation system and everyone can acquire immunity status to be safe ! Also there are a lot of other goodies available for all those fanatic users and more goodies to come in the near future. Make sure to read and follow every information from the donation page. WE HAVE ZERO TOLERANCE FOR USERS THAT BREAK THE RULES!

welcome to I-H and enjoy your stay ,have fun in SB.

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On 1st of August all User class accounts that are 3 weeks old and do not have at least 10GB data downloaded will be erased.Downloading torrents and keep seeding them for at least 48hours would be a good thing. We are trying to build a strong community. (Sharing is caring)Freeleech torrents do NOT count to download because they are FREE, hence the name. The purge process is automatic.Also make sure to behave and respect the rules if you do not want to get your account disabled/erased and ip or ip class banned.

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In the court case, where a defendant was accused of illegally transmitting and laundering $1,500 worth of Bitcoins to undercover agents who intended to use them to buy stolen credit cards, the lawyers asked to dismiss the charges because the virtual currency is not money. And the judge agreed, saying that Bitcoin has a long way to go before it is equivalent of money. As a result, all three counts against the defendant were dismissed.Of course, this precedent has been a focus of interest for the Bitcoin community. The virtual currency is known for allowing its users to exchange value online and remain anonymous. It must be said that Charles Evans, associate professor of finance and economics at Barry University, was invited as an expert witness by the defense in this case, and testified that Bitcoin is not money. He pointed out that Bitcoin users in the state would now have an easier time sending Bitcoin with fewer regulatory hurdles in result of this court ruling. They won’t be considered money transmitters and are free to purchase Bitcoin for real money.At the same time, a law firm that has written on virtual currency regulations in the United States claimed that the court ruling was counter to the direction federal regulators were headed. However, the Florida case’s ramifications may be limited due to the small jurisdiction of the court.It must be said that the money-laundering charges were also dismissed in the case, but more due to the circumstance of the defendant’s arrest. Undercover detectives bought cryptocurrency from the defendant after telling him they want to use it to purchase stolen credit card numbers, but the judge said it was not laundering.The case in question remains one of very few court decisions on Bitcoin. Industry observers watch regulators grappling with how to address the cryptocurrency as more Americans adopt it. Many financial regulations operate at the state level, and NY has been the most aggressive state in tackling the virtual currency: it has already introduced a BitLicense, which outlines a framework for Bitcoin businesses. In the meantime, FinCEN, the agency within the treasury department that handles crime, makes attempts to curb illegal activity using Bitcoin at the federal level. Finally, the IRS decided to tax Bitcoin as intangible personal property, not currency

The Obama administration believes that Russian hackers successfully infiltrated the data networks of the Democratic National Committee, although they are not sure that the Russian government is responsible for the attack. According to the information from the officials, indications in the code used to execute the data breach pointed to Russian culprits. Cybersecurity firms that have analyzed the hack came to similar conclusions. In general words, the administration believes that the attack, which resulted in thousands of internal DNC emails leaking online ahead of the Democrats’ presidential nominating convention, was Russian in origin. Local media reports cited the FBI, which believes the Russian government to be behind the hack. The Bureau has confirmed that it is investigating the intrusion. In the meantime, cybersecurity firms came to a conclusion that the self-proclaimed source for scores of DNC emails published by WikiLeaks is not a single operator but Russian cybercriminals designated Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear. One of the cybersecurity firms associates Fancy Bear with other Russian hacks, notably one into the German Bundestag and another into French television network TV5 Monde, while Cozy Bear has dug into the state department the joint chiefs and the White House. Some also believe that Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear represented Russian spy agencies, but neither White House nor the FBI confirmed these suspicions. In the meantime, the self-proclaimed source for scores of DNC emails, who had always claimed to be Romanian, appeared to have used a Russian proxy. It had also regularly communicated with journalists in Russian.

Blockade of torrent and streaming services is nothing new in many countries, but it seems that the practice is currently extending to other areas. Russian news site Gazeta (“Gazette”) filed a complaint against a news portal that copied an article to the court, which eventually ordered ISPs to block it.Industry watchers agree that most of such complaints come from traditional copyright owners like movie studios, TV show makers and recording labels. However, Russia has just seen a new threat. Gazeta is one of the most popular online news resources in the country and the 68th most-visited site overall, accounting for 11m monthly readers. Like many others, the platform experiences a problem with people republishing its content without permission.For example, the portal published an article about tourism in Azerbaijan this past spring. Other commercial outfits were also attracted to the popular content, and one of them reproduced the Gazeta article in full, without its consent. Although this is far from a rare event in the industry where many outlets find their articles being reproduced without permission within seconds of publication, Gazeta decided to fight back and filed a case at the Moscow City Court.Rambler, which owns Gazeta, demanded action against the news site for the unauthorized reproduction of its piece of copyright work. Its lawyers argued that since the operators of the site hide their identities (WHOIS is anonymous), the online portal should be blocked. The court agreed and ordered Russian ISPs to block the news site, which now needs to respond to the complaint but currently remains offline.

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