Demonoid has been shut down by authorities

[Guest Evilblade]

The nightmare week for Demonoid has just reached a huge crescendo, with news coming out of Ukraine that following a massive DDoS attack the site has now been busted by local authorities. Those looking for a U.S. connection to the raid won’t be disappointed – a source in the country’s Interior Ministry says that the action was scheduled to coincide with Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky’s trip to the United States.

Last week thousands of Demonoid users feared the worst when their beloved site disappeared from the Internet. Many thought that the site had been busted, but were eventually relieved to hear that it was ‘only’ a massive DDoS attack.

But today the roller-coaster ride plummeted to new depths, with confirmation coming out of Ukraine that the DDoS was just the beginning – the site has been busted by the authorities.

ColoCall is the largest datacenter in Ukraine and a place that has been Demonoid’s home in recent years. But in the middle of last week, in the wake of the DDoS attack, government investigators arrived at ColoCall to shut Demonoid down.

“Investigators have copied all the information from the servers Demonoid and sealed them,” an anonymous ColoCall source confirmed. “Some equipment was not seized, but now it does not work, and we were forced to terminate the agreement with the site.”

As reported on TorrentFreak following our discussions with Demonoid’s admin last week, there were suspicions that the site may have been subjected to some kind of exploit or hack in addition to the DDoS. That version of events is now confirmed by the ColoCall source.

“Shortly after [the DDoS] a hacker break-in occurred, and a few days later came the investigators,” the source added.

But aside from the busting of the site, which is the biggest BitTorrent-related raid in recent memory and one that has taken out the world’s largest torrent site/tracker combo, there is a rather large international sting in the tail.

Despite general opinion that Demonoid did not contravene Ukranian law, especially since it blocked all Ukranian IP addresses to avoid upsetting the locals, the site still attracted the attention of the authorities there. That, according to a source in the country’s government, is all down to the United States getting involved.

A source inside the Interior Ministry has informed Kommersant that the raid on Demonoid was timed to coincide with the very first trip of Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky‘s trip to the United States. On the agenda: copyright infringement.

Ukraine had promised the United States that it would improve its attitude and efforts towards enforcing copyright and no doubt its Western partner will be very pleased indeed that Demonoid’s head has been presented on a platter.

But while Demonoid’s servers are in custody, the site’s admin does not appear to be. The ColoCall source would not say who is behind the site, only that its management is located in Mexico. The devil may yet be back….

TorrentFreak contacted the Demonoid admin for a comment but we have yet to hear back

[Guest Suz]

it totally made my day go bad when i found that out ~it sucks!!!!

[reece71079]

Demonoid is shit anyway, its about time peoples moved on! Go somewhere better please its not the end of the world!

[Guest POLARBEAR]

Hope it come's back. it was down a few years ago and returned. demonoid was great to find random stuff.

[Guest pokeh]

Damn >_>

[Guest l3373R]

I had a 10TB+ account there... It was a good tracker, anyway. But there are many trackers much better than it.

[Guest Imperiator]

I see that the US couldnt stop Demonoid legally with SOPA, and the like, so they have to take them down using underhanded means.

[Guest TheRock]

Sad to see such an awsome website go.

[Guest manda06]

does anyone know if its gone for good?

i think i will cry if it is!

[Guest MnM010]

Really miss demonoid, used to download comics daily from it.. :(

[Guest PedroT]

Demonoid aint that good...as said already, it's pretty lame actually. Most users never used other tracker...I must see this as a good thing...potential users will be allocated in other trackers more worthy. :)