Posts by Prophet

A few weeks ago the RIAA obtained a preliminary injunction requiring Cloudflare to terminate services to all domains that use "Grooveshark" in their name. As a result, the popular CDN service was forced to disconnect "groovesharkcensorship.cf," a site specifically set up to protest overbroad censorship. However, the trouble wasn't all for nothing.

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Last May, Grooveshark shut down after settling with the RIAA. However, within days a new site was launched aiming to take its place.

The RIAA wasn’t happy with this development and quickly obtained an injunction, preventing various Internet service providers from offering their services to the site.

Through the lawsuit the companies hope to prevent further copyright infringements, but there is more at stake. Much more.

The case is also the first major test of how receptive the courts are to the notion of injunctions against hosting companies, domain name services, ISPs and search engines.

Fearing that these attempts may become commonplace several tech companies protested the injunction, including CloudFlare. The court order requires the CDN-service to ban all domain names that use the term “Grooveshark,” which the company believes is too broad.

This week CloudFlare informed the court that the order limits free-speech, impacting legitimate customers who use it for perfectly legitimate websites.

“CloudFlare has already been compelled by the injunction to deny service to at least one website that is plainly non-infringing, and to others that are arguably non-infringing and have no discernible connection with the Defendants in this case,” they write (pdf).

“This harm to CloudFlare’s business and potentially to customer’s businesses, and to the free speech rights of its customers, will continue without a modification of the Preliminary Injunction.”

As an example, CloudFlare says it had to terminate the account of “groovesharkcensorship.cf,” a site which protested the broad injunction as the screenshot below shows.

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According to CloudFlare many other legitimate sites may be at risk of being censored if the broad injunction is upheld.

Despite these protests, the record labels maintain the position that the measures are “entirely appropriate.” They argue that it’s up to CloudFlare to determine whether a domain name is infringing, and consult the record labels if there’s any doubt.

For its part, CloudFlare wants the court to modify the injunction so that they only have to target domain names which the record labels point out to them, instead of banning the word Grooveshark altogether.

Shortly before publishing this article the court ruled (pdf) on the dispute, largely in favor of CloudFlare.

In a ruling issued a few hours ago District Court Judge Alison Nathan clarifies that CloudFlare is no longer required to ban all Grooveshark-related domains. Instead, the record labels must alert the company to possibly infringing sites.

However, Judge Nathan adds that if CloudFlare has knowledge of an infringing domain name it is required to take action on its own.

So, in the end it appears that the censored anti-censorship site has served its purpose. At the time of writing it still remains offline, but this may change during the coming hours.

Already posted here http://linuxsat-support.com/showthread.php?t=87061&p=281635#post281635

Closed

It is believed that some gangsters are raking in up to £250,000 a month as part of the scam as Police begin raids.

POLICE raided homes and businesses across Scotland yesterday 
to target gangsters selling dodgy TV subscriptions.

The trade in cloned Sky and Virgin Media viewing cards is worth millions to the crooks. One kingpin is believed to be raking in £250,000 a MONTH.

And while some may see it as a victimless crime, Police Scotland insist it’s nothing of the sort.

They say the crooks take millions from the pockets of legitimate 
businesses, harming 
their ability to make the programmes we enjoy.

And they warn that 
cash made from “card-sharing” scams can be used to fund other crimes.

Police struck a blow against the crooks early yesterday morning by raiding 12 addresses in Glasgow, Motherwell, Hamilton and Airdrie.

More swoops were staged in Dundee and Livingston.

The target addresses were found on a computer seized from a suspect in the west of Scotland last year. Police also found £40,000 in cash at the man’s home and £70,000 in his bank account.

Detective Inspector Graeme Everest, of the Organised Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit West, briefed the raid team in the gym at 
Motherwell police station before they set out.

He told them: “We’re looking for anything 
to do with Sky, Virgin Media, computers and, obviously, cash.”

A flat in Motherwell was first to be hit, just after 7.30am, where a sleepy woman let the officers in.

The next target was the Rutherglen home of a man who runs a satellite and aerials business.

He showed police an outhouse at the property while other officers searched his home. A laptop was seized.

The team then searched the suspect’s business base on the south side of Glasgow, which advertises “European and Eastern Language Channels”.

Nine other addresses were hit, and Mr Everest was happy with his 
day’s work.

He said: “We’ve managed to disrupt a significant crime group.

“We’ve seized a large amount of computer 
hardware and technology which will be analysed.”

Mr Everest admitted: “It is a type of crime most people would regard as victimless.”

But he added: “Make no mistake, the amount of money being lost by broadcasters is on a large scale.

“These people could offer a £900 subscription to one of the major 
broadcasters for £100.

“It’s obviously very tempting for people to take the bargain but they must be aware their money is going towards a fraudulent scheme and they may well have a visit from police.

“The money might well be used to fund other crime, so people need to be aware of that.”

The raids followed a year-long investigation into card sharing, run in partnership with FACT, Sky and Virgin.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/n…-businesses-swoop-6045876

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the noose is tightening

Starting today Google Chrome is blocking direct access to several large torrent sites including KickassTorrents, Torrentz, ExtraTorent and RARBG. According to Google the sites contain "harmful programs" but the site owners are clueless as to what they've done wrong.

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There’s a slight panic breaking out among Google Chrome users. Over the past few hours the browser has started to block access to several of the most popular torrent sites including KickassTorrents, Torrentz, ExtraTorrent and RARBG.

Instead of a page filled with the latest torrents, visitors are presented with an ominous red warning banner.

“The site ahead contains harmful programs,” Google Chrome informs its users.

“Attackers on kat.cr might attempt to trick you into installing programs that harm your browsing experience (for example, by changing your homepage or showing extra ads on sites you visit),” the warning adds.

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Google doesn’t specify what the issue is with the sites in question. Although the “Safe Browsing” diagnostics pages list the sites as “suspicious” there are no instances of malware listed, except for ExtraTorrent.

The owners of the sites in question are clueless about the source of the problem. RARBG’s operator informs TF that there is no additional information available in Google’s Webmaster tools either.

“I hope Google comes to its senses and actually allows webmasters to see what the issue is in their webmasters tools,” RARBG’s operator informs us.

ExtraTorrent is not aware of any issues either and notes that the malware Google reportedly found are false positives.

“There is no malicious software and you are still able to load ExtraTorrent in Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Chromium and other browsers,” the ExtraTorrent team says.

“We’ll contact Google to resolve the issue shortly,” they add.

Interestingly, several proxy sites, such as torrentz-proxy.com, still work fine and don’t show the warning screen in Google Chrome.

Since Google doesn’t mention “malicious software” as the reason for the warning, it was most likely triggered by the “unsafe” ads many torrent sites run. These are typically linked to toolbar software which can hijack a browser homepage or change the default search engine.

We reached out to Google to find out more about the sudden torrent site blocks, but we have yet to receive a response.

Chrome users who want to bypass the warning can do so by clicking the details link, or disable Chrome’s malware warnings altogether.

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The BBC and ITV will share the rights to broadcast rugby union's Six Nations Championship for the next six years.
Wales, Scotland and France home matches will be on the BBC, while ITV will show England, Ireland and Italy home games.

BBC director of sport Barbara Slater said: "It's great news for fans of the Six Nations that the championship will be staying on free-to-air television."
Niall Sloane, director of sport at ITV, which is broadcasting the Rugby World Cup in September and October, said: "We're delighted to be strengthening our ties with the game."

Games shown live on the BBC will be available online and via the BBC Sport app. When matches are on ITV, highlights will be available via the BBC Sport website shortly after full-time.

The 2015 tournament on the BBC saw audiences rise to their highest level since 2003. A peak of 9.6 million tuned in on the final day to watch a thrilling climax as England thrashed France, but narrowly lost out on the championship title to Ireland.
More than 24 million tuned in to the Six Nations this year.

The BBC has had exclusive rights since 2003, and the previous deal was due to run until 2017.
"It's a very special competition and our viewing figures from this year prove just how popular it is with audiences," added Slater.
"We very much look forward to starting our new partnership with ITV and continuing our strong relationship with RBS Six Nations."
There are 15 games in each year of the Six Nations and the BBC will have eight and ITV seven in 2016, while that tally will be reversed the following year.

If the 2016 fixtures remain as scheduled then the BBC will screen both matches on the opening day, with France v Italy followed by Scotland v England set for Saturday, 6 February.

ITV would host Ireland v Wales on Sunday, 7 February, while the BBC would screen the tournament's final game, France v England, a 20:00 GMT kick-off, on Saturday, 19 March.

Last week the operator's of Portugal's largest pirate site announced they were throwing in the towel after their site became too big to manage. Just days later there's a slightly different narrative emerging, one that blames a U.S.-based copyright group and a cross-continent operation for shutting down one of the country's most-visited sites.

Late last week file-sharing fans in Portugal received the worst possible news. WarezTuga, the country’s most popular ‘pirate’ movie and TV show site, announced it was closing down with immediate effect.

“It is an extremely difficult decision for all of us, more than most can even imagine, but our work reached heights of popularity so high, it became absolutely impossible to continue to fight and to manage a project of such scale,” its operators announced.

While less well-known overseas, WarezTuga was a significant operation. In February it was one of the top 20 most popular sites in all of Portugal, jostling for position with giants including Twitter and Yahoo. Even today, with traffic plummeting due to the shutdown, WarezTuga is still the country’s 25th most trafficked domain. But that success didn’t come easily.

“Four years of struggle, sweat, dedication and sacrifice have now come to an end, but also years of pleasure, satisfaction and pride for what we have achieved together. We leave with a clear conscience, because we have achieved what we always dreamed about: to be an example, a reference, a statue of what can be achieved when the will power is infinite,” its operators said.

“In the end, we are proud to say that today we close wareztuga.tv willingly and we were those who resisted longer, despite all the external pressures.”

Now, however, more details are emerging which make it clear that while the shutdown might ultimately have been voluntary, the site had been under massive pressure from the movie industry both locally and in the United States.

Local anti-piracy group FEVIP (Portuguese Association of Audiovisual Works Defense) has now revealed it was behind the shutdown. Complaints were filed against WarezTuga in May 2014 by FEVIP and now-defunct anti-piracy outfit ACAPOR who were acting on behalf of companies in the United States.

However, there was a problem to overcome. As is becoming increasingly common with similar sites, WarezTuga used U.S.-based Cloudflare, a service which can shield the true location of a site’s servers. But as other sites are discovering, that protection is easily unlocked by filing a complaint with the CDN service.

With the site’s location known, FEVIP headed off to Romania where WarezTuga operated its servers. There a webhost known as Alistar-Security received threats from “representatives of a U.S. copyright group”. Unconfirmed, but almost certainly the MPAA and its affiliates.

What happened next is unclear but whatever it was seems to have seriously spooked the operators of WarezTuga. After operating under pressure since 2011, the operators took the decision to close down the site. FEVIP welcomed the move.

“It was the pirate site most used in Portugal; even if others arise, at least this site has been taken down,” FEVIP chief Paulo Santos told Sapo.pt.

The shutdown of the site was bitter-sweet for Nuno Pereira, the former head of now-defunct anti-piracy group ACAPOR. The copyright group became one of WarezTuga’s most aggressive opponents but was shut down after the interests they represented – video rental outlets – became a thing of the past.

“It was the most important pirate site and the one we wanted to close down quickly, but it turned out it took more time to close,” Pereira said.

But while video rentals disappear into the Portuguese sunset, a new dawn of video consumption is appearing on the country’s horizon. After a long wait, Netflix will finally land on local shores in October and not a minute too soon for FEVIP’s Santos.

“Of course it would be desirable that the service had come much earlier, before everyone who uses the Internet modernly have sought alternatives. But it is likely to be a success, something seen immediately by the amount of attention that the Portugal arrival announcement has generated,” Santos says.

But even as Netflix tries to take hold in a market free of WarezTuga, Santos says that the pirate vacuum might be filled sooner rather than later.

“Generally, for every hundred sites that close, there are 60 returning. These are averages that we know in the industry,” the FEVIP chief concludes.

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Sky has upped the standard price of its unlimited ADSL broadband product from £7.50 to £10/month.

The Sky Broadband Unlimited service promises top download speeds of 17Mbps, unlimited downloads and no traffic shaping. A Sky Hub wireless router is also thrown in for free, despite a £6.95 charge for postage.

Line rental is currently charged at £16.40/month and all Sky Broadband Unlimited contracts are 12 months long.

The price change only affects new customers. If you'd signed up for Sky Unlimited Broadband a couple of days ago you'll be paying the old price until your contract ends. Standard prices for the superfast Sky Fibre and Sky Fibre Unlimited packages remain at £10 and £20/month respectively, plus line rental.

To soften the blow, Sky is currently flogging its unlimited ADSL product to new customers for £5/month for the first 12 months - so you’d essentially be paying £21.40/month if you signed up for this today.

There’s also a broadband and TV bundle going too, which will see you get the Family Bundle and Sky Broadband Unlimited for £30/month for a year plus £16.40/month for line rental.

Normally, the Family Bundle (£36/month) plus Unlimited Broadband would set you back £46/month plus line rental, so this represents an overall saving of £192.

The Family Bundle gives you access to over 300 boxsets, 50 HD channels and access to Sky 3D content, which is now an on-demand only service.

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This September, 4K TV owners will be able to watch into pearl.tv, which is set to be Europe’s first free to air 4K Ultra HD TV channel.

The channel, essentially Germany’s equivalent of QVC, will be available to stream on 4K TVs in the UK and everywhere else and on satellite in Germany.

While it doesn’t really give 4K TV owners over here much to get excited about, it is something of a milestone in broadcasting history - which means it'll help pave the way for the delivery of more exciting content.

SES Platform Services will handle both the satellite channel and the online stream. Sophie Lersch, chief product officer for services at SES said: “UHD places specific demands on workflows in the content management, playout and encoding sectors, an area in which we’ve gained a lot of know-how over the past few years.

“As a result, we can now offer all services that broadcasters and content providers need in order to market and distribute their content in UHD – linear or on-demand, and via satellite or the internet.”

SES operate the Astra 28.2°E group of satellites which handle transmissions for Sky and Freesat here in the UK. The pearl.tv channel will be broadcast from the Astra 19.2°E group, which handles the German HD+ free-to-air service.

As well as reviews of products in German, British 4K telly owners will from August onwards be able to sign up for BT Sport Ultra HD, which promises to broadcast a selection of Premier League and Champions League games in 4K.

Pricing details for BT’s new sports service aren’t yet available but it’s understood that you’ll need to be able to order a BT Infinity FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) service. While superfast broadband is available to roughly three quarters of the population, Infinity won’t be available everywhere.

It is expected, given that bandwidth for 4K Ultra HD streams generally require at least 20-25Mbps, you’d need to order the faster Infinity 2 service, which promises up to 76Mbps, instead of the slower up to 38Mbps Infinity 1 package.

Because the top download speed you'll get from an Infinity service is ultimately dictated by the distance between your house and the cabinet, it's likley that you'll be required to take the higher bandwidth Infinity 2 package.

BT will launch BT Sport Ultra HD on August 2, kicking off with live coverage of the Community Shield Chelsea vs Arsenal game at Wembley.

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Sky Box Sets and downloaded content will start to include subtitles, with most titles featuring them by summer next year.

The move to bring subtitles to on-demand content follows Sky subscribers downloading more catch-up content from the Sky On Demand library

While Sky subtitles the majority of content available on its linear channels and Top Picks content delivered over the satellite signal, it’s not been able to match that level of service with on-demand content.

Sky’s director of product design and development Ian Rosarius cites technical challenges which have prevented Sky from doing this, but is confident that by summer 2016, every Sky customer will be able to get subtitles on the majority of on-demand content.

Rosarius said: "We understand that the way in which people watch TV is changing, and that the vast majority of on demand content is now downloaded over the internet.

"While there are significant technical challenges to overcome when subtitling on that platform, my team, and others right across the business are determined to address this."

As well as working on delivering this, Sky has also launched a separate accessibility hub designed to help customers enable things like subtitles and audio description on the Sky+HD box. An October 2014 update to the Sky+ iOS and Android apps let customers set and manage recordings with voice controls.

The RNIB has working on a new audio description app that promises to work with a number of on-demand services including Sky Go and Now TV. Trials of this ended in May, but there’s no ETA for this service right now.

Source : https://recombu.com/digital/ar…ox-sets-on-demand-content

24.5 West - 11609 - H - 7120 - HD

Channel ID : Ashes Series 2015

Quote from Honcho

so theres a new season starting then ? never knew this tbh , same stars and series 10 or back to 1 again with new actors ?

Hey Honcho, nice to see someone else interested in this

Fox have decided to do another season, same stars will be in the show, sad part is it will not air until January next year, below is a copy and paste from an entertainment site with a lot more details

For nine seasons, The X-Files thrilled TV viewers with its monster-of-the-week cases and mythology-driven storylines. Mulder and Scully became household names as they investigated everything from aliens and mutants to government conspiracies. And now, 22 years later, the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning series is coming back to the small screen.

Not much is known yet about the show’s upcoming revival on FOX. Filming began June 8th in Vancouver, where David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reunited with creator Chris Carter and writers Glen Morgan, James Wong and Darin Morgan for six new episodes. Mitch Pileggi (as Assistant Director Walter Skinner) and William B. Davis (as The Smoking Man) are also set to appear on the series, along with new guest stars Joel McHale (Community), Annet Mahendru (The Americans) and more. But the biggest question that remains is – will the The X-Files be able to pick up where it left off?

Seven years have passed since the last time Mulder and Scully were together onscreen in 2008’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe, so their lives may be very different now. New set images recently teased that while Scully is still hard at work and looking very professional, Mulder seems to be laying low and looking quite scruffy. But could the two partners have changed that much in the last decade?

Anderson recently spoke to TVLine about the revival, and she explained that the time away has definitely taken its toll on both her playing Scully and the character itself:

“It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve played her. I can’t remember what year the movie was, but it felt like [Scully] was further away from me than I’d thought she would be. But I’ve also worked really hard at putting her entirely to sleep, so that was successful; she’s just taken longer to wake up.”

Stepping back into Scully’s heeled shoes has apparently been hard enough, but Anderson also admits that its been difficult getting back into the swing of things on set:

It’s strange to be back here. This is a lot of flashbacks, a lot of deja vu, a lot of remembering dynamics — and it’s… a thicker substance to wade through than I’d thought.”

As for Agent Scully herself, Anderson isn’t quite sure how to explain the ways in which her iconic character has changed since the last movie without spoiling the new season:

“She’s older! She aged! Anything I say is going to sound like something you’re not going to want to watch. But that’s not the case. It’s just… I don’t even know. That’s a hard one. I appreciate the question, but I can’t answer it.”

One thing Anderson can tease, however, is the series’ first episode back. She confirms that she’s already read the first two scripts of season 10, and that the third one is waiting in her inbox. When asked to describe the premiere in just three words, Anderson says:

“Slow… Intense… And it’s setting groundwork, so it’s got a particular role to play. It does exactly what it needs to do. What’s a single word for fulfilling that requirement? Functional? Appropriate? Functional works. Slow, intense and functional!”

Sounds exactly like The X-Files of old. While it will no doubt be difficult for everyone, actors, writers and viewers alike, to return to Mulder and Scully’s world, given enough time it’ll be like we never left. For as much as some things change, others stay the same. Regardless of whether the revival meets expectations, many fans will still be glad they were able to take another trip with their favorite FBI agents.

But what do you think, Screen Rant readers? Are you still excited for The X-Files revival? What do you think of these new details? Let us know in the comments.

The X-Files revival premieres January 24th, 2016 on FOX.

Seeing as both parties are happy, this thread is closed and moved to Closed and expired trading

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High resolution premium video, including 4K and UHD content, is a fast-growing market and therefore content protection services must follow suit with adaptability and preparedness for the expanding space, according to ABI Research. “UHD TV penetration is expected to reach 61 per cent in North America by 2020, which is higher than expected,” says Eric Abbruzzese, Research Analyst at the firm. “Along with TVs, browser and application based streaming services will continue to roll out 4K content at a quickening rate, creating an expanding marketplace filled with premium content from studios that demand strong content protection.”

Guidelines for proper 4K content protection rely on deep hardware-level integration of security measures in combination with software security, creating an end-to-end secure system from publishing to consumption. This involves dedicated space on a SoC; Hardware Root of Trust and Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) will mean stronger security, but also reliance on new hardware. Legacy hardware, including STBs, Smart TVs, desktops, and mobile devices, could face difficulties with being supported in 4K-compliant security setups. On top of hardware security, technologies like forensic watermarking will be implemented for copyright and source identification.

The overall video market’s continuing focus on multiscreen means there are many more factors to consider for security than in years past. Not only more devices in general, but also many more device types need to be considered and supported in the security system, and the importance of end-to-end security adds another layer of difficulty. Thanks to the large number of parties involved—including chipset vendors, content studios, CE manufacturers, etc.—deploying an acceptable content protection scheme can be much more challenging. Video delivery companies have had to address this growth across their platforms with modular offerings to support multiple use case types; with 4K content looming, modularity in content protection is equally important.

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Vodafone and Orange, Telefónica’s main multi-play rivals, have taken the acquisition by Telefónica of Canal Plus to Spain’s National Court (Audiencia Nacional), demanding tougher limits on the operation to guarantee free competition in the TV content market.

Vodafone and Orange claim that they should be entitled to have access to 75 per cent of premium content and channels offered by Telefónica at reasonable prices instead of 50 per cent as approved the competition authority.

They are also demanding a different prices system to have access to sports content at better conditions to guarantee free competition.

They have also questioned the three years limit on the duration of contracts signed by Telefónica with content providers and the exclusivity for two years of exclusive content.

The appeal comes at a time when Telefónica is launching its revamped pay-TV service Movistar Plus (following the integration of Movistar TV and Canal Plus) from €20 a month, with 80 TV channels in the basic package , a catalogue of 5,000 titles (cinema, series, documentaries, children programmes) for its 3.6 million subscribers.

The service will include a new Canal Plus, with thematic channels dedicated to sports (€20), series (€5) and cinema (€9) and the OTT service Yomvi. The new offer will be available with no additional cost to all Canal Plus and Movistar clients subscribed to Fusion T para Todos.

With the relaunch of the service, Telefónica aims “to offer the best content in the Spanish television and develop the market in our country, betting at the same time on different access platforms like IPTV and OTT which will enable to watch TV through any device”.

A group of prominent legal experts, including the Cato Institute, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Institute for Justice have come out in support of Megaupload and Kim Dotcom. The groups urge the appeals court to undo the forfeiture of millions of dollars in assets, which they describe as a dangerous violation of due process rights.

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Earlier this year the U.S. Government won its civil forfeiture case against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom.

As a result, the U.S. now owns Kim Dotcom’s bank accounts, cars, art and other property worth dozens of millions of dollars.

Last week Megaupload’s legal team filed its appeal brief, hoping to undo the District Court’s decision, pointing out that the court denied the defendants’ basic rights and violated due process

According to the defense team the court was wrong to label Dotcom and his colleagues as fugitives, a claim which is now supported by several legal experts.

A few hours ago the Cato Institute, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Institute for Justice submitted an independent brief in support of Megaupload.

“… the federal government’s aggressive use of forfeiture poses a grave threat to property rights and can cause irreparable injury when property is forfeited without any hearing,” the groups write (pdf).

The legal experts sum up a variety of reasons why the Megaupload defendants should not be branded fugitives and note that the District Court’s decision is dangerous and unconstitutional.

“Stripping the claimants of their due process rights isn’t just unconstitutional, it’s dangerous. There’s a growing literature on the abuse of civil forfeiture and those abuses are directly tied to the protections given to the claimants here, as well as the ability of government officials to directly benefit from forfeitures,” they write.

Continuing their brief, the legal experts suggest the Department of Justice was not happy with how the case was proceeding, and that they went after the assets to turn the case in their favor.

“Not content to hold the best hand in this card game a U.S. Attorney’s office with extensive resources and privileges the government has decided that the other side should be forced to relinquish its chips before the game even begins.”

“This Court should not countenance such a gross violation of due process,” they add, asking the court to overturn the District Court decision.

Kim Dotcom is glad to see the support of the legal experts and is confident that his team will win the appeal.

“I’m grateful for the support from these respected organizations. It is good to see that there are groups of legal experts in the United States that hold the Government to account and combat the abuse of power and prosecutorial overreach,” Dotcom tells TF.

Personally cannot wait for this, i loved the old seasons and this has got me excited for the reboot

Have your 25 'clients' experienced any other strange behaviour?

Hacking Team spyware company hacked, embarrassing emails revealed

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Hacking Team, a company that helps police hack citizens, has been hacked itself. In a series of tweets from the company’s compromised Twitter account, the unknown hackers appear to have revealed embarrassing internal emails and a torrent with 400GB of internal files, source code, and communications. One particular tweet appears to show an email from Hacking Team CEO David Vincenzetti, mocking a competitor for being "severely hacked." No hacking groups have claimed responsibility for the breach yet.

Hacking Team has more than 40 employees and sells commercial hacking software to law enforcement in several dozen countries, including Morocco, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. A recent report from Motherboard revealed that the Hacking Team also supplies spyware tools to the Drug Enforcement Agency to implant software in a suspect’s phone and record texts, emails, passwords, and monitor conversations.

Hacking Team is infamous in security circles for injecting targeted malware into YouTube and Microsoft’s Live services. Formed by two Italian programmers, the pair originally created a program called Ettercap that quickly became the weapon of choice for hackers wanting to spy on people. The success of Ettercap led to Hacking Team, and now attention from rival hackers who have renamed the company’s Twitter account to "Hacked Team."

The operator of a forum which linked to Hollywood movies, TV shows, music and software has been hit with a massive claim for damages. After previously being sentenced to one year in jail, the 26-year-old must now pay Hollywood at least $12.8m plus a further $4.4m to a pair of music groups and software giant Microsoft.

In an October 2014 submission to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), the RIAA bemoaned the existence of several leading ‘pirate’ sites.

All the big named sites were present, including the notorious Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, but also mentioned was Wawa-Mania, a million member strong ‘warez’ forum specializing in a broad range of ‘pirate’ content.

Founded in 2006 by Dimitri Mader, Wawa-Mania became an extremely popular site and in 2009 the Frenchman was detained by the authorities after the Association Against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA) identified more than 3,600 films being made available via the site without permission.

The case rolled on and in April this year Mader was sentenced to a year in jail and was fined 20,000 euros for his role on the site. He wasn’t present at the hearing – the 26-year-old remained at home in the Philippines with his family.

Having established the Frenchman’s guilt, the courts were left to decide how much Mader should pay in damages to plaintiffs including Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount, Tristar, Universal, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros.

Following deliberations July 2, 2015, TorrentFreak has now obtained a copy of the ruling and for Mader it will make particularly tough reading.

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In varying amounts, each video rightsholder claimed damages per infringing copy, in some cases 5 euros per unit and up to 15 euros per unit in others. In respect of music, claims varied between a few cents per track up to a couple of euros per album/unit. For software, Microsoft claimed a flat sum of one million euros.

Noting that the technological environment made it “particularly difficult” to assess precise damages, the court still held that Wawa-Mania enabled “millions of acts” of infringement. In the end the final awards aren’t quite the $30m in damages that were predicted earlier but it’s nevertheless a punishing schedule.

€ 2,725,260 for Twentieth Century Fox Film ($3,015,813)
€ 1,998,849 for Disney Enterprises ($2,211,956)
€ 1,838,401 for Columbia Pictures ($2,034,402)
€ 1,796,027 for Universal City Studios ($1,987,510)
€ 1,618,388 for Paramount Pictures ($1,790,932)
€ 1,224,348 for Warner Bros. ($1,354,881)
€ 434,699 for Tristar Pictures ($481,044)
€ 2,691,670 for SACEM ($2,978,642)
€ 527,675 for SCPP ($583,933)
€ 684,067 for Microsoft ($756,998)
€ 67,395 for Marc Dorcel ($74,580)

“Counterfeiters maintain that they act in the interests of dissemination of culture, while the analysis of lists of works in the record shows, obviously, a very piecemeal approach to musical culture or global film,” the ruling reads.

“But the imbalances created by downloading this type of work affect not only this but even more generally on all the works including those whose success is not immediate or massive. It is therefore appropriate to recognize significant financial damages and allocate damages accordingly within the limits of the requests by different civil parties.”

TorrenFreak has contacted Dimitri Mader and will update this article with his comments in due course. For now, Wawa-Mania remains operational.

26 of the 380 live matches of the forthcoming English Premier League season will be shown free-to-air in Thailand, following a deal between Bangkok Media & Broadcasting and local rights-holder CTH.

The media group's digital high-definition channel, PPTV, will air the football matches in a bid to acquire a greater audience base, its president told The Nation newspaper, without disclosing how much the deal had cost.

Last year, Channel 3's operator, Bangkok Entertainment, reportedly paid about THB200 million (US$5.908 million) for the right to telecast 26 live Premier League matches.

Kematat Paladesh, president of PPTV, said advertisers had already been block-booked for the Premier League 2015-2016 slots on PPTV.

The channel has also acquired the broadcasting rights of Germany's Bundesliga football league for the next two seasons, as well as the 2015 UEFA Under-21 Championship and the International Champions Cup.

In addition, it is reportedly investing in new drama series, with a slate of ten prime time Thai offerings as well as top-rated Korean and Chinese dramas for the remainder of 2015 and next year.

PPTV is currently ranked 13th of the 27 free TV channels in Thailand, according to researcher Nielsen.

Source : http://www.rapidtvnews.com/201…r-free.html#axzz3f6Q1mQN6