Month: February 2016

PayPal Starts Banning VPN and SmartDNS Services

paypaldeniedPayPal is widely known for their aggressive stance towards BitTorrent sites, Usenet providers and file-hosting services, but VPN, proxy and SmartDNS providers might now suffer the same fate too.

This week PayPal stopped accepting payments for a company that provides VPN and SmartDNS tools, stating that these may facilitate copyright infringement.

So-called “unblocker” tools can be used to bypass geo-filtering blockades which Netflix and other video platforms have in place.

According to the message PayPal sent to UnoTelly and possibly others, these services are against the company’s policies because they help users to bypass copyright restrictions.

“Under the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy, or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction,” PayPal’s email reads.

“This includes transactions for any device or technological measure that descrambles a scrambled work, decrypts an encrypted work or otherwise avoids, bypasses, removes, deactivates or impairs a technological measure without the authority of the copyright owner.”

PayPal informs the affected business(es) that their accounts have been permanently limited and that this decision can’t be appealed. This means that they have to switch to other payment processing providers.

UnoTelly informs TorrentFreak that the decision came as a shock, without any type of prior notice. The company is disappointed and sees the move as a direct attack on open and unrestricted Internet access.

“We are disappointed at PayPal’s unilateral action and the way it acted without prior warning. We provide both DNS resolution and secure VPN services. Our services are network relays that connect people around the world,” UnoTelly’s Nicholas Lin says.

Under PayPal’s policy every VPN and SmartDNS service is at risk of losing its PayPal account. However, it seems likely that the company will mainly take action against companies that market themselves as an “unblocker” service.

UnoTelly, for example, specifically mentions its ability to bypass geo-blocks imposed by streaming sites such as Netflix and Hulu.

PayPal’s actions are not an isolated incident. They come a few weeks after Netflix started to increase its crackdown on VPN services and other unblockers, as requested by copyright holders. It would be no surprise if copyright holders are also behind PayPal’s recent move.

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PayPal’s email:

paypal.email-vpndns

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


Source: TorrentFreak

MPAA Takes Over Popcorn Time Domain

popcorntLate last year the main Popcorn Time fork, operating from the PopcornTime.io domain name, shut down its website unexpectedly.

The MPAA took credit for the fall announcing that it had filed a lawsuit against several of the developers in Canada. In response to these legal threats several key developers backed out.

Since the initial announcement there haven’t been any official updates on the case. TorrentFreak learned, however, that several of the accused developers have been negotiating a deal to settle the dispute out of court.

This week came the first public signs that the case is indeed moving towards a resolution. On Tuesday the PopcornTime.io domain changed ownership from Popcorn Time developer and defendant David Lemarier, to the MPAA.

This means that Hollywood is now officially in control of what was once the most popular Popcorn Time domain.

Whois Popcorntime.io

popio

TorrentFreak reached out to the MPAA and Lemarier for more details several days ago, but both have yet to reply. The other defendants we contacted preferred not to comment on the case.

From the information we were able to gather in recent weeks it appears that the movie studios prefer a settlement over a full court battle. Perhaps to save costs, perhaps to avoid attracting more attention to the Popcorn Time phenomenon.

This would be similar to how they approached their case against YIFY/TYS, which was arguable the most prominent piracy group of the past half decade. However, instead of taking the operator to court the movie studios quickly arranged an out of court settlement.

With the PopcornTime.io domain now in the hands of the MPAA it is safe to conclude that this fork is not coming back.

Previously the software’s developers maintained that they were not involved in any infringing activity. Theoretically, some of the accused may still choose to put up a fight but considering the recent developments this has become less likely.

Meanwhile, several other Popcorn Time forks continue to operate, launching new features and services as if nothing ever changed.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

Google Targets Fake ‘Download’ and ‘Play’ Buttons

fake-buttonsThe aim on most file-sharing and streaming sites is for users to either download or play content, whether that’s the former to their hard drive or the latter in a YouTube-style window.

It should be straightforward but all too often users are presented with an array of buttons, all of which claim to either ‘download’ or ‘play’ when in reality only one actually does anything useful. In conjunction with suspect advertisers, it appears that some site operators are happy to send users down a rabbit hole of frustration.

Users pressing the wrong buttons (and there are millions of them) often end up on dodgy sites pushing unwanted software or offering get rich quick schemes, subscription traps, or worse. But now, thanks to Google, their prevalence might be somewhat curtailed on file-sharing sites and other popular locations such as Facebook.

fake-but-1

According to a new announcement from the company titled ‘No More Deceptive Download Buttons’, Google says it will expand its eight-year-old Safe Browsing initiative to target some of the problems highlighted above.

“You may have encountered social engineering in a deceptive download button, or an image ad that falsely claims your system is out of date. Today, we’re expanding Safe Browsing protection to protect you from such deceptive embedded content, like social engineering ads,” the company says.

Those receiving protection from Google and its Chrome browser will be presented with a message similar to the one below.

deceptive-google

In order to qualify as part of a social engineering attack, content embedded in webpages must demonstrate a key feature – an attempt to lure the user into a false sense of security by masquerading as something they would ordinarily trust.

For example, content falling foul of Google’s rules would be that which acts or feels like a user’s own device or web browser, or even pretends to be part of the website the user is on. Content that tries to trick the user into doing something it would only normally do for a trusted third-party (such as sharing a password or calling tech support) will also be targeted.

fake-flashIn our recent article detailing sites that employ some of these practices, we highlighted those that mislead the user into thinking they need to update software (such as Flash or a media player) to play a video.

Google says that these kinds of techniques will also become a target for its systems.

“Our fight against unwanted software and social engineering is still just beginning,” Google explains. “We’ll continue to improve Google’s Safe Browsing protection to help more people stay safe online.”

In 2015 Google took action against major torrent sites on at least two key occasions, once in July and again in October. The warning messages were triggered by Google’s “Unwanted Software” scanner which flags websites that pose a potential danger to visitors. The issues were remedied when the sites weeded out some bad advertisers.

Google’s campaign will not just affect file-sharing sites though. The same kinds of techniques are being used all over the web and the tech giant hopes to get involved no matter where they appear.

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


Source: TorrentFreak