German government refutes Windows ‘backdoor’ claims

The German government says Windows 8 and TPM 2.0 chips, used in conjunction, can increase security but have the potential to reduce a user’s control over software and hardware. It’s common-sense advice for government IT experts has been distorted by some observers into wild claims of “backdoors” or spying by the U.S. National Security Agency, or the Chinese.

Latest Blog for ZDNet

Worcestershire County Council overlaps connected areas with BDUK broadband roll-out plans

Worcestershire County Council lists 14 parishes as ‘intervention areas’ despite funding superfast broadband, breaking EU rules

ComputerWeekly: Public sector IT news

Android mobile malware rebounds in Q2, reports McAfee

Android-based malware has grown 35% in the second quarter, according to the latest threat report from security firm McAfee

ComputerWeekly: All Computer Weekly Content

Fleet management firm LeasePlan embraces private cloud for BYOD

LeasePlan is implementing private cloud services for flexible IT infrastructure and a centralised virtual desktop to support BYOD

ComputerWeekly: IT hardware

iPhone 5C could be the first Apple product to use scratch-resistant LiquidMetal

A new leak out of China shows what appears to be a video of an extremely scratch-resistant iPhone 5C. In it, the device survives close contact with coins, keys, screws, paper clips unscathed.

Latest Blog for ZDNet

Ofcom champions faster satellite connections

The telecoms regulator launches a consultation into using higher frequency bands for satellite broadband connections, enabling faster speed for trains, aeroplanes and ships

ComputerWeekly: Networking and communication

How DWP and Universal Credit failed to work with SME suppliers

Less than 1% of DWP IT spending on the Universal Credit programme has gone to SMEs – how are big suppliers continuing their dominance?

ComputerWeekly: Public sector IT news

Rio de Janeiro launches competition to foster software innovation

City government uses citizen ideas to create tech-enabled public services

Latest Blog for ZDNet

LinkedIn opens up to younger users

Professional networking service LinkedIn has announced it is to lower the 18 age limit for users to enable young people to plan their careers

ComputerWeekly: IT careers and IT skills

New ‘always listening’ Google phone

Motorola, owned by Google, has unveiled a new smartphone that is “always listening” for user commands.

BBC News – Technology

Internet of things to power classroom education

Businesses and academics have joined forces in an £800,000 project to extend the internet of things into the classroom

ComputerWeekly: IT careers and IT skills

Legal news website Groklaw closes because of US surveillance

Legal news website Groklaw has closed because founder Pamela Jones says it cannot operate under current US surveillance policies

ComputerWeekly: Latest IT News

Interview: Christian Fredrikson, CEO, F-Secure

Christian Fredrikson doesn’t believe in free antivirus software, which is not surprising given he is in the business of selling security software.

ComputerWeekly: IT Management

Banks push for open standards

Deutsche Bank, ING and ABN-Amro are among a dozen international banks leading an initiative to introduce open standards in banking IT

ComputerWeekly: Financial services IT news

(ISC)² expands UK exam centres to 33 locations

Information security certification body (ISC)² expands network of test centres for computerised exams through partnership with Pearson VUE

ComputerWeekly: IT careers and IT skills

CIO Interview: James Thomas, UCLH

James Thomas, director of ICT at UCLH, talks about branching out into new mobile devices and embracing MDM and apps

ComputerWeekly: Networking and communication

Google’s Stealthy Helpouts Live Video Commerce Service Makes Its First Public Appearance, Landing Page Now Live

Last month, our own Rip Empson broke the news that Google was working on Helpouts, a Hangouts-based marketplace ” that enables individuals and small and large businesses to buy and sell services via live video.” Today, Helpouts made its first public appearance. The service’s homepage is now live and while it remains invite-only, its help pages are public and give us a closer look at what Helpouts will look like once it launches.

Google describes Helpouts as a way to allow professionals and experts to “share [their] knowledge with people who want to learn from [them] by giving a Helpout.”

The service obviously isn’t available yet, but Google says it is “currently inviting people with expertise across a number of topics to be able to offer Helpouts when we go live — and to make money sharing their skills and knowledge with the world.” Interested experts can already leave their names and email addresses to be included in the beta test.

According to the Helpouts Help pages, experts can choose to list their services under Home & Garden, Computers & Electronics, Health & Counseling, Nutrition & Fitness, Fashion & Beauty, Art & Music, Cooking and Education. Payments will be handles by Google Wallet.

In the document a source provided us earlier this year, health services were prominently featured in the screenshots and judging from the site that went live today, this is still a prominent feature of Helpouts. Google is working with HireRight – a provider of background-screening services – to ensure that the healthcare professionals who sign up for Helpouts are thoroughly vetted.

Google is also working with Infinity Contact, Capita Customer Management, and VXI to “provide customers with support and services related to Helpouts by Google.”

TechCrunch

Atos powers sports information system

Atos is to develop what it claims is the world’s first results and common data platform for sports

ComputerWeekly: Enterprise software

Russia’s SOPA Sees 42% of All Anti-Piracy Blocking Requests Rejected

August 1 Russia introduced new legislation aimed at reducing online copyright infringement.

Targeted initially at the unauthorized distribution of movies and TV shows, there were soon calls for the program to undergo expansion to include music, lyrics and other copyright works.

This Thursday the initiative, which will see non-conforming sites blocked at the ISP level, will have been underway for exactly three weeks. But while some critics envisioned a Russian Internet in tatters at the hands of over-zealous copyright holders, thus far things haven’t panned out that way.

Righthsolders have reported at least two file-sharing sites – rutor.org and turbofilm.tv – to the authorities for infringement of their copyrights. However, neither domain has been added to Russia’s blocklist and for good reason. A source close to one of the sites told TorrentFreak that both chose to delete the infringing links in question and are now continuing business as usual.

While both Rutor and Turbofilm were the subject of successful complaints, it appears that rightsholders are really struggling to meet the requirements of the law. Pavel Krasheninnikov, head of the State Duma Committee on Civil, Criminal, Arbitration and Procedural Legislation, revealed yesterday that four out of every ten blocking requests have been rejected so far.

“I contacted the chairman of the Moscow City Court – 19 applications were submitted, 11 of them were accepted, eight were declined,” Krasheninnikov said.

In order to have a blocking request accepted rightsholders are required to provide lots of documentation, including evidence that they own the content in question. It appears that is more easily said than done.

“The application process is quite time-consuming and costly. For example, certified translations of all documents of title are required,” Cinema Without Borders’ Sam Klebanov told Russia’s CommNews.

In order to overcome some of these kinds of administrative problems, particularly when dealing with Internet companies, there are suggestions that all rightsholders should have the option of coordinating their anti-piracy efforts through a non-profit agency accredited by the Ministry of Culture.

According to Vedomosti, the plan is to pre-verify the identities and managed properties of rightholders so that those processing complaints do not have to seek additional verification documents from those making them.

Klebanov’s company Cinema Without Borders was the first to have a filed complaint rejected on the basis of inadequate paperwork but he says that even with that failure, companies like vKontakte, the subject of their complaint, do seem to be taking note of the law. That, however, is only part of the problem.

“The big players that exist in the legal space are starting to pay attention to the law, but there are quite a lot of ‘wild’ pirates, who still continue their activities,” he said.

The question now is what will happen when rightsholders get their blocking requests in shape. Will it have terrible consequences for the free flow of information? Not so says Leonid Agronov from the National Federation of the Music Industry (NFMI).

According to Agronov, out of 120 million websites located in Runet, only around four thousand are involved in the unauthorized distribution of copyright works. Since this is a small proportion the effect of any blocking on the Internet as a whole would be minimal, Agronov argues.

Nevertheless, those kinds of assurances haven’t placated the masses. More than one hundred thousand people signed a petition against the new law, which led to an announcement yesterday by the State Duma’s Pavel Krasheninnikov.

“The Duma will consider the petition,” he promised.

It seems unlikely that any review of the law will change the course of the government but as the cases of Rutor and Turbofilm show, compliance is achieved by simply deleting a link. With several billion of those still online (each requiring lots of work to take down), rightsholders still have plenty to do.

Source: Russia’s SOPA Sees 42% of All Anti-Piracy Blocking Requests Rejected

TorrentFreak

Cyberattacks, not economy, could cripple banks in the future

A new report from KPMG suggests that cyberattacks might cause the next banking crisis — rather than a poor global economy.

Latest Blog for ZDNet

Digital Shadows: One year after the Cisco BIG Awards

Computer Weekly’s Caroline Baldwin catches up with Alastair Paterson, CEO and founder of startup Digital Shadows

ComputerWeekly: Internet technology

Interview: Martin Russell, head of IT services, Just Eat

Just Eat’s IT services director, Martin Russell speaks to Computer Weekly about his experiences of switching to Google

ComputerWeekly: IT careers and IT skills

Toronto’s Minuum Makes Its Beta Public, Android Users Can Try A New Kind Of Keyboard For $3.99 Now

University of Toronto-founded interaction design startup Whirlscape has made its beta available to the general public today, after a closed trial period following its successful Indiegogo funding campaign. Whirlscape’s first product is the MInuum Keyboard, a software input method that compresses a full QWERTY down to one line, opening up screen space while building in lots of text prediction to make it easy to type without thinking too much.

The Minuum project on Indiegogo raised $ 87,354, far exceeding its initial goal of just $ 10,000. Backers got early access to the keyboard app as a beta for Android, and now that pool of users is being broadened via the Google Play store. Whirlscape has decided to charge $ 3.99 for its app, even in beta form, which is a sure suggestion that it’s had a lot of interest in its early campaign. Backers actually bid a minimum of $ 5 for access, so it’s a discount from the original in fact, according to the company.

Often, makers of keyboard software on Android charge money for their products. SwiftKey is paid, and also charges $ 3.99, so it isn’t without precedent, and it’s harder to put the genie back in the bottle in terms of offering something free and then charging for it later than doing things the other way around.

Minuum has had a high user retention rate so far, with around 8,000 users active over the past two months of the initial pool of 9,500 who signed up for early access via the Indiegogo campaign. The iOS version is planned for the end of the year as a demonstration app aimed at developers (who need to build Minuum into their own apps, since Apple doesn’t allow a user to change the default software keyboard), Whirlscape’s Maria Lioutaia tells me. For now, users with Android smartphones or tablets can join in the public beta, however.

There have been a lot of updates since the first launch, but the beta label remain until Whirlscape can localize to a number of different languages, which is what the startup is working on next.

TechCrunch

Case study: Derby school upgrades IT to make teaching more engaging

Noel-Baker Community School virtualises datacentre to help students learn in a more engaging way and to provide an automated IT infrastructure

ComputerWeekly: IT hardware

Forrester: Control over your software assets has become a must

Despite the rising importance of software asset management, there is a lack of sufficient attention and funding being devoted to it.

ComputerWeekly: IT Management

GOG.com Opens A New Indie Developer Portal As It Looks To Broaden Its DRM-Free Games Catalogue

Once upon a time, Good Old Games started life as a way for users to buy vintage games without DRM, trading on the willingness of companies like Ubisoft to offer up back catalogue titles without their usual restrictions on copying and sharing. The Cyprus-based company later rebranded as just plain old GOG.com, and continues to expand its range of titles, including a big push to attract indie developers via a new indie-specific portal launching today.

GOG.com is offering up an advance on royalties that definitely isn’t common practice among digital games storefronts, which it says will help indie devs do some end-stage refining on game production. There’s a catch, however; instead of the usual 70/30 split that GOG offers developers, the arrangement once it goes on sale will be 60/40 until the amount advanced is paid back, after which it reverts to the standard deal. Not bad, especially if an indie project is nearing completion but runs out of budget right before the final shipping crunch.

In addition to an upfront payday, GOG offers each indie game that signs up a chance at the spotlight; every title released on the site gets to occupy the homepage’s main feature slot, and also gets an attendant marketing push on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and more. The site also says it’ll consider every option to get your game in front of an audience, and that additional marketing will likely be a bit more personalized compared to some of the larger marketplaces which see a much higher volume of indie game submissions.

The 70/30 revenue split on GOG.com is on par with the iOS App Store, as well as the reported arrangement on Steam, and Google Play. Relative newcomer the Humble Store, from the Humble Bundle company, offers up 95 percent of revenue to indie developers, easily topping the bunch, but it doesn’t actually have a centralized website yet, just widgets devs can place on their page.

There’s a bit of a land grab on right now for indie developer attention, as their titles are attracting consumers in a way that larger studios are struggling to do thanks to low price tags and innovative takes in a space that’s plagued with a lot of stagnation. GOG.com clearly wants to grab more attention from the indie devs making the games, and that’s ultimately good news for consumers looking for DRM-free software.

TechCrunch

Ask.fm details safety policy changes

Social networking site Ask.fm announces pledges to change the way it deals with reported comments to make its forums safe.

BBC News – Technology

Your Home Might Be Much Healthier With The Honeywell HFD-120-Q Tower Quiet Air Purifier with Permanent IFD Filter

air purifier

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How to appoint a new outsourcing supplier

Outsourcing can come with its own security risks if not managed appropriately, making due diligence and clear contractual arrangements key

ComputerWeekly: IT security

Swedish rail operator uses IBM Tealeaf to re-read credit card sessions

SJ, Sweden’s largest rail operator, has announced it is using IBM’s Tealeaf customer experience management (CEM) system to get its mobile and online booking processes back on track

ComputerWeekly: Enterprise software

“How Should Artists Get Paid?” Isn’t a Question, it’s an Insult

We’ve all heard the objection to sharing culture and knowledge many times – “How will the artists get paid, if you manufacture copies of their creations without paying them?”

This question is delusional on so many levels I’ve lost count.

First, artists that are copied do get paid, only not by a per-copy sale but in other ways. I encourage copying of my leadership handbook Swarmwise, for example, because I know the book promotes other avenues of income. The average income for musicians has risen 114% since people started sharing culture online on a large-scale, according to a Norwegian study. Other studies agree with this observation.

Second, even if they didn’t get paid, people who share still don’t carry any kind of responsibility for the business models of other entrepreneurs. Because that’s what artists are once they go plinking their guitar in a kitchen looking for sales: entrepreneurs. Same rules apply to those entrepreneurs as to every other entrepreneur on the planet: nobody owes an entrepreneur a sale, you have to offer something which somebody else wants to buy. Wants. To. Buy. No excuses, nothing deserved, just business.

Third, we don’t live in a planned economy. Nobody is held accountable to the question of where somebody’s next paycheck is going to come from except that very person. In Soviet Russia, you could tell Vladimir Sklyarov that his guitar plinking was highly artistic (meaning nobody liked it) and that his next paycheck would therefore come from the Bureau of Incomprehensible Arts. But we don’t live in a planned economy, we live in a market economy. Everybody is responsible for their own paycheck – of finding a way to make money by providing value that somebody else wants to pay for. Wants. To. Pay. For. No excuses, nothing deserved.

Fourth, even if this set of entrepreneurs magically deserved money despite not making any sales, control of what people share between them can still not be achieved without dismantling the secrecy of correspondence, monitoring every word communicated – and fundamental liberties always go before anybody’s profits. We never determined what civil liberties we have based on who can profit and who can’t.

But let’s go to the root of the question. It’s not a question, it’s an insult. One that has stuck around for as long as artistry itself, for it implies that artists need or even deserve to get paid. No artist thinks in these terms. The ones who do are the parasitic business people middlemen that you find defending the copyright monopoly and then robbing artists and their fans dry, laughing all the way to the bank while exploiting a legal monopoly system ruthlessly: the copyright monopoly.

Meanwhile, among artists, there is one insult that has remained consistent throughout artistry in history. An insult between artists that rips somebody’s artistry apart, that tells somebody they’re not even worthy of calling themselves an artist. That insult is “You’re in it for the money”.

“How shall the artists get paid?”, implying artists won’t play or create otherwise, that they’re doing it for the money, is a very serious insult.

There’s a reason “sellout” is a sharply negative word in artistry. The large majority of artists aren’t happy at all when you’re asking them if they’re playing to make money; it’s a grave insult. The frequently heard notion that you don’t create culture if you’re not paid for it comes from those who exploit artists, and never from artists themselves.

After all, we create not because we can make money off it as individuals, but because of who we are – how we are wired. We have created since we learned to put red paint on the inside of cave walls. We are cultural animals. Culture has always been part of our civilization, rewarded or not.

If an artist wants to sell their goods or services and become an entrepreneur, I wish them all the luck and success in the world. But business is business, and there is nothing that entitles an entrepreneur to sales.

About The Author

Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.

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Source: “How Should Artists Get Paid?” Isn’t a Question, it’s an Insult

TorrentFreak

Online retailing means the industrialisation of analytics

Figleaves founder and eCommera chief scientist Michael Ross argues that online retailing requires a new type of action-oriented business intelligence

ComputerWeekly: Latest IT News

Microsoft delivers early warning with latest Patch Tuesday

Microsoft is updating Patch Tuesday to give customers and security software firms advanced notice of holes in Windows code

ComputerWeekly: IT Management

Microsoft overtakes BlackBerry to become third player in smartphone market

Microsoft has increased its global smartphone market share to 3.3%, overtaking BlackBerry for the first time

ComputerWeekly: IT hardware

Enterprise Ethernet services market to reach $62bn by 2018, says Ovum

Ovum has predicted that the enterprise Ethernet market will exceed $ 62bn (£40bn) by 2018, growing 13.6% every year

ComputerWeekly: IT hardware

Less than 1% of Universal Credit IT spend goes to SMEs

Despite a 25% target, less than 1% of IT spending for government’s flagship Universal Credit programme has gone to small businesses

ComputerWeekly: IT Management

Multimillion-pound broadband project axed in Yorkshire

Despite millions of taxpayer’s pounds sunk into the Digital Region project in South Yorkshire, the councils involved decide to drop it to save £12.5m

ComputerWeekly: Public sector IT news

Brocade profits rise despite stifled sales

Increased profits offset a drop in revenues at Brocade due to recovery in the storage market and cost reductions elsewhere

ComputerWeekly: IT hardware

UK sites wrongly blocked in Premier League piracy battle

Users were unable to access a number of UK sites when they were wrongly blocked for copyright infringement

ComputerWeekly: IT security

Gillmor Gang: Drunken Avatars

The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Dan Farber, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor — turned what seemed like a slow news week into a tour of emergent hardware and big tech ideas. A Down-Under visitor to Robert Scoble’s studio showed us how he used a 3D printer to prototype a Steadicam-like handheld image stabilizer.

Closer to home, we handicapped Elon Musk’s HyperLoop project, the possibility of using wearable computers to detect an interest in donuts from eye movements, and the timing of the end of Apple’s year-long drought of new product. As the new school year approaches, even a slow week turns out to be bursting with promise.

@stevegillmor, @dbfarber, @scobleizer, @kteare, @kevinmarks

Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

Live chat stream

TechCrunch

Technical issue hits BT Sport app

Some BT Sport customers complain of problems with the new broadcaster’s mobile device app, as it airs its first live Premier League match.

BBC News – Technology

How to connect your iPhone5/iPad 4/iPad mini to your TV

Here are two ways to connect your iDevice to a TV. One method will cost $ 49, the other $ 99.

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Case study: Car supermarket deploys cloud for agility and business expansion

With inconsistent IT infrastructure and dated hardware hindering growth and expansion plans, Motorpoint turned to private cloud

ComputerWeekly: IT hardware

Android takes a 14% bite out Apple’s pie

Shipments of Apple iPads have declined 14% compared with Q2 2012 according to the latest market share data from analyst Canalys

ComputerWeekly: IT hardware

Dell struggles as founder prepares for vote on going private

Dell has reported second quarter revenue of $ 14.5bn, flat year over year, with a big decline in PC sales

ComputerWeekly: IT hardware

Public sector IT procurement, G-Cloud and the SMEs

Is the government’s intent to widen public sector IT procurement to include SMEs and its G-Cloud diktat improving SME-government engagement?

ComputerWeekly: IT hardware

UCAS adopts public cloud to process university admissions

Ten days before the A-level results, UCAS adopted a public cloud infrastructure to scale up its IT and to make admission process efficient

ComputerWeekly: Enterprise software

Security and accreditation obstacles act as G-Cloud barriers, claim SMEs

Despite winning over 60% of G-Cloud contracts, a group of SMEs claim that security accreditation is a roadblock to winning government business

ComputerWeekly: Public sector IT news

Facebook tests mobile payments tool

Facebook is planning to test a mobile payments feature which will automatically fill in payment details when purchasing on mobile apps

ComputerWeekly: Financial services IT news

Ubuntu sets crowdfund pledge record

A crowdfunding campaign for the Ubuntu Edge smartphone attracts more pledged money than any other such campaign

BBC News – Technology

Copyright Troll Ran Pirate Bay Honeypot, Comcast Confirms

As the poster child for copyright trolls, Prenda Law has been running into all sorts of trouble lately.

In June, Prenda and its boss John Steele were accused of running a “honeypot” based on an expert report authored by Delvan Neville, whose company specializes in monitoring BitTorrent users.

The report hinted that the law firm was seeding the very files they claimed to protect, and found that many of the torrents detailed in Prenda lawsuits originate from a user on The Pirate Bay called ‘Sharkmp4′.

In an effort to expose the alleged honeypot, The Pirate Bay then jumped in and revealed the IP-addresses that ‘Sharkmp4′used to upload the torrent files. Since the site wipes all IP-addresses after 48 hours, The Pirate Bay team had to decrypt older backups to eventually offer the list below.

Sharkmp4 IP-addresses

While the public is already convinced that the honeypot is real, the Pirate Bay evidence has now become part of the AF Holdings v Patel case which could land the law firm in even more trouble.

After a judge approved discovery to both parties in the case, defense lawyer Blair Chintella sent out a series of subpoenas hoping to expose the copyright troll’s nefarious tactics.

One of the subpoenas covered the Comcast IP-address 75.72.88.156 used by “Sharkmp4,” as can be seen at the bottom of the list of Pirate Bay IPs shown above.

After a few weeks Comcast returned the subscriber details that matched the IP-address at the time the files were uploaded. As can be seen from their response detailed below, this IP is indeed the Comcast account of Steele Hansmeier PLLC, which is directly connected to Prenda Law.

Comcast confirms

The revelations above are the first solid proof of copyright trolls operating a honeypot scheme on The Pirate Bay, or any other BitTorrent site for that matter.

The honeypot strategy is just one piece of the puzzle, albeit an important one. The defense team has filed more subpoenas which are expected to be returned later, in the hope of uncovering more dirt on Prenda and its associates.

The discovery process in the case is still ongoing and ends in September. After the dust has settled it will be up to the court to decide how to rule on this and other damning revelations.

The irony of the above is that Prenda is now being haunted by the IP-address subpoenas they first used to pressure accused file-sharers into paying thousands of dollars in settlement fees.

Perhaps that can be called justice?

Source: Copyright Troll Ran Pirate Bay Honeypot, Comcast Confirms

TorrentFreak

IBM extends cloud business with Trusteer mobile security

IBM is to acquire financial fraud specialist Trusteer, as part of a bid to boost its cloud software and services business

ComputerWeekly: Financial services IT news

Public cloud limitations drive enterprises to hybrid cloud, shows study

Many enterprises are turning to a hybrid cloud model as the limitations of public cloud platforms become more apparent

ComputerWeekly: IT Management

Quick thinking security consultant Secarma saves charity data loss

Hypoparathyroidism charity HPTH UK avoided a big fine from the information commissioner thanks to quick thinking from Secarma

ComputerWeekly: All Computer Weekly Content

Virgin Money keeps mainframe ticking over by extending Fujitsu contract

Virgin Money has extended a contract with Fujitsu to extend the life of its mainframe system until 2018

ComputerWeekly: Public sector IT news

Washington Post and CNN hit by hack

Washington Post, CNN and Time magazine are affected by a hack carried out by supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

BBC News – Technology

Monsoon Accessorize appoints new IT chief

John Bovill has taken over as head of the technology function at the womenswear retailer

ComputerWeekly: All Computer Weekly Content

Apple faces e-book clamp down

US regulators have called for Apple to be forced to cancel certain e-book contracts with major publishers.

BBC News – Technology

Cisco cuts 4,000 staff

Despite announcing record results, the networking giant Cisco says 4,000 jobs will go

ComputerWeekly: Enterprise software

Attackers are in the network, now what?

If attackers are inside the network, can disguise themselves and get close to sensitive corporate data, how can data be defended?

ComputerWeekly: Latest IT News

Vodly.to, PrimeWire.ag, LetMeWatchThis, 1Channel is a Streaming Fiasco

While BitTorrent sites have gone from strength to strength in recent years, so-called streaming portals have really gained traction.

These sites, which in appearance are not dissimilar to YouTube, provide links to all the latest movies and TV shows. This content, usually held on 3rd party file-hosting services, is then displayed in a window, accessible at the touch of the button. No need to download the whole thing before viewing and no wait times.

But for reasons that are not entirely clear, some of the leading sites in this field – which at times have been among the most popular sites on the Internet – have been involved in activity that has undermined confidence in their services and damaged their rankings.

The problem appears to be that they have rivals, enemies who are prepared to hack their domain names, hijack their sites and pass themselves off as the real thing.

The biggest disaster by far involves the famous 1Channel.ch. This site, which grew out of the LetMeWatchThis this domain, was apparently hacked back in May. 1Channel then pointed to a fake site which looked almost identical, which left the original site owner to revert back to the original LetMeWatchThis domain.

Then in June, LetMeWatchThis went down without explanation, only to reappear a few days later with a new domain – PrimeWire.ag. If you’re keeping up by this point you’re doing well – hold tight.

Now, just two months later, PrimeWire.ag is redirecting to a brand new domain – Vodly.to. There’s a notice on the front page as follows:

But there’s a problem. If 1Channel.ch was hijacked earlier this year and became a fake site, why would the owners of Vodly.to associate themselves with it? Why would they say that 1Channel.ch, PrimeWire.ag and now Vodly.to are one and the same? Why is there no mention of LetMeWatchThis.ch, a hugely popular domain that preceded 1Channel in its first incarnation, PrimeWire.ag in its second and it still online at this very moment?

Perhaps the most important question is this: are these all the same sites? The short answer to that is ‘No’.

Earlier this year the admin of LetMeWatchThis showed TorrentFreak a detail present on his site which enabled us to confirm he was the admin after 1Channel.ch was hijacked. That feature was also present on PrimeWire.ag which led us to feel moderately comfortable (entire server/backup takeover excepted) that PrimeWire was in fact the new name for LetMeWatchThis.

But now, if one goes to PrimeWire.ag (which diverts to the new name of Vodly.to) that feature is not present, which suggests that Vodly.to is probably a whole new site and nothing to do with the sites it claims to succeed. In the meantime the Twitter account for PrimeWire is advising people to use LetMeWatchThis.ch again.

So in summary…..no, let’s not even go there. This entire episode is a disaster from start to finish which has caused more uncertainty and doubt than any anti-piracy campaign could hope to achieve. There are countless users online wondering whether these sites are some sort of trap or have been set up for malicious purposes. Very few people know the answer to that question and those that do are not responding to their mails…..

Source: Vodly.to, PrimeWire.ag, LetMeWatchThis, 1Channel is a Streaming Fiasco

TorrentFreak