Category Archives: Piracy

Anonymous hater claims he launched Pirate Bay cyber attack

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Earlier this week, The Pirate Bay was the victim of a massive denial of service attack that brought down the site for over a day. The DDoS attack was launched a few days after the site criticized the hacker group Anonymous who said they launched their own attacks on Virgin Media. Anonymous claimed they were trying to protest Virgin Media‘s court ordered decision to block The Pirate Bay from their ISP users in the UK. The Pirate Bay said Anonymous’ attacks were in fact their own kind of censorship.

Now someone has come forth to claim responsibility for the Pirate Bay attack. News.com reports that in a post on the Pastebin site, a person calling himself “Nyre” claimed he launched the attacks. He also claims to be a former member of Anonymous and that he feels that, despite The Pirate Bay‘s previous comments, “The Pirate Bay was a press-release website for Anonymous.”

While it is possible for one person to launch a denial of service attack, News.com says that many other hackers have posted on Twitter that claim Nyre is not responsible for this operation, saying he is simply trying to get some attention.

Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay site itself is back up and running, but so far its organizers have not commented on the DDoS attack.

Anonymous hater claims he launched Pirate Bay cyber attack – Neowin.

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57 percent of PC owners have pirated software, says study

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If you own a PC, a new survey says the chances are good that you have obtained some kind of pirated software. The Business Software Alliance reports that in its ninth annual survey of PC users, 57 percent of them admit to have acquired paid software via some kind of pirate source. The BSA claims that in 2011, the total amount of pirated software was worth $63.4 billion, up from $58.8 billion in 2010.

BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman states:

If 57 percent of consumers admitted they shoplift, authorities would react by increasing police patrols and penalties. Software piracy demands a similarly forceful response — concerted public education and vigorous law enforcement.

Developing countries tend to have more activity on the pirated software front with 68 percent of users in those territories admitting to receiving pirated software, versus just 24 percent in more mature countries and markets. It’s not a shock to learn that China is the biggest country in terms of software piracy. The survey claims that Chinese citizens pay just $8.89 for legal PC software products.

It’s also not surprising to learn that the biggest age and gender group for pirated software are “disproportionately young and male”. People who do pirate software also tend to use software more. The survey says that pirates install 55 percent more software on their PCs compared to non-pirates.

57 percent of PC owners have pirated software, says study – Neowin.

DDoS brings The Pirate Bay to its knees

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Can’t say we didn’t see this one coming: The Pirate Bay is experiencing downtime due to a DDoS attack, according to TorrentFreak. The attack comes just a few days after the site criticized Anonymous attacks on behalf of the site, calling them ‘censorship.’

Until someone claims responsibility, though, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. For all we know, it could be a random attack from random hackers, or perhaps a devious government attack to separate people from their warez. And their authentic free speech rights. But mostly warez.

As of now, the site has been down for over 24 hours, and accessing it is still a hit or miss affair (mostly miss). Despite the presence of many workarounds to keep the site accessible in the face of censorship and governmental blocking, they don’t seem to have been prepared for an attack from their fellow freedom fighters.

We’re not gonna give you a walkthrough here, but if you simply must access the site, TorrentFreak does report that several proxies of the site are still accessible, and you can still do things ‘the hard way,’ too. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on the usual sources and let you know if we hear anything, particularly regarding the origin of the attack.

DDoS brings The Pirate Bay to its knees – Neowin.

The Pirate Bay: Big jump in traffic following UK ISP ban

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The Pirate Bay website may be blocked soon from six of the UK‘s Internet Service Providers, but the publicity surrounding that move has apparently caused a big traffic jump on The Pirate Bay site itself.TorrentFreak.com reports that according to an unnamed spokesperson for the site, “Thanks to the High Court and the fact that the news was on the BBC, we had 12 MILLION more visitors yesterday than we had ever had before.”

The UK’s High Court ruled a few days ago that six ISPs in the UK must block access to the site, which many believe promotes online piracy of content. Virgin Media has already started blocking access to the site for its customers. The article states that other UK ISPs like Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, and O2 will also put in their own Pirate Bay blocks. It appears that at least one ISP, BT, is “still considering their position” on the matter.

The unnamed Pirate Bay spokesperson also claims that the “free advertising” for the site in the form of news stories will only increase The Pirate Bay‘s traffic levels. The spokesperson added, “Another thing that’s good with the traffic surge is that we now have time to teach even more people how to circumvent Internet censorship.”

As we have reported before, UK residents still have a number of ways to access The Pirate Bay, even with the ISP blocks. They include accessing a VPN service, using a darknet, signing on Google’s DNS servers or the OpenDNS servers and more. Some ISPs are apparently preventing the DNS server trick from working, however.

The Pirate Bay: Big jump in traffic following UK ISP ban – Neowin.

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The Pirate Bay: “Next time they’re coming for something else.”

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On Monday, the UK‘s High Court ruled that all UK internet service providers must block access to The Pirate Bay website, after UK music publishers claimed the site encouraged online piracy of their content. This week, the site’s organizers posted up their response to the High Court‘s decision on their blog,comparing the ruling to censorship of internet content in countries such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The blog post states:

Today news was out that the UK high court has decided that TPB is “massively infringing on copyright”. The facts that no copyright is being infringed upon here at the site was not a welcome fact, so that was ignored apparantly. Noone from TPB was invited to the court case, which would be normal to do in a democracy. This is not the first time this happens, it’s been the same in most countries we’re censored in. We have no right to speak since we’re not rich.

The post also points out that UK residents have a number of ways to circumvent the ISP block to The Pirate Bay site, including accessing a VPN service, using a darknet, signing on Google’s DNS servers or the OpenDNS servers and more. They also urge UK citizens to mail their ISPs to ask them to appeal the High Court ruling, along with contacting local government officials. The post adds, “But don’t forget that we can’t allow this s*** to happen. Next time they’re coming for something else.”

The Pirate Bay: “Next time they’re coming for something else.” – Neowin.

The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs, says High Court

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The Pirate Bay website is under attack once again. The BBC reports that the High Court has ruled that all of the UK’s Internet Service Providers must block access to the site, which many believe promotes online piracy of content.

Previously, the music publishing trade group the British Phonographic Industry had asked ISPs in the UK to voluntarily block access to The Pirate Bay site. The ISPs said they would only do so if they were ordered by the courts.

One ISP, Virgin Media, says that it will comply with the High Court‘s decision but added that it ” … strongly believes that changing consumer behavior to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives, such as our agreement with Spotify, to give consumers access to great content at the right price.”

The British Phonographic Industry hailed today’s decision, saying:

The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale. Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them. This is wrong – musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else.

The organizers of The Pirate Bay have yet to comment on this new development.

The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs, says High Court – Neowin.

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