from the you-can-run-but-you-can't-hide-in-the-jungle dept.
ACE Shuts Down Massive Pirate Site After Locating Owner in Remote Peru:
In October 2021, TorrentFreak learned that the Motion Picture Association and its anti-piracy partner Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment had taken an interest in one of the world's most popular pirate streaming sites.
In a DMCA subpoena application filed at a California court, MPA/ACE asked Cloudflare to hand over all information held on several pirate platforms including movie, TV show and anime streaming site Pelisplushd.net.
The site was not particularly well-known in English-speaking regions but in Latin America, its status as a giant was undisputed – 58 million visits per month according to SimilarWeb data. In the following months the site grew by millions more visitors but in the third week of March, locals reported problems accessing the site. We now know why.
In a statement published Wednesday, ACE officially announced that it was behind the closure of Pelisplushd.net. The anti-piracy group labeled the platform the second-largest Spanish-language 'rogue website' in the entire Latin American region with 383.5 million visits in the past six months and nearly 75 million visits in February 2022.
In Mexico alone, the site had more visitors than hbomax.com, disneyplus.com and primevideo.com, a clear problem for those platforms which are all ACE members.
[...] The operator of Pelisplushd is yet to be named but ACE reveals that after a positive identification, the anti-piracy group tracked him down to the "remote countryside of Peru."
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Saturday April 16 2022, @02:16PM
Economics 101
Why pay for milk when the streaming service is free?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 16 2022, @02:33PM
They're not watching movies they're rioting
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/09/business/food-fuel-prices-political-instability/index.html [cnn.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 16 2022, @03:20PM
If hbomax.com, disneyplus.com and primevideo.com didn't charge so much, maybe our Mexican friends wouldn't have to pirate their fine content.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 16 2022, @04:44PM (4 children)
We have to find another way to host on the internet without these people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 16 2022, @04:59PM (3 children)
really, these new onions need their ownZ qr code version ... a crap 99% of cameras are unsecure. damn phone-home-cloud camera phones :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 16 2022, @05:31PM (2 children)
I like this idea... use all the hacked IoT devices as hosts in a torrent sort of way, make the whack-a-mole game much more fun
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday April 19 2022, @12:21AM (1 child)
Sure, it's all fun and games until the FBI breaks in and arrests your toaster just before breakfast.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @10:40AM
Tor, I2P, and Loki are all suspect.
Tor had the Appelbaum and related change of the guard, which by itself might have been a good thing, but combined with sybil and complaints from Tor node runners (and honeypots who were actively monitoring the network) the tor admins/moderators haven't been keeping bad actors out, and 1/7 or so nodes is enough to almot guarantee traffic monitoring of your target now. Hidden services can be discovered by traffic monitoring (so no replacing VOD website with hidden services.)
I2P has similar weaknesses and unimplemented features that could have limited traffic monitoring (padding combined fixed bandwidth circuits between nodes). It's still being developed but you're picking between russian/eastern bloc developers and the few remaining java devs who are decidedly non-cypherpunk (sjw/alt-right types.) Both the actual anarchist and socialist elements left it years ago.
lokinet, developed by one of the 'rabblerousers' from right as the last of the 2nd or 3rd wave developers aged/arrested out. Made public comment on IRC2P about various groups of people he's leave weaknesses to dox or reduce security on. Doesn't make for great optics on a replacement system. Confirmed alt-right.
Now if you're an alt-righter, or a libtard and think these guys are going to watch out for your privacy, go ahead and use one of them. (I still use tor, mostly to throw off casual corporate tracking.) But be aware of what you're getting yourself into before you do.
For instant messaging, there's still XMPP for irc+offline/email+realtime messaging, but for privacy/security, you should look into tox (the relays are a weakness, but you can run your own, either clearnet or as a hidden service, although the latter requires a socks proxy (breaks p2p direct connect) or transproxy support for tor+p2p tox support. Your third option is Sessiion, a Signal fork that removes Signal's centralization and phone number account id requirements. It's basically a successor to the LibreSignal project and similar to tox in many ways.
As a final comment for anyone who isn't aware, check out gemini, as a throwback to gopher/early html content with rendering limitations that ensure your client can pick the best layout of the content if you so desire.
yggdrasil/cjdns aren't anonymous, but are useful as alternatives to tor for 'hidden service' style networks without being limited by public ip addresses.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday April 17 2022, @11:41AM
With dark money contributions so easily done now, why don't these pirate site operators fund some political campaigns? Get these silly laws changed?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2022, @03:09PM
Was that the same as this site just a google search away? https://www2.pelisplushd.to/ [pelisplushd.to]
Are the MPA/ACE trying to help them gain English speaking market share too? ;)