KickassTorrents down: Feds have seized domains and arrested owner

[Hervé]

KickassTorrents down: Feds have seized domains and arrested owner

July 21, 2016

Yesterday the US authorities arrested the owner of KAT in Poland. The Ukrainian is accused of copyright infringement under the US laws, and also charged with money laundering. Therefore the feds have now seized many domains operated for KickassTorrents. Right now the main search bar is offline and a lot of people are unhappy for seeing KickassTorrents down.

KAT has become the most used public torrent site in the world. The torrent directory receives millions of unique visits per day and is even more popular than other large torrent sources. However, KickassTorrents got a setback yesterday when the US authorities arrested the owner of this torrent site, the 30 years old Ukrainian Artem Vaulin. He was captured in Poland. The US government now accuses the young man of criminal copyright violation and also money laundering. The US District Court in Chicago is going to proceed with the case.

Steps to capture the owner included the feds acting as an advertiser for the website, so they became aware of a bank account connected to KickassTorrents. Secondly, Apple gave the authorities personal data of Artem Vaulin after they matched an IP address used for iTunes with the IP address used for logging in to KAT’s Facebook account.

Together with arresting the owner, the bank account and several domain names got seized. One of the attorneys working on this case commented that KickassTorrents was the source for piracy worth over one billion dollars. He added that Vaulin used servers of different locations worldwide and changed domain names because of continuous issues from the authorities.

At the very moment, several websites connected to KAT are not loading. Though some proxy sites are up and running, there is yet no update from the team behind KickassTorrents for additional details.

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Meanwhile: US Navy sued for $600mn by German tech company over 'unlicensed software'

[Bill Ryan]

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That's pretty discouraging news. I usually use The Pirate Bay (various URLs, often ThePirateBay.org or ThePirateBay.se), but I occasionally go to KAT when TPB doesn't have something.

* For a really wide-ranging search, if something seems unusually hard to find, I turn to Torrentz.eu, which does an excellent job of mining all the torrent engines for sources.

[Star Tsar]

Posted by Hervé (here)
Apple gave the authorities personal data of Artem Vaulin after they matched an IP address used for iTunes with the IP address used for logging in to KAT’s Facebook account.

So sloppy he had no clue authorities where after him?

[TigaHawk]

iptorrents.com is what i use. It's invite only and you will get the boot if your download / share ration is not even or more share than download.

Id advise people to find and use private torrent sites. The public ones are constantly watched because that's where the bulk of people go to download.

Also i use a seedbox in the netherlands (lax internet law's / no data retention) feralhosting.com

If watching me they'll see me download the torrent file - but they'll never see me download the actual file via torrent. Straight to the torrent box then FTP download from there to my PC.

I got this setup because they were going to introduce the 3 strike policy over here. That seems to be in limbo but i have no doubts they'll eventually push it through.

[petra]

A friend of mine ended up with windows 10 so he cant get torrents at all, apparently Putlocker is pretty good, we watched the new one with the Rock in it a few days ago :D

[angelfire]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
.
That's pretty discouraging news. I usually use The Pirate Bay (various URLs, often ThePirateBay.org or ThePirateBay.se), but I occasionally go to KAT when TPB doesn't have something.

* For a really wide-ranging search, if something seems unusually hard to find, I turn to Torrentz.eu, which does an excellent job of mining all the torrent engines for sources.

Thanks for the recommendations, Bill but have just tried all of those sites and they all seem to be down! Not good.

[Carmody]

I don't recall ever using a torrent site even once. Don't have a clue how it works....

[KiwiElf]

Can confirm torrentz.eu is working (along with associated sites) with a magnet link through VUZE (just tried it now) - they have most of what KAT had (VUZE is a Torrent Client which links to several torrent sites; KAT was their biggest)

KAT was my favourite... darn!!!! I guess only a matter of time before torrentz.eu get closed down too

[Positive Vibe Merchant]

thumbs up for putlocker.is dont have to download, just stream. has alot of current movies and series.

[Conde]

http://extratorrent.cc/today/

[Mike Gorman]

Posted by Carmody (here)
I don't recall ever using a torrent site even once. Don't have a clue how it works....

It is a very grey area Carmody, on the one hand I love the original spirit of the internet for being an 'accidental resource' for humanity and the freedom of intellectual and commercial life, the exchange of ideas, software, information and cultural growth-and on the other hand I feel uneasy about accessing the intellectual property of artists, writers and academics beyond the realm of Copyright and license - I have zero qualms about the resentment of "Mammon" for its jealous guardianship of the 'dream machine'
(Hollywood productions e.t.c) but the fact that you get anything you want 'for free', expensive software applications, tools, books, esoteric information is a great, great temptation! (Torrents are dispersed files which are distributed on the network and re-assembled into complete works-thereby avoiding detection, it is complex and ingenious).

[TargeT]

Posted by TigaHawk (here)
iptorrents.com is what i use. It's invite only and you will get the boot if your download / share ration is not even or more share than download.

Id advise people to find and use private torrent sites. The public ones are constantly watched because that's where the bulk of people go to download.

Also i use a seedbox in the netherlands (lax internet law's / no data retention) feralhosting.com

If watching me they'll see me download the torrent file - but they'll never see me download the actual file via torrent. Straight to the torrent box then FTP download from there to my PC.

I got this setup because they were going to introduce the 3 strike policy over here. That seems to be in limbo but i have no doubts they'll eventually push it through.

I use this one also.. it's GREAT! never had a bad download ever from iptorrents.

[Sophocles]

Ukpirate.org still works for me (ThePirateBay.org, ThePiratebay.se and extratorrent.cc/today does not).

[TargeT]

Posted by GalaxyHorse (here)
but the fact that you get anything you want 'for free', expensive software applications, tools, books, esoteric information is a great, great temptation! (Torrents are dispersed files which are distributed on the network and re-assembled into complete works-thereby avoiding detection, it is complex and ingenious).

well some companies learned & now offer a service that pays them MORE than their "expensive one time purchse" crap.

I'm speaking spesifically of adobe.

Their full suite used to cost something like 800+, now you can subscribe to them for different levels of monthly payments (depending on what you want to access) with the full suite costing 50$ a month.

it only costs me 20$ a month for the application I want to use... easier than stealing & their stock prices reflect success.

I think the internet will even out & I also think tech companies will adapt. like adobe did.

all we are seeing is how "un fairness" is genetically preprogrammed into us,, we do not accept being taken advantage or being treated unfairly.. it's a "rule" with mammals at least.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo

I think it's clear that some software companies make far too much money for effort expended & humanity will always react to traetment like that.

[Snoweagle]

KickAss Torrents was taken down by Homeland Security. Highly recommended article at ABC News:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-2...rrents/7649862

It was the result of years of investigation by Jared Der-Yeghiayan, a special agent with the US Department of Homeland Security.

The investigation was done both online and in meat space (the real world), and was a mixture of old-school police work and top-of-the-line digital forensics.
Mr Der-Yeghiayan laid out his evidence in the criminal complaint, filed to the US District Court of Illinois.

The article describes in detail how investigators conducted their enquiries and the various organisations that provided assistance.

It does appear that Homeland Security appears to be a security agency that may overlap as the policemen for TTIP as well. The Corporate Enquirers. Just a muse at this time.

[Ewan]

I don't know International Law but how do US authorities make arrests in Poland? I assume the ultimate step has to be Polish Authorities giving the ok?

[HaveBlue]

Polish authorities must have acted the same way New Zealand ones did over Kim Dotcom, the German living in NZ. Except NZ is part of the 5 eyes spy sharing network. Unless they did a Mordachai Vanunu on him and just kidnapped him as Israeli mossad did.

But a District court in Chicago? Shouldn't it be a Federal or International Court if any? Chicago, the most corrupt place in the USA and home to Obama and Eric holder.
I suspect there is more to it than just crying movie executives over lost revenue. Remember that The Pirate Bay hosted Julian Assanges Wikileaks when they went after the dutch TPB founder who was living in Cambodia when they nabbed him.
Chicago has fear by some in govt of what data that guy has, written all over it. Chicago is organised crime central. The best place in the USA to do a cover up and a rail road, maybe even a 'died in custody'.
My bet is they are in cover up and damage control mode. Hillary's emails for a start. And then there is the frauds and the paedophila, the murders and so on and so on.

The timing of all this is interesting. If I was Russian intel, I'd release damning material through proxies such as Ukraine and Poland too! Wouldn't you?

David Hawkins of abeldanger.org or .net has done some very thorough research on Chicago over the last years and the nefarious activities of those 'in charge' there.

[petra]

Posted by TargeT (here)
all we are seeing is how "un fairness" is genetically preprogrammed into us,, we do not accept being taken advantage or being treated unfairly.. it's a "rule" with mammals at least.

Sometimes it's hard to see from the other's perspective though. I recall Google made me watch an educational video about why not to place their ads next to sexually provocative imagery (no nudity). At first I thought they were being like nazis! They changed their terms - but after watching the video, I totally agree with why they did, because I see it from the advertiser's point of view. I wouldn't want my product advertised next to a big hairy arm-pit either (hahaha)

[norman]

The site that updates Peer lists for Peerblocker 2 has started charging a high subscription fee for updates. I've not used torrents for a while because of this.


I heard somewhere that Windows 10 is using a system similar to torrents as part of it's services delivery.

[Akasha]

It's not down.

you just need to access via a proxy.

I just typed kat proxy into Google, then clicked on the first result, then proxy 1 and hey presto - job's a good un'. Tested and coming down rapid.

Contingency plans are clearly in place for this scenario. The title should read "some domains" if in fact any have been seized and it isn't in reality just Hollywood fueled BS to deter potential users.