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How Apple and Facebook Helped To Take Down KickassTorrents (pcworld.com)
Reader itwbennett writes (edited): Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of the torrent directory service KickassTorrents, was arrested in Poland earlier this week, charged with copyright infringement and money laundering. As we dig deeper as to what exactly happened, it turns out Apple and Facebook were among the companies that handed over data to the U.S. in its investigation. Department of Homeland Security investigators traced IP addresses associated with KickassTorrents domains to a Canadian ISP, which turned over server data, including emails. At some point, investigators noticed that Vaulin had an Apple email account that was used to make iTunes purchases from two IP addresses -- both of which also accessed a Facebook account promoting KickassTorrents.if you're wondering where exactly iTunes came into play, here's a further explanation. It all started in November 2015, when an undercover IRS Special Agent reached out to a KickassTorrents representative about hosting an advertisement on the site. An agreement was made and the ad, which purportedly advertised a program to study in the United States, was to be placed on individual torrent listings for $300 per day. When it finally went live on March 14th 2016, a link appeared underneath the torrent download buttons for five days. Sure it was a short campaign, but it was enough to link KAT to a Latvian bank account, one that received $31 million in deposits -- mainly from advertising payments -- between August 2015 and March 2016. Upon further investigation of the email accounts, and corresponding reverse lookups, it was found that the account holder had made a purchase on iTunes.
The article doesn't seem to say it, but it looks like Apple and Facebook probably just replied to standard (presumably well-formed) requests from law enforcement to hand over information about a suspect in a criminal copyright case.
Regardless of how you feel about criminal copyright as a thing (and if this bloke was making $31m in your months it's hard to think of him as a brave fighter for copyright reform :), if this is what happened then at least I feel ok about it. He wasn't caught in a massive dragnet that invaded the piracy of millions; it was a targeted search done lawfully with due process.
There might be more info in the full complaint but it's a bit much reading for me so I'll make do with this somewhat inflammatory headline and my uninformed opinion!
If the servers operated outside the US, and the owner lived outside the US, how does the USA think they have jurisdiction to charge him? Are all American companies subject to laws in every other country as their websites are accessible to users in those countries?
The guy running the torrent site is buying stuff on iTunes?
Keyword: "top executive in Brazil." They didn't go fetch Larry Page in his cozy home in the US to make him face justice in Brazil, and the US would've laughed at their face if they asked for that.
But presumably the Brazilian Google exec was just that -- a Brazilian living and working in Brazil, and presumably under the jurisdiction of their justice system (no matter how non-local the video hosting was).
What I as an American find kind of unappealing is the jurisdictional claims that US law enforcement makes against a foreign national living in a foreign country whose actions took place in a foreign country and only tangentially involved the US, like the guy happened to have a dollar bill in his pocket at the time, so therefore all US laws apply.
I think it's serious overreach and it makes me wonder how safe I am from the reverse situation, some foreign prosecutor who decides that because I said "boo" on the Internet and it breaks some law in Fuckedupistan that they should get to prosecute me.
More seriously, he made a large number of enormous mistakes, here are the biggest:
1. Looks like his real name was on the goddamn hosting for KAT. Perfect job for an anonymous shell company held by a Russian lawyer, but instead he left a business card on a neat little stand at the crime scene.
2. Not separating his real name completely from his identity as KAT admin OR his casual pseudonym. He should've created a completely new identity for the KAT admin that doesn't touch any others with a 30-foot pole.
3. Apparently he thought Canada was a good place to host the servers safe from the reach of US lawmen. Such a US-unfriendly place this is, that he felt confident storing incriminating info on the server for some reason.
4. Insufficient money laundering. He even could've accepted ad payments in Bitcoin. Really, he put less effort into laundering criminal proceeds than your average 1%er puts into not paying taxes.
5. Being on Facebook never helps.
In short, he was running this operation almost completely in the open, relying only on the assumption that he couldn't be extradited and the obfuscation of naming the company Cryptoneat instead of KickassTorrents Inc. to keep his ass out of prison. Ross "You'll take payment in Bitcoin without a second thought, Mr. Mob Boss? Seems Legit." Ulbricht looks like a genius in comparison.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Don't think we have a Global Government? Think Again!! You can run a site that's perfectly legal in the jurisdiction in which you operate it, make money off it which is perfectly legal in the jurisdiction in which it operates, not even be a US Citizen, or even a citizen of the country you reside in, but the friendly US Government will still come kick your door down and cart you off to the inner empire to a kangaroo court where you'll be railroaded into pleading guilty to charges you have no chance of fighting against.
I mean if the United States INTERNAL Revenue Service can investigate a Ukranian citizen living in Poland for "conspiracy" to launder money, does any nation on this planet, save Iran or North Korea, really have any sovereignty from the United States?
Apple and Facebook were served with warrants that required them to turn over the information. They did not. This isn't 'help', its just following the law.
Peace, or Not?
For those not willing to sort though the links/doc:
Name of the Canadian ISP seems intentionally omitted, as it is repeatedly referred to only as that (Canadian ISP).
As to the details, it is really only referred to as a "request" and doesn't really get into exactly what information was used. I suspect most of what is in the criminal compliant (up to that particular point), which is quite long and you'd probably have to be a lawyer to figure if that was adequate justification or not. Below is the quote from the 48 page document:
On or about April 12, 2016, in response to a Mutual Legal Assistance
Treaty request to the Central Authority of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police received the business records and made a forensic image of the original hard
drives associated with the KAT Canadian IP Addresses. Thereafter, those records
and forensic images were turned over to HSI.
Would still like to know exactly which ISP was involved regardless. Was it one of the big guys like Bell or Rogers, or one of the small independents? Privacy (or lack thereof) works both ways I suppose as one could probably do an FOI request to actually find out...
They used to remove content when receiving DMCA letters from supposed copyright holders, just like google.
It seems (to me) that the reason why he was not hiding much is that he was complying with DMCA.
This means that:
1. the Department of Homeland Security is part of the copyright police, as is the IRS (these are new for me - used to think it was just the FBI);
2. complying with the DMCA won't save you from trouble;
3. they will make up charges to get you extradited and harsher punishment (money laundering???)