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      ISPs Are Monitoring IPTV Pirates’ Activities, Court Documents Reveal

      Andy Maxwell · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Sunday, 18 October, 2020 - 10:38 · 6 minutes

    Spy Blocking of regular piracy websites has been a feature of anti-piracy enforcement in Europe for almost 15 years.

    The way these blocks are achieved is broadly similar, with entertainment industry companies filing “no-fault” injunctions against Internet service providers who stand before the courts accused of facilitating the copyright-infringing activities of their subscribers.

    Once this infringement has been identified and the ISPs put on notice by the courts, they are required to block access to the sites in question, using basic DNS techniques or in the UK, for example, more sophisticated methods that require a VPN or similar tool to tunnel through.

    IPTV Blocking – A More Sophisticated Beast

    In recent years, live sports groups such as the Premier League and UEFA have obtained similar injunctions that are more complex. These ‘dynamic’ blocking efforts require intricate work by the organizations’ anti-piracy partners, who identify the IP addresses of specific ‘pirate’ servers, including those that can be changed at short notice, in order for ISPs to block them at match times.

    While unpopular, there is nothing particularly surprising about these efforts. Content companies have obtained the necessary legal permissions and have a right to protect their businesses. And for the ISPs, it should be a simple case of them ‘firewalling’ the IP addresses in question so that subscribers cannot access them directly to watch live matches. However, it seems pretty clear that something else is going on too.

    ISPs’ Vested Interest in Stopping Pirates

    Now that they are both broadcasters and ISPs, companies including Sky have a vested interest in stopping piracy. This means that while blocking injunctions against ISPs used to be fiercely contested, that’s no longer the case. In fact, in a recent blocking case brought by UEFA in Ireland , it was revealed in court documents that Sky actually supported the action, despite being a defendant.

    While that’s the company’s prerogative, something more worrying was mentioned in the same case. It appears that in this matter, Sky or others acting on its behalf, have been monitoring the traffic of Sky subscribers who accessed the servers of pirate IPTV providers.

    Perhaps Not the ‘Dumb Pipe’ ISPs Are Usually Portrayed As

    In the order obtained by UEFA in the High Court of Ireland in September, comments made by Justice David Barniville revealed that the activities of Sky subscribers were used to support the application by UEFA to have pirate services blocked.

    “I am satisfied that the [blocking] Order is necessary for the purpose of protecting the Plaintiff’s copyright against infringement. I note from the evidence, and accept, that there has been a significant shift away from the use of websites in more recent years in favor of devices and apps, in particular, set top boxes that can be watched on televisions in people’s living rooms,” Justice Barniville wrote.

    “The affidavit of Jiajun Chen provides a confidential traffic analysis which evidences the use of the Sky network by Irish viewers to watch online illegal UEFA content.”

    That the traffic analysis itself is “confidential” feels just a little ironic, given that it apparently reports on communications that should have been confidential too.

    In this case, Mr. Chen appears to have obtained access to at least part of the Internet habits of some Sky subscribers. Any requests made from customers’ connections usually go straight from their devices via the ISP to the ‘pirate’ servers in question, meaning that only Sky should be in the middle. Reading between the lines, Sky appears to have monitored, logged, and made available information related to these communications to support the application of the plaintiff.

    Worryingly, this monitoring of customers’ traffic has been going on for some time , since it was briefly covered in previous blocking injunctions obtained by the Premier League. Precisely what information is being held is unclear but if it relates to attempts to access ‘infringing servers’, any and all data (if only metadata) is available to ISPs.

    No Expectation of Communications Privacy?

    Putting aside the issue of copyright infringement for a moment, this type of monitoring behavior is unlikely to sit well with the customers of ISPs who either demand or at least expect privacy. Neither does it sit well with Ed Geraghty , a Senior Technologist at UK-based charity Privacy International.

    “Censorship and monitoring of the Internet, generally, leads to chilling effects and violates our human right against arbitrary interference to our privacy, home, and correspondence. This is just another example that despite cries to the contrary from industries and governments alike, the Internet is a heavily surveilled and highly regulated space, where tracking is rampant,” Geraghty informs TorrentFreak.

    “In recent years there have been great strides in the roll out of end-to-end encryption and the safety and privacy it can offer the content of our communications whilst in transit, but fundamentally there’s still – necessarily – huge amounts of metadata attached to our every interaction online.”

    What Can Be Done to Prevent ISP Monitoring?

    While some will argue that privacy shouldn’t apply when subscribers are reportedly breaking the law, the big question relates to the slippery slope. If subscribers’ activities are apparently being monitored for one type of traffic today, how long before other types of traffic are considered fair game too? Preventing this, privacy experts insist, is not just possible but also necessary to prevent Internet surveillance from getting out of hand.

    “Depending on which point the ISPs are monitoring, there are various ways you can attempt to obscure your traffic – for instance, using third-party DNS over HTTPS, or a VPN – but be aware that this is merely shifting who can see your traffic away from your ISP to someone else,” Geraghty adds.

    Given their simplicity and wide availability, the use of VPNs to prevent monitoring is a natural choice and something that has been gaining traction in recent times. David Wibergh from OVPN says he believes that Sky is proposing the “black holing” of IP addresses instead of blocking DNS queries, which is problematic in itself.

    “As IP addresses are typically in temporary use and could be used by several sites simultaneously, it can lead to unexpected and obtrusive blocking of content that has nothing to do with piracy,” Wibergh says.

    “By using a VPN provider you remove the internet providers’ capabilities of performing blocking, surveillance and traffic analysis, as the only traffic originating from you is towards the VPN provider’s server. It’s crucial to choose a VPN provider that is trustworthy as VPN providers are able to perform the same form of traffic shaping as the ISP. But even if there is a risk that VPN providers log; it’s a guarantee that your ISP logs.

    Daniel Markuson, Digital Privacy Expert at NordVPN , says that perceived privacy intrusions like these will only will lead to more uptake.

    “Blocks of services and the subsequent discoveries of traffic monitoring and trade will lead to an increased demand for VPNs,” Markuson says.

    “Whenever a government announces an increase in surveillance, internet restrictions, or other types of constraints, people turn to privacy tools. We saw similar spikes in different regions: for example, when the US repealed net neutrality, or the UK passed the law dubbed ‘ The Snoopers’ Charter ‘.”

    Finally, a simple, obvious, but nevertheless important comment from Harold Li, Vice President of ExpressVPN , that applies to all Internet users concerned about the privacy of their communications.

    “The onus is still on consumers to take action and protect themselves,” he concludes.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      UEFA Obtains New Pirate IPTV Blocking Injunction Against Irish ISPs

      Andy Maxwell · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 1 October, 2020 - 07:51 · 3 minutes

    Red Card Over the past several years, the Premier League has obtained blocking orders from the High Court of England and Wales, which compel ISPs in the UK to block pirate streaming services .

    These so-called ‘dynamic injunctions’ are more flexible than their torrent and streaming site counterparts due to their ability to react more quickly, blocking streams as they appear close to and during match times. The idea is to frustrate customers of pirate IPTV services in particular, so that they migrate back to official offerings.

    UEFA Begins to Block Pirate IPTV Streams in the UK

    Back in 2017, UEFA, the governing body of football in Europe, decided that it too could benefit from this type of legal action. Following in the steps of the Premier League, UEFA obtained a similar High Court injunction that compelled ISPs including BT, Virgin, Sky and TalkTalk to block pirated match streams in the UK. The effort was expanded a year later .

    Soon after, the Premier League expanded its blocking efforts to Ireland, obtaining a stream-blocking injunction against several major ISPs including Eircom, Sky, Virgin and Vodafone. This summer the league obtained permission to continue its efforts in Ireland , a path now being followed by UEFA.

    UEFA Obtains High Court Order to Begin Blocking in Ireland

    After a successful application to the High Court, UEFA has now been granted permission to compel several local ISPs to block access to pirated match streams during the 2020-21 season.

    RTE reports that in common with the injunction obtained previously by the Premier League, Eir (Eircom), Sky Ireland Ltd, Sky Subscribers Services Ltd, Virgin Media Ireland Ltd and Vodafone Ireland Ltd are covered by the injunction. This means that they will be required to work with UEFA’s anti-piracy partners to render various IP addresses related to pirate servers inaccessible to their customers, at least during match times.

    While the ISPs are now required by law to cooperate in UEFA’s blocking efforts, only Sky came out in support of UEFA’s application. While this should come as no surprise given its position as a broadcaster, companies including Virgin Media have a vested interest in stopping piracy of live games too.

    As a result, the remainder of the ISPs did their part by remaining neutral, effectively guaranteeing that the injunction would be handed down, like those before it had too.

    Of course, relevant issues were considered by the Court, including that such an injunction is not only necessary but not overly complicated either. Furthermore, costs of implementation must not be excessive while the interests of all affected parties – including those of Internet users – must also be respected.

    However, having been down this path several times before, applicants and the courts are now very familiar with the procedure and the various parameters required to have injunctions signed off.

    Blocking Injunctions Are a Well-Trodden Path

    Despite their relative youth, dynamic blocking injunctions have developed quickly over the past three years but how they work from a technical perspective is a closely-guarded secret. The theory is simple; anti-piracy companies identify the broadcasting servers of pirate IPTV providers and feed these to ISPs so they can be firewalled but the precise parameters remain a closely guarded secret, albeit with some leaks .

    These blocking efforts can usually be circumvented when IPTV subscribers deploy a VPN to nullify their ISPs’ blocking measures, something which is now common practice among a growing subset of IPTV subscribers. However, this year there is talk of a new state of play on the ground in respect of the Premier League’s ability to disrupt suppliers.

    Precisely what is happening isn’t yet clear to us but there are reports that some IPTV providers are finding the Premier League’s efforts more intrusive than they were previously. The Premier League has already admitted that is has new powers for the coming season so time will tell who will come out on top, once the dust settles.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Overbroad UEFA Takedown Notice Targets Virgin Media, Best Buy and DIRECTV

      Ernesto Van der Sar · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Sunday, 23 August, 2020 - 20:40 · 2 minutes

    uefa logo Like many other sports organizations, UEFA is gravely concerned about the continued rise of online streaming piracy.

    Pirate IPTV and streaming services, in particular, are seen as a direct threat. One that has to be promptly dealt with.

    Just how seriously UEFA takes this issue became apparent earlier this month, when the organization announced a new tender for anti-piracy services. This potential multi-million dollar contract revealed UEFA’s multi-faceted anti-piracy plans .

    The prospective partner is expected to help with takedowns of live streams, investigating piracy apps, and helping out with blocking orders. However, plain old DMCA takedown notices to third-party intermediaries such as Google are also covered. This prompted us to take a look at UEFA’s current anti-piracy partners.

    According to Google’s Transparency Report, the organization works with NetResult, MarkMonitor and Pointer Brand Protection. Together, these have flagged tens of thousands of URLs, most of which indeed point to infringing material.

    Overbroad DMCA Notice

    The most flagged domains are gfycat.com and footballia.net, which apparently hosted pirated images and clips. However, the websites of pirate IPTV services are targeted as well. This is where things went horribly wrong recently.

    When looking through Google’s report we found a notice NetResult sent on behalf of UEFA . The notice claims to target “illegal IPTV services” that share “UEFA audio-visual content without permission.”

    uefa iptv notice

    And indeed, it lists nearly a thousand fishy-looking IPTV vendors but also some premium brands that are not infringing at all.

    The takedown notice includes the official shop page from the British telco Virgin Media, for example, as well a channel listing from the American broadcast provider DIRECTV .

    virgin flagged

    UEFA also singles out a search for “android TV box” on the site of retailer Best Buy, Brightcove’s streaming service Play TV , the Disney-owned media company Star TV , and a customer help page from UK broadcaster Sky.

    Infringing CBD and Hemp Shop?

    We haven’t researched all reported domains in detail, so there may be more errors. For example, this site that sells CBD and other hemp products doesn’t appear to infringe on any UEFA content, but another domain with a similar name may be problematic.

    When UEFA released its anti-piracy tender the organization specifically said that it wants to minimize ‘false positives.’ However, these examples show that there is still some progress to be made.

    These occasional errors can have serious consequences as Google might remove these pages from its search results. In this case, however, the search engine caught the mistakes before they were processed.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.