Tag Archives: domains

GoDaddy to Suspend ‘Pirate’ Domain Following Music Industry Complaints

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/godaddy-to-suspend-pirate-domain-following-music-industry-complaints-180601/

Most piracy-focused sites online conduct their business with minimal interference from outside parties. In many cases, a heap of DMCA notices filed with Google represents the most visible irritant.

Others, particularly those with large audiences, can find themselves on the end of a web blockade. Mostly court-ordered, blocking measures restrict the ability of Internet users to visit a site due to ISPs restricting traffic.

In some regions, where copyright holders have the means to do so, they choose to tackle a site’s infrastructure instead, which could mean complaints to webhosts or other service providers. At times, this has included domain registries, who are asked to disable domains on copyright grounds.

This is exactly what has happened to Fox-MusicaGratis.com, a Spanish-language music piracy site that incurred the wrath of IFPI member UNIMPRO – the Peruvian Union of Phonographic Producers.

Pirate music, suspended domain

In a process that’s becoming more common in the region, UNIMPRO initially filed a complaint with the Copyright Commission (Comisión de Derecho de Autor (CDA)) which conducted an investigation into the platform’s activities.

“The CDA considered, among other things, the irreparable damage that would have been caused to the legitimate rights owners, taking into account the large number of users who could potentially have visited said website, which was making available endless musical recordings for commercial purposes, without authorization of the holders of rights,” a statement from CDA reads.

The administrative process was carried out locally with the involvement of the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi), an autonomous public body tasked with handling anti-competitive behavior, unfair competition, and intellectual property matters.

Indecopi HQ

The matter was decided in favor of the rightsholders and a subsequent ruling included an instruction for US-based domain name registry GoDaddy to suspend Fox-MusicaGratis.com. According to the copyright protection entity, GoDaddy agreed to comply, to prevent further infringement.

This latest action involving a music piracy site registered with GoDaddy follows on the heels of a similar enforcement process back in March.

Mp3Juices-Download-Free.com, Melodiavip.net, Foxmusica.site and Fulltono.me were all music sites offering MP3 content without copyright holders’ permission. They too were the subject of an UNIMPRO complaint which resulted in orders for GoDaddy to suspend their domains.

In the cases of all five websites, GoDaddy was given the chance to appeal but there is no indication that the company has done so. GoDaddy did not respond to a request for comment.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Singapore ISPs Block 53 Pirate Sites Following MPAA Legal Action

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/singapore-isps-block-53-pirate-sites-following-mpaa-legal-action-180521/

Under increasing pressure from copyright holders, in 2014 Singapore passed amendments to copyright law that allow ISPs to block ‘pirate’ sites.

“The prevalence of online piracy in Singapore turns customers away from legitimate content and adversely affects Singapore’s creative sector,” said then Senior Minister of State for Law Indranee Rajah.

“It can also undermine our reputation as a society that respects the protection of intellectual property.”

After the amendments took effect in December 2014, there was a considerable pause before any websites were targeted. However, in September 2016, at the request of the MPA(A), Solarmovie.ph became the first website ordered to be blocked under Singapore’s amended Copyright Act. The High Court subsequently ordering several major ISPs to disable access to the site.

A new wave of blocks announced this morning are the country’s most significant so far, with dozens of ‘pirate’ sites targeted following a successful application by the MPAA earlier this year.

In total, 53 sites across 154 domains – including those operated by The Pirate Bay plus KickassTorrents and Solarmovie variants – have been rendered inaccessible by ISPs including Singtel, StarHub, M1, MyRepublic and ViewQwest.

“In Singapore, these sites are responsible for a major portion of copyright infringement of films and television shows,” an MPAA spokesman told The Straits Times (paywall).

“This action by rights owners is necessary to protect the creative industry, enabling creators to create and keep their jobs, protect their works, and ensure the continued provision of high-quality content to audiences.”

Before granting a blocking injunction, the High Court must satisfy itself that the proposed online locations meet the threshold of being “flagrantly infringing”. This means that a site like YouTube, which carries a lot of infringing content but is not dedicated to infringement, would not ordinarily get caught up in the dragnet.

Sites considered for blocking must have a primary purpose to infringe, a threshold that is tipped in copyright holders’ favor when the sites’ operators display a lack of respect for copyright law and have already had their domains blocked in other jurisdictions.

The Court also weighs a number of additional factors including whether blocking would place an unacceptable burden on the shoulders of ISPs, whether the blocking demand is technically possible, and whether it will be effective.

In common with other regions such as the UK and Australia, for example, sites targeted for blocking must be informed of the applications made against them, to ensure they’re given a chance to defend themselves in court. No fully-fledged ‘pirate’ site has ever defended a blocking application in Singapore or indeed any jurisdiction in the world.

Finally, should any measures be taken by ‘pirate’ sites to evade an ISP blockade, copyright holders can apply to the Singapore High Court to amend the blocking order. This is similar to the Australian model where each application must be heard on its merits, rather than the UK model where a more streamlined approach is taken.

According to a recent report by Motion Picture Association Canada, at least 42 countries are now obligated to block infringing sites. In Europe alone, 1,800 sites and 5,300 domains have been rendered inaccessible, with Portugal, Italy, the UK, and Denmark leading the way.

In Canada, where copyright holders are lobbying hard for a site-blocking regime of their own, there’s pressure to avoid the “uncertain, slow and expensive” route of going through the courts.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

CloudFrunt – Identify Misconfigured CloudFront Domains

Post Syndicated from Darknet original https://www.darknet.org.uk/2018/05/cloudfrunt-identify-misconfigured-cloudfront-domains/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=darknetfeed

CloudFrunt – Identify Misconfigured CloudFront Domains

CloudFrunt is a Python-based tool for identifying misconfigured CloudFront domains, it uses DNS and looks for CNAMEs which may be allowed to be associated with CloudFront distributions. This effectively allows for domain hijacking.

How CloudFrunt Works For Misconfigured CloudFront

CloudFront is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). CloudFront users create “distributions” that serve content from specific sources (an S3 bucket, for example).

Each CloudFront distribution has a unique endpoint for users to point their DNS records to (ex.

Read the rest of CloudFrunt – Identify Misconfigured CloudFront Domains now! Only available at Darknet.

ExtraTorrent Replacement Displays Warning On Predecessor’s Shutdown Anniversary

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/extratorrent-replacement-displays-warning-on-predecessors-shutdown-anniversary-180518/

Exactly one year ago, millions of users in the BitTorrent community went into mourning with the shock depature of one of its major players.

ExtraTorrent was founded in back in November 2006, at a time when classic platforms such as TorrentSpy and Mininova were dominating the torrent site landscape. But with dedication and determination, the site amassed millions of daily visitors, outperforming every other torrent site apart from the mighty Pirate Bay.

Then, on May 17, 2017, everything came crashing down.

“ExtraTorrent has shut down permanently,” a note in the site read. “ExtraTorrent with all mirrors goes offline. We permanently erase all data. Stay away from fake ExtraTorrent websites and clones. Thx to all ET supporters and torrent community. ET was a place to be….”

While ExtraTorrent staff couldn’t be more clear in advising people to stay away from clones, few people listened to their warnings. Within hours, new sites appeared claiming to be official replacements for the much-loved torrent site and people flocked to them in their millions.

One of those was ExtraTorrent.ag, a torrent site connected to the operators of EZTV.ag, which appeared as a replacement in the wake of the official EZTV’s demise. Graphically very similar to the original ExtraTorrent, the .ag ‘replacement’ had none of its namesake’s community or unique content. But that didn’t dent its popularity.

ExtraTorrent.ag

At the start of this week, ExtraTorrent.ag was one of the most popular torrent sites on the Internet. With an Alexa rank of around 2,200, it would’ve clinched ninth position in our Top 10 Torrent Sites report earlier this year. However, after registering the site’s domain a year ago, something seems to have gone wrong.

Yesterday, on the anniversary of ExtraTorrent’s shutdown and exactly a year after the ExtraTorrent.ag domain was registered, ExtraTorrent.ag disappeared only to be replaced by a generic landing page, as shown below.

ExtraTorrent.ag landing page

This morning, however, there appear to be additional complications. Accessing with Firefox produces the page above but attempting to do so with Chrome produces an ominous security warning.

Chrome warning

Indeed, those protected by MalwareBytes won’t be able to access the page at all, since ExtraTorrent.ag redirects to the domain FindBetterResults.com, which the anti-malware app flags as malicious.

The change was reported to TF by the operator of domain unblocking site Unblocked.lol, which offers torrent site proxies as well as access to live TV and sports.

“I noticed when I started receiving emails saying ExtraTorrent was redirecting to some parked domain. When I jumped on the PC and checked myself it was just redirecting to a blank page,” he informs us.

“First I thought they’d blocked our IP address so I used some different ones. But I soon discovered the domain was in fact parked.”

So what has happened to this previously-functioning domain?

Whois records show that ExtraTorrent.ag was created on May 17, 2017 and appears to have been registered for a year. Yesterday, on May 17, 2018, the domain was updated to list what could potentially be a new owner, with an expiry date of May 17, 2019.

Once domains have expired, they usually enter an ‘Auto-Renew Grace Period’ for up to 45 days. This is followed by a 30-day ‘Redemption Grace Period’. At the end of this second period, domains cannot be renewed and are released for third-parties to register. That doesn’t appear to have been the case here.

So, to find out more about the sudden changes we reached out to the email address listed in the WHOIS report but received no response. Should we hear more we’ll update this report but in the meantime the Internet has lost one of its largest torrent sites and gained a rather pointless landing page with potential security risks.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Sci-Hub ‘Pirate Bay For Science’ Security Certs Revoked by Comodo

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-pirate-bay-for-science-security-certs-revoked-by-comodo-ca-180503/

Sci-Hub is often referred to as the “Pirate Bay of Science”. Like its namesake, it offers masses of unlicensed content for free, mostly against the wishes of copyright holders.

While The Pirate Bay will index almost anything, Sci-Hub is dedicated to distributing tens of millions of academic papers and articles, something which has turned itself into a target for publishing giants like Elsevier.

Sci-Hub and its Kazakhstan-born founder Alexandra Elbakyan have been under sustained attack for several years but more recently have been fending off an unprecedented barrage of legal action initiated by the American Chemical Society (ACS), a leading source of academic publications in the field of chemistry.

After winning a default judgment for $4.8 million in copyright infringement damages last year, ACS was further granted a broad injunction.

It required various third-party services (including domain registries, hosting companies and search engines) to stop facilitating access to the site. This plunged Sci-Hub into a game of domain whac-a-mole, one that continues to this day.

Determined to head Sci-Hub off at the pass, ACS obtained additional authority to tackle the evasive site and any new domains it may register in the future.

While Sci-Hub has been hopping around domains for a while, this week a new development appeared on the horizon. Visitors to some of the site’s domains were greeted with errors indicating that the domains’ security certificates had been revoked.

Tests conducted by TorrentFreak revealed clear revocations on Sci-Hub.hk and Sci-Hub.nz, both of which returned the error ‘NET::ERR_CERT_REVOKED’.

Certificate revoked

These certificates were first issued and then revoked by Comodo CA, the world’s largest certification authority. TF contacted the company who confirmed that it had been forced to take action against Sci-Hub.

“In response to a court order against Sci-Hub, Comodo CA has revoked four certificates for the site,” Jonathan Skinner, Director, Global Channel Programs at Comodo CA informed TorrentFreak.

“By policy Comodo CA obeys court orders and the law to the full extent of its ability.”

Comodo refused to confirm any additional details, including whether these revocations were anything to do with the current ACS injunction. However, Susan R. Morrissey, Director of Communications at ACS, told TorrentFreak that the revocations were indeed part of ACS’ legal action against Sci-Hub.

“[T]he action is related to our continuing efforts to protect ACS’ intellectual property,” Morrissey confirmed.

Sci-Hub operates multiple domains (an up-to-date list is usually available on Wikipedia) that can be switched at any time. At the time of writing the domain sci-hub.ga currently returns ‘ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH’ while .CN and .GS variants both have Comodo certificates that expired last year.

When TF first approached Comodo earlier this week, Sci-Hub’s certificates with the company hadn’t been completely wiped out. For example, the domain https://sci-hub.tw operated perfectly, with an active and non-revoked Comodo certificate.

Still in the game…but not for long

By Wednesday, however, the domain was returning the now-familiar “revoked” message.

These domain issues are the latest technical problems to hit Sci-Hub as a result of the ACS injunction. In February, Cloudflare terminated service to several of the site’s domains.

“Cloudflare will terminate your service for the following domains sci-hub.la, sci-hub.tv, and sci-hub.tw by disabling our authoritative DNS in 24 hours,” Cloudflare told Sci-Hub.

While ACS has certainly caused problems for Sci-Hub, the platform is extremely resilient and remains online.

The domains https://sci-hub.is and https://sci-hub.nu are fully operational with certificates issued by Let’s Encrypt, a free and open certificate authority supported by the likes of Mozilla, EFF, Chrome, Private Internet Access, and other prominent tech companies.

It’s unclear whether these certificates will be targeted in the future but Sci-Hub doesn’t appear to be in the mood to back down.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Pirate IPTV Blocking Case is No Slam Dunk Says Federal Court Judge

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-iptv-blocking-case-is-no-slam-dunk-says-federal-court-judge-180502/

Last year, Hong Kong-based broadcaster Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) applied for a blocking injunction against several unauthorized IPTV services.

Under the Copyright Act, the broadcaster asked the Federal Court to order ISPs including Telstra, Optus, Vocus, and TPG plus their subsidiaries to block access to seven Android-based services named as A1, BlueTV, EVPAD, FunTV, MoonBox, Unblock, and hTV5.

Unlike torrent site and streaming portal blocks granted earlier, it soon became clear that this case would present unique difficulties. TVB not only wants Internet locations (URLs, domains, IP addresses) related to the technical operation of the services blocked, but also hosting services akin to Google Play and Apple’s App Store that host the app.

Furthermore, it is far from clear whether China-focused live programming is eligible for copyright protection in Australia. If China had been a party to the 1961 Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations, it would receive protection. As it stands, it does not.

That causes complications in respect of Section 115a of the Copyright Act which allows rightsholders to apply for an injunction to have “overseas online locations” blocked if they facilitate access to copyrighted content. Furthermore, the section requires that the “primary purpose” of the location is to infringe copyrights recognized in Australia. If it does not, then there’s no blocking option available.

“If most of what is occurring here is a reproduction of broadcasts that are not protected by copyright, then the primary purpose is not to facilitate copyright infringement,” Justice Nicholas said in April.

This morning TVB returned to Federal Court for a scheduled hearing. The ISPs were a no-show again, leaving the broadcaster’s legal team to battle it out with Justice Nicholas alone. According to details published by ComputerWorld, he isn’t making it easy for the overseas company.

The Judge put it to TVB that “the purpose of this system [the set-top boxes] is to make available a broadcast that’s not copyright protected in this country, in this country,” he said.

“If 10 per cent of the content was infringing content, how could you say the primary purpose is infringing copyright?” the Judge asked.

But despite the Judge’s reservations, TVB believes that the pirate IPTV services clearly infringe its rights, since alongside live programming, the devices also reproduce TVB movies which do receive protection in Australia. However, the company is also getting creative in an effort to sidestep the ‘live TV’ conundrum.

TVB counsel Julian Cooke told the Court that live TVB broadcasts are first reproduced on foreign servers from where they are communicated to set-top devices in Australia with a delay of between one and four minutes. This is a common feature of all pirate IPTV services which potentially calls into question the nature of the ‘live’ broadcasts. The same servers also carry recorded content too, he argued.

“Because the way the system is set up, it compounds itself … in a number of instances, a particular domain name, which we refer to as the portal target domain name, allows a communication path not just to live TV, but it’s also the communication path to other applications such as replay and video on demand,” Cooke said, as quoted by ZDNet.

Cooke told the Court that he wasn’t sure whether the threshold for “primary purpose” was set at 50% of infringing content but noted that the majority of the content available through the boxes is infringing and the nature of the servers is even more pronounced.

“It compounds the submission that the primary purpose of the online location which is the facilitating server is to facilitate the infringement of copyright using that communication path,” he said.

As TF predicted in our earlier coverage, TVB today got creative by highlighting other content that it does receive copyright protection for in Australia. Previously in the UK, the Premier League successfully stated that it owns copyright in the logos presented in a live broadcast.

This morning, Cooke told the court that TVB “literary works” – scripts used on news shows and subtitling services – receive copyright protection in Australia so urged the Court to consider the full package.

“If one had concerns about live TV, one shouldn’t based on the analysis we’ve done … if one adds that live TV infringements together with video on demand together with replay, there could be no doubt that the primary purpose of the online locations is to infringe copyright,” he said.

Due to the apparent complexity of the case, Justice Nicholas reserved his decision, telling TVB that his ruling could take a couple of months after receiving his “close attention.”

Last week, Village Roadshow and several major Hollywood studios won a blocking injunction against a different pirate IPTV service. HD Subs Plus delivers around 600 live premium channels plus hundreds of movies on demand, but the service will now be blocked by ISPs across Australia.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Enhanced Domain Protections for Amazon CloudFront Requests

Post Syndicated from Colm MacCarthaigh original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/enhanced-domain-protections-for-amazon-cloudfront-requests/

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be adding enhanced domain protections to Amazon CloudFront. The short version is this: the new measures are designed to ensure that requests handled by CloudFront are handled on behalf of legitimate domain owners.

Using CloudFront to receive traffic for a domain you aren’t authorized to use is already a violation of our AWS Terms of Service. When we become aware of this type of activity, we deal with it behind the scenes by disabling abusive accounts. Now we’re integrating checks directly into the CloudFront API and Content Distribution service, as well.

Enhanced Protection against Dangling DNS entries
To use CloudFront with your domain, you must configure your domain to point at CloudFront. You may use a traditional CNAME, or an Amazon Route 53 “ALIAS” record.

A problem can arise if you delete your CloudFront distribution, but leave your DNS still pointing at CloudFront, popularly known as a “dangling” DNS entry. Thankfully, this is very rare, as the domain will no longer work, but we occasionally see customers who leave their old domains dormant. This can also happen if you leave this kind of “dangling” DNS entry pointing at other infrastructure you no longer control. For example, if you leave a domain pointing at an IP address that you don’t control, then there is a risk that someone may come along and “claim” traffic destined for your domain.

In an even more rare set of circumstances, an abuser can exploit a subdomain of a domain that you are actively using. For example, if a customer left “images.example.com” dangling and pointing to a deleted CloudFront distribution which is no longer in use, but they still actively use the parent domain “example.com”, then an abuser could come along and register “images.example.com” as an alternative name on their own distribution and claim traffic that they aren’t entitled to. This also means that cookies may be set and intercepted for HTTP traffic potentially including the parent domain. HTTPS traffic remains protected if you’ve removed the certificate associated with the original CloudFront distribution.

Of course, the best fix for this kind of risk is not to leave dangling DNS entries in the first place. Earlier in February, 2018, we added a new warning to our systems. With this warning, if you remove an alternate domain name from a distribution, you are reminded to delete any DNS entries that may still be pointing at CloudFront.

We also have long-standing checks in the CloudFront API that ensure this kind of domain claiming can’t occur when you are using wildcard domains. If you attempt to add *.example.com to your CloudFront distribution, but another account has already registered www.example.com, then the attempt will fail.

With the new enhanced domain protection, CloudFront will now also check your DNS whenever you remove an alternate domain. If we determine that the domain is still pointing at your CloudFront distribution, the API call will fail and no other accounts will be able to claim this traffic in the future.

Enhanced Protection against Domain Fronting
CloudFront will also be soon be implementing enhanced protections against so-called “Domain Fronting”. Domain Fronting is when a non-standard client makes a TLS/SSL connection to a certain name, but then makes a HTTPS request for an unrelated name. For example, the TLS connection may connect to “www.example.com” but then issue a request for “www.example.org”.

In certain circumstances this is normal and expected. For example, browsers can re-use persistent connections for any domain that is listed in the same SSL Certificate, and these are considered related domains. But in other cases, tools including malware can use this technique between completely unrelated domains to evade restrictions and blocks that can be imposed at the TLS/SSL layer.

To be clear, this technique can’t be used to impersonate domains. The clients are non-standard and are working around the usual TLS/SSL checks that ordinary clients impose. But clearly, no customer ever wants to find that someone else is masquerading as their innocent, ordinary domain. Although these cases are also already handled as a breach of our AWS Terms of Service, in the coming weeks we will be checking that the account that owns the certificate we serve for a particular connection always matches the account that owns the request we handle on that connection. As ever, the security of our customers is our top priority, and we will continue to provide enhanced protection against misconfigurations and abuse from unrelated parties.

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How to centralize DNS management in a multi-account environment

Post Syndicated from Mahmoud Matouk original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-centralize-dns-management-in-a-multi-account-environment/

In a multi-account environment where you require connectivity between accounts, and perhaps connectivity between cloud and on-premises workloads, the demand for a robust Domain Name Service (DNS) that’s capable of name resolution across all connected environments will be high.

The most common solution is to implement local DNS in each account and use conditional forwarders for DNS resolutions outside of this account. While this solution might be efficient for a single-account environment, it becomes complex in a multi-account environment.

In this post, I will provide a solution to implement central DNS for multiple accounts. This solution reduces the number of DNS servers and forwarders needed to implement cross-account domain resolution. I will show you how to configure this solution in four steps:

  1. Set up your Central DNS account.
  2. Set up each participating account.
  3. Create Route53 associations.
  4. Configure on-premises DNS (if applicable).

Solution overview

In this solution, you use AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (AWS Managed Microsoft AD) as a DNS service in a dedicated account in a Virtual Private Cloud (DNS-VPC).

The DNS service included in AWS Managed Microsoft AD uses conditional forwarders to forward domain resolution to either Amazon Route 53 (for domains in the awscloud.com zone) or to on-premises DNS servers (for domains in the example.com zone). You’ll use AWS Managed Microsoft AD as the primary DNS server for other application accounts in the multi-account environment (participating accounts).

A participating account is any application account that hosts a VPC and uses the centralized AWS Managed Microsoft AD as the primary DNS server for that VPC. Each participating account has a private, hosted zone with a unique zone name to represent this account (for example, business_unit.awscloud.com).

You associate the DNS-VPC with the unique hosted zone in each of the participating accounts, this allows AWS Managed Microsoft AD to use Route 53 to resolve all registered domains in private, hosted zones in participating accounts.

The following diagram shows how the various services work together:
 

Diagram showing the relationship between all the various services

Figure 1: Diagram showing the relationship between all the various services

 

In this diagram, all VPCs in participating accounts use Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) option sets. The option sets configure EC2 instances to use the centralized AWS Managed Microsoft AD in DNS-VPC as their default DNS Server. You also configure AWS Managed Microsoft AD to use conditional forwarders to send domain queries to Route53 or on-premises DNS servers based on query zone. For domain resolution across accounts to work, we associate DNS-VPC with each hosted zone in participating accounts.

If, for example, server.pa1.awscloud.com needs to resolve addresses in the pa3.awscloud.com domain, the sequence shown in the following diagram happens:
 

How domain resolution across accounts works

Figure 2: How domain resolution across accounts works

 

  • 1.1: server.pa1.awscloud.com sends domain name lookup to default DNS server for the name server.pa3.awscloud.com. The request is forwarded to the DNS server defined in the DHCP option set (AWS Managed Microsoft AD in DNS-VPC).
  • 1.2: AWS Managed Microsoft AD forwards name resolution to Route53 because it’s in the awscloud.com zone.
  • 1.3: Route53 resolves the name to the IP address of server.pa3.awscloud.com because DNS-VPC is associated with the private hosted zone pa3.awscloud.com.

Similarly, if server.example.com needs to resolve server.pa3.awscloud.com, the following happens:

  • 2.1: server.example.com sends domain name lookup to on-premise DNS server for the name server.pa3.awscloud.com.
  • 2.2: on-premise DNS server using conditional forwarder forwards domain lookup to AWS Managed Microsoft AD in DNS-VPC.
  • 1.2: AWS Managed Microsoft AD forwards name resolution to Route53 because it’s in the awscloud.com zone.
  • 1.3: Route53 resolves the name to the IP address of server.pa3.awscloud.com because DNS-VPC is associated with the private hosted zone pa3.awscloud.com.

Step 1: Set up a centralized DNS account

In previous AWS Security Blog posts, Drew Dennis covered a couple of options for establishing DNS resolution between on-premises networks and Amazon VPC. In this post, he showed how you can use AWS Managed Microsoft AD (provisioned with AWS Directory Service) to provide DNS resolution with forwarding capabilities.

To set up a centralized DNS account, you can follow the same steps in Drew’s post to create AWS Managed Microsoft AD and configure the forwarders to send DNS queries for awscloud.com to default, VPC-provided DNS and to forward example.com queries to the on-premise DNS server.

Here are a few considerations while setting up central DNS:

  • The VPC that hosts AWS Managed Microsoft AD (DNS-VPC) will be associated with all private hosted zones in participating accounts.
  • To be able to resolve domain names across AWS and on-premises, connectivity through Direct Connect or VPN must be in place.

Step 2: Set up participating accounts

The steps I suggest in this section should be applied individually in each application account that’s participating in central DNS resolution.

  1. Create the VPC(s) that will host your resources in participating account.
  2. Create VPC Peering between local VPC(s) in each participating account and DNS-VPC.
  3. Create a private hosted zone in Route 53. Hosted zone domain names must be unique across all accounts. In the diagram above, we used pa1.awscloud.com / pa2.awscloud.com / pa3.awscloud.com. You could also use a combination of environment and business unit: for example, you could use pa1.dev.awscloud.com to achieve uniqueness.
  4. Associate VPC(s) in each participating account with the local private hosted zone.

The next step is to change the default DNS servers on each VPC using DHCP option set:

  1. Follow these steps to create a new DHCP option set. Make sure in the DNS Servers to put the private IP addresses of the two AWS Managed Microsoft AD servers that were created in DNS-VPC:
     
    The "Create DHCP options set" dialog box

    Figure 3: The “Create DHCP options set” dialog box

     

  2. Follow these steps to assign the DHCP option set to your VPC(s) in participating account.

Step 3: Associate DNS-VPC with private hosted zones in each participating account

The next steps will associate DNS-VPC with the private, hosted zone in each participating account. This allows instances in DNS-VPC to resolve domain records created in these hosted zones. If you need them, here are more details on associating a private, hosted zone with VPC on a different account.

  1. In each participating account, create the authorization using the private hosted zone ID from the previous step, the region, and the VPC ID that you want to associate (DNS-VPC).
     
    aws route53 create-vpc-association-authorization –hosted-zone-id <hosted-zone-id> –vpc VPCRegion=<region>,VPCId=<vpc-id>
     
  2. In the centralized DNS account, associate DNS-VPC with the hosted zone in each participating account.
     
    aws route53 associate-vpc-with-hosted-zone –hosted-zone-id <hosted-zone-id> –vpc VPCRegion=<region>,VPCId=<vpc-id>
     

After completing these steps, AWS Managed Microsoft AD in the centralized DNS account should be able to resolve domain records in the private, hosted zone in each participating account.

Step 4: Setting up on-premises DNS servers

This step is necessary if you would like to resolve AWS private domains from on-premises servers and this task comes down to configuring forwarders on-premise to forward DNS queries to AWS Managed Microsoft AD in DNS-VPC for all domains in the awscloud.com zone.

The steps to implement conditional forwarders vary by DNS product. Follow your product’s documentation to complete this configuration.

Summary

I introduced a simplified solution to implement central DNS resolution in a multi-account environment that could be also extended to support DNS resolution between on-premise resources and AWS. This can help reduce operations effort and the number of resources needed to implement cross-account domain resolution.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, start a new thread on the AWS Directory Service forum or contact AWS Support.

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New .BOT gTLD from Amazon

Post Syndicated from Randall Hunt original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-bot-gtld-from-amazon/

Today, I’m excited to announce the launch of .BOT, a new generic top-level domain (gTLD) from Amazon. Customers can use .BOT domains to provide an identity and portal for their bots. Fitness bots, slack bots, e-commerce bots, and more can all benefit from an easy-to-access .BOT domain. The phrase “bot” was the 4th most registered domain keyword within the .COM TLD in 2016 with more than 6000 domains per month. A .BOT domain allows customers to provide a definitive internet identity for their bots as well as enhancing SEO performance.

At the time of this writing .BOT domains start at $75 each and must be verified and published with a supported tool like: Amazon Lex, Botkit Studio, Dialogflow, Gupshup, Microsoft Bot Framework, or Pandorabots. You can expect support for more tools over time and if your favorite bot framework isn’t supported feel free to contact us here: [email protected].

Below, I’ll walk through the experience of registering and provisioning a domain for my bot, whereml.bot. Then we’ll look at setting up the domain as a hosted zone in Amazon Route 53. Let’s get started.

Registering a .BOT domain

First, I’ll head over to https://amazonregistry.com/bot, type in a new domain, and click magnifying class to make sure my domain is available and get taken to the registration wizard.

Next, I have the opportunity to choose how I want to verify my bot. I build all of my bots with Amazon Lex so I’ll select that in the drop down and get prompted for instructions specific to AWS. If I had my bot hosted somewhere else I would need to follow the unique verification instructions for that particular framework.

To verify my Lex bot I need to give the Amazon Registry permissions to invoke the bot and verify it’s existence. I’ll do this by creating an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) cross account role and providing the AmazonLexReadOnly permissions to that role. This is easily accomplished in the AWS Console. Be sure to provide the account number and external ID shown on the registration page.

Now I’ll add read only permissions to our Amazon Lex bots.

I’ll give my role a fancy name like DotBotCrossAccountVerifyRole and a description so it’s easy to remember why I made this then I’ll click create to create the role and be transported to the role summary page.

Finally, I’ll copy the ARN from the created role and save it for my next step.

Here I’ll add all the details of my Amazon Lex bot. If you haven’t made a bot yet you can follow the tutorial to build a basic bot. I can refer to any alias I’ve deployed but if I just want to grab the latest published bot I can pass in $LATEST as the alias. Finally I’ll click Validate and proceed to registering my domain.

Amazon Registry works with a partner EnCirca to register our domains so we’ll select them and optionally grab Site Builder. I know how to sling some HTML and Javascript together so I’ll pass on the Site Builder side of things.

 

After I click continue we’re taken to EnCirca’s website to finalize the registration and with any luck within a few minutes of purchasing and completing the registration we should receive an email with some good news:

Alright, now that we have a domain name let’s find out how to host things on it.

Using Amazon Route53 with a .BOT domain

Amazon Route 53 is a highly available and scalable DNS with robust APIs, healthchecks, service discovery, and many other features. I definitely want to use this to host my new domain. The first thing I’ll do is navigate to the Route53 console and create a hosted zone with the same name as my domain.


Great! Now, I need to take the Name Server (NS) records that Route53 created for me and use EnCirca’s portal to add these as the authoritative nameservers on the domain.

Now I just add my records to my hosted zone and I should be able to serve traffic! Way cool, I’ve got my very own .bot domain for @WhereML.

Next Steps

  • I could and should add to the security of my site by creating TLS certificates for people who intend to access my domain over TLS. Luckily with AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) this is extremely straightforward and I’ve got my subdomains and root domain verified in just a few clicks.
  • I could create a cloudfront distrobution to front an S3 static single page application to host my entire chatbot and invoke Amazon Lex with a cognito identity right from the browser.

– Randall

Registrars Suspend 11 Pirate Site Domains, 89 More in the Crosshairs

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/registrars-suspend-11-pirate-site-domains-89-more-in-the-crosshairs-180423/

In addition to website blocking which is running rampant across dozens of countries right now, targeting the domains of pirate sites is considered to be a somewhat effective anti-piracy tool.

The vast majority of websites are found using a recognizable name so when they become inaccessible, site operators have to work quickly to get the message out to fans. That can mean losing visitors, at least in the short term, and also contributes to the rise of copy-cat sites that may not have users’ best interests at heart.

Nevertheless, crime-fighting has always been about disrupting the ability of the enemy to do business so with this in mind, authorities in India began taking advice from the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) a couple of years ago.

After studying the model developed by PIPCU, India formed its Digital Crime Unit (DCU), which follows a multi-stage plan.

Initially, pirate sites and their partners are told to cease-and-desist. Next, complaints are filed with advertisers, who are asked to stop funding site activities. Service providers and domain registrars also receive a written complaint from the DCU, asking them to suspend services to the sites in question.

Last July, the DCU earmarked around 9,000 sites where pirated content was being made available. From there, 1,300 were placed on a shortlist for targeted action. Precisely how many have been contacted thus far is unclear but authorities are now reporting success.

According to local reports, the Maharashtra government’s Digital Crime Unit has managed to have 11 pirate site domains suspended following complaints from players in the entertainment industry.

As is often the case (and to avoid them receiving even more attention) the sites in question aren’t being named but according to Brijesh Singh, special Inspector General of Police in Maharashtra, the sites had a significant number of visitors.

Their domain registrars were sent a notice under Section 149 of the Code Of Criminal Procedure, which grants police the power to take preventative action when a crime is suspected. It’s yet to be confirmed officially but it seems likely that pirate sites utilizing local registrars were targeted by the authorities.

“Responding to our notice, the domain names of all these websites, that had a collective viewership of over 80 million, were suspended,” Singh said.

Laxman Kamble, a police inspector attached to the state government’s Cyber Cell, said the pilot project was launched after the government received complaints from Viacom and Star but back in January there were reports that the MPAA had also become involved.

Using the model pioneered by London’s PIPCU, 19 parameters were applied to list of pirate sites in order to place them on the shortlist. They are reported to include the type of content being uploaded, downloaded, and the number of downloads overall.

Kamble reports that a further 89 websites, that have domains registered abroad but are very popular in India, are now being targeted. Whether overseas registrars will prove as compliant will remain to be seen. After booking initial success, even PIPCU itself experienced problems keeping up the momentum with registrars.

In 2014, information obtained by TorrentFreak following a Freedom of Information request revealed that only five out of 70 domain registrars had complied with police requests to suspend domains.

A year later, PIPCU confirmed that suspending pirate domain names was no longer a priority for them after ICANN ruled that registrars don’t have to suspend domain names without a valid court order.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Russia Blacklists 250 Pirate Sites For Displaying Gambling Ads

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/russia-blacklists-250-pirate-sites-for-displaying-gambling-ads-180421/

Blocking alleged pirate sites is usually a question of proving that they’re involved in infringement and then applying to the courts for an injunction.

In Europe, the process is becoming easier, largely thanks to an EU ruling that permits blocking on copyright grounds.

As reported over the past several years, Russia is taking its blocking processes very seriously. Copyright holders can now have sites blocked in just a few days, if they can show their operators as being unresponsive to takedown demands.

This week, however, Russian authorities have again shown that copyright infringement doesn’t have to be the only Achilles’ heel of pirate sites.

Back in 2006, online gambling was completely banned in Russia. Three years later in 2009, land-based gambling was also made illegal in all but four specified regions. Then, in 2012, the Russian Supreme Court ruled that ISPs must block access to gambling sites, something they had previously refused to do.

That same year, telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor began publishing a list of banned domains and within those appeared some of the biggest names in gambling. Many shut down access to customers located in Russia but others did not. In response, Rozcomnadzor also began targeting sites that simply offered information on gambling.

Fast forward more than six years and Russia is still taking a hard line against gambling operators. However, it now finds itself in a position where the existence of gambling material can also assist the state in its quest to take down pirate sites.

Following a complaint from the Federal Tax Service of Russia, Rozcomnadzor has again added a large number of ‘pirate’ sites to the country’s official blocklist after they advertised gambling-related products and services.

“Rozkomnadzor, at the request of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, added more than 250 pirate online cinemas and torrent trackers to the unified register of banned information, which hosted illegal advertising of online casinos and bookmakers,” the telecoms watchdog reported.

Almost immediately, 200 of the sites were blocked by local ISPs since they failed to remove the advertising when told to do so. For the remaining 50 sites, breathing space is still available. Their bans can be suspended if the offending ads are removed within a timeframe specified by the authorities, which has not yet run out.

“Information on a significant number of pirate resources with illegal advertising was received by Rozcomnadzor from citizens and organizations through a hotline that operates on the site of the Unified Register of Prohibited Information, all of which were sent to the Federal Tax Service for making decisions on restricting access,” the watchdog revealed.

Links between pirate sites and gambling companies have traditionally been close over the years, with advertising for many top-tier brands appearing on portals large and small. However, in recent times the prevalence of gambling ads has diminished, in part due to campaigns conducted in the United States, Europe, and the UK.

For pirate site operators in Russia, the decision to carry gambling ads now comes with the added risk of being blocked. Only time will tell whether any reduction in traffic is considered serious enough to warrant a gambling boycott of their own.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Russia’s Encryption War: 1.8m Google & Amazon IPs Blocked to Silence Telegram

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/russias-encryption-war-1-8m-google-amazon-ips-blocked-to-silence-telegram-180417/

The rules in Russia are clear. Entities operating an encrypted messaging service need to register with the authorities. They also need to hand over their encryption keys so that if law enforcement sees fit, users can be spied on.

Free cross-platform messaging app Telegram isn’t playing ball. An impressive 200,000,000 people used the software in March (including a growing number for piracy purposes) and founder Pavel Durov says he will not compromise their security, despite losing a lawsuit against the Federal Security Service which compels him to do so.

“Telegram doesn’t have shareholders or advertisers to report to. We don’t do deals with marketers, data miners or government agencies. Since the day we launched in August 2013 we haven’t disclosed a single byte of our users’ private data to third parties,” Durov said.

“Above all, we at Telegram believe in people. We believe that humans are inherently intelligent and benevolent beings that deserve to be trusted; trusted with freedom to share their thoughts, freedom to communicate privately, freedom to create tools. This philosophy defines everything we do.”

But by not handing over its keys, Telegram is in trouble with Russia. The FSB says it needs access to Telegram messages to combat terrorism so, in response to its non-compliance, telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor filed a lawsuit to degrade Telegram via web-blocking. Last Friday, that process ended in the state’s favor.

After an 18-minute hearing, a Moscow court gave the go-ahead for Telegram to be banned in Russia. The hearing was scheduled just the day before, giving Telegram little time to prepare. In protest, its lawyers didn’t even turn up to argue the company’s position.

Instead, Durov took to his VKontakte account to announce that Telegram would take counter-measures.

“Telegram will use built-in methods to bypass blocks, which do not require actions from users, but 100% availability of the service without a VPN is not guaranteed,” Durov wrote.

Telegram can appeal the blocking decision but Russian authorities aren’t waiting around for a response. They are clearly prepared to match Durov’s efforts, no matter what the cost.

In instructions sent out yesterday nationwide, Rozomnadzor ordered ISPs to block Telegram. The response was immediate and massive. Telegram was using both Amazon and Google to provide service to its users so, within hours, huge numbers of IP addresses belonging to both companies were targeted.

Initially, 655,352 Amazon IP addresses were placed on Russia’s nationwide blacklist. It was later reported that a further 131,000 IP addresses were added to that total. But the Russians were just getting started.

Servers.ru reports that a further 1,048,574 IP addresses belonging to Google were also targeted Monday. Rozcomnadzor said the court ruling against Telegram compelled it to take whatever action is needed to take Telegram down but with at least 1,834,996 addresses now confirmed blocked, it remains unclear what effect it’s had on the service.

Friday’s court ruling states that restrictions against Telegram can be lifted provided that the service hands over its encryption keys to the FSB. However, Durov responded by insisting that “confidentiality is not for sale, and human rights should not be compromised because of fear or greed.”

But of course, money is still part of the Telegram equation. While its business model in terms of privacy stands in stark contrast to that of Facebook, Telegram is also involved in the world’s biggest initial coin offering (ICO). According to media reports, it has raised $1.7 billion in pre-sales thus far.

This week’s action against Telegram is the latest in Russia’s war on ‘unauthorized’ encryption.

At the end of March, authorities suggested that around 15 million IP addresses (13.5 million belonging to Amazon) could be blocked to target chat software Zello. While those measures were averted, a further 500 domains belonging to Google were caught in the dragnet.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

TV Broadcaster Wants App Stores Blocked to Prevent Piracy

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/tv-broadcaster-wants-app-stores-blocked-to-prevent-piracy-180416/

After first targeting torrent and regular streaming platforms with blocking injunctions, last year Village Roadshow and studios including Disney, Universal, Warner Bros, Twentieth Century Fox, and Paramount began looking at a new threat.

The action targeted HDSubs+, a reasonably popular IPTV service that provides hundreds of otherwise premium live channels, movies, and sports for a relatively small monthly fee. The application was filed during October 2017 and targeted Australia’s largest ISPs.

In parallel, Hong Kong-based broadcaster Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) launched a similar action, demanding that the same ISPs (including Telstra, Optus, TPG, and Vocus, plus subsidiaries) block several ‘pirate’ IPTV services, named in court as A1, BlueTV, EVPAD, FunTV, MoonBox, Unblock, and hTV5.

Due to the similarity of the cases, both applications were heard in Federal Court in Sydney on Friday. Neither case is as straightforward as blocking a torrent or basic streaming portal, so both applicants are having to deal with additional complexities.

The TVB case is of particular interest. Up to a couple of dozen URLs maintain the services, which are used to provide the content, an EPG (electronic program guide), updates and sundry other features. While most of these appear to fit the description of an “online location” designed to assist copyright infringement, where the Android-based software for the IPTV services is hosted provides an interesting dilemma.

ComputerWorld reports that the apps – which offer live broadcasts, video-on-demand, and catch-up TV – are hosted on as-yet-unnamed sites which are functionally similar to Google Play or Apple’s App Store. They’re repositories of applications that also carry non-infringing apps, such as those for Netflix and YouTube.

Nevertheless, despite clear knowledge of this dual use, TVB wants to have these app marketplaces blocked by Australian ISPs, which would not only render the illicit apps inaccessible to the public but all of the non-infringing ones too. Part of its argument that this action would be reasonable appears to be that legal apps – such as Netflix’s for example – can also be freely accessed elsewhere.

It will be up to Justice Nicholas to decide whether the “primary purpose” of these marketplaces is to infringe or facilitate the infringement of TVB’s copyrights. However, TVB also appears to have another problem which is directly connected to the copyright status in Australia of its China-focused live programming.

Justice Nicholas questioned whether watching a stream in Australia of TVB’s live Chinese broadcasts would amount to copyright infringement because no copy of that content is being made.

“If most of what is occurring here is a reproduction of broadcasts that are not protected by copyright, then the primary purpose is not to facilitate copyright infringement,” Justice Nicholas said.

One of the problems appears to be that China is not a party to the 1961 Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations. However, TVB is arguing that it should still receive protection because it airs pre-recorded content and the live broadcasts are also archived for re-transmission via catch-up services.

The question over whether unchoreographed live broadcasts receive protection has been raised in other regions but in most cases, a workaround has been found. The presence of broadcaster logos on screen (which receive copyright protection) is a factor and it’s been reported that broadcasters are able to record the ‘live’ action and transmit a copy just a couple of seconds later, thereby broadcasting an already-copyrighted work.

While TVB attempts to overcome its issues, Village Roadshow is facing some of its own in its efforts to take down HDSubs+.

It appears that at least partly in response to the Roadshow legal action, the service has undergone some modifications, including a change of brand to ‘Press Play Extra’. As reported by ZDNet, there have been structural changes too, which means that Roadshow can no longer “see under the hood”.

According to Justice Nicholas, there is no evidence that the latest version of the app infringes copyright but according to counsel for Village Roadshow, the new app is merely transitional and preparing for a possible future change.

“We submit the difference to be drawn is reactive to my clients serving on the operators a notice,” counsel for Roadshow argued, with an expert describing the new app as “almost like a placeholder.”

In short, Roadshow still wants all of the target domains in its original application blocked because the company believes there’s a good chance they’ll be reactivated in the future.

None of the ISPs involved in either case turned up to the hearings on Friday, which removes one layer of complexity in what appears thus far to be less than straightforward cases.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Pirate Site-Blocking? Music Biz Wants App Blocking Too

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-site-blocking-music-biz-wants-app-blocking-too-180415/

In some way, shape or form, Internet piracy has always been carried out through some kind of application. Whether that’s a peer-to-peer client utilizing BitTorrent or eD2K, or a Usenet or FTP tool taking things back to their roots, software has always played a crucial role.

Of course, the nature of the Internet beast means that software usage is unavoidable but in recent years piracy has swung more towards the regular web browser, meaning that sites and services offering pirated content are largely easy to locate, identify and block, if authorities so choose.

As revealed this week by the MPA, thousands of platforms around the world are now targeted for blocking, with 1,800 sites and 5,300 domains blocked in Europe alone.

However, as the Kodi phenomenon has shown, web-based content doesn’t always have to be accessed via a standard web browser. Clever but potentially illegal addons and third-party apps are able to scrape web-based resources and present links to content on a wide range of devices, from mobile phones and tablets to set-top boxes.

While it’s still possible to block the resources upon which these addons rely, the scattered nature of the content makes the process much more difficult. One can’t simply block a whole platform because a few movies are illegally hosted there and even Google has found itself hosting thousands of infringing titles, a situation that’s ruthlessly exploited by addon and app developers alike.

Needless to say, the situation hasn’t gone unnoticed. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has spent the last year (1,2,3) targeting many people involved in the addon and app scene, hoping they’ll take their tools and run, rather than further develop a rapidly evolving piracy ecosystem.

Over in Russia, a country that will happily block hundreds or millions of IP addresses if it suits them, the topic of infringing apps was raised this week. It happened during the International Strategic Forum on Intellectual Property, a gathering of 500 experts from more than 30 countries. There were strong calls for yet more tools and measures to deal with films and music being made available via ‘pirate’ apps.

The forum heard that in response to widespread website blocking, people behind pirate sites have begun creating applications for mobile devices to achieve the same ends – the provision of illegal content. This, key players in the music industry say, means that the law needs to be further tightened to tackle the rising threat.

“Consumption of content is now going into the mobile sector and due to this we plan to prevent mass migration of ‘pirates’ to the mobile sector,” said Leonid Agronov, general director of the National Federation of the Music Industry.

The same concerns were echoed by Alexander Blinov, CEO of Warner Music Russia. According to TASS, the powerful industry player said that while recent revenues had been positively affected by site-blocking, it’s now time to start taking more action against apps.

“I agree with all speakers that we can not stop at what has been achieved so far. The music industry has a fight against illegal content in mobile applications on the agenda,” Blinov said.

And if Blinov is to be believed, music in Russia is doing particularly well at the moment. Attributing successes to efforts by parliament, the Ministry of Communications, and copyright holders, Blinov said the local music market has doubled in the past two years.

“We are now in the top three fastest growing markets in the world, behind only China and South Korea,” Blinov said.

While some apps can work in the same manner as a basic web interface, others rely on more complex mechanisms, ‘scraping’ content from diverse sources that can be easily and readily changed if mitigation measures kick in. It will be very interesting to see how Russia deals with this threat and whether it will opt for highly technical solutions or the nuclear options demonstrated recently.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

WHOIS Limits Under GDPR Will Make Pirates Harder to Catch, Groups Fear

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/whois-limits-under-gdpr-will-make-pirates-harder-to-catch-groups-fear-180413/

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation in EU law covering data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union.

As more and more personal data is gathered, stored and (ab)used online, the aim of the GDPR is to protect EU citizens from breaches of privacy. The regulation applies to all companies processing the personal data of subjects residing in the Union, no matter where in the world the company is located.

Penalties for non-compliance can be severe. While there is a tiered approach according to severity, organizations can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover or €20 million, whichever is greater. Needless to say, the regulations will need to be taken seriously.

Among those affected are domain name registries and registrars who publish the personal details of domain name owners in the public WHOIS database. In a full entry, a person or organization’s name, address, telephone numbers and email addresses can often be found.

This raises a serious issue. While registries and registrars are instructed and contractually obliged to publish data in the WHOIS database by global domain name authority ICANN, in millions of cases this conflicts with the requirements of the GDPR, which prevents the details of private individuals being made freely available on the Internet.

As explained in detail by the EFF, ICANN has been trying to resolve this clash. Its proposed interim model for GDPR compliance (pdf) envisions registrars continuing to collect full WHOIS data but not necessarily publishing it, to “allow the existing data
to be preserved while the community discussions continue on the next generation of WHOIS.”

But the proposed changes that will inevitably restrict free access to WHOIS information has plenty of people spooked, including thousands of companies belonging to entertainment industry groups such as the MPAA, IFPI, RIAA and the Copyright Alliance.

In a letter sent to Vice President Andrus Ansip of the European Commission, these groups and dozens of others warn that restricted access to WHOIS will have a serious effect on their ability to protect their intellectual property rights from “cybercriminals” which pose a threat to their businesses.

Signed by 50 organizations involved in IP protection and other areas of online security, the letter expresses concern that in attempting to comply with the GDPR, ICANN is on a course to “over-correct” while disregarding proportionality, accountability and transparency.

A small sample of the groups calling on ICANN

“We strongly assert that this model does not properly account for the critical public and legitimate interests served by maintaining a sufficient amount of data publicly available while respecting privacy interests of registrants by instituting a tiered or layered access system for the vast majority of personal data as defined by the GDPR,” the groups write.

The letter focuses on two aspects of “over-correction”, the first being ICANN’s proposal that no personal data whatsoever of a domain name registrant will be made available “without appropriate consideration or balancing of the countervailing interests in public disclosure of a limited amount of such data.”

In response to ICANN’s proposal that only the province/state and country of a domain name registrant be made publicly available, the groups advise the organization that publishing “a natural person registrant’s e-mail address” in a publicly accessible WHOIS directory will not constitute a breach of the GDPR.

“[W]e strongly believe that the continued public availability of the registrant’s e-mail address – specifically the e-mail address that the registrant supplies to the registrar at the time the domain name is purchased and which e-mail address the registrar is required to validate – is critical for several reasons,” the groups write.

“First, it is the data element that is typically the most important to have readily available for law enforcement, consumer protection, particularly child protection, intellectual property enforcement and cybersecurity/anti-malware purposes.

“Second, the public accessibility of the registrant’s e-mail address permits a broad array of threats and illegal activities to be addressed quickly and the damage from such threats mitigated and contained in a timely manner, particularly where the abusive/illegal activity may be spawned from a variety of different domain names on different generic Top Level Domains,” they add.

The groups also argue that since making email addresses is effectively required in light of Article 5.1(c) ECD, “there is no legitimate justification to discontinue public availability of the registrant’s e-mail address in the WHOIS directory and especially not in light of other legitimate purposes.”

The EFF, on the other hand, says that being able to contact a domain owner wouldn’t necessarily require an email address to be made public.

“There are other cases in which it makes sense to allow members of the public to contact the owner of a domain, without having to obtain a court order,” EFF writes.

“But this could be achieved very simply if ICANN were simply to provide something like a CAPTCHA-protected contact form, which would deliver email to the appropriate contact point with no need to reveal the registrant’s actual email address.”

The groups’ second main concern is that ICANN reportedly makes no distinction between name registrants that are “natural persons versus those that are legal entities” and intends to treat them all as if they are subject to the GDPR, despite the fact that the regulation only applies to data associated with an “identified or identifiable natural person”.

They say it is imperative that EU Data Protection Authorities are made to understand that when registrants obtain a domain for illegal purposes, they often only register it as a “natural person” when registering as a legal person (legal entity) would be more appropriate, despite that granting them less privacy.

“Consequently, the test for differentiating between a legal and natural person should not merely be the legal status of the registrant, but also whether the registrant is, in fact, acting as a legal or natural person vis a vis the use of the domain name,” the groups note.

“We therefore urge that ICANN be given appropriate guidance as to the importance of maintaining a distinction between natural person and legal person registrants and keeping as much data about legal person domain name registrants as publicly accessible as possible,” they conclude.

What will happen with WHOIS on May 25 still isn’t clear. It wasn’t until October 2017 that ICANN finally determined that it would be affected by the GDPR, meaning that it’s been scrambling ever since to meet the compliance date. And it still is, according to the latest available documentation (pdf).

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Russia Blocks 500+ Google IPs & Domains, Fails to Shutdown Encrypted Chat App

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/russia-blocks-100s-of-google-domains-to-shutdown-encrypted-chat-app-180412/

Zello is an encrypted app which acts as a kind of ‘walkie-talkie’, assisting communication between close friends or in groups of up to a thousand people.

Zello gained a lot of publicity in 2017 when it was used as an unofficial rescue co-ordination tool while Hurricane Harvey was battering the United States. It soon shot to the top of the download charts after being downloaded a million times in a day.

While Zello is a great tool, it is not popular with the Russian government. Under the so-called ‘Yarovaya law‘, services like Zello, plus ISPs and other telecoms companies, are required to pre-register with Russian telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor. They are also required to share encryption keys so that law enforcement can decrypt messages.

Zello has reportedly done neither and as a result is being targeted by the Russian government, which has tried to block it more than 70 times since April 2017.

As reported last month, local telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor told ISPs to carry out “a new experiment” to block 15 million IP addresses – most of them owned by Amazon – to take the app down.

Zello co-founder Zello Alexei Gavrilov later revealed that Amazon had effectively told his company not to use its services anymore.

“The latest in this story: let’s block half the Internet for Zello’s sake,” he said.

“Half the Internet was not blocked, but nevertheless, it had some effect, and as a result, Amazon came to us, whose service we used, and Amazon asked us not to do what we did to circumvent the blocks using the Amazon platform.”

But despite the Amazon ban, Zello still managed to keep operating by using the services of another hosting company. It now transpires that at least in part, Zello is being kept on the air by Google, whose services the comms app now uses. That hasn’t gone unnoticed by Russian authorities who are now taking steps to hit Zello in its new home.

Vedomosti reports that telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor has already taken sweeping action by blocking 286 IP addresses and 285 domains belonging to Google, which have now been added to Russia’s national blacklist.

“Technical domains and Google addresses have been entered in the register of prohibited resources on the basis of the request of the General Prosecutor’s Office – in connection with the restriction of access to the Zello service,” the publication reports.

News site Roskomvoboda reports that the blocking of Google IP addresses and domains was scheduled to go ahead last week, including many under googleusercontent.com, the domain used for loading content from the Google CDN.

Telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor insists that blocking the Google addresses won’t affect the operation of other Internet services but a representative from Roskomvoboda said that is impossible to predict or guarantee, given the fluid nature of IP address allocation.

In any event, Zello continues to operate so that’s one service that remains unaffected by the drastic action.

It seems unlikely that Russia will give up trying to block Zello. While the software has been used for humanitarian causes, it has reportedly been used by workers coordinating strikes and even terrorist groups. The same can be said of any communications system, of course, but since Zello is end-to-end encrypted, the authorities want the ability to listen in.

Founded in Russia but now based in the US, Zello doesn’t want to share its keys with Russia, nor does it want to store the telecoms data of 400,000 Russian users as local law now dictates.

Amendments to come into force this year requires services like Zello to store the actual content of user communications for six months and metadata (such as who communicated with who, when, and for how long) for three years. At least for now, Zello doesn’t intend being spied upon.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

MPA Reveals Scale of Worldwide Pirate Site Blocking

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-reveals-scale-of-worldwide-pirate-site-blocking-180410/

Few people following the controversial topic of Internet piracy will be unaware of the site-blocking phenomenon. It’s now one of the main weapons in the entertainment industries’ arsenal and it’s affecting dozens of countries.

While general figures can be culled from the hundreds of news reports covering the issue, the manner in which blocking is handled in several regions means that updates aren’t always provided. New sites are regularly added to blocklists without fanfare, meaning that the public is kept largely in the dark.

Now, however, a submission to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) by Motion Picture Association Canada provides a more detailed overview. It was presented in support of the proposed blocking regime in Canada, so while the key figures are no doubt accurate, some of the supporting rhetoric should be viewed in context.

“Over the last decade, at least 42 countries have either adopted and implemented, or are legally obligated to adopt and implement, measures to ensure that ISPs take steps to disable access to copyright infringing websites, including throughout the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Korea,” the submission reads.

The 42 blocking-capable countries referenced by the Hollywood group include the members of the European Union plus the following: Argentina, Australia, Iceland, India, Israel, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand.

While all countries have their own unique sets of legislation, countries within the EU are covered by the requirements of Article 8.3 of the INFOSEC Directive which provides that; “Member States shall ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right.”

That doesn’t mean that all countries are actively blocking, however. While Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia have the legal basis to block infringing sites, none have yet done so.

In a significant number of other EU countries, however, blocking activity is prolific.

“To date, in at least 17 European countries, over 1,800 infringing sites and over 5,300 domains utilized by such sites have been blocked, including in the following four countries where the positive impact of site-blocking over time has been demonstrated,” MPA Canada notes.

Major blocking nations in the EU

At this point, it’s worth pointing out that authority to block sites is currently being obtained in two key ways, either through the courts or via an administrative process.

In the examples above, the UK and Denmark are dealt with via the former, with Italy and Portugal handled via the latter. At least as far as the volume of sites is concerned, court processes – which can be expensive – tend to yield lower site blocking levels than those carried out through an administrative process. Indeed, the MPAA has praised Portugal’s super-streamlined efforts as something to aspire to.

Outside Europe, the same two processes are also in use. For example, Australia, Argentina, and Singapore utilize the judicial route while South Korea, Mexico, Malaysia and Indonesia have opted for administrative remedies.

“Across 10 of these countries, over 1,100 infringing sites and over 1,500 domains utilized by such sites have been blocked,” MPA Canada reveals.

To date, South Korea has blocked 460 sites and 547 domains, while Australia has blocked 91 sites and 355 domains. In the case of the latter, “research has confirmed the increasingly positive impact that site-blocking has, as a greater number of sites are blocked over time,” the Hollywood group notes.

Although by no means comprehensive, MPA Canada lists the following “Notorious Sites” as subject to blocking in multiple countries via both judicial and administrative means. Most will be familiar, with the truly notorious The Pirate Bay heading the pile. Several no longer exist in their original form but in many cases, clones are blocked as if they still represent the original target.


The methods used to block the sites vary from country to country, dependent on what courts deem fit and in consideration of ISPs’ technical capabilities. Three main tools are in use including DNS blocking, IP address blocking, and URL blocking, which can also include Deep Packet Inspection.

The MPA submission (pdf) is strongly in favor of adding Canada to the list of site-blocking countries detailed above. The Hollywood group believes that the measures are both effective and proportionate, citing reduced usage of blocked sites, reduced traffic to pirate sites in general, and increased visits to legitimate platforms.

“There is every reason to believe that the website blocking measures [presented to the CRTC] will lead to the same beneficial results in Canada,” MPA Canada states.

While plenty of content creators and distributors are in favor of proposals, all signs suggest they will have a battle on their hands, with even some ISPs coming out in opposition.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

GoDaddy Ordered to Suspend Four Music Piracy Domains

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/godaddy-ordered-to-suspend-four-music-piracy-domains-180327/

There are many methods used by copyright holders and the authorities in their quest to disable access to pirate sites.

Site blocking is one of the most popular but pressure can also be placed on web hosts to prevent them from doing business with questionable resources. A skip from one host to another usually solves the problem, however.

Another option is to target sites’ domains directly, by putting pressure on their registrars. It’s a practice that has famously seen The Pirate Bay burn through numerous domains in recent years, only for it to end up back on its original domain, apparently unscathed. Other sites, it appears, aren’t always so lucky.

As a full member of IFPI, the Peruvian Union of Phonographic Producers (UNIMPRO) protects the rights of record labels and musicians. Like its counterparts all over the world, UNIMPRO has a piracy problem and a complaint filed against four ‘pirate’ sites will now force the world’s largest domain registrar into action.

Mp3Juices-Download-Free.com, Melodiavip.net, Foxmusica.site and Fulltono.me were all music sites offering MP3 content without the copyright holders’ permission. None are currently available but the screenshot below shows how the first platform appeared before it was taken offline.

MP3 Juices Downnload Free

Following a complaint against the sites by UNIMPRO, the Copyright Commission (Comisión de Derecho de Autor) conducted an investigation into the platforms’ activities. The Commission found that the works they facilitated access to infringed copyright. It was also determined that each site generated revenue from advertising.

Given the illegal nature of the sites and the high volume of visitors they attract, the Commission determined that they were causing “irreparable damage” to legitimate copyright holders. Something, therefore, needed to be done.

The action against the sites involved the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi), an autonomous public body of the Peruvian state tasked with handling anti-competitive behavior, unfair competition, and intellectual property matters.

Indecopi HQ

After assessing the evidence, Indecopi, through the Copyright Commission, issued precautionary (interim) measures compelling US-based GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar which handles the domains for all four sites, to suspend them with immediate effect.

“The Copyright Commission of INDECOPI issued four precautionary measures in order that the US company Godaddy.com, LLC (in its capacity as registrar of domain names) suspend the domains of four websites, through which it would have infringed the legislation on Copyright and Related Rights, by making available a large number of musical phonograms without the corresponding authorization, to the detriment of its legitimate owners,” Indecopi said in a statement.

“The suspension was based on the great evidence that was provided by the Commission, on the four websites that infringe copyright, and in the framework of the policy of support for the protection of intellectual property.”

Indecopi says that GoDaddy can file an appeal against the decision. At the time of writing, none of the four domains currently returns a working website.

TorrentFreak has requested a comment from GoDaddy but at the time of publication, we were yet to receive a response.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Owner of ShareBeast and AlbumJams Sentenced To Five Years in Prison

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/owner-of-sharebeast-and-albumjams-sentenced-to-five-years-in-prison-180323/

According to the RIAA, ShareBeast.com and AlbumJams.com were responsible for the illegal distribution of “a massive library” of popular albums and tracks.

With a nod to the sensitivity of pre-release piracy, the sites were blamed for offering “thousands of songs” that hadn’t yet reached their official release dates. In September 2015, U.S. authorities shut them down, placing seizure notices on both domains.

The RIAA claimed that ShareBeast was the largest illegal file-sharing site operating in the United States, noting that the site’s IP addresses at the time indicated that at least some hosting had taken place in Illinois.

“Millions of users accessed songs from ShareBeast each month without one penny of compensation going to countless artists, songwriters, labels and others who created the music,” RIAA Chairman & CEO Cary Sherman commented at the time.

Two years later in September 2017, then 29-year-old former ShareBeast operator Artur Sargsyan pleaded guilty to one felony count of criminal copyright infringement, admitting to the unauthorized distribution and reproduction of over one billion copies of copyrighted works.

“Through Sharebeast and other related sites, this defendant profited by illegally distributing copyrighted music and albums on a massive scale,” said U. S. Attorney John Horn.

“The collective work of the FBI and our international law enforcement partners have shut down the Sharebeast websites and prevented further economic losses by scores of musicians and artists.”

The Department of Justice reported that from 2012 to 2015, Sargsyan used ShareBeast as a pirate music repository, illegally hosting music by Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, Beyonce, Kanye West, and Justin Bieber, among others. Sargsyan linked to that content from Newjams.net and Albumjams.com, and granted access to the public.

If Sargsyan had responded to takedown notices more positively, it’s possible that things may have progressed in a different direction. The RIAA sent the site more than 100 copyright-infringement emails over a three-year period but to no effect.

This led the music industry group to get out its calculator and inform the DoJ that the total monetary loss to its member companies was “a conservative” $6.3 billion “gut-punch” to music creators who were paid nothing by the service.

Given the huge numbers involved, it’s likely that Sargsyan hoped his 2017 guilty plea would result in a more forgiving sentence. Yesterday, however, the full weight of the law came crashing down.

California resident Artur Sargsyan was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Timothy C. Batten, Sr., to five years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. The now 30-year-old was also ordered to pay $458,200 restitution and ordered to forfeit $184,768.87.

“Sargsyan operated one of the most successful illegal music sharing websites on the Internet,” said U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak.

“His reproduction of copyrighted musical works were made available only to generate undeserved profits for himself. The incredible work done by our law enforcement partners and prosecutors in light of the complexity of Sargsyan’s operation demonstrates that we will employ all of our resources to stop this kind of theft.”

David J. LaValley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta, said that Sargsyan was warned several times that he was violating the law by illegally sharing copyrighted works, but chose to ignore the warnings.

“His sentence sends a message that no matter how complex the operation, the FBI, its federal partners and law enforcement partners around the globe will go to every length to protect the property of hard working artists and the companies that produce their art,” LaValley said.

Given the music group’s lengthy statements on the Sharebeast topic in the past, thus far the RIAA has been relatively brief. Welcoming news of the sentencing via Twitter, the major labels’ figurehead congratulated the law enforcement bodies behind the successful prosecution.

“Congrats to U.S. Attorney BJay Pak + his team along with @TheJusticeDept CCIPS Division and @FBIAtlanta for their leadership on this important case,” the RIAA wrote.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Real-Time Hotspot Detection in Amazon Kinesis Analytics

Post Syndicated from Randall Hunt original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/real-time-hotspot-detection-in-amazon-kinesis-analytics/

Today we’re releasing a new machine learning feature in Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics for detecting “hotspots” in your streaming data. We launched Kinesis Data Analytics in August of 2016 and we’ve continued to add features since. As you may already know, Kinesis Data Analytics is a fully managed real-time processing engine for streaming data that lets you write SQL queries to derive meaning from your data and output the results to Kinesis Data Firehose, Kinesis Data Streams, or even an AWS Lambda function. The new HOTSPOT function adds to the existing machine learning capabilities in Kinesis that allow customers to leverage unsupervised streaming based machine learning algorithms. Customers don’t need to be experts in data science or machine learning to take advantage of these capabilities.

Hotspots

The HOTSPOTS function is a new Kinesis Data Analytics SQL function you can use to idenitfy relatively dense regions in your data without having to explicity build and train complicated machine learning models. You can identify subsections of your data that need immediate attention and take action programatically by streaming the hotspots out to a Kinesis Data stream, to a Firehose delivery stream, or by invoking a AWS Lambda function.

There are a ton of really cool scenarios where this could make your operations easier. Imagine a ride-share program or autonomous vehicle fleet communicating spatiotemporal data about traffic jams and congestion, or a datacenter where a number of servers start to overheat indicating an HVAC issue. HOTSPOTS is not limited to spatiotemporal data and you could apply it across many problem domains.

The function follows some simple syntax and accepts the DOUBLE, INTEGER, FLOAT, TINYINT, SMALLINT, REAL, and BIGINT data types.

The HOTSPOT function takes a cursor as input and returns a JSON string describing the hotspot. This will be easier to understand with an example.

Using Kinesis Data Analytics to Detect Hotspots

Let’s take a simple data set from NY Taxi and Limousine Commission that tracks yellow cab pickup and dropoff locations. Most of this data is already on S3 and publicly accessible at s3://nyc-tlc/. We will create a small python script to load our Kinesis Data Stream with Taxi records which will feed our Kinesis Data Analytics. Finally we’ll output all of this to a Kinesis Data Firehose connected to an Amazon Elasticsearch Service cluster for visualization with Kibana. I know from living in New York for 5 years that we’ll probably find a hotspot or two in this data.

First, we’ll create an input Kinesis stream and start sending our NYC Taxi Ride data into it. I just wrote a quick python script to read from one of the CSV files and used boto3 to push the records into Kinesis. You can put the record in whatever way works for you.

 

import csv
import json
import boto3
def chunkit(l, n):
    """Yield successive n-sized chunks from l."""
    for i in range(0, len(l), n):
        yield l[i:i + n]

kinesis = boto3.client("kinesis")
with open("taxidata2.csv") as f:
    reader = csv.DictReader(f)
    records = chunkit([{"PartitionKey": "taxis", "Data": json.dumps(row)} for row in reader], 500)
    for chunk in records:
        kinesis.put_records(StreamName="TaxiData", Records=chunk)

Next, we’ll create the Kinesis Data Analytics application and add our input stream with our taxi data as the source.

Next we’ll automatically detect the schema.

Now we’ll create a quick SQL Script to detect our hotspots and add that to the Real Time Analytics section of our application.

CREATE OR REPLACE STREAM "DESTINATION_SQL_STREAM" (
    "pickup_longitude" DOUBLE,
    "pickup_latitude" DOUBLE,
    HOTSPOTS_RESULT VARCHAR(10000)
); 
CREATE OR REPLACE PUMP "STREAM_PUMP" AS INSERT INTO "DESTINATION_SQL_STREAM" 
    SELECT "pickup_longitude", "pickup_latitude", "HOTSPOTS_RESULT" FROM
        TABLE(HOTSPOTS(
            CURSOR(SELECT STREAM * FROM "SOURCE_SQL_STREAM_001"),
            1000,
            0.013,
            20
        )
    );


Our HOTSPOTS function takes an input stream, a window size, scan radius, and a minimum number of points to count as a hotspot. The values for these are application dependent but you can tinker with them in the console easily until you get the results you want. There are more details about the parameters themselves in the documentation. The HOTSPOTS_RESULT returns some useful JSON that would let us plot bounding boxes around our hotspots:

{
  "hotspots": [
    {
      "density": "elided",
      "minValues": [40.7915039, -74.0077401],
      "maxValues": [40.7915041, -74.0078001]
    }
  ]
}

 

When we have our desired results we can save the script and connect our application to our Amazon Elastic Search Service Firehose Delivery Stream. We can run an intermediate lambda function in the firehose to transform our record into a format more suitable for geographic work. Then we can update our mapping in Elasticsearch to index the hotspot objects as Geo-Shapes.

Finally, we can connect to Kibana and visualize the results.

Looks like Manhattan is pretty busy!

Available Now
This feature is available now in all existing regions with Kinesis Data Analytics. I think this is a really interesting new feature of Kinesis Data Analytics that can bring immediate value to many applications. Let us know what you build with it on Twitter or in the comments!

– Randall