Piracy

File-sharing organization Pirate Bay has been controversial for a long time, like maybe the length of its entire existence. It’s been in the news recently because a number of governments are trying to shut it down. That’s a situation ripe for social engineering. We found this scheme this morning: a number of typo-squatting sites carrying the following. (Note: the REAL Pirate Bay site is thepiratebay.org.) What would lead a victim to this? The phony site piratebay.com (below) comes up as the third result on a Google search for “piratebay” or fourth for “pirate bay.” ...

Yesterday, the Pirate Bay went down following pressure from the RIAA, which threatened to slap TPB’s hosting provider with huge fines. We predicted The Pirate Bay’s downfall ages ago, but it still hasn’t happened. Things have been looking grim for the file-sharing service for a while. First, there was the lawsuit from the entertainment industry that left the Pirate Bay’s team scattered and struggling to stay the course it charted for itself. Then the news that the entire service was to be sold (the sale never happened) to a Swedish Gaming Company seemed to have scattered the Pirate Bay’s fans, too. ...