Electronic Art’s release of the latest and highly anticipated Simcity is to go down in history as one of the worst game launches ever. I’m sure like me, many of you have fond memories of the old Simcities, spending hours on your Intel Pentium laptop trying to build your perfect city. The new Simcity however, you will most likely be staring at a load screen losing the will to live. (Reticulating splines anyone?). This even makes Simcity societies look good, which frankly I would have rather paid someone to punch me in the face than play it. DRM is clearly not the way forward and hopefully game developers will learn from this.  1573 1 star Amazon reviews, which led to Amazon stopping sales for a period and marketing of the game has been stopped completely. If you’ve bought the game, let us know in the comments!

Links: Amazon Reviews – BBC News

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Usenet.nl offers a completely FREE 300 GB trial, to try their service.

The time has finally come, the jailbreak is out for all iOS 6.1 devices. Check the official site out here! For a full video guide on how to do the jailbreak click here.

Download (Mac): UPLOADED – MEGA -
Download (PC): UPLOADED – MEGA -
Download (Linux): UPLOADED – MEGA

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Facebook is down, offline for everyone. Try to imagine life without Facebook. Go make a coffee, read a book, make a real friends…

Facebook.com is still down for more than 10 minutes now. Twitter is being flooded by hundreds of tweets commenting on Facebook downtime. Also almost all hosts checking if certain website is online or offline are not accessible because of overloaded servers caused by users looking for Facebook downtime status.

UPDATE: Facebook still not loading for more than 30 minutes now. Some users report they can access it, some can access it but can’t see any images which would point to problems with Facebook CDN (Content Delivery Network). For most of the users, Facebook is still down though.

UPDATE #2: It appears that Facebook is online again after cca 35 minutes of downtime. No official comments or announcements have been published yet.

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It’s finally here, Apple have just released iOS 6 to the public! Feel free to discuss the update and your love (Or hatred) of Apple in the comments.

Links: Homepage

iOS 6 gives you more features to make the things you do every day even better. It’s free and easy to upgrade wirelessly on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Maps:Beautifully designed from the ground up (and the sky down), Maps changes the way you see the world. Map elements are vector based, so graphics and text are incredibly detailed — even when you zoom all the way in — and panning is smooth. Tilt and rotate to view an area, and Maps keeps the names of streets and places where they belong. Get visual and spoken turn-by-turn navigation and real-time traffic updates. Even soar over cityscapes to see the sights from the air in amazing, high-resolution quality.

Siri:With iOS 6, Siri understands more languages and works in more countries. So you can get more things done in more places around the world. Want to know the latest scores and stats for your favorite teams and players? Thanks to iOS 6, Siri knows the answers.

FB Integration: Now it’s easier than ever to interact with the world’s largest social network. And there’s no need to leave your app to do it. Share a photo to Facebook right from Camera or Photos. Post your location right from Maps. Brag about a high score right from Game Center.

Passbook:Your boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons, loyalty cards, and more are now all in one place. With Passbook, you can scan your iPhone or iPod touch to check in for a flight, get into a movie, and redeem a coupon.

Facetime over Wireless:FaceTime now works over cellular networks as well as Wi-Fi, so you can make and receive FaceTime calls wherever you happen to be.

Compatible with: Iphone 3GS,4,4S,5, Ipod touch (4th+5th Gen), Ipad 2 and 3

And much more, update to iOS 6 today by going to Settings- General – Software Update. Or alternatively via Itunes.

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Apple will present iPhone 5 on conference in San Francisco in 2 minutes, there is no official broadcast but many websites offer live streams updated by their editors who are blogging from the conference. Check out this live Apple iPhone 5 coverage on TheVerge!

Tim Cook presenting new iPhone 5 right now:

“Just last quarter we sold a whopping 17m iPads. Now to put this in perspective, we sold more iPads than any PC manufacturer sold of their entire lineup.”

iPhone 5:

• “It’s made entirely of glass and aluminum.”
• “It’s the thinnest phone we’ve ever made, and the lightest.”
• 18% thinner than iPhone 4S, 7.6 mm
• 20% lighter than the 4S, 112 grams
• Retina display, 326 PPI, 1136 x 640 screen resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio
• “The new screen on iPhone 5 is a 4 inch display.”
• 44% more color sturation
• “We’ve added HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, and yes… LTE.”
• “There’s now a single chip for voice and data, and a single radio chip.”
• The Apple A6 chip - ”Compared to the A5, it’s two times faster… but 22% smaller.”
• Battery exceeing the one in iPhone 4S. 225 hours in standby, 8 hours 3G talk time.
• Camera: 8mp, backside illuminated, hybrid IR filter, Dynamic low light mode, precision lens alignment, sapphire crystal.
• The most amazing new feature in the iPhone 5 is called panorama - It’s panorama mode.
• 1080p video, improved video stability, face detection — you can take photos while shooting video.
• Three microphones, bottom, front, and back.

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KNiFESHARP released a new NGTV’s documentary Megafactories Swiss Army Knife.

Take a look at the most amazing factories in the world. Lift the lid on how millions of your everyday products and iconic designs begin life on the assembly line in a brand new series of Megafactories. The Swiss Army Knife Used by everyone from boy scouts to presidents, the Swiss Army Knife may be the most ingenious multipurpose tool ever invented – with an equally ingenious process for its production. The Swiss Army knife factory in Ibach, Switzerland, where two shifts of workers turn raw steel into 17 million intricate parts every year.

Links: Homepage

National.Geographic.Megafactories.Swiss.Army.Knife.720p.HDTV.x264-KNiFESHARP
x264 | AC3 CBR | 826 MB
NTi | NETLOAD – RAPiDGATOR

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A Yahoo! service has apparently succumbed to a simple database attack that leaked 453,000 unencrypted account passwords online. A huge document containing the lifted SQL structures, software variables, usernames and cleartext passwords was linked to from a web forum. In the file, the hackers described the break-in as “a wake-up call and not a threat”. The data dump included the hostname dbb1.ac.bf1.yahoo.com, which is associated with the blog-like service Yahoo! Voices, TrustedSec reports - although there was some confusion over whether the hacked service was in fact the internet telephone call app Yahoo! Voice.

The compromise was all too typical: a union-based SQL injection attack that tricked the website into handing over more information that it really should, Ars Technica reports. A hacking crew called the D33Ds Company claimed responsibility for the assault. Security firm Eset has carried out a preliminary statistical analysis of the leaked credentials here. A disappointing – but not surprising – number of the exposed passwords included, er, “password”, “welcome”, “Jesus” and “ninja”. It’s unclear why Yahoo! Voices was storing unencrypted passwords in its backend database – unsalted one-way encrypted hashes would have been bad enough.

Source: Register

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Russian cybercrime mastermind Georgy Avanesov was found guilty of computer sabotage by an Armenian court on Tuesday and sentenced to four years in prison. The trial is monumental, not only for the sentencing of a criminal who hijacked millions of computers, but also because it is reportedly the country’s first conviction of a computer criminal. Arrested in 2010, 27-year-old Avanesov is famous for creating the Bredolab botnet. Bredolab refers to the name of the virus Avanesov used to quietly access unsuspecting computers, mainly through a backdoor created when a user opened a malicious email, and was responsible for spamming, spreading malware and carrying out anti-virus attacks. At its peak, the Bredolab botnet sent out 3.6 million junk mail messagesper day. Avanesov also rented out access to the network of zombie computers to other hackers, reportedly earning about 100,000 euros a month.

In the 25-page indictment, the prosecution said Avanesov developed the Bredolab in Armenia and used computer servers in Holland and France to spread the virus. Avanesov’s criminal enterprise was compromised in October 2010, when Dutch authorities took control of the botnet, seizing and disconnecting 143 computer servers. Avanesov was arrested at the Armenia’s Zvartnots International Airport the next day,flying in from Moscow.

Source: Huffington Post

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Hollywood and the federal government have partnered to create updated and even more annoying anti-piracy warnings that will be included in new home-release DVDs and Blu-ray discs beginning this week, the government said Tuesday. The new warnings now have three scary logos intended to deter those who might violate copyright law by making a back-up copy, ripping a movie to a tablet-friendly file, uploading it to a peer-to-peer network or make illegal copies to send to military service members in Iraq.

The original logo has been included since 2004 on the Motion Picture Association of America members’ movies, with the now-famous FBI tough-talking “anti-piracy warning label” which cautions customers who legitimately purchased a movie about the criminal penalties for copyright infringement. Added alongside the FBI’s logo in the new version, however, is a Homeland Security Investigations “special agent” badge. That reflects the agency’s new power, handed down in 2008, to seize web domains engaged in infringing activity under the same forfeiture laws used to seize property like houses, cars and boats allegedly tied to illegal activity such as drug running or gambling.

What’s more, as an added bonus that’s even better than a James Cameron director commentary, movie fans will be treated with a second annoying screen (above) touting the National Intellectual Property Center. That screen, like the others, presumably will be made unskippable during viewing. The warning says, “Piracy is not a victimless crime. For more information on how digital theft harms the economy, please visit www.iprcenter.gov.” The center’s logo is tough, too, with a hawk clenching a banner that reads “Protection Is Our Trademark”.

Source: Wired

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The laughs are reportedly over for five top members of the hacker group LulzSec who were arrested on Tuesday and charged as part of a conspiracy case filed in New York federal court. FoxNews.com reports that the arrests were part of a multinational sting across the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States on Tuesday morning, and LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur, who operated online under the alias “Sabu,” provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation with information leading to the arrests. According to the report, Monsegur has been working with the FBI for months. “This is devastating to the organization,” an FBI official told FoxNews.com. “We’re chopping off the head of LulzSec.”

LulzSec, which became part of the larger hacker collective “Anonymous Operations” last year, has launched a number of high profile cyberattacks since last summer. The group’s first widely reports attacks targeted a number of digital properties belonging to Sony, and more than 1 million accounts were compromised as a result of the group’s efforts. The group also waged war on the U.S. government, and encouraged other hackers to ”open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path.” This brazen move may have intensified the FBI’s efforts to take down the organization, as a series of arrests were made soon after operation “AntiSec” began.

LulzSec leader Hector Monsegur reportedly pleaded guilty to a dozen hacking-related charges on August 15th last year, and his ensuing cooperation with the FBI’s investigation will likely earn him a reduced sentence. ”They caught him and he was secretly arrested and now works for the FBI,” a unnamed source said to be close to Sabu told FoxNews.com. The five men arrested on Tuesday as a result of Monsegur’s cooperation include Ryan Ackroyd, aka “Kayla” and Jake Davis, aka “Topiary,” of London, England; Darren Martyn, aka “pwnsauce” and Donncha O’Cearrbhail, aka “palladium,” of Ireland; and Jeremy Hammond aka “Anarchaos,” of Chicago, Illinois. Further details are expected to be released later in the day.

Source: BGR.com

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In the wake of last week’s Megaupload shutdown, some of the biggest names in the market are taking drastic action. During the last 48 hours many sites have completely withdrawn their systems for paying uploaders when their files are shared with others, but one of the most dramatic moves came first from Filesonic and today Fileserve. Both services now forbid people from downloading any files they didn’t upload themselves.

While the shutdown last week of Megaupload and the arrest of its founder and management team was certainly dramatic, a situation of perhaps even greater gravity is beginning to emerge.

Over the past 48 to 72 hours, the operators of many prominent cyberlocker services have been taking unprecedented actions that can not simply be explained away by mere coincidence. The details in the Megaupload indictment clearly have some players in the file-hosting world spooked.

One of the key allegations is that between 2005 and mid 2011, Megaupload ran a program that rewarded users for uploading infringing material. A cited internal email allegedly shows staff members discussing cash payments going to people uploading “full popular DVD rips” and “software with keygenerators (Warez)”.

Although Megaupload stopped paying out rewards in July 2011, that didn’t stop the site from getting raided. Other cyberlocker services are clearly hoping they will be more lucky.

Last evening Filesonic, a top 10 player in the file-sharing world with a billion pageviews a month, not only withdrew its affiliate rewards program, but also banned any third parties downloading files. Simply put, users can now only download files from the service that they uploaded themselves.

But according to reports, there’s no guarantee of that. Account owners report that their files are being mass deleted, that’s if their entire account has been banned already.

Fileserve, another leading player, also ended its affiliate program this weekend. Additionally, this morning TorrentFreak received news that Fileserve has now joined Filesonic in banning all 3rd party downloads.

“I just paid for a premium account and can now only download my own fucking files an unlimited number of times,” said one angry user. “What use is that?”

Other users of Fileserve are experiencing an even further degraded level of service. Reports describe mass deletion of their uploads and the banning of accounts on apparent ‘Terms of Service’ violations.

But the changes at these two services appears to be just the tip of a very big and very complex iceberg. Developments at other file-hosting services are widespread.

As previously reported, Uploaded.to banned all US IP addresses in what appears to be an effort to distance itself from US jurisdiction. Its affiliate program is still listed as operational but the same cannot be said about those run by some of its competitors.

VideoBB and VideoZer have both reportedly closed their rewards program and according to reports have also been mass deleting accounts and huge numbers of files. Other sites closing their affiliate programs and/or deleting accounts/files include FileJungle, UploadStation and FilePost.

Another interesting development involves so-called ‘release blogs’, sites that report on leaked material but either provide links to the material on cyberlockers or allow their users to do the same. The number of overall releases hasn’t changed much but the links currently being posted on some of these sites show less variety and volume than they did this time last week.

Source: TorrentFreak

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Filesonic, one of the Internet’s leading cyberlocker services, has taken some drastic measures following the Megaupload shutdown and arrests last week. In addition to discontinuing its affiliates rewards program and not yet paying accrued money to members, the site has disabled all sharing functionality, leaving users only with access to their own files.

To users of systems like BitTorrent, file-sharing means just that – the sharing of files with others. But this weekend users of Filesonic, one of the Internet’s leading cyberlocker services, sharing files is currently a thing of the past.

According to a shock announcement by the site, all file-sharing functionality has now been disabled, leaving current users only with access to files that they have personally uploaded. Many hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of links all around the web have now been rendered useless, at least temporarily.

But the bad news for the site’s users doesn’t end there. In the last few hours, before file-sharing was disabled, Filesonic also ended its rewards program, meaning that uploaders to the site no longer earn money when people download their files. A moot point perhaps, since no-one will be downloading files anyway.

However, there is the matter of what will happen to the reward money that was sitting in uploader’s accounts before the rewards program was discontinued. Will it be paid out, or will it simply disappear? Many users fear the latter.

This combination of news all adds up to a pretty big deal. Filesonic isn’t just some also-ran in the world of cyberlockers. The site is among the top 10 file-sharing sites on the Internet, with a quarter billion page views a month.

While there has been no official explanation from the site as to why the above actions were taken, all eyes are turned towards events of the last week – the closure of Megaupload and the arrest of its founder and management team.

Like Megaupload, Filesonic appears to based in Hong Kong and it’s clear that the authorities there already worked with the US government to shut down Kim Dotcom’s operations and seize his assets there. Filesonic is also believed to have some US-based servers.

In December, Filesonic announced it had partnered with Vobile, a provider of content identification services. All uploads to the service were said to be being checked for copyright infringement before users were able to share them publicly, although it is unclear if this system was ever implemented by the site.

The events of the last week have turned the cyberlocker world upside down and there is quite literally panic among users and site operators. Stay tuned for our detailed report tomorrow – the Megaupload takedown appears to be a game-changer.

Source: TorrentFreak

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If you haven’t been living under a rock in last 2 days you probably know something big happened in our small filesharing pond – MegaUpload, the world’s 15th biggest website was shut down by FBI and all owners and people affiliated with MegaUpload, MegaVideo and many other services run by the company were arrested. We covered this news in our early blog post. Later, the famous group of hackers Anonymous launchd DDoS attack against FBI, MPAA, RIAA and other antipiracy organizations and the successfully shut down their websites. However the attack lasted just few hours and the sites are becoming slowly accessible again, so this manifestation didn’t really have big impact. The case is still evolving, you can check latest pics of property of Kim Shmitz, owner of MegaUpload, being seized from his villa, including his collection of luxurious cars with words like MAFIA, CEO or HACKER on their number plates.

With MegaUpload down, many people will look for alternatives for this popular filesharing platform. Here’s a list of our tips, including short description. What’s more, many of those hosts allow you to earn some extra revenue by sharing your files – you get a couple of cents for every download, so if you have popular files, you can earn few dollars here and there by sharing various files. Most of these hosts allow upload from FTP and remote servers.

1. FileSonic – the most popular filesharing platform allowing you to earn revenue. The free accounts are limited to download speed around 250 kB/s with few seconds of waiting before the download. You can earn up to $35 for 1000 downloads with its affiliate program or up to $15 for sale of one Premium account.

2. FileServe – second most popular host for sharing your files, popular mostly with American users. Offers stable and fairly fast download speed from US, not so fast for European users. Allows 500 GB of storage for free, if you need more you can get it after purchasing Premium account. As a FileServer partner you can earn up to $25 for 1000 file downloads.

3. FileJungle – relatively new player on the filesharing field with nice interface, detailed stats and various affiliate plans. Uploaders can choose between revenue sharing model, up to $40 per 1000 downloads plan or fixed $10 comission for every sold Premium account. Fast mainly for US users. 30 seconds waiting time before download and storage of 750 GB for free users.

4. FilePost – FilePost is also pretty new service which offers maximum size of 2 GB, fairly fast download speed for all users and 30 days for keeping inactive files. Affiliates can benefit from Mixed plan combining earnings of up to $40 for 1000 downloads and 60% revenue share including rebills.

5. UploadStation – UploadStation also started in 2011 but it never become extremely popular, although it offers nice set of services and features. Nice user interface, upload of files up to 2 GB, 500 GB storage for free registered users and payment of up to $32 for 1000 downloads for uploaders.

6. RapidShare – the legend of filesharing industry, site that started it all. After many legal problems, RapidShare now offers no affiliate program but instead offers the fastest download speeds for free users (no problem to reach 10 MB/s), especially those from Europe, unlimited storage, unlimited maximum filesize and much more.

7. VideoBB – VideoBB is pretty new yet extremely popular video service which is on the good way to replace MegaVideo as #1 online streaming platform. It’s already 375th most popular website in the world according to Alexa and with their 1000 GB of free video storage, nice streaming client and wide set of features they quickly established themselves in online video business. Premium accounts offer faster streaming/download speed, unlimited views, no advertisements and possibility to download the video.

8. MediaFire – also very popular uploading platform for many years, MediaFire offers unlimited file size, unlimited downloads and basically no ads. The sites boasts with impressive 150 million monthly users.

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For the past few days the big story has been the protest of SOPA and PIPA, the two potentially disastrous and dangerous pieces of legislation that would give major corporations and organizations the right to censor the internet in the name of protection against piracy. Yesterday, websites like Wikipedia.org and Reddit.com shut their doors to the public, demonstrating what it would be like if either SOPA or PIPA were passed, despite admonishment from the MPAA. In a move that can only be described as retaliation, earlier this morning the US government was able to shut down MegaUpload.com a file sharing website that some have chosen to use to download and upload illegal material (despite the fact that the site itself has no control over the content people share). Now Anonymous, the nameless, faceless hacker organization that is typically identified with Guy Fawkes masks, has struck back.

Since this morning’s news, Anonymous has managed to shut down various powerful websites in the government such as Justice.gov along with others like MPAA.org, Universal Music Group, and the RIAA. The move is being called the biggest attack in the organization’s history. Anonymous is likely using what is known as a Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack (DDoS), which basically means that they have flooded the computer network that operates these various sites and completely shut down their capabilities.

The AnonOps Twitter account claimed responsibility for the attacks, which are being promoted with the #OpMegaUpload hashtag. Anonymous is using their own DDoS tool called Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC). When activated, LOIC rapidly reloads a target website, and if enough users point LOIC at a site at once, it can crash from the traffic. The application is freely being distributed through Twitter and various IRC channels. Judging from a Twitter search, the link is being shared at a rate of about 4 times a minute, mostly by Spanish-speaking users, for some reason. Russian news service RT claims this is the largest coordinated attack in Anonymous’ history—over 5,600 DDoS zealots blasting at once. The latest confirmed targeted shut down by Anonymous attack is La résistance est international—French copyright authority HADOPI.

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MegaUpload, one of the largest file-sharing sites on the Internet, has been shut down by federal prosecutors in Virginia. The site’s founder Kim Dotcom and three others were arrested by the police in New Zealand at the request of US authorities. MegaVideo, the streaming site belonging to same company, and a total of 18 domains connected to the Mega company were seized and datacenters in three countries raided. An indictment unsealed today by the Department of Justice claims MegaUpload has caused the entertainment industries more than $500 million in lost revenue and generated $175 million “in criminal proceeds.”

Two corporations – Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited – were indicted by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on January 5th, 2012, and charged with “engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.” Today, the authorities executed in excess of 20 search warrants in the United States and eight other countries and seized approximately $50 million in assets. A total of 18 Mega-related domains were seized including Megastuff.co, Megaworld.com, Megaclicks.co, Megastuff.info, Megaclicks.org, Megaworld.mobi, Megastuff.org, Megaclick.us, Mageclick.com, HDmegaporn.com, Megavkdeo.com, Megaupload.com, Megaupload.org, Megarotic.com, Megaclick.com, Megavideo.com, Megavideoclips.com and Megaporn.com.

Data centers in the Netherlands, Canada and Washington were raided. In an apparent reference to the latter, a source has just informed TorrentFreak that the FBI are currently detaining everyone at the ISP Cogent Communications’ headquarters in Washington DC, in connection with a Mega-related search warrant. In addition to MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom, another six alleged members of the Mega “conspiracy” were charged in the indictment, including residents of Germany, Slovakia, Turkey, Estonia and Netherlands. Owner Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk were arrested today in Auckland, New Zealand, by authorities there. Bencko, Echternach and Nomm are still at large.

According to the Department of Justice, the individuals named above face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit racketeering, five years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, 20 years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering and five years in prison on each of the substantive charges of criminal copyright infringement.

Source: TorrentFreak

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