Yesterday marked a dark day for those who rely on torrents are the world’s most popular torrent sharing website, KickassTorrents, has been shutted down and its founder has been arrested.
According to FossBytes, KickassTorrent’s founder, Artem Vaulin, has been arrested in Poland. Now, Vaulin is expected to be extradited to the United States to face charges such as criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Besides Vaulin’s arrest, the U.S. authorities have also seized the website’s domains as well as bank accounts associated with KickassTorrents.
Vaulin’s arrest is an interesting one as it shows the the U.S. authorities posed as an advertiser to gain information about the bank accounts associated with the website. The arrest was done after Apple handed over personal details f Vaulin after the investigator cross-referenced an IP-address used for an iTunes transaction with and IP-addresss that was used to login to KAT’s Facebook account.
While the main domain for KickassTorrents can no longer be accessed, numerous other alternative domains for KAT have been popping up, meaning that those who want their torrents will still be able to get them.
Source: TorrentFreak, FossBytes
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