U.S. Moves Against Online Pirates

Found on Wired on Thursday, 22 April 2004
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Undercover investigations into Internet piracy identified more than 100 people in the United States and abroad involved in the theft of more than $50 million worth of music, movies and software, U.S. authorities said Thursday.

More than 120 searches were conducted in a 24-hour period in 27 states and 10 countries in an effort to dismantle organizations known by such names as Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class, Project X and APC, officials said.

The initiative, known as Operation Fastlink, has resulted in the seizure of more than 200 computers, including 30 that served as storage and distribution hubs containing thousands of copies of pirated material. One server seized in the United States contained 65,000 separate pirated titles, authorities said.

Among the countries in which FBI searches have been conducted are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and Great Britain.

It's not only time for secured sharing methods, but also for encrypted filesystems (EFS). It would be interesting if they have the possibility to access an EFS, after all their demands for snooping laws lately. So, use anonymous P2P software (perhaps even with cryptography plugins) and a secure EFS.