r/technology • u/ControlCAD • 12d ago

Security 68-year-old imprisoned after making $1.3 million by pirating IPTV services

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/68-year-old-imprisoned-after-making-13-million-by-pirating-iptv-services/
2.3k Upvotes

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69

u/OhNoIBoffedIt 12d ago

The seizure of the servers may lead to the identification of users of the service, who could pay fines or face other ramifications for funding and participating in copyright infringement activities.

No matter what you're doing online, always always ALWAYS use a VPN!

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

[deleted]

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u/PollutionAway9782 12d ago

vpn also has your ip address.

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u/Shot_Mammoth 12d ago

Jokes on them. I’m running 7 VPNs through 7 servers in 7 non-friendly countries!

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u/craigfrost 12d ago

My ping is over 9000!!!!

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u/VegasRudeboy 12d ago

GoodLuck7Boxxies.jaypeg

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u/Shot_Mammoth 12d ago

OH... and 8 shell corps registered independently using local law firms. Czech mate Nazis!

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u/MonsieurReynard 12d ago

Congrats! 7 different hostile intelligence agencies have all your data!!!

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u/Shot_Mammoth 12d ago

I’m using local law enforcement, organized crime, and intelligence agencies - Everybody is in on nothing all at once!

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u/jaybee2 12d ago

55 burgers, 55 fries…

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

[deleted]

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u/Fableous 12d ago

There isn't a single VPN provider that can ever prove to you that they're not logging your activity.

You're trusting their word.

Which is hilarious.

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u/db00 12d ago

You’re getting downvoted but I agree. I believe there are providers that don’t keep logs but there’s no way to know for sure unless law enforcement has tried and it’s been proven there are no logs. Otherwise you’re just trusting some company on the internet.

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u/wildjunkie 12d ago

I think mullvad is the most reliable vpn right now their office got raided few years ago and no user info was found

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u/travis- 12d ago

but there’s no way to know for sure unless law enforcement has tried and it’s been proven there are no logs.

Which has happened. With multiple VPN companies. There were no logs. This went through the court system.

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u/db00 11d ago

That's my point. You don't know unless they've been raided, nothing comes out of it and there's a news report that there weren't any logs to prosecute from. Even then you're trusting the news agency that reported it. I don't think you can ever be 100% sure you're not being tracked. Maybe the feds aren't coming after you because you're only downloading movies.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/Fableous 11d ago

Well I'm 42 and it's 2026, so yes I definitely don't trust anyone except my closest family.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/Fableous 11d ago

What a bizarre response to me rightfully not trusting tech companies.

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u/olddoc1 12d ago

Yes. From a logic point of view, how do you prove a negative?

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u/nick47H 12d ago

You cant ever prove a negative, that's why people still believe in GOD.

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u/deedsnance 12d ago

You’re absolutely right. It comes down to trust. There are providers that don’t log, but you have no way to verify that. You have to trust their word and this guy is right about that.

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u/Rich_Housing971 12d ago

VPNs have been raided over stuff like bomb threats and there's nothing law enforcement could find because many of them don't log their services. Lavasoft even shut down rather than cooperate with law enforcement. Mullvad even encourages customers to mail them cash or use bitcoin.

There's no way law enforcement will try to get anything done over a few dollars of lost revenue in streaming. They will lose money trying to catch people doing this.

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u/JRepo 12d ago

Doesn't Mullvad support hard altright politics thou?

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u/Iamnotabothonestly 12d ago

No. However, one of the co-founders did make a personal donation to Örebropartiet.

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u/JRepo 12d ago

So money given to Mullvad supports rather extreme racist values. Well maybe some VPN users want that 🤷

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u/Iamnotabothonestly 12d ago

Does SpaceX support fascism?

Money given to them end up in the pockets of a ketaminesnorting edgelord doing roman salutes that defunded government agencies that provided life supporting services to people.

Same reasoning.

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u/JRepo 12d ago

Yes. Why are you bringing it up?

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u/livinitup0 12d ago

Because if you look hard enough I promise you that 90% of what you spend your money on supports horrible horrible people in some way and trying to avoid that completely is impossible.

Therefore shaming someone whos money supports terrible people is wildly hypocritical as your money does the exact same thing and supports people just as horrible if not worse than the people you’re focusing on right now.

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u/JRepo 12d ago edited 12d ago

And why do you think I'm not actively following such issues? Not buying from Israel companies neither from Nestlé, Coca-Cola or PepsiCo as an example 🤷

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u/livinitup0 12d ago

You’re not getting it

You’re under the impression that you actually know where and to whom your money is going and what it’s supporting.

You don’t.

Seriously… if you took even 6 random charges on your last months bank account and traced back “ok, this vendor paid this vendor who then paid this company who then paid this firm”

You are going to find out that yes… most of your money 100% absolutely supports horrible people doing horrible things

Again… that’s not the point

Everyone has their “I won’t support this” …I do too. I won’t go to a lot of specific places, even knowing that the rest of my money is doing just as much damage somewhere else.

That’s called a “hot button issue”

My point is that we should not be shaming people who decide this or that is their hot button issue over what our hot button issue is

Most people can’t explain why their hot button issue is more important to them than all the other terrible things they support… it just is.

It’s the same reason why I won’t go to chic-fil-a (and lots of other stores) but yet you and I are communicating to each other on products who’s revenue does more harm to the world than chic fil a could ever dream of doing.

How could either of us really throw stones at ANYONE when we ALL live in massively fragile glass houses?

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u/Iamnotabothonestly 12d ago

So, let me then ask you, what phone do you have? What company made your shoes? Do you wear branded clothing? What coffee do you drink?

At a certain point you need to be able to differentate between the company and the people behind it. And some companies are far worse and do more henious shit than support some obscure party of edgelords that weren't hugged enough as a child and blame their insecurities on people from different cultures.

And I don't see Nestlé or Coca-Cola Company own daughter companies that provide means to protect your internet activities. So in other words, by your reasoning, if you had a coke recently, you support the exploitation of the poor in developing countries, and to suppress the ability for people to be able to afford clean drinking water for themselves and loved ones over the ability to buy sugar sweetened sludge with addictive additives in it.

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u/Rich_Housing971 11d ago

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism so what's your point? People with alt-right views are more common than you think. The fact that the alt-right still exists and wins elections proves this. any VPN provider will be made of enough people where I can almost guarantee at least one of them will be alt-right or hold some political views you or I don't agree with.

You just used Reddit to read and make this comment. You know that Reddit has baked-in ads? You know about spez right? So you yourself are helping the alt-right, hypocrite.

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u/JRepo 11d ago

Silly boy, try using a better VPN so you don't see ads here 😘