Coinbase Helps FBI Shut Down KickAssTorrents

[Posternut]

On July 20, U.S. government officials seized the website KickAssTorrents (KAT) and arrested the alleged founder of the site, Artem Vaulin. The site facilitated pirated seeding and downloading of copyrighted material through various BitTorrent platforms.

KickAssTorrents Seized, Probably Won’t Come Back

The KAT website was created in 2009 and was one of the most popular torrenting domains similar to the infamous PirateBay. U.S. authorities had help from Homeland Security, Facebook, Linkedin, and the Bitcoin exchange Coinbase with taking down the torrent website.

https://news.bitcoin.com/coinbase-helps-fbi-shut-kickasstorrents/

[Patatas]

Well,that is some news!The Coinbase part.Don't understand why would they do that ? Shit has nothing to do with bitcoins.On a side note,one torrent site shutting down doesn't matter.10 new torrent sites will be up in no time.
Coinbase = Centralized Bank for bitcoins.

[cryptoheadd]

Coinbase = Centralized Bank for bitcoins.

That couldn't be more true.

[MingLee]

Well,that is some news!The Coinbase part.Don't understand why would they do that ? Shit has nothing to do with bitcoins.On a side note,one torrent site shutting down doesn't matter.10 new torrent sites will be up in no time.
Coinbase = Centralized Bank for bitcoins.

The Coinbase part does make sense; chances are there was more to it and Coinbase had to comply with a law or subpoena that the FBI made them aware of, and being a business and having an account which more than likely had some proceeds of crime in it (as well as being in violation of their ToS) they wanted to make a good impression with the FBI and be as helpful as they could so they could stay in business.

[Shiroslullaby]

Yeah if you are running a legitimate business, you probably want to comply when the FBI hits you with a subpoena!
It will be interesting to see if more details come out about this.
What did KAT have to do with Bitcoin? Were they taking some payments or making some payments in BTC?

[GreenBits]

To be fair, Facebook and Apple also contributed to this investigation as well.

https://www.google.com/amp/thenextweb.com/insider/2016/07/21/kickasstorrents-apple-id-facebook-lulz/%3famp=1?client=ms-android-att-us#


His email was discovered when authorities sent Facebook a warrant for information having to do with the site’s page. From there, the US Government turned to Apple.

Vaulin used the same @me.com email to make an iTunes purchase, which records your IP address for every transaction. His IP addresses were then tied to his bitcoin account.

Which means coinbase records IP per session, and shares this data when requested.

[QuestionAuthority]

Bitcoin exchanges should not be located in the United States of Bilderberg.

[hilariousandco]

A review of historical Whois information for KAT […] identified that it was registered on or about January 19, 2009, to Artem Vaulin with an address located in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

 

Facebook and Apple helped with the investigation as well showing Vaulin and others logged onto social media to promote the site regularly. Facebook handed over IP-address logs which was the same IP address used in iTunes transactions.

 

An interesting part of the story, which may concern Bitcoin supporters, is the fact that the San Francisco-based exchange Coinbase helped federal agents. In 2012, KAT started accepting Bitcoin donations, and U.S. officials say records received from Coinbase revealed the Bitcoin donation address was maintained by the exchanges services. The Coinbase account was registered to Artem Vaulin located in Kharkiv, Ukraine

 


It blows my mind how people like this guy and Ulbricht have the intelligence and vision to set up such sites, yet screw up so royally in the process. Why the hell would this guy register the domain and use a Coinbase account in his own name? These guys should be so paranoid to even go take a shit never mind do all their operations from their own home without making sure they've got every base secured with numerous layers of security nevermind not even using a proxy to log into sites connected to you and using your real name in the process. Bafflles me.

Well,that is some news!The Coinbase part.Don't understand why would they do that ? Shit has nothing to do with bitcoins.On a side note,one torrent site shutting down doesn't matter.10 new torrent sites will be up in no time.

Did you even read the article? The bitcoins he was donated to went to an account registered in his own name. The bitcoin link was just another piece of evidence to connect him to the crime. One more nail in the coffin.

Coinbase = Centralized Bank for bitcoins.

Coinbase is an exchange, one that has to comply with KYC and AML laws and will give up your details when requested to so. Just goes to show bitcoin is only as anonymous as you make it.

[Shiroslullaby]

The hardest part of running any illegal operation is going to be converting the BTC into another form of payment.
At some point you are going to have to link with a bank account or some other personal information if you want to convert those coins into another currency.
Most people are going to be too greedy to have it set up in someone elses name, and that's where they are going to get caught.

[thejaytiesto]

Damn this website was huge and loved by a lot of people. Coinbase will only bring even more haters by doing this. Im broke so I got a lot of software I needed to do stuff thanks to KAT website. There will be mirrors anyway... the battle never ends.

[mtnsaa]

It's safe to say that many of us used torrents in our lives but this guy was apparently floating on cash and while I do agree that many copyright rights and laws are stuck in another century I don't really feel good knowing someone is directly profiting from it.

It's like if I download a movie and watch, ok...I'm just poor as fuck, next time I will go to the cinemas or get netflix whatever, it comes back, p2p means someone "invited" me if you will. However another different thing would be for me to download the movie and make a profit out of it...I don't think that's really fair.

[Cuidler]

The Coinbase part.Don't understand why would they do that ?

Coinbase have to comply with the law, so they share the ID of their customers with the authorities whenever Coinbase get a request to do so. When you signing up at Coinbase and providng ID verification it is clear you approve this, what other reason would the ID verification be for ? So no surprice at all.

[carlisle1]

I was thinking before that coinbase also take their part to get the kickasstorrent arrested , and there was a thought on my mind that maybe coinbase is already controlled by the FBI since before or they are just impressing the FBI and the government . What the heck also it was also the owners fault I guess because he accessing those services using the same IP Address .

[pedrog]

It blows my mind how people like this guy and Ulbricht have the intelligence and vision to set up such sites, yet screw up so royally in the process. Why the hell would this guy register the domain and use a Coinbase account in his own name? These guys should be so paranoid to even go take a shit never mind do all their operations from their own home without making sure they've got every base secured with numerous layers of security nevermind not even using a proxy to log into sites connected to you and using your real name in the process. Bafflles me.

This^

If you're going to be investigated by the most resourceful law enforcement agency in the world, you better be Ed Snowden paranoid level.

[White sugar]

There is a new version of the kick ass torrent around, don't know if it is trustable, don't know if it is up to date.

It is like when piratebay was down, didn't took longer until they are back, by the hands of the funders or of someone else.

Address is: https://kickasstorrentsan.com/

[pedrog]

There is a new version of the kick ass torrent around, don't know if it is trustable, don't know if it is up to date.

It is like when piratebay was down, didn't took longer until they are back, by the hands of the funders or of someone else.

Address is: https://kickasstorrentsan.com/

Latest torrents from 7 days ago.

VirusTotal comes clean.

[isvicre]

Whether you're of the opinion he should have been more careful or what he did was bad it doesn't matter. It's not the end of torrents is it? 

[socks435]

I tried those sites but almost all torrents are down.. We know almost all virus is in torrents so beware if you have torrent in your computer your coins are not safe.. there is a progrma automated download in torrent and autoinstall that can disable selfdefence of antivirus and remove anti virus in your pc..

[OmegaStarScream]

All their efforts are kinda useless , I mean who fight something that use Peer to peer ? It's just a matter of time till someone gets another website like that .

[Kprawn]

This does not come to us as a surprise... They have been under KYC/AML regulations for a while now, and they cannot operate legally without it. This just makes me believe stronger in the fact that we

should not trust any exchange or Bitcoin service that needs to adhere to these regulations. Not because you want to do something illegal, but because IP and personal information are being farmed and

passed onto government organizations. It's a huge centralized database of all your personal Bitcoin transactions.