Coinbase Helps FBI Shut Down KickAssTorrents

[bitbunnny]

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.

Exactly. Of they want to run legitimate business they have to cooperate with governemt. They are also obliged to follow some AML rules. Whether users like it or not for them this is the only way to stay at the market. Although with such policies Bitcoin usersw do.losew their anonimity.

[newcoins1978]

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 .

And already there are like a million mirrors available. Just like when it happened to the pirate bay.
I will be closing my coinbase account though, kat was my favourite site to download

[Cereberus]

In the deep web was a nice saying regarding persons with vision and intelligence like this guy but  screw up in the process and they thought they had every thing under control. When Ross Ulbricht of the Silk Road was captured I remember this sentence which I will never forget in the deep web : "Words cannot describe how stupid he was" as he too as far as I remember had the server in North Carolina in USA.
Now I am impressed more and this other guy owner of kickass torrents which uses a coinbase account deserves even more the above sentence. Its a good thing though that this is not the end of torrents as we all need them in our lifes, well most of us do for sure.

[snipie]

Its a good thing though that this is not the end of torrents as we all need them in our lifes, well most of us do for sure.

And it will not be but losing a top torrent site that easily should make the other owners be careful with whom to deal with and when they have to hide their identities...
Seriously he made a huge mistake 

[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 .

And already there are like a million mirrors available. Just like when it happened to the pirate bay.
I will be closing my coinbase account though, kat was my favourite site to download

I'm not sure how they helped to close it but using Coinbase as a wallet wasn't a good move in the first place.
Coinbase don't even give you the control over your private keys in the first , without mentioning that it's an online wallet and it can get hacked

[raphma]

kickass definitely shouldn't be using a online wallet.... running a business like that in a company with his identification isnt a smart thing to do.

[khalized]

Coinbase is basically a nosy parker in every matter.
I think one of their users got involved in such activities and so they tried to clean their hands off that way.

Well, now you can basically forget about torrent and start a new way of watching movies: http://www.strem.io
I basically visit torrent for movies only. So this is my suggestion as an alternative.

[Raimonn]

kickass definitely shouldn't be using a online wallet.... running a business like that in a company with his identification isnt a smart thing to do.

It wasn't an smart decision to store its bitcoins on an a web wallet like coinbase that could block its money. If they used any other wallet where they had the private key no one could block its bitcoins.

[BigKobasica]

Why Kickasstorrent admin was using coinbase wallet.Coinbase wallet isnt popular anymore because they are now new sites like exchangers where you can save coins and trade with many other cryptocurrencies.

[ShrykeZ]

I guess this shines more of a good light upon the Bitcoin world but whether this was a good choice or not for Coinbase~

[Wendigo]

I think Coinbase has always catered to what the government has required from them since the inception of their company. Corporate Bitcoin doesn't uphold any tenets of the Bitcoin community and will share data of its customers upon request by the government so this isn't a big surprise that Coinbase 'ratted' him out to the feds. How could it be otherwise when the government could shut down Coinbase within the snap of a finger?

[Cøbra]

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.

I feel pretty bad for this guy, but it's shocking how careless he was...

[Arcteryx]

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.

Of course they track your ip. Everytime you try and log in from another location, if your behind a vpn even, they ask you to verify it is you via your choice of verification when you signed up for an account. they recognize that your not logging in from regular location by ip address.

[Whosdaddy]

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?

The alleged owner of KAT was using bitcoins and coinbase wallet. In some article, it was said that he did 42 transactions with it and if I remember correctly, he was buying songs on iTunes or some place.
It's ironic, isn't it? He owns a piracy site, yet choose to pay for songs, and when he did that, he wasn't even hiding his IP. It felt like he was trying to get himself arrested at all.