In the morning I told you that the US government managed to shut down Kickass Torrents, the largest torrent website in the world, its founder being arrested in Poland by local authorities, one of his accounts also being blocked after an undercover agent managed to buy ads on the website and discover the account number.
What was not known in the morning is that Apple helped the FBI shut down Kickass Torrents, those from Cupertino providing the FBI with information regarding the identity of the founder of the website, an iTunes transaction being the basis of the identification, it being matched with the IP address used by him to connect to Facebook.
According to the American authorities, the founder of Kickass Torrents logged into the official Facebook page of the website from the Polish location, and the IP used was matched with the iTunes transaction, Apple provided essential details about his identity, and now he expects to be extradited to the US.
According to official documents, the address tirm@me.com was used by the founder of Kickass Torrents for the iTunes transaction, the address IP 109.86.226.203 being also associated with the transaction that took place on July 31, 2015, so almost 1 year ago, the same IP being used to log in to Facebook.
Apple and FBI collaborate to shut down Kickass Torrents
The American authorities claim that Kickass Torrents is a business worth 54 million dollars, with revenues varying between 12.5 and 22.3 million dollars annually, but through it files are distributed that together are worth approximately 1 billion dollars, this being the biggest pirated content website.
The help offered by Apple to the FBI should not be surprising, despite the dispute a few months ago, those from Cupertino being obliged to provide such information, according to American law, especially since they have access to it and are anyway a company that fights content piracy.
Having said that, despite the possible attention that the founder of Kicass Torrents paid to protecting his identity, here is that when the American authorities put their resources to close a pirated content website, the result is a positive one for them, but with temporary safety.
