To reduce the chances of being tracked, profiled, spammed with malicious ads, infected with malware or subjected to ransomware, no device in this building accesses the internet without stringent filtering.

With network tools and browser plugins doing some of the heavy lifting, WireGuard VPN connections help to keep the dangers at bay. In today’s online environment, every little helps and on this network, a little amounts to millions of URLs blocked every year.

A new government initiative launched today on the website of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) sounded interesting; at least until the website started delivering broken and insecure HTTP pages in an apparent protest against an encrypted connection.

Having to reduce network security to read what the NCSC had to say about staying safe online wasn’t a great start. Worringly, things only went downhill from there.

Campaign to Raise Kids’ Awareness of Online Harms

The new awareness campaign targets pre-teens and young teenagers and is designed to raise awareness of some of the risks they’re likely to encounter when using the web.

A key feature is described as an “interactive video learning resource” which amounts to short video clips of a longer story, punctuated by multiple choice questions relating to decisions for staying safe online. For the strictly over 18s, think Black Mirror’s ‘ Bandersnatch ‘ but on a much tighter budget.

“Young people are growing up in an increasingly digital world, exposing them to both the opportunities and risks of the internet,” the NCSC campaign website notes.

“CyberFlix highlights some of the most common cyber scams and malicious activity that a pre-teen and teenage internet user might come across and empowers them to make choices to keep themselves more secure online.”

Hard to Believe Nobody Googled “CyberFlix”

For people who never go online, the word ‘CyberFlix’ probably means very little. For a few million others who love movies and TV shows but would rather not pay for them, CyberFlix means watching movies and TV shows but not having to pay for them.

The CyberFlix app for Android devices is a reported clone of Terrarium TV, which shut down in 2018 under legal pressure widely attributed to Hollywood. Given its similarities, CyberFlix became a favorite among pirates and as this complaint shows , also a prime target for enforcement groups including the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.

The problem for the online harms campaign is that when people seek it out by its chosen name, search engines turn up pages and pages of results that link to various CyberFlix-branded apps, most of which are completely dedicated to piracy.

If the CyberFlix campaign generates enough interest in its own right, it might be able to improve its position in search results. As things stand the bizarre choice of name means that wherever it ends up, the campaign is likely to be surrounded by piracy apps when people attempt to find it using a search engine.

Given the nature of the campaign and the fact that the government is behind it, this apparent blunder is all the more extraordinary.

Reducing Online Harms…

The entertainment industries claim apps like CyberFlix often contain malware and malicious advertising, perhaps the most common online harms encountered by the majority of all internet users. However, determining whether a piracy app is actually malicious isn’t always straightforward since many are able to pass virus/malware scans.

That may mean they’re clean but there are no guarantees, especially for apps with CyberFlix branding. There isn’t just one version of the app, many modified versions are available online, most likely under the control of different people.

For example, if people in the UK search for ‘CyberFlix’ today (looking for a campaign that reduces their exposure to online harms, perhaps), the item at the very top of Google’s results is a website where visitors can download and receive advice about a particular CyberFlix variant:

The advice doesn’t mention the third option (not installing the app at all) but in this case the Android APK (installation) file passes most malware checks. It also communicates with a server in Germany along with other CyberFlix variants. The same server also has connections to other apps, with the majority flagged for some type of malware issue. For whatever reason ( probably some of these ), Google isn’t happy with it either.

In summary, CyberFlix is a) a popular piracy app and b) a government campaign to help kids avoid trouble online. Got it.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In the early days of file-sharing, many of those involved couldn’t believe that music could be downloaded for free. Today, many pirates not only expect more, they demand more, and get it too.

As a result, and when everything goes to plan, many of today’s piracy apps are indistinguishable from their legal counterparts. They are as easy to install and feature similar graphical interfaces, with all the latest movies and TV shows a couple of taps away.

Such is their prevalence, apps offering less are easily ignored. The most successful pirate apps offer access to superior content libraries than those available on legal services, without charging a penny. Hollywood, Netflix, and almost every other player in the streaming market would love to shut them all down, but that’s more easily said than done.

ACE/MPA Take Closer Interest

With finite resources, anti-piracy groups usually concentrate on higher-profile apps with larger audiences. This suggests a direct link between the success of an app and the chances of it being shut down. Piracy apps TeaTV, BeeTV and CyberFlix are clearly popular enough to warrant some extra attention.

Jan van Voorn is the Executive Vice President & Chief of Global Content Protection at the Motion Picture Association. He’s also head of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the anti-piracy coalition that has shut down more pirate services in five years than most people knew existed.

Documents filed at a California court earlier this month are the first public sign that TeaTV and BeeTV are on the ACE radar. Signed by van Voorne, the DMCA subpoena application targets Cloudflare and requires the company to hand over whatever information it holds on the alleged infringers identified by ACE.

The subpoena requires Cloudflare to hand over the following: Information sufficient to identify the alleged infringers of the motion pictures described in the attached notification letter. This would include the individuals’ names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account history.

The deadline to hand over that information is today, November 25, 2022, so it’s likely that Cloudflare has already complied. Whether Cloudflare had anything useful to hand over is unknown, but from the last five years of ACE operations, we know that DMCA subpoenas are only the start and the group never gives up.

MPA/ACE Target Github Repos

Exactly a week after the DMCA subpoena application, the Motion Picture Association sent a pair of takedown notices to Github – one targeting TeaTV and the other CyberFlix TV, a popular piracy app with similar functionality.

Representing Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal City Studios, Warner Bros., Disney and Netflix Studios, LLC, the MPA described both apps as engaged in “massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows” with infringement their “predominant use and purpose.”

The MPA also provided a document (Exhibit A) containing a “representative list of infringements” occurring via both apps. Those aren’t published by Github but it appears that the MPA wanted to present a clear case of infringement so that Github could see for itself that the apps needed to be taken down.

TeaTV is no stranger to publicity having hit the headlines following a high-profile article published by CNBC in Canada.

The situation for CyberFlix is also precarious. The app is reported to be a clone of Terrarium TV, which shut down in 2018 under legal pressure, widely attributed to ACE.

In 2021, the domain Cyberflix.app ended up in the hands of the MPA . No official announcement followed but seeing the CyberFlix app grow in popularity was always likely to result in a follow up from ACE.

Whether ACE was responsible for another recent shutdown is unclear. The developer of Cinema HD reportedly stopped pushing updates to the popular streaming app after facing “legal issues”, a not-uncommon event since ACE appeared on the scene.

Whether the same fate awaits TeaTV, BeeTV, and CyberFlix, remains to be seen but life in the spotlight has never been easy for piracy services. The only solution is to remain unsuccessful but that’s never been much of an attraction.

Court documents & DMCA notices can be found here ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 )

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.