Reaction after Roma player’s fall – and fans’ patience in stands – shows Italian football now better equipped for such incidents

It was easy to fear the worst when Evan Ndicka fell. The Roma defender was away from the play, with no opponents in his immediate vicinity, as he doubled over and then collapsed with a hand on his chest. Twelve years to the day after another footballer, Piermario Morosini , died after suffering cardiac arrest during a Serie B match, the dread of a possible repeat was immediate and overwhelming.

Daniele De Rossi was one of the first to see what happened, turning and yelling for the medical team. Roma’s goalkeeper, Mile Svilar, and an opponent, the Udinese striker Lorenzo Lucca, were quickest to reach Ndicka and by their gestures confirmed that urgent treatment was required. Others signalled for quiet from the crowd and fans at the Bluenergy Stadium swiftly acquiesced.

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Since its official launch at the start of February 1, 2024, much has been said and written about Italy’s ‘Piracy Shield’ IPTV blocking system.

Yet, by volume, telecoms regulator AGCOM and key beneficiary Serie A, Italy’s top-tier football league, haven’t said very much at all.

In separate articles published in Italian media last weekend, a reason for the lack of participation is made clear; few articles published online offer credible information and most don’t focus on the right issues.

In a piece written by AGCOM commissioner Massimiliano Capitanio himself, we learn that articles published about Piracy Shield demonstrate “very little discernment” and prefer to use ‘anonymous web users’ as sources rather than information provided officially.

It’s the “classic reasoning that fuels fake news,” Capitanio explains.

Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo believes that the overblocking of Cloudflare was blown out of all proportion; an event that, according to official sources of information, didn’t happen at all but then, after reconsideration weeks later, did happen, but on such a small scale it was hardly worth mentioning.

“Journalists Have Overlooked a Fundamental Fact”

Something on which Capitanio and De Siervo both agree is the importance of reporting the numbers. Not those related to increased interest in subscription TV packages available from local broadcasters, but those related to the number of domains and IP addresses blocked by Piracy Shield.

“No pirate can sleep peacefully,” De Siervo told Corriere.it.

“In just sixty days, more than ten thousand illegal sites have already been blocked. The system works: we frequent Telegram chats where pirates exchange information and we know that there is excitement after the advent of the platform.”

Capitanio believes this important “fundamental fact” regarding the scale of blocking has been overlooked by journalists; “a monstrous number that should deserve eight column headlines” because it proves the platform actually works. “Maybe for some it works too well,” he adds.

SCOOP: THE BIG BLOCKING NUMBERS

It’s important to note that Piracy Shield advocates use different, shifting terminology than their critics. So, before looking at the BIG NUMBERS everyone has overlooked, a quick reminder that comparing like-for-like is extremely important.

De Siervo’s claim, that 10,000 illegal sites have been blocked, is as close to official information as it gets. Unfortunately, it’s completely untrue. There is a world of difference between an illegal site being blocked and an IP address or domain/subdomain being blocked.

Here, De Siervo took the number of domains/subdomains blocked by Piracy Shield, which are counted individually even if they relate to the same main domain, and then added them to the number of IP addresses blocked, even though many relate to domains/subdomains, so have already been counted.

These figures can be reported separately as domains and/or IP addresses blocked, but they can’t be added together, scrubbed of their identity, and then be relabeled as “illegal sites.” In a news article for public consumption, most people will believe that 10,000 sites have been blocked; here’s why that is a dangerous assumption.

Dynamically Generated Sub-Domains

The ‘ticket’ below represents a rightsholder blocking request filed at Piracy Shield. It targets subdomains of the partially redacted main domain names megahxxxxxxx, leadcxxxxxxx, mexxxxxxxx, and mexxxxxxxx.

These subdomains, such as pdvsvvp, yzzazup and zwjntqj, are generated by IPTV services at will. A unique subdomain could be generated for each subscriber of the service, or 1,000 subdomains, 100,000, or even a million subdomains, could be generated for other reasons linked to blocking circumvention.

As reported in January, Sky TV in the UK faces the same issue. After obtaining a court order that targeted around half a dozen IPTV providers, subdomains/domains like those shown below became a target for blocking.

In the Piracy Shield blocking ticket, the URLs contain a main domain and one subdomain. In the sample relating to Sky blocking, one main domain and two subdomains. These subdomains are almost infinitely variable and can be generated, disappeared, and regenerated at will, at zero cost to the provider.

More Subdomains Coming Up

By January, the number of subdomains blocked by the Premier League, relating to roughly six IPTV providers per the court order, exceeded 4,500. As far as we’re able to determine, since then, another 4,600+ have been blocked, leading to a grand total of ~9,100 domain/subdomains (FQDN) blocked for roughly six IPTV providers.

In Serie A success-story parlance, this would amount to the blocking of 9,100 illegal sites and a gross misrepresentation of events on the ground. Domain terminology can’t be dismissed as unimportant or talk simply for geeks, it’s the basis for a sensible discussion.

That being said, the number of domains and IP addresses blocked proves almost nothing. A 2021 report published by the EUIPO estimated there were 5,000 sites offering live sports in Europe alone.

If that number doubled since then, and it probably has, Piracy Shield would’ve blocked them all in two months. But blocking an illegal site is not the same as blocking IP addresses and subdomains, regardless of what official information sources claim.

Not Cloned or Hacked Although AGCOM Was Hacked a Bit

As noted by AGCOM, journalists have been relying on their own sources to report on Piracy Shield since February. The regulator paints these sources as unreliable and anonymous but, in the absence of official information for almost that entire period, most journalists reported to the best of their ability.

The articles featuring official information from Capitanio and De Siervo both touch on a story broken here at TF ; the unexpected appearance of alleged Piracy Shield source code and confidential documentation on GitHub.

In comments to Corriere, De Siervo is extremely clear: “It is not true that the source code of the platform was cloned.”

In his article published by Agendadigitale.eu, Capitanio writes that “some confidential information was only released on Github, a site used mainly by developers, which, in any case, did not affect [Piracy Shield’s] functioning at all.”

In case the message isn’t clear, Capitanio is unequivocal: “Piracy Shield was absolutely not hacked.”

De Siervo, however, suggests there might have been a bit of hacking, but not really that much, and in any event, use of the word AGCOM and Piracy Shield may (or may not) be interchangeable

“The hackers only breached the first level of protection of the AGCOM website. The security of the platform is not compromised at all,” he told Corriere.

In fact, Piracy Shield is so good, De Siervo says foreign countries want to buy it.
(Note: this statement is from an official source)

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

Manager once mocked for a throwaway line has his team shooting for the Champions League and admirers on his tail

The calendar showed 1 April, but there was nothing fishy about a league table that showed Bologna in fourth place. Thiago Motta’s side have held that spot for more than a month, even if it was striking to see after Monday’s 3-0 win over Salernitana that they had closed to within two points of Juventus in third. The gap was 20 at the start of February.

April Fools’s Day in Italy is known as Pesce d’Aprile – April Fish. The tradition is for children to stick paper pesci on people’s backs and see how long they go unnoticed, but journalists have been known to mark the occasion with made-up stories, as happens in other countries. Bologna supporters must hope the headlines now linking their manager to Juventus turn out to be fake news.

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The Serie A leaders showed their freedom and flexibility against Bologna, and their ability to score goals that are beyond any other team

Marco Parolo was only joking when he posed the question to Simone Inzaghi last December. “Back when you were coaching me at Lazio you offered us players a dinner for the first goal assisted by one wing-back and scored by the other,” said the former Italy international during a TV interview after Inter’s home win over Udinese. “What are you trying for now? A goal set up by the defender from one side of your back three and scored by the one on the other side?”

The translation is a little unwieldy. In Italian, Parolo was contrasting “un gol da quinto a quinto” with one “da terzo a terzo”, but English does not offer an equivalent for this shorthand reference to footballers’ positions as “fifths” and “thirds”. The sentiment was what mattered. Parolo was marvelling like the rest of us at the fluidity of an Inter side in which it can seem like every player bar the goalkeeper has permission to join the attack.

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• Serie A Lecce lost 1-0 at home to Hellas Verona on Sunday
• D’Aversa butted Verona’s Thomas Henry on pitch after game

Lecce have fired manager Roberto D’Aversa after he headbutted an opposing player at the end of their loss to Hellas Verona at the weekend, the Serie A club said on Monday.

D’Aversa headbutted Verona striker Thomas Henry in the aftermath of their 1-0 home defeat on Sunday, and the club released a statement later that day condemning the incident, and have now dismissed the 48-year-old.

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There’s rarely a shortage of conflict and controversy in the perpetual online piracy wars.

For some, the David versus Goliath imagery, of ordinary people fighting faceless corporations, will never get old. For others, the right of creators to receive fair compensation for their work is non-negotiable; it puts food on the table, literally.

Yet spend enough time digesting every possible detail presented by those shouting most loudly about piracy, and it becomes increasingly clear that piracy is already too big to fail.

Anti-piracy is now a multi-billion dollar industry in its own right, that means companies investing real money, long-term, into a fight where the ultimate reward for achieving the impossible is self-destruction via redundancy. Very obviously that isn’t going to happen because according to regular reminders, pirates never stop innovating and there’s nothing anyone can do about that in the absence of draconian tool (x)

AGCOM – Hold My Beer

If piracy is too big to fail, then the same also holds true for events playing out in Italy. After expending huge resources to obtain legislation to a precise specification, rightsholders have the legal basis to give pirates everything they’ve got, with little to fear, even when things go terribly wrong.

With full support from AGCOM, the whole of Italy has endured non-stop lectures on piracy, the capability of the Piracy Shield blocking platform, and how nothing will ever go wrong because this mission is too big to fail. When things did go wrong two weeks ago , AGCOM claimed that journalists made the whole thing up and when an even bigger blunder took out countless innocent sites last weekend, proponents of Piracy Shield disappeared and said nothing.

In parallel, information on which domains and IP address have been blocked, aren’t being published according to the rules. This means that when innocent sites are rendered inaccessible, those affected are denied any right to know what went wrong or who can be held responsible. That seems incompatible with even a basic level of responsibility towards innocent third parties.

Piracy Shield Blocking Data – Feb 2024 – Weeks 1-3

Since information apparently likes to be free and access to justice is a basic human right, here’s the first three weeks of IP addresses blocked by the Piracy Shield system. The list handed to TF over a week ago appears to cover the first two-and-a-half, possibly close to three weeks of February. It contains 1267 IP addresses but less than 10 domains names have been revealed to the public in official records.

Long lists of IP addresses tend to become a bit meaningless, so we’ve added relevant data (everything beyond the bare IP addresses) to help the numbers make sense. We used IPInfo to obtain approximate server locations and various other tools to compile the rest of the data.

From a total of 1267 IP addresses, 558 geo-locate to the Netherlands, 433 to Romania, and the rest as follows: Austria (69), Germany (57), Italy (33), France (28), Ukraine (28), Nigeria (13), Ireland (8), Switzerland (6), Greece (6). All other countries were were linked to five IP addresses or less.

While the usual caveats apply in respect of geo-location data not necessarily being accurate, it seems reasonable to conclude that European server locations caused many issues in the first two or three weeks of February.

However, dots on a map don’t always tell the full story. Server operator data (presuming that can be relied on) may offer a few more clues towards a more distant problem than ‘Frankfurt’ may first suggest. Indeed, GZ Remittance (China) Industry Ltd (specifically, Hong Kong) turns up no less than 350 times in the list (29% of all blocks) but appears to have almost 4,100 German IP addresses in total , so quite a few to go yet.

For those interested in the data, a .csv file is available here . If anyone can make the data look really nice, please send us a copy here .

Note: An earlier version of this article referenced Superhub Limited in Hong Kong in connection with the IP addresses listed above, as reported by the database queried. There is more than one company with that name in Hong Kong but in this case the IP addresses are linked to Superhub Ltd in some online databases, which does not appear to be correct.

The full name listed in other databases is IPv4 Superhub Limited, which appears to be accurate. This is also a Hong Kong company but does not immediately appear to have connections to Superhub Limited, even though the two entities are very close geographically.

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

• Jeremie Frimpong and Álex Grimaldo score in 2-0 victory
• Domenico Berardi suffers serious injury in Sassuolo defeat

Bayer Leverkusen went 10 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga and continued their unbeaten run with a 2-0 win over struggling neighbours Köln , who went down to 10 men in the first half of a hotly-contested derby on Sunday.

Köln had Jan Thielmann sent off after 14 minutes for stepping on the back of Granit Xhaka’s ankle and Leverkusen took the lead through Jeremie Frimpong in the 37th minute. The home side were still very much in the game until Álex Grimaldo netted his ninth league goal of the season in the 73rd minute.

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• Freiburg grab late equaliser to dent Bayern’s title hopes
• Pellegrini, Marusic and Guendouzi see red for Lazio

Freiburg’s Lucas Höler scored an 87th-minute equaliser to snatch a 2-2 draw against visitors Bayern Munich , whose Bundesliga title hopes suffered a further blow.

The result left champions Bayern seven points behind leaders Bayer Leverkusen, who can pull further ahead with a win over Cologne on Sunday.

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When attempting to block pirated content online, there is always a significant risk that legitimate content will be blocked too.

Proponents of a tough new law in Italy that granted significant powers to rapidly block sites, waved away such concerns last year. However, after less than a month in full operation, the Piracy Shield system made its biggest blunder thus far last Saturday. Rather than opt for a surgical strike, someone rolled out a blunderbuss.

It Could Never Happen…

IP address 188.114.97.7 belongs to Cloudflare and is used by many sites, including legitimate ones, so shouldn’t have been targeted at all. However, when that IP was blocked by Italy’s ISPs, under orders of telecoms regulator AGCOM, just 15 minutes later the effect was significant.

From people whose innocent sites were rendered inaccessible, to networking experts, ISPs, and regular Italian internet users, all want to know why this happened, why it was allowed to happen, and how something similar will be prevented moving forward.

As far as we’re aware, no official comments from AGCOM, rightsholders, or indeed anyone responsible for the blunder have even mentioned it in public, let alone that they provided an explanation.

ASSOProvider Files Access to Information Request

In a letter dated Monday seen by TorrentFreak, independent ISP association ASSOProvider calls on AGCOM to grant access to information under relevant law.

“According to these resolutions, anyone with a personal and concrete interest in the protection of legally relevant situations may exercise the right of access to documents held by the Authority by sending a written and reasoned request. The person in charge of the procedure shall do so within 30 days and inform the Council,” the letter reads.

To illustrate the association’s legitimate interest, the letter lays out ASSOProvider’s participation in working groups related to the law introduced last year, and the legal appeal it subsequently filed to protest its site-blocking provisions. The association further notes that its own members are impacted by the actions of the Piracy Shield system since they’re required to use it.

“As of February 1, 2024, the Piracy Shield platform for combating piracy is active. Moreover, among ASSOprovider’s Associates, there are providers affected by the activities put in place by the Piracy Shield platform as they are members of the same platform, and also in this way the Association makes this petition,” the letter continues.

Legitimate Request For Data Relating to Two Events

ASSOProvider’s request seeks data connected to two reported overblocking events. The first, against IP addresses belonging to Zenlayer CDN , with the second relating to last weekend’s blocking of the Cloudflare IP address. Since there have been suggestions that ISPs could find themselves targeted with legal claims related to unlawful blocking, having AGCOM hand over relevant records is a reasonable request.

“It is therefore in the interest of the Association, engaged on the judicial front and for its own and its members’ protection, to know the acts and documents that gave rise to these inhibitions,” the letter continues.

Information Requested

ASSOProvider requests access to the following documents:

• The list of FQDN domain names and IP addresses submitted to Piracy Shield from February 1, 2024, to date.
• Specifically, all documents related to IP blocking issued, communicated and implemented, on Feb. 14, 15 and 24.
• The reports and all documents received from rights holders that resulted in blocking tickets on the same dates.
• The notice sent by AGCOM to the owner of the officially targeted site.
• Copies of blocking tickets sent to the Piracy Shield platform on Feb. 14, 15 and 24.
• Copies of blocking revocation tickets sent on the same days.

Given that AGCOM hasn’t yet released domain and IP address information on its website to allow relevant parties to appeal against blocking instructions, it will be interesting to see its response to this official request. The request seeks significantly more information than AGCOM has provided thus far, including that which AGCOM is required to publish.

Official Declarations Fail to Indicate Scale of Blocking

The table below shows the bare details of information released thus far, plus information that should be declared relating to post-order blocking, but to date has not. AGCOM may provide additional details at a later date but since that information is available the moment domains and IP addresses are blocked, providing them quickly shouldn’t be an issue.

The big question is how the above table translates to the actual number of domains and IP addresses blocked.

Information made available to TorrentFreak shows that from February 1 to last week (not including events last weekend), over 1,200 IP addresses have been blocked by Piracy Shield. The volume of domain names, which includes subdomains, is considerably larger, well over 1,600.

We understand that the law does not specify or recognize unblocking of domains or IP addresses and no system is in place to remove blocks that are out of date. Cursory tests show that some IP addresses on the list no longer facilitate access to pirate services, assuming that was initially the case.

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