Matrix Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 WatchAsap, a paid streaming site that was promoted by the defunct 123movies, now displays a familiar seizure banner. The banner mentions that the domain name was seized by the feds as part of an ongoing criminal case. Whether that's true or not remains a mystery for now. At the start of this year, pirate streaming site 123movies, also known as 123movieshub and GoMovies, was one of the largest pirate streaming sites on the web. The site received millions of visitors per day which prompted none other than the MPAA to label it “the most popular illegal site in the world.” The site offered access to pretty much all popular movies and TV shows, most in reasonable quality. However, it also advertised another site, WatchAsap.com, which offered the best video quality for a monthly subscription. Many people believed that both sites were closely connected. While that may have been the case, WatchAsap remained online when 123movies decided to shut down earlier this year. The shutdown happened just days after the MPAA visited Vietnamese officials. Not entirely coincidentally, perhaps, as we later learned that the site folded in response to a criminal investigation by the authorities of Vietnam, where the site’s owners were allegedly based. “An important development in 2018 was the shuttering of a ring of piracy services that had operated under the names 123movies, 123movieshub, gostream, and gomovies following the launch of a criminal investigation in Vietnam and significant industry engagement,” the MPAA explained. While WatchAsap remained online for several months, the site’s homepage changed drastically this month. Instead of paid access to HD streams, users are now welcomed by an ominous seizure banner. “This domain name associated with the website WatchAsap.com has been seized pursuant to an order issued by the U.S. District Court,” it reads, adding that a federal grand jury indicted several individuals for related crimes. Seized? This type of banner has been used in the past for criminal investigations. In fact, the banner previously displayed at Megaupload.com was identical, apart from the name of the website. As far as we can see the image hasn’t been doctored and WatchAsap.com shouldn’t have any reason to implicate itself in a crime, but thus far we haven’t seen any public announcement of a related indictment. Further complicating the matter is the fact that the domain WHOIS hasn’t been updated to indicate a seizure. Also, the site still uses Cloudflare’s nameservers, which is unusual as well, compared to previous domain takeovers. In theory, a Federal Court may have instructed Cloudflare to point the site to a server that’s controlled by the feds, of course, but there’s no confirmation of that either. To resolve this mystery, TorrentFreak reached out to the Department of Justice and the IPR Center, whose seals are prominently featured on the shutdown banner. After a week had passed a reminder was sent, but we have yet to hear back. It might be that we received no response because the court records are still sealed, or that it’s all an elaborate hoax. Either way, it’s highly unusual. What we do know is that whoever is responsible for placing that banner didn’t do a very good job. As it turns out, they forgot to redirect the site’s www traffic. At the time of writing, people who type in www.watchasap.com are sent to another pirate site called YesMovies instead. That site is not too dissimilar from the original 123movies… The mystery continues. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WatchAsap, a paid streaming site that was promoted by the defunct 123movies, now displays a familiar seizure banner. The banner mentions that the domain name was seized by the feds as part of an ongoing criminal case. Whether that's true or not remains a mystery for now. At the start of this year, pirate streaming site 123movies, also known as 123movieshub and GoMovies, was one of the largest pirate streaming sites on the web. The site received millions of visitors per day which prompted none other than the MPAA to label it “the most popular illegal site in the world.” The site offered access to pretty much all popular movies and TV shows, most in reasonable quality. However, it also advertised another site, WatchAsap.com, which offered the best video quality for a monthly subscription. Many people believed that both sites were closely connected. While that may have been the case, WatchAsap remained online when 123movies decided to shut down earlier this year. The shutdown happened just days after the MPAA visited Vietnamese officials. Not entirely coincidentally, perhaps, as we later learned that the site folded in response to a criminal investigation by the authorities of Vietnam, where the site’s owners were allegedly based. “An important development in 2018 was the shuttering of a ring of piracy services that had operated under the names 123movies, 123movieshub, gostream, and gomovies following the launch of a criminal investigation in Vietnam and significant industry engagement,” the MPAA explained. While WatchAsap remained online for several months, the site’s homepage changed drastically this month. Instead of paid access to HD streams, users are now welcomed by an ominous seizure banner. “This domain name associated with the website WatchAsap.com has been seized pursuant to an order issued by the U.S. District Court,” it reads, adding that a federal grand jury indicted several individuals for related crimes. Seized? This type of banner has been used in the past for criminal investigations. In fact, the banner previously displayed at Megaupload.com was identical, apart from the name of the website. As far as we can see the image hasn’t been doctored and WatchAsap.com shouldn’t have any reason to implicate itself in a crime, but thus far we haven’t seen any public announcement of a related indictment. Further complicating the matter is the fact that the domain WHOIS hasn’t been updated to indicate a seizure. Also, the site still uses Cloudflare’s nameservers, which is unusual as well, compared to previous domain takeovers. In theory, a Federal Court may have instructed Cloudflare to point the site to a server that’s controlled by the feds, of course, but there’s no confirmation of that either. To resolve this mystery, TorrentFreak reached out to the Department of Justice and the IPR Center, whose seals are prominently featured on the shutdown banner. After a week had passed a reminder was sent, but we have yet to hear back. It might be that we received no response because the court records are still sealed, or that it’s all an elaborate hoax. Either way, it’s highly unusual. What we do know is that whoever is responsible for placing that banner didn’t do a very good job. As it turns out, they forgot to redirect the site’s www traffic. At the time of writing, people who type in www.watchasap.com are sent to another pirate site called YesMovies instead. That site is not too dissimilar from the original 123movies… The mystery continues.
Ha91 Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 Every website TorrentFreak reports gets taken down. I feel that TorrentFreak is the biggest DMCA and MPAA spy amongst us. @anonymous.anon I only wish if Anonymous took it down and unravelled the mystery behind that website - who set it up, who runs it, how do they make do with expenses and how much do they earn from revenue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylence Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 Torrentfreak is the spy that's right. I'm glad Steam banned all of their domains. they are double agents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrix Posted November 18, 2018 Author Share Posted November 18, 2018 Torrentfreak is not our friend just to be clear I have no association with them I only copy what they post as some of their stuff is of interest to us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylence Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 15 minutes ago, DonyMach1 said: Torrentfreak is not our friend just to be clear I have no association with them I only copy what they post as some of their stuff is of interest to us I guess that's what made them popular, backlinking to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrix Posted November 18, 2018 Author Share Posted November 18, 2018 1 minute ago, Sylence said: I guess that's what made them popular, backlinking to them. That's correct again though its no secret they play both sides of the fence and always have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 50 minutes ago, DonyMach1 said: That's correct again though its no secret they play both sides of the fence and always have. Always someone has posted there news here .. In the early 2000s I use to read the Filesharing news at Slyck News but its I'ts not just torrentfreak that can be blamed most of the time the Mpaa and Riaa already knows about anything new that comes out from Reddit , Facebook , Twitter and YouTube before TF ever post about it by the time TF post on it they already been being watched along time . Anti piracy will be done been sent notices out to Google for years before sites get closed down even. Back when I 1st came online it was hard to find warez you had to go to Slyck News to even figure out how to do it . It was not tell Google started indexing all the warez sites that it was easy to find so there the biggest ones to blame.. but the Mppa and Riaa has been raiding pirate sites way longer than TF even existed . See here : Anybody used that new watchasap website ? submitted 10 months ago https://old.reddit.com/r/streaming/comments/7p414d/anybody_used_that_new_watchasap_website/ When someone post something on social media or nsanedown for that matter they could be Anti piracy or the FBI your talking too and asking a question even but they don't have to say nothing they can just read. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ha91 Posted November 19, 2018 Share Posted November 19, 2018 @steven36 Haha agreed 😛 @DonyMach1 Lol, yes 😛 @Sylence I did not know Steam banned them 😮 Yeah they did get popular because of what you said indeed. @nir @straycat19 What do you think about all this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nir Posted November 19, 2018 Share Posted November 19, 2018 @Ha91 No comment on a mystery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ha91 Posted November 20, 2018 Share Posted November 20, 2018 @nir Haha 😛 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.