To track users of pirate IPTV services, the Italian police have set up a particularly ambitious operation. Indeed, a unit specializing in cybercrime redirected all internet traffic in the country to identify subscribers to these illegal services.
In recent months, large-scale operations against pirate IPTV platforms have multiplied all over Europe. A few days ago, we learned in particular that the Spanish police had dismantled one of the most important pirate IPTV services on the Old Continent. It served at least 500,000 people, and had done so for almost ten years.
In England, two resellers of pirate boxes were sentenced to two years in prison, while another British citizen was sentenced to 30 months in prison after having earned more than 2.6 million euros by reselling pirate boxes under Android.
This time, it is the turn of the Italian police to shine. In May 2022, authorities in La Botte claimed that thousands of people had unknowingly subscribed to a pirate IPTV service monitored by the police. When users attempted to access illegal streams, a warning message told them that they had just been spotted. In the aftermath, the authorities have just sent fines by mail to the offending users.
Police redirect all internet traffic to track users
These letters were sent by the Nucleo Speciale Guardianship Privacy and Frodi Tecnologiche, a unit of the Financial Brigade specializing in cybercrime. During this operation carried out in May 2022, the police explain that they deactivated 310 pirate IPTV sites, including primary servers dedicated to the distribution of illegal streams. Only and to trick users, the police used the seized infrastructure to set up a “tracking system”.
In these letters, we can read in particular that the Italian authorities were able to track down IPTV users “by organizing the redirection of all national connections of Internet service providers”, so that subscribers placed their orders on a server controlled and monitored by the police. Specifically, users were tracked”by tracing all the connections to the pirate sites combined, in real time and by crossing the telematic information with that coming from the payment mechanisms used”.
Paradoxically, the amounts of the fines imposed seem derisory in comparison to the consequent efforts to track down pirate IPTV users. Indeed, offenders must pay an administrative fine for copyright infringement of only 154 euros or 1032 euros in the event of a repeat offence. And again, the bill decreases if payment is made within 60 days, to 51 euros and 344 euros. For the unit behind this operation, the important thing is to “make all citizens, especially young people, aware of this issue and make them understand that financing this activity is tantamount to financing organized crime”.
Source : Torrent Freak
