The United States Navy is liable for a mass copyright infringement. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the German software company Bitmanagement, which accused the Navy of copying software without permission. Bitmanagement claimed more than $500 million in damages, but the final amount has yet to be determined. From a report: The dispute started when the US Navy decided that it would like to run the software across its entire network. This meant that it would be installed on hundreds of thousands of computers, with "Flexera" software keeping track of the number of simultaneous users. Bitmanagement didn't offer such a license by default, so the Navy requested this option separately. These requests took place through a reseller, Planet 9 Studios, which complicated matters. After several back and forths, the Navy was convinced that it had permission, but Bitmanagement later disagreed. The problem for the Court was that the Navy and Bitmanagement didn't sign a contract, so there was no direct permission given. This meant that the Court had to review the conversations and exchanges that took place, to determine which side was right.

After reviewing all evidence, the Federal Claims court eventually sided with the US Navy, dismissing the copyright infringement claim. However, this wasn't the end of it. Bitmanagement maintained that the Navy clearly committed mass copyright infringement and the company took the matter to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, with success. In an order issued a few days ago, the Appeals Court agrees with pretty much all conclusions of the Federal Claims Court. The evidence indeed shows that Bitmanagement 'authorized' the U.S. Navy's copying of BS Contact Geo across its network. While this wasn't formalized in an official contract, the Navy had an "implied license."

Inside.com's developer newsletter spotted this code repository story: GitHub posted a DMCA notice it received from the Motion Picture Association (MPA) last week asking the platform to take down a repository associated with NYAA.si, a popular torrent site specializing in anime content. The DMCA captured attention as the code doesn't belong to the MPA. Rather, the MPA argues the code is used for the development of the site, which allows for copyright infringement, while the repo also makes it possible to create NYAA clones.

The news comes a few months after GitHub restored the youtube-dl repository and created a $1m legal defense fund to help open source developers fight unwarranted DMCA Section 1201 takedown claims. At the same time, the platform also announced it will be improving its Section 1201 claim review process to make it harder to take down repos.
But the next day, the newsletter reported GitHub had reversed the takedown: The company explains the notice didn't meet its DMCA Takedown Policy requirements as it failed to "establish that the code is preconfigured to infringe." GitHub adds that it also restored any content that was disabled because of the notice.
Some context from TorrentFreak: This isn't the first time the MPA has gone after the anime torrent site. Last November we reported that the anti-piracy group sent cease and desist letters to several people who are allegedly connected to the site, describing it as an "Anime Cartel".
TorrentFreak's latest update: A few weeks ago, the Motion Picture Association tried to shut the project down by going after several people who are allegedly linked to the site. Framing NYAA as an "Anime Cartel", the movie group demanded a total shutdown and tens of thousands of dollars in settlements...

This takedown request initially succeeded as GitHub disabled the repository earlier this week. Before doing so, the platform reached out to the developers and gave them the option to respond or make changes, but that request went unanswered. Without a response from the developers, this is usually where things end. In this case, however, GitHub decided to carry out another review after the project was taken down, perhaps in part motivated by the news coverage. "While we didn't hear back from the maintainers, we chose to do another review ourselves to proactively see how we could resolve the issue," a GitHub spokesperson informs TorrentFreak...

[A]t the time of writing the NYAA repository is up and running again. The MPA still has the option to provide additional information about the allegedly-infringing nature of the code, which would then trigger another review.

GitHub stresses that it's their purpose to make sure that developers can host code within the boundaries of the law. Unless the entire repository is infringing, it's standard policy to allow developers to respond to DMCA claims before any content is removed.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: As one of the original co-founders of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi knows a little something about keeping controversial services online. Kolmisoppi and his colleagues spent decades battling a global coalition of corporations, governments, and law enforcement agencies intent on wiping the file sharing website from the face of the internet. Unsuccessfully. Kolmisoppi took to Twitter this week to share some thoughts on Parler's recent deplatforming for failing to seriously police death threats and illegal content before and after the fatal Capitol riots.

"The Pirate Bay, the most censored website in the world, started by kids, run by people with problems with alcohol, drugs and money, still is up after almost two decades," Kolmisoppi said. "Parlor and gab etc have all the money around but no skills or mindset. Embarrassing." [...] Platforming white supremacy and hate speech is a tougher proposition than serving users pirated copies of the Prince discography. But Kolmisoppi was quick to laugh at the fact that despite being backed by billionaires and parts of the US government, Parler didn't seem remotely prepared for the justified firestorm it found itself at the center of. "The most ironic thing is that The Pirate Bay's enemies include not just the US government but also many European and the Russian one," he said. "Compared to gab/parlor which is supported by the current president of the US and probably liked by the Russian one too."

"In all honesty, the reason we did The Pirate Bay was to bring freedom and take back control from a centralised system," Kolmisoppi said. "The reason that Gab et al will fail is because they're just whining bitches that have only one ideology: egotism. Sharing is caring y'all." In more recent years, Kolmoisoppi has moved on to fund Njalla, a privacy-centric domain name registration service. One he says was already asked to host Parler, and refused. "Of course we wouldn't," Kolmisoppi said. "We're pro human rights, which includes the right to not be killed by extreme right wing terrorists."

CNET reveals 2020's most popular show among video pirates: It probably won't come as a surprise that Disney Plus smash hit series The Mandalorian has won the (unfortunate) title of most-pirated TV show of 2020 — using popular torrenting site BitTorrent. According to analysis from TorrentFreak (via IndieWire), Game of Thrones was the most-pirated TV show seven years running. But the HBO series ended in 2019, leaving The Mandalorian to improve its ranking from third to No. 1.
The rest of the list, from IndieWire: Prime Video's irreverent superhero series "The Boys" is at number two, HBO's "Westworld" is number three, Prime Video's "Vikings" is number four, CBS' "Star Trek: Picard" is five, followed by Adult Swim's "Rick and Morty," AMC's "The Walking Dead," HBO's "The Outsider," CW's "The Arrow," and CW's "The Flash."

A few hours ago and after years of preparation, amendments to Japan's copyright law came into effect, aiming to criminalize those who download unlicensed manga, magazines, and academic texts from the Internet. From a report: While uploading pirated content has always been illegal, the new law is quite specific in that it criminalizes the downloading of unlicensed content. While that could take place in a simultaneous upload environment such as BitTorrent, it seems most likely that people will obtain content from websites instead. That presents some roadblocks to enforcement so we asked Ina how, from a technical perspective, will the authorities track, obtain evidence, and prosecute people who simply download content (comics, movies, music etc) to their machines but don't distribute? "The authorities shall use digital forensic technologies to track suspects' activities and collect evidence. The details of such technologies have not been publicly available," Masaharu Ina from Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA explained. "There are certain special units specialized in cyber crimes in each prefecture. For example, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police has its own Cyber Crime Control Unit. But the police do not investigate unless the person commits the crime repeatedly, intentionally and maliciously, i.e. innocent light downloaders shall not be prosecuted."

Leaked Nintendo documents have revealed a frightening surveillance operation carried out against a hacker who was researching exploits for the 3DS handheld. TorrentFreak reports: During the past 24 hours, various Twitter accounts (1,2) have been posting snippets from documents that were recently leaked from Nintendo. While there are numerous items of interest, the most shocking revelations involve Neimod, a hacker who several years ago developed exploits for the 3DS handheld console. [T]he scale of the operation, which is revealed in detail in the leaked documents, shows just how far the gaming giant was prepared to go to stop his work. For example, the leak reveals personal profiling that dug deeply into Neimod's education status, listed details of his working life, while offering evidence of physical snooping on his daily lifestyle. What time he could be found at home, who came to see him there, and even when he visited places like banks and restaurants are all included. While this kind of surveillance is creepy in its own right, additional documents reveal a detailed plan to use the gathered intelligence to physically confront Neimod in order to pressurize him into complying with the company's demands.

According to Nintendo's planning, the operation would begin around April 15, 2013, with its team meeting at a local hotel to discuss and finalize their plans. Following a review of Neimod's movements of the previous week, the team would then decide where and when contact would be made -- after work or at home, for example. With an undercover investigator monitoring Neimod to discover what time he left work, Neimod was to be approached by a 'contact team,' who were instructed to approach their target "in a friendly, non-threatening, professional, and courteous manner." "Provide a business card," the instructions read. After Neimod had been engaged in conversation, the team was instructed to flatter the hacker by "acknowledging his engineering/programming aptitude." They were also told to reference his stated aim of not "facilitating piracy" with his hacks but point out Nintendo's concerns that a release of his hack could do just that.

Whether Neimod complied or resisted, Nintendo prepared for both eventualities. The following slide, posted to Twitter by Eclipse-TT, shows a flow chart that begins with instructions for the "Knock and Talk Team," details a staging area, rules of engagement, and plans for what should happen when things go to plan -- or otherwise. The Nintendo "Final Enforcement Proposal" document describes a "carrot and stick" approach, with the stick being a laundry list of potential offenses committed by Neimod under Belgian law and the carrot representing a number of sweeteners that might be of interest to the hacker. If cooperation was achieved, Nintendo suggested it could refrain from filing a criminal complaint. It may also enter into a "bounty" contract with Neimod with payments made for finding and documenting exploits. Within certain parameters, his discoveries could still be announced to the public, allowing him to retain "bragging rights." This could help Nintendo's image, the company wrote.

Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against an Amazon Nintendo Switch hack reseller -- the sort of litigation it's taken on in similar cases in the past. Nintendo's lawyers allege the Amazon seller, Le Hoang Minh, circumvents Nintendo's copyright measures in selling an RCM Loader, used to "jailbreak" the Nintendo Switch. From a report: The lawsuit was filed in a Seattle court last week, according to court documents obtained by Polygon. In the lawsuit, Nintendo outlines what it calls a "serious, worsening international problem" with video game software piracy. It details Nintendo's security systems, and how the RCM Loaders bypass those systems. The RCM Loader (which is essentially a USB device that plugs into the Nintendo Switch) allows the user to play so-called "pirated" or unauthorized games. According to the lawsuit, Nintendo sent a DMCA notice to the seller, to which a counterclaim was issued. Because of the counterclaim, Amazon was required to relist the RCM Loader, unless Nintendo filed an infringement lawsuit. And that's what it did. The company is looking for the courts to stop the seller, and award it $2,500 in damages for each infringement.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Documents obtained by TorrentFreak dated September reveal the MPA, acting through legal representatives, attempting to pressure individuals who they believe are important at [anime site Nyaa] and could have the ability to shut the site down. Information suggests that several people in North America, Europe, and Australia have all received similar correspondence. The letters allege massive copyright infringement via the Nyaa site and include a sample of copyrighted works, to which the MPA's members hold the rights, that were allegedly infringed via the platform.

The MPA clearly states that none of its cited members (Disney, Paramount, Universal, Columbia, Warner Bros, and Netflix, in addition to Amazon) have granted their permission for the works to be made available via Nyaa or the BitTorrent network(s) that underpin it. As a result, "significant, irreparable damage" has already been caused to the copyright owners by the site's activities. While emailed threats are still a common anti-piracy strategy, we are informed that at least two of the individuals were personally served with legal documents at their homes. Others were served with similar documents via regular mail. We are currently unable to determine exactly how many people were served in total. At the moment the suggestion is around five but that may not be the full picture. What we do know is that some or all stand accused of being part of the mysterious 'Anime Cartel' supposedly behind Nyaa. "With immediate effect, recipients have been told to take all necessary steps to ensure that Nyaa is completely shut down," the report adds. "The MPA also wants to take control of the site's domain -- Nyaa.si -- a common tactic in other anti-piracy actions. Overall, recipients are warned that they must cease-and-desist any and all of their activities related to the site, including making available the copyrighted works of the MPA's members."

"In addition to receiving settlements, it appears that the MPA also wants information on the Nyaa service and its operations. The MPA also wants the rights to the Nyaa site and any technologies connected to it, wherever the recipient has the ability to transfer those rights. The MPA also demands that those entering into a settlement agreement should never infringe its members' rights again."

The Motion Picture Association says that circumvention services such as VPNs, DNS masks and Tor networks can pose a direct threat to legitimate streaming services. In comments submitted to the US Trade Representative, the movie industry group highlights PDF various other piracy challenges around the globe.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The RIAA is ramping up the pressure on a wide range of platforms allegedly involved in music piracy. Two DMCA subpoenas obtained against Cloudflare and Namecheap require the companies to hand over all information they hold on more than 40 torrent sites, streaming portals and YouTube-ripping services. Also included in the mix are several file-hosting platforms.

Amazon and Apple face German antitrust scrutiny over a policy that excludes independent sellers of brand products on the online market place. From a report: Germany's Federal Cartel Office, the country's antitrust regulator, is probing both companies over a policy at Amazon called "brandgating," the authority said in an emailed statement. The policy allows makers of branded products such as iPhones to have independent sellers removed from the platform as long as Amazon can sell the items, according to the statement. "Brandgating agreements can help to protect against product piracy," the Cartel Office said. "But such measures must be proportionate to be in line with antitrust rules and may not result in eliminating competition." Amazon and Apple are among the tech giants under intense scrutiny by regulators across the world, including in the European Union, which is poised to propose sweeping new laws to rein in Silicon Valley. Authorities are wrestling with how to act against companies that critics say run a rigged game when they set the rules for platforms that also host their rivals.

On Friday America's Department of Justice announced: Two leaders of one of the world's most notorious videogame piracy groups, Team Xecuter, have been arrested and are in custody facing charges filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle... The indictment alleges the defendants were leaders of a criminal enterprise that developed and sold illegal devices that hacked popular videogame consoles so they could be used to play unauthorized, or pirated, copies of videogames. The enterprise targeted popular consoles such as the Nintendo Switch, the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition, the Sony PlayStation Classic, and the Microsoft Xbox.

"These defendants were allegedly leaders of a notorious international criminal group that reaped illegal profits for years by pirating video game technology of U.S. companies," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "These arrests show that the department will hold accountable hackers who seek to commandeer and exploit the intellectual property of American companies for financial gain, no matter where they may be located."

"These defendants lined their pockets by stealing and selling the work of other video-game developers — even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games," said U.S. Attorney Brian Moran for the Western District of Washington. "This conduct doesn't just harm billion dollar companies, it hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video-game industry."

"Theft of intellectual property hurts U.S. industry, game developers and exploits legitimate gaming customers, all of which threaten the legitimacy of the commercial video game industry," said Acting Special Agent in Charge Eben Roberts of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, Seattle. "We are committed to working with our international partners to find criminals like these who steal copyrighted material and bring cyber criminals to justice...."

According to the indictment, Team Xecuter at times cloaked its illegal activity with a purported desire to support gaming enthusiasts who wanted to design their own videogames for noncommercial use. However, the overwhelming demand and use for the enterprise's devices was to play pirated videogames.

Several Pirate Bay-related domains become available again this month after their owner failed to renew the registration. Yesterday, Piratebay.org was sold in a Dropcatch auction for $50,000 and ThePiratebay.com will follow soon. Both domains were previously registered to the official Pirate Bay site. TorrentFreak reports: Over the years the Pirate Bay team had many 'backup' domains available, just in case something happened. That included various exotic TLDs but the site also owned Piratebay.org and ThePiratebay.com. We use the past tense because both domains expired recently. The domains listed Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij as the registrant and until recently the same Swedish address was listed in Whois data. For reasons unknown, however, the registrant let both Piratebay.org and ThePiratebay.com expire. This isn't a problem for the torrent site really. The domains were never used as the site's main address. ThePiratebay.com did forward to the original .org domain at one point, but that's about it.

None of this means that the domains are not valuable to outsiders though. This became apparent in an auction yesterday, where Piratebay.org (without the the) was sold for $50,000 to a bidder named 'clvrfls.' The bid below ended up being the winning one. The Piratebay.org domain failed to renew earlier this month after which the professional 'drop catch' service Dropcatch.com scooped it up. They auctioned the domain off, which is a common practice, and it proved quite lucrative. What the new owner will do with the domain is unclear. It has a substantial number of backlinks and there will be plenty of type-in traffic as well. [...] ThePiratebay.com is expected to drop later this week and is listed at a pending delete auction, and ThePiratebay.net and Piratebay.net will drop in a few days as well.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Every day, millions of people download or stream pirated content including movies, TV-shows, games, MP3s, and books. Many of these files originate from a small and tightly organized 'community' commonly known as The Scene, which is made up of dozens of smaller 'release groups.' These groups tend to operate in the shadows with little or no public profile. At least, that's what the unwritten rules dictate. That's for good reason as the people involved risk high prison sentences when caught. It's very rare for Scene group members to get busted but last week the US Government claimed a major victory. With help from international law enforcement partners, several raids and arrests were carried out, with the SPARKS group at the center of it all.

As soon as the first rumors about the raids started spreading on Tuesday, the number of Scene releases started to drop. A day later, when confirmation came in, it became even quieter. With data provided by Predb.org we take a closer look at these dropoffs, showing that some categories are affected more than others. Before delving into detailed groups, it's worth pointing out the overall impact, which can be summarized in two numbers. On Wednesday, August 19, there were 1944 new releases. A week later, a day after the first raids, this number was down to 168 releases. The drop in new releases happened across all categories.

The official premiere of Tenet has drawn many people to the movie theaters this week. On pirate sites, there's been plenty of interest too, as thousands of people are being tricked into downloading fake copies. Pirates are not the only ones being fooled though, as Warner Bros. has its eyes set on fake releases too. TorrentFreak reports: All around the world, millions of people have waited in anticipation for the release of Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller 'Tenet.' The film was initially scheduled to be released in July but, after several pandemic-related delays, Warner Bros. moved the premiere ahead to the end of August. [...] According to one anti-piracy expert, Tenet's release has all the ingredients for a "perfect storm for piracy." This prediction prompted us to take a look at how Tenet is doing on pirate sites today. This question is not hard to answer, as there is no 'real' pirated copy of the film out there. Instead, sites are overwhelmed with fake Tenet releases.

We didn't have to look far. Most torrent sites and other download portals have plenty of Tenet copies. Or at least, that's what uploaders lead users to believe. This includes The Pirate Bay, which faces a moderation backlog, by the looks of it. Most seasoned pirates will know how to avoid these fake torrents. That said, major titles such as Tenet often attract the attention of many novice users too, who will undoubtedly be disappointed. And not just because they can't see the film. These suspicious releases can lead to all sorts of malware, viruses, and worse. The two we downloaded appeared relatively harmless. They included a 700MB video file that shows a still image, asking people to check the readme file. The readme message itself sends people to a suspicious site that requests credit card details "for verification purposes." Needless to say, we declined that offer.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Yesterday morning, TorrentFreak began receiving reports from multiple sources that something big was happening in the shadowy world of top-tier piracy known as 'The Scene.' From the volumes of information received, the majority of sources indicated that many so-called 'topsites' and their members had disappeared or gone into hiding. The word was that several major movie release groups -- SPARKS, GECKOS and DRONES -- had been targeted in a series of raids and as a result, people were running for cover. Precisely where these raids or actions took place still isn't entirely clear. Multiple sources point to the Nordic region, particularly Norway and Sweden, but reports of disruption and/or action in the Netherlands and even Switzerland persisted across our confidential sources, all of whom demand anonymity.

Movie companies and their anti-piracy partners are pressing ahead with their legal action to track down The Pirate Bay. The site reportedly used VPN provider OVPN, which carries no logs, but a security expert -- one that regularly penetration tests several major VPN providers -- believes that information about the notorious site could still be obtained. TorrentFreak reports: After a period of what seemed like calm, this year it became clear that the site's old enemies, Swedish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance, were again working to get closer to the site and its operators. We've covered the back story in detail but in summary, the site is alleged to have used Swedish VPN provider OVPN to hide its true location and Rights Alliance is now engaged in legal action to get its hands on whatever information the VPN provider may hold. The most recent move, playing out this week, is that Rights Alliance has provided testimony from an expert witness, one that has masses of experience in the VPN field.

The name 'Cure53' may not sound familiar to regular Internet users but the cyber-security company is well known for its first-class abilities in penetration testing. So much so, in fact, that the company has audited some of the most popular VPN providers in the world, including Mullvad, Surfshark, and TunnelBear. Given its experience in the field, it's no surprise that Rights Alliance has also sought the expert opinion of someone involved in Cure 53 to assess this VPN-related matter. Importantly, there doesn't appear to be any conflict of interest here, since the conclusions drawn are purely technical in nature and rely on experience and general facts, something we will touch on later. The expert opinion, which appeared in court documents reviewed by TorrentFreak this week, is from Jesper Larsson, who works at security company Ox4a but is involved with Cure 53 where he "regularly" performs penetration tests against the "ten largest VPN Providers in the world." His testimony reveals that he has been commissioned by Sara Lindback of Rights Alliance to comment on how a VPN service works and specifically, what information might potentially be stored at OVPN in relation to The Pirate Bay.

"It is clear on OVPN's website that it strives to protect its users; privacy by storing as little user data as possible in their databases," the testimony filed with the court and obtained by TorrentFreak reads. "Although [OVPN] strive to store as little data as possible, there must be data connecting users and identities to make the VPN service work. In this case, a user has paid for a VPN account with the ability to connect a public static address to OVPN which the user has then chosen to link to the file sharing site 'the piratebay,' i.e the user has configured his VPN account to point to the given domain." [...] "For this type of configuration to be possible, data about the configuration must be stored at OVPN at least during the time when the account is active," Larsson continues. "It should be considered extremely likely that the user or identity associated with the above configuration is stored in a user database where a given user can be connected to the VPN configuration, configuration regarding where the static IP address should be pointed to, and payment information that should describe how long a given account is active and which payment method the user has used. OVPN should thus be able to search its VPN servers for the given IP address, or alternatively search in their user databases or in backups of these to locate a given user or identity," the security expert adds.

European police busted an illegal streaming ring that provided service to 2 million people and was so sophisticated that it had its own customer-service team. From a report: The criminal network operated for over five years and offered more than 40,000 channels, movies, documentaries and other content, according to European police coordination agency Europol. The scale of the operation shows how the big streaming platforms still struggle to deal with content theft as criminals find new ways to hack their anti-piracy systems. The group offered a technical assistance service and high standards of quality control, earning an estimated 15 million euros ($17 million) through PayPal payments, bank transfers and cryptocurrencies, the agency said. The threat to legal streaming may grow if Netflix, Walt Disney Co. and others gradually raise prices in coming years to capitalize on their fast-growing subscriber bases and viewers seek out cheaper, illegal alternatives.

Nintendo of America filed two lawsuits on Friday against Nintendo Switch hack resellers that sell software to play pirated video games, according to court documents obtained by Polygon. From the report: The first lawsuit was filed Friday in an Ohio court against Tom Dilts Jr., the alleged operator of the website UberChips. The second lawsuit was filed in a Seattle court that same day, against a number of anonymous defendants from a selection of websites. All defendants reportedly sell products from a group of anonymous hackers called "Team Xecuter." Nintendo's lawyers described the products as "an unauthorized operating system ... and accompanying piracy tools that install it." These products allow users to get around Nintendo's "technological protection measures" designed to protect its products from "unauthorized access and copying." Once it's disabled, players can download the unauthorized operating system and play pirated video games, lawyers said.

At the time of writing, the UberChips website appears to be offline -- under "scheduled maintenance." Other websites listed in the second lawsuit are still operating. A kit used for hacking the Nintendo Switch is listed for $47.99. The site also sells products for the SNES Classic, PlayStation Mini, Nintendo 3DS, and Game Boy Advance. The websites are also offering pre-orders for devices that will circumvent protection measures for the previously unhackable Nintendo Switch Lite and newer Nintendo Switch models. Nintendo said this is causing "tremendous harm" to the company; Nintendo lawyers said hundreds of the devices have already been sold. Nintendo is seeking $2,500 per trafficking violation in each of these cases, as well as a permanent injunction to stop operations of these websites.

"Doom Eternal has become the latest game to use a kernel-level driver to aid in detecting cheaters in multiplayer matches," reports Ars Technica: The game's new driver and anti-cheat tool come courtesy of Denuvo parent Irdeto, a company once known for nearly unbeatable piracy protection and now known for somewhat effective but often cracked piracy protection. But the new Denuvo Anti-Cheat protection is completely separate from the company's Denuvo Anti-Tamper technology... The new Denuvo Anti-Cheat tool rolls out to Doom Eternal players after "countless hours and millions of gameplay sessions" during a two-year early access program, Irdeto said in a blog post announcing its introduction. But unlike Valorant's similar Vanguard system, the Denuvo Anti-Cheat driver "doesn't have annoying tray icons or splash screens" letting players monitor its use on their system. "This invisibility could raise some eyebrows," Irdeto concedes.

To assuage any potential fears, Irdeto writes that Denuvo Anti-Cheat only runs when the game is active, and Bethesda's patch notes similarly say that "use of the kernel-mode driver starts when the game launches and stops when the game stops for any reason...."

"No monitoring or data collection happens outside of multiplayer matches," Denuvo Anti-Cheat Product Owner Michail Greshishchev told Ars via email. "Denuvo does not attempt to maintain the integrity of the system. It does not block cheats, game mods, or developer tools. Denuvo Anti-Cheat only detects cheats." Greshishchev added that the company's driver has received "certification from renown[ed] kernel security researchers, completed regular whitebox and blackbox audits, and was penetration-tested by independent cheat developers." He said Irdeto is also setting up a bug bounty program to discover any flaws they might have missed.

And because of Denuvo Anti-Cheat's design, Greshishchev says the driver is more secure than others that might have more exposure to the Internet. "Unlike existing anti-cheats, Denuvo Anti-Cheat does not stream shell code from the Web," Greshishchev told Ars. "This means that, if compromised, attackers can't send down arbitrary malware to gamers' machines...."

If a driver exploit is discovered in the wild, Greshishchev told Ars that revocable certificates and self-expiring network keys can be used as "kill switches" to cut them off.