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Ahead of the FIFA World Cup final this weekend, US law enforcement seized 23 domains operated by pirate sports streaming sites. The domains in question were used by sites that were targeted by a similar action a week earlier. This set off a game of hit a mole that hasn't ended yet. Meanwhile, other sites are under attack, including the popular Soccerstreams portal.
Earlier this month, we reported on a number of events related to the FIFA World Cup. domain name seizures by the American police.
In the initial wave, Homeland Security Investigations removed 55 domain names operated by pirate sports streaming sites.
Many of the sites had millions of regular visitors who were faced with a seizure banner with stamps from prominent law enforcement teams. This action was later officially confirmed by the US Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.
Unsurprisingly, the crackdown was related to the FIFA World Cup. Authorities confirmed that a FIFA representative tipped them off in September. Homeland security agents in Maryland subsequently took up the case and confirmed that the sites were linked to infringing World Cup broadcasts.
returns
The seizures affected a wide variety of sites with Hesgoal and Weakstreams being prominent targets. While these domains became inaccessible, streaming portals were not easily deterred and quickly switched to new domain names.
Mocking US law enforcement was a bold move but not without consequences. The Maryland US Attorney's Office closely followed the action and made a round of follow-up seizures beginning last Friday.
This new action, now officially confirmedit targets several 'comeback' domains, including hesgoal.pro, hesgoal.me and weakstream.net, which had only been actively used for a few days.
โFollowing the initial round of seizures executed on December 10, HSI agents in Maryland observed public Internet messages and social media posts that identified additional alternative sites offering illicit broadcasts of World Cup matches.
"The agents then reviewed the World Cup games and other infringing content offered through these sites and confirmed a list of additional domain names subject to seizure," adds the Prosecutor's Office.
Whack-A-Mole continues
The new seizures are a setback for the site's operators, but not all are so easily deterred. As of this writing, Weakstreams already seems to have reverted to a .org domain.
Hesgoal also had his Twitter controller suspended during the last days. While that was superseded by a new one, it didn't immediately release a backup domain name from what we can see.
The follow-up round of seizures scheduled just before the World Cup final also targeted some streaming platforms that had not been listed before. This includes Soccerstreams.net, which has a dedicated following. on Reddit.
The seizure banner shocked many regular visitors but, like some of the other platforms, Soccerstreams is not throwing in the towel. Instead, it appears to have moved to reddit-soccerstreams.net.
Other new domains that were seized include releasesky.com, wizwig1.com, and futbollatam.com. We haven't examined all of these domains in detail, but the latter has a Twitter account that promoted the domain back.
This suggests that the Maryland US Attorney's Office has more work to do, but with the FIFA World Cup ending yesterday, priorities may change.
High stakes power play
These types of hacking-related domain seizures are not a new phenomenon, but they are quite rare. It is unclear what specifically prompts criminal law enforcement agencies to take action.
Sports streaming sites were obviously problematic, but there are thousands of pirate sites. Some have been around for nearly two decades without running afoul of US law enforcement.
This includes Hollywood nemesis The Pirate Bay, which actually moved to a Swedish domain name (.se) over a decade ago, when he feared a domain seizure by US law enforcement.
That seizure never came. Instead, your .se domain name is gone. taken by the Swedish police after a lawsuit. Ironically, this caused the torrent site to revert to its original .org domain.
It is unclear why US law enforcement agencies decided to take action against sports streaming sites. Apparently, FIFA had a pretty compelling case and maybe it doesn't hurt that the US is co-hosting the next World Cup.
So far, no arrests or charges have been announced in connection with the seizures. That being said, the seizures are definitely a warning that US law enforcement can take the matter quite seriously.
โ
US authorities have not identified any of the 23 additional domain names that were seized, but information obtained by TorrentFreak suggests they likely include the following.
โ hesgoal.pro
โ hesgoal.me
โ www.debilstream.net
โ vipleagues.net
โ soccerstreams.net
โ rojadirectatvonline.net
โ futboltv.live
โ rojadirecta.global
โ futboltv.biz
โ wizwig1.com
โ tenorsky.com
โ releasesky.com
โ ovopremium.com
โ librefutbol.com
โ futboltv-envivo.com
โ futbollatin.com
โ futbollatam.com
