Oh, the irony. Homeland Security was able to track down the alleged owner of one of the biggest pirating sites on the net, KickAssTorrents.com (KAT), by way of a legal purchase done via an Apple ID.
In a complaint filed against Ukranian national Artem Vaulin by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, it was explained how the use of an Apple ID played a key role in identifying the suspect.
This all started in November of last year when an undercover IRS agent posing as a representative of a study program placed an ad on the site. From there, they were able to link together the email address used on the site with KAT’s presence on Facebook, which then led to an IP address located in Chicago, and it finally led to a separate Apple (@me) email address.
In a court order at a later date, Apple was required to identify any activity from the email address. The company responded by releasing details from an iTunes purchase. More specifically, the IP address for that purchase was the same one used to access the KAT Facebook page on the same day.
Vaulin may be responsible for over $1B worth of illegal file sharing, in addition to being charged for a range of copyright infringements and money laundering charges.
Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials.
