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Last year, Philip Danks, a man from the West Midlands, UK, went into a local cinema and managed to record the movie Fast and Furious 6. He later uploaded that content to the Internet.

After pleading guilty, this week Wolverhampton Crown Court sentenced him to an unprecedented 33 months in prison.

The Federation Against Copyright Theft are no doubt extremely pleased with this result. After their successful private prosecution, the Hollywood-affiliated anti-piracy group is now able to place Danks’ head on a metaphorical pike, a clear warning to other would-be cammers. But just how difficult was this operation?

There’s often a lot of mystery attached to the investigations process in a case like this. How are individuals like Danks tracked and found? Have FACT placed spies deep into file-sharing sites? Are the authorities sniffing traffic and breaking pirates’ VPN encryption?

Or are they spending half an hour with Google and getting most of it handed to them on a plate? In Danks’ case, that appears to be exactly what happened.

Something that many millions of people use online is a nickname, and Danks was no exception. His online alias in the torrenting scene was TheCod3r, and as shown below it is clearly visible in the release title.

The idea behind aliases is that they provide a way to mask a real name. Military uses aside, adopting an alternative communications identity was something popularized in the 70s with the advent of Citizens Band radio. The practice continues online today, with many people forced to adopt one to register with various services.

However, what many in the file-sharing scene forget is that while aliases on a torrent site might be useful, they become as identifying as a real name when used elsewhere in ‘regular’ life. The screenshot below shows one of Danks’ first huge mistakes.

Clicking that link on dating site Plenty of Fish (POF) reveals a whole range of information about a person who, at the very least, uses the same online nickname as Danks. There’s no conclusive proof that it’s the same person, but several pieces of information begin to build a picture.

In his POF profile, Danks reveals his city as being Willenhall, a small town situated in an area known locally as the Black Country. What FACT would’ve known soon after the movie leaked online was which cinema it had been recorded in. That turned out to be a Showcase cinema, just a few minutes up the road from Willenhall in the town of Walsall.

Also revealed on Danks’ POF profile is his full name and age. When you have that, plus a town, you can often find a person’s address on the UK’s Electoral Register.

It’s also trivial to find social networking pages. Not only do pictures on Danks’ POF profile match those on his Facebook page, he also has a revealing movie item listed in his interests section.

Of course, none of this in itself is enough to build a decent case, but when you have the police on board as FACT did, things can be sped up somewhat. On May 23, 2013 Danks was raided and then, just two days later, he did something quite astonishing.

Posting on his Facebook page, the then 24-year-old took to his Facebook account (he has two) to mock the makers of Fast and Furious 6.

“Seven billion people and I was the first. F*** you Universal Pictures,” he wrote.

Also amazing was Danks’ apparent disregard for the predicament he was in. On May 10, 2013, Danks again took to Facebook, this time to advertise that he was selling copies of movies including Robocop and Captain America.

This continued distribution of copyrighted material particularly aggravated the Court at his sentencing hearing this week, with Danks’ behavior being described as “bold, arrogant and cocksure offending.”

While the list of events above clearly shows a catalog of errors that some might even find amusing, the desire of many pirates to utilize the same nickname across many sites is a common one employed by some of the biggest in the game.

Once these and other similar indicators migrate across into real-life identities and activities (and the ever-present Facebook account of course), joining the dots is not difficult – especially for the police and outfits like FACT. And once that happens, no amount of VPN encryption of lack of logging is going to put the genie back in the bottle.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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Gore Slings More Mud at AL JAZEERA in New Legal Filing...


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There are regular ol' spoken word albums, and then there's The Dream World of Dion McGregor. This curiosity, distributed by Decca Records in 1964, is a recording of the songwriter talking in his sleep, ostensibly narrating aloud whatever strange nighttime visions running through his brain.

Read more...

Miguel Rosas isn’t just a barber. He’s an artist with your hair. From the New Style Barbershop in Moline, Illinois, he carves highly realistic images into hair. With a splash of paint, he can also put in some color.

Recently, Rosas gave one of his clients this KFC logo haircut. Afterward, he and the client went to a local Kentucky Fried Chicken to eat. WQAD describes the reaction:

“When we went inside everybody pretty much just stopped working,” Rosas said, while shaving a flame design into a client’s head. “All the employees came up to us and started taking pictures of the design.”

Just a few hours later, a KFC district manager called Rosas and asked to see the haircut:

“He told me that they wanted to possibly get my work on the KFC website and possibly use it on a commercial,” Rosas said.

The manager also gave Rosas vouchers for free food. He said that when he ran out of vouchers, he could just call and get more.

Here are some other amazing hair designs that Rosas has made.

-via Foodbeast

You may already know your favorite moments from Caddyshack by heart but after reading this list, you’ll be a lock for membership at Bushwood Country Club.

1. The film had a simple premise.

Following their success with Animal House, screenwriters Doug Kenney and Harold Ramis pitched a handful of ideas for new movies to Orion Pictures. Every idea got rejected. When the duo teamed up with Brian Doyle-Murray to pitch the concept of “Animal House on a golf course,” the idea received an immediate green light.

2. Harold Ramis wasn’t a golfer.

Before directing Caddyshack, he’d never played a round in his life.

3. Bill Murray didn’t just inspire Carl Spackler.

Danny Noonan’s dozens of family members were inspired by Brian Doyle-Murray’s real-life family, which includes nine siblings (three sisters and six brothers, including Bill Murray, who plays Carl Spackler in Caddyshack ).

4. There really are caddy scholarships.

The eldest Murray brother, Ed, had actually won a golf caddie tournament scholarship called the Chick Evans Caddie Scholarship. He used his winnings to help put himself through Northwestern University.

5. And there was a real Bushwood Country Club.

The upscale Bushwood Country Club is based on the Indian Hill Club where Brian Doyle-Murray and his brothers worked during childhood summers in Winnetka, Illinois. Bill Murray ran the hot dog stand at the club when he was a teenager.

6. The film helped Rodney Dangerfield earn Hollywood’s respect.

Caddyshack was Dangerfield’s first big-time movie appearance, but the comedian allegedly had a tough time on-set early on—he thought he was unfunny because no one was laughing at his jokes. Scott Colomby (who plays Tony D’Annunzio) had to assure the newbie that any audible laughs would ruin the take.

7. Carl Spackler exaggerated his personal connections.

Despite Carl’s priceless story about caddying for the religious leader, earlier this year the Dalai Lama revealed that not only had he never played golf – he’d never seen Caddyshack .

8. According to Ramis, Caddyshack functions as a Marx Brothers film.

Dangerfield is Groucho, Murray is Harpo, and Chevy Chase is Chico.

9. The Murray brothers knew how to use a Baby Ruth.

The “candy bar in the pool” scene was based on an actual prank that the Murray brothers played in their high school’s swimming pool.

10. The gopher’s appearances were an afterthought.

The shots of the gopher puppet were inserted into existing scenes after principal photography to add a narrative through-line to the film. The puppet and the shots were created by Oscar-winning Star Wars visual effects supervisor John Dykstra.

11. You’ve heard the gopher before.

The sound effects for the gopher were reused from the TV series Flipper .

12. The theme song could have been very different.

Kenny Loggins was the filmmakers’ second choice to create original music for the opening and closing credits. Ramis originally wanted Pink Floyd, but the band declined because they were too busy touring to support The Wall .

13. The director’s cut was truly epic.

The original rough cut of the movie was four and a half hours long. It was packed with so many good jokes that Ramis didn’t want to edit any of them out.

14. Murray and Chase did some brilliant improv work.

The original script didn’t include a scene where Carl and Ty meet, so following a note from the studio, Chase, Murray, and Ramis brainstormed an outline of a scene over lunch and later improvised the entire scene while cameras rolled.

15. The finale was an actual caper.

The climactic scene featured real explosions on a fake green built at the Rolling Hills Country Club in Davie, Florida, where the film was shot. Initially the production wasn’t allowed to use real explosives, but the filmmakers took the club’s unsuspecting owners out to lunch so they could blow up the green anyway.

Spanish video editor Jaume R. Lloret compiles all the on-screen deaths from the films of cult director Quentin Tarantino, in a single 4-minute video.


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Google product engineer Ian Webster believes sponsored articles should be more easily identifiable (as they should be!), so he built the AdDetector plug-in in his spare time to make that happen. More and more publications turn to sponsored content or...

Bar the doors and shutter the windows. Hell’s freezing over and it’s starting with the world of beer, of all places.

What happened? Guinness, the mother of all black-as-night stouts, is releasing a standard, pale, American lager.

Made in Latrobe, Pennsylvania(!), Guinness uses American Mosaic, Willamette, and Mount Hood hops plus its Dublin-born Guinness yeast to create Guinness Blonde, a chewy blonde lager that’s unlike anything else the company has ever produced. (That said, this is the first volley in the new “Guinness Discovery Series,” so it’s possible a cranberry lambic is coming up next.)

As for the beer, it is awfully good. Thick and rich, this malty brew drinks like a Czech style pilsner, with a core of buttery biscuits and a very mild nuttiness underpinning it. The body is moderately creamy, which balances the mild fresh-baked bread character quite well, and it offers a curious touch of brown sugar and cinnamon on the back end. Guinness Blonde American Lager is both filling to the stomach and pleasing on the tongue. It’s hardly the deep dive into the abyss that standard Guinness Stout is, but it makes for an interesting foil to the standard Guinness bloodline — and an obvious choice for the bottom half of a Black and Tan.

5% abv. Available September 2014.

A- / $9 per six-pack / guinness.com

This is a small series of booze bottles piss-poorly Photoshopped to offer more truth in advertising. For the record, I would still drink all of them, regardless of the consequences. As a matter of fact, just last night I drank four pints of Complain About Your Coworkers To The Bartender and six shots of Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night With Diarrhea. And you know what? I'll probably do the exact same tonight. Plus maybe a Let Me Tell You What's Wrong With The Government if they're on happy hour special. Thanks to Adam L, who told me he once drank eight Lose Your Wallet And House Keys in a single night. Heck yeah, you follow those up with a double Sleep On The Porch?

This is the Renovo Coupe, a 500HP electric sports car with a Shelby American chassis (based on the 1964 - 65 Shelby Daytona Coupe) and 1,000 ft-pounds of torque that can rocket you from 0 - 60MPH in 3.4 seconds. For reference, it takes my car almost a minute and a half to get up to 55MPH, at which point it feels like it's going to shake itself apart and explode. Still, all the ladies love it. "What is it?" A flower delivery van. Keep going for several more shots and a video. If you're interested in buying one, buy me one too.

These are 23 examples of makeup artist Laura Jenkinson turning her own lips into different cartoon characters (plus Cookie Monster). Some of them were really weird to look at. Like, I had to keep reminding myself I was staring at lips. Did I ever tell you about the time I had my makeup done? I let my girl cousins do it. I felt so pretty. At least until I saw myself in the mirror and realized what a shitty job they did. I looked like the f***ing Joker. I tried to get them both grounded but my aunt just laughed at me. So you know what I did? "Probably something sadly passive aggressive." Removed them as family members on Facebook and now purposefully don't send any of them birthday cards. "Wow, you're such a badass." WHEN I GET PISSED, PEOPLE SUFFER. Keep going for the rest.

The Black Book Manifesto is design duo UnCommon Beat's latest bespoke playing card deck design. It is based on their first, and wildly successful Kickstarter campaign for The Black Book of Cards. The Black Book Manifesto is a fully typographic deck based on the concept that each person has a card within the deck assigned to them at birth. This innovative campaign takes it one step further, and allows backers to contribute words to the final card designs. Want in? The Kickstarter campaign ends this Saturday. 

“The Black Book Manifesto is a typographic deck of playing cards built on a simple, yet unique concept that we all have a card within the deck assigned to us based on the day we were born. Each of the 54 cards are created through different distinct typographic designs with words suggesting the personality traits of those who are assigned to each card. We have taken the project two steps further to make this series even more one of a kind by getting backers’ involvement and taking their individual cards to a new level.

All Kickstarter backers of the project get to submit a personality word to influence their card and the words that backers help get printed within the deck will be the foundation for an Artist Deck Series to follow. For the Artist Deck Series, we are teaming up with different talented artists who will use the words from the Manifesto deck as their source of inspiration for creating artwork for each and every card for many decks to come. Something fun, different, and uncommon.”

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Design: UnCommon Beat