Demonoid Servers Taken By Ukrainian Authorities

Demonoid.com, one of the world’s oldest torrent-tracking websites, has ceased to exist after Ukrainian authorities raided the data centre that hosted its servers.

The raid followed a huge Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that brought the website down even before law enforcement agencies got involved.

The administrators of the website and its founder, known under call sign Deimos, remain unidentified. The “hacktivist” group Anonymous has started a campaign against Ukrainian government in response to what it called “a deliberate and malicious attack against Internet Freedom”.

Gift to America

Founded in 2003, Demonoid predated The Pirate Bay and was considered to be the seventh most popular peer-to-peer sharing community in the world. Due to legal problems, it had frequently changed its location in the past, with previous countries of residence including Holland and Canada.

In contrast with the majority of popular torrent trackers, access to Demonoid was only available to registered users. Registration was open from time to time for a very brief period, but the majority of people received their accounts through an invitation from current users.

On Monday, Kiev-based ColoCall, Ukraine’s largest data centre, was raided by the Interior Ministry’s cybercrime unit, which copied all the information from the Demonoid servers and took them offline. ColoCall was forced to terminate the contract with the site, even though according to TorrentFreak it did not contravene Ukrainian law, since it blocked all Ukrainian IP addresses.

The local news site kommersant.ua reports that the raid was meant to coincide with Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky’s trip to the US, and serve as a sign of Ukraine’s determination to fight Internet piracy.

Meanwhile, a Mexican court has initiated a criminal case against the owners of Demonoid, accusing the tracker of intellectual property rights violations.

In response to the action by the Ukrainian government, Anonymous has launched “Operation Demonoid”. The websites of Ukrainian Agency for Copyright and Related Rights, the Ukrainian Anti-Piracy Association, and the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine have already been targeted by DDoS attacks, and the hacktivists promise there’s more to come.

“Ukranian Government, you have committed a crime against Humanity & Freedom. We will not tolerate this. We will take direct actions against you and your criminal friends until you realize the crimes you’ve committed and restore our beloved Demonoid,” said a statement on the AnonPR blog.

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