The internet is currently arguing over the best way to pirate Netflix's 'Bandersnatch'

The internet will always find a way.

Netflix's new choose-your-own-adventure style episode of Black Mirror, "Bandersnatch," has the online world abuzz with all the different storylines available for the viewer/player of the streaming digital experience.

Overlooked in the discussion regarding which breakfast cereal best kicks off the main character's day lies another probing question. How, exactly, does one pirate a show that has roughly 5 hours of total runtime spooled out over multiple non-linear scenes requiring a specially designed Branch Manager tool to access?

Fear not, internet pirates are on the case.

While some in media and online have speculated that the format of "Bandersnatch" would make it "more difficult to pirate," difficult does not equal impossible — a fact we are reminded of by a quick stroll to The Pirate Bay and Reddit.

On The Pirate Bay, a notorious torrenting site, we found numerous copies of the episode for download that addressed the specific problems inherent in illegally downloading a choose-your-own-adventure video in a variety of ways.

One file description, for example, explains that out of "the 250 available decision events, this is the default 68 choices Netflix have defined as the default 'linear' timeline." It lists a runtime of 1 hour, 33 minutes and 12 seconds, and seemingly just plays out as a straight film (for legal reasons we did not download the file). In other words, this iteration solves the aforementioned problem of different storylines by simply ignoring it.

Another pirated copy, listing a 5 hour and 12 minute runtime, suggests a different approach. With reports putting the total amount of all the final "Bandersnatch" footage combined at just over five hours, it would seem that this content pirate just decided to go ahead and upload everything as a single uninterrupted movie.

Image: screenshot / the pirate bay

However, that approach defeats the entire purpose of the thing. Seeing all possible outcomes, one after another, is not the same as making a specific choice and watching the ramifications of that choice unfold — a fact the true sophisticates of Reddit clearly understand.

A Reddit thread titled "Soo.... How the hell am I going to pirate Netflix' Bandersnatch?" asks if "there is a method of preserving the [episode's] interactivity" via a torrent file.

The top response as of this writing, which begins with "Have none of you used interactive porn?", ends just as poorly as it started: with a suggestion to use a flash player.

A different Reddit thread suggests a more technical approach: specially, using the MKV file format to create "editions, file linking and ordered chapters." A helpfully linked blog post explains that, if implemented correctly, these features "let the viewer choose between multiple 'angles' or versions of the video (said versions may or may not be in the same file)."

In other words, the necessary tech to pirate and view a fully interactive copy of "Bandersnatch" is already out there. Someone just has to make it happen. If the "Bandersnatch" format ever moves from gimmick to mainstream, you should expect custom-tailored pirating techniques to move with it.

Of course, you could always take the extremely lazy and technically unsophisticated approach of just watching the reported five distinct endings on YouTube. That or sign up for a Netflix account.

After all, in the end, you get to make your own choice as to how you'll watch "Bandersnatch" (if you watch it at all)...which seems fitting.

'Game of Thrones' showrunner just teased Jon Snow's journey for Season 8

A lot of shit is scheduled to hit the fan when Game of Thrones Season 8 premieres in April, including revelations that Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen – military allies and newly-minted lovers! – are aunt and nephew.

The actors discussed the weight of this information with TV Guide, as did showrunner D.B. Weiss.

"From a dramatic standpoint, it makes things interesting, because the story is no longer about who Jon’s parents are,” Weiss said in the interview. “It’s about what happens when Jon finds out.”

As fans have suspected for years, the Season 7 finale confirmed that Jon Snow is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark – a son called Aegon.

“Jon is someone who plays by the book. He cannot lie,” Harington said (a fact we've seen demonstrated and weaponized by the Night's Watch). “Finding out about Dany would be very hard for him.”

Not to mention that Daenerys has built quite a lot of her reputation on being the last living Targaryen – a direct successor to the throne in whose veins flows the blood of dragons.

“Daenerys’s lifelong dream has been to avenge her family and claim her rightful seat on the Iron Throne,” Clarke said. “She truly loves Jon. Were she to find out about his title, it would cut deep.”

This sounds highly foreboding for Westeros' new incestuous power couple (sorry, Jaime and Cersei!). But will it destabilize their relationship before or after the Army of the Dead destabilize all life? Will it somehow remain a secret? Worst yet...will Cersei get to the news before they do?

We'll find out when Game of Thrones returns in April.

Hackers leak data stolen from German politicians and celebrities

Maybe we should just stop using the internet altogether.

Germany is reeling following the widespread dissemination of hacked data belonging to celebrities and prominent political figures including chancellor Angela Merkel. The stolen personal information, which was spread via Twitter and other online services, includes photos, chat logs, cellphone numbers, home addresses, emails, family members' names, and more.

According to the New York Times, the nearly 1,000 people affected seem to have largely one thing in common: past criticism of the country's far right.

Notably, this leak doesn't look to be the result of one single, grand breach. Instead, notes Bloomberg, at first glance it seems the attacker or attackers used social engineering or possibly phishing techniques to gain access to social media accounts.

Importantly, all the data was not dumped this week. Instead, it was slowly released over the course of the past month. The release only gained widespread attention on Jan. 3, however, after the Twitter account of a popular YouTuber was hacked in an effort to promote the material.

Security researcher Luca Hammer wrote that two Twitter accounts, both now banned, distributed the stolen material. A website promoting the data dump was also taken down, but, of course, by that point the information was already out in the world.

Germany's BSI national cyber defense team, Reuters reports, met early Jan. 4 to coordinate a response. The government has yet to publicly point a finger at any specific actor, and as of now it's not clear who is behind the attack.

For those of you who have yet to have your online accounts hacked and the contents dumped, maybe take this as an opportunity to do some digital housekeeping — because you never know when an uninvited guest might show up.

Twitter releases 2018 Transparency Report including policy violation stats for the first time

Twitter released its biannual Transparency Report on Thursday outlining current trends in government information requests, content removal requests, and other privacy matters regarding the network.





This year's report marks the thirteenth time in the company's history that Twitter has expounded on its privacy practices in such tremendous detail. The new report also expands on the type of data Twitter is making publicly available.

In a blog post published in tandem with the Transparency Report, Twitter explains that for the first time ever, along with government requests for information and content removal, the company has included stats on the enforcement of Twitter’s own policies.

This report covers the first half of 2018, and the last half of the year will be covered in an update at a later time, typically published in the first quarter of  the ensuing year. The data in the report includes requests made on Twitter, Periscope, and even the now-defunct Vine.

Perhaps the most shocking detail from all of this is the gigantic uptick in government requests for information.

“Twitter received roughly 80 percent more global legal demands impacting approximately more than twice as many accounts, compared to the previous reporting period,” according to the report. 

However, much like the last reporting period, around 87 percent of those demands came from just two countries: Russia and Turkey. Altogether legal demands to remove content came from 38 different countries for a total of 27,811 Twitter accounts.

SEE ALSO: Twitter's Jack Dorsey gets roasted for his ignorant tweets about Myanmar

When it comes to information requests, Twitter received a 10 percent uptick when compared to the previous reporting period. 

The U.S. had the greatest number of information requests with 2,231 demands on a total of 9,226 accounts. This represents around one-third of all Twitter’s demands for the first-half of the year, according to the Transparency Report.

Twitter complied with 76 percent of the U.S. information requests. There were also 99 U.S. removal requests on 228 accounts. Twitter did not comply with those requests.

Over 58,000 copyright takedown notices were received within the first six months of the year, affecting 197,607 accounts. Twitter removed content in 70 percent of those cases.

Twitter’s report breaks down its inaugural rule enforcement data into 6 categories: abuse, child sexual exploitation, hateful conduct, private information, sensitive media, and violent threats. In total, 6,229,323 accounts were reported for Twitter rule violations. Action, which includes suspension, was taken on 605,794 of those accounts.

In total, Twitter actually suspended a total of 487,363 accounts for child sexual exploitation violations. However, 97 percent of those suspensions were proactively flagged thanks to PhotoDNA and other technologies. Around 91 percent of the 205,156 accounts violating terrorist content policy were also proactively flagged.

Along with Twitter policy violation, platform manipulation data also makes its debut in this Transparency Report. There were 232,453,596 accounts challenged, or proactively detected for possibly being spammy or manipulative, in the first half of 2018 by the company. In addition,  there were 4,020,893 spam reports from Twitter users.

The full Twitter Transparency Report can be viewed here.