This huge pirate website tailor made for customers is run by an ISP
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Millions of individuals every year select an Internet service provider (ISP) based on speed, pricing, and reliability. But, how about being able to choose a broadband provider that not only provided decent service for a reasonable price, but also had its very own pirate site for customers? Can’t believe it? Well, one such service actually exists.
Hundreds of ‘pirate’ sites are available on the Internet today, which are mostly run by groups who choose to keep their identity a secret. In the torrent and streaming worlds, identities are valued pieces of information that are extremely tightly guarded.
However, there are exemptions to these of course. For instance, while the original people behind The Pirate Bay are popular public figures, the same can be told for Gary Fung of isoHunt. However, in case groups like the MPAA and RIAA decide to attack, people prefer to keep themselves away from piracy in general.
Having said that, there are actually those who really do not bother.
Connect Communications is one of the largest Internet service providers in Karachi, Pakistan, which was established in 2005, and they are proud of it.
“Connect Communications offer state of the art broadband connection to your home on ethernet with trunk network on Optical Fiber. Now you can take full advantage of Gigabit Network for your various network utilities,” the company says.
“Our Residential Broadband access gives you the ultimate high speed Internet experience with download speeds up to 100Mbps. Download a full length movie in under 10 minutes or take advantage of our DoDear services such as playing online games at Connect’s game arena or downloading movies and music.”
While several ISPs provide downloads but Connect’s DoDear service actually goes that extra mile. It is advertised on the main page of company’s website, as shown in the screenshot above (bottom right).
One can instantly notice that the DoDear portal is no ordinary ISP service, once it is accessed. The main page provides a list of TV shows and movies, which appear besides torrent-site like categories such as software, movies, videos, music and games. Once you click the movie tab, all haunting thoughts that this may be a legal service are removed. With released and unreleased movies on the left and links to the uTorrent and BitTorrent clients along with VLC media player on the right, it very soon gets confirmed that Connect Communications are running a complete pirate site. Further, DoDear also lets users to filter movies by cam, telesync (TS), screener and master (DVDrip) to make things simpler for pirates.
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Software pirates are well attended too. With numerous hundred applications available for download, DoDear has all of them neatly organized with cover art for each title. The site also has ample of games which are suitably divided into genres such as sports, racing, adventure, action, and shooting.
The fact that DoDear is publicly hiring people to help run their portal is another factor that will be quite unknown to torrent site users.
“At DoDear we are always seeking talented, creative and innovative professionals. If you’re the one with a passion for learning and exploring yourself and having the enthusiasm for proving youself then we can provide a fair value to you,” the service notes in its ‘careers‘ section.
This somewhat strange situation probably gives a hint of why the United States Trade Representative regards Pakistan to be a piracy problem. However, the United States remarkably demoted the risk last month, reportedly because progress is being made.
“USTR is moving Pakistan from the Priority Watch List to the Watch List in 2016 with an [out of cycle review]due to the Government of Pakistan’s significant efforts to implement key provisions of the Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan Act of 2012 and the newfound determination with which Pakistan has approached IPR over the past 12 months,” the USTR said in its latest Special 301 Report (PDF).
For those who are inquisitive can find the DoDear pirate portal here even though people who are looking to download will be upset, as torrent links are blocked for non-Connect Communications customers.
Gloss