Is Demonoid gone for good?
Update on August 6 - Demonoid busted by the police
Update on August 3 - Demonoid admin: We'll be back
Well this can't be good. Demonoid is no longer down, but it's also no longer Demonoid: the demonoid.me domain doesn't look like it's pointing to the Demonoid server.
Last week, Demonoid started serving up the following error message:
Server too busy
The action you requested could not be completed because the server is too busy.
Please try again in a few minutes
Do not click reload - Use the following links
Clicking reload will get you this page againClick here to return to the homepage or Click here to go back
It turned out, according to a statement supplied to TorrentFreak, that Demonoid had been taken down by a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. The site's administrator reportedly said the fix could take a while, and so the waiting game began. A full week passed, and then last night, the server was turned off completely and the site started serving up a 404 (Not Found error message).
A fake Facebook Page for the Demonoid website said the website was taken down on purpose to work on fixing the issues. I fell for the hoax earlier today and after it was pointed out to me, I immediately tried to contact Demonoid's administrator for a statement explaining what is really happening.
In the meantime, I've been checking the site all day, which kept giving me a 404. About half an hour ago, however, the page loaded something, which in turn redirected to a random website full of advertisements. I tried going to demonoid.me a few more times, and every time it was a different nonsense website. Finally, it seemed to settle on the website you see pictured above. If I tried to keep refreshing, I would eventually get a bogus website again.
All these websites look like the ones you see when you go to a domain that is up for sale or is being kept around for generating ad revenue from random visitors looking for something. For example, if you go to torrents.com or trackers.com, you'll see something similar. If this is what is happening to demonoid.me, then the owner will likely make quite a bit of money.
The thing is, it doesn't look as if the owner has changed. The following whois lookup for Demonoid suggests something may have changed last night, although the expiration date is still more than two years from now:
Domain ID:D1703141-ME
Domain Name:DEMONOID.ME
Domain Create Date:28-Nov-2010 23:49:19 UTC
Domain Last Updated Date:31-Jul-2012 12:28:28 UTC
Domain Expiration Date:28-Nov-2014 23:49:19 UTC
Is this really just a consequence of the DDOS attack last week or is there something bigger happening? Is this some kind of anti-piracy initiative? Is Demonoid dead or will the site resurface once again under a different domain (remember, Demonoid originally started at demonoid.com)?
Again, I've attempted to contact Demonoid's administrator for an explanation of what's happening. I will update you if and when I hear back.
Update on August 2 - The site is back to being down and the administrator is still unreachable. As a reader points out, the demonoid.me domain registration was updated again.
Meanwhile, TorrentFreak also hasn't had much luck getting in touch with Demonoid's staff, and says the situation doesn't look good:
For now we’ll just have to wait, but it wouldn’t come as a shock if Demonoid remained down for months. Equally, and this is a distinct possibility given all the variables, don’t be surprised if its doors stay closed for good.
Until we hear more, it's back to the waiting game.
Update on August 3 - Demonoid admin: We'll be back
Update on August 6 - Demonoid busted by the police
See also:
- Wikileaks has been under DDoS attack for the last three days
- Anonymous denies it is behind The Pirate Bay DDoS attack
- The Pirate Bay hit with massive DDoS attack
- The Pirate Bay criticizes Anonymous for DDoS attack
- The Pirate Bay returns, Anonymous hater takes credit for DDoS
- Anonymous hacks UK government sites over 'draconian surveillance'
- Anonymous hacks Vatican again