One of the dumbest viruses around is the FBI MoneyPak , which exhibit a message saying your computer has been locked by the FBI , and you have to pay to unlock it . If Rightscorp , a copyright enforcement company for movie studio has its way , that virus is about to basically become reality .

Rightscorp ’s business organisation model is pretty simple : on behalf of right of first publication owner like movie studio apartment , medicine artists and biz developers , it tracks the IP address of individuals who torrent sure titles . It then sends threatening varsity letter to those user via their ISPs , imperil a gargantuan lawsuit , and then offer a down in the mouth closure .

It ’s a small step above outright extortion , but as TorrentFreak describe , the manoeuvre is n’t quite working , and Rightscorp ’s financials are in the toilet . So , the company ’s new plan for profitableness is suitably desperate and extreme : it wants to lock users ’ browser app until they pay a village fine .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

The idea was spotted in afilingearlier this week :

The hijacking would have to be done by ISPs , and would be technologically reasonably simple to implement — just redirect every web page to Rightscorp ’s notification instead , although it would be pretty simple to bypass using a VPN instead .

More problematically for Rightscorp , it ’s potential to take a leak off customer , with no discernible welfare for ISPs . company like Comcast havegone to courtin the past to defend their customers from copyright shakedowns ; it ’s extremely unlikely that they ’re going to voluntarily ring together to back a hugely trespassing and unpopular method of getting the movie theaters a few supernumerary buck .

William Duplessie

[ TorrentFreak ]

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