The US confirmed Thursday it was seeking the extradition of the alleged boss of the world’s biggest online piracy site, Kickass Torrents, on charges of distributing over $1 billion worth of illegally copied films, music and other content.A day earlier, the US Justice Department unveiled a criminal complaint against Ukrainian national Artem Vaulin, 30, who was arrested in Poland and is wanted by American authorities for copyright infringement, money laundering and other charges.

Vaulin is alleged to own Kickass Torrents or KAT, which in recent years has eclipsed Pirate Bay and others to become the world’s biggest source of pirated media.Stephen Dreikorn, a spokesman for the US embassy in Warsaw, told AFP Thursday via email: “We can confirm the United States government is seeking extradition of Artem Vaulin.”The US criminal complaint said the website offers “a sophisticated and user-friendly environment in which its users are able to search for and locate content” which is protected by copyright.

KAT — which distributes pirated films, video games, television programmes and music — is estimated to be the 69th most frequently visited website on the internet, according to a Justice Department statement.”Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell.

– ‘Run but cannot hide’ –

“In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits.”His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice.”Polish border guard spokeswoman Agnieszka Golias told AFP Thursday that Vaulin was arrested at Warsaw’s Chopin airport on Wednesday “during an attempt to enter Poland”.

US officials are seeking to extradite Vaulin on charges filed in a federal court in Chicago, which ordered the seizure of one bank account and seven domain names associated with the file-sharing website.The complaint said officials were able to track and identify Vaulin from records provided by Apple on his iCloud account.

– Service in 28 languages –

According to the complaint, KAT operates in 28 languages and has made available movies that were still in cinemas along with other content, earning revenue from advertising throughout its site.The website’s value is estimated at more than $54 million (49 million euros), with annual advertising revenue in the range of $12.5 million to $22.3 million, according to the complaint.KAT has moved its domains several times after being blocked in Britain, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and Malaysia, according to the complaint, and has relied on a network of computer servers located around the world, including in Chicago.

Recently, the website allowed users to download illegal copies of recent hit movies such as “Captain America: Civil War,” “Now You See Me 2,” and “Finding Dory.”Vaulin, who used the screen name “tirm,” was involved in designing the original website and ran the site which has been operating since 2008 through a Ukrainian-based front company called Cryptoneat.According to the Justice Department, KAT’s website “purports to comply with the removal of copyrighted materials” but evidence showed it did not remove content requested by organisations such as the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America and Entertainment Software Association.

The move comes with US officials in a long battle to extradite the head of Megaupload, a major piracy site shuttered by the FBI in 2012.The head of Megaupload, known by the pseudonym Kim Dotcom, is free on bail in New Zealand pending an effort to extradite him to the US, and vowed earlier this month to revive his operations.

His extradition appeal is set to begin in the High Court in Auckland on August 29 and is expected to last four to eight weeks. Pirate Bay meanwhile has been able to keep operating despite jail sentences handed down in Sweden against its founders, and the seizure of its web domains. Authorities say they can seize or shut down illegal file-sharing sites but that the operators often reopen with servers in different jurisdictions.

In what could give a big boost to its mission of providing affordable internet access to unconnected people in remote areas around the globe, Facebook on Thursday announced the successful completion of the first test flight of its solar-powered drone called Aquila.

“After two years of engineering, I’m proud to announce the successful first flight of Aquila — the solar-powered plane we designed to beam internet to remote parts of the world,” said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and co-founder of Facebook.
Aquila, which was announced at the F8 conference in March 2015, flew over Yuma, Arizona, during the test flight. The drone was originally supposed to stay in the air for only 30 minutes, but it ended up flying for 96 minutes, which was three times longer than the company’s plan. Mark said: “We gathered lots of data about our models and the aircraft structure — and after two years of development, it was emotional to see Aquila actually get off the ground.”

The solar-powered drone was developed by Facebook Connectivity Lab as part of Internet.org initiative that aims to provide affordable internet connection to 4 billion people who are deprived of it. Once fully operational, Aquila will stay “airborne for up to 90 days at a time and beam broadband coverage to a 60-mile-wide area on the ground, helping to open the opportunities of the internet to people in underconnected regions.” It can circle a region up to 60 miles in diameter and beam internet connectivity from an altitude of more than 60,000 feet using laser communications and millimetre wave systems.

Everything about Aquila

Body and weight: The solar-powered drone body is made of carbon fibre and has a wingspan wider than that of a Boeing 737, but it weighs less than 1,000 pounds, that is about the weight of a grand piano, to help stay in the air for months. Almost half the mass of Aquila is from high-energy batteries, and the technical team is studying if its shape will be deformed under load.
Power: The drone will use only about 5,000W of power at cruising altitude that is about the amount of power consumed by three hairdryers. So, the energy collected by the aircraft during the day time should be enough to run propellers, communications payload, avionics, heaters and light systems.

Control: Aquila is an unmanned plane with automatic takeoff and landing. It is almost self-sufficient but a dozen of engineers, pilots and technicians direct, maintain and monitor it. A ground crew controls direction, altitude and airspeed of the drone through software.Speed: The drone flies at a very slow speed to minimise energy usage. However, it can be sped up to 80 mph at higher altitude where the air is thinner.

Altitude: The wings and propellers of the drone should be able to operate in all altitudes – high, low, cold and warmer – as it has to take off, fly in the air and land. So, technology experts are studying on power consumption and impact that change of altitude can have on solar panel performance, battery size, latitude range and seasonal performance.
Communications: The drone will use lasers to transfer data quickly, which will be more than 10 times faster than the existing systems, and send its beams accurately to specific locations more than 11 miles away while in motion.

Facebook is planning to test Aquila over the next year. Once fully developed, the company wants a fleet of them to communicate with each other in the skies with lasers for months at a time and provide internet service to the remotest regions of the world.