• People Pay Pennies For Netflix, Spotify, HBO, Xbox Live & More

    From Red@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 7 16:15:13 2018
    XPost: comp.security, gnu.misc.discuss

    People Pay Pennies For Netflix, Spotify, HBO, Xbox Live & More

    Forking out for every premium media service around is a hugely costly
    affair but some people are getting them all for just pennies each.
    That's thanks to so-called account generating platforms, where access
    to Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, HBO, Xbox Live, EA Origin, TIDAL,
    WWE, and UFC, among dozens of others, cost next to nothing.

    Gaining free access to copyrighted material is not a difficult task in
    today’s online world. Movies, TV shows, music, games, and eBooks are
    all just a few clicks away, either using torrent, streaming, or direct
    download services.

    Over the years, however, the growth of piracy has been at least
    somewhat slowed due to the advent of official services. Where there
    was once a content vacuum, official platforms such as Netflix,
    Spotify, HBO, TIDAL, Steam, and others, are helping users to find the
    content they want.

    While most services present reasonable value, subscribing to them all
    would be a massive strain on even the most expansive of budgets. But
    what if there was a way to access every single one of them, for just a
    few dollars a year – in total? Believe it or not, such services exist
    and have done for some time.

    Described as ‘Account Generators’, these platforms grant members with
    access to dozens of premium services, without having to pay anything
    like the headline price. The main ones often major on access to a
    Netflix subscription as a base, with access to other services thrown
    in on top.

    The screenshot above shows one ‘generator’ service as it appeared this
    week. On the far right is a Netflix offer for $2.99 per year or $4.99
    for a lifetime ‘private’ account (more on that later). That is of
    course ridiculously cheap.

    On the near left is the ‘All Access’ plan, which offers access to
    Netflix plus another 69 online services for just $6.99 per month or
    $16.99 per year. The range of services available is impressive, to say
    the least.

    Movies and TV Shows: Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO Now, Crunchyroll,
    DIRECTV/Now, Stream TV Live, CBS All Access, Funimation, Slingbox,
    Xfinity.

    On the sports front: BT Sports, Fubo.tv, F1 Access, MLB.TV, NBA League
    Pass, NFL Game Pass, UFC Fight Pass, WWE Network.

    For music, access is provided to Spotify, Deezer, Napster, Pandora,
    Saavn, SoundCloud, and TIDAL.

    How these services gain access to all of these accounts is shrouded in
    a level of secrecy but there’s little doubt that while some are
    obtained legitimately (perhaps through free trials or other account
    sharing), the roots of others are fairly questionable.

    For example, when these services talk about ‘shared and ‘private’
    Netflix accounts, the former often appear set up for someone else,
    with individual user accounts in other people’s names and suggestions
    for what to watch next already in place. In other words, these are
    live accounts already being paid for by someone, to which these
    services somehow gain access.

    Indeed, there are notices on account generator platforms warning
    people not to mess with account passwords or payment details, since
    that could alert the original user or cause an account to get shut
    down for other reasons.

    “Origin brings you great PC and Mac games. Play the latest RPGs,
    Shooters, Sim games, and more. These accounts are private (1 per
    person), however you MUST NOT change passwords,” one warning reads.

    Since Origin has just come up, it’s probably a suitable juncture to
    mention the games services on offer. In addition to EA’s offering, one
    can gain access to Xbox Live, ESL Gaming, Good Old Games, League of
    Legends, Minecraft Premium, Steam (game keys) and Uplay.

    And it doesn’t stop there.

    Need a BitDefender key? No problem. Access to Creative Market? You got
    it. Want to do some online learning? Queue up for Chegg, CourseHero,
    Lynda, Mathway, Udemy, and more. There’s even free access to NYTimes
    Premium. As the image below shows, thousands of accounts are added all
    the time.

    While these generator platforms are undoubtedly popular with people on
    a budget, almost everything about them feels wrong. Staring into
    someone’s private Netflix account, with what appear to be family
    names, is unsettling. Looking at their private email addresses and
    credit card details feels flat-out criminal.

    Quite how these services are able to prosper isn’t clear but perhaps
    the big question is why the platforms whose accounts are being offered
    haven’t noticed some kind of pattern by now. Maybe they have, but it’s
    probably a pretty difficult task to sweep up the mess without a lot of
    false positives, not to mention the risks of ensnaring those who pay
    for their accounts officially.

    The video below, from late 2016, gives a decent overview of how an
    account generator platform works. Even for many hardcore pirates,
    especially those who demand privacy and respect the same for others,
    parts of the viewing will be uncomfortable.

    Screenshots & video: https://torrentfreak.com/people-pay-pennies-for-netflix-spotify-hbo-xbox-live-more-180106/

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