Last week the torrenting community suffered a huge shock first when KickassTorrents (KAT) was taken down but then again when long-time staple Torrentz.eu also abruptly went offline.
That said, it doesn’t look like the KickassTorrents community has given up quite just yet with some older KAT moderators creating a new forum Katcr.co to try and keep the community together. Not only has the community actually stuck together through all of this, but they’ve also now decided to return in force by starting a fundraising campaign to rebuild the original KAT site via Gofundme that has now also been taken down.
The original target was $7000 for the creation of a new website, but the lack of involvement from the founders of the original side in the restoration project was probably what resulted in them receiving complaints that “a campaign organizer was committing fraud” according to KAT moderators. As of now, their PayPal is still open to donations for those looking to contribute still.
As of now sites such as KAT.am have sprung up as “replacements” but TorrentFreak has reported that KAT.am was overrun by hackers after the original KAT.am site went offline following a takedown. The KAT.am which sprung up in its place copied the original KAT.am domain allowing it to reap off the publicity that the original KAT.am had gained.
Both versions of KAT.am are carbon copies of the original KAT site design wise which makes it confusing and easier for the scammers to target people. Downloading a torrent requires users to make a free account but the signup page redirects to a scammy portal, and requires people to enter their credit card details if they want a free trial.
H/T: Torrent Freak, Foss Bytes