World’s largest music torrent site goes dark, disputes report about server seizure
It took nearly 10 years, but authorities have finally targeted and taken down What.cd, which had risen to become the Internet's largest invite-only, music-trading torrent site.
The news was confirmed by the tracker's official Twitter account on Thursday via two posts: "We are not likely to return any time soon in our current form. All site and user data has been destroyed. So long, and thanks for all the fish."
Those posts, whose text was duplicated on the site's official front page, noted "recent events," which is a mild way of describing French authorities apparently seizing the site's full load of servers. French technology news site Zataz reported on Thursday that the nation's National Gendarmerie office nabbed the servers that hosted the site's database, IRC, and trackers.