Investigators have managed to decode an encrypted list of customers who bought bootleg films from a German website, meaning criminal charges may be laid against thousands of web users, a spokesman for Thuringia state police said.
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Police swooped in September on what was described as one of the western world's biggest internet piracy operations and arrested four businessmen including a prominent Munich lawyer.
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The spokesman declined to confirm a report in the Thueringer Allgemeine newspaper that data on about 16,000 web users had been revealed when police cracked the encryption on the address list.