[HN Gopher] Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: ...
___________________________________________________________________
Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after
prison (2005)
Author : grubbs
Score : 184 points
Date : 2023-03-10 19:34 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (defacto2.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (defacto2.net)
| grubbs wrote:
| Looks like it broke. Another mirror here:
| https://archive.ph/2016.03.16-100508/https://defacto2.net/fi...
| sedatk wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that I'd have stopped with just probation, yes.
| Having the feds raid your house, confiscate all your gear, and
| put you through the hell of their investigations for a year was
| enough of a wake up call for me.
|
| The gap between a sufficient punishment and what he actually got
| is the harshest reality in all this. It's very similar to what
| people have gone through for small marijuana related offenses.
| cortesoft wrote:
| This is why I never understand people who get mad at 'lenient'
| sentences for crimes. There are no crimes I would commit where,
| say, 1 year in prison wouldn't be a deterrent but 5 years would
| be.
|
| If the point of prison is to deter crime, then adding longer
| sentences isn't going to change anything.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > There are no crimes I would commit where, say, 1 year in
| prison wouldn't be a deterrent but 5 years would be.
|
| Part of the way punishments are set up are to deter vigilante
| justice.
|
| If someone murdered someone I love and I knew they'd only get
| 1 year for it, I'd be tempted to return the favor and take
| the year myself.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| For some people, a 5 year sentence means society is free from
| their crimes for 5 years.
| jandrese wrote:
| It is interesting to see the raw visceral reaction to the DC
| council attempting to reduce prison sentences for crimes
| committed in the city. Congress even got involved to make
| sure it didn't happen, which has not happened in decades.
| Apparently a 14 year sentence for carjacking is not enough
| deterrent, it must be 20 years according to Congress, the
| President, and even the mayor of DC.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| You're right.
|
| https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-
| deterr...
| fullmoon wrote:
| Consider that the secondary point is to separate society from
| perpetrator.
| [deleted]
| linuxftw wrote:
| That's why it's always important the jury be educated on their
| rights to decide verdicts however they see fit.
| gameman144 wrote:
| I get the appeal, but this is a super dangerous precedent. If
| we ignore the law and allow juries to convict or acquit based
| on their personal preferences, what safety do you have when
| the public hates you but you've broken no law?
| Hitton wrote:
| The jury is already allowed to do that.
| linuxftw wrote:
| > what safety do you have when the public hates you but
| you've broken no law?
|
| How is that different from today?
| rayiner wrote:
| Juries _do not_ have the "right" to ignore the law. Juries
| are required to follow the law as set forth in the judge's
| jury instructions. Their job is just to determine the facts
| and apply the law to the facts. As a legal matter, nobody
| gives a shit what twelve random people think about the law
| enacted by the democratically elected legislature.
|
| "Jury nullification" therefore isn't a "right" it's a
| loophole. It arises from the fact that there is nothing a
| court can do to _enforce_ a jury's obligation to follow the
| law in a criminal trial. That doesn't mean the obligation to
| follow the law doesn't exist.
| [deleted]
| linuxftw wrote:
| When you consider the fact that police are lying sacks of
| garbage, you don't need to nullify anything. You just find
| the state's witnesses non-credible.
|
| I think most will admit, they have a bias to believe agents
| of the state. This preconceived bias should be treated no
| different than a preconceived bias to the contrary.
| DerekBickerton wrote:
| https://defacto2.net/file/view/ab3914?
| cobaltoxide wrote:
| Thank you! Why is the main link a giant screenshot?
| breck wrote:
| This guy is a hero.
|
| What he did should not be a crime.
|
| It's time for a Freedom to Publish Amendment:
| Section 1. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of this Constitution is
| hereby repealed. Section 2. Congress shall make no law
| abridging the right of the people to publish or implement ideas.
| paulmd wrote:
| I've been on board the "patents need to be repealed or
| significantly toned down" train too, but, the legitimate
| counter-argument that I see is that it's going to lead to a
| rise in "corporate secrets" style stuff.
|
| If they can't legally stop people from republishing IP, then
| they'll make it hard. Denuvo, other DRM, or just go to fully
| streaming-only for the first year or two after launch. Want to
| play Battlefield 6, subscribe to PS Now. And this will likely
| hit PCs harder than consoles since de facto there have been
| near-zero hypervisor breaks of any relevance in consoles since
| the PS4/XB1 era, everything is signed and encrypted and TPM'd
| to death.
|
| AMD's SVP for datacenter and embedded has talked about how
| their Secure Encrypted Virtualization and other security
| features are actually coming _from work on consoles, to the
| datacenter market_ these days. And now there 's Pluton coming
| up too (although apparently there have been some serious
| breaches in TPM 2.0 very recently that may ruin a lot of the
| pluton work as well, we can look forward to windows 12 I
| guess!).
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-sev-xbox-cryptographic...
|
| So far, the EU hasn't been willing to apply their rulemaking on
| iphones to video game consoles yet, and tbh that is a far more
| noxious case of "you don't own the hardware". And that's what
| PCs might turn into if IP law vanishes, the _practical security
| measures_ would ramp up to compensate. And no, consoles aren 't
| being sold at a significant loss in the way people think they
| are. PS5 is sold at a profit, Xbox Series consoles might be
| sold at break even or a small loss, or it could just be
| hollywood accounting for the purposes of making a legal
| argument at the trial to get apple's ecosystem broken open.
| They had a financial interest in being able to argue that the
| ruling shouldn't apply to them and that their equally-locked-
| down app stores shouldn't be subject to competition or user
| freedom in general.
|
| https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/325504-sony-finally-turns...
| breck wrote:
| > If they can't legally stop people from republishing IP,
| then they'll make it hard.
|
| Alternatively it changes the game on how things are built.
| Building in public becomes the default, lowering the cost for
| all.
|
| You'd expect a short term variance (downward) while the
| system adjusts, but in the long run it'd be much cheaper to
| produce great works, since your material costs will be lower
| (no royalties) and you wouldn't burn resources on the
| security and bureaucratic hoops you have to go through today
| to build and integrate ideas.
|
| Monopoly profits would be finished though. So yes, <1% of the
| population would arguably be worse off. (I'm in that group,
| btw).
| nunobrito wrote:
| 20 years later I still use a copy of the Starcraft I from them.
|
| The original version requires a CD and a CD drive just to boot.
| Maybe it could be emulated but as a kid I wouldn't have money to
| buy the original in my country. Blizzard eventually made a young
| kid happy, I've later bought the games to support them.
| jakswa wrote:
| Takes me back to my BF1942 days, careening around maps in planes
| and tanks. I was dirt poor. I usually had to get a ride to the
| video rental store to rent console games. I'm thankful to have
| kept busy thanks to these groups. It kepted me interested in
| computers and exposed (a little) to software dev. ...and awesome
| music! Man, the music...
| [deleted]
| guybedo wrote:
| wow i hadn't heard about Razor 1911 in a while. In the 90s they
| released so many cracks
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Razor 1911 still has some presence in the demoscene. But though
| they share the same origin and may know each others, they are
| distinct from the cracking group.
| vgeek wrote:
| https://punctumbooks.com/titles/warez-the-infrastructure-and...
| is a good read if anyone is interested in the mechanics of the
| scene.
| devwastaken wrote:
| "The federal prison system is probably over 90% drug offenders.
| Most of them are about as smart as a salt lick, and the staff,
| from what I've seen, isn't much smarter. "
|
| If you were looking for yet more proof to add to the pile that
| the fed was and is using anti-drug politics to throw anyone they
| want in prison.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Very talented guys in the demo/cracktro scene. Plenty to watch on
| YouTube.
| teodorlu wrote:
| Care to recommend a video to start with?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Here's just a few:
|
| https://youtu.be/0CBQI7cktMk
|
| https://youtu.be/N5CNlMGcARA
|
| https://youtu.be/gKNvLyxHTmg
|
| https://youtu.be/IFXIGHOElrE
| malermeister wrote:
| If you're talking about the demoscene in general, here's
| demos sorted by popularity on one of the most important
| community sites:
| https://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?order=views
|
| Most of them have links to yt videos.
| Loveaway wrote:
| Oh wow found one I still remember making big rounds around
| 2000.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObtPizPFMbo
|
| Graphic were insane and it has a really fun high energy
| vibe.
| teodorlu wrote:
| Thanks!
| malermeister wrote:
| One thing to keep in mind is that it's not just about the
| visuals, but about how they got those visuals to work
| with ridiculous limitations. As an example, "debris", the
| current top-ranked entry, has a total file size of 180kb
| and was released in 2007!
| vintermann wrote:
| That sorting is pretty odd, and not really the thing for
| someone who doesn't know about the demoscene. For instance
| LFT's safe VSP demo was really high up. I understand why,
| it was a really important technical proof of concept and it
| explained something that had bothered demo coders for
| decades, but it's not a terribly interesting demo to watch.
| What impresses demo coders isn't necessarily the same that
| impresses the rest of us.
|
| Some of my favorite classic demos are "Sound Vision" by
| Reflect, "Desert Dream" by Kefrens and "Enigma" by
| Phenomena. All demos that were popular enough in the 1990s
| that they reached me and my brother's Amiga by way of
| modems and swapping. They're all very enjoyable without
| knowing much about the coding challenges.
|
| I'd say my favorite modern Amiga demo is "Eon" by The Black
| Lotus. For C64 the good modern demos are too many to count
| (and by comparison, the 80s era demos aren't terribly
| interesting), but I think maybe "Lunatico" by LFT is my
| favorite. Again it's one that doesn't require coding
| knowledge to appreciate.
| qmmmur wrote:
| Ruined a guys life because of overestimated profits. Ridiculous
| shagie wrote:
| https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...
|
| > The principal criminal statute protecting copyrighted works
| is 17 U.S.C. SS 506(a), which provides that "[a]ny person who
| infringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of commercial
| advantage or private financial gain" shall be punished as
| provided in 18 U.S.C. SS 2319. Section 2319 provides, in
| pertinent part, that a 5-year felony shall apply if the offense
| "consists of the reproduction or distribution, during any
| 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or
| more copyrighted works, with a retail value of more than
| $2,500." 18 U.S.C. SS 2319(b)(1).
|
| It is a rather low bar and doesn't take much to get to
| distribution of material that has a retail value of more than
| $2,500. No "overestimation" is needed there.
|
| It would be reasonable to debate if $2,500 is too low of a
| threshold - but for the law as written, no overestimation is
| needed.
| Hitton wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer, but how does the "for purposes of
| commercial advantage or private financial gain" apply to this
| guy, when he apparently didn't make any money from that?
| shagie wrote:
| (digging)
|
| A Road to No Warez: The No Electronic Theft Act and
| Criminal Copyright Infringement - https://digitalcommons.la
| w.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?refer...
|
| > The Act effected six principal changes to criminal
| copyright law. First, the NET Act expanded the Copyright
| Act's definition of "financial gain" to include the receipt
| (or expectation of re ceipt) of anything of value,
| including other copyrighted works.24 Second, in addition to
| willful infringement for commercial ad vantage or private
| financial gain, the Act criminalized the repro duction or
| distribution, in any 180 day period, of copyrighted works
| with a total retail value of more than $1,000.25 Third, the
| Act said that evidence of reproducing and distributing copy
| righted works does not, by itself, establish willfulness.26
| Fourth, the Act changed the punishments for criminal
| infringement. For infringements of more than $1,000, the
| punishment includes im prisonment of up to one year and a
| fine.
|
| This was passed in 1997 which is what he was convicted
| under.
|
| The text of the law is:
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/house-
| bill/2265
|
| which... is rather short:
|
| No Electronic Theft (NET) Act - Amends Federal copyright
| law to define "financial gain" to include the receipt of
| anything of value, including the receipt of other
| copyrighted works.
|
| Sets penalties for willfully infringing a copyright: (1)
| for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial
| gain; or (2) by reproducing or distributing, including by
| electronic means, during any 180-day period, one or more
| copies of one or more copyrighted works with a total retail
| value of more than $1,000. Provides that evidence of
| reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by
| itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful
| infringement.
|
| Extends the statute of limitations for criminal copyright
| infringement from three to five years.
|
| Revises Federal criminal code provisions regarding criminal
| copyright infringement to provide for a fine and up to five
| years' imprisonment for infringing a copyright for purposes
| of commercial advantage or private financial gain, by
| reproducing or distributing, including by electronic means,
| during any 180-day period, at least ten copies or
| phonorecords of one or more copyrighted works which have a
| total retail value of more than $2,500.
|
| Provides for: (1) up to three years' imprisonment and fines
| in infringement cases described above (exclusive of
| commercial gain intent considerations); (2) up to six
| years' imprisonment and a fine for a second or subsequent
| felony offense under (1); and (3) up to one year's
| imprisonment and a fine for the reproduction or
| distribution of one or more copies or phonorecords of one
| or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more
| than $1,000.
|
| Requires, during preparation of the presentence report in
| cases of criminal copyright infringement, unauthorized
| fixation and trafficking of live musical performances, and
| trafficking in counterfeit goods or services, that victims
| of the offense be permitted to submit, and the probation
| officer receive, a victim impact statement that identifies
| the victim and the extent and scope of the victim's injury
| and loss, including the estimated economic impact of the
| offense on that victim.
|
| Directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to ensure that the
| applicable guideline range for a defendant convicted of a
| crime against intellectual property is sufficiently
| stringent to deter such a crime and adequately reflects
| consideration of the retail value and quantity of items
| with respect to which the crime against intellectual
| property was committed.
|
| ---
|
| Note that (2) in the second paragraph is an or, doesn't
| require commercial or private gain and the expansion of
| "personal gain" to include "got access to other works."
| shmde wrote:
| My childhood hero. Sad to read what he went through in prison.
| The warez scene is still active and there's no slowing down so
| this bust doesn't really mean shit. Shoutout to the OGs RELOADED,
| SKIDROW, RAZOR, PARADOX,CODEX.
| unity1001 wrote:
| He should open a Patreon.
| westmeal wrote:
| greetz to all
| ajdoingnothing wrote:
| Ah, PARADOX. Nostalgia when hearing the Photoshop CS2 Keygen
| music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYvjFOKOP7c
| nickstinemates wrote:
| I love this music.
|
| The nostalgia hits hard. Thank you.
| layer8 wrote:
| That is the loader music from the Amiga game X-Out, by the
| way, by Chris Hulsbeck.
|
| https://youtu.be/nMUrnNa5h-o
| blooalien wrote:
| Wow! When you say "OGs", and then follow it up with a list of
| _THE_ actual "OGs" like that? *Nostalgia for those childhood
| days of dialup modems and all-night long downloads...*
| DeathArrow wrote:
| What was the crime he was sentenced for?
| tpmx wrote:
| https://www.justice.gov/archive/criminal/cybercrime/press-re...
| [2003]
|
| > announced today that Shane E. Pitman, age 31, of Conover,
| North Carolina, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison by
| the Honorable James C. Cacheris, United States District Judge,
| for conspiring to violate criminal copyright laws as the former
| leader of the oldest game software piracy ring on the Internet.
|
| Btw: Coming from Europe - this whole thing about doing a public
| press release about each sentenced person things seems a bit
| off. There's a balance to be struck - and I'm honestly not
| quite sure we're doing it right in northern Europe with our
| extreme privacy for convicted people...
| mdaniel wrote:
| I would _guess_ a lot of that happens in the public for
| transparency reasons; if one reporter (or otherwise just
| curious citizen) notices that (as an example) the Honorable
| Cacheris starts sentencing more harshly than their peers, or
| letting off CEOs in their courtroom with a "stern talking
| to," then that would be worthy of an investigation
|
| I'm sure the Justice Department's point of view of press
| releases is one of deterrence: "do the crime, do the time" or
| perhaps even "your tax dollars at work"
| tptacek wrote:
| For whatever it's worth, the disposition of the case on PACER
| says the sentence was reduced to 12 months. There's not much
| of a docket to read, because it looks like he immediately
| pled out.
| danschuller wrote:
| It doesn't serve society at all for this type of non-violent
| crime to result in prison time.
| nvarsj wrote:
| It's never made sense for copyright violations to be a criminal
| offense.
| mlyle wrote:
| Naaah. If you're doing it for profit, and running a big
| duplicator farm or selling things online, it can make sense
| for it to be a criminal offense. But the laws are not crafted
| that well.
| varispeed wrote:
| But it serves corporations that governments work for.
|
| and it's ironic that we pay for it while big corporations can
| avoid paying taxes as they please.
| orangepurple wrote:
| I'm the last person to defend corporations. That said, US
| corporations definitely don't avoid "paying taxes." The
| corporate income tax rate imposed by the federal government
| is 21%. Employees pay income and social security taxes on top
| of those earnings after. From the moment a company earns
| income until it lands in the hands of employees the
| government can take as much as HALF of it. This includes
| everyone on salary. Execs would be wise to issue themselves
| stock so they "ONLY" have to pay 15% or 20% (LTCG) as their
| "income tax." Companies can reduce their tax burden by
| engaging in behaviors which the federal government has deemed
| worthy or risky and incentivizes those behaviors with
| preferential tax treatment. For instance the R&D tax credit.
| It means that organizations that invest in qualified research
| and development activities to incentivize innovation and
| growth (as defined in Internal Revenue Code section 41) may
| be eligible for a general business tax credit.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > That said, US corporations definitely don't avoid "paying
| taxes."
|
| Multinational corporations definitely do. They'll register
| themselves in a country with a cheaper corporate tax burden
| then argue that their income / sales is generated from that
| country rather than their actual country of origin. Thus
| reducing the amount of tax they have to pay in the US (or
| UK, etc).
| orangepurple wrote:
| Irrelevant due to Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income
| (GILTI)
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Yet the total tax burden of US corporations is low relative
| to similar countries (IIRC), and some corporations pay
| nothing.
| projektfu wrote:
| No, wages, salaries, payroll taxes and contractor expenses,
| along with most other expenses, are subtracted from gross
| profit to make net profit, which may undergo further
| reduction in various charges (depreciation, etc) before
| being subject to tax, and then various tax credits may be
| applied that reduce the corporate liability further.
|
| Double taxation occurs when a corporation is subject to
| corporate tax and then pays a dividend, which is after tax,
| but counts as income to the investor. There are arguments
| to be made that this is fair or unfair.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Double taxation occurs when a corporation is subject to
| corporate tax and then pays a dividend, which is after
| tax, but counts as income to the investor. There are
| arguments to be made that this is fair or unfair.
|
| Even calling it double-taxation seems like BS. Generally,
| we tax at the point of exchange: income, sales, etc.
| Money moves around endlessly. It's taxed when the
| consumer pays the corporation (often twice! sales and
| income), when the corporation pays the shareholder, when
| the shareholder dies and gives it to their kids, when the
| kids buy a house, when the homebuilder pays their
| contractors, etc. etc. etc.
| cruntly wrote:
| If you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime. Just
| because it happens on a computer in cyber space, doesn't mean
| it's not real.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > If you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime
|
| The same thing was told by the persecutors of those who
| smuggled slaves from the South to their freedom.
| cruntly wrote:
| [flagged]
| yesenadam wrote:
| Hilarious comment, thank you. :-)
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Whilst I disagree with your black and white stance on
| copyright and punishment for breach, this comment is pretty
| darn funny.
| burnished wrote:
| Full stop that should not be a criminal offense. Jailing that
| man for that sentence does not serve justice.
| cruntly wrote:
| Why not?
| burnished wrote:
| It sounds like you need to spend some time doing some soul
| searching.
|
| What do you think is served by that sentence of jail time?
| Disregarding that I think the law in question is outrageous
| - why is jail time an appropriate punishment? Is it fitting
| to imprison some one on the dubious claim that they
| impacted your profits? It does not seem to be a fitting or
| appropriate punishment, it seems to be ghoulish overkill to
| scare people from fucking with the money.
| bentley wrote:
| Why not life in prison?
| la_oveja wrote:
| We will copy until the end of time.
| sigg3 wrote:
| Cracking software doesn't warrant hard prison sentences. That's
| a double negative for society.
| cruntly wrote:
| He ruined the lives of many hard-working software developers
| who relied on selling their code to feed their families.
|
| This was back when programming was a highly skilled and
| difficult job that only a few could do, so cracking was even
| more harshly targeting people.
| nyolfen wrote:
| i challenge you to identify a single actual human whose
| life he "ruined"
| beardedwizard wrote:
| Can you really point to a single other person whose life
| was ruined other than the guy who went to prison?
| [deleted]
| vkou wrote:
| Their lives weren't 'ruined', just like nobody's life is
| 'ruined' when someone (over multiple trips) shoplifts a
| few thousand (or tens of thousands of) dollars worth of
| goods from a large store chain.
|
| But someone, somewhere along the way did lose some amount
| of money.
|
| The fact that the sentence was only 18 months reflects
| that, somewhat.
| smokeypanda wrote:
| That's a rather presumptive over-simplification of what
| effect software cracking had and has on employed
| programmers' livelihoods. It's not a direct 1 to 1
| relationship between a cracked installation and lost sale,
| nor does piracy prevention guarantee market relevance. I
| don't condone consuming pirated software when OSS
| alternatives exist, but that's not out of sympathy to tech
| megacorps.
|
| http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
| 2636381321 wrote:
| More like telling the whole world "you're not allowed to
| copy this, because I wrote it" and threatening everyone
| with imprisonment or fines if you do. So everyone has to
| buy it through him, or else. To feed his family.
|
| That is what copyright law fundamentally is.
|
| We all learn from other people, just because I came up with
| an idea, I cannot tell other people "you're not allowed to
| use it". It violates other peoples natural right to
| autonomy to do so.
| cruntly wrote:
| Yes and that's why copyright is a good thing, so you have
| the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of your intellectual
| labour.
| kube-system wrote:
| > just because I came up with an idea, I cannot tell
| other people "you're not allowed to use it".
|
| You're right, ideas are not protected by copyright.
|
| Copyright only protects original works of authorship.
| xtracto wrote:
| I dont agree with Copyright and also dont think the
| punishment was deserved. I also did some cracking and
| keygens in the 90s (for fun, never released anything).
|
| Nevertheless, my making argument against doing and
| condoning what this guy did is that, because of those type
| of actions today we have to deal with SaaS only software
| that is subscription based and stops working after the
| company folds (I can still use my Win16 copy of GetRight,
| thankyou very much).
|
| We got into this sad state because of greed, from both
| sides of the counter.
| reassembled wrote:
| Is that quantifiable and verifiable? Are there interviews
| with software devs whose business was measurably effected
| by piracy to the point where their life was "ruined"?
| Genuinely curious to know.
| coretx wrote:
| No, for a fact, he MADE the lives of such families. If your
| small time software does not end up being PRE'd somewhere;
| it doesn't exist. Without the marketing budget of large
| corporates; you could just forget about competing with
| them.
| Clubber wrote:
| I like how companies conned the government to enforce what
| used to be a civil matter into a criminal matter. They
| don't even have to write a cease and desist letter. Evil
| genius.
| newfonewhodis wrote:
| Love to see the might of US government successfully protecting
| copyright, but not _checks notes_ bank customers, airline
| customers, telco customers, housing customers or anyone else.
| Mizza wrote:
| Would love to hear any stories from inside MYTH or CLASS, their
| rivalry pushed the whole scene forward. Their releases introduced
| me to.. well, all of this, and radically altered the course of my
| life.
| naet wrote:
| "The server bit the big one, the head of the Education dept. knew
| who I was and what I knew, and "arranged" for me to go to work
| for her. I reloaded the server, got all the terminals set back
| up, and showed her how to run things more efficiently. I had been
| working there for about a month, and she was getting ready to go
| on vacation for a week. Two days after she left, they rounded up
| myself and two other guys that worked in education and shipped us
| off to "the hole" at Butner Low Security Correctional
| Institution. They wouldn't tell us why, what we were being
| shipped for, nothing. Come to find out, the Associate Warden and
| the head of the education department didn't get along, and the AW
| had arranged to have us shipped while our boss was on vacation
| because she and one of the instructors that worked under the
| Education Director thought they had something on the ED to get
| rid of her.
|
| So, from the end of August to the end of October of last year,
| myself and my cell mate got to sit in a room about 9ft. x 15ft.
| with a solid metal door that had a little narrow window looking
| out into the hall and a small slot that they opened to hand you
| your food tray."
|
| Once you're in prison you lose any rights to any fair type of
| trial and punishment and you can be subjected to awful things
| that weren't part of your sentencing, like isolation or sensory
| deprivation in pitch black cells for no reason at all other than
| the warden didn't like the department head that you did work
| detail for. It's a broken system for so many reasons. People
| don't leave prison rehabilitated, they leave prison broken down
| and even more vulnerable.
| codezero wrote:
| I was a member of Razor back in the day. I noticed that he
| mentioned he wouldn't say how he got Quake released before
| release date. I can share how I participated in an early release:
| I had befriended the manager of Electronics Boutique because I
| bought frequently there for many years prior to getting into
| pirating games. He would give me games that arrived but weren't
| on the shelf yet. From there, it was uploaded to an FTP server
| and a cracker would go to work removing protections, it usually
| took hours or less, unless the protection was novel. They'd
| usually push a release without a lot of large assets (FMV,
| cutscene type stuff) to make releasing it faster, and follow up
| with a full release after it was all packaged up.
|
| I saw lots of folks get arrested/busted back in those times, and
| there was a key difference of outcomes for two groups: adults vs
| minors. Minors always got a slap on the wrist/fine (I remember
| TKLP from was it... RoR? had to pay out $1200 to AT&T for hacking
| a PBX... because he was 14 or so), and adults got sent to jail
| and had their lives ruined. I stopped being involved just before
| turning 18 and it was a very smart decision in retrospect.
| tpoacher wrote:
| [flagged]
| codezero wrote:
| I was a minor and it was 30 or so years ago, I don't think
| I'm at much risk. I think it was an interesting time in tech
| and worth sharing some of the details of what went on. Also,
| most of the people that served time weren't busted because of
| piracy alone, they were often involved in some adjacent crime
| like trading credit card numbers, buying/selling stolen
| equipment, malware, or some other fraud.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| I imagine there are a bunch of us "Scene kids" around,
| Everyone I know that got arrested were the for same
| reasons. Ironically most of us ended up in very interesting
| positions / senior positions at a lot of modern companies.
| Our general rule of thumb was, don't make any money. I
| often wonder if there are old boxes sitting in storage
| around universities all over the US, that contain a ton of
| releases that have been lost to time.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I was in a situation at age 14. It was before the CFFA
| act so I was very, very lucky. And it helped that police
| back then didn't really know what they were doing when it
| came to computers. But it scared my straight. Never did
| anything like that again.
| codezero wrote:
| That anti-profit motive is exactly the one I followed as
| well! Yep I remembered so many of the boxes we uploaded
| to were wired into a university network in random closets
| in MIT and other universities.
|
| Your HN karma is 1337 right now lol!
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| lol It was, but it was 1337 for the time being!
|
| Yeah we had FXP hosts on most of the east coast
| universities. Those were the days of just having fun.
| Ironically it's the knowledge and experiences of being in
| the scene that quasi got me into working for the
| government and those _letters_ agencies. I was fortunate
| that the only real trouble I caused was met with
| education and support rather than a harsh response. If I
| was born 5 years later with the slow deployment of ZERO
| tolerance policies I would have been screwed.
|
| I still give back though, I have a few racked servers
| that are out there sharing torrents (all legal data), and
| run a bunch of crawlers for archive.org etc. It's as
| close as I can get these days to the olden days.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| Statute of limitations :)
| skipants wrote:
| The statute of limitations for most federal crimes in USA is
| 5 years. I think they're fine.
| marcodiego wrote:
| "...adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined."
|
| I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this
| is fair. Eager to hear opinions.
| antisthenes wrote:
| I think in general it is fair, but the very arbitrary
| 18/not-18 cutoff doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
|
| I consider (myself) and most people I know to have been
| children at 18 and up to several years older than that. But
| it's not like people wear their "maturity" levels on their
| forehead, so the justice system has to make an arbitrary
| cutoff somewhere.
|
| Not saying it's ideal, and individual circumstances have to
| be considered, but it's the best a crude system can do.
| codezero wrote:
| I think it depends on the case. Some of the leaders of those
| groups were basically using minors like myself as cover in
| the same way street gangs did, and doing a lot more than
| piracy. I think the folks that got hit for their actual fraud
| deserved it, but folks that just cracked and released games
| were unfairly targeted, very few profited from it, and I
| think a profit incentive is where I consider the crime to be
| more relevant, but I'm not a lawyer :)
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Thanks for your comments. I've been pirating one way or
| another for a couple of decades. Always always saw the
| crackers as someone who did it for anything but money.
| narag wrote:
| _I was a member of Razor back in the day._
|
| I vaguely remember an intrincate big ascii logo, always
| wondered what 1911 meant.
| codezero wrote:
| * * *
| jsz0 wrote:
| When I first got in the Internet back in the 90s I thought warez
| was pronounced like Juarez the town in Mexico. To this very day
| when I see the word that's what it sounds like in my mind.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| It's what most of us called it ironically, eventually it became
| the standard vernacular amongst most of the sneakernet /
| underground groups I ran in.
|
| "Man got some prime warez on these zip disks.. dupe em!" Back
| when lan parties were the norm.
| wdhilliard wrote:
| ditto
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Heartbreaking. Isolation is literally torture. Federally condoned
| torture.
| IronWolve wrote:
| Interesting, looks like state/feds inflate their win rates by
| just going after cases already won. Great way to inflates their
| numbers for political/financial reasons. Since many want a good
| win rate for public sector jobs. Or make their bosses/elected
| officials look like winners being tough on crime.
|
| I'm sure there is a term for this, like cherry picking out of a
| basket of picked cherries.
| abigail95 wrote:
| Why do people like him think copyright laws are bad and made by
| rich people, but also support open source software, which relies
| on the same copyright laws to exist.
|
| If hes an anarchist then fine, but it looks like he wants laws
| that benefit him and not people that actually write software.
|
| I read the whole thing and I still don't know why he did it. He
| says there was no money incentive and his work had no impact on
| piracy. What was its purpose then?
| pharmakom wrote:
| Copyleft is a defensive measure in a hostile environment. If
| there were no copy laws at all then they wouldn't argue for
| them.
| kube-system wrote:
| I think you're painting with quite a broad brush. There are
| absolutely people who support copyleft because they do not
| want 'intermediaries' to be able to distribute binaries
| alone. e.g. GNU.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| The heart of the copyleft movement is not to remove all
| government regulation. You can have a problem with copyright
| laws in their current form while still supporting the copyleft
| movement.
| petsfed wrote:
| I think his position is a little more nuanced than that.
|
| >The bottom line, what I did violated the laws governing
| copyrights. I don't agree with those laws 100%, but they were
| designed by people with lots of money in their pockets to keep
| lots of money in their pockets, so I doubt they're going to
| change for the better any time soon. This is why I'm a huge
| advocate for the open source community.
|
| I understood that to mean "the open source community
| specifically addresses the flaws in a system that it cannot
| itself abolish, so I support them".
| ilyt wrote:
| > Why do people like him think copyright laws are bad and made
| by rich people, but also support open source software, which
| relies on the same copyright laws to exist.
|
| Because they have more nuanced thoughts that you think ?
|
| "A copyright law" is not a one thing.
|
| DMCA doesn't touch OSS software for example. It could entirely
| go away.
|
| Length of copyright protection could be 5 years from creation
| instead of 70y from authors death and it would do near jack
| squat to OSS software. Ye you could use 5y worth of unfixed
| bugs and ignore OSS license but that wouldn't exactly hurt most
| projects.
| beardedwizard wrote:
| They did it for the thrill and because they could. It was a
| different time.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I still do things for the thrill and because I can, and I'm
| well into adulthood. That's what makes life fun and
| interesting and there doesn't have to be a 'point' that
| anyone else understands.
|
| But sometimes I still try to do things I can't - I currently
| have a broken wrist.
| bentley wrote:
| Only some free software licenses rely heavily on copyright law
| as their primary mechanism. Permissive licensing, or something
| like it, would continue to exist if copyright as a concept
| disappeared tomorrow.
| kube-system wrote:
| Permissive licenses are not public domain waivers, they
| usually have some other disclaimers of liability, a
| requirement to include that provision in all copies, etc. In
| a world without copyright, OSS devs will need to find another
| way to shield themselves from liability.
|
| However, what would realistically happen in a hypothetical
| world without copyright, is that commercial organizations
| will stop most OSS development and revert to distributing
| obfuscated binaries.
| shagie wrote:
| While I am generally in favor of permissive licensing and
| accept the corresponding "yes, the code can get incorporated
| into other projects"...
|
| That same copyright law protects my photographs. I am
| generally in favor of strong copyright laws.
|
| There are also philosophies of software licensing that want
| to ensure that the user can have access to the code that uses
| my code. Under those philosophies, it is the protections
| granted by the limited right to prepare derivative works that
| allow that licensing to have teeth and enforce a copy left.
|
| Without copyright, the GPL and corresponding licensing that
| is written with the desire to be able to guarantee the 2nd
| and 4th freedoms (access to the source for some product and
| ability to modify the code for that product) have no teeth
| and those cannot be guaranteed.
| sedatk wrote:
| > What was its purpose then?
|
| Clout, reputation, group identity, coolness factor. It's
| similar to how demoscene operates.
| coldacid wrote:
| >It's similar to how demoscene operates.
|
| Considering that the demoscene spun off the cracking scene...
| wdhilliard wrote:
| While it's possible that he did it for clout or as a FU to
| software companies, I think many people, including myself,
| pirated software in the early days of computing because the
| software itself was rare and cool. There were no demos back
| then to try software before you buy, and many people used
| software like Photoshop, Flash, 3D Max, etc for personal
| projects that made no profit. Even today, it's hard to justify
| paying $600 for a program that you aren't sure you actually
| like just to hopefully create some cool stuff to show your
| friends.
|
| As for the "people that actually write software", I couldn't
| care less. It's been shown over and over that piracy never made
| the effect on thier bottom line that large software companies
| led many to believe. Simply put, people didn't buy these things
| because they considered them overpriced luxuries for simple
| hobbyists. The only choice was to pirate the software, or to
| never get to use it. As someone who writes software myself, I
| have no sympathy for people who want harsh punishments for
| someone who steals their stupid little program. Sure you put
| hard work into it, but so did a lot of people who offer their
| software for free. Generally, my thought is that these people
| are more upset that their software failed to make the impact
| that they thought it would or failed to generate the profit
| that they had dreamed of. Piracy was never at fault for either
| of those. They need to cope
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Copyright is about monopoly. That's the antithesis of freedom.
|
| Copyleft is a hack that turns monopoly inside-out. All for one,
| and one for all.
|
| Without copyright, copyleft would be fundamentally broken. But
| that isn't the whole picture: anything under a permissive
| license like MIT or Apache2 would see the same result they
| implement today. Those are part of "open source", too.
|
| And we could certainly come up with a different system to
| maintain copyleft: we could make regulation that preserves a
| user's right to edit their software, and bans practices like
| DRM and intentional incompatibility. That's what I imagine the
| "open source movement" would look like if it were brought to an
| extreme logical conclusion.
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