Sega Giving Stock To Stop ISO Pirates?

atheos acording to this story kalisto was given stop options to cease releasing ripped dreamcast ISOs. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I don't think I've ever heard of this. I mean, its a lot nicer then sending in the legal attack sharks (and the page proclaims that they will move on to the PSX) but something feels odd about this. Emulators and ISOs are very different things in my eyes. Anyway, take this whole story with a big old salt lick since we don't really have much to go on here, but I just found this odd.

Comments

Please, it's not real.

[toast-]

Jesus. Why do people buy into this shit?

Kalisto wanted out, and didn't have a witty thing to say. So they made something up. If you read their previous NFO's they were rather pissed off at the 'scene' and one would easily say they did want out.

Now the issue of Sega giving stock options is ludicrist. Sega would rather hand them some handcuffs rather than money or options. You better believe that sega still wants them in jail.

And finally, if the 'warez site' in question was more up to date, you'd notice a new group has formed (named echelon), right after kalisto has 'exited'. Seems a little suspicious to you, doesn't it?

Finally, here are some links that are comparibly better than the one provided in the story.

Isonews

152.org

You can see the 'nfos' from the new group 'echelon' and give youself a better picture of the dreamcast pirate world.

Re:Please, it's not real.

[toast-]

All protection is beatable. The only unbeatable protection, is size, and this only matters if a game really can't be reduced.

When macrovision first released C-dilla to the world (for PC), it took groups days (or week(s)) to break it, and it was considered to be extremely tough and almost unbeatable for a while. But crackers are smart and they always find ways around any protection that is thrown at it.

I don't believe kalisto quit over not being able to crack. Considering echelon is likely consisting of mostly EX KAL members, it's just a new name facing the uphill battle of new challenges.

whatever the case, sega et al (developers included) will all take their stabs at copy protection. Crackers will always find ways around it. Always has been this way, always will.

Re:Please, it's not real.

[JoeShmoe]

There's also a the tiny flaw that Sega is a privately held company. There is no stock for them to offer. Follow the "Investor Info" link on their main page and see for yourself.

The truth is that Kalisto spent months getting everything just right. They were the first group to do PAL/NTSC conversions. They were the first group to get CDDA audio to function. They were the first group to create self-booting CD-ROM games (something that Sega continues to say is impossible to their game developers). Just recently the first games came out with new "copy-protection" which is basically a single dummy file so large that the game won't fit on a CD-R (well, until Sony releases their new 99 minute CD-R). Kalisto was the first group to apply standard PC ripped skills (removing CD and file checks) to a DC game.

All in all, Kalisto ends up with a product that is pretty much as good as it could possibly get. So, they want a clean slate. Bye Kalisto, hello Echelon. This new group releases only ripped, self-booting, full-converted games. So all their releases are guaranteed winners and they will become, without a doubt, the biggest thorn in Sega's side until the release of the PS2, X-box and GameCube.

I myself considered submitting this story but I didn't because even a cursory check of the facts turned up this theory as baloney. Is Tim the only one who calls a company to confirm a story or get a comment?

I agree with the statment that this story should have never been posted because any Slashdot readers who follow the warez scene already knew this and any Slashdot readers who don't follow the warez scene probably make it a point to go out of their way NOT to follow the warez scene.

- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-

Editorial review

[Misch]

stop options

I think it's about time Slashdot started editing the stories that go on the main page. There are SO MANY grammatical and spelling errors seeping into thse posts that it is getting to be unbearable. We are the nerds, and it makes sense that we should be more intelligent than the average human being, but some of these mistakes are getting.

Face the truth. /. is now a commercial news organization (with a good community). Invoke a little common sense, a spell checker, and a grammar checker.

Re:Editorial review

[SgtPepper]

I think it's about time Slashdot started editing the stories that go on the main page. There are SO MANY grammatical and spelling errors seeping into thse posts that it is getting to be unbearable.

thse posts no grammer have, nor speeeling, /. this is, use to it you are not, get use you must. speel checker for post not bad idea might not be

Re:hire them!

[toast-]

F.Y.I PSX2 games have been hackable for the same amount of time or longer than dream cast.

They come on DVD's and they simply apply the same ripping or downsampling procedures to get it to fit on a CD.

The dreamcast is tougher due to the custom 'data' format (gdrom), and the group 'utopia' was the first to break the protection.

Kalisto uses the same anti-protection that utopia created to break the games.

We need a new RFC

[Rombuu]

For the SBP (Slashdot Bullshit Protocol). Basically, you send a story out to 5 people before you publish it on the front page. If 5 of them go "Bullshit!", then you don't publish the story.

Re:..

[Fishstick]

They've coined a new term for giving away stock options to pirates in the hopes that they will stop. Stop Options. ;-)

This is BS. So these so-called 'pirates' have been granted some options in exchange for their agreement to stop distributing ISO's and to not divulge to anyone else how to do it (I would guess). Think how unlikely that is from several angles.

If that did somehow happen, I imagine the 'pirates' would have had to sign something. Something that says 'I'm taking these 1000 options in Sega at an exercise price of $$ in exchange for the promise to stop distributing unauthorized copies of Dreamcast software and to not divulge to anyone how to create these unauthorized copies. And, by the way, I won't tell anyone about this deal or I will lose the options and face prosecution.'

Can't even find what the Sega Enterprises stock ticker symbol is or what it is currently trading for. Only thing that omes close is sega.com Asia Ltd which trades on the Hong Kong exchange as 1196.HK -- is Sega's stock even publicly traded in the US?

And why would Sega not prosecute? They presumably have the real identies of these persons, you don't just leave stock options under a rock in the park at midnight.

Whole thing is very fishy.

I can see it now

[Auckerman]

Sega: Hey, if you don't steal our stuff, we'll sell you this stock for really cheap.

Pirate: j00 m$t B k1dd1ng m3, b1tch, ur $t0cK 1$ g01ng t0 b w0rthl3s s00n. P$x2 0wnz all.

Sega: How about if we give it too you?

Pirate: n0 th4nx

Stock options, in a way, are stock.

[yerricde]

Let's say you are given half-price options for x shares of stock. You buy x shares at half price and then sell x/2 shares at market. What you effectively got was x free shares of Sega stock.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

busted

[austad]

Hi, we're Sega. We don't know who you really are, but if you stop pirating our games we'll give you stock options. Then when you go to collect on them we'll find out who you really are. Then, we'll duct tape your wrists to your ankles and our lawyers will take turns until you can no longer walk.

I am very skeptical about all this

[x mani x]

I think this is all a stupid prank, or a Kalisto inside joke/coverup on why they're not releasing anymore.

Why am I skeptical?

1-I'm unsure about the legality of this in the first place. Basically, Sega is bribing these people with stock options, and I'll eat my own shorts if there isn't some law out there that prohibits this.

2-Let's say bribing people with stock is actually legal. Don't you think Sega would make them sign some agreement that they may not disclose this transaction publicly? If I was running a big corporation, I would sure want my bribes to criminals kept secret ... maybe Sega of America has a different philosophy about this?

3-Continuing with #2's assumption, what are Sega's stockholders going to think, when they find out that the people who may possibly cripple the Dreamcast console are getting free stocks? Would Sega really be so bold/stupid? How would they explain these actions at stockholder meetings?

4-Just before their announcement, Kalisto had briefly stopped releasing Dreamcast ISOs because they think the Dreamcast ISO "scene" is ungrateful. Shortly thereafter, they released about 4-5 games, then stated that they are no longer releasing anything because Sega is bribing them. This all stinks of trying to find reasons to stop releasing. They could have easily stopped releasing due to the first reason, rather than publicly announcing that they are being paid the "ransom".

5-Just after Kalisto stops releasing, a "new" group called Echelon emerges and immediately starts releasing games using fairly advanced ripping/booting techniques, as if they've been doing it for ages. Looks like Kalisto, smells like Kalisto. Hmmm, maybe this is all just a big name change for a piracy group?

Re:I am very skeptical about all this

[toast-]

5-Just after Kalisto stops releasing, a "new" group called Echelon emerges and immediately starts releasing games using fairly advanced ripping/booting techniques, as if they've been doing it for ages. Looks like Kalisto, smells like Kalisto. Hmmm, maybe this is all just a big name change for a piracy group?

Bingo.

Re:hire them!

[MillMan]

It just goes to prove that copyright protection in the modern era is an oxymoron. I suppose they could do some big brother thing like divx did, but that failed too...

Bummer, I feel so bad for the big corporations...

Re:If it's unconfirmed why post it?

[Denor]

If I wanted fake news, I would go to Segfault.org and get it there.

Good point. Lately there's been quite a bit of flamage from folks who feel software releases don't belong on the front page. Many comments in such a story read "Slashdot is not Freshmeat".
I think a similar movement needs to be started for stories like this one:

Slashdot is not Segfault!

Sounds like Homer and his free motor boat.

[bob_jordan]

"Hi, I'm Calisto, I'm here for my stock options"

Bob.

Precedent....almost

[Ralph Wiggam]

Phone companies have offered free long distance to people that show them new ways to steal long distance service. In this case, they figure that once they know how it's being done, they can keep anyone else from doing it. The people that they're giving free service to were getting free service anyway, so it's no loss to the phone company.
Having said that, this story smells funny to me.

-B

BullSh*t!

[Benjamin Shniper]

I call it. Maybe, just maybe, sega hired these guys with a stock option policy. But as stated, no corporation on earth would give such a reward to bootleggers of their products.

-Be

Even if it was true

[jfedor]

I mean, its a lot nicer then sending in the legal attack sharks

Why the hell should Sega be nice to pirates? Especially in the console market where most of the income is from selling games, not hardware.

-jfedor

BullSh*t!

[Benjamin Shniper]

I call it. Maybe, just maybe, sega hired these guys with a stock option policy. But as stated, no corporation on earth would give such a reward to bootleggers of their products.

-Ben

Sounds bogus but...

[sterno]

That sounds like a rather interesting approach to the problem. By giving stock options Sega would accomplish three things:

1) Buy off the pirate for a cost much lower than lawyer fees

2) Establishes a motivation for the pirate to want Sega to make money (and thus reducing the motivation to undercut them through piracy)

3) Sets up a nice legal argument should he ever reneg. Basically they can include in the contact under which the Options are given a clause that makes it very easy to prosecute for huge penalties (relying on contract law rather than the vaugeries of current copyright law).

Now having said that, this seems a lot like paying terrorists to give back hostages. This creates an incentive for people to be pirates because if they do so, they can get some options. If this became a common practice, everybody and their grandmother would be distributing ISO's just to get some options.

It will be interesting to see if this turns out to be legit...

---

DC vs. PS2

[yerricde]

And with the PS2 being released soon - holding Sega shares would properly not be a wise idea.

PlayStation 2 is a fighting game platform. (Coincidentally, fighting is one of the four arcade genres, the others being racing, shooting at a movie, and pinball.) It doesn't have enough texture RAM to hold detailed textures for more than about four characters, and this is coincidentally the number of players in some fighting games (trying to show up Nintendo's Smash Bros.?).

Dreamcast, OTOH, seems more balanced in its technical capabilities.

<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Uhm, riiiiight.

[Erik Fish]

This has got to be the most ridiculously improbable story I have ever read on Slashdot.

1. Warez is a competitive sport. If one group stops releasing another will immediatly take their place. Will Sega then buy the next group off as well? The stock won't be worth much if this keeps happening -- who wants shares in a company that knuckles under to pirates?
2. How is Sega going to stop ALL the members of this (likely large) group of (likely anonymous) people from changing nyms and joining some other group? Do they ALL get stock options? Maybe they get tickets to Disneyland too? Free lollypops? Give me a fucking break.

How can this not be painfully obvious?

Re:Not a bad idea

[mindstrm]

? What better legal stance do they need than a bunch of guys with nice web pages *openly* spreading DC iso images around? There is no 'grey area' here as far as copyright goes....

Perhaps the stock options are cheaper than the court battle?

This is just a joke

[Hougaard]

1. A company would never pay a ransom to a cracker group. This would just give 10 other groups the signal to try to do the same. 2. A "Stock Option" is the right to buy stock in a company to a fixed price (Hopefully below the current trading price :-) So this requires that they actuallly have some money to invest in stocks? 3. If they have money to buy options it would be great for Sega to sell them the stocks (And thereby getting the revenue from the pirate copies) - And with the PS2 being released soon - holding Sega shares would properly not be a wise idea.

Re:Are You Sure?

[toast-]

Guy, that is not protection.

That is server-side protection. This is totally differnet and relies on you, the end user- to provide some information to the company in order to play this game.

I spoke in the assumption that the protection is built into the CD, not in a 'cd key' format but in some form of 'cd check'.

Server-side checks (serial checks, etc) HAVE NEVER AND NEVER WILL be broken. If it is EVER broken, the company is STUPID and can't manage a list of SERIALS PRINTEND AND SOLD IN STORES. This is the EASIEST form of protection, but don't forget the infrastructyure that goes into protecting your game(s) (hint: it must be an online-only game or if not online-only heavily online -based)

Quake3, Diablo 2, Everquest, Ultima-ONline (all games their online-only variations) are such games that have NEVER been broke and NEVER will.

Want to break these games? Socially engineer some CD KEYS from your store, or local game-players, and that's the only thing you can do. You can't force yourself around the protection by sheer technical knowledge (in almost all circumstances).

Remember: WON NET and others are assumed unbreakable. Anyone with pirate-scene knowledge would know this to be true.

Some basic theory: A CD KEY is based on a mathematical formula. The cracker can break this formula in it's basic form to allow you to install the game. But the real kicker is that amongst the successful permuattaions of this formula, there is a 1 in 1,000,000,000 chance of getting a KEY that will work. How is this important?

The games printed with keys are the ones stored in a SECURE database only the game-provider knows about. These are autnenticated against, and the casual pirate who has a CD KEY GENEERATOR will be shut out unless he/she happens to break that 1/000,000,000 chance of getting a right CD key.

This is exactly what is in the protection for Diablo 2. It has not been pirated for Battle.net. Further, Everquest and Ultima Online (which are exclusively online only) have yet to be pirated, and likely never will (aside from server emulators)

I could go on.. ask if you have more questions.

Re:..

[Fishstick]

So... how can Sega have given stock options when there company is not traded publicly? I admit, I don't know much about this part, but my assumption was that options don't do you any good unless the stock trades on the open market where the price would go up making options exercisable at a lower price lucrative. Like I said, this is crapola.

Re:hire them!

[.pentai.]

GDRoms are just more "dense" that CDroms, and can be read by a standard cdrom with some modifications. And, they didn't make the boot disk OR figure out how to rip the GDroms, they took someone elses work, called it there own, and tried to play it off and claimed others stole it from them.

Wow, with those skills, maybe they SHOULD work for a corporation.

Hey.

[mindstrm]

Just a thought.. but..
Couldn't Sega be doing this?

1) Offer them all stock options.
2) This means they all have to sign contracts, and be *identified*. (You can't anonymously get options, I don't think).
3) Now, Sega is legally bound to give them these options; however....
4) Now Sega knows who each and every member is, so they can proceed to sue them for copyright infringement *anyway*!

Hypothetically.. the fact that sega would agree to pay them to stop is not the same as saying sega is not going to press charges for their past actions.

Re:hire them!

[Frizzle Fry]

they took someone elses work, called it there own, and tried to play it off and claimed others stole it from them.

Huh, imagine that. Pirates trying to benefit from someone else's work.

Care about freedom?

How To Make Money: The Lazy Man's Guide

[KingJawa]

Route 1: Government Subsidies
(a) Buy land. Lots of it.
(b) Threaten to grow corn. Or peanuts. Or something.
(c) Wait for corn growers lobby to talk to congressman.
(d) Get nice fat check to not grow corn.

Route 2: Stop ... er, Stock Option Hijacking
(a) Buy domain names. Lots of them.
(b) Threaten to steal games. Or other programs. Or something.
(c) Wait for game developers to complain to bosses.
(d) Get nice fat stock options for not stealing stuff.

Route 3: Tin Cup
(a) Buy tin cup.
(b) Threaten to wallow in your own filth outside of a nice department store.
(c) Wait for department store to smell you.
(d) Get nice fat wad of $100s for not scaring the customers.

hire them!

[eries]

Have you guys seen the specs on how these games were ripped? Dreamcast GD-ROMs are supposed to be incompatible with CDRs a hundred different ways. For one, they hold more data. These hackers managed to rip the games, edit them down to CD-size and then create a boot disk for the dreamcast that disables all the country-code checking. These are some serious 3l33t HaX0rZ. Sega should hire them immediately. Hell, maybe even pay them to start whacking the PSX2 :)

Stock Options

[e-matt]

Following this logic
Record Companies will be giving out stock to Napster and all it users, so they will stop "sharing" mp3's

Imagine that ?

The rationale:

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

When I was little and and lived at home, I didn't always remember to turn off lights when I left a room. My mother would say "we don't own stock in the electric company" which meant "we are losing, not making, money by leaving lights on".

Maybe Sega gives stocks to pirates to turn them into people that want to stop piracy.
--

Re:shouldn't

[Mechno]

heh heh, this story is not actually true. The person who writes the .NFO files for Kalisto is leaving the group and played a prank. That's the story.

Talk about your urban legends!

[Travoltus]

LOL
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,

Re:What the hell is an ISO?

[iMoron]

ISO: International Organization for Standardization. www.iso.ch.

"ISO" is also a common term used for CD images in ISO-9660 format.

Communicator 4.51 on Windows dies as well

[brokeninside]

I tried several times as Netscape's fine browser crashes relatively frequently for me. After restarting Netscape more than once, I'm forced to the conclusion that whatever the linked page looks like, it makes Communicator blow chunks in a rather messy manner

stupid people with their stupid lame rumors

[2MuchC0ffeeMan]

okay... i'm gonna go for some informative karma here i know this is fake, this (a story on a highly respected forum) is what they wanted... here are some things from the kalisto .nfo's when they release their games.. here's the first one, from sydney olympics-8/30 "Here's our last release before we take a little break from the DC scene. We are frankly tired of all of you ungrateful assholes there who do nothing but whine about our releases. We will give this game today, but we have chosen to keep our current rips Ultimate Fighting Championship and Sega GT internal. We don't have to release to the public nor are we really interested in doing so now with the attitude that most of the end-user base shows. This game has been forced to display at 60HZ for PAL users, and it fits on 74 Minute Blank. Adios, we're off to play UFC." okay, their next release, 16 hours later ... ultimate fighting championship - 9/1/00 "Ok, Back from our 16 hour break. Really funny to see most of whiner's reactions. Did you guys ever sit down and wonder which group has given you 95% of the DC releases out there? To those of you who think we're arrogant/childish, all I can say put your money where your mouth is, and do something about it, don't download any of our releases. Simple as that. And to the people who can't get DJ working, do you really think we give a fuck about your shitty burner's problem? Take what you and if you dont like it, FUCK OFF and do it yourself. Never bite the hand that feeds you folks, otherwise you'd be stuck playing lame NES emulators on your wonderful 128bit machines. But its not all negative here, we'd like to say thanks to all our and supporters, and this game is dedicated to you." note: DJ is discjuggler, the only program they use to burn their releases of their games ... alot of people whine about how they can't get dj to work with their burner, and want releases in another format (like nero, or a .iso image) next releases:virtual athlete 2k & Sega GT, nothing our of the ordinary next release:Ganbare Nippon Olympics 2000 8/2/00 "Sega has offered us stock options to stop releasing DC, so this will be it, our last release. Thanks to all who have supported us throughout our stay in the DC scene. Take note this is NOT a joke. We are really stopping all DC operations with this release. We will continue on with the PSX. Bye." granted, this is just crap, anyone who is given stock options to stop what they are doing, don't do it anymore .... just wouldn't release this one ... granted, the irc channel on efnet, #kalisto is invite only... i think it's just cuase they don't want to be bothered... no company would PAY someone to stop doing what has hurt their company so badly other release groups have learned from kalisto, and still release games... good, self booting, quick loading, games ... sega wouldn't be so stupid to PAY pirates, when they can simple just put them in jail, free of charge ... another rumor: is that echelon, a new release group that appeared 1-2 days after kalisto quit, and has released most of the games since, including 3 in one day (which only kalisto has been able to do) is now thought of to be refugees of kalisto just a rumor ... i get most of my info from the http://www.dcisos.com forum and the http://www.isonews.com forum but, if you go there, be warned, there's thousands more lamers, just like atheos, who is just another idiot speading rumors use common sense when thinking people

Re:There is NO way this is true...

[AbbyNormal]

**Adam Sandler's Crazy Mode On**


Hi Bill Gates! I'm CRAZY WINDOWS PIRATE MAN...I am a Pirate and I steal Window's Software...I'm soooooooo Crazzzzzzzy.

Now GIMME SOME STock Options!