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NYTimes Looks at Warez
Flamerule writes "The New York Times has a new article up that relates the end result of the DrinkorDie copyright infringement case (the "ringleader" and 5 other guys are in prison), and talks about warez in general. They at least tried to get a story from both software companies and denizens of the warez scene. Pretty interesting stuff, even if you haven't been following the case closely."
Although release and courier groups engage in little direct commercial activity, a 1997 extension in federal copyright law made piracy a crime even if there is no monetary profit.
How were pirates prosecuted before then? I seem to recall that they busted hacker rings long before 1997.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Yes, in that sense it's different. And I quite agree with what they're saying, but you pulled it out of context.
His next workds were: "They're hanging out on the cyber-street corner." I used to in the priacy rings; and it -is- like a gang, it's a place to be accepted, to be around similarly-minded people, etc.
Then again, joining the football team is also like a gang. Adolescence is about joining "gangs" regardless of whether or not you commit crimes.
(Read: A gang is a group of people, not a group of people who kill other people.)
Cracking has many different faces and tools. There are crackers that simply disassemble the files with software like W32Dasm or IDA Pro, use a runtime debugger like SoftIce, and then find the "jumps" that say "This is shareware" or "This is licensed" and patch them. Usually it takes as few a 2 bytes.
... yeah.. cracking is VERY difficult. You learn a lot by disassembling and figuring out how programs work. I know I got most of my computer expertise from cracking shareware protections. Becoming a decent cracker involves a lot of time and a lot of knowledge of ASM and Mathematics.
There are also crackers who do keygenerators. They use the disassembled code and softice to trace through the serial number making routines and figure out how the sn# is made. They then code an app in either ASM or C that generates a correct serial number.
Lastly there are crackers that only crack protection schemes and code, like the ones on game CD's. They crack Dongle's, game protections, all sorts of encryption.. blah blah.. They code tools to disassemble, to unpack, to remove difficult protections. These are the most l33t of all crackers.
So I guess what I was trying to say is that
-- DeionXxX
NY Times Random Login Generator
The `warez scene' was alive and well long before that. Back before the Internet explosion, warez was traded via BBS's, and by people bringing boxes full of floppies to their friends houses who had copy parties. Or they'd borrow a school's computer lab (rows of Apple II's) and set every one copying ...
It seems that the NYT thinks that the warez scene needs the Internet to `take root' in. Not at all -- it'll root in anything it can, be it face to face meetings, BBS's, the Internet, or whatever comes next.
There's this sweet Jag that I jacked last year
You need to stop watching the BSA/SPA propaganda films.
When you take a Jaguar, someone else is missing a Jaquar.
When you pirate a copy of software, no one has fewer copies of it.
If you pirate a copy of Photoshop instead of buying it, you deprive Adobe of income.
If you pirate a copy of Photoshop instead of buying Paintshop Pro, you deprive JASC of income.
If you pirate a copy of Photoshop instead of using the GPL GIMP program, no one has been deprived of income.
Now, this being the Internet, I'll sit back and wait for the self-righteous indignation, unfounded accusations, and heavy-handed diatribes about the legality and morality of software piracy (despite the fact that I never addressed the morality or legality of it).