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Talk To a Convicted Warez Guy
Chris Tresco is one of those evil "software pirates" cybermoms warn you about. He was a sysadmin at MIT, and also a member of "the secretive Internet software trading ring known as 'DrinkOrDie'" who got caught by the DoJ's Operation Buccaneer, got convicted, and was sentenced to 33 months in prison on August 16. Chris has a little time left on the outside before he goes away and has agreed to spend some of it answering your questions, so ask away. (Usual Slashdot interview rules.)
Did you come to any realizations after being sentenced? Like "Stealing software is bad cuz I got busted" or maybe "It's fine to steal software as long as you don't share it with everyone else".
Maybe the real moral of the story is "Illegal is illegal and if you do it and get busted you deserve everything you get", because in the end the people you are stealing from are the very people who are gonna pay your way for the next 33 months of your life: the general public.
I used to be a MS fan but then I was brainwashed. Now I see the Light. Mac OS X pwns u.
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
by doing what you did, you helped to increase the market penetration of closed (and increasingly intrusive) software. you smeared the line in some user's minds between free software and closed software distributed in a manner against it's creator's wishes. even worse, you smeared the line in the public's mind between free software developers who respect copyright and the ideas of credit and recognition to people who create things (music, software, etc) and the people who willfully violate copyrights and have no interest in giving credit or recognition to those who create things.
all of these are damaging to the users and developers of free software. so my question is, what do you have against those of us who use or develop free software?
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Don't you feel that you're called to accomplish something more than trading porn?
George Will has an appropos phrase: "well-educated moral cretins". Don't you feel that with your substantial ability you have an obligation to use it to create something, rather than just jerk off in front of a computer monitor?
You were at M.I. frickin T, man! Do you know how many people don't have the tickets to make it there? And you blew it. All that potential...how pathetic.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Oh well, see you in 33 months..
He did. He used his political and monetary influences to bring about the change he wanted. The Pentagon with a big hole in it and no World Trade Centre.
Back on topic, are you saying that warez guys would make a substantial difference to the world if they all pledged allegiance to the Free Software Foundation (absolutely no pun intended, blame RMS), or are you simply spouting off in what even I, as a bloody Guardian reader, see as an embarrassingly lefty rant?
- Chris
Pick and 2--
1: his ass
2: his mouth
3: his hands
4: His ability to negotiate a pack of ciggarettes into a 3 week stay and the MGM Grand and an early release.
5: His ability to overclock a P4 1.5 GHz into a 30.45GHz that fuses Hydrogen near the surface of the processor
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
you'll be someone else's bitch, or will you have a bitch of your own?