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.)

Comments

If it wasn't about the money, what was it about?

[wackybrit]

You were a sysadmin at MIT, so were probably pulling in a pretty good wage.. at least, probably better than 50% of the Slashdot readership anyway.

So if it wasn't about the money, what was it about? Prestige is one option, but people in these groups need to keep hidden, so that doesn't fit. Was it for the ideals? If so, what ideals are there in ripping off software?

I can understand why people who can't afford software rip it off.. they have stuff to do, and can't afford $500 for Photoshop or whatever.. but tell me why someone with a decent salary will work in secret to beat the software companies.. what is the motivation?

Re:Do you wish you'd raped someone instead

[ceswiedler]

According to the Bureau of Justice statistics (Federal), the average sentence for rape is 117 months, serving an average of 65 months. The stats are below. The first number is the average sentence in months, the second is the average time actually served in months. The average percent of time served for all violent crime (all this document covers) is 48%. Therefore I would guess he will be released (on parole) within 16 months or so.


Homicide 149/71
Rape 117/65
Kidnaping 104/52
Robbery 95/44
Sexual assault 72/35
Assault 61/29

Re:"The Bust", WarGames or Matrix?

[freaker_TuC]

This happened in Belgium:

I was with a friend that did major warez when a bust happened. They questioned me for 5 hours long while I was only there to go out to the disco that evening. (Apparantly the entire bust spoiled our weekend).

They take mousepads, monitors, systems, all floppy's and cd-roms and everything that hangs on a PC system. They also take away all money they find that could be as result of trading/selling warez.

They enter with 3 cops, somebody that notes everything down ("deurwaarder" in dutch) and 2 cops from internal affairs. The "deurwaarder" notes everything down that gets taken. Even stupid boxes get taken away, the rooms where being checked for evidence.

The guy now has to pay for over 50000 US$ to the BSA and needed to betray friends where he worked with or he would face jailtime (because he could not pay it).

3 weeks later they tried to check my house though I didn't had anything that was illegal; they did took a lot of writable CD's with them with personal pictures and sourcecode of programs I have written in that time. I am still waiting for them to get them back.

So far of being legal and still loosing a lot of yourself. They took my backups and personal pictures and never had them back.