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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.)
1) Are you guilty?
2) If so, do you feel what you were doing should be illegal?
3) If so, why did you do it anyways?
Does he have a copy of Visual Studio.Net?
Sean.OutaHere()
Since you got more time than the average rapist, do you wish you'd raped someone instead of 'pirating' software?
Lots of things are illegal, a lot of them arent wrong. A lot of them are. Which did you do?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Can you get me a free copy of Office XP before you go?
You had a career all lined up, and probably enough income to pay for everything you wanted.
You were intelligent enough to know it was wrong, so was it worth it?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
If you could change one law, what would you do?
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
I occassionly go warez shopping with carracho, should I be worried about a prison term for browsing these servers? Exactly how much software do you need to have to get 33 months in jail?
What motivated you to pirate software? Was it just because you could? Or were you trying to make some sort of philosophical statement regarding commercial software and the like?
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
There's been a lot of talk about DRM being built into Microsoft's next generation of operating systems. XP currently has the major annoyance (especially from a piracy perspective) of registration...do you think these new efforts will be able to significantly reduce the prevalance of Warez?
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
The popular "pro-warez" argument is that if software companies made big-ticket products (for example, Photoshop) available for a lower cost, the demand for warez would drop. As someone in the know, do you think that's at all true?
33 months seems like an outrageous sentence. It seems unjust. The old guy who has been in charge of the photocopier at my local library for the last 20 years would be on death row if similar criteria were applied to him.
Do you think that justice in the USA these days is too influenced by corporations?
Doesn't the conviction of the DOD principles on traditional copyright infringement grounds negate the "digital is different" theme of the constant call by the (MP|RI)AA for stronger anti-circumvention measures?
Would stronger anti-circumvention laws or technical protective measure (TPMs) have affect the operations of DOD?
Do you think the DOD's conspicuous visibility (and the ease of online searches), made DOD easier to target that the street-corner DVD, VCD, and VCR vendors?
Is there any way to distribute content online that a copyright holder would not be able to find the that content -- assuming that the content was visible enough to have (in the language of fair use) an "impact on the fair market value of the work"?
What do you think of Open Source ? Bad because there is nothing left to put on your warez website ? Or good because this has the same goal as software piracy : allowing people to use softwares for free (though I might be missing the point of piracy) ?
theefer
Did you get busted for copying from someone else and making available, or by making copies you bought/got from school available?
M@
Krispy Cream is people
Blue Byte released an amazing game called "Incubation: Time Is Running Out," which sold moderately well...but not enough to cover their original expenditure on the product. They then released an expansion pack, "Incubation: The Wilderness Missions," which was the first product ever to use SafeDisc. The mission pack outsold the original game by 1.5x.
How can you justify piracy when so few titles break even on their development costs?
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
When you get out, if you were offered a high-paying job to do so, would you use your knowledge to help protect software from other crackers?
Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
Do you believe that this all out attack on the technically knowledgable by the digital illiterati enforcing the bloated bottomline of many of these companies will lead to an eventual electronic revolution or do you see the united states becoming controlled by copyright owners and corporations? And do you see hackers eventually out numbering the number of people in prison on drug related crimes?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Why do people copy, or want to copy, proprietary software illegally when they can legally obtain copies of Free and Open Source software more easily (without doing cracks etc.), usually free of cost, and without risking fines or imprisonment? Do you see the status quo ever changing?
Stick Men
Would you agree with the notion that many software companies aren't really losing much to piracy since someone who pirates, say, a copy of Adobe Photoshop would never have purchased it in the first place due to the outrageous cost?
Personally, there is a lot of software out there that I would find useful, though I couldn't afford to (legally) own it. I think that if Adobe charged half of what they do for, say, a current version of Photoshop, they would likely sell MORE legal copies and enjoy larger market penetration and larger profits. What's your take on this?
What was "The Bust" like? Was it like _WarGames_ where they showed up in black vans and confiscated your computers and rifiled through your trash? Or was it more like _Matrix_ where they called you in and presented all sorts of evidence they collected online etc.. ?
M@
Krispy Cream is people
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
Why isn't there more Mac warez? I had a hell of time finding Office v.X
Check out AbiWord.
do you think the average warez kiddie will ever get convicted of "warezing" or do you think that it will always be the release groupz?
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
If you were talking to a young kid who's trading warez, how would you advise him to do it without getting caught?
If you go to one of those country club prisons, will they let you have highspeed internet access?
If they mysteriously put you in high security, will you get tatooed with a ballpoint pen? That would certainly intimidate the students when you're back on the outside.
If you write a book, do you think hollywood will try to sue you for the proceeds?
If the RIAA/MPAA/MS offered you a boatload of money to work for them developing DRM, would you take it? Would you do a good job?
If you could be any animal, any animal at all, what animal would you be?
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
What kind of a case did the prosecutor build against you at your trial, and in the court of public opinion via the "news?" And, what do you think of its merits (or lack thereof?) Do you feel that they were unnecessarily harsh or overly light on you? Do you think that they were trying to make an example of you or not?
Did they call you a "threat to modern society" or just a "guy who'd erred from the straight and true?"
What, do you feel, is the moral difference between what you have been convicted of doing and what everyone else here has probably done at one point or another?
On a personal note, 33 months of your life is a horrendous price to pay. Good luck, man.
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Did you encrypt your hard drive? Why or why not?
-Matt
The incredibly large volume of warez DoD was trading must have been staggering. At any point in time did you or anyone else in DoD ever think that the whole ring was getting way out of hand? If so, what ever came from that or those discussions?
Without commenting on your recent conviction, I am curious what you think regarding software evolution. It's clear that the current nature of software 'licensing' is flawed, given the rampant mistrust and disregard for EULAs by the general software-consuming public.
What kind of environment should software exist within? Is the corporate model doomed to fail as protective measures become more and more draconian, alienating nearly all software purchasers except those in the Fortune 100?
It's nice to think that I can have a long career of creating good software for people who need it (since the effort of creating it is not inconsequential). How can the desire to own software without purchasing it (or obtaining it legally under GPL or other open license) exist in conjunction with what is likely the goal of many on this list?
Hope your time in the clink isn't too bad, and that they didn't lock you up in solitary confinement like Kevin Mitnick was (because of the ignorant fear of allowing him access to a phone thinking that he could blow up the US!).
Anyway, what is your view on the grey area of using pirate/cracked software for non-profit/education purposes?
I have been using pirate software for ages for the primary purpose of being able to know how to work essential packages (where your group, Phrozen Crew, Razor1911 and IvanPaulo have been on the best quality tools I've used). And if I find I need to use the software for business needs, then I'll stump up the cash.
In the case where it costs large amounts of money for apps like PhotoShop, 3dsmax, etc I have noticed that some graphics artists have to have legit program keys (registered in the artists name) in order to do business with other companies, do you think that is a better way to go in that sense of checking program legality?
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
What are your feelings on the reports of our nations impending doom, suffering the wrath of giant, fire breathing robot monkeys, hell bent on death and destruction?
Do you feel that horrible disfugurement, maiming, and excruciating pain are in the works for all of us, or is it God sorting out the good from the bad?
Do you know of any ways to thwart the robot monkeys, and if these methods were employed for good or evil, would it help alleviate some of the tension around your case, perhaps even leading to your eventual early release?
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Did the prosecution offer you a "deal" if you would talk and testify against other members of your group?
If so, did you talk in exchange for a lighter sentence? Or did you stay silent and let only yourself take the rap?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Punishing the duplication of some information, with zero proven *losses* (how many people *would* have purchased the software, anyway?) with over two years of jail time seems just plain idiotic.
Most univ. profs at CMU would be in jail for Xeroxing stuff left and right.
Frankly, in terms of impact to me (esp. since I use free software), I'm more concerned about legalized hacking on the part of copyright-holding corporations affecting my computer. I don't use any commercial software (got rid of xv a while ago, so I'm even clear there).
An interesting aside: Much pirated software is games. The only reason copyright exists is to encourage artists to produce, to improve society in the long term. Over the years, profits and video game budgets have shot sky-high...and yet the entertainment facter has increased very, very little. Is copyright producing the desired effect? (Note that this isn't intended to be taken as a claim that people should be able to pirate software...just a question about whether we're getting our money's worth out of copyright.)
May we never see th
Are you scared about going to prison? Do they prepare you in any way before you enter the facility, or do they just throw you in and that's it?
Just typing these questions make me uncomfortable.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
What advice (if any) would you give to those currently involved in the 'warez' scene.. whether it be one who downloads and uses cracked/copied software, or even one involved in one of these distribution groups.
Were you stealing bandwidth from MIT to do this? Or were you hacking into other people's boxes to get the bandwidth?
If you were stealing bandwidth, how much bandwidth do you think you stole from MIT? Did someone there have anything to do with the prosecution, either as a witness or as a whistleblower? Did you feel any moral qualms about stealing from a university?
If you mostly got your bandwidth through hacking, what do you imagine were the costs to the companies to repair the damage from the hacks? Did you feel any qualms about abusing other people's property?
Also, if you were hacking into other people's machines to open up Warez sites, what is the closest analogy to a physical property crime you can imagine? I envision going through the "house for sale" flyer to find unoccupied and poorly monitered homes in my neighborhood, using lockpick (or breaking a window) to get inside, and then "remodeling" it a little bit on the inside so that I could throw huge parties for hundreds or thousands of people. Is this an accurate description of the type of hacking being done, or would you compare it to something else?
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Do you think the DoJ basically are using you as an example to dissuade other 'w4r3z d00ds' from pirating commerical software, or do you actually believe they undertook a massive operation to specifically stop DoD?
Do you find most people are more concerned with the morality of software piracy, rather than the legality? (e.g. piracy is bad because its morally wrong rather than piracy is bad because it's illegal)
As someone who used to be into cracking software, I find the types of cracks going on today very interesting. Back when I was doing it, copy protection involved formatting a couple of tracks different from the rest or asking for the first word from line 5, page 10 of the instruction manual.
Every time a new form of software 'encryption' (obfuscation?) comes out, it's easily cracked, relatively. Uncopyable CDs aren't, DVDs can be copied without a problem and with more and more items becoming digital, the list will expand. My question is this...does having something in a digital form automatically mean it's copyable and, if so, what does/should this mean to the makers of software? Lower prices? Come up with physical DRM of some sort? What's the answer, or (IMHO) isn't there one?
--trb
Once you get out of jail, IPv6 will be the big standard, we'll all be running Linux 2.8 and microsoft may have taken over the world. Will you be to keep up with technology in jail, for example do some studies on a laptop?
.sig: No such file or directory
Some warez seems to involve incredible programming effort, developing custom install tools to e.g. convert MP3'd WAVs back to the originals, deal with movie resampling to save space, etc., not to mention substantial reverse-engineering work to break copy protection schemes. Who does all this? Are they professional programmers with spare time? Bored college students? High school students?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
How much money would you say that developers lost because of your pirating ring?
How much would you say all of the downloaded software was worth?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Did you think you where going to be cought?
Did you feel you where doing illegal things?
Do you regret what you did?
Have you had a change of heart on this matter or are you bitter but resolved?
How do you feel about going to jail? I know that sounds stupid, so let me clarify.
Do you look at it as a miscarriage of Justice? That the goverment and big buisness are railroading you.
Or was it the price to be paid? Kind of a personal Civil Disobediance, that you knew what could happen, and did it anyway. And if it was a Civil Disobediance issue, do you think it will have a major impact on Piracy, either positive or negative?
"To Do Is To Be" - Socrates, "To Be Is To Do" - Sartre, "Do Be Do Be Do" - Sinatra
With the recent attempts at copyright protection by the RIAA, have you seen any technology from your favorite *AA that actually might work to stop piracy of copyrighted material? Anything that you couldn't break or was exceedingly difficult to break?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Again, if you copy software without a license it is called copyright infringement. It has nothing to do with theft. You are not physically taking anything away.
Both acts are illegal, but have completely different
legal implications. In the beginning of US history British authors could not copyright their work in the US, so that in your interpretation most Americans were thieves, those that could read anyway.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
What was the first piece of software you pirated?
What was the weirdest piece of software you pirated?
What was the most memorable piece of software you pirated?
Are you going to a minimum security prison? A federal Prison? Will you be with white collar criminals (let's hope you do) or will you be with "real" criminals...you know, thieves, rapists, etc.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
1) Why did you do it? Was it for a thrill, for fun, because you knew the software companies were overcharging, or for another reason?
2) I've heard rumours that some large software companies actually leak software out on purpose because they realize the importance of getting their product out to be used and tested in order to spark intrest in it. Do you believe this is true?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
where can I find software like PhotoShop, but free/open source for Windows?
Where did you find Windows?
Anyway, GIMP (equivalent to Paint Shop Pro or to Photoshop Elements) works on Windows.
Where can I find Nero?
Bundled with your CD burner. CD burners are hardware, and hardware can't be duplicated easily with current technology.
Where can I find Adobe Premiere?
VirtualDub isn't as powerful, but it should fulfill basic video editing needs.
Instead of Microsoft Office, try this.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Do you think that incarceration is a just consequence to your actions?
Does it bother you that the fed's went after a smaller group like drink or die, but ignored groups like Razor or Fairlight which are arguably larger and more organized? I mean .. Fairlight has been around 13 years at least.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
If you plan not to pirate software again would you chose to pay for commercial apps or would you use free software?
Has your opinion changed about free software vs commercial software because of your unfortunate experience?
Do you think strong armed tactics by the BSA and upcoming drm will actually help spread free software?
http://saveie6.com/
Except the personal stuff of course.
Do you still belive that spreading warez is ok and that you were sacrificed, or will you speak against it and never do it again?
I am sure everyone that got caught wish that they never did get caught, the question really is if they wished that they had done something else, or that the police had target someone else instead.
Why do people copy, or want to copy, proprietary software illegally when they can legally obtain copies of Free and Open Source software more easily
Because the features essential for their work are patented, and the patent holders do not license the patents for use in free software. That's one reason why GIMP doesn't support CMYK, Pantone, or GIF writing and why the LAME project does not distribute binaries.
Or because the proprietary software uses a proprietary encrypted file format. In the United States, it's a crime to distribute software that decrypts a proprietary encrypted file format.
Will I retire or break 10K?
What do you think of this metaphor? I'm guessing that many people might view your crimes similarly (not a really big deal, but it is still a crime, so you gotta take your lumps). I'm curious if or how your view differs.
-------------------------
A person of moderate zeal
There have been many examples of the mishandling of cases where the justice system just didn't get it with regards to technology. Do you feel like there were some technical concepts that the justice system did not understand, and as a result mishandled in some way? In short, where would you like to see the justice system have more of a clue?
You have been found guilty, but do you feel guilty?
Who do you think is more responsable for the demise of coutless small development companies - the publishers, the warez community, or the development companys themselves? And why?
Thad
Games Developer.
Thad
How do you believe your actions affected society in a positive manner?
I am assuming (and hoping) that you are being sent to a "minimum" security facility.
33 months, I'm sure you'll have some free time; do you plan to study anything in particular? (I.e. Programming, hardware, philosophy, art, etc...)
Second question, how is your family taking your (future) incarceration?
Take care... I do hope that you don't have to serve the full 33 months.
If you took all the money you spent on legal council, and instead spent it on legitimate copies of commercial software, would you still be in this mess?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I think the parent has hit the right question.
Everyone knows its illegal, and the "software costs too much" argument doesn't hold water for very long.
So was it philosophical? Was there an agenda? Or did he just do it for the intellectual kicks? (breaking the law, breaking the law!)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Pirating software is like taking a picture of a chair, and then being able to use the picture as if it were a chair.
It's not like stealing a chair. Rather it is denying the original chair-maker a *potential* sale. This is not the same thing as denying him a sale (restraint of trade), any more than going into business as a competing chair-maker.
Clearly, it's a copyright violation. But attaching penalties above and beyond those that arise from the act of infringement itself is really hard to justify: if you take a chair, it is gone: that's stealing. If you take a picture of a chair, and the chair is still there, you haven't stolen the chair.
Violation of copyright is not theft: it is violation of copyright.
-- Terry
It's interesting though that his sentence is higher than the mean sentence for Manslaughter, Assault, Burglary/B&E, Auto Theft, Fraud, Embezzlement, Counterfeiting, Bribery, Civil Rights Violations, and a few others.
In 1997 in any case. From a publication of the United States Sentencing Commission.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
What's your opinion on the contingent of society that considers your actions heroic, and considers you to be a hero?
Was it a fair trial?
why or why not?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Many of us who have only skimed the surface of "the scene" but have no real connection to it -- this would include the majority of people -- often have have the belief that Courier Groups, et al, are generally one rung up the ladder from clubs in treehouses and that they are little more than bunches of hyperactive teens who want to be part of something.
.nfo files that say who in the group is in charge and who does what -- my question is: are the organizations really that structured and organized as all of this literature would have us believe? Are they more than just clubs run by Middle school students?
Yet, while you were in DoD, you were a Sysadmin and in most respects a professional, skilled, mature, and above all appeared to be a responsible person which lends come creadance to the idea that these groups (or at least the "older ones") are not the inept preteens they may appear to be.
We've all read the
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Some people don't seem to see the fundamental differences between copying information and taking
tangible objects from somebody elses possession. Thus many analogies are skewed.
Today the value of CD's, Movies and Television Shows are artificially controlled by limiting the means
of distribution. The problem the entertainment\software industry is having now is that anyone with a home
computer can be their own distributer and as a result their business model is obsolete. So in order
to protect their business they are investing in lawmakers to pass laws that make it illegal for
consumers to copy certain types of information.
While making money is important, it is not as important as a consumers right to
freely distribute information to friends, relatives or even strangers.
Say there was a man who could take a loaf of bread and make an exact copy of it.
Then this man feeds everyone around him with the copies of this bread. Should he be put
in jail for depriving the breadmakers of a living? Of course not, because it is
understood that the distribution of the bread is more important than a few people
profiting from it.
Say I buy an apple. I eat it down to it's core and then plant the seeds. The seeds grow into a tree full
of apples that I choose to give away. Would that be considered stealing? Of course not. I bought the
apple and I have the right to make copies of it.
Say I ask a man to light a candle so I can see in the dark. He charges me 50 cents. Afterwards I take
my candle and transfer my flame to all my neighbors candles. Was this stealing? Of course not! This man
has no right to control the spread of fire just because he is the originator.
Whether it's fire, a pattern of sounds and lights or a sequence of ones and zeros it should not be the
property of any one person or corporation. It is to societies benefit that information flows freely.
I might be wrong, but this is just how I see things.
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?
mogorific carpentry experiments
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
Do you agree with your punishment? I mean, from someone else's point of view, if asked, would you say "Yeah, he got what he deserved" or "Thats entirely too harsh"
/moral/immoral base of this question)
Could be hard to think like that while facing jail time though...
(and please everyone, ignore the right/wrong
---------------------------
What are you biggest concerns about spending time in a federal penetentiary?
Although this is a technical community, I wanted to say that although you broke the law, I do not agree with the current penalties for computer crimes - they are way too harsh! I wish you the best of luck, my sympathies are with you.
www.enthea.org
What percentage of the Jury owned and used a computer on a daily basis? If it was a small percentage, do you feel you were really given justice by a jury of your peers?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
A lot of people are asking about the technical ramifications of your conviction, but I'm more interested in your state of mind.
Are you scared about being incarcerated?
Do you see it as a new start? What I mean by that is that once you're out, you have paid your debt and can move on.
was it careless-ness? or no-way-i-was-gonna-get-out-of-the-trap-they-set-me ?
any advice for people who don't want to get caught, but still might want to trade warez, for economical (poor college kids) or idealogical (all software must be free! as in beer!) reasons?
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Was it worth doing what you did for the mostly anonymous recognition you recieved?
Games today have much more artwork involved in them. Most of them have CGI cutscenes which takes a ton of extra money, voice actors, which is more money. You have to compare the costs of production (and thus the cost to the consumer) between games just four or five years ago and today. Gamers expect more from games now.
1) What are the specific crimes you were convicted of that stacked up to 33 months in jail?
2) What other crimes have you been convicted of in the past? (aka Are warez offenders common criminals who commit all sorts of crimes?)
3) Given the sentence you are about to face, do you see yourself getting envolved with warez again in the future?
4) What moved you to help others steal software? Did you receive any benefit for your actions?
You are receiving this message because your browser supports Slashdot Sigs and you have Slashdot Sigs enabled.
When considering the crime youve been 'convicted' of; my question is simple: Why goto jail at all? If you are presently on the outside, why not skip out of the country altogether?
Ive considered it in the past, going to jail is simply not an option for myself -- Why dont you go down to Mexico and get out of North America?
As a SysAdmin at MIT you were in a job that many slashdotters are probably envious of, and I imagine that it took a great deal of hard work to obtain such a position. I noticed your age, and so I wonder: Since you are so young, and you'll be barely in your mid twenties when released, have you given any thought to your future career prospects? Do you think this experience could make you more desireable as a programmer, or security consultant, for instance? Or do you think it will be virtually impossible to work in the IT field again? Have you received any offers? It would be a real shame if you weren't able to put your skills toward a legitimate project when you get out. I wish you the best of luck.
Plan to keep in contact with your friends in the Warez biz, even if you yourself never re-enter it?
I've been under the impression that the warez "scene" is more about status and human interaction than anything else.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I am a cracker from a fairly well known group, living in the US. We take normal precautions (encrypted email/irc), but there are clear vulnerabilities that cant easily be eliminated (topsite accounts and the possibility of trojaned supplied software, etc.). The dod bust stunned all of us with the lengths of the sentences, which seem out of proproportion to the crime. I find myself asking more and more whether the risk is worth the fun. We are all in it for the commaraderie and the friends (and the access to files); of course none of us are making any money from it. My question is, if you had it to do over again, would you stay out of a group, and of the scene? Were there risks you took that you sholdn't have? What were they? Any advice to someone still in the scene who wants to stay but worries about being caught?
In prison you will have to barter for every little luxury. Having something of value to trade can be a matter of life and death.
Do you think your experience with swapping things will help you fit in?
What are your strongest assets on the prison market place?
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Why is antipiracy.org registered by you? Seems abit ironic ;)
Greg
There\'s no place like ~
And can I have your eyepatch? Arrr...
Karma for Cryogenes then.
Interesting, then to see that you are paying for something you seem to more or less have given up. I mean, if you don't get first releases any more, then you're just nobodies in the Warez world. How do you feel about going down when the top hackers in the Warez scene now are still free?
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
will the jail time stop you from pirating software, or do you think you'll be back at it upon your release? (after all, in 33 months, everything you currently run will have a new version and you might want to get everything up to date)
How do you feel about the rise of P2P and it's affects on the Warez community? Do you think it makes it safer (safety in numbers?) or do you think that it'll bring down the fist of the law even harder?
Which P2P networks did you prefer, if any?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Were you loaded up on Robitussin when the FBI got you to sign a confession admitting to the defacements of RSA Security, cwc.gov?
Er, sorry, wrong case.
1)How did you defraud the United States or one of its Agencies?
2)How much did you spend on a lawyer, or did you use a public defender?
I thought Corporations weren't considered part of the US government.
--Greg
Sec. 371. - Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor
When work feels overwhelming, remember that you're going to die.
Tresco should be forced to pay MIT, at retail rates, for all the bandwidth used by his servers. Heck, he'd have to pay an ISP for it. I think it's only fair.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
MIT has just about everything a student needs, you didn't need all of that stuff. Are you a kleptomaniac? I'm not trying to beat up on you, I'm just curious how you slept at night or what you told yourself to sleep at night. And if you didn't have any problems sleeping at night do you stay awake at night now wondering why your sense of right and wrong didn't or doesn't conincide with the laws of your country?
If you killed someone, isn't that theft? Yes. You shouldn't kill people. If you drive faster than the speed limit or smoke pot, isn't that theft? Yes. Those things are against the law. They are theft. If you sell alcohol to minors.... etc.
Not everything is theft, as some people would love to think. Specifically, your two examples involve copyright and/or trademark infringement.
The case at hand should have been settled by the affected parties suing the individuals in the warez group. It should be handled without criminal charges. That way, the offenders would still be punished, and the companies whose IP was improperly copied (i.e. NOT stolen) could have a chance to recover financial damages. But no, since the feds equate IP infringement with theft, this guy gets 33 months (a sentence which in no way fits the severity of the crime), and the companies get NOTHING.
This is an interesting perspective to hear from,
Were there any claims to your actions that you feel were unfounded (value of software, actions, abandonware/shareware/freeware in the list of programs in question, etc.)
How did they treat you in the arresst and conviction process?
And did you feel the witnesses, prosecution and judge were sufficiently knowledgeable to handle the case?
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
No, we need civil crimes with stiff judgements for people whose only crime is depriving another person of some theoretical income.
In the end, this is probably better for taxpayers, copyright holders and defendants alike.
how many people here have downloaded an mp3? or lent out a game to a friend to install on his computer? if you're the ones telling chris that he's going to federal pound me in the ass prison, i suggest you take a look at your own irony.
... should others continue for the same reasons you did? would you go backto help?
anyway, my question:
as piracy was only shut down for a few days after operation buccaneer, do you think that piracy will ever cease? every copy protection to date has been cracked (minus online cdkeys, for online play)
Runnin' On Empty
Raping celebrities would probably cost him more than 33 months in a "pound me in the ass" prison. You see, the usual laws don't apply to them. If they do something to someone, they will probably go free, or get a very lenient sentence. If someone do anything against them, they will get a very harsh punishment. Feels like we're back in the good ole dark ages.
Although it is not "fair", I don't see any real fix, do you? People with money or power always get privaleges. Do you think high-ranking Soviets had to stand in line in the rain for food? (Plus legal system favors that are harder to track.)
I know everybody likes to complain about such, but there is just NO side-effect-free way to fix it. If you eliminate money, then smhooz-power becomes the currency.
No government or large community has *ever* found a revolutionary solution to an uneven legal system. Never. Thus, if you have a great alternative, please lets hear it.
OJ did not win by bribing judges and juries, but by hiring aggressive hound-dog lawyers that dug up potential doubt in every crack and crevice and were expert sweat-talkers.
You want to pass a law banning good lawyers? Even if you put a *fee cap* in place, celibrities could still get the best just by their social influence.
You can't pass laws against being "popular". (Well, at least not in this country).
Table-ized A.I.
What, in your estimate, is the number of warez-trading FTP servers in existence?
Nice one. If I can't pirate a game I'm quite happy to rip the security tag off, buy a magazine and stick the game box in the bag before I leave. That's because I recognise that stealing is stealing to a certain extent, and because I have few morals.
Make of that what you will, but I'm honest with myself about it. I've downloaded rips of an awful lot of shitty games and thanked my lucky stars I didn't buy them (thanks to the memories of paying £30+ for appalling NES games back in the day), and I've paid an awful lot of money for games which I consider to be worth my cash, too (Diablo 2 stolen: expansion bought; boxed set bought too, so I have two copies of the expansion - Blizzard deserved the cash).
Almost all the money I have earned, begged or saved since my adolescence has been spent on CDs. Overall the software and music industries are making a hell of a lot of money from me, which isn't an escuse but certainly makes me care less about the insignificant loss of a single CD sale - which may in fact turn out to be two bonus sales if my mates buy it on my recommendation.
But yeah, I still see it as stealing, because it is. I don't care. If they were distributing on a different policy, it wouldn't be stealing, and then I wouldn't be a bad person at all and they wouldn't hate my using their software so much. It's up to them to change, not me.
- Chris
You're extrapolating. He never defended copying software at all. He said it's not the same as theft of physical goods, and he is entirely correct. It's an infringement of copyright and therefore falls under a different set of rules. But he is not saying taking the software is good or all right, and neither am I.
Do you have time to crack off a copy of Unreal 2003 before you go in or are those days behind you now? :)
In short, does the prison system work for this sort of crime? If so, is it overkill?
I am a Karma Library.
Can someone explain to a non-USian how it is possible to be at liberty one full month after being sentenced to prison time? Are the US prisons so full that convicts have to wait for spaces to open up? Or is this some kind of break for white collar types: "We know your schedule is busy, so why not take advantage of our convenient Slammer-when-it-suits-you Program"
A couple related questions...
How do you feel about going to prison? (I hope it's minimum security)
Do you think your 33 month sentence is fair, or do you think a different sort of punishment would be more appropriate for breaking copyright law? Or, do you feel you did nothing wrong and deserve no punishment whatsoever.
How do you feel your own sense of morality compares to those who prosecuted you?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
My understanding of this is that you were involved with the illegal distribution of copyrighted works, depriving the potential owners of money for the works (possibly - the reality may be "probably not," but...). You then received 33 months of jail time (or just under 3 years) which seems to me to be rather fair.
Based on the Operation Buccaneer information, you received counts of felony (criminal copyright infringement, probably), and conspiracy (to commit criminal copyright infringement, probably). (Both probablies are guesses based on the document.) This seems to be in line with what one would expect for charges against a ring of people whose sole goal is to steal massive quantities of software and redistribute them to as many people as want them at no charge. (The fact that there was no charge probably reduces the sentence to a degree, but the fact that it required specialized skills and involved a large collective of people acting together to commit criminal copyright infringement probably both outweigh that.)
So... why should I feel sorry for you? You got what you deserved. You stole from people and gave copies to as many people as you could. Based on the MIT press release, you illegal utilized systems you were supposed to be administrating for the purposes of illegally distributing software. As far as I can see, you got exactly what you deserved.
So - prove me wrong. Demonstrate that my understanding is flawed or that I am misunderstanding the crime. Demonstrate that it should not be a crime. Or - accept my view. Explain if you feel sorry for your actions and believe that you did indeed commit the crimes. Or come up with another response that does not fall directly between agree and disagree.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Incriminating, but great!!
Forget the morality plays, forget the remorse, you did it cuz you liked it.
Now, waht did you like best?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
If you were the judge, what kind of sentence would you have handed down to yourself?
(Lets be reasonable, no 100 hours of "community service" breast exams at the Ford Modeling Agency)
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
> Why do people copy, or want to copy, proprietary software illegally when they can legally obtain copies of Free and Open Source software more easily (without doing cracks etc.), usually free of cost, and without risking fines or imprisonment?
Because it's hard to resell freeware? This guy was convicted of redistribution, but most software pirates who work on this level are reselling cut-rate dupes of commercial programs.
Virg
Hell, one of the most requested serial numbers requested (in a mac channel) is the sn# for Ircle, the shareware client most apple users use that has a 30 day limit.
Correct me if I am wrong, but technically "shareware" does not stop working after the deadline. I think that is called "tryware" or something.
I remember these categories (at least):
1. Tryware - expires and stops working after deadline.
2. Shareware- keeps working past the deadline (you are still in violation of copyright/license after the deadline, just no hardware enforcement.)
3. Nagware - keeps popping up "trial version" messages in the middle of stuff.
4. Crippleware - does not include all features of pay version.
Table-ized A.I.
do you get conjugal visits???
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
No, but there are a few things we could consider to try to make things a little better. Lately I've had this idea of making ALL lawyers government employees (albeit well paid ones). The government would pay them all by the same wage scale and that way, no matter how big or small a case, now matter how rich or poor a client, they would all get the same amount of money.
You could still hire lawyers for consultation, wills, etc but for actual court cases, the law would be that all lawyers in those cases were public lawyers, assigned randomly to procecution or defense (likely you would have 2 pools, those who prosecute and those who defend depending on which area they wanted to work in). That way if a company wanted to press charges, they would not be able to buy a high priced sleazy lawyer, but be stuck with whatever the state gave them. This lawyer might be more inclined to be impartial and work within the law instead of busting his ass to find a way to end run around it or abuse it. After all, no incentive if you are paid the same no matter how hard you pursue the case.
Now this was just an idea I had out of the blue and I'm sure there are problems with it, but it is also possible that this system could work with careful thought and trial and error trying to implement it in real life.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Also:
Did you ever think about the money that you were taking away from honest people who work hard and rely on the profits they generate from software sales or did you only think about yourself while committing your crimes?
Warmest regards,
--Jack
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
This book gets a lot of good reviews, and should probably be read, by myself included.
Berto
I have read (Stephen L. Carter, Integrity), and agree with, the following definition of Integrity:
Acting with integrity consists of
Do you believe you acted with integrity when committing those acts you were convicted of? If so, why? If not, where did you fall short?
[A note to potential critics: Just because someone acts with integrity doesn't mean what they did was right. It simply means that they were intentional and thoughtful enough about their action that discussion of the act and the reasons for it can help to elevate the awareness of others to the issues the action was meant to address. It also means that they were probably acting at least partially without self-interest.]
How can we afford to ever sleep
So sound again
--ebtg
How did you get caught, from your point of view ?
Because that involved the FBI and a lot of people worldwide, there should have been some indications that troubles where coming, or did they manage to stay in stealth mode until they hit?
From what us non-insiders know of, a hacker group is somewhat organized with different isolated layers, and very few connections between those layers, but the one needed to make it works. This ends up beeing a kind of CIA-like organisation, more or like.
Of course, the very nature of internet greatly help that, but i'm wondering : from an insider point of view, did this kind of organisation just "emerge", or where you briefed by someone else?
Of course, the lwa-enforcment greatly over-estimated the importance of DrinkOrDie. They need to justify the tax-payer money they are throwing out of the window: see some interesting file.
But overall, how was your oragnisation preceived by its peers cracking groups?[Pruneau
(* He [Osama] used his political and monetary influences to bring about the change he wanted. *)
I mean less violent solutions: Peaceful protests, mass pamphlets, work walk-outs, etc. Study Gandi and Martin Luther King.
(True, some of these may be illegal in Saudi, but they do not kill people.)
My point is that you try more legitimate and/or less violent approaches to bring about political or economic change. Osama used the "reptillian approach" to problem solving: charge head-on into whatever pisses you off. The problem is that approach does not scale to large populations without creating mass suffering.
There are milder and/or more legal approaches to attempt to bring about change. We can't have a civalized society if *everybody* used looting and bombing to bring about change and/or make a point, especially on piddly things.
If the milder approaches do not work, then perhaps too few people care that much, in which case you were simply "out-voted" and must live with it. It happens.
There is a "ladder" to bringing about social changes:
1. Legal, pleasent means
2. Legal, but annoying means
3. Illegal means
4. Violent means
One should try the lower numbers *before* trying the larger numbers, and ONLY try the larger numbers in extreme cases. The software issue is *not* an "extreme case". You don't bomb the IRS because they F'ed up your taxes.
Table-ized A.I.
What percentage of the warez was Microsoft?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
can I get a bootleg copy of the latest RedHat distro?
That proprietary software is harmful to society is hardly bullshit, and these 'warez'-guys lessen some of that harmful impact.
I don't think that Slashdot needs to be told that there are bad laws that deserve to be broken. Repeatedly.
This post pretty much sums up everything I hate about slashdot.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
One of the things about jail is that you have nothing but free time. So what do you plan to do? Study for a new career? Work out constantly? Plan your escape? Learn to speak Sanskrit?
When you get out, you will have had 33 months of basically no real responsibilities. If you find a nice, cushy prison, you can get some real work done. Are you going to use this time to make your life when you get out of jail better?
Also, when you get out, what do you plan to do? Something in the computer field, or do you plan to change your path when you get out? If I were in your place, I think I'd just get fed up with computers and become a florist or something.
Synergy is your friend
Is it illegal to make copies of software? Well, that depends on how much you actually copy. Is is wrong to make copies of software? Well, that's up to your personal ethical code.
Just because you say it is wrong doesn't mean it is. Is it wrong to get an abortion? Is it wrong to smoke pot? A lot of people will give you different opinions on the ethics of those issues, regardless of their legal standing.
Yes there are people who don't do it, agreed, but your declaration that it's simply wrong is a bit self-righteous.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Will you have a T1 line in your cell or just a crappy 56K modem?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Considering Nate Newton was caught red handed TWICE within a month trying to smuggle nearly 400 POUNDS total of marijuana into the country, and is sentenced to three months LESS than you are?
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Is it wrong to murder and eat someone?
C'mon. Relativism is a slippery slope and this is not a good season for tray sledding.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
And I think to say that you had a political agenda is a cop out.
Which is why I beleive he did it becuase being bad feels pretty good!
Wether its becuase afterwards he says "I'm smarter than you!", or he has used cognitive therapy techniques to interpret fear as excitment, or if he was dropped on the head as a child, I don't care.
I think he did it for the kicks.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Life in prison?! And I thought 33 years was rediculous.
Is your kind of gullability and inability to read the cause of wild internet rumors?
Life in Prison -> if your hacking KILLS SOMEBODY. It is essentially a murder conviction it's just (redundantly) making the use of a particular weapon to do so a distinct crime, like vehicular homicide. Your comment is something like opposing vehicular homicide laws by saying: "Life in prison, just for bad driving?"
33 MONTHS not years.
Lately I've had this idea of making ALL lawyers government employees (albeit well paid ones). The government would pay them all by the same wage scale and that way, no matter how big or small a case, now matter how rich or poor a client, they would all get the same amount of money.
Random government lawyers? You just shot fairness in the ass. Might as well let a Roulette wheel determine the virdict. Paying gov workers more money often does not result in significantly more effort from them either. There are too few or too political of feedback systems in place in most gov reward systems.
Plus, it does not make sense to have the same level of lawyer on a small-claims case as on a murder case.
Table-ized A.I.
Assuming you have time and ability to choose what you do while inside prison, how do you plan to fill your free time?
Do you have plans for how you might change your life after you get out, or what productive things you might do with your life then?
Are you angry?
Many people wish to say something like "We can't favor one person's morality over the other" without accepting the full implications of that statement. Namely, if each person gets to decide right and wrong, then we lose the ability to judge any action as wrong, no matter how horrific.
That said, I don't pretend to have all the right answers about which things under which circumstances are right, wrong, and optional. But until someone convinces me otherwise, I am going to assume that the categories exist, and do my best to figure out what things go into which.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Let me qualify that, you're clearly a sharp guy being at MIT and all.
Perhaps this is a sterling example of the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom?
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
Or at least mentioned.
How does his crime sentence compare to other crimes that involve copying? I wonder how it would compare to, say, wholesale duplication of $100 bills? Everyone always compares piracy to software theft, when in reality, it's much closer to counterfeiting. Both the copyright system and the monetary system rely on government imposed scarcity. The hard question that some people here on Slashdot need to ask themselves, is can the economy survive if that artificial scarcity is removed.
In my personal opinion, I believe the world would be a much better (and radically different) place if copyright is cut short. In this hectic information age, can anyone imagine a world where copyright only lasted 5 years from publication? I'd love to see a reasoned debate on this issue.
And, for my question to the convicted pirate... What is his personal view on the politics of copyright, and what his views (if any) are of what life would be like under such a system.
Bork!
and my comfort of 125,000 mp3's.
This guy wasn't a *student* at MIT -- he was just the sysadmin for the economics department. There is a big difference.
I doubt they make that much... Every college I have seen pays their computer people nearly nothing compared to the real world, because labor is so cheap with all the students to choose from (especially at MIT). Colleges pay very poorly for almost every position, actually.
There is simply an abundence of adequate people, so a large supply decreases demand, and hence the wages.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
In a given situation each action you take is right or wrong depending on the context. That is, it is right and wrong within my own personal moral context, and it is also right and wrong within a societal context.
Is it wrong to copy one piece of software for a good friend? Is it wrong to copy it for a hundred friends? Is it wrong to copy for a thousand strangers? Is it wrong to copy for a profit? Each one of these questions can be answered differently even though they all fundamentally address the ethics of copying software.
Don't get me wrong, i'm not going to sit here and suggest that we can have no law in our society because none of us is of sufficient moral stature to judge anybody else. The fact of the matter is that in order for civilization to function, we have to come to common understandings that we can codify. It's a simple matter of majority rule (or perhaps these days, majority of the money rule but I digress). That's why we have a law that says if I copy more than so much software I can be punished for it. I may disagree with that law, but neither the law nor my personal belief has any bearing on some absolute definition of wrong. But that doesn't mean I'll be surprised if I egregiously violate copyright law and get thrown in prison.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
As a SysAdmin at MIT you were in a job that many slashdotters are probably envious of, and I imagine that it took a great deal of hard work to obtain such a position. I noticed your age, and so I wonder: Since you are so young, and you'll be barely in your mid twenties when released, have you given any thought to your future career prospects? Do you think this experience could make you more desireable as a programmer, or security consultant, for instance? Or do you think it will be virtually impossible to work in the IT field again? Have you received any offers? It would be a real shame if you weren't able to put your skills toward a legitimate project when you get out. I wish you the best of luck
<slashdot>: So, are you doing any kind of warez again now?
<interviewee>: H@H@H@H@H@H, WH@T, j00 TH1NK TH@T AH M SO3M K1ND 0F F3WL BY3 @NSW3R1NG TH@T?
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
>> ...doesn't mean it's wrong in any absolute sense though.
So what? The law doesn't recognize anyone's "absolute sense" of right and wrong, even if such a thing actually exists. You can't defend or justify an illegal action by claiming that you have an absolute sense that it is not wrong. There are lots of people who thought the murder they commited was morally acceptable. That doesn't make it legal.
You're simply trying to justify an action that society as a whole considers as wrong in order to provide a sliver of rationalization for the action.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
LOL.
"Whatchoo waiting for?!"
1) While in the can, will you have access to computers and the Net? If so, do you know the details of how it will be monitored, etc?
2) First, some background:
When I was a lad, companies were releasing software with copy-protection pretty much as the rule. Thanks to disk munchers and such, most of the protection schemes were handily defeated. It became obvious to many software publishers that the reason their software was cracked and copied was because of the challenge it presented: it was fun for us youths to crack it and feel like we outsmarted them.
It then quickly became the rule that copy-protection on media was pointless so companies stopped producing copy-protected media. As a result, many softwares were not copied because there was no point in it...no challenge. A lot of crackers basically didn't care about having piles of copies of software lying around...they just did it because they thought they were smarter than the suits.
Now, that being said, how often do you think cracking and copying software is done nowadays simply because of the geek-challenge it presents?
And, along with this, do you think the current rise in companies' use of copy-protection mechanisms has actually increased cracking activity simply because it provides a greater challenge?
And, if so, do you think all the efforts to introduce harder-to-crack copy-protection mechanisms will backfire on them?
And, if so, do you think that if companies halted these efforts and just said: "those who'll copy will copy" and only went after folks distributing for profit that cracking activities would actually decline?
Now, I realize that there are certain companies with enough "ill will" against them that no action they take will stop people from cracking and copying their software just because they want to fuck those companies...so these questions don't necessarily apply to them.
But if there's a small company releasing a small title, do you think that by including copy protection mechanisms they would only be begging crackers to have a go at their product?
Or could they still count on rampant copying regardless?
That's true. The best he can do is get 15% of his time shaved off for "good behaviour"... unless someone's changed something recently and I missed it. Its not like I spend a great deal of time researching federal prisons.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Has the popularity of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks made your job easier (easier to develop new ways of cracking, easier to distribute your work, easier to contact others in your group)?
Have you noticed a rise in the interest level in hacking/pirating by others who want to become developers?
Have P2P networks been a good thing for pirates or have they brought far too much unwanted attention?
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Warez are an economic problem: warez distribute expensive software to people who wouldn't otherwise buy it, giving it more market share without eating into profits. It's a great mechanisms for differential pricing. The losers are competitors trying to enter the market with a comparable product at a lower price because few people care: those that pirate are going to pirate #1, and the people with money pay the extra 30%.
The WTO would like to see copyright protection instituted in the legal systems of 3rd-world countries -- precisely the places where warez godz can operate with impunity. Do you think information-age countries should expect a different IP standard from the 3rd-world, for the purpose of innovation and development?
In other words, did they demonstrate, to all present, that your actions caused them a quantifiable loss of money which they would have received had you not done what you did?
I take it that if they did, then those companies involved made the proper notations on the quarterly SEC filings? And if not, wouldn't that be similar to the fraud of hiding losses to inflate gains for shareholders?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
You're starting to get into a discussion of the purpose of the prison system.
And, unfortunately, the answer is that society is confused.
One group wants prison to be punishment. You break the law, you get punished.
One group wants prison to be about reform. You break the law, you get taught the error of your ways and you come out a nice productive member of society. (This is why prisons have libraries and educational courses.)
One group wants prisons to be simply "lock these horrible people up and never let them out where they can be dangerous again." This is where the 10-20-life and "Three Strikes" laws come from.
Which is right? Ahh, that's where you get the nifty arguments. Reform sounds better, but is very expensive. It also gets into other societal areas outside the prison system. Lock up forever is also expensive, and gets very high percentages of the population behind bars. (The US has the highest percentage population behind bars of any 1st world country.) Punish seems to mean that, when released, most convicts will commit worse crimes. (Revenge on society for how they were treated inside?)
No easy answers.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
any advice about replying to these questions? After all, if you say, "I have no remorse about anything I did" and this web log finds its way to your parole hearing it may not be a good day for you.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
In hindsight, were there things happening in the days or weeks prior to your arrest that should have tipped you off that something was not right?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
The key to any moral system is recognizing that people have different moral values, that those differences can be legitimate, but still being able to make value judgments regarding which action is correct for a particular situation. Any hard and fast rule will cause problems, but the recognition that people live differently is not the same as total moral relativism.
Ceci n'est pas un post
Could you lay out the foundation of starting a release group? How to find providers, how to find couriers.
How permanent (and secure) are DoD's official backup FTP servers? Are they still out there? Or did all the convicted cought them all up?
Did any of you get away from Operation Buccaneer? Obviously there were more people involved, but did they get all the main players?
Do you think they have other Operations going on out there? DoD seems like a dent in the wall compared to all the ones that are STILL churning software out.
What about movie releasers, or new music releasers? Are they under scrutiny, or was warez at the top of the list. (Why??)
So was pimp your warez worth it? =]
40 cd's is only 28 GB. At 3MB a song, that only comes to 9,333 mp3's. (A 1/3 of what you guessed)
I only mentioned this because I've got 1100 CD-R's, and it only comes to 139,000 songs or so.
The Feds are cracking down! I'm going straight home and delete my pirated copy of KDE3!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
You're simply wrong. We can make value judgments about moral rules just as we can make value judgments about actions. That does not imply, however, that there is only one right moral rule that can apply in every circumstance equally well. When you say that a rule is good, you also need to say, "good for what?" We acknowledge that people have many different needs, therefore we must conclude that they can have different moral rules that are perfectly legitimate for those differing needs. What we hope, when we discuss moral guidelines, is that there is some common core of moral rules that will be good for most cases.
Ceci n'est pas un post
Clearly he did it for the women.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Do you find that the more intelligent that a person is, the easier it is for them to rationalize doing what they really want to do, even if it is wrong?
Cost to produce (in both money and time) have also increased a great deal, making the risk of funding a large video game project very high...
Sure, but that's talking about the symptom, not the problem. Invest less money in each game! Have a smaller budget! Make smaller game projects!
I mean, how much does FMV add to most games? And yet, most have expensive CGI (*cough* Blizzard), voice actors and a whole squadron of artists just for cut scenes. You see them once. You're impressed with the tech. And then you don't watch them after the first four or so times. How much bang for the buck are you getting there?
What happened to Pac-Man? The above-view shooters with a little airplane that could put out about 100 times its mass in weaponry every second or so? Platform games, like Mario? Side scrolling shooters, like R-Type? These were *fun*! People went back and played them over and over and over. And they didn't cost a hundred million dollars to make.
There used to be a lot of innovation to get the games made. People from Sillicon Beach sat outside an Air Force base with microphones to get recordings for their old Mac combat games. In Myst, the Miller brothers didn't just sit on their butts as game designers -- they grabbed a cheap green screen and acted the part of all the characters. As a matter of fact, for a long time random employees of game companies *were* frequently grabbed to do voices or sound effects. There were no huge sound studios. There weren't big engine licensing fees, and the idea of a game selling for $60 or $70 would have been ludicrous.
What happened to all that? Yes, games look more realistic. Yes, there are more polygons. But are they really, honestly, more fun?
Actually, does anyone know of a website that keeps track of the few retro-style games around? I'd like to see if I can pick some up.
Retro's gotten a bad name, because too often it translates to endless Tetris knockoffs or buggy junk. But it's the closest thing to what I'm trying to talk about.
See, "retro" isn't exactly what I'm thinking of either. Modern, low budget games would be someone different than older low budget games. There are more pixels to work with -- screens are higher res. At least low end 3d cards are common. The days of paletted colors are gone. But because you have those things...why does everyone feel the need to blow so much money making their games?
May we never see th
Morality is not absolute. That is evidenced by the fact that no two societies agree on a common set of morals. However, agreed-upon morals make a good basis for laws and government because the people agree about whether the relevant behaviors are moral or not. If too many people disagree with the morality of too many of the laws then you've got a revolution on your hands. This is why there isn't a world government right now. People are different and they can't be held under the same laws.
The closest we've come to that is the empire model of government, where the central government doesn't have much power to pass laws over the individual territories. That's more or less the theory behind the federal/state schism that exists in the USA. It lets people govern themselves -- because they have the best idea of which way their morals steer them and how best to apply laws to support their society.
-David
Did you acquire something that you did not have access to before your theft? Yes, I got a CD/MP3
Could you have acquired that object in a legal way? Yes, by buying it at a store..
Is there any other legal way for you to have acquired that object? No, every other method of acquisition is illegal.
So we are left with this: You have acquired an object. You acquired that object without the owner's permission (owner = copyright owner). That object has value to the owner. You have not given any compensation to the owner for your acquisition of that object.
How is that not stealing?
How do you feel about the state of things, like the legalities of reverse engineering and arresting people who at least in my eyes haven't caused monetary damage to any company?
.NET app and get the full readable source out with a program called Akanimo because the MSIL is /fully/ described, or that Adobe uses a crappy crypto in one of their products that I learned to write on a computer that was twenty years old at the time when I was only nine, or that the activation components of a particular OS product are /public/ objects that anyone can use to brute force with even any scripting language that has a do loop (and if the objects aren't there the OS doesn't even halt), it's ouvious these people aren't concerned with even trying to make things harder for their own products to be cracked. They're more concerned with ensuring that the laws get put in place so they can cry like the babyish code they seem to be spitting out. I know that my stuff will get/has gotten cracked, and I even put things in there to ask whoever did it to let me know how they did it so I can give them a greater challenge the next time around (how else is my protection supposed to get better). It's sad to see that these /Private/ corporations have to go whining to the government because their programmers suck. It's ignorant to hear that looking at a competors product is 'illegal', or that I have to buy a 1200 dollar product before I can find out if it's worth it or not. If I go out and buy a 20000 dollar car I can sell it off if it doesn't fit my needs, or if I get a pair of pants as a gift that doesn't fit me I can return it to the store, however most all software products that I know of try to circumvent the fair use laws and most stores won't let you return the software. So I'm supposed to take that 1200 and let it go, and then still have to find something else that I think may be suitable and then fork out even more money and maybe be wrong again. I can even count how many products I've read the reviews of and sounded great, and then was able to use and found out they either sucked or didn't do what I needed. Can I sue the companies becuase of all the money that was thrown down the drain, nope.
Rant/Personal Opinion below >>>
Personally, I think it's all a bunch of b**ls*it. I'm a software developer, I work for a national software company and I write my own stuff. Do I get offended or angry if someone cracks something of mine. Not at all. Why? Because if I was that concerned about someone pirating my stuff I would have been more careful with coding the protection. I mean, the entire software development corporation structure wouldn't have existed if people couldn't 'crack' or reverse engineer software. They wouldn't have modded a PDP and added instructions Digital asked to put in the next PDP, Microsoft wouldn't have existed because QDOS wouldn't have (QDOS was a ripped copy of CPM), Compaq wouldn't have been able to create an IBM Clone of the XT, there wouldn't be an Adobe Photoshop for sure, cause someone probably would have claimed the rights to all the filtering algorthms, and whoops, Xerox with the mouse as wel. And what's sickest of all is that now these companies are banking on core foundations of software and technological development not being legal. The fact that I can take any
I know my software will always be cracked, and in a way I'm glad it does because it helps me make my software better, and I know that people actually want what I'm working on. But laws should not be placed for the ignorance of companies like Microsoft and Adobe. How many banks do you walk into that hasn't a high grade hard to defeat security system? I believe software companies need to start programming their software with the same ideas, instead of trying to enforce crapola like this. Maybe that's why I've been slowly moving to the open source ideals, I'm fed up with all of it.
This isn't meant to cause a flamewar, just wanted the convicted to hear the opinion of one of his so called 'targets'.
Think of it similarly to the "laws" of physics. Newtons mathematical description of gravity is accurate, but not perfect. It is useful for understanding and predicting the behavior of physical objects in relation to each other. Einstein improved that description. Both of these descriptions (Newtonian and Einsteinian) take into account a context (masses, distances, gravitational constant, speed of light, time etc.) and predict a result.
A moral code is a description of the laws of human (or "spiritual") interactions. These codes may seem to be simplistic (e.g. murder is wrong) but it is merely because they are stating the understood reality of the universe in a prescriptive manner rather than a descriptive manner. One might think of this like Aristotolean physics (bigger objects should fall faster).
As an example, one could convert the prescriptive "thou shalt not kill" into a descriptive "if you kill someone, then you hurt their family, which leads eventually to the harm of society and to yourself". Of course, we are not anywhere near measuring the human/spiritual consequences of our actions, but that does not preclude that someday we will be able to.
I personally find the moral/cultural relativism stance to be incredibly weak since it is in itself a stance. By taking that stance, one is implicitly saying that any other moral stance is wrong, thus undermining ones own position.
It is difficult and frightening to many people in western culture to examine dispassionately the possiblity of a "correct" moral stance. Part of this is a legitimate fear of returning to our dark past of intollerance and prejudice. Part of it is a similarly legitimate fear of being wrong and suffering the consequences. But the answer is not denial. The answer is an open search for truth whereever one may find it.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
This is correct, and your point is well taken: that many things which are moral in one culture are immoral in another. Morals are not exactly the same across cultures.
That being said, there is a pretty big correlation between the morals of two societies. For example, there are things which are always considered immoral by just about every culture, and vice versa. The intersection of all moral systems is actually quite large.
This does shore up your original point, in the sense that these things which are common to all moral systems are typically those things which help a society function. For example, murder is always considered wrong, because in any society in which murder is common, you're not going to be very successful, as a society.
Come on, give it up, that's
My guess is that it took him at least 1/100th of the time to do it illegally, but then again he could earn 8 figures and just happen to be an anti-property activist, however somehow I doubt it.
My next question would be: "How often do you listen to each song, and how much effort does it take to listen to a particular song once you decide that you feel like listening to it?"
A shoebox full of burned CDs is a highly inefficient way to archive anything important enough to retrieve semi-regularly. I think it's safe to say that the individual in question would probably have still preferred pirated music even if he could have purchased the songs for 25 cents each, since it seems to me that few people would really be able to justify purchasing any songs after the first gigabyte, since he would have likely purchased them in roughly the order of his preference.
Amazing magic tricks
Do you feel to be the victim of being "scapegoated" as an example of what will be done to us lowly pirates if we do not kneel to the US Gov and companies who have intrests in your conviction?
Do you feel as if you HAVE commited a crime? And if so.. do you believe it to be so heinous as to recieve the sentance you got?
as well do you believe the sentance was too much or to little in respect to your "crimes"?
Whats most important in this discussion is your depth of redistribution... I feel you crossed the line using your company to redistribute. How do you feel about that?
How do you feel the DoJ should treat the masses of "lesser" pirates... As in those who recieve Warez or those who use their own Software and install it on their "friends" computers?
Once again i feel you crossed the line by being a True distributer... akin to a drug dealer (not moraly, but in the supply chain of "illegeal" trades)... you placed yourself at odds with the law and MIT and these various companies by being a "big fish"... do you think that was a mistake?
Did you redistribute to be a rebel?
Or to protest unfair copywright laws?
To return the "warez karma" (as in giving back to those who gave to you)
Or simply because?
My personal attitude is a semi-robin-hood type, in addition i do not feel like its stealing... thats correct no physical object is transferred... which instinctually makes me feel as if these claims should ONLY be civil... I think criminal trials for non-malicous Data theft (theft of Bytes and bits that isnt for the purpose of harming someone directly) should be illegal... its wrong to put someone in prison as such... i believe that those caught with warez should be ticketed, those caught distributing warez should face civil lawsuits... but a criminal act i cannot see in this.
How do you feel?
This venue of discussion is highly important and needs to be resolved... because ultimately id guess most of the US is guilty of software/music theft at some level... if the companies had their way...Should we all go to jail?
3 years for an MP3 collection? (i know thats an exageration, but whats to stop them?)
where do we draw the lines?
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
How is your family and friends reacting to all this? Do they understand why you did all this? were they aware of your activities (okay this might be a bit too much to ask since they could re-use that against you or them but still, I'd like to know at least their reaction and how they feel about the system and your actions).
Thanks.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Think of it similarly to the "laws" of physics.
So morality is all just probability waves?
similar to people who download copies of 3d Studio max each time a new version comes out. Even though they don't use it.
Read some of the stuff ex-warez people post. Either they accumulate it all for trading fodder... or other reasons they can't quite put their finger on.
Maybe you would like to explain how or why this is bad instead of simply calling it stupid?
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Can you tell us about the whole process of getting busted and interrogated? How was the DOJ able to learn about all the members and execute simultaneous busts?
How hard did the DOJ interrogators push to get names of accomplices and if you cooperated, did that reduce your sentencing?
What advice would you give to someone who finds themselves in a similar situation? e.g. ( Hire a good pre-trial lawyer. Flee the country. )
I assume that the DOJ confiscated all your servers and went through the logs and examined all the user accounts and IP addresses. What happened to the "small time users" or did the DOJ not bother to track them down?
Lastly, in hindsight if you had to do it all over again. What would you have done to stay under the radar and not get busted?
Hmm well you do point out a big problem with it, which is under the table payola.
As I said, it was just an off the top of my head idea and I never claimed it was flawless or even practical.
I'll have to get a copy of Atlas Shrugged and check it out sometime.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
:-)
Well, possibly, I wouldn't claim to know, but the analogy does not need to be taken that far. The analogy simply points out that the progress of moral knowledge may procede similarly to the progress of physical knowledge.
It is easy for us to understand that the study of physics is based on observation, intuition and inspiration and that it presumes that the universe is ordered and non-arbitrary. (Just for a little more detail: science is based on a faith in repeatability but that faith does not make it so. The faith we have in repeatability comes from our experience, not from any more fundamental proof.)
What is not so easy for some people is to have faith that morality can also be ordered and non-arbitrary. This is because history is full of examples of morality prescribed by powerful individuals for their own purposes. Moral codes should be examined just as dispassionately as physical laws: what are the effects of following/not following a moral code, or in other words, what is the descriptive version of a moral stance (see this post's parent's parent :-). (Also I recommend reading Larry Laudan's "Progress and its Problems" one of the best works on the philosophy and history of science.)
As for probabilities, it is conceivable that some moral consequences are probabilistically influenced by deeper unknown moral parameters. To use the analogy with physics a little more, one might consider that the action and consequences of a murder might be described at a level similar to classical mechanics, whereas the intonation used on a particular word while speaking with someone might have consequences that are best described using probabilities and that it is only when one agregates many of these words and intonations that once can "collapse" the probability waveform into a more "classical" result (such as insult, sarcasm, affection, anger, joy etc.).
FWIW, I totally just speculating. Again, I don't presume to have thought this out fully or know any "correct" answers :-)
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
How do you feel knowing that you were personally responsible for putting so many companies out of business? Oh wait...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
How much I listen to, what I listen to is similar to everyone else. I have my favorites, and they fit on my hard drive. At work, I switch between the new Punk-O-Rama 7, Braveheart soundtrack, and some progressive trance tracks almost all the time. However, the only difference is, once in a while I'll try some legendary Jazz. Can't say I like it much, but I consider it an education. Plus Miles Davis isn't too bad. When I'm feeling blue, I try out my extensive Blues collection. I have found out exactly which era I enjoy (Muddy waters, et al)
...A shoebox full of burned CDs is a highly inefficient way to archive anything important enough to retrieve semi-regularly....
My shoe box is an almost-finished Mindstorm Lego robotic "contraption" that grabs the correct CD-r and puts it into an external CDROM. All the albums and which CD-R they are on, are in a MySQL database. The remote works with it, as does a web interface. As soon as DVD-R/+R figures itself out, i can move them to DVD-R/+R, allowing for more room to grow.
Otherwise, looking forward to the day that hard drives get bigger and smaller. How much memory will a portable player have in 10 years? 1TB? Probably more. Just in time for my kid to carry around all the music in the world (exaggerating) in his pocket.
Besides, as Mad Max has shown, I'll need something to trade at Barter Town.
And last but not least, collectors have a well known sickness: Collecting.
Maybe I am wrong, but maybe I am just not explaining myself clearly. I did not mean to imply that there is some simplistic rule for each action one might take. Rather, if there is such a thing as a correct moral code, then that code must take all circumstances into account for each decision. That is, a moral code must be relative to each specific situation it covers, but not relative to opinions or ideas of any person.
Also, while I believe there is a single moral code, I am not trying to prove that here. Rather I am saying that either there is a single correct way of determining whether an action should be considered right, wrong, or optional, or there is no way of determining that at all. Either there is one complete, correct moral code or zero of them.
When you talk of moral rules for differing needs, and rules that will be good for most cases, I get the feeling you are veering into utilitarianism. You reduce moral rules to those rules that, if followed, would make things come out the way you want them to come out. If you do that, then you don't have much "moral high ground" to criticize a serial killer for applying the same principle.
Even if we disagree though, we can probably get along together. You can work toward finding that good "common core of moral rules" and I can work toward discovering more of the "real" moral code.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
It is a quote from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, a Robert A. Heinlein character.
It is a philosophy of life.
It is a way of thinking that can help you have a happy married life.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Intellectual property is intellectual theft.
There is nothing there to steal.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
That's true, but either you admit it or else you have to find some objective basis for right and wrong. Which means either you accept both the existance of some extra-human basis for them and you have to produce an authoritative statement of tehm. Which is fine if you believe in an old-testament God.
However, just because you believe in your God doesn't mean I do. I may not believe in any god at all, in which case I will see the commandments of your God as just your preference; or I will believe in my God and we'lkl have to fight a holy war to decide which set of commandments take precedence. You can't have democratic agreement when both sides believe the matter of disagreement is a matter of faith.
The alternative, if you don't believe in God and you still want to hang on to the idea of objective right and wrong, is Utilitarianism. Even then, you have to decide who gets to do the calculations.
Objective right and wrong are like free breakfast and lunch: Objectively, there ain't no such thing.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Whoever mod'ed that as a troll should be
profoundly slapped in meta-mod.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
good grief if you lump that in to illegal copying files, yer an idiot. i'd like to see what your significant other thinks of what you think about oral sex, cuz it'd be funny if u never got any for the rest of your life.
We are on the same page. One must find an objective basis for right an wrong, or admit that they don't exist.
I do believe in God as that objective basis. That doesn't get me off the hook however, because it is still my responsibility to figure out what is right and wrong within the parameters set up by the Creator. Just look disagreements among the various world religions to see that this is not a trivial task.
Of course, it is possible that I am wrong, and that there is no Creator. Then I don't see any way of defining a purpose to the Universe, or defining right and wrong. An atheist might avoid the (icky in my opinion) road to utilitarianism by appealing to some inherent value in life, or in consciousness.
BTW, my particular religious beliefs do not require me to fight a holy war with you if you do not agree with them. Your mileage may vary.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
if you want it and don't to pay for it, lock yourself in a room for 3 years and write your own.
there are thousands of small developers trying to make a living at programming. scum like you are ensuring that only companies like MS can afford to stay in the game. is that what you want?
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Doesn't it piss you off that people like Dmitry get the support of the EFF while copyright infringers like you get called thieves by even seemingly progressive thinkers like CmdrTaco?
How does one plan to go to prison?
How do you plan to adjust to prison life?
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Once we start using 'slppery slope' arguments, it just opens the door for ad-hominm attacks, arguments from ignorance, and all kinds of general idocy.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Is human slavery moraly OK? What about killing off the Jews? "society" used to think that those kinds of things were perfictly OK, so by your argument they must have been at the time?
The law does not make something right or wrong. Each person needs to make that choice for themselves, and if their decissions cause to many problems for everyone else they need to be removed.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Are right and wrong physical things? Can you touch them? Can you put them in a bottle? can you detect them chemicaly or via radio perception?
No. You can't. They do not exist. They are ideas. Ideas do not exist. Deal with it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I went to high school with this guy....other than being a pothead, he was nothing even close to having a criminal mentality. He was smart as hell, too. (which should be obvious from the fact he was at MIT) Just goes to show what getting in the way of corporate interests will do to your future, no matter who you are, what you do, or think you know.
Crimes against non-entities (i.e. corporations) should never result in a prison term. Hell, non-violent crimes shouldn't either, short of violation of sanctity of space. (breaking and entering,etc)
Good luck in prison, Chris. Remember, shank the first guy you see and you'll be alright the rest of the time you're there.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Can you find me a warezed copy of Neverwinter Nights?
---
I didn't want to leave this space blank.
I'm afraid I don't understand the analogy you're making in the last sentence.
Ceci n'est pas un post
Ceci n'est pas un post
As for obeying the law... I think that people who say "I don't care what's ethical, I'll obey the law" are trying to take an easy way out.
Pardon my extreme ignorance, but just what the bloody fuck is wrong with selling computer software that stealing it is somehow justifiable?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Ah, there is the rub, eh? I'm exposing myself a bit in a possibly hostile environment, but I'll bite, and give you an honest answer.
I currently have a few reasons.
One, I was taught to believe from early on by people I trusted, and to this day know people who believe, whose opinions I value. I understand this as the argument from authority it is and the weakness of it that implies.
Two, from early childhood it has never made sense to me that the universe should be here if there is no Creator. Yes, I am aware of various criticisms of the Cosmological Argument.
Three, the Moral Argument more makes me want to continue believing than it convinces me. That was the thrust of my comments in this thread. A universe without purpose, without any moral standard, is to me an ugly waste of spacetime. At the very least, if people are going to talk about "my morals" and "your morals," I feel compelled to point out that what they are really saying is that morals are meaningless.
As I have grown older the weak spots of my belief have become apparent to me, and I am reevaluating the whole shebang. I suppose I might sometime conclude I have been wrong all this time. I hope not, because IMHO it would suck to live in a universe without a Creator.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
The poster is pointing out that copying software is not a black-and-white moral issue like murder or child molesting. Copyright is an artificial social policy, and many of the harsh penalties for violators currently in play (through which this unfortunate person will be made an example of) are extremely recent and morally unsupportable in most people's book when you lay out the facts.
Morality is relative but not subject to relativism. Admitting there is disonnance does not dissolve morality, and pretending that it does is a bad ruse in place of what should be good discussion about how to continue improvement of our civic policy (or in our case, how to stem the tide of it's utter destruction).
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
The DOJ thinks taking out a few here, and a few there, even with overseas help is going to have a "sum" effect .
...
Not really, All of Eur-asia is heavily into piracy .
In fact they just don't run servers with ISO images, they have cd stampers that even mirror the holograms .
They caught truck loads of it coming into the "City of Industry" port in Cali
I honestly think they do these raids on s/w rip ppl as a gentle reminder to stop doing it .
If they wanted to get the ppl they would just start buying shell accounts on trusted servers and use Ip addresses that are not in the known list of Narcs .
Warez is not going away, and Open Source will never get the fuel of pure unadulterated greed behind it ( ie.: M$) .
The statement the United Corporations of America is too true, it's all for sale, if Larry Ellison has his way all his coders will be H1-B's that he can pay salary and scare them with threats of deportation to work longer hours .
Sun, M$, Oracle, Cisco, and a host of others pushed thru 22 million in "PAYOLA" to secure that H1-B count was dbl'd "AFTER" the decline begain in 2000 .
The Univ Cailf @ Davis Norman Mattloff went screaming into congress calling them on their corruption, C-Span did not cover all of that for some reason, LOL .
They used false information to push it thru and the good ol boy network, and cold hard cash . Dem's and Repub's both stuck there hands in the cookie jar .
hell the vote to dbl H1-B's was like 98-1 .
One of the most Unanimous votes in history .
Meanwhile unemployment was on the rise .
All of this was engineered to drive wages down, and if you want to know who to thank, you don't have to look very damn far .
I am not saying the DOT BUST was caused by this, I am saying they ignored it and pushed ahead further overseas scab labor .
Some of the ancillary and primary 9-11 ppl were H1-B's that were not properly researched .
Some were granted their visas after they rode the planes into the towers, the president went into an apopoleptic fit over this .
The rubber stamp to oil the corporate gears with cheap labor had hit a hiccup, one that shall not be forgotten for a damn long time .
So as to the morality and ethics and legality of Warez and what else, like OJ if you have enough money you can write the book yourself, and if you are replicating square wave binary pulses for data , you can go to jail .
There is alot of hypocritical $hit out there, and Warez is definitely not at the top of the list of what this country really needs to be addressing .
Our government is for sale, and the puppets have strings being pulled by the puppet masters .
Warez, m3pz, moviez, etc etc, is a joke .
Lets consider the ppl bemoaning their horrific fate, M$ who hired temps for up to 5 yrs and later got sued because the jurys were so villified that hard workers were left in temp limbo becasue they knew they could screw them .
The other holy corporate cash cows that have cashed out 100's of millions of dollars in perfect timing and drawn down class action lawsuits are the real conductors of choir of cashouts .
Micheal Milken wannabe's like the king of scum that walked out of Global Crossing with $500 million . Wonder if that "bonus" was due to his awesome corporate strategy, or did he single handedly know how it would play out and walked out with "maximum" theft but did so under the guise of semi-legality while thosuands of workers have their cars and homes repo'd . All becasue this corporate protectorate for the holy cash cow of pump and dump can send millions into financial ruin so the teflon suits can walk on , and a few that are not popular are brought to trial to play scapegoat for the hundreds that walk away unscathed .
This is about big bucks, and BS, the statement about it depending where you stand on a GPS determines if anyone gives a damn is too true .
You are "never" going to get the whole world on board unless the world is consumed by the World Bank and IMF, and those that seek to devalue the currency of every third world country on earth , and short sell it on the Foreign Exchange Currency markets, then buy it back and make money twice on the fall and rise as they ruin the lives of millions .
These are the puppetmasters that carry our legal, ethical, moral, ideology .
They use it as they see fit and bend it to meet their needs , and apply it to hold down the masses .
Warez isn't going away, and this is just another step towards Corporations ruling the world in the background, and the puppets dancing their marionette dances and partying their a$$es of in Washington and laughing at the "little" ppl .
Enjoy the ride !
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Obviously, a move to prison is going to be a very difficult and probably distrubing cultural change from what you're used to.
Have you taken any steps to help yourself assimilate? Meaning, anything physical (e.g. self defense), thing mental (prepared a reading list) and/or things spiritual (e.g. Chuck Colson's pfm.org) ?
Have you set any goals for what you want to accomplish while you're on the inside? How about goals for when you're released?
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
To admit that right and wrong are a matter of preference is to destroy any useful definition of right and wrong.
No - that is what legal and illegal are for. Society reaches a concensus on the most important 'wrongs' and makes them into 'illegals'. On the whole, everyone will agree that you shouldn't kill someone, steal their car, or bite them on the ass without asking first.
On the whole you will get vast disagreements about things that are fun. Sex, Drugs, Spitting on the streets. A lot of variations on these are illegal but it is up to the individual to determine wether they are wrong.
I think its absolutely wrong to spit on a tennis court. Its not illegal, but its wrong. I dont do it. Anyone I see doing it I lose respect for. They did something wrong.
There is no god!
If it was so obvious that it was stealing...
why was he charged with copyright violation, and not with theft?
You miss my point entirely. I'm not arguing that this implies that you can't hold any morals.My point is that the parent post about the danger of relativism was completely overstated, and I'm showing how a similar argument can be constructed for absolutism. I do believe that absolutism is dangerous; that does not mean that I believe it is impossible to make or justify any moral judgments.
Ceci n'est pas un post
By artificial I imply that it doesn't follow from the 'natural' rights described in the Declaration of Independence or Constituation. It does not follow from any true right; it is merely a law created not to further rights, but rather lifestyle. A 'non-artificial' law (I hesitate to use the term 'natural law') would be one that can be derived from said natural rights.
Your second point is once again obscure. My example is a common example in philosophy of something that a Kantian absolutist would have trouble dealing with. It's not a problem of more flexible systems, although those can have their own problems. It sounds like we might basically agree, but your discussions are pretty confusingly presented.
Ceci n'est pas un post
That's why the gaming software market is just full of free open source games that compete with the top seller's offerings.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
This was the heart and soul of the declaration of independance. You know the document that was unanamously ratified that people went out and died for. In short it says our "natural" rights end where another persons nose begins. In fact people bled and died slow painful deaths precisely because they didn't want senseless killing and random violence.
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
This is the line in the constitution that grants the legislature power over IP. Take out the part about promoting progress and limited times and you might as well throw the whole thing out as far as I'm concerned.