Slashdot Mirror
Inside the Shadow Internet
Paladin144 writes "Wired has a report about the mysterious 'pirate networks' that obtain new movies, music & games before they are released and spread them throughout the net. It's not as simple as putting a movie on LimeWire. These people are highly organized and very paranoid about secrecy. They maintain a hidden network of top-level FTP sites that get the best files first and allow them to trickle down the pyramid and into many a slashdotter's sweaty little fingers."
Well... I used to be apart of one of the pyramids, before I got caught.
I used to have access to the Distro section of an elite IRC channel, known across the net.
They would give movies to those few, who would then take them to the regular channel.
It's really crazy, and insanly hard to get in to, but you would get stuff very early.
Also, easier to get caught, as I found out.
These people talk and probably spend a better part of the day or night on IRChat and do so because they have no more social life, than the average /.er.
God bless them
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The first rule of the shadow internet is, you do not talk about the shadow internet. ...
The second rule of the shadow internet is, you DO NOT talk about the shadow internet.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
The tone of the Slashdot article summary makes these people sound like rather romantic pirates (in the original sense), having exciting adventures with clandestine societies and having a strict code of secrecy.
The truth of the matter, as the article reveals, is that it's people like these that caused so many problems for our friends at Valve and are responsible for most of the other irritating leaks of software. While I'm for P2P, fair use, BitTorrent et al as much as the next Slashdotter, I don't think these people are really up to any good. They are not much more than Internet criminals.
apterous.org
All I want to know is where to get FlexLM crack kits... All the files I got that were supposed to be like this great information were copy-and-paste jobs of 1994 usenet posts.
spending hours and hours developing contacts so you can get a copy of a movie filmed from inside a theater.
yeah, that'll hurt the industry.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well, that's a great way to portray yourself to the world. Yep, sounds like Linux users are a bunch sweaty, movie-stealing, game-theiving copyright-infriging hairly smelly hippies.
Nothing like reinforcing a stereotype on a Saturday night.
Back in the day, these sites were run on BBSs whose phone numbers were non-published and which only a few people had access to. These days it's FTP sites, but the principle is the same. And frequently it's not their own FTP sites, but someone else's site which isn't properly secured, but this happens more at the lower levels.
Anyway, the networks run the same as they always have. You're either in or you're out. And most people are out.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Without the threat of piracy, its a good bet that CD's and DVD prices would be 50-100% higher than they are today.
If economics and history teach us anything, its that producers of any product, whether its widgets or music, or movies, will raise the price as high as they can in the absence of any competition.
Since Government sponsered "Intellectual Property" is a defacto monopoly supported by the government, the only relief we have is to just grab the stuff if they charge too much.
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You live with your parents?
" so many problems for our friends at Valve"
Valve is a business. They're not your pal, they're not your relative, they're not the cool people next door.
They're a business that is out to make money. Never forget that about any company. Even Apple.
I think I just read about these guys in The Da Vinci Code.
.. not 'shadow internet'.
Virtual Private Network.
The oh-so subtle difference between positions (shadow internet vs. VPN) is that if someone does a google for VPN, they'll realize just how damn easy it is.
"Shadow Internet"-way just sounds comic-book super-hero, and as we all know thats as literary as most peoples thoughts go, it won't be obvious that 'any joe can build their own private and secret Internet on top of the Internet'.
(Not just 'elite techno-psycho-fascist' types hell-bent on destroying 'systems'. *Anyone*.)
Obscure, eh?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Anyway, I always wondered that is they kept things such a secret, how does *anyone* find out about them, or get access to them, etc. I used to own a local ISP, had dual T1's and dealt with thousands of users and net-friends, spent sleepness nights +O on numerous icr #'s /ctcp & /dcc and fserving what I could get and give back... but nothign worked. And hell, at that time I was merely looking for early release of OS's, prior to buying them so that I could get a techincal jump on questions from customers who were running those OS's. I always bought my software, I merely liked being ahead of the game.
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
Don't make me laugh. Anyone who belives for a moment that geeks racing each other to crack warez are going to defend their 'turf' with contracts against journalists is a fool.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
These villians have resorted to Gopherspace! No one will ever find them now.
If you do this, that would make the MPAA and the others "THE LIGHT" of the Internet. This makes me want to up-chuck TocoBell food and re-eat it.
And by that I mean AGE old struggle.
Every pirate eventually hits puberty, discovers girls, and suddenly has better things to do then rip off "da man". Just like almost all those hippies are now lawyers.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
wired doesn't seem like the most honest magazine to me. they hype a lot of their stuff. about a year ago they had something about some programmer who was supposedly setting up cladestine gambling servers for the mob. no way to verify these stories, and obviously sensational. you make the connection
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
Mess with the best, die like the rest.-Crash_Override
Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb...
This article, and whoever it was they interviewed... really has some of these guys pissed off. http://www.vcdquality.com/index.php?page=nfo&id=46 020
The article didn't mention The Brains - the crackers who break the copy protections for games/apps or The Carders - people who use stolen credit cards to purchase a valid serial # for games/apps. Insiders are pretty rare.
And what's with the glorification? It's pretty boring stuff, expect when two groups release the same thing just a few minutes apart. You mainly sit in front of IRC all day long. In the Western countries it may be about bragging rights and prestige. In Asia, these releases are big business for a lot of computer stores. You feed your ego, they feed their family. What a waste of time.
With what's left of P2P from the glory days, what do you expect from a bunch of ppl not wanting to get sued.
This was brought to you buy the Department of Redundancy Department
At that level of the game, it doesn't really matter what the bits are. It's about controlling the flow of the data. I really think at that level, they could care less whether the files eventually hit P2P or not. I'm sure there is a lot of stuff that no one really cares about (Gigli, anyone?), but it's new and it's important/valuable data to someone.
The upper reaches of the network are a "darknet," hidden behind layers of security. The sites use a "bounce" to hide their IP address, and members can log in only from trusted IP addresses already on file. Most transmissions between sites use heavy-duty encryption. Finally, they continually change the usernames and passwords required to log in.
I would think they'd just use freenet, tor or i2p and be done with it?
So the pirate the feds arrested, interrogated, and impounded in April, but didn't file charges yet against, is the Half-life guy. That narrows it down quite a bit.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
we read this the week before it was published.
THE INSIDER: Industry and theater employees run their own straight-to-video operations. Hackers looking for prerelease videogames target company servers. And before that long-awaited CD hits Amazon.com, moles inside disc-stamping plants have already got a copy.
Big deal - we had these 20 years ago, in 1985! Wired news, always on the cutting edge.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Hmmm, once again a post about piracy seems to be populated with replies warning about The Danger, and telling how some guy has mended his ways and now refuses to be a pirate. Coincidence? An attempt to make file sharing seem a lot more risky than it is?
Don't these posts seem to have a real "Reefer Madness" feel to them?
What the Wired article really demonstrates is how it will continue to be difficult if not impossible to stop electronic piracy.
Even though I don't condone such theft, and would prefer that all media be acquired through legitimate channels, the fact is that the genie is out of the bottle. The folks who like to distribute music, film, and warez will continue to stay one technological step ahead of the RIAA, MPAA, and the police.
Three Squirrels
Or run by Dick Cheney from a secure location?
What is it with Vice Presidents getting all the crap jobs?
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
My bad; I thought the Slashdot story was about this article.
Those damn internet criminals that take from the rich and give to the poor. How dare they be romanticized.
the guy who git half-life was german, and was arrested by the german police after the Germans learned that an American(HINT: it was his computer that was comprimised) was trying to lure hime to the states so the FBI could arrest him.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'd imagine there are probably about 10 - 15 major peering points for traffic exchange in the global internet (more, less, you tell me?) It would be very simple for law enforcement to do a quick top 100 users graph from those points, a little bit of correlation, weed out the obviously ok sites (CERN, etc) and voila! Your users exchanging gigs of data on a steady basis and out like sore thumbs. Then the Feds drop by for a closer look...
Has everyone forgotten that what appears to be a point to point connection in fact travels over many public routers, each of which are subject to whatever level of scrutiny it's owner feels like applying? They might not be able to tell exactly what you're exchanging, but based on timing and size, can make a decent guess.
My wife left a book someplace, and asked me to go get it. I spent 1.5 hours in traffic.
I got home and told her, next time I'll just work an extra hour. That way I can buy you a new book, and 4 more books for me.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"These people are highly organized and very paranoid about secrecy."
That`s why they made Wired.
Am I the only one here old enough to remember Bulletin Boards and the 0-day-warez BBS's that cracked C=64 games on the day they were released?
In those days you had to be ElYte! to download at 1200 baud and you had the famous upload/download ratios.
And their system was usually even more secure and secret than what these so-called hackers have now -- usually because you had to know the sysop personally to get on those BBS systems.
However, if you were a decent social engineer, or just a decent chatter, you could usually talk you way into those places.
So really, what is the difference between now and then? The downloads are larger, the bandwidth is higher, the networks are more connected, but that's about it. It's basically the same stuff that been going on since the mid-80's and even before that (when people copied paper tape).
Why does "Wired" have to play it up like it's some cool new thing? Because piracy now is mainstream, and everyone wants to get into the action?
It's only a matter of time before we have a reality-TV show about this kind of lifestyle. But what the real dummies don't understand is that this is the same culture that has existed for decades.
How lame.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Isn't it possible that such a powerful and exclusive ruling group of warez illuminati could have supplied this reporter with false information? A supposed squealer dishing out red herrings? Or perhaps there are two duelling top-level release organizations and one is trying to rat the other out.
I'll choose mine.
Businesses may have a primary aim of making money but they are made of people too and those people do have an effect on how a company behaves, especially in smallish companies. There's no harm in supporting and appreciating a good company. At the very least it gives them some encouragement them to keep being good.
I don't know much about Valve and I've never played one of their games but they look like people trying hard to produce good software. There's no shame in liking that.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
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This is kinda funny to see.. However, anyone who has spent time roaming IRC knows this already. We have all been DCC'd a master list of FTP servers by some form of social engineering or another, or simply seen a list of what these servers contain.. Honestly, I think the real 'romantic pirates' are the guys actually ripping this stuff and selling it. You think they do it for free? Perhaps..
Hrrm... I usually just sign my name.
What?
Cogito, ergo sig.
DISCLAIMER: I`m not in any way part of the scene, so everything I say may be uninformed and wrong.
.nfo file?
This "pirate" network or "the scene" isn`t that hidden at all.
I`m pretty sure every slashdotter at least knows someone who knows someone who is in some way part of the scene. If a 14 y/o with some talent and enough free time can make it into the scene, so can almost anybody.
And from the very beginning of the scene when software was traded via snail mail the scene always needed new people because most people retire from the scene at some point of their lives.
And what is so secret about a group of people who don`t even release something without an
IMHO it is still pretty easy to get into the scene and maybe even into some higher ranks if you can provide anything scene groups need.
But that is not the point, the point is that they are still secret and paranoid enough that they will stay as long as they want.
If one group falls there will pop up three new ones.
You can almost compare it to how other illegal things are distributed. And you don`t think that any 14y/o will ever have any problems to get some weed, do you?
That said, please stop calling them "pirates", they don`t have ships, they don`t wear eye patches and peg legs and they don`t kill and rape. They are just some high level copyright infringers. And you can even argue about if copyright infringement is wrong at all.
What else do Santa's elves have to do in the off season, besides calibrating funny dice?
--
make install -not war
It shows an innocent-looking list of files from an FTP site. The uppermost file says, "Hellboy.SCREENER.Proper.READ NFO PRE VCD." Translation: The DVD of one of the year's biggest box office hits has been pirated two months before its intended release date. "The FBI would kill to be sitting here looking at this," he says.
Can't FBI wiretap all his network data by getting a warrant for the ISP and break in??
I would think they'd just use freenet, tor or i2p and be done with it?
Or how about just sftp? The original "darknet" paper and articles suggested that filesharing would turn into from large anonymous groups to small groups of people that knew each other and were suspicious of newcomers
I remember discussions of ftp servers used for small sharing "clubs" and I can't figure out why sftp isn't used for this. Knowing how to set up OpenSSH properly is a widely held skill that has value outside "piracy." Use DSA authentication instead of passwords for a start.
It should be nearly impossible for outsiders to gain net access to the server. The mere presence of a secured box shouldn't be enough for court ordered physical accesss. While it's also possible to have encrypted filesystems, if they can get my box out of my house, I fscking give up.
I'm planning to write an sftp "browser" front end in python or maybe just figure out how to use rsync over an ssh tunnel.
Traffic analysis in the absence of IP "bouncing" (whatever that is) could reveal who's in the network, but not what they're trading. A "chatter" app that keeps the channels full of noise (or files- who's to know?) could make traffic analysis more difficult. I'd be willing to sacrifice download time so my real downloads can be hidden in an always-on 16kbps stream. I'm trying to share my 20GB of rock with a friend who has 50GB of jazz. If it takes a couple of weeks to exchange collections, that's OK.
Maybe we should just FedEx hard drives to each other.
I like bluegrass music, you insensitive clod!
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
"In fact, Forest freely admits to being a supplier. "I have bought everything from hard drives to complete computers for various people in the scene. I've probably bought 15 camcorders alone." He says he considers it a business expense, and writes it off on his taxes."
Wouldn't this be tax fraud? I'd think the FBI could pull a Capone on his ass and use him as the link to the topsites. I don't think the IRS would consider copyright violation a legitimate business. I certainly wouldn't shed a tear if he were busted for either copyright violation or tax fraud.
Elder statesman? He sounds like a poseur or wannabe that might have known someone who might have sortof known of someone else that was a courier for one of the second rate cracker networks who distributed their warez to ftp sites, newsgroups and other BBSs in their network.
It's somehow strangely comforting to know that not much has changed since I ran a dial-up BBS as well as the fact that Wired is still doing retreads of old news.
Thus spake the SysGoddess
Inside the Shadow Internet
That would make a nice SOUTH PARK episode title.
And judging from a previous SOUTH PARK episodes that dealt with copyright infringement and it`s socially context it might even be more insightful than a Wired article.
There was an article like this about the warez group in the summer 2004 issue of 2600. The difference being it was less sensationalized and more specific, going into more detail about FXP and IRC chans.
We'll double nail them with a slashdot effect for complaining. I love your work man.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
The Shadow Internet is just like the real internet, except we all have goatees.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
So very true. I remember I was talking to some ops on this channel calle-*NO CARRIER*
If I wanted to become a "courier" how could I go about doing that?
Did anyone else's bullshit detector get pegged by this?...
...Specificly, the "almost a year of reprogramming" part.
It seems that when people hear that the HL2 code was "stolen", they interpret that in the literal sense. It was "taken" from Valve so they had to "reprogram" it because they didn't have it anymore. This bogon seems to appear even among people who should know better (like Wired reporters).
I guess Orwell was right: Control language, control thought.
Imagine how productive OSS developers would be if they didn't "give away" all of their source code with every new version.
Without this duplication and distribution structure providing content, the P2P networks would run dry.
Holy flying pony... is the Wired author clueless...
I never realized how sad and pathetic the warez scene really is. A bunch of kids with only goal in their lives: to release warez! The saying "get a life" really takes on a new meaning. Hopefully, they'll all go to prison.
"Wouldn't this be tax fraud? "
Why should that be surprising? If an individual has demonstrated (repeatedly) that they don't give a damn about societies laws? Why should we be surprised that they would violate one or more of the other laws? Copyright infringement is a gateway crime to other crimes. Some harder than others. This is why I lamented awhile back that illegal P2Pers were trashing their futures, in exchange for some entertainment. No longer will they be trusted with anything, and it'll remain like a dark skeleton. Waiting to be used against them by the unscrupulous (I know what you did last summer.)
...because it's not about a book, it's about whether you care enough about her to go get that book.
And to think, it only took 19 years of marriage for me to learn this.
... Doing a "user graph" like you say could be done, but it wouldn't be that easy. Think of how much data is going through the Mayes, or other major "junctions" of the Internet (big "I"). Granted every individual packer will have a source and a destination address, but the sheer number of packets going through these routers makes it difficult to do such large statistical analysis. That's not to say its impossible, just rather difficult.
Not to mention the legality of doing something like that. Courts don't issue search warrants for fishing expiditions, and although the government may be able to get into a Maye without a warrant, when two private ISPs meet up, they might not want to let them in.
And you can say Carnivoure all you like, but it looks for specific things and logs them. It examines everything and discards all but a small portion. Thats very different that keeping a small record of everything.
Encrpytion also makes any scrutiny irrelevant. Not to mention that most people want a privacy policy saying that not everything they do on line will be observed by Big Brother.
It's possible, but if it were simple, the Feds would be doing it.
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
care to link this ludlow affair?
"...Specificly, the "almost a year of reprogramming" part."
Depends on what was "reprogrammed"? Maybe since piracy effectively reduced the value of the product to zero. They spent a year putting value back into the product.
"Imagine how productive OSS developers would be if they didn't "give away" all of their source code with every new version."
OSS developers aren't a business, and aren't constrained by it's precepts.
"They maintain a hidden network of top-level FTP sites that get the best files first and allow them to trickle down the pyramid [...]"
Because there are sites that are called top sites doesn`t mean scene FTP sites are hirarchically organised. They are most certainly not.
If they would be they all would be gone a long time ago.
The best and most popular clubs in a town might be called "top clubs" by those who frequent them, but that doesn`t mean they control all other clubs in town or are directly connected with them in any way.
On a site note, it is pretty obvious that most content on top sites and p2p networks is originally leaked by journalists and other people that have pre release access to software, movies, music, etc...
Anarchy has no rules? Who made up that rule .. and is that why you all use that A in a circle logo?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Well that sure makes it two of us...
This guy's business is to tell the industry what the scene is doing. Keeping contacts in the scene by buying a camcorder is no different then taking somebody out to a fine restuarant. It could actually be legit.
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
Well stop looking and go to http://dcplusplus.sourceforge.net Direct Connect is your daddy and the secret is out. Want to be on top without any work? http://www.keydesigns.biz Order a dc server for as low as 15 dollars a month, heck they will even fill your hub up with users free of charge. Small contribution = unlimited amounts of unconditional access to shared files. Then again you can always be just a user and build up your stash to get into more exclusive hubs with better releases. My advise, start at the top and get what you want.
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
If it's these stupid kids I've run across on IRC, there's nothing elite about it... just a bunch of people stealing movies, and the kids on the university connections with more bandwidth get distro privileges. Until they get caught and expelled, of course.
The late '80s was after a "generation" of pirates had been and gone; Apple II pirate boards, etc. If he's mid 40s in age and he got into it late '80s, he wasn't trying very hard.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Robin Hood didn't take from the rich and give to the poor; he took from the tax collectors and gave to the taxed.
Now, it turns out that most of the taxed were poor and most of the tax collectors were rich (or those working for the rich), but Robin Hood did not steal from, say, merchants and traders, who were better-off than average, nor did he give to beggars, who were worse-off than average.
Robin Hood should be romanticized because he fought against unfair taxation, not because of the rich-to-poor myth.
(Also, when he finally (re)gained his earlship, it wouldn't surprise me if his moral outlook changed and he engaged in some taxation himself.)
Note that the actions of these "pirates" and their cheerleaders has actually caused unfair taxation in places like Canada and Germany, in the form of tariffs on CDR media, computers, etc.
They should not be applauded.
Please do not take the above as an endorsement of the RIAA and MPAA and their non-American equivalents, who have engaged in some very scummy, immoral, sleazy, unethical, slimy activities.
Deciding who to root for in this conflict is like trying to decide who to root for in a conflict between the KKK and the Black Panthers in the 1960s and 1970s, or between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, or between Bush and Gore/Kerry in the 2000s, or between the Israeli Defense Force and the PLO at the current time, etc.
Oh, one final thing: the copyright violators do not "take [steal] from the rich and give to the poor"; they steal from rich (??AA executives and lawyers, movie and record studios, A-list actors and musicians, etc.) and poor (non-A-list actors and musicians, extras, grips, concession stand operators, roadies, grunts who work in your local record store/DVD rental place/movie theater, etc.) alike, and give to all, rich or poor (but not too poor to be able to afford computers), who are willing to compromise their integrities by downloading copyrighted material to which they are not entitled.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I wish you had have been around when Ghandi was alive to tell him that.
some parts seem to be copied almost verbatim...
If you had a good 300 baud modem and adjustable hardware/software at both ends, you could crank them up to 450 baud. Woohoo!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
No, it's a VPN, one of the other "internets" that President Bush mentioned.
ssh allows to remotely run processes (maybe why ftp is used instead of sftp, because sftp requires ssh access). This is already used directly by things like sshfs. Why write a new browser when you can just use Nautilus on a mounted sshfs?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
There is no doubt distributing material which you do not have the rights to do is theft. This is wrong and illegal behavior. But like prohibition, when enough people do it the only answer is to make it legal to do it, but the key is to profit and control it. Liquor stores and distilleries now pay taxes. And in most US states (but not Kanada) it is legal to distil for personal use. The rum runners and gangsters, even the Kennedy's went legit. So why does the industry not allow us to download movies in an open format that works on Linux, OS X and Windows? Perhaps sign our name into the copy on download and allow us to download it for the cost of a DVD rental and allow coping to a PC or video player as needed providing it is for your own use? And do it so the customers like it. Hey, this maybe good for another useless patent? RIAA and MPAA SS tactics only cost money and keep lawyers and macavellian types happy but is doomed to fail because it does not address the social causes of the issue. And they are not always right. If they detect a lot of VPN traffic from my system and I copying as video or uploading a Linux or Solaris ISO images? But the whole industry needs to look at why people are doing this and adapt their marketing model to suit. Might I suggest plain old ISO DVD images or MPEG for download? You could have an image and stego the licensee into it and in years to come players could display the "Licensed to John W Smith... report violations to 1-800-123-MPAA". I sure would not let my images get out as I could loose my download privileges. Make it attractive. I hate going to Blockbuster when it is -29 degrees Celsius and snowing to return videos or eat late fees. My bet is if I could download first run movies for $5.00 and get older ones for $1.50 to $2.50 then I would call it my movie source of choice. It would also be worth $12 to download a season of Star Trek. Keep in mind, SBC and others make money at nicles but billions in the bank as so many us it. Change the business model
I`ve read about it`s etymology once. And IIRC it was used to shed a bad light on copyright infringers from the very beginning. So from my point of view it never was a vox medium and never was accurate in that context.
So old or not, one shouldn`t call copyrigth infringers "pirates". The word "nigger" is also a very old word, but I think we can be glad that it isn`t used by the media anymore to describe a group of people.
I also love the quote: Valve stood helplessly by watching its big Christmas blockbuster turn into a lump of coal
Ease up on the melodrama man, Valve is doing JUST FINE.
Gee whiz ladies and gents...
I'm not the smartest geek on the planet but this sounds like another run of the mill law enforcement/media tag-team.
They know we geeks are parinoid. Probably because simple psychology will tell you anyone doing something they KNOW is wrong will be paranoid. So tell the world there's a mole, make em more paranoid hoping it might slow traffic by creating discent in the ranks. If they're _REALLY_ lucky someone will crack and they might actually get in... (NOT!)
I wonder how much wired got paid to run that article?
Now that I posted to slashdot I better find my asbestos underwear and my titanium/berrilum alloy helmet to protect me from the orbital mind control lasers.
Cheers,
Kili
As Stallman (Free Software, Free Society; pp. 190-191) said, calling it piracy implies that unauthorized copying is tantamount to armed robbery, kidnap, and murder on the high seas. They both involve theft of a sort -- but are vastly different. Copyright infringement generally involves cheating someone out of their rightful royalties; piracy involves depriving sailors and their employers of life, liberty, or property (maybe all three!) without due process of law. I'd say that copyright infringement is not morally tantamount to this.
i'm not making a case that what the warez pirates do is legit, i'm just making a case for a genuine philosophical difference, which DOES have trickle down implications for legal/ social differences, whether you admit to it in the spirit of intellectual honesty or not:
if you steal a laptop, you have one laptop. you will only have one laptop. the person you stole it from will have one less laptop. and it's difficult: you have to grab the laptop and run, in the real world, as yourself, risking physical meatspace repercussions.
but if you steal a song, you have as many copies of that song as you like. and the person you stole the song from still has that song. and it's effortless: hit a few buttons, and thousands of other people also have that song. and there are no cyberspace repercussions for this, perhaps even benefits such as a higher ranking or something (maybe real world repercussions of course though).
again, i am not making a case for this to be legit, i am just saying in the interest of intellectual honesty that "stealing atoms" is nothing like "stealing" bits, not at all.
so maybe the word "stealing" should apply to only atoms, and we need a new word to describe what this effortless copying of bits is that still has real world property implications, and i just don't know what that word is, but we need a new word here.
because to call stealing atoms to be the same thing as disallowed effortless copying of bits is not intellectually honest.
yes, we are talking about something bad and immoral, and we are talking about something that should have legal ramifications, but it is not honest to call what the warez pirates are doing to be "stealing."
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And there I thought I was using apostrophes for apostrophes.
You mean it will be signed? Why then, even Microsoft would have to approve!
English is easier said than done.
The very end of the article mentions how "Forest" has setup a company to promote stuff by actually seeding the topsites:
"The topsites don't care where their files come from, as long as no one else has them," he says. Last summer Jun Group dropped a collection of live videos and MP3s from Steve Winwood on the topsites. "We got 2.9 million downloads," says Forest, "and album sales took off."
It is interesting this guy could even find a client for his promotion methods given the outrage towards piracy within the industry.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
How do you type with boxing gloves on?
"Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health."
Nowhere on their website do I seem to be able to find a reason why the good health of the biosphere is both mutually exclusive with and more important than the continued survival of even a reduced-population human race.
+++ATH0
You could re-phrase "Shadow Internet" as "the dark side of the internet". It has nothing to do with a network within a network, and everything to do with living in the shadow of the internet where you cannot see unless you are brought there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's a commonly held belief that P2P is about sharing files. It's an appealing, democratic notion: Consumers rip the movies and music they buy and post them online. But that's not quite how it works. In reality, the number of files on the Net ripped from store-bought CDs, DVDs, and videogames is statistically negligible. People don't share what they buy; they share what is already being shared - the countless descendants of a single "Adam and Eve" file
Let's start with reason #1 for going to a filesharing network, YOU CAN'T GET IT LOCALLY OR AT ALL. Nowhere is this mentioned. Nor is the fact that only a tiny fraction of all media is still in commercial production. More importantly, I'm not going to find music from non RIAA acts in a music store or at WalMart. P2P is the only way to get music out of production and a good way to get new music by acts that are as good or better than monopoly pushed crap.
The whole purpose of copyright protection is to encourage publication, but file sharing turns that on it's head. Encouragement has traditionally been done by granting an exclusive franchise to the author. Authors never had much bargaining power, and now have virtually none, thanks to media consolidation brought on by insane copyright laws. The point of the exclusive franchise was to allow the publisher to recoup the price of the publication and make a little money, some of which might actually trickle down to the author. But today, THE COST OF PUBLICATION IS ESSENTIALLY ZERO. The whole basis of granting exclusive franchises in the first place has dissapeared.
Today, copyright is more restrictive than ever but it's not working. While media companies are indeed enjoying "best years ever" and record profits, they do so at everyone else's cost and fail while doing so. The very fact that people go to to P2P shows that traditional publishing is not meeting people's needs. The vast majority of YOUR CULTURE has been locked away in vaults, unpublished, until it has lost it's social relevance.
You say,
I don't condone such theft, and would prefer that all media be acquired through legitimate channels.
If you don't believe in theft, you should avoid all RIAA and MPAA publications. They are the biggest thieves of all. Support a local band or one that's giving it's music away by going to a show. You might be able to find them right there on your P2P client.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That part was rediculous. The thought that it was the leak of the source code that would have unleased a wave of cheaters - instead of the wave of cheaters you always get anyway because games like these are never designed with any kinds of real security.
I think they just were not done and used that as an excuse.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A few examples:
I think the writer desprarately tried to write something interesting and almost failed. Then he spiced it up so badly that it seems a pale shadow aof reality. He should have kept writing about desalination.
Ah yeah, the mythical movie/music pirate pyramid distribution network. If there is one, the RIAA/MPAA or it's employees are the ones feeding the first layer. That's why the author was talking to some supposed "elder statesman" and uses the word "Pirate". Arrrr, me hardies!
The article intentionally ignores lots of things. Fundamental issues, the fact that you can get out of publication music on P2P, and the whole CD and DVD publishing industry that exists without computer networks. Those out of publication files were not put up by someone who broke into some server someplace, they were put there by someone who had they record. DVDs and CDs from intentional production over runs and other publications are in markets all over the world. It's not just in 3rd world markets either. I know a local store owner who got burnt by his supplier who sent him unlicensed coppies of Windoze. The packages were identical and there was no way he or the supplier could tell the difference. It took him years and nearly all of his money to beat Microsoft in Federal court. All of these little issues ignore the real change that's happened in publishing. The cost of publishing has gone to zero and the encouragement for publication needs to fall in proportion. It's silly that while publication is cheaper than ever, copyright is stricter than ever.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Say what you want about the greedy "rich people," they got to be that way by trade, not theft.
Most of the large fortunes you can name were reaped through amoral or unethical means.
Warren Delano (as in, Delano Roosevelt) got his money through the opium business.
Joseph Kennedy was involved not only in some shady stock deals, but later ballooned his fortune with alcohol during Prohibition.
John Jacob Astor made his initial fortune trading alcohol for furs with native americans.
Bill Gates bought QDOS from Tim Paterson for a pittance, only to license it to IBM for millions.
Of course, one could argue that these men weren't actually breaking any laws, they were simply taking advantage of the situations at hand while disregarding moral or ethical constraints that might bind us "normal" (read: unsuccessful) folk.
I actually loved the article. It was a cool read regardless of it's accuracy. I'm not into any of this distro-piriting-p2p stuff, but I know a few people who are and seem to almost live for it. My old apartment building was all networked via ethernet cables dropping out of windows and off balconys. The bulding was nextdoor to the ****** ambasadors residence and we picked up a wifi signal from their providers. Once the guys at the building figured out where the signal came from, they rented out an office in the building itself on the side facing our building block. (Its the Casablanca building by the GTS server-farm at the Zelivskeho Metro stop- that's a little guess the country trivia for anyone who might be reading) They then bought highpower wifi equipment and linked up our building directly to the buildings line. As I recall they never returned to the office, they just used the rented office to set up a large antenna to hook us up. I don't know how fast the connection was in technical terms, but we had almost as many movies and new releases online at our house as the big videostore i regularly rented at (before I moved to this place of course). Interestingly enough, (or unforutnatly enough) I figured out they were also responsible for quite a high volume of spam once my isp starting informing me that my Ip was regularly being blacklisted by spamcop and then relisted. Go figure.
We did the same, using tapes (Travan) - good old days.
stupid HTML... supposed to be
<AOL Voice>
omg dawg u got to tell me the keyword for the shadow intarweb thing!!!!!!!!! that sounds so kewl!!!!!!!!
k thx
</AOL Voice>
http://topsites.bvdesigns.net/?uid=2934
Hard to get into? Pfft. No damn way.
Back in my callow college years, I was a ripper for EPiC. I only did three or four releases; I was flush with the success of having learned to encode amateur porn using DivX (these were the heady days when DivX 3.11 with all that toolkit crap on top of it was the preferred encoding solution), and I put it to use.
The guys had an ad on one of the XDCC channels---#imp-iso on EFNet, if I recall---asking for encoders. So I joined a chat channel, they helped me get set up, I got a Netflix account, and started encoding.
Then Netflix didn't send me the DVDs, and kept charging me until I notified my card company and they stopped the autopayment. I don't know if it's changed since then, but there was no fucking way to get in touch with Netflix.
But in the meantime, I had ratio access to some great big FTP dump in Europe. I was, at the time, frickin' amazed at how easy it was, and how clearly the feds either (a) didn't care, at that point, or (b) were horribly inept. I leaned towards (a).
But, indeed, I was impressed at how sophisticated the tools (RaidenFTPD, mostly, seeming way, way better than the basic FTP daemons legit sites used) and organizations were, for people who never bothered to spell right or use there real names.
And it wasn't like it was a really big or impressive group like Centropy. (They were, maybe still are, the guys who had telesync releases of every new movie the week it was in the theater. Watchable ones, which was the impressive part.)
Ah, youth.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
See Walmart et al 2004.
I think you are both ignorant to, and underestimate, the size of the Internet and the shady parts of it.
You are damn right there are darknets, VPNs, and close-knit circles doing questionable trading on the Internet. You would be silly to think otherwise. The demand is there, the interest, the supply, the tools and the willingness of college kids is all there. Of course there are networks like this one in the article.
Don't for a minute, think, that this network is 'big' or alone. Take your 'best guess' at how many darknets you think there are on the net. add a zero, and realize that you haven't even gotten to the elite networks yet.
Something is missing in the report: the business of pirate copies. Sure - it mentiones people who buy camcorders and computers. But how can you pay the traffic? Who pays your lawyer? Will he get a 10000$ camcorder? There are people out there who sell the copies - and they are part of the network.
<? include ('signature.inc'); ?>
The core of the GPL is still 'copyleft': copyright turned upside down. It is all about freedom surviving in a hostile enviroment. At least that is my impression from what I've read and hard about the GPL and Free Software.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
If only all of this effort was better used to produce independent content (movies and games) outside of Hollywood tripe or bland sequels from uninspired game studios, eh?
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
To hear studio executives tell it, the bootleg went straight to the P2P networks and spread like a contagion. "Bullshit," says Forest. "Trying to distribute The Hulk through the P2Ps would take months, not hours."
......
In a 24 hr period wouldn't the distribution be something like 2 to the power 24?
Isn't that like saying P2P isn't capable of doing what it was designed to do?
Start with a one movie/one hour download at midnight. At 1am you have 2 copies, at 3am 4 copies
Plus, according to Nielsen and NPD, there are now 10+ million users on P2P.
They're a business that is out to make money. Never forget that about any company. Even Apple.
Right on. That's what I always say about Apple, when someone tells me how "we only have friends at Apple, right?":
"We might only have friends at Apple, but they only have customers"
(dislaimer yada yada typed on powermac yada yada OS X rocks yada yada)
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
Unfortunately, such torrent files would all have to point to the same tracker; change the tracker, change the signature. Take down the tracker, invalidate all those torrent files.
Of course, you could leave the the tracker address out of the signature - but then the RIAA could simply spread torrent files with honeytrap tracker addresses.
A better solution might be to use Freenet as the distribution method. Sure, it's slow, but:
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
He's found the plagarist.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Note that the actions of these "pirates" and their cheerleaders has actually caused unfair taxation in places like Canada and Germany, in the form of tariffs on CDR media, computers, etc. They should not be applauded.
I'm always annoyed to read things like this. The only people who caused unfair taxation are the lunkheads who actually passed the taxes into laws. They're the ones who should get 100% of the blame.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
"Fridge" Perry, former Chicago Bears linebacker and Super Bowl ring holder, could run 50 yards in less than 5 sec. in spite of an overbearing 400+ pounds of weight.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You have some interesting thoughts, but your arguments are as sloppy as your use of grammar. And for goodness sake, start employing some <BR>'s and <P>'s.
Otherwise, just stop typing. Please.
-FL
Slow doesn't begin to describe it, the ability to access content 100% of the time isn't quite there yet either.
It's better than before, where you would sit for 5 minutes to load a stinking webpages, and you sometimes get decent speeds on large file, but still.
Most clients IIRC will automatically ban dumbshits who are seeding incorrect versions of a file.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
last line re: bittorrent.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
I have been a part of the highest level of the scene. What made me quit the scene was simply the time it took - time which actually wasn't needed for me in order to maintain my high level position - it was the thrill, the amusement and the late nights when the big releases were pre'd. Anyway, I wanted to reply to this thread as I think that not many seem to relize what the scene really is. Being a part of a "elite IRC channel" is NOT the scene. The scene goes beyond this, and these distro sites and channels are the sources that ppl inside the scene sees as the 1st main source of attention to the feds, as its from here the release goes onto P2P and become widly spread (the whole purpose of the scene is to keep it inside the small box, but few individuals makes this impossible, this is alot because of jealousy and the need to brag as these individuals are ppl who are lower down in the scene pyramid.) The scene has become a place of lies and status, and as time has passed MORE money has come to be involved. I think that it has been hard to miss what happend to a few FLT members in Operation FastLink (ironic operation name) - One FLT member had sold access to a pretty big site, one of the topsites (ranked very highly when I was in the scene). I mean paying for access to such a site might not seem like that much, but often a minimum price can be like 1-2TB SCSI drives for 1-2 leech accounts, and that is (think 2 years ago) alot of money. Back to my thoughts about what the scene really is beyond the Topsites (ranked by charts updated weekly, different charts exist depending on release type, i.e. APPS-iSO, iSO (games), MP3 and so on, also site-rings (a number of sites hooked together carrying currier-groups which compete in who's curried the most each week)), and the thousands of smaller sites around. Topsites are managed by different groups, curriers grp with maybe a few releases, but also bigger groups (FLT had their own local sites which the pre'd on to keep the FTL-iSO core secret). These highly ranked sites are very expensive to keep up. The work behind getting one of these running is enormous. The 1st thing which is done is finding the link, offcourse 100mbit+ (2,5Gbit is nice ;)) then it also must be in the right location of the world to get the right affils (groups to pre) on them, I mean having 1-2 .us site's with i.e. MONEY on them is enougth - also, sites compete with each other. After the link is found its speedtested to the high ranked sites around the world - .us --> .nl 7MB/s+ would be considerd 'okay' for a 100mbit (would get the competition in ex. the TV scene started from the dominating LOL group).
Link is fine, then there is all the HW which is required, if u find this guy who is hooked on 2TB 100mbit, you kinda know that its a fed or something is seriously wrong. Anyway, HW is expensive - Getting a damn stable BOX packed with TB's of ususal IDE and some SCSI for that 100mbit is not that cheap. A new site need to have everything to get the grps to affil on it, and off course, whoever is setting everything up needs to know the right ppl to push everything around. Sometimes even trips can be made to the location of the server to get everything right done right (glFTPd and traffic bncers and other various TCLs can be bitchy)... So what are we up for? $3000-4000 for just the set-up? For this HW-suppliers are found (they get leech). BW is usually what comes free in the scence that its leeched on big fat corporate pipes, but transfer would be counted, depending on type of site, from 15TB to 1PB/mnth...
This was only some information that i would like to share to make ppl realise what kinda money is being spent on other things then getting movie-screnners and such (Think about what it costs to maintain the fastest HDTV recorder in the scene)
Its a very secret society were no1 really knows who the other ppl are (some exceptions) - another fact is that the idea was not to make the releases public (isonews, nforce, swedupe, mp3shitter and so on, P2P, stupid egoistic individuals and so on)
I'm though very glad that I quit this nonsense! Happy New Year!
How to loose your job with a single interview.
Bruce Forest, a self-described "elder statesman" in the piracy scene, started ripping and trading in the ancient days of the late '80s. While he no longer actively traffics in bootlegged media, he maintains contacts that give him access to the most exclusive topsites. What the topsites don't know is that three years ago, Forest came in from the cold. "Basically, I'm a double agent," he concedes. "Though I don't fink anyone out. I'm not a cop."
'Forest runs his business from the first floor of his rural Connecticut home. He's in his mid-40s but moves with jerky, adolescent energy. His brown hair is in perpetual disarray, and he pads around his office with bare feet, dressed in cargo shorts and a faded polo. Gold and platinum albums from his days as a producer at Island Records, MCA, and Arista line one wall.'
This story smokes like crack.
For a start the last I read about half-life 2 source was that the game wasn't any where near complete and would have taken a year to get to the state it's currently in.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
From the article:
"30 or so underground, highly secretive servers where nearly all of the unlicensed music, movies, and videogames available on the Internet originate."
"One file became 30 files became 3,000 files became 300,000 files"
"You do not need some 350-pound hit man with a Glock at your front door."
"I hear a soft ping. "That tells me a movie just made its first appearance on a topsite.""
Very nice story. Top it off with a soft ping.
"As a consultant for one of the world's largest entertainment companies, Forest notifies his bosses whenever one of their movies appears on a topsite."
"In 24 hours, SMF's single version of The Hulk had metastasized into at least 50,000 copies. Within 72 hours, the movie was all over the most popular P2P networks. Before it reached even a single shared file folder on Kazaa, Forest estimates there were already several hundred thousand copies in circulation, guaranteeing that casual computer users would be able to find and download it easily."
OK, the guy gets financed as a consultant by the large record companies and they give him enough money so that he can not only afford a nice living and very expensive hardware, he also takes money he gets from the movie/record industry and donates hardware to piracy groups, just like other rich patrons do.
Also tens of thousands of little "helpers" race to put a new file that "trickled down" on more and more online space. Where would they put it? Certainly not their own servers that they rented. Did they crack their own computers and installed ftps on them? Do they own botnets?
P2P is there for a reason. My brother does Kazaa and they don't really dl movies off this. The eDonkey networks do. And the distribution is really simple. Just take a hub at some college with a fat connection and the eDonkey protocol (forced upload of at least the file you just dl, somewhat like torrents) and the clients will do the rest for this eDonkey hub. Though I certainly believe
""Bullshit," says Forest. "Trying to distribute The Hulk through the P2Ps would take months, not hours." That's because files on the public file-sharing networks, where no single node is much more powerful than the next, spread at a glacial pace."
that, modern p2p doesn't work this way anymore. Direct Connect and eDonkey or BitTorrent are not Gnutella anymore. Forest puts the right word at the beginning of this paragraph.
"The top telesync groups, like Centropy, VideoCD, and TCF, are using $10,000 camcorders they get directly from Japan, cams you can't find in the US," says Frank. The least desirable releases are "cams," made by an audience member with a camcorder.
I ask Frank how his group could afford such exotic toys. "People buy them for us," he says, as if this explains everything. "Usually, these people were in the scene at one time, and now they just want free downloads without having to contribute." As it turns out, much of the extensive hardware - from superfast processors to servers with terabytes of storage - are donated by these well-heeled patrons.
Do topsites exist? Certainly! Specialized rippers? Absolutely! But is there a vast conspiracy with topsites for every genre with an organized hierarchy of thousands of people toiling away to pirate every singe piece of IP on the market like the article suggests? I don't think so!
Some genres have fans. Some of those organize and make topsites. But from there on I don't believe in thousands of little racers mainly because modern p2p apps are way beyond this.
Huh. I thought the Shadow Internet was just an informal name given to gestalt of all the packets that have the Evil Bit set.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Except that freenet wants to use 30 times as much bandwidth as you, the user, actually download.
Download a 700 meg movie, and expect to use 20 gigs worth of bandwidth.
So, while the "lunkheads" who passed these unfair taxes into law do deserve part of the blame, the blame must be shared with the special-interest groups and the copyright infringers.
An analogy is the increasingly totalitarian legislation that has been passed in the USA and some other countries since September 11, 2001.
Congress and the President are largely responsible for the increasing erosion of our civil rights, but they would not have been able to enact such measures if it hadn't been for the terrorists.
The blame for the increasing totalitarianism of our federal government must therefore be shared among Congress, the President, countries harboring terrorists, and the terrorists themselves.
Similarly, the blame for DMCA, CDR tariffs, etc., must be shared among the various legislative bodies, the **AA and their equivalents in other nations, and the copyright infringers themselves.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I remember these days from 1980's with Commodore 64 and Amiga.
I knew a guy who would upload new games to BBS boards (pre internet) to get points. He would use points to dl new content to upload at other boards. Do this enough and he would accumulate games galore.
In the days of the C64 I seldom played games, merely collected them. I spent more time trying to fit as many games on one floppy than I ever did playing them. This mentality was extremely prevalent and still is in heavy downloader circles.
This is why I laugh myself silly whenever I hear the powers that be claim every download was a lost sale.
During my ealry teens when this was going on. I noted that the games I played the most were the ones I bought. Because if they were really good, I wanted the manual/maps etc.
Even with hundreds of "pirate" games backed up on C64 floppies, the games I spent serious play time with were the few that I actually purchased.
Today I have much more money than time to play games,I don't collect downloads anymore, but I still have a use for Warez. Try before buy. Since you can't return a game for being crap, a consumer needs some way to protect himself. Sometimes I buy on reputation alone, but I still DL cracks to make the game more usable (no cd type things).
If the warez community were to fall, I would be very saddened by its loss of the valuable service it provides in consumer protection.
I was a member of the scene for roughly 3 years and I got out of it a couple of months before the busts that took down Fairlight (Operation Fastlink). While the Wired article certainly is the most accurate summation of the scene that I've read, there are some glaring errors...
.nfo/.diz/.sfv.6 020
:( Personally, I don't know anyone who supplied hardware. But some of the servers for the sites were as big as closets and held 2+ terabytes of data, so someone had to be buying all of the equipment.
f acto2.net/
Page 1...
-There are not 30 topsites. There are at least 10 in each country, with many more in the connected European nations. While not all of these sites are as respected as the others, they all would receive the releases within *minutes* of it being first released (pre'd). I can remember that the mags that ranked couriers used at least 30 ranked sites. The highly-exclusive Checkpoint dupecheck also scanned more than 30 sites.
-I don't know Frank and I was never on Anathema, but he would not have just posted the HL2 source code as is. He would have "released" it with proper zipping and an nfo. Also, adding "yo" to the end of a phrase for emphasis has been out of style for a while. Rarely did I encounter a scener who used a lot of slang or 'leet speak.
-"Darknet" sounds a little extreme. However, someone told me that after the DoD busts in December '01 (when the whole scene basically shut down for a few days) the amount of data being transferred through the 'net decreased by some incredible amount, on the order of 10%.
-Sites did use bnc's and ssl. I never recall changing my password though. Updating my IP address on all the sites was the real pain.
Page 2...
-The full release name of the Hellboy screener that Forest talked about was: Hellboy.SCREENER.Proper.READNFO-MaTinE. I don't know why it would have "pre vcd" in it. Sites were anal about preserving the original folder name and
-In regards to the Hulk release, the article makes it sound as if sceners hear about releases "through the grapevine." On the contrary, everything is automated. If you hang out in one of the dupecheck chans/site chans releases are announced the instant a folder is created. And again, it's not within an hour, its within in 10 minutes. It's pretty damn easy to transfer files at 10MB/s+, especially when you have couriers competing from across the globe (so different connections/routings).
-I laughed when I read that "half the kids in the scene work at Best Buy or Blockbuster to get their hands on stuff they can release." These stores don't get movies months early. And not all sceners are kids.
-Frank sounds pretty dubious. MaTinE has put out a release saying they were not involved at all with the interview. Available here: http://www.vcdquality.com/index.php?page=nfo&id=4
Page 3...
-No one ever bought anything for me in the scene
-Kevin sounds dubious as well. He's a member of a release group... yet he's not on good sites... but somehow he performs his job as a courier. Doesn't add up. The 1:3 ratio is accurate, but anyone who isn't a courier and possesses some kind of skill, gets an unlimited or leech account.
Page 4...
-The exclusive relationships are called "affiliations." Typically groups have one in each country.
Final commments...
I look back fondly on my scene days. While I would never go back to my position, it was a fun experience. There is something exciting about breaking a serial number scheme, writing a keygenerator, and then seeing the product of your labor distributed and glorified. The members of my group were all exceptionally nice and intelligent guys. We were all laid back about things and never spent more than 1-2 hours on scene stuff a day. Of course, having access to releases the second they came out was a nice perk, but I thoroughly enjoyed the friendship and the reverse engineering.
And no, I'm not pimply or ugly or fat or weird. I have a nice family, nice girlfriend, and go to one of the best universities in the country.
More stuff...
http://www.welcometothescene.com
http://www.de
-F
This is fun! Here's another analogy:
When I was about 15, I drove my bicycle at high speed into a parked van because I was daydreaming and nearly broke my leg. It never would have happened if the van had been parked there. If the library had been closed, I wouldn't have been daydreaming in the first place, etc. The blame for my accident must therefore be shared among myself, the owner of the van, the library, the manufacturer of my bicycle, my parents, and the city.
Oh wait, no, that doesn't make any sense.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
"But they wouldn't have passed the taxes into law if they hadn't been pressured by special-interest groups, and the special-interest groups would not have pressured them if people had not been engaging in copyright infringement."
The special interest groups are big media corporations and this unfair taxation changes were done in Canada before there was any large scale net RobinHooding (from now on I use this more proper term in place of the corporate medias "pirate").
It was done as a response to fair use. You might make a mixed CD for your car thus depriving them of the right to charge you twice for using the same song, therefore the tax everyone buy CD's, blank tapes etc...
It was not a response to RobinHood activities.
When i was that age, we didnt even have those.. It was apple II's, Atari 800's, TRS80's, and home built S-100's running on acoustic modems...
C64? Not out yet.. PETs were for those strange commodore people...
But i agree, the kids today really dont understand, nor appreciate what they have today.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"The truth of the matter, as the article reveals, is that it's people like these that caused so many problems for our friends at Valve and are responsible for most of the other irritating leaks of software"
Valves problems had nothing to do with the leak. If you read the interview with Gabe? at Valve, you will see that the leak was more a convenient scapegoat than anything else.
Note that these groups had nothing to do with the intrusion at Valve, just that someone passed the info on to them and they distribute. That is what they do, distribute.
The main activity mentioned seems to be cam copies of new movies. Does anyone give a rats ass about this? I laugh everytime I see some article freaking out about camera rips. It is clearly more like a harmless prank than anything else. Why the heck would anyone want to see a crappy camera copy of a movie with crappy sound. Revenue lost to this must be approaching Zero.
To me it looks like and adolescent race to see who can be first.
From the Wired article: Bruce Forest, a self-described "elder statesman" in the piracy scene...Forest runs his business from the first floor of his rural Connecticut home...In fact, Forest believes the scene will eventually go legit, and he's even started a company, called Jun Group, that uses the topsites to promote movies, musicians, and TV shows.
Let's follow those clues. Actually, let's just go to the Jun Group website.
Prices have moved in both directions. Let me explain. For a long time regular CDs (ie not double albums etc) have been priced at about 12-16 UKP, ish.
In recent years a large fraction of CDs have begun to be sold in supermarkets in the UK for about 9.80 UKP (yes this is still a ripoff if you do the dollar conversion compared to US prices but is positively cheap for Britain). These are only chart CDs though, new releases and perenial favourites etc. Nothing even slightly obscure though.
I have also recently seen (during the Christmas sales no less) a CD released in 1999 for sale in Virgin priced at 20 UKP. This is a single disk, regular CD, not a Jap import or anything special or unusual that might be used to justify a price like that.
Places do rent out movies for people who don't need the experience of seeing it in a theater and don't want to buy the thing.
It's also perfectly legal.
-- My Weblog.
Did not cause unfair taxation in Canada. CRIA or SOCAN did.
Secondly, with what justification do you feel you are entitled to anything, specifically music on optical media you have purchased?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I implore you; spend 5 minutes Learning about Milton Freidman. Try checking out these videos.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Sneaking and printing are hardly armed robbery.
Wait, they're so secret that they use an unecrypted protocol? Probably default ports no less.
Gimme a break, I smell rotten fish.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
From the article:
Does Slashdot really need to publish rubbish like this ? The whole article reads like the writer had infiltrated the Mafia (oh, sorry: "criminal conspiracy"), when in reality he simply interviewed some copyright infringers.
For those who can't tell the difference between real criminal conspiracies and copyright infringers:
Please note: I am not protesting the information content of the story. It actually had some interesting parts, like the joyrney of new files into consumers. However, I must protest the writer calling the warez people a "criminal conspiracy" simply to try to give the impression that he was infiltrating a real criminal gang.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Some of them have vaginas, you insensitive clod.
But of course it is!!!?
For non-US peoples, what is this "smoking a doobie behind the local Kroger" you speak of?
Excellent article! Fun to read and learn just how its nearly impossible for the industry to stop. Time to reinvent the wheel!
But, it also illuminates how the RIAA's lawsuit happy lawyers are targetting the wrong group of people. They are killing the end user, and after reading this article, that is about as effective as taking water out of the ocean a bucket at a time!
Thanks for posting this!
This is neccessary for all anonymous networks. If most of the traffick that goes to your node is content that you are downloading, then the nodes you are directly connected to can tell what you're downloading (or uploading), simply by monitoring the stream passing through them.
On the other hand, if your node is mainly acting as a router, with only a tiny fraction of the traffick being generated by you, then it becomes virtually impossible to figure out what you are doing on your node.
Sure, someone could figure out that since all the pieces of a particular movie are going to a certain node, that node is likely the downloader; however, since each file chunk is downlaoded spearately, with different chunks requested from different nodes, it would take a lot of cancer nodes to establish even reasonalbe suspicion, much less any kind of proof.
And the same for uploads; the chances are that your node was simply forwarding the content being inserted, and was not the actual source.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I'd be surprised if they didn't use their own client/server software programs, along with their own protocols, to (re)distribute their software across the 'net and things like BitTorrent, Kazaa, http, ftp were left to be used by those along the bottom most rungs.
At least in times gone past, I've used other software specifically written for pirating software on the 'net and I can't see why it wouldn't still be used today, except enhanced with encryption (of course.) That way it isn't susceptible to accidental discovery by someone who hacks a ftp/http server with the latest sploit posted to bugtraq.
Back in the early to mid 90s, when archie still worked, it was easy to find unprotected ftp pirate material if you knew the right kind of strings to search for. Sigh, I miss archie. Web search engines aren't a (and don't look likely to be) replacement for it.
Practical anonymity doesn't need this as a requirement. And on some levels, freenet isn't even anonymous. If I like, I can always download a seed file with how many IPs of participants? Granted, you always have to know at least a few IPs of other participants, but I think it's important that once you learn those few, you never learn any others, period. My understanding of freenet is that as the routing evolves, you start learning IP addresses of even more people.
If you'd like to connect to a different sort of network, I'd be happy to let you connect, just to check it out.
"In reality, the number of files on the Net ripped from store-bought CDs, DVDs, and videogames is statistically negligible. People don't share what they buy; they share what is already being shared - the countless descendants of a single "Adam and Eve" file. Even this is probably stolen; pirates have infiltrated the entertainment industry and usually obtain and rip content long before the public ever has a chance to buy it."
Assuming that this statement is true, then the RIAA and NARAS have got the whole thing backwards. While they devote prosecution dollars to individual users, the real players in the industry are playing behind a curtain.
Without question, the RIAA suits are then like the DEA going after individual users instead of focusing all efforts on those who are doing the real dirty work.
So, the big question- do these shadowy corners actually help or hurt the film/software industries?
When I needed to get to software before release, I had an insider who knew just where to go. Major magazines can get material before it is released through the same illegitimate channels that the pirates use. And, it's better for the industry for the pundits to have the stuff in hand before release- do you think that those industry "just released" articles on releases just materialize out of thin air? No sparky. There are others who snoop with impunity.
Oh, and there is not a problem getting films before their release. It's an easy scoop for a reporter.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
Didn't we all hang out at warez places when we were young(er)? :P
I remember in the beginning the real hot boards had 0-3 days warez, after a few years this changed into 0-3 hour warez. This day and age they talk about minutes or even seconds...
If you can keep up with stuff like that, you should go work as a stock broker or something
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
That "right" is government created and not much of a right as it infringes on my right to copy your work, or perhaps to share it with my friends, and the price you get will be determined by market forces beyond your control. Your "right" is a negation of behavior on my part that does you no real harm beside deprive you of some potential income. Your "Fly to Britian" nonsense is a "right" people like Ben Franklin violated with joy. What people do with legitimate coppies of your work after they purchase it is none of your business and they might export it.
Laws which are obviously designed to protect the wealth of a few at the expense of others are bad for morals and the law itself. As Lessing points out, such laws are corrosive. How do you expect people to obey and respect law when it is normal to violate it? Modern copyright is a gross example of a law that's designed to enrich a few at the expense of others. The proportion of works no longer in commercial publication demonstrate that copyright is not performing it's purpose of encouraging publication. It's working to thwart competition and control culture. The choice before you then is to be controlled like a slave or to violate the law.
Me, I'm a slave with some hope. The costs associated with rebellion are too steep for me, so 20th century popular culture is something I can not really enjoy. The copyright warriors have made it impossible for me to legally collect and enjoy early jazz, for example, and the works may dissapear before it becomes legal for people to share. My hope is that free culture will break the big publishers. My rebellion is to simply not give those publishers my money. Authors will do better when that happens too as you will receive the reward a free market gives rather than monopoly slave wages.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Recall Ireland in the 19th century; the situations imposed on people were the result of pure capitalism in the sense of laissez-faire unmitigated trade of more value given for less value. Capitalism, as implemented without social regulations for the societal benefit, does not work and is a disease that opposes the survival of the human species. In that sense, no, capitalism is not the answer. Labour, agriculture, and all people of all nations must stand against the extensions of feudalism and throw the overseers over the cliff's edge for the greater good of life and sustainability over profits that are used later to make up for the losses of the capitalistic and short-sighted economic systems.
In both cases though, there is a (granted morbid) curiosity that drives the populace to acquire (via tabloid or torrent) the said illicit pictures/source code.
When I say moderately legal, I mean that sure, maybe it's not nice... but if it were trivially illegal, we would be living in a police state.
At the end of the day, Valve made it's money, so get off the high horse... Half-Life 2 is *not* a lump of coal.
> What's with the very young kids sharing files?
It is simply a question of economics.
These young kids have computers, or access to computers, and a whole lot of time.
Unlike adults with paying jobs and disposable income, these kids have the motivation to enter the piracy scene: They want a game, a CD, or a movie, but they don't have the funds.
In time, that motivation become expertise.
Bring it up to the level it is happening at now, and everytime someone releases a half-decent program it gets snagged onto this sort of network and passed around the world. Who but an idiot isn't going to take advantage of that? What I don't get is why *anyone* bothers to buy stuff that is available on warez sites.
And the old "make them pay for support" line. Ha. If you have anything that even half decent it better not need any "support". How often do you call for support on Microsoft Word? How about Kazaa? How about Firefox? Would you pay for support?
[quote]
;)
Imagine how productive OSS developers would be if they didn't "give away" all of their source code with every new version.
[/quote]
imagine how unproductive Microsoft would be without open source software -- I think the open source community should rise up against the devil of OS Developers and prove that Microsoft was out of good ideas when code was stolen from Apple all those years ago
What do you mean by "practical anonymity" ?
There is no known way to form communication networks where an adversary with absolutely infinite resources couldn't defeat anonymity. Therefore, your comment is true for any and all conceivable networks.
The idea of Freenet is to hide the activities of users, not the fact that they're participating.
Basically, Freenet is based on the assumption that you can only be held accountable of your own actions, not those of your associates. Even if it's public knowledge that you run a Freenet node, the RIAA still has to show that you, personally, have downloaded or uploaded copyright-infringing content; simply because you are participating in a network in which some people engage in such activity does not make you guilty of anything. You simply engaged in conversations on Frost boards, and if someone says otherwise, they must prove their accusations.
Whether this assumption is currently or will be much longer correct is another matter - increasingly, right seems to follow might and money.
So what happens when those few get out of the network for any reason (busted, got other interests, etc) ? If you can't get more connections, you're so out of luck.
Furthermore, never learning more participants means that the network is static (user A is always connected to users B, C and D, and never to anyone else), making it much easier to analyze traffick than if the network topology was always changing.
Yes. This is true. Not that it currently matters, since the seednode file is likely to contain all the better nodes, so attacker wouldn't need to bother going through the learning process.
If you're talking about Metanet, I've read about it before, and it seems to offer weaker anonymity than Freenet, with none of the advantages of Freenet not related to anonymity (distributed content cache, which gives slashdotting-resistance and removes the need to run a server 24/day just to publish content).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Whether they know it or not, the vast majority of folks here on Slashdot would not object to copyright if it embodied the original ideals under which it was created, rather than the bastard system we have now that big companies hide behind to line their pockets at the expense of the true innovators.
I disagree, the smme thing was siad about marxisim - "if it was only done in a more enlightened way", bht the problems we are seeing now are copyrights simply being taken to their logical conclusion. The peoblems we are seeing now would pop their ugly head up one way or another no matter how enlightened we tried to make copyrights. No matter how you stack the deck - copyrights are about trying to controll information in the information age.
Allot of people here get mad at the RIAA and the MPAA, but the truth is you can't go telling people that they have some type of glorious right to controll how others use, distribute, and profit from information - but then not allow them to secure those "rights". It is hypocritical, but might have been workable when the biggest copyright issue was xerox machines, but now it is impossible to go back. Copyrights half to die.
I agree. I've known allot of people who "illegally copy" and allot of people in "shady orginasations" and allot of people who "hack" and even share "shady information". But I've never seen any top down super org that pulls all the strings behind the scenes. When I first read it a few days ago, I was laughing thru the whole thing, and shaking my head in disbelief that people would go thru all the effort to make this up.
Now maybe the RIAA, MPAA, and the Gov want to believe such an org exists, because that gives them a nice top down org to target for the kill. And they can understand big fat juicy top-down orgs, because they are one. And no doubt that people do self organize, after all that's why we have government. But this sounds too much like the way people in the govt organize, not the way people in the internet organize. You know, narrowly defined roles in super entrenched positions.
Knowing how the government works, I wouldn't be supprised if this was some type of setup. You know, luer interested people in, nail them, and then go on TV to justify their over-rated over-paid, under-productive jobs.
Another RED ALERT warning flag: It sems people who "rise up" in this org would be lewered away from difficult to track and enforce p2p technology to more direct, tracable, and accountable technologies. If that doesn't go against the grain, then I don't know what does.
Beeep. Big problem, George. 'Intellectual property' not 'physical property,' 'intellectual space' not 'phsyical space.' DOES NOT COMPUTE. Beep.
The idea of Freenet is to hide the activities of users, not the fact that they're participating.
Not saying that it hasn't met this design goal, rather that it is a poorly chosen goal. It is better than nothing, but I'd rather it not be obvious in any way that I even participate.
So what happens when those few get out of the network for any reason (busted, got other interests, etc) ? If you can't get more connections, you're so out of luck.
Those that are busted are by design in different jurisdictions. Their bust won't necessarily mean you will be, especially when just like freenet, you can argue that you were only associating and not committing the act yourself. There are provisions for people leaving due to disinterest, and assuming they are good enough sports to give you some sort of warning, it won't mean you are stranded.
Take a look at jungroup.com now, they have a link pointing to their "entertainment division" and their latest project "The Scene," a TV show about an NYU student who is the leader of a top movie group in the darknet. After watching the series, it seems that much of the information that is in the darknet article is displayed (graphically) to create a TV drama. Take a look if you're interested.
So, if there are individuals in the movie and music industry, their motivation really must derive from the process of warez or they get an ego boost. I mean, imagine you're some PA for a new movie coming out and you start seeding the movie to some "elite warez group" a month before release. If you weren't seeding the movie for any of the aforementioned reasons, what could you possibly be thinking: "Oh, I just seeded a movie I spent hundresd of hours editing so people don't have to.. give...me..payment..for it." There's no nostalgia in warez.
the way software companies distributed their apps. Before the 'net took root, a fledgling coder or graphic artist would have to rely on BBS' to provide programs such as C++, Photoshop and other utils to gain some experience. Keep in mind that it would take a loooong time to get them because of slow ass modems. The reason the average kid would looked towards BBS' to supply such programs was because they were too damn expensive!! Granted, the argument of a high sticker price would never hold water in court, but that's the way things were. Money was tight, and as many have stated -- it was exciting.
The emmergence of ever faster modems and high-speed lines such as DSL didn't go unnoticed by software makers. They quickly noticed that the impact of pirated warez from a BBS was child's play compared to the global reach of the 'net. FTP sites and IRC channels spread like wildfire and the companies watched helplessly. That's until the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) took hold in 1998. This would be in addition to the enacting of the "No Electronic Theft" Act of 1997, which was designed to close a loophole that let pirates distributing warez off the hook as long as they didn't profit from their actions.
To the original point: Good or bad, pirates DID change the way software manufacturers distributed their apps. The advent of "Trialware" gave the average user a chance to try the product before they forked over good money to buy it.
In today's world, the quality of OSS [Open Source Software] is improving -- sometimes in leaps and bounds. This offers a means of using very functional software without the need to look over your shoulder fearing the men in black would knock down your door any minute with a search warrant from a secret council. The kids of today have it so much easier!!
Happy New Year to all!
"These young kids have computers, or access to computers, and a whole lot of time."
What's that about idle hands being the devil's plaything? Maybe the Amish (and others) are smarter than we think.
No, it's a matter of civil law in the civilized world. Sharing ideas, words and songs should never be a crime.
I am disgusted by the idea that bits of our culture will be lost because some moron who owns the right to it is overprotective.
Me too, and that's a larger crime to me than plaguerism, which would be the nastiest of copyright violations. Nothing is worse than throwing your work away, not even taking credit and profit for it away from it's creator.
Create your own free art and give it to the world if you want and if anyone is interested.
I do, thank you. All of my photographs and classwork are posted for anyone to use as are my wife's music. I'd rather people not use them for commercial purposes or to promote things I don't believe in, but I doubt I'll be able to enforce my "rights" the same way Disney does.
Those are your words not mine. There are plenty of ways to make money without 100 year copyrights and other laws that throw away the vast majority of popular culture.
You talk about it being unfair that art isn't free. ... recognize the act that you are just trying to get something for nothing.
I recognize no such thing and the suggestion is offensive.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
:D
We need more nerds and less people who are essentially zombies-walking-around-in-a-fog. There are too many of those.
+++ATH0
> Warren Delano (as in, Delano Roosevelt) got his money through the opium business.
Not amoral or unethical.
Really? The Chinese fought (and lost) two wars to kill the Opium trade because of the effects it was having on their people.
As prohibition was a crime, Joseph Kennedy's actions were not amoral, nor unethical.
Joseph Kennedy made his first round of cash by conspiring to inflate a stock's price, then selling it before investors got wind. And Prohibition wasn't a crime. Selling alcohol was the crime.
I'm sorry, is that supposed to be "amoral" or "unethical"?
Yes, you nitwit. There were several treaties later passed by the U.S. government to prevent the trade of alcohol with the Indians because of the disasterous effects it was having on their social order. They didn't do this because of the strong Indian Lobby, you know? They did it because it was unethical. Educate thyself.
Bill Gates is worse than Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer put together!
Oh, I get it now. Please, crawl back under your bridge and go back to eating little children.
"They maintain a hidden network of top-level FTP sites that get the best files first and allow them to trickle down the pyramid and into many a slashdotter's sweaty little fingers."
Micheal, irresponsible. Inconsiderate and stupid. Given the day and age, a database of possible and likely hubs of p2p distribution is priceless in the manner of evidence for a civil law suit. Especially those brought on by the 4-lettered monsters in the entertainment industry. Now that it has just been exposed as a public forum, many of your readers are now vulnerable to legal action due to the fact you have proclaimed many of us to be participants in highly illegal and malicious criminal activity.
I hope you realize quickly how many of your readers did not appreciate that comment.
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
Unless the projection operator cares about the entire chain (maybe because they get a reasonable living out of it - there may be other ways, but that seems the easiest option) why not mandate that everyone who has the ability to leak your "crown jewels" is appropriately rewarded for that responsibility.
Otherwise, any leaks are all your own fault.
That doesn't excuse anyone for stealing the stuff, but it is a reason why it happens - get a month's wages for 2h work? Most people would go for that deal. It's human nature.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
When I was about 15, I drove my bicycle at high speed into a parked van because I was daydreaming and nearly broke my leg. It never would have happened if the van had been parked there. If the library had been closed, I wouldn't have been daydreaming in the first place, etc. The blame for my accident must therefore be shared among myself, the owner of the van, the library, the manufacturer of my bicycle, my parents, and the city.
Oh wait, no, that doesn't make any sense.
You're right, it doesn't make sense. Here's where the analogy breaks down: Was the van illegally parked in a hazardous place? (Ie, double-parked in a bike lane on a busy street). The library thing doesn't even come close to matching the situation mentioned by the original poster.
I hate the various laws covering IP recently, but the difference with your analogy is that these laws were passed to combat illegal activity.
Most of your points are accurate, number 2 is very good summation of a point I was trying to make.
I do dissagree with #1 in that with copying the original owner still has what he had to begin with, so at least he can sell that. Nothing is actually removed from him as would be the case with actual theft. Though because of number #2 he may be forced to reduce his price unless the demand is high enough that the 'bogus' copies can't significantly reduce his market.
#6 I dissagree with, it's certainly not an accurate conclusion from the preceding. Comparing copyright infringement to actual theft of real objects is largely an apples to oranges comparison. They are two different activities with two different negative consequences. There is some limited simularity in that both CAN involve money and who has ligitimate right to make money off of a particular work or item. This is most true when dealing with the mass copiers who sell illeagle copies of some work.
I would also point out that thieves and illeagle copiers alike do have a (self inflicted) burden of a sort in that they do place themselves at risk for criminal charges, fines, and arrest. Thier fault though. The original owner of the physical item or holder of the copyright wasn't really given a choice.
Also in regard to the footnote (1). While accurate, there is a somewhat credible argument that mass p2p sharing may to some degree act as advertising for the original owner (like radio effectively does for music). Though whether or not this offsets the unknown percentage of people who would have bought if they hadn't gotten it free is impossible to say without some research into the matter. Not that this is a justification, just hopefully something positive amidst the negatives.
One thing I would make clear is that I was NOT justifying eigther activity or endorsing it at all.
But if you want people to listen to you when tell them something is a bad idea, then eigther lie outright (as in the 'war on drugs'), or try to propagandize them as the *AA try to do by linking copyright infringement with actual theft, all you can do is lose credibility. How much credence would you give someone who eigther lied/missled your, or showed a demonstably false understanding.
The biggest group of copyright infringers (outside of criminal organizations) are likely young people, college age on down, who have a built in suspicion of authority. False arguments and the like only confirm thier suspicions that 'the man' is out to get them or simply out to lunch. They then feel justified in not only ignoring, but outright defying, said authority.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Stab me. Stab me now, and end my shame.
Once upon a time, I mocked those who made typos in their haste. It'll happen to you, whippersnapper!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The blurb at the head of the Wired article reads:
"They start with a single *stolen* file and pump out bootleg games and
movies by the millions. Inside the pirate networks that are *terrorizing*
the entertainment business."
(My emphasis). Now there's a sub-editor that needs to be fired. Or is
Wired just a propaganda organ for the mass media industry? (OK, OK,
sorry I asked... I'll get me coat...)