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'Operation Site Down' Closes 8 Warez Servers
JerkyBoy writes "The Entertainment Software Association today hailed efforts on the part of 'U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice's Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section, U.S. Attorneys' offices nationwide, and participating foreign law enforcement officials' in the shutting down of at least 8 warez servers that specialized in the distribution of pirated games. With the code-name "Operation Site Down," close to 100 searches were conducted globally (U.S., Canada, Israel, France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, and Australia) within a 24-hour period, resulting in the identification of 120 individuals who are likely to be pursued by the U.S. Department of Justice."
It still doesnt matter. Everyone is still going to do it. Like shutting down napster... like that was going to change anything! Someone just developed a method to get round the law.
Are they even trying with these operational code names anymore?
If you'll excuse me, I need to begin "Operation Orange Juice Drinking" before the scheduled commencement of "Operation Work Going".
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
How is the USDOJ going to persue people in other countries? Extradition sounds too severe for bootlegging. Isn't this something each foreign law enforcement agency should deal with?
After all, I am strangely colored.
The thing that worries me isn't that the warez sites are being closed down, but who's closing them down.
Notice that the article pretty much says that the US took the lead. Now, I wonder why they might be doing that? How much money does the government receive from various association? Hmm, I think a lot.
Now said associations are pressing their rent-a-congressmen into action against people in foreign countries.
I wonder when we'll start having people sent here to stand trial for something that wasn't really even a crime there? Better yet, when will we be able to take their belongings and their families belongings when they end up in a form-letter-lawsuit from one of said associations?
The US is now a bunch of jack-booted thugs leaning against a wall in an alley behind some massive corporate entity. Cigarettes rolled up in its sleeve just waiting for one of the suits to come and ask for a favor.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
...wouldn't the money be for these operations have been better spend closing down phishing sites?
I'm just thinking it would be better going after the real criminals.
-- A good compromise leaves everyone mad. --Calvin and Hobbes
Speedy Gonzales ?
How come they only shut down 8 servers if they're conducting searches in 11 countries?
I have a photographic memory for numbers. I know almost a hundred of them.
I wholeheartedly agree that software piracy is like the legendary Hydra: Chop off one head and three new ones will pop up. Therefore I don't believe prosecution of these individuals is particularly effective. However - at least in the Netherlands - the people arrested were selling the pirated software at huge profits.
Wow! A whole 8 warez servers? NOW which of the other 1.6 million will I choose from?!
We bring you yet another valiant exploit on the part of America's demoniac Attorney General, as part of the Bush administration's continuing war on peace, happiness, and anything else worth preserving in the world.
At a recent interview, Speedy's mood was triumphant.
"As our beloved Leader has often said, we are unflagging in our commitment to extend death, misery, and tyranny to every corner of the globe.
Wherever happiness exists, wherever human beings may have been under the illusion that they may be safe, wherever justice may have existed in the past, we will travel, and we will unleash our fury upon the most innocent.
The President has vowed that he will not rest until all that was previously good in the world has been erradicated, until the environment, human self-determination, and the cause of anyone to feel or seek joy have all been completely destroyed. The prisons will swell with the innocent and the unjustly accused, rivers the world over will run red with blood, and all lands anywhere in the world other than our own will be made desolate, while we enrich ourselves and ensure that our immediate loved ones alone will have any sense of safety.
We will sweep aside all opposition in our path until we have fulfilled this mission.
Onward!"
Here in New Zealand the police were also contacted but upon learned it just was a bunch of geeks with some computers they said "Nah we can't be bothered". Instead they raided the local gang and recovered two cannabis plants.
"With the code-name 'Operation Site Down,' close to 100 searches were conducted globally (U.S., Canada, Israel, France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, and Australia) within a 24-hour period, resulting in the identification of 120 individuals who are likely to be pursued by the U.S. Department of Justice."
Damn! If only Osama had been running a Warez server!
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
You can find "comments" from the scene people here along with a copy of two search warrants by the RCMP for two of the raids that occured in Edmonton, Canada. (Coral Cache of the above, just in case)
Some information about Site Down can be found here.
And whoever is saying that RCMP is targetting sceners, take a look at their Strategic Priorities... My bet is that, just as it happened in the States, they are being pressured by the CRTC (Canada's equivalent to MPAA and RIAA all in one), and with that new DMCA-like law, what could possibly stop them from raping every canadian file trader like they did (and continue to do) to the US'?
You didn't hear it from me!
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks which were completely unnecessary to do before.
"Piracy costs the entertainment software industry billions of dollars each year, harming businesses and their employees who work on the development and distribution of game products, "
Oh cry me a river.
That's only the case if you assume that every copy=one real customer lost. Back when I was into the warez scene, I had intalled and deleted hundreds of games/utils/applications. Some within minutes after muttering "this is bogus".
If someone had totalled up the number of applications, utils, and games, there is no way I could have even afforded 10 percent of that. (I actually did buy what I liked, but to put me on the figurative hook for half-hour glances at packages, well, that's dumb).
I assume that my experience is not unique.
All that is totally ignoring the _fact_ that various companies who shall remain nameless depended on warez to gain marketshare *cough* autocad *cough* Windows.
Thank Gh0d for Open Source. Everything is legit now, and kicking back some cash gives a warm fuzzy feeling, rather than the feeling of being ripped off. It's been that way for almost a decade now, and I like it.
--
BMO
Ha Ha. Why is rape always considered funny when talking about criminals? Are they not people with rights like everyone else NOT to get raped? It seems to me like an anti-male thing. Its funny when men are raped. Its funny when they get kicked in the nuts in some mindless US sitcom. Actually, no. Its not funny. Try cracking a joke about women being raped. Or a woman being kicked in her genitals (which most would see as sexual assault). You'll be lynched, and righly so. So why the double standard?
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
I write video games for a living. You know how much piracy has affected me? Not at all. That's right, not one bit. I'm not arguing that what these guys didn't do was illegal, or shouldn't be punished, but I definitely don't think jail time fits the crime, nor are they going to come out as better people. Most of the people pirating all this software tend to be fairly young, and I would say its safe to say, they probably don't understand the consequences of what they are doing. I would say a more fitting punishment, one that might actually help, would be to put them to work at the video game companies they stole from as part of their punishment. Make them test a game, for free, for a period of 2 years or so. If they fail to honor the conditions of their "community service", then put them in jail. But I would guess that having the guys who pirate this software have to work on a game is much more effective than having bubba butt-rape them. In addition, it would provide a benefit to those of us who they "stole" from.