Attached Link: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2001/December/01_crm_643.htm

... of course, somehow I doubt that even if warez distribution drops dramatically, prices of software never will, though it would make sense.... DraX

I just read where the CIA has a trojan that sends all keystrokes back to their address allowing them to see what a password for email encryption etc. is. Gonna be an interesting year comming up with the war on terrorism relaxing the grip on the big dogs. Gonna be some butts bbq'ed soon.

That's interesting.... I'd love to say that's illegal, kinda like reading your mail, but there are no laws yet to protect us from them doing that...

Actually, the "Patriot Act" makes this sort of thing legal (the intrusions on privacy and viruses). It also makes searches without warrants legal, and other sorts of "patriotic acts" legal. Don't you love misleading legislature passed during a "crisis" time? In doing more research on the actual bust, it looks like they got a group that was responsible more for decss, and not "high profile" distribution as they claim. Check Slashdot and read what's been said there....

The anti-virus companies have already stated that they do not intend to silently allow Magic Lantern through their scanner unless they are court ordered to do so. Even then, they would probably fight it.

I don't see any butt bbq'ing in the near future.

The article states that "thousands of copies of warezed software were removed from circulation" as a result of the sting, but that is terribly misleading. Once a piece of software is out, it's out. It is practically impossible to remove all copies floating around. So while THOSE copies may be out of circulation, more copies are being made each day of the original cracked files.

Argh, the U.S. law enforcement agencies are so irritating with their press releases. They are worded to sound impressive, but are full of holes.

Hi, Looks to me, a lot like the US Government has discovered a new word, and doubtless, just as "hacker" before it, "Warez" will come to be understood in the popular media to mean something it never did before. I'm all in favour of prosecuting those who try to profit from somebody elses work, (by selling/reselling it without the legal right to do so, etc.) These people are flat out thieves. But I personally, having been involved in "the scene" for most of the 80's would draw a very big line between that kind of organised crime, and the small scale, (if high profile) software piracy that is practiced by the "Warez" crowd, who always announce thier conquests publically, and give the software they crack away for free. Still, doubtless it will lead to another "Erik Bloodaxe"/"Hacker Crackdown" debacle in the courts, which is always amusing :) I just hope that Bruce Sterling gets to write about it again. later jb

From what I'd heard, DoD was very low level these days. It was a case of going after a gang of retired thieves. Their heyday was 1995-1996. They are supposedly one of those "Where are they now?" sort of groups.

Yeah... like I mentioned in the other forum, what DoD is primarily famous for these days is their hopelessly screwed-up crack of 3D Studio Max 3 a couple years back. Looks like they were picked on mainly because they got sloppy about covering their tracks. -nemo (Bet they wish Curious Labs had caught them instead of the DOJ...)

Haha I think we can expect to hear a lot of crying from thieves, whining about their 'rights'. It's not that I'm in favor of violating a person's rights.. it's just that the whiners won't recognize the irony of how they've disregarded the rights of people who've created this 'intellectual property'. Most thieves have a way of 'rationalizing' what they do. Some will blame it on the high price of software. Others will point at people who steal.. and then 'resell' the software, loudly exclaiming; "See! They're worse than me!" Whether it's sold, or given away, it's stealing money from the creator.. and discouraging them from bothering to make more great software.. and driving up the prices for the rest of us. Burn Baby Burn!

I am sorry but I am not impressed!

2 years of investigation, dozens of agents fully committed, proxy warez dump sites set up by the Feds to trap them, deep group infiltration and a multi-national simultaneous arrest swoops and they kill DoD, a spent force in Warez circles!

Don't get me wrong I applaud any action against the pirates but this is a media hype to justify a very large budget with very limited results.

DoD were famous for releasing Windows 95, 2 weeks before Microsoft did and infamous for their cocked-up release of 3D Studio max R3 (as fauve pointed out) and are "very low level these days" (as Crescent stated).

The Bush administration is "tough" on terrorism as Osama bin Laden is noticing, I wonder if elements in the Administration are trying to capitalise and broaden that public appeal to "Tough on Crime" and "Tough on Warez."

After all there is plenty of kudos to be had with big business if that is the case, and we all (even those of us in Europe) know where George's campaign and the Republicans get funding from!

I can't help but feel cynical about the whole of this as there are hundreds of Warez groups releasing cracked applications, serial numbers and other forms of Software Piracy on a daily basis, not to mention the rank amateurs who buy and pirate Poser stuff by simply uploading Daz, Renderosity, Rederotica and other outlets goods to web storage sites for all to download.

As someone who keeps a close eye on Warez developments this US government initiative is a joke, too little, too late and of no consequence to the pirates.

As for the "Gov't finally cracking down on Warez" you would want to see what little heed the Warez sites are paying to this.
Kill 5 or 10 active groups. prosecute and jail them and publicise it and that will have an effect!

Sadly
STORM

I fully expect a very big shock wave roll thru our 3d community very soon. some dogs bite... BT

Actually, Storm, I did a bit of a search the other day after learning this news, right down to looking at the forums at a couple of the warez sites that showed the msot results through engines like google, and I must say, it seems like the pirates are talking about it quite a bit, and many of them are nervous. If they are, this could cause the amount of warez available to decrease, which I for one think would be a very good thing, even though I know that realistically, most people who D/L watrez wouldn't have purchased the software anyway, thus, the company NEVER would have gotten their money, and not hurting them as much as the companies try to suggest.

I actually believe that many of the bigger, costlier programs are priced that way because they are building in revenue loss recoup. Techically if you load the software on any computer other than your own it is piracy, but they know you will let your kid a college have a copy. They charge ahead. It's the small, lower priced companies that really lose when they are pirated.

Hi, Oh it'll have an effect, it'll just drive them further underground. You've only to look at the resilience of Phrack (the hackers ezine) to know that somebody will pick up the torch eventually, if only for the Kudos of saying, "see, they didn't kill us after all" in Warez as in real life, "You're only as good as your last release..." I think that to anywhere at all with most computer realted crime, hacking/cracking, virii, "Warez" etc. then you need to actually destroy the "kudos" based mentaility that drives virtually everything in the scene, including the "Open Source"/Linux crowd. The mentality that says "see, it was me, I did it first" (and the body of people who afford such behaviour/actions respect) is the driving thing behind all of this. Why else would somebody release a game after two years of effort, (and numerous botched releases) unless there was both Kudos and pride at stake? To be honest, I don't think that's ever going to happen, the kind of people who naturally gravitate to the life are generally (but not exclusively) bright, atriculate & asocial loners, and while the new generation have far more style and elan that we ever had, (some of them even have girlfriends :) They are still people who don't have any real desire to "get on" in the real world, and who will be well paid whenever and wherever they do decide to try thier hand. A life of being alienated at school, does not prepare you for that. Trying to enforce conformity with ill thought out rules/systems is what produces "geeks" in the first place, so I can't image the powers that be addressing the cause at it's source. As for "Warez" web sites... On the one time I was lazy enough to look on the web, I found squat, nothing except a bunch of links that went nowhere or went to sites where you could vote for one crew or another. This after I'd just found out that the reason our ftp server had died was that a scatty (American :) astronomer had left a directory open and that had been used to host one of the most comprehensive repositories I've ever seen, (shame we couldn't keep it really :) It also explained why I (as postmaster) was getting email from Peru, (among other places) asking if I had a working copy of X because thier download had timed out :) Sarcastic replies a speciality :P I don't think that prosecution is going to stop them, it didn't stop the hackers, or the writers of virii, so I fail to see how it's going to stop pirates, has-been's or not. One would think that the US government, the worlds only superpower had better things to do with it's time. Still, each to thier own :) later jb

jb, >>"then you need to actually destroy the 'kudos' based mentaility that drives virtually everything in the scene, including the "Open Source"/Linux crowd." While I agree with much of what you said, I would like a clarification... Isn't the OpenSource/Linux thing similar to 'Rosity's "Free Stuff concept? These people are putting out variations on a "free" product in much the same way as we might come up with "Re Maps" for figures and New Textures for Objects... WOuld you classify the individual who gave us OBJAction Mover (for FREE!!!!) as being in the same league as DoD and LoD? Somehow, I don't think that Curious Labs/Daz etc. view him in the same fashion as those who are Cracking Poser and Putting it out there as their version of a "community service" BTW. This is not meant to be read in a "ranting" tone of voice... just wanted to point out something that caught my eye... Starlok

Starlok, "friends, Romans, countrymen" :P No offence taken :) What I meant was that (from my point of view at least) the reason "free stuff" (be it a character or a program) is produced is to be both of service to "the community" and to put your name in lights, so to speak, to be known and recognised by your peers as having a particular talent. To be good at something. The same is true of the hackers, crackers, phreakers, Virus writers and WaR3z d00dz. Commonly refered to as the computer "underground" the black hats of this world. They too operate to provide a "service" to the community, be it "free" software, a bulletin board on a company site, (that the company isn't aware of) security exploits, or simply "forbidden" information either as ASCII or code. Thier community is far more covert than ours, but it has it's own magazines both virtual and real, and it's stars and wannabe's. They too scheme thier schemes and pull off thier coups with the intention of getting thier name known. The motivations are the same, only the words/deeds change. The fact that most of the really good hackers get straight jobs as security consultants should tell you that the desire to be good can even encompass "normailty" but a good many of the hacker tools out there were written by these people to test thier own systems, then given back to the community. You may work for "the man" but you still provide tools to the underground. Just as full time animators, and professional artists will provide "free stuff" here. When somebody from a games house give you somebody else's game, they're saying, "look at this, isn't it cool" It's the highest form of flattery in the circles in which I travel. I still tell people about QNX (www.qnx.com) because it's just so damn cool! :) Like I said, I've never paid for a piece of pirate software in my life, and I have never sold a piece of pirate software in my life, either. All that I've had, I've both given and taken freely. From the costliest app, to the the smallest and most arcane scrap of knowledge. "Information wants to be free" and what is code more than information? The disk is just the medium on which it's stored/transfered. These days I pay for my software, because I can, if it helps out a "struggling artist" and convinces them to produce more, so much the better :) and while I may offer little in the way of code of "free stuff" I advocate for my tribe, and contribute to legal defense funds when required, I cheer my side from the bleechers, and I share what I know with others, just as I always have. I've lost track of the number of times I've walked into a pub and been accosted by somebody who's heard that I know a lot about computers, and lost another night explaining this or that detail. :) But it's a subject I love, and one I've been immersed in for 20+ years, I'm a "first generation" geek! :) Some of us have to remember who "Hans and Gribble" are... :) So there you go, the usual bombastic, pompous, bollocks, answer your question? ;) later jb

jp, Pretty much... I was just concerned with the lumping of Linux/OpenSource with the thieves and riff-raff. I remember the "good old days" of the PET,TRS-80, Apple ][, and My own personal Holy Grail; the C-64... I remember being one of the first in my school to actually learn how to use Clone and Unguard so that we could actually copy our 5.25' floppies to preserve our investments from the viscissitudes of adolescent carelessness. I suppose that in a way I was one of the "first generation" PC pirates (at least on the home computer front... I don't know how prevalent it was in the non-home computer front). Yes, we DID use the original rationalization that it was cheaper to contribute $5-$10 a person and distribute copies amongst ourselves... but we DID eventually outgrow it by the mid '80's. Mea Culpa... One thing I DO know, however, is that feeling of "All's fair in Love and War" towards the major software publishers. In many, many ways, they have refused to justify the prices that they charge for what are clearly sub-standard and/or defective products. We could go on and on over in Complaint & Debate on the subject of their callous arrogance. I firmly believe that they do more to "encourage" the "Robin the Hood" aspect of the warez providers than one could attribute solely to the "kudos" attitude you described in your post. It will never justify the actual theft, but it WILL make it impossible to convince enough people to work up a sweat to put an end to the practice. I'm afraid that the token efforts on the part of the government on this subject are truly representative of the token concern on the part of the populace as a whole. "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" indeed... Starlok Starlok

Attached Link: http://www.vnunet.com/News/1127792

Hi, "Robin Hood" (Aka Robin of Loxley, no "the" :) Those interested in this debate may wish to read the attached web page, which I pass along without comment, though I'll be more than happy to do so if requested. As for the C64, ah yes, the days of the "expert cartridge" and it's blue button. I had some great software for that. Homebrew, it'd cut through anything. Then there was the disk copy software that could create floppy disk errors, #'s 21 & 22 being the most prevelant, (they used copy protection that would jump to the appropriate area once it hit an error, which didn't exist on a copied version, since the drive couldn't copy what it couldn't read...) Great days indeed! later jb

jb, As I heard it, Robin "the" Hood was the actual moniker attributed to him that was shortened as time went on... much as Richard the Lion-Hearted became Richard Lionheart in some retellings. It was a descriptive that became a sort of Surname. Pick, pick, Pick! Annoying, aren't I? Typical American! Regarding "Magic Lantern"... ...Someone's been into the "Magic Mushrooms!" Ahhh, Democracy: Government by the Lowest Common Denominator! If you DO choose to comment, and I'd love to hear it, Let me know if you start up a thread (it'd probably go over into C&D and I rarely go there because I have trouble finding my way out under my own power!) Starlok

Attached Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1722000/1722951.stm

Hi, You may find the attached BBC link interesting, it has a whole host of "piracy" related links down the right of the page. Incidentally has anyone read "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson, in which the US is reduced to doing two things well, "Intellectual Property" and "Express Pizza Delivery" :)It's actually a bloody good book, but the future it's set in is fairly believable too. The central character is called "Hiro Protagonist" :) later jb