Warez Crackdown Is Just the Beginning
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Warez Crackdown Is Just the Beginning
The U.S. Customs Service has said that the crackdown on warez sites illegally trading software has just begun, and many other sites both within and outside the U.S. will be raided in the next days.
"This is only the first step," a spokesman for the department said. "The investigation is ongoing." As many as 15 other countries are considering taking part in the crackdown.
The crackdown has been criticized for focusing on kids trading games, and not people selling software for a profit. "Throwing the book at these guys is the wrong thing to do," said a security expert.
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I use the rule of 40 bucks
if it costs more than $40 or is in general just some piss ant piece of software then I pirate it. If I really want to play online then I'll buy it, some games are worth it Q3, RTCW and CS for example. but I won't pay for something I already payed for like paying for Win98 just because it has bug fixes and a few extra add ons that they didn't put in Win95. Or paying some outrageous price to chop up a picture or write a report with correct spelling. A "Crack down" on piracy means that big brother has some projects that need funding but require discression. So they use big words like Crack down on this or War on that mabey spend a few hundred thousand no the cause but where did the $20000000 budget go to? Why does it cost $5000 for a window huh?
FBI expands hunt on warez scene
This article is from newOrder We've got confirmed insider information, that four major efnet servers are currently running in debug mode, which enables them to see ALL private traffic, like private chat, passwords sent to channel protection bots, messages, etc. and the information is being filtered and sent to the FBI, which requested this. Currently, a big EDU server, and .ORG server.
Recent busts include 90+ scene group senior members and leaders in US, Canada, Britain, Australia, Norway, 2 cracking groups in Poland. New raids are expected according to News.Com.
U.S. plans new raids on file swappers
This article was taken from
here.
update Federal officials said new raids targeting Internet "warez" groups are in the works following the largest U.S. crackdown on Internet piracy in history this week, including potential strikes outside the country.
"This is only the first step," said Kevin Bell, spokesman for the nation's customs agency. "The investigation is ongoing."
The U.S. Customs Service, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, on Tuesday raided universities and high-tech businesses in 27 cities as part of an international crackdown on underground groups that actively trade in illicit copies of software and digital media.
Dubbed "Operation Buccaneer," the enforcement action occurred simultaneously in four other countries, where an additional 22 search warrants were issued, resulting in the arrests of nine people.
None of the suspects in the United States have yet been arrested.
"This investigation underscores the severity and scope of a multibillion-dollar software swindle over the Internet, as well as the vulnerabilities of this technology to outside attack," Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said in a statement.
In the first overt action of a 15-month investigation of such organized groups of pirates, the Customs Service targeted the oldest and largest group, known as DrinkOrDie.
"We are targeting these groups that do it all the time," said Customs Service spokesman Bell. "If you are at your house one night and you want to get a free copy of some software, that's not what we are talking about."
Search and seizure
Customs agents seized 129 computers in the 38 searches nationwide, said Bell. Among the data captured were Web sites with so much pirated media that it took 4,000 pages to list the titles. Another seized system had more than 5,000 movies, including the blockbuster "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
"The data was available to millions of people all over the world," said Bell, who added that another 15 countries may take part in the action.
Members of the DrinkOrDie group included corporate executives, computer network administrators and students at major U.S. universities who regularly uploaded copy-protected software and digital media to be broken by other members of the group.
There are perhaps as many as 10 major warez communities such as DrinkOrDie. And they don't do it for profit, said Bell.
"They believe in a free Internet," he said. "They don't want any rules or any laws that inhibit what they do."
Warez (pronounced "wares") describes software and digital material that has been stripped of anti-copying protections and made available on the Internet for downloading.
Because the amount of data and evidence that the Customs Service must sort through is so large, Bell said he expected arrest warrants for subjects in the case would take two to three months to obtain.
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