I'm pretty sure that I'd have stopped with just probation, yes. Having the feds raid your house, confiscate all your gear, and put you through the hell of their investigations for a year was enough of a wake up call for me. The gap between a sufficient punishment and what he actually got is the harshest reality in all this. It's very similar to what people have gone through for small marijuana related offenses.
This is why I never understand people who get mad at ‘lenient’ sentences for crimes. There are no crimes I would commit where, say, 1 year in prison wouldn’t be a deterrent but 5 years would be. If the point of prison is to deter crime, then adding longer sentences isn’t going to change anything.
Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
61–70 of 231 posts
Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
#62I was a member of Razor back in the day. I noticed that he mentioned he wouldn't say how he got Quake released before release date. I can share how I participated in an early release: I had befriended the manager of Electronics Boutique because I bought frequently there for many years prior to getting into pirating games. He would give me games that arrived but weren't on the shelf yet. From there, it was uploaded to an FTP server and a cracker would go to work removing protections, it usually took hours or less, unless the protection was novel. They'd usually push a release without a lot of large assets (FMV, cutscene type stuff) to make releasing it faster, and follow up with a full release after it was all packaged up.
I saw lots of folks get arrested/busted back in those times, and there was a key difference of outcomes for two groups: adults vs minors. Minors always got a slap on the wrist/fine (I remember TKLP from was it... RoR? had to pay out $1200 to AT&T for hacking a PBX... because he was 14 or so), and adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined. I stopped being involved just before turning 18 and it was a very smart decision in retrospect.
Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
#63I'm pretty sure that I'd have stopped with just probation, yes. Having the feds raid your house, confiscate all your gear, and put you through the hell of their investigations for a year was enough of a wake up call for me. The gap between a sufficient punishment and what he actually got is the harshest reality in all this. It's very similar to what people have gone through for small marijuana related offenses.
This is why I never understand people who get mad at ‘lenient’ sentences for crimes. There are no crimes I would commit where, say, 1 year in prison wouldn’t be a deterrent but 5 years would be. If the point of prison is to deter crime, then adding longer sentences isn’t going to change anything.
Consider that the secondary point is to separate society from perpetrator.
Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
#64I'm pretty sure that I'd have stopped with just probation, yes. Having the feds raid your house, confiscate all your gear, and put you through the hell of their investigations for a year was enough of a wake up call for me. The gap between a sufficient punishment and what he actually got is the harshest reality in all this. It's very similar to what people have gone through for small marijuana related offenses.
This is why I never understand people who get mad at ‘lenient’ sentences for crimes. There are no crimes I would commit where, say, 1 year in prison wouldn’t be a deterrent but 5 years would be. If the point of prison is to deter crime, then adding longer sentences isn’t going to change anything.
> There are no crimes I would commit where, say, 1 year in prison wouldn’t be a deterrent but 5 years would be.
Part of the way punishments are set up are to deter vigilante justice.
If someone murdered someone I love and I knew they'd only get 1 year for it, I'd be tempted to return the favor and take the year myself.
Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cracking software doesn't warrant hard prison sentences. That's a double negative for society.
He ruined the lives of many hard-working software developers who relied on selling their code to feed their families. This was back when programming was a highly skilled and difficult job that only a few could do, so cracking was even more harshly targeting people.
i challenge you to identify a single actual human whose life he "ruined"
Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
#66I was a member of Razor back in the day. I noticed that he mentioned he wouldn't say how he got Quake released before release date. I can share how I participated in an early release: I had befriended the manager of Electronics Boutique because I bought frequently there for many years prior to getting into pirating games. He would give me games that arrived but weren't on the shelf yet. From there, it was uploaded to…
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Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cracking software doesn't warrant hard prison sentences. That's a double negative for society.
He ruined the lives of many hard-working software developers who relied on selling their code to feed their families. This was back when programming was a highly skilled and difficult job that only a few could do, so cracking was even more harshly targeting people.
That's a rather presumptive over-simplification of what effect software cracking had and has on employed programmers' livelihoods. It's not a direct 1 to 1 relationship between a cracked installation and lost sale, nor does piracy prevention guarantee market relevance. I don't condone consuming pirated software when OSS alternatives exist, but that's not out of sympathy to tech megacorps.
Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
#68My childhood hero. Sad to read what he went through in prison. The warez scene is still active and there's no slowing down so this bust doesn't really mean shit. Shoutout to the OGs RELOADED, SKIDROW, RAZOR, PARADOX,CODEX.
Ah, PARADOX. Nostalgia when hearing the Photoshop CS2 Keygen music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYvjFOKOP7c
Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to recommend a video to start with?
If you're talking about the demoscene in general, here's demos sorted by popularity on one of the most important community sites: https://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?order=views Most of them have links to yt videos.
Oh wow found one I still remember making big rounds around 2000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObtPizPFMbo
Graphic were insane and it has a really fun high energy vibe.
Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)
#70I was a member of Razor back in the day. I noticed that he mentioned he wouldn't say how he got Quake released before release date. I can share how I participated in an early release: I had befriended the manager of Electronics Boutique because I bought frequently there for many years prior to getting into pirating games. He would give me games that arrived but weren't on the shelf yet. From there, it was uploaded to…
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I was a minor and it was 30 or so years ago, I don't think I'm at much risk. I think it was an interesting time in tech and worth sharing some of the details of what went on. Also, most of the people that served time weren't busted because of piracy alone, they were often involved in some adjacent crime like trading credit card numbers, buying/selling stolen equipment, malware, or some other fraud.