Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005) • Hacker News Board

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#211

Post by davidwritesbugs » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 7:42 AM UTC

naet wrote: post #94

"The server bit the big one, the head of the Education dept. knew who I was and what I knew, and "arranged" for me to go to work for her. I reloaded the server, got all the terminals set back up, and showed her how to run things more efficiently. I had been working there for about a month, and she was getting ready to go on vacation for a week. Two days after she left, they rounded up myself and two other guys that w…

This was my experience of prison: the random exercise of power by petty screws or prison civilian workers. It didn't take much to cross them or their egos.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#212

Post by nicbou » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 7:52 AM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #115

cortesoft wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is interesting to see the raw visceral reaction to the DC council attempting to reduce prison sentences for crimes committed in the city. Congress even got involved to make sure it didn't happen, which has not happened in decades. Apparently a 14 year sentence for carjacking is not enough deterrent, it must be 20 years according to Congress, the President, and even the mayor of DC.

That's more than the 6 years a US soldier got for torturing an Afghan man to death in 2003.

The length of sentences seem rather arbitrary to me. Knowing that how you're treated in prison is a game of luck does not help.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#213

Post by no_time » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 7:59 AM UTC

guybedo wrote: post #9

wow i hadn't heard about Razor 1911 in a while. In the 90s they released so many cracks

Some guys are still releasing warez with the Razor1911 branding. Currently they are the only ones with a working (albeit wonky) Windows Store DRM crack.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#214

Post by loa_in_ » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 8:56 AM UTC

rektide wrote: post #195

marcodiego wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined." I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. Eager to hear opinions.

> I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. None of it's fair. A servile government, with license to use force/incarceration, bent on defending putrid industrial system that hordes as much rights for itself as it can? That has extended copyright to 70 years, by crook & by hook? The whole thing is a sham, a disgrace to the human spirit, a scourge upon the earth. The damage numbers are all…

And, this unjust behaviour with intent, like lies do, hurts not like a mere blow, but like erosion of goodwill and trust of everyone, including unborn yet children of all paths of life.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#215

Post by UweSchmidt » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 9:35 AM UTC

marcodiego wrote: post #84

codezero wrote: post #62

I 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…

"...adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined." I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. Eager to hear opinions.

I never could wrap my head around long prison sentences. Even assuming a truly humane prison (not a reality in many places), which rehabilitates inmates well, it's hard to map a year, five years of prison on a crime that happened in one moment in time.

The way decisions, actions, arguments and repentance work in real life, as regularly seen with children, is usually on a short time frame. If you really need to punish someone - questionable in itself - maybe bring back the whip, but let people walk with a clean record the next day. If people can't be put back into society, they could be subsistence farmers with a netflix account in a fenced in plot of land or something. A significant change in scenery, and some forced lifestyle changes could be OK as part of a judgement

But putting humans behind bars? Nah...

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#216

Post by comprev » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 10:28 AM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #174

marcodiego wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined." I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. Eager to hear opinions.

At least for the US, the life ruining part is the very low barrier access to background checks. Unlike the 1980's, where only huge employers could look into your past, now everyone can see everything you've ever been arrested for, even if you hadn't been convicted. It's very difficult to find any employment at all now, and even harder to find something that isn't minimum wage. As I understand it, in other places, lik…

In the Netherlands when a job requires a background check - for example working in fintech - the employer is only permitted to request information directly related to the industry, e.g. financial crimes.

Unfortunately this does not avoid them using "3rd party" services but it is refreshing to know employers can't have a data trawl from the Government.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#217

Post by 0dayz » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 10:50 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #191

Raydovsky wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet , countries with the highest crime rates have the toughest punishments.

Is that true? Crime across the Islamic world is remarkably low despite many countries being much more unstable. East-Asia, another region with generally harsh punishments is very safe. Like, even large Chinese cities with over ten million citizens and incomes far below what you see in the West have very low crime rates. Not to speak of more comparable countries lke Singapore.

The Islamic world is also notorious for how corrupt and non transparent it is, so getting accurate crime statistics beyond murder is going to be hard.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#218

Post by varispeed » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 10:56 AM UTC

nullc wrote: post #187

varispeed wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still. The corporate tax rate is way lower than personal tax. In my country some workers pay over 50% tax on their income, while corporation they work for pay 10% or less if they have good accountants.

In the US we've historically arranged thing so that the corporate tax rate + long term cap gains rate is approximately equal to the income tax rate. If the combined rates were much greater it would create an incentive against creating c-corps.

> If the combined rates were much greater it would create an incentive against creating c-corps.

This argument isn't sound. If high tax doesn't create an incentive for creating corporations, then it also doesn't create an incentive for people to work and be productive. Now the taxes are pushed on the workers that have to pick up the corporations tab. It may have worked in the past where corporations had high head count and were not outsourcing, but now governments rather than working to correct that imbalance, they increase workers' taxes. We can see this system is slowly collapsing as your can tax the workers only so much before they feel like slaves and stop working.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#219

Post by nunobrito » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

twodave wrote: post #125

nunobrito wrote: post #54

20 years later I still use a copy of the Starcraft I from them. The original version requires a CD and a CD drive just to boot. Maybe it could be emulated but as a kid I wouldn't have money to buy the original in my country. Blizzard eventually made a young kid happy, I've later bought the games to support them.

Still remember my original SC cd key from installing it on all my friends computers back in the day :) 4015-29374-2985 probably will always be rattling around there somewhere. Useless information taking up space.

Same here. Still remember the WinZip registration key from memory. Perfectly useless info, don't even use Windows since a decade ago.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#220

Post by BeFlatXIII » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 3:17 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #115

cortesoft wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is interesting to see the raw visceral reaction to the DC council attempting to reduce prison sentences for crimes committed in the city. Congress even got involved to make sure it didn't happen, which has not happened in decades. Apparently a 14 year sentence for carjacking is not enough deterrent, it must be 20 years according to Congress, the President, and even the mayor of DC.

This is what happens when a major metro area has no representation in Congress.