Comment by tripletao | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tripletao | Hacker News Reader

His punishment seems disproportionate and stupid (like, why are we spending money to lock him up instead of fining him more?); but he clearly intended to make disks that buyers would think were factory originals, and knew that he was breaking the law. From his email:

> I can look in to the missing boxes - Usually in my history - Customs just ships them to you 3 weeks later.

> If they call you - play stupid and just tell them that you ordered from an asset management overseas.

> Tell him that the product was guaranteed to be real and that you paid a very high price for it. Act upset as to why you had not received your product yet.

Obviously cherry-picked by the prosecutors; but there's a lot more, and it makes him look much worse than the press coverage does.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/uploads/prod/sites/5/2018/04/2LU...

ETA: And why do the media keep repeating the $0.25/disk? There's a PO where he sold some for $3 or $4 each. Less than the stupid $25, but not charity.

And those arguments would fit with what he actually pleaded guilty to - copying the designs of the recovery disks and making them look legitimate. They aren't arguments (but IANAJ) that claim the software is e.g. legitimate windows installations.

He was sentenced for software piracy or thereabouts, but he literally can't do that because windows is not a physical disk, but a license. He did not sell licenses. The discs, as was stated as such by expert witnesses, were worthless. The contents were freely downloaded from Microsoft itself.

Of course, there might be a clause on the website that you can't burn those images and sell them. But those can't be tied to a monetary value because the images were distributed for free.

He was sentenced for software piracy or thereabouts, but he literally can't do that because windows

He can violate the copyright of the recovery software present in the CD.

Copyright violation is not a criminal action unless done in an organised, for profit fashion as piracy. The fundamental piece of evidence the prosecution needed for that was the trumped up and bogus damages value Microsoft supplied.

Hence, the title and article are correct.

He profited. Microsoft's losses are irrelevant.

The sentence is based on the (purported) losses to Microsoft. Exhibit 17:

https://blogs.microsoft.com/uploads/prod/sites/5/2018/04/2LU...

If you read some of his emails in the case it is very clear that it was done in an organized, for profit fashion.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/04/27/the-fac...

I'm replying to my own comment to note that he claims these documents are not authentic, and were forged by a former business partner who wanted to cut a better deal for himself. He says the government took all his computers, lost all his computers, and found the doctored emails on the partner's computer. He says he no longer had access to the mail server. He isn't super clear on the specifics of what's forged and what's not, beyond that the prices are forged. He doesn't seriously question that he intended customers to mistake the CDs for factory originals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7hnVYMoctM&feature=youtu.be...

Pretty weird--like, if this guy is going away on forged evidence, then isn't that a bigger story than the questionable valuation? But the alternative is that he's more or less a compulsive liar. You can judge his credibility for yourself in the interview; but at least to me, this is not a guy who should be testifying in his own defense. If anyone has the trial transcripts / motions / etc. that deal with this, then I'd love to see.

Also: Microsoft seems to claim that the original license disappears when the original media (CD, or restore partition) are lost. I don't know enough about the applicable law, and I haven't read the license, so I don't know if this is true. If this is true, then anyone using his CD (or anyone downloading the image straight from Microsoft, for that matter) is breaking the license. There is no technical measure to enforce this, though. I presume this is the basis for Microsoft's claim that the CD was worth $25.

>>Microsoft seems to claim that the original license disappears when the original media

Citation from MS Legal (or exec Level) making this claim, I have never heard that in my 20+ years in IT

OEM License, legally, is tied to the Mainboard of the system (and some components of the MainBoard), that is the HardwareID MS uses to activate and record the activation.

the OEM SLIC is embedded in the BIOS/UEFI of major systems since Vista days, and I believe it was mandated for all OEM since Windows 8

There are virtually no systems today that ship with a physical restore media, and consumers are advised to make one themselves

So I would love to see someone from MS legal making this claim (which has no legal foundation)

I guess the recovery partition doesn't count as media? Then let's say "media or recovery partition". I've excerpted from their guide at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16963255

Those seem like ideas on how to get past customs more easily, not necessarily an admission of any wrongdoing.

The rest of his emails are about pushing sales, saying he'll fix issues to make it more legit looking, but encouraging his sales guy to move the product.

Lying to customs was the wrongdoing that initially saw him indicted.

The easy way to not have any issues with customs of course, would be to send disks without decoration as "blank CDs". Ockham's razor suggests this approach is the one you'd take if you meant to ship people a helpful installation CD at cost price.

Instead, he pays a lot of attention to whether they can pass for the real thing to customers, and then notes that for some product lines them looking like the real thing is forcing him to pay extra to send them airmail because customs check anything that looks like shipped software CDs with the licence holder...

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