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

I think it depends on the case. Some of the leaders of those groups were basically using minors like myself as cover in the same way street gangs did, and doing a lot more than piracy. I think the folks that got hit for their actual fraud deserved it, but folks that just cracked and released games were unfairly targeted, very few profited from it, and I think a profit incentive is where I consider the crime to be more relevant, but I'm not a lawyer :)

I think in general it is fair, but the very arbitrary 18/not-18 cutoff doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I consider (myself) and most people I know to have been children at 18 and up to several years older than that. But it's not like people wear their "maturity" levels on their forehead, so the justice system has to make an arbitrary cutoff somewhere.

Not saying it's ideal, and individual circumstances have to be considered, but it's the best a crude system can do.

I think the penalties of many laws weren’t made with fairness in mind but deterrence. The penalty goes up until crime rate comes down. It makes sense I guess, it’s not meant to be a trade - much less a fair one - but to stop/reduce crime.

Edit: That said, super heavy penalties for what are often victimless crimes might not be good for society overall - might be better to allow the existing offence rate for that crime.

18 year olds are called young adults for a reason. I think it’s harsh to do it to 18-21ish year olds but over 25, maybe, but over 30 you know what you’re getting into. If you want to live that kind of life you have to except consequences. Ideology isn’t going to save you.

The same applies to scams, drug dealing, and other nefarious activities.

no it's never fair to ruin lives and torture people ("the hole" during months is torture [0][1])

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement_in_the_Un... [1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/02/united-state...

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, like Australia, employers don't do a background check exactly. They send the job description and the candidate info to a government agency that just answers back "yes" or "no". So that, for example, a hacking conviction might disqualify you for some jobs, but not ALL jobs. And you have some idea beforehand the kind of jobs you might have success passing for. The offense is very specifically weighed against the job description, and not just some HR person's delicate sensibilities.

To me, barring some extreme exceptions, it's not fair for punishment to extend beyond what you were sentenced to. There's also peripheral issues, like the plea bargain system, which gives prosecutors lots of leverage to "convict" people that are either innocent, or guilty of a lesser crime than they plea to.

Even under the ancient - and extreme - jurisprudence of 'an eye for an eye' then this is clearly not fair unless a cracker actually ruined people's lives.

> 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 made up. These people get punishments exceeding those of violent crimes. It's all deeply unfair & unjust & immoral. The system debases itself by being a mean, cruel, unjust bastard with no remorse to adults. It's pathetic & weak & servile to the worst aspects of society (corporate cultures). Asshole Jack Valenti piece-of-shit RIAA lawyers & trashbag DRM systems are a heavy foot of injustice stomping down on the face of society, forever & ever. It's all woefully biased brutally against society & social possibility, for the greed of very few.

Alas there's seemingly next to no representation for the human cause. Patents & IP rights grow, & seemingly little curbs them, ever. The proprietarization of knowledge & intellect ever expands, a system unable unwilling & uninterested in checking the expansion of intellectual ownership. Fucking shit show man. Fucking awful. Fuck all this.

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...

I don't think I even knew back then (didn't care!) but from Wikipedia it's interesting!

> "The group was founded as Razor 2992 by Doctor No, Insane TTM and Sector9 in Norway in October 1985 as a Commodore 64 software cracking group. Shortly after, they changed from 2992 to 1911 which translates to 777 in hexadecimal."

Next question might be what is 2992? My best guess is it's b00b in little endian hex?

I always assumed it's a reference to the 1911 pistol... but it doesn't make a lot of sense when combined with razor haha.

Initial motivation was being a teenager without enough money to buy all the new computer games coming out. From there, it was partly just excitement using new technology that was relevant to the scene (Linux, high speed networks, cool ANSI art). In general scene cred was a big motivator. I also ran a BBS, and being well known in the scene also meant that artists made you great art for your board for free, which was a nice benefit if you wanted a cool aesthetic on your BBS.

Aside from cred, there were a lot of like minded people and back then it was hard to find locals who were into computers/tech, so it was sort of a social network of sorts on IRC back then, I made real friends that I still keep in touch with today, so in a way it was a shared social activity.

One fun anecdote: When I was like 14, I got on a PBX 1800# call with some folks in a group I was in and it kind of blew my mind that I was talking to someone in Israel. It was like the world opened up. That is not novel today, but back then the idea of socializing and sharing ideas with people across the world in real-time (for free) was extremely exciting. Keep in mind back then long distance cost per minute, as did much of the dial-up internet.

About law enforcement: not much. Because I did see that minors were usually spared any real consequences, I mainly avoided anything that involved profit (though I once unwittingly bought a stolen modem for cheap, when it's that cheap you kind of know). There was an uptick of paranoia when Kevin Mitnick was busted (in the town I lived in), but for the most part we weren't doing the same kinds of crime he did (some of the folks I knew were, one ended up in prison for ~13 years). I also stopped being involved when I turned 18, which was a smart move. I got a visit from the FBI or state police (I don't remember) once, and my parents nearly shit a brick, and gave me a stern talking to because they were freaking out, but it turned out they were looking for a flasher who had been going around on Halloween! whew!

Not who you asked.

The reason was the juice. The excitement of sending stuff around the world before everyone else. I never cracked on x86 just a little bit with 6809.

I was a courier in late 90s(anyone recall FlashFXP). Fall of 1999 is when isonews.com(some old schoolers here will remember this website) got their homepage owned by the FBI. I left the scene that day.

As a 15yo in the mid-90’s I was a member of and courier for a group called FaTe. Did it all over a 28.8k and later 56k modem. It was so much fun and I never once considered actually getting caught - it never felt real and the friends made along the way were worth it, at least in my case. Went to college and gave it all up. Studied a science but came back to IT and get paid today off of the skills I started learning back then.

I get the appeal, but this is a super dangerous precedent. If we ignore the law and allow juries to convict or acquit based on their personal preferences, what safety do you have when the public hates you but you've broken no law?

Juries do not have the “right” to ignore the law. Juries are required to follow the law as set forth in the judge’s jury instructions. Their job is just to determine the facts and apply the law to the facts. As a legal matter, nobody gives a shit what twelve random people think about the law enacted by the democratically elected legislature.

“Jury nullification” therefore isn’t a “right” it’s a loophole. It arises from the fact that there is nothing a court can do to enforce a jury’s obligation to follow the law in a criminal trial. That doesn’t mean the obligation to follow the law doesn’t exist.

You're right.

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterr...

Consider that the secondary point is to separate society from perpetrator.

> 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.

For some people, a 5 year sentence means society is free from their crimes for 5 years.

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.

If I am a thief and I know I'm just risking one year in prison I may as well keep stealing. If I'm stealing I'm already a lowlife - Worst case scenario

If punishment for stealing was cutting my hand, I'd definitely not risk it.

Note: I'm not justifying harsher punishments for copyright infringement and I think an appropriate punishment for theft would be forced labor where the profits go to repay what was stolen and some more.

In a just world copyright infringement would not be theft: the only thing we should charge is whoever breached their contract with the source and redistributed the content.

It shouldn't be easy to persecute copyright infringement, it's a "natural tax" of the market: if your content is so popular you can't track who is redistributing you obviously made a boatload of money.

People do things because they get something out of it and most will weight the risk of penalties vs the benefit. A long sentence would probably be harder to justify in the minds of would be offenders.

Deterrence is an aspect. So is justice. Justice means punishment for the wrong-doer. It needs an independent arbitrator as whenever someone is punished, they feel it too harsh and whenever someone is wronged, they feel the punishment too lenient.

Not suggesting the punishment in this case was fair or just. I’m an ex-hacker who got very lucky to not end up with criminal charges when I was 18. I have great empathy for what Shane has gone through.

Because deterrence and rehabilitation aren't the only purpose of prison time. Protecting society is another. You don't ever want a Ted Bundy back on the street, because rehabilitation is probably impossible, whatever is messed up in his brain to make him like that is there for life. These violent sociopaths must be locked up forever. Admittedly, these people are a small proportion of all people in prison.

This is normal pronunciation outside of the US.

The little box that does the internet is sending IP packets along appropriate routes; it's routing, so it's a router. The name is pronounced the same way as "route" [1].

The tool that cuts grooves in wood, well, it seems that's from "root" meaning to dig, [2], so one would think it ought to be pronounced the same way as that, but things aren't always that simple.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbwPKIPVcPw

[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rout#Etymology_5

I'm the last person to defend corporations. That said, US corporations definitely don't avoid "paying taxes." The corporate income tax rate imposed by the federal government is 21%. Employees pay income and social security taxes on top of those earnings after. From the moment a company earns income until it lands in the hands of employees the government can take as much as HALF of it. This includes everyone on salary. Execs would be wise to issue themselves stock so they "ONLY" have to pay 15% or 20% (LTCG) as their "income tax." Companies can reduce their tax burden by engaging in behaviors which the federal government has deemed worthy or risky and incentivizes those behaviors with preferential tax treatment. For instance the R&D tax credit. It means that organizations that invest in qualified research and development activities to incentivize innovation and growth (as defined in Internal Revenue Code section 41) may be eligible for a general business tax credit.

Naaah. If you're doing it for profit, and running a big duplicator farm or selling things online, it can make sense for it to be a criminal offense. But the laws are not crafted that well.

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

I love this music.

The nostalgia hits hard. Thank you.

That is the loader music from the Amiga game X-Out, by the way, by Chris Hülsbeck.

https://youtu.be/nMUrnNa5h-o

I'm not a lawyer, but how does the "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain" apply to this guy, when he apparently didn't make any money from that?

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.

Here's just a few:

https://youtu.be/0CBQI7cktMk

https://youtu.be/N5CNlMGcARA

https://youtu.be/gKNvLyxHTmg

https://youtu.be/IFXIGHOElrE

I mostly follow the PC scene, and I'd recommend checking out demos by Fairlight&CNCD, MFX, Kewlers, Orange, Still, Quite, Logicoma, and if you're into those then check out other groups that get 'greets' from these ones (a section of many demoscene productions where groups greet each other by name). Pretty much everything can be found on pouet.net.

Here's a YT link to one of my favourites: 'Number One Another One' by Fairlight and CNCD:

https://youtu.be/LyXwmt0EZig

> If they can't legally stop people from republishing IP, then they'll make it hard.

Alternatively it changes the game on how things are built. Building in public becomes the default, lowering the cost for all.

You'd expect a short term variance (downward) while the system adjusts, but in the long run it'd be much cheaper to produce great works, since your material costs will be lower (no royalties) and you wouldn't burn resources on the security and bureaucratic hoops you have to go through today to build and integrate ideas.

Monopoly profits would be finished though. So yes, <1% of the population would arguably be worse off. (I'm in that group, btw).

For whatever it's worth, the disposition of the case on PACER says the sentence was reduced to 12 months. There's not much of a docket to read, because it looks like he immediately pled out.

I would guess a lot of that happens in the public for transparency reasons; if one reporter (or otherwise just curious citizen) notices that (as an example) the Honorable Cacheris starts sentencing more harshly than their peers, or letting off CEOs in their courtroom with a "stern talking to," then that would be worthy of an investigation

I'm sure the Justice Department's point of view of press releases is one of deterrence: "do the crime, do the time" or perhaps even "your tax dollars at work"

> and I'm honestly not quite sure we're doing it right in northern Europe with our extreme privacy for convicted people...

The result will be that convicted people are additionally punished and shunned by society after their release. That's essentially just inviting vigilante justice and also makes it more difficult to live a crime-free life. But I suspect you knew that.

I wonder what balance you have in mind? Right now only famous people are the exception in northern Europe - their crimes and the result of their trials are generally published.

However in many of these countries the results of trials of ordinary people also often appear in publications, they just aren't mentioned by name. It seems to be mainly consumed as entertainment and publishing names is not really needed - any society that needlessly ruins people lives for the entertainment of others would be sickening.

You may ask: how to do background checks then? In many countries you can ask the police to certify that you did not commit certain kinds of crime. Your employer can't just check somewhere. These kinds of certifications are often required for jobs involving large sums of money and/or working with children, but cannot be required for other work.

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.

Why not?

I think you're painting with quite a broad brush. There are absolutely people who support copyleft because they do not want 'intermediaries' to be able to distribute binaries alone. e.g. GNU.

If copyleft means restricting freedoms on what you can do with software and preserving those rights on derivative works (GPL) - then 100% no, those people need copyright laws to enforce that.

With no copyright law I could take any GPL software, modify it, sell it as my own and nobody could force me to give up the code.

If copyleft means permissive (MIT) - then it's not a hostile environment. You are free to create and share permissive works with no hostility from anyone else.

To make what this guy did legal would require overhauling 300 years of law.

It's a ridiculous position. Especially given the hypocrisy in supporting copyleft, which lets people distribute works gratis with heavy restrictions, and ripping off other peoples work who didn't want any part of that, while getting mad that people aren't following the copyleft restrictions.

I still do things for the thrill and because I can, and I'm well into adulthood. That's what makes life fun and interesting and there doesn't have to be a 'point' that anyone else understands.

But sometimes I still try to do things I can't - I currently have a broken wrist.

Permissive licenses are not public domain waivers, they usually have some other disclaimers of liability, a requirement to include that provision in all copies, etc. In a world without copyright, OSS devs will need to find another way to shield themselves from liability.

However, what would realistically happen in a hypothetical world without copyright, is that commercial organizations will stop most OSS development and revert to distributing obfuscated binaries.

While I am generally in favor of permissive licensing and accept the corresponding "yes, the code can get incorporated into other projects"...

That same copyright law protects my photographs. I am generally in favor of strong copyright laws.

There are also philosophies of software licensing that want to ensure that the user can have access to the code that uses my code. Under those philosophies, it is the protections granted by the limited right to prepare derivative works that allow that licensing to have teeth and enforce a copy left.

Without copyright, the GPL and corresponding licensing that is written with the desire to be able to guarantee the 2nd and 4th freedoms (access to the source for some product and ability to modify the code for that product) have no teeth and those cannot be guaranteed.

>It's similar to how demoscene operates.

Considering that the demoscene spun off the cracking scene...

I'm sorry, I have no patience for "rich man bad" takes on copyright.

Copyright law protects the smallest against the biggest. If some company comes and steals my product and outspends me on marketing, how do I fight back without copyright law?

Say someone stole the book I wrote and passed it off as their own - how does open sourcing it help me?

The chief purpose of the DMCA was to clarify legal liability and penalties for digital copyright infringement brought on by the disruption of the internet. How does that keep anyone rich? Who is that taking money from? Who is made poorer because people are able to create and sell their own works in the manner of their choosing?

I sell software, I wouldn't do it if I couldn't retain ownership of it.

I don't care how much work I put into it, I don't care how much money its worth. I don't care about its impact.

I create because it's mine and I control it. The hands that built it decide what happens to it.

I could paint the prettiest picture and then burn it forever and nobody has any right to stop me, no matter how many poor hobbiest art admirers wanted to see it.

> bans practices like DRM and intentional incompatibility

more restrictions on the road to copyright freedom

if restricting what people are allowed to do with software is bad, why does that make it acceptable to create more restirctions on what people can do with software.

once we have 1,000 pages of restrictions closing all the interop and drm loopholes - our software will truely be free