Cyber-freedom

Spore, EA's big DRM mistake

2008-09-09T03:28:00.001-07:00

For anyone that hasn't pirated Spore yet (all 10 of you) it's time to cough up the bandwidth, and not just because it's a great game, but because we as a community need to continue to send EA a message. EA implemented it's new DRM (Digital rights management) to "Prevent the game from being pirated on the internet." Well it obviously didn't work very well as their was a reloaded release several days before it hit stores. What this DRM does is limit how many times you can activate your copy of spore on your computer(s) much like Bio shock did. What this means is if you wanted to put Spore on your laptop, home computer, work computer, you'll be fine but if you ever get a new laptop home or work computer, your outta luck becuase it only lets 3 computers activate it. Well that seems like something called rentware, you don't really own it, but you get to use it for a peroid of time. EA's DRM has as expected generated nothing but outrage in the online community, as it set a record low user review score at en.amazon. EA demanded that amazon take the reviews down, which they reluctantly did. EA's DRM has crippled spore's sales, and what does EA do to respond? Of course they blaim piracy. But wait....DRM is supposed to stop piracy, So how has it negatively affected sales? The answer, it hasnt. It very easy to blaim piracy becuase most people don't compeltely understand the core issue, and EA distorting the facts doesn't help. EA like to throw out "buzz words" to the general public, and not emphasize the details, becuase if they did, EA's stock would drop faster than Dial-up services (not really but you get the point). The news cast covering the story first throws out what DRM is, and then simply follow up by saying "piracy has caused EA's new game spore to sale dramtically less copies than expeted. Well it's not hard to guess, EA thew money at this game by the truckload, whats a bit of media distoration gonnea cost compared to the devlopment. That being said, as a Pirate your almost oblgated to get this one, for free of course, compliments of reloaded, who has kindly included a crack and keygen.
As for the actual game, its quite an enjoyable experience.

You start as a single cell organism, in the ocean fighting to survive. To do so, you need to evolve and collect DNA, to give your creature a leg up on the competition. This can be achieved by adding horns, posion or even water jets to your organsim. From therem you make you way to land, and keep evolving until you become of near human (or some cases greater) intellegence. This phase of the game really starts to show where it shines, and thats in the creature creation lab. Your given a massive customazation lab, where you can shape and mold your very own spiecies. This is done very well, as it's so easy anyone can do it, but still create very cool looking and unique creatures. Your creature has choices while in the primal stages onm land, to hunt other creatures to extintction or turn them into socail allies, to further augument their DNA arsenal. After the creature stage has hit it's last stage you'll need to finalize your creature's looks, becuase once they become tribesmens, theirs no turning back.

From there you advance your creature not as in idivusal, but as a race conquering or allying other creatures across your starting contintent. Once that's done your off to being civilized where even more customization comes into play. You'll need to build your own air, land, and sea vechicles, along with a variety of differnet building types, and conquer every city, all of which now belong to your race, as all other seintent races have been elimated by your evolutionary prowlness. Once you have achieved global hegemony, its off to space to conquer the galxay. You quickly discover an abundance of alien life, which you need to ally or conquer depending on your play type. You will get better weapons for your ship, along with the ability to terrafrom planets, where you makeplanets mroe inhabitable, and profitable, until you have eventually ranked to the supreme commander of the universe
Spore is a very enjoyable game, which is doubled by the good reason to pirate it. Everyone should add this one to their collection, even if they have no intention of even installing.

They Still Think they can Stop us.

2008-09-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

Most Software analysts believe that Internet piracy, essentially cannot be stopped, and will always exist no matter how much digital media rights software, Cyber security, and law enforcement evolve. Piracy is here to stay whether law enforcement agencies like it or not. That however, does not detour organisations such as the BSA or Business Software Alliance (Do Anti-piracy organizations think having alliance at the end of their name makes them seem intimidating or something) The BSA releases a Anti-Piracy report internationally and in the USA every year or so that basically shows how much they suck at their job. Surprisingly enough the united states has the lowest Internet piracy rate out of all 103 countries that were part of the study. However the US also has the largest software distribution rate on the planet, so this statistic isn't too surprising. Here's a small excerpt from the report

Six states were chosen because they are the states from which the BSA receives the most piracy reports from the general public, while two others (Arizona and Nevada), were chosen to round out geographical coverage. The eight states account for 46% of the combined PC and PC software market, but 52% (or $4.2B) of the total piracy losses in the US. In addition to the foregone revenue, software piracy also means tech jobs are not created—more than 54,000 in the eight states—and $3.2 billion in associated 2007 tax revenues are lost, including enough state and local taxes to build 100 middle schools or hire nearly 25,000 experienced police or fire personnel.

Trends that tend to lower PC software piracy include strong law enforcement, consumer education, advanced digital rights technology, vendor deals with original equipment manufacturers and distributors, special legalization programs, and effective software asset management programs. These have proven to be fundamental pillars through which various countries have begun to have a lasting and positive effect toward decreasing overall levels of software piracy. This study sheds more light on the local drivers of software piracy as well as the economic and social impacts.

Let's break this down a bit.
Firstly, the BSA contends that about 8.4 billion dollars a year of revenue are lost to Internet Piracy. They fail to mention that the rate of piracy is due to outrageous prices of software. (Adobe CS3 Premium suite just got a price cut to "only" $9000) They then state that 54,000 Tech jobs are not created sue to this revenue lost. What they don't seem to understand is revenue doesn't always equal jobs, and software industries are doing this to themselves by overpricing their product. The software companies really don't have a good basis to complain, they want to screw people and then not have to deal with the fallout that follows, and that's just not how it works. Their method of compensation is to criminalize Piracy, because they want to keep overcharging. In the long run, Pirates need to band together to succeed. If we become organized, we can accomplish most anything. We are an invisible army, that simply needs a leader, who can organize product boycotts, mass piracy, corporate rebellion and not sleep until the Internet is truly free. If such a leader does one day arrive, as an alias or otherwise, be ready, because we will be a force to be reckoned with. VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

Advanced Internet Piracy, A how-to guide

2008-09-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

Most people are probably aware it's possible to get almost anything off the Internet. From programs, to movies and even more common music. Now you probably know you can go to limewire and download any song you want off the Internet. You may of even noticed that you can use it to download movies too. But did you know that limewire is embedded with so much spyware that it can drastically slow your computer? or that many limewire files, including music contain very malicious viriuses? Thats why whenever I see a friend, family member, or random acquittance with limewire on their desktop, I want to scream. That being said, if you have it on your computer, get rid of it. If you really like the format, there are plenty of other safer and cleaner limewire doppelgangers out there, without the hastle or the Trojans, but we'll get to that later. Firstly we need to talk about security. Lots of people don't stray away from becoming a pirate because they believe it's morally wrong, but because they fear legal repercussions. What most people don't know is that your more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than being prosecuted for Internet piracy. But why even take the small chance? who wants to metaphorically double their chances of being struck by lightning? Their is a solution and it's called Peer guardian. It's an intuitive program that blacklists anti P2P organizations and denies them access to your computer, making you invisible to them. This is a most have for any pirate, and it's free online at http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/ Just make sure it's "enabled" or else it isn't going to do anything. This program may not let some online games to work without configuring, because many of these game companies check to see if your stealing your programs while your downloading, not that they will while your playing, but the IP address and name is the same so it blocks it anyway. You can configure it not to do this, and if your still having difficulties you can try the forums, they are very helpful, even to people not fluent in computers. So now you have your security and the Mega-corporation juggernauts don't stand a chance. The online world is at your whim, but what to do with it? Well, most pirates would say "abuse it" but your really not abusing anything, your just giving over wealthy corps a taste of their own medicine (see older posts). There are a few programs however, that are going to make your Piracy experience efficient and quick. First of all we need to talk about .Torrent files. These are essentail a very small txt file that tells your bit torrent client where to go download what you want. There are dozens of Torrent clients out there for free, My favorite is Utorrent, because it doesn't strain your computer at all, and has a nice clean and informative interface. You can get it at www.utorrent.com for free. Threes a reason you should use torrent files ( we'll get to where to find them later) because they are the most efficient download protocol for P2P on the market. When you download a file from limewire, you download from start to finish the file from start to finish in a sequential order. Torrents break a file into thousands of tiny pieces and distribute your need for them to all available seeders, giving you exponentially faster download times. But where to find such files. Demonoid.com was the most popular for a while, until they closed registrations for 29 days a month. Torrentspy was also quite popular but crumbled under legal pressure. The Pirate bay however has been flourishing, and it's not by chance either. It's because it based in Sweden, and such sites are perfectly legal under Swedish law. You can access it at www.thepiratebay.org Something I particularly like is their "top 100" feature, which allows you to look at the 100 most popular downloads in any particular category. They also allow music searches done by genre year and band, which saves a lot of time. Now downloading movies and music is easy enough, But what about games and programs? well your probably gonna need the assistance of a few helpful tools. Daemon tools (which is free on the Internet) allows you to mount .ISO files on your computer, which basically tricks your computer into thinking theres a disk drive with a disk in it, when in fact it's just an iso of the newest video game you found on the net. It also supports burning so you can share it with your friends, sell them ect. Another very helpful program is Winrar, also free online. It allows you to open a wide variety of compressed files (which are plentiful on piracy sites as they reduce download time). Installing is a case by case basis, but there is usually a readme in pirated files that show you exactly what you need to do. Some times its a .NFO file, and it hangs up new people a lot. to view an NFO file you need to view it in notepad, or else your computer isn't going to know what to do with it. Now lets say you just want single songs, where torrents really aren't needed. At download.com you can get Frostwire, which is very much like limewire minus the bad. It's free and efficient, if your looking for just a few songs. Remember when downloading torrents, to read the comment on them! Internet Pirates are a very active community, and if a fake file or virus is posted, they WILL complain and warn you! Internet pirates keep each other safe, so if you find a file to be fake or containing viruses, make sure to help others as they helped you! If yo have any questions, you can leave them in comments, and I will respond as quickly as possible to help you out. Remember pirating things off the Internet is a civil protest against The Corporations that overcharge you Just because they can! Some people just use these items for themself but think of how much you could make of selling the retail price $3000 CS3 Creative suite to co-workers friends ect. By doing so your making it that much harder for companies like adobe to overcharge ridduclus amount for their software. Good luck with your priacy endevaors and I'll see you on the net very soon!
-The Guardain of Truth

Morality of Piracy

2008-09-01T17:04:00.000-07:00

If asked the question "Would you steal from a store?" most people would say "No, of course not." What most anti-piracy want to do is make you think stealing from a store is exactly the same as downloading copyrighted material from the net. This led to the creation of the very annoying commercials put on many DVD's today, that do just that, tell you that you wouldn't steal from a store, and downloading the same content is the exact same crime. Where this may be true from a legal standpoint in certain countries, it raises a very interesting ethical question, is it the same? As a Guardian of freedom, I say no, it's quite different. Most people would argue that CD's and DVD's cost far too much, and the corporations creating them are exploiting there fanbase to turn a massive profit. Unfortunatley conventional methods of protest aren't effective against money driven juggernaughts, and they would rather ignore and abuse their fanbase instead of losing what is a trivial profit to these wealthy corporations. So what are we left with? The age old failsafe known as civil disobidence. The usage of civil disobidence to remedy a system's inadaquatcies has been contested through the ages as unethical as well, but the sad truth is, sometimes civil disobidence is the only way to get done. How else could slaves in The United states tried tio change the political system? They had little representation form whites, had no way of voicing their suffering, and furthermore did not have the right to vote. Running away was a form a civil disobidence, but others condemn it becuase they are overly paranoid, and belive that it will ultimatley bring anarchy. Most people will agree that civil disobidence was perfectly acceptable for slaves, but then other will followup with the absurd statement that it has no practical usage in contempoary society. They are however wrong in there observation, and internet piracy has been the solution to a previous issue, why can't it work again? For thouse who are unaware of how it has solved a consumer crisis, they need only to look to itunes, and similar services. These services were spawned in the wake of Napster, which was created becuase CD's were far too expensive, especailly if a person wanted only a single track from an album. Many people were more than willing to cough up a buck a song, from an extensive collection, such as the one they enjoyed from Napster before it's fall. Continuing this fight CAN help us fight the still outrageous CD prices and the even more outrageous DVD prices (especially Blu-ray disks) If everyone one day decided that Blu-rays were too expensive to buy, so they would just rip any high def movies of the internet, Blu-ray prices would drop so fast that you might see a price drop article on CNN and wonder if they hadn't lowered since you read it. The prices aren't as high as they are becuase it costs an extraordinary amount to make, they simply know that they can charge that much and still sell them. A lot of people hesistate to Pirate copyrighted material becuase of the actors and artists, and feel that they are being treated unfairly. However take a moment to think about it, These actors/artists and their represenatives obviously don't care about you very much, becuase they are charging you riddculus and unafforadable prices, without any regard to how this will affect you, their supporter. So next time you hear your favorite artist/actor say how much they appreciate their fans, you might wana take into consideration how much they dont care about your wallet

Letter to the Romance Writers of America

2008-08-31T23:33:00.000-07:00

To whom it may concern,
A recent study by Virginia tech has found that Ebooks comprise of less than 1% of the bulk of "pirated" materials on the internet. Obviously an even smaller percentage is comprised completely of romance novels. Many piracy sites such as The Pirate Bay (good luck trying to shut that one down it's Swedish and legal) offer a "top 100 feature" which allows the user to view the 100 most downloaded items in a particular category, such as Ebooks. I've logged the list from pirate bay and a few other sites under top 100 and ebooks (one site has top 200) and on the entire list, there is not a single romance novel. Because these sites are just as mainstream (more mainstream in the case of Pirate Bay) as most of the sites you have listed, it's not unlogical to conclude that the Romance Novel industry isn't getting hit very hard. It's quite true that yes SOME novels do get downloaded, but statically its more likely, to be stolen from a store than it is online. The problem this presents is the distribution of free information transfer that organizations such as yourself antagonize, give fuel to Radicalists, who believe the internet needs to be controlled completely by a single entity, and would also make bit torrent clients illegal, when they have perfectly legitimate uses. Blaming the internet is easy, because it's an easily identifiable entity that most people don't completely understand, blaming a site that distributes files, (such as romance novels) are similar in this respect. However what many organizations such as yourself fail to realize is that many of these sites are simply directing users to locations where these files can be located. This sites are targeted because organizations like yourself want to elimnate the problem with one stone not millions, When in fact it is the individuals seeding the files that are responsible. This would be very much like arresting a person for drawing a map to a rental store. Because of this I am demanding that you immediately disband and compose a formal apology to listed sites. I know very well that you will do no such thing, but organizations such as yourself make demands like this one to "Piracy sites" all the time, and expect them to be taken seriously. However what you are doing is far worse than what you condem others for, you would have the free trade of information eliminated, to satisfy your own very marginal sales loss. In conclusion your far worse than the demon your trying to slay, and your entire organization should take a good look in the mirror and decide if a VERY small profit is worth the global oppression it will create
Respectfull yours,
Wil Sheppard-Guardian of Truth

Cyber Freedom

2008-08-31T23:15:00.000-07:00

Cyber-freedom is defined as the free transfer of information via the Internet. This freedom is currently being contested by radicals everywhere, who would have Bit torrent clients banned, the usage of the net regulated and threaten the ability to share ANYTHING on the net without the consent of a governing entity. Allowing such an entity to govern the free trade of information on the net is an affront to the individual liberties of it's users and is an oppressive form of unnecessary bureaucratic control. Bit torrent clients have perfectly legitimate uses, and to have them made illegal would be a political travesty, while also being a ignorant removal of an efficient form of file transfer. Personal Morales about Internet piracy aside, we can't allow our freedoms to be trampled because certain individuals believe it's the best way to climate the "problem" that's very much like using a nuclear bomb to blow up a bunker in a civilian populated city