Comments on: Big German file share probe

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 21:57:03 +0000

“Why would anyone pay for warez when they could simply pay for the legitimate product.”
Perhaps, because things like M$ XP, photoshop, etc, are extremely expensive.
You might have bottomless pockets but the average joe schmo doesn’t.

Anyway, this story is way off the mark.
If you read ZP you’ll find out that this was a pay wareaz site ftpwelt.com. It was hated by the scene and taken down by a hacker who sent all the info to the gvu.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 04:15:08 +0000

Why would anyone pay for warez when they could simply pay for the legitimate product.

Specifically with software, if youre going to pay you may as well shell out a little more for a product you can simply update without having to sneak around.

The main package is always available online, but its updates are few and far between.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 01:37:46 +0000

Maybe by “online address book” what they really mean is that when police raided the server, they looked up all the IP addresses from the server logs, and backtraced these IPs to reveal the individuals behind them.

The money the site made could have been from popup advertising. While it’s possible that people were paying for downloads – leaving themselves open to have their identities traced through credit card numbers – why would anyone pay to download warez when virtually everything is already available for free on P2P networks?