International ‘piracy’ raids
ANONY:chud == fed site, griffen == fed, according to fbi, even .ca got raided this morning
ANONY:killaz, marvel/cartel, cin, sidar, dact, korax, bourbon, burner, these are all the people listed on the warrent
ANONY:CHUD and LAD run by a dude named Griffen that is a fed apparantly
CONFIRMED TWO CALI GBITS DOWN, WITH BIG NAME AFFILS.
CONFIRMED DACT GOT BUSTED TODAY 9AM.
13:31 < *> [xxxxxxxxx]: Dact was busted at 9am today , took all his comps and movies and burnt discs13:31 < *> [xxxxxxxxx]: told him they were working iwth the fbi to round up ppl that were on a FBI run site , CHUD and LAD run by a dude named Griffen that is a fed apparantly13:32 < *> paste news as it comes in please
p2pnet.net News:- Early this morning p2pnet had an email from Del over at AfterDawn. Del’s message was quickly followed by several others. And they all dealt with a series of international busts.
FBI agents in the US have been operating a fake warez site which ultimately resulted in coordinated raids in the US, The Netherlands and Canada, as well as other countries.
Among those hit were two people in Alberta who today were on the receiving end of RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) search warrants.
XXXXXXXXXX on or between the 1st day of January 2005 and the 30th day of June 2005 at or near Edmonton Alberta did knowlingly distribute infringing copies of a work or other subject matter in which copyright subsists, either for the purpose of trade pr such an extent as to affect prejudicuially the owner of the copyright contrary to Section 42(1)(c) of the Copyright Act.
The second warrant is virtually the same.
“Police in more than a dozen countries have seized computers and made arrests in a crackdown on illegal file-swapping instigated by U.S. investigators, the Dutch government said on Thursday,” says Reuters, going on:
“Authorities raided several locations in The Netherlands on Wednesday as part of an operation initiated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and arrested three people on suspicion of computer file-sharing, the Finance Ministry said.
“More computers were seized on Wednesday in Australia, Israel, Germany, South-Korea, Norway, France, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Poland, Canada and Hungary, said a spokeswoman for the ministry, which is responsible for preventing economic crime.”
Boozers
In the US, according to an affidavit, “in 2003 an undercover agent began inviting warez operators from all over the country to store pirated material on his site,” says the Mercury News.
“As the word spread, more storage space was added and numerous groups began storing their stolen games and films that could be uploaded and downloaded by hundreds of warez members. A member who uploaded three movies to the server was entitled to download one movie, many of them pre-released movies that were placed on the site long before a DVD was released to the public.”
A warrant was issued for the arrest of Chirayu Patel, 24, “on charges of violating federal copyright protection laws,” says the story, going on:
Patel, aka Dact, “allegedly set up hardware and ran a site for a group called Boozers that pirated DVDs, uploading and downloading more than 1.4 terabytes of computer software, games and movies. The material included a copy of ‘Star Wars II,’ a $4,350 copy of a server operating system and a $799 Sony DVD production suite.”
Some 27 terabytes of material ended up on the phony FBI serversx as well as on “two servers provided by warez members,” says the Mercury News, adding:
“The logs of uploaded software include 188 copyrighted applications valued at $379,101 from companies such as Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Sony, Autodesk and Symantec.”
‘My thoughts go out to anyone who was targetted and taken down’
Below is an nfo file emailed to us this morning:
USA.Site.LAD.supposed.FED.site.Affil.By.Centropy.Shut.Ur.USA.sites.Down.For-NOW
Confirmed.Some.People.Busted.In-USA
Todays.Raids.Brought.To.You.BY-FBi
Todays.Raids.UPDATED..Brought.To.You.BY.-FBi
May.this.affils.too.MRC.BOSS.BUTT.CMC.EMP.ESC.IDC.JAH.JUST.NBD.PMS.SQ.TR.TWCMP3.UKI.WLM.XDS-ThX
Police.sucks.sites.at.us.nl.and.ca.are-BUSTED
Centropy.and.tda.leader.busted.keep.coool.and.left.sites.with.this-AFFILS
And whatever else is out there.
The above nfos and pres are indeed scary and talk of something that no one has a full grasp on (as to the extent of it) quite yet.
But the thought of shutting down your sites ‘temporarily’ or not preing anything ‘temporarily’ is ludicrous.
What good will shutting down a site that has already been targeted do? What good will your lack of new pres do if your group has already been targeted? What good will calling your respective ISP and canceling your connection do?
The people in charge of these busts already have all the info they need if you are a person they are targeting in these series of busts. If I were to shut down now, site, computer, connection, and essentially disappear off the ‘e-radar’, will the FBI (so we assume) go and say “Shit, this guy disappeared, I guess we’ll forget all this info we’ve been generating for a long time and go after some new guy/group/site.”
The reactionary responses to these busts does not help anybody. As has been said in many nfos before, the need for greater SECURITY is what is needed. The time to start implementing these security policies are
NOW. Don’t log, encrypt connections, use BNCs, encrypt data if feasible, don’t accept every fool that wants to join on your sites, etc. etc. These are BUT A FEW suggestions but can go a long way to keeping everybody safe.
To summarize ? shutting your sites/operations down now will do nothing. The FBI (or whomever) is making their series of busts, and unfortunately, just because you deleted sites.dat or what have youx it will not prevent them from coming if they want you.
As a little addon, I am saddened to hear that CTP/TDA got hit hard. I look forward to any info that can be given by those who weren’t targeted. My thoughts go out to anyone who was targetted and taken down. I have heard rumors of an actual life ending during these busts. I don’t want to say any additional info because I can’t really verify it further, but if such is the case then today is an even sadder day.
(Thanks to Del, in Ireland, Bet, in Canada, and William, in the US )
Stay tuned.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
AfterDawn - Report: Several raids in Internet Piracy Crackdown, June 30, 2005
Mercury News - FBI sting busts piracy net, June 30, 2005
Reuters - Suspected file-swappers arrested in global raid, June 30, 2005
June 30th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
Another extension of the corporations influence on the world. I can’t wait til the day that someone pays back all those nice FBI people with a suprise and does something to them and whoever else is entrapping people.
June 30th, 2005 at 7:49 pm
Just another form of entrapment. Offering those goods that will net folks that would probably otherwise be law-abiding. Now with the full coperation of the
FBI to set the tone for future setups by local police and the like.
Thankfully, there isn’t much in the line of warez I need as I don’t run windoze. Running windoze seems to get more expensive every day as you need more and more products to try and secure your computer against all manner of intrusions. I gave up on windoze last month and have no intention of returning to the overbloated OS and its problems. I wish those that still try and combat this full fledge assault on windoze the best. I won’t be one of them. Billy boy has protected his business right out the window as far as I am concerned. I no longer need trojan hunters, antivirii, and all the rest of the expensive crap.
Again, I vote with my wallet. Good move Billy-boy, you lost another.
June 30th, 2005 at 10:07 pm
What a surprise, agent provocateurs running the site, creating the “illegality” and enticing others to embrace it. This is how the pigs operate. Everyone better wake up because this is the same way the CIA operates. They create “terrorist” groups and do the recruiting. Then, once the group is big enough, and depending on their objectives, they use it for their own purposes (like carrying out fake attacks) while arresting those who pose a threat to their plans. al qaeda = THE CIA, DUH!
the pigs are the real criminals.
July 1st, 2005 at 5:42 am
The FBI cannot run a warez site under the Supreme Court’s ruling. They would be inducing the members into performing copyright infringement and therefore the FBI would become liable. Who the hell else hasn’t thought of that yet?!?!
July 1st, 2005 at 12:05 pm
if that’s true - i doubt it, though - the sting operation was begun before the new ruling came into being.
i doubt the “inducement” aspect has any bearing.
police forces - especially those employed by or within fbi, cia and homeland security - whose mandate is stopping the cash flow of supposed terrorist-funding dvd orgs basically have free reign to do what they want as long as they can claim they’re fighting terrorism.
whether that can be proved in court is a different matter as most of the cases won’t be heard in a courtroom, and the nwo-contolled mass media won’t follow-up or investigate it any further than the original arrest headlines.
stings have mostly been used “legally” to entice known criminals or bail-jumpers into committing more crimes or to just round them up. as long as they can get a judge to approve it, they don’t worry about the constitutionality of it until way after it’s blown over and secret trials and deals have been made. and by that time countless lives have been ruined by false allegations.
wiretaps, search and seizures, sting ops - all without warrants or probably cause - seem to be legal under the so-called patriot act congress was scared into enacting sight-unseen.
that’s the america of today - and their fear campaign, boistered by mainstream media and rising american tax dollars, has reached into the homes and lives of people in foreign lands where they have no business being.
July 1st, 2005 at 3:27 pm
The PATRIOT act is something that us patriots will see vanish if we have anything to say about it. If we have to overthrow the current government to stop the insanity, we shall. That is the true American way. “When in the course of human events…”
July 2nd, 2005 at 12:44 am
this is messed up how can the FBI track these people down and do such a thing. something must be done before networks are shutdown. this is scary.
July 2nd, 2005 at 12:58 am
dose it look like the FBI took there time or was a chepo
site. what did tey call it. what cdes did they write for it?
post an answer called answer
July 2nd, 2005 at 2:19 am
they used ftp servers.
July 22nd, 2005 at 10:38 pm
You are all foolish idiots who know nothing.