3 members of Team Xecuter have been indicted in the USA on 11 felony charges

[Master Disaster]

The 3 supposed ring leaders of hacking group Team Xecuter have had arrest warrants issued against them in Seattle with the courts calling them leaders of one of the most notorious piracy groups on earth.

Quote

The United States Department of Justice has shared some news regarding Team-Xecuter, which doesn't appear to be a good sign for the company. Gary Bowser, known on GBAtemp as garyopa, Max Louarn, and Yuanning Chen have all been arrested in Seattle, Washington. The US Government classifies these men as "leaders of one of the world's most notorious videogame piracy groups", and will be facing a federal indictment charge, for the selling of illegal hardware that facilitates piracy.

 

“These defendants lined their pockets by stealing and selling the work of other video-game developers – even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games,” said U.S. Attorney Brian Moran for the Western District of Washington. “This conduct doesn’t just harm billion dollar companies, it hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video-game industry.”

Two are currently in custody and the third is facing extradition on 11 felony charges including conspiracy to commit money laundering, trafficking in circumvention devices and wire fraud.

Quote

In September 2020, Louarn and Bowser were arrested abroad in connection with the charges in this case. The United States will seek Louarn’s extradition to stand trial in the United States. Bowser was arrested and deported from the Dominican Republic, and appeared today in federal court, in New Jersey.

Each defendant is charged with 11 felony counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices, trafficking in circumvention devices, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Source - https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo-switch-hackers-team-xecuter-leaders-arrested-charged-in-federal-indictment.574871/

Indictment - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-members-notorious-videogame-piracy-group-team-xecuter-custody

 

Well RIP anybody who has paid for SXOS I guess. I cannot see them surviving this, at least in their current capacity. I only hope Nintendo don't go after the open source CFW next.

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I only hope Nintendo don't go after the open source CFW next.

You can bet on it that they will. They go after anything that is just a least bit similar to anything they own or threatens their monopoly on their consoles.........

 

 

As for this topic its pretty much a waste, others will pickup where this team left and nintendo going to be back where they started.

[Arika]

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

 

“These defendants lined their pockets by stealing and selling the work of other video-game developers – even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games,”

i bet this is what made all the eyes turn on them and bring down to proverbial hammer.

[AlTech]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, piracy isn’t stealing.
 

Losing sales to privacy doesn’t exist, people who pirate weren’t going to buy your game anyways.

[Bombastinator]

There seems to be a lack of explanation of what was done for people who don’t own switches.   It seems they were involved in some sort of switch hack, and there was some sort of financial thing, but other than that I’m finding no details other than indictment claims.

[Vanderburg]

3 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, piracy isn’t stealing.
 

Losing sales to privacy doesn’t exist, people who pirate weren’t going to buy your game anyways.

Just because you weren't going to buy it doesn't give you a right to it and doesn't mean that the creator doesn't own it. Whether or not you were going to buy it is totally irrelevant to whether piracy is stealing.

[jagdtigger]

2 minutes ago, Vanderburg said:

Whether or not you were going to buy it is totally irrelevant to whether piracy is stealing.

And this is where you are wrong. It has great relevance. Especially when these companies depict themselves as the victim claiming absurd amounts of damages based on the same false assumption you just wrote. Not every download is a loss because most of them wouldnt buy it in the first place, or there are cases where ppl buy it after they played with the pirated copy and deemed worthy to buy. You cant depict piracy as something that is purely dark and evil. CDPR just proven that 3 times already in a row by releasing the witcher series without any kind of DRM, proving false every claim that try and justify overzealous DRM solutions. They call it Digital Rights Management, but in relity it is a Digital Rights Restriction.

[Sauron]

6 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games

Welp, lost any sympathy I might have otherwise had.

[Mark Kaine]

15 minutes ago, Vanderburg said:

Just because you weren't going to buy it doesn't give you a right to it and doesn't mean that the creator doesn't own it. Whether or not you were going to buy it is totally irrelevant to whether piracy is stealing.

"I DID NOT STEAL THIS FERRARI, I'M POOR AND I WASN'T GONNA BUY IT ANYWAY!"

 

 

[Vanderburg]

6 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

And this is where you are wrong. It has great relevance. Especially when these companies depict themselves as the victim claiming absurd amounts of damages based on the same false assumption you just wrote. Not every download is a loss because most of them wouldnt buy it in the first place, or there are cases where ppl buy it after they played with the pirated copy and deemed worthy to buy. You cant depict piracy as something that is purely dark and evil. CDPR just proven that 3 times already in a row by releasing the witcher series without any kind of DRM, proving false every claim that try and justify overzealous DRM solutions. They call it Digital Rights Management, but in relity it is a Digital Rights Restriction.

No, this is wrong. Piracy might not be stealing. I'm not taking a position on that. I'm only saying that whether you were going to buy it is irrelevant to that determination. The only thing that matters (or SHOULD, rather) is if the creator has the right to control distribution. That is, do they own it. If they own it, and you take a copy without permission, it's stealing. If you don't think they own it, or you don't think they have the right to control distribution, then it's not stealing (I'm talking morally, not legally). That should be the only consideration. Is it theirs.

[jagdtigger]

9 minutes ago, Vanderburg said:

Is it theirs.

If you upload something to the net you loose control over it, whether you or these companies like it its the unwritten law of the internet. You can try to convince ppl to buy it, but the current trend with drm's and arbitrary limitations arent the way. It actually drives ppl to piracy. They can file all the lawsuit and claim ridiculous arbitrary numbers pulled out from their butt as damages but it wont do any good for them.

Companies forgot their place. They should provide what the consumers want, and not forcing their own will onto them. One reaction to this is to boycott said company, or get their products other ways without giving them a dime. Both are valid responses and instead of responding with tyranny they should look into things and find the root cause of the response of consumers. Many companies are not interested in their original purpose anymore, whats driving them is pure greed. Now this whats really wrong here not piracy.

[aom]

59 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Many companies are not interested in their original purpose anymore, whats driving them is pure greed. Now this whats really wrong here not piracy.

A company's job should be to make money. I agree that it shouldnt be pure greed but this idealism of companies need to do whatever they can so consumers can have what they want is bs.

 

Sure companies shouldnt be framing themselves as victims of piracy so much cuz the actual impact is small but by no means is piracy okay morally. It is theft.

 

You know how to make companies do what you want? Dont buy their shit and dont pirate their shit. Lack of sales and excuse for their sales will force them to change. "Oh but that's hard and i still want to play their game even if i dont want to support them." then you dont really care, you just want free shit. "oh but other ppl will buy the game so my protest wont matter" and this is the sort of bs that ppl tell themselves to not go vote. 

[jagdtigger]

13 minutes ago, Brinith said:

this idealism of companies need to do whatever they can so consumers can have what they want is bs.

Companies usually get created to serve some of the needs of the consumers in exchange for money, and if you dont want to file for bankruptcy you better keep up with the change in you customers preferences. Calling this basic knowledge BS does not say anything good about you...

[eeeee1]

talk about execution...

 

ironic

(yes i know. they wont get the death penalty)

[Trik'Stari]

5 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, piracy isn’t stealing.
 

Losing sales to privacy doesn’t exist, people who pirate weren’t going to buy your game anyways.

Not always true. I've currently got a list of games I intend to purchase, those purchase decisions I made after playing the cracked versions of the game.

 

That being said, I agree with your general sentiment.

 

Yarrr.

 

25 minutes ago, Brinith said:

A company's job should be to make money. I agree that it shouldnt be pure greed but this idealism of companies need to do whatever they can so consumers can have what they want is bs.

 

Sure companies shouldnt be framing themselves as victims of piracy so much cuz the actual impact is small but by no means is piracy okay morally. It is theft.

 

You know how to make companies do what you want? Dont buy their shit and dont pirate their shit. Lack of sales and excuse for their sales will force them to change. "Oh but that's hard and i still want to play their game even if i dont want to support them." then you dont really care, you just want free shit. "oh but other ppl will buy the game so my protest wont matter" and this is the sort of bs that ppl tell themselves to not go vote. 

The purpose of a company is to bring goods and services to market at a competitive price. That should be the focus, not the psychotic obsession with "all of the money, all of the time" as Jim Sterling puts it (He's not wrong about that. He's just wrong for blanket blaming capitalism).

 

I consider myself a capitalist, but the way companies run today is moronic and short sighted. They care more about quarterly profits than having a reputable brand or good product. I blame the stock market and shareholders, rather than the CEO's who are obligated legally to only care about the shareholders.

[Commodus]

It's still amusing how people will bend over backwards to excuse unjustifiable stealing — especially from people who charge you for the privilege.

 

They're games, not bread. You won't starve if you don't have Super Smash Bros. on your Switch. Can't afford to buy a game? Don't download it at all. I do sympathize with people who can't really afford games, but even then... no one's putting a gun to your head telling you to pirate games. And if you have a reasonably modern gaming PC or a recent console purchase? Yeah, you can probably afford to buy a few titles.

 

Hell, we live in an era when there are numerous high-quality free-to-play games. Not everyone wants to play Fortnite, League of Legends or Destiny 2 all the time, but you do have quite a few choices if you can't afford to spend a dime on a game.

 

And if pirates actually charge for the games... well, they get zero sympathy after that. That's not only hurting developers, it's paying the leeches. If you're going to pirate, at least pretend to live up to the Robin Hood image... don't make yourself another King John.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, Commodus said:

It's still amusing how people will bend over backwards to excuse unjustifiable stealing — especially from people who charge you for the privilege.

 

They're games, not bread. You won't starve if you don't have Super Smash Bros. on your Switch. Can't afford to buy a game? Don't download it at all. I do sympathize with people who can't really afford games, but even then... no one's putting a gun to your head telling you to pirate games. And if you have a reasonably modern gaming PC or a recent console purchase? Yeah, you can probably afford to buy a few titles.

 

Hell, we live in an era when there are numerous high-quality free-to-play games. Not everyone wants to play Fortnite, League of Legends or Destiny 2 all the time, but you do have quite a few choices if you can't afford to spend a dime on a game.

 

And if pirates actually charge for the games... well, they get zero sympathy after that. That's not only hurting developers, it's paying the leeches. If you're going to pirate, at least pretend to live up to the Robin Hood image... don't make yourself another King John.

So these guys made a hack that allowed people to pirate games, and demanded payment for this hack.  Was this the primary actual use of this hack?  If not, Was there a genuine functional good faith attempt to prevent piracy?  A nonfunctional or bad faith (don’t do this *wink wink*) attempt would absolutely put them in the “no sympathy” box. There has been an increase in bad faith stuff like this throughout society in the last 40 years.   

[Kisai]

6 hours ago, Arika S said:

i bet this is what made all the eyes turn on them and bring down to proverbial hammer.

Certainly.

 

No honor among thieves. Piracy is, and always has been about stealing and profiting, nobody would do it otherwise.

 

There are three kinds of piracy you will usually run into if you've ever looked up "how do I get (game)" in a search engine:

- The willful pirate, who pirates things because they want to be the first one to release it into the wild

- The archival pirate, who pirates things because they collect things and don't want to pay for it, often collecting pirate and leaked alpha/beta versions of software for amusement

- The spiteful pirate, who pirates things because they have an axe to grind against someone involved (or claimes to) who made the software.

 

When you see pirate sites covered in ads, that's a profit motive. When you see "please support us by" please, that's a profit motive. Like the hilarious thing is that most "file download sites" are exclusively catering to pirates. If you've ever seen that "free (slow)" and "fast (subscribe)" type of link pattern, those are piracy sites posing as legitimate sites, they've just made it hard to index, and will often pretend to delete files when served with a DMCA notice, while the uploader will just generate a new link to it.

[Commodus]

13 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So these guys made a hack that allowed people to pirate games, and demanded payment for this hack.  Was this the primary actual use of this hack?  If not, Was there a genuine functional good faith attempt to prevent piracy?  A nonfunctional or bad faith (don’t do this *wink wink*) attempt would absolutely put them in the “no sympathy” box. There has been an increase in bad faith stuff like this throughout society in the last 40 years.   

I think it's safe to say it's bad faith. Most people don't hack consoles in this way purely to tinker, and a group doesn't call itself "Team Xecuter" if it's just a group of hobbyists exploring code out of personal curiosity. Certainly not if they're charging money for it.

 

That's the problem with a lot of pirate operations. They won't always charge or overtly declare their intentions, but a lot of them use rhetoric about liberating platforms or exploration when the case really boils down to "we don't like paying for games."

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Commodus said:

I think it's safe to say it's bad faith. Most people don't hack consoles in this way purely to tinker, and a group doesn't call itself "Team Xecuter" if it's just a group of hobbyists exploring code out of personal curiosity. Certainly not if they're charging money for it.

 

That's the problem with a lot of pirate operations. They won't always charge or overtly declare their intentions, but a lot of them use rhetoric about liberating platforms or exploration when the case really boils down to "we don't like paying for games."

I am bothered heavily by this being for a system that is currently shipping.  If it was, say, NES, or Saturn, which is no longer made, and hasn’t been for years, it would be more problematic.  That people are still making and attempting to market games for switch though more or less takes any historical or archival defense out of it. 

[ARikozuM]

20 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Certainly.

 

No honor among thieves. Piracy is, and always has been about stealing and profiting, nobody would do it otherwise.

 

There are three kinds of piracy you will usually run into if you've ever looked up "how do I get (game)" in a search engine:

- The willful pirate, who pirates things because they want to be the first one to release it into the wild

- The archival pirate, who pirates things because they collect things and don't want to pay for it, often collecting pirate and leaked alpha/beta versions of software for amusement

- The spiteful pirate, who pirates things because they have an axe to grind against someone involved (or claimes to) who made the software.

Not exactly. Some of us have purchased, legally, all of the requirements for X products and have no longer been able to get them repaired or replaced. Should those purchases simply be thrown to the wayside? No, absolutely not. If I have a genuine console or game and it no longer works I should be able to get a repair. If it's made no longer usable is it my fault? No. If Nintendo will no longer hold repair services, then that responsibility should flip to the general public with no repercussions. You can't call out "lost profits" on games that you no longer support, create, or package in their original formats. 

[Technous285]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Not exactly. Some of us have purchased, legally, all of the requirements for X products and have no longer been able to get them repaired or replaced. Should those purchases simply be thrown to the wayside? No, absolutely not. If I have a genuine console or game and it no longer works I should be able to get a repair. If it's made no longer usable is it my fault? No. If Nintendo will no longer hold repair services, then that responsibility should flip to the general public with no repercussions. You can't call out "lost profits" on games that you no longer support, create, or package in their original formats. 

Example;

I have a Vita 1000, VitaTV & PSTV. I put CFW on my Vita 1000 to try out homebrew software (which isn't too bad) and as a "why the hell not?" type experimentation to see what is involved in installing CFW on a system, whilst my VitaTV is hooked up to my streaming capture setup so I can play my PSOne/PSP/Vita games I legally bought and own and the PSTV sits there as an emergency backup if something goes wrong with the VitaTV and I need to do work on that system that'll take a few weeks of waiting (shipping) but keep to a streaming schedule.

If anything goes wrong with any of those systems such as hardware failure I can't call Sony and pay for them to repair it; I have to be able to fix it myself lest it becomes e-waste. As it stands, I've already had to replace the battery on the Vita 1000 twice since I bought it some time back.

 

The reason I bought a Vita in the first place? So I could play Persona 4: Golden and understand what the hype was years before Persona 5 launched, then go through the back catalogue of Persona games on PSOne/PSP to get a better feel for the series in general. (Still miffed the second half of the Persona 2 Duology isn't available in English outside of NA. PSN Australia doesn't carry it because PSN Europe doesn't have it.)

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, Technous285 said:

Example;

I have a Vita 1000, VitaTV & PSTV. I put CFW on my Vita 1000 to try out homebrew software (which isn't too bad) and as a "why the hell not?" type experimentation to see what is involved in installing CFW on a system, whilst my VitaTV is hooked up to my streaming capture setup so I can play my PSOne/PSP/Vita games I legally bought and own and the PSTV sits there as an emergency backup if something goes wrong with the VitaTV and I need to do work on that system that'll take a few weeks of waiting (shipping) but keep to a streaming schedule.

If anything goes wrong with any of those systems such as hardware failure I can't call Sony and pay for them to repair it; I have to be able to fix it myself lest it becomes e-waste. As it stands, I've already had to replace the battery on the Vita 1000 twice since I bought it some time back.

 

The reason I bought a Vita in the first place? So I could play Persona 4: Golden and understand what the hype was years before Persona 5 launched, then go through the back catalogue of Persona games on PSOne/PSP to get a better feel for the series in general. (Still miffed the second half of the Persona 2 Duology isn't available in English outside of NA. PSN Australia doesn't carry it because PSN Europe doesn't have it.)

I'm not even going to list examples since I have every Nintendo and Sony system since the NES. 

Spoiler

My 2 PS2's with broken and repaired disc drives will testify though. 

 

[BuckGup]

8 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, piracy isn’t stealing.
 

Losing sales to privacy doesn’t exist, people who pirate weren’t going to buy your game anyways.

Piracy exists because of greedy corporations. They are too ignorant to think maybe it's them and not the consumer. There are countless studies showing why people pirate and it isn't to simply steal things and stick it to the big guy. People pay for games when the developers are supportive, listen to the consumer, and it isn't flooded with micro transaction or shitty DRM. 

[Paranoid Kami]

9 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, piracy isn’t stealing.
 

Losing sales to privacy doesn’t exist, people who pirate weren’t going to buy your game anyways.

lol I know millionaires who pirate because they don't see the point of paying for something when they can get it for free with no risk...