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Two members of videogame piracy group “Team Xecuter” in custody
- vmception 6y ago> even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games whoops yeah that sounds indictable > sold illegal devices that hacked popular videogame consoles so they could be used to play unauthorized, or pirated, copies of videogames this does not sound indictable, but it depends on what those illegal devices contained
- ReverseCold 6y agoThey make mod chips for the Nintendo Switch that let you load arbitrary games without protection. Compared to the actual Homebrew community, which doesn’t actively advertise or support features like that. They were probably first to market, but then the community found the RCM bug and now Xecutor is pretty irrelevant. Side note: “So long Gary Bowser“
- jsheard 6y ago> They were probably first to market, but then the community found the RCM bug and now Xecutor is pretty irrelevant. Well, irrelevant for people who own a Switch that's vulnerable to the RCM bug. Nintendo fixed that in a hardware revision around two years ago so there's a lot of Switches out there which cannot be hacked by the open source methods, but can with Team Xecuters hardware mod. RCM was patched before the launch of the "Switch 2.0" and Switch Lite, so the only way to get homebrew along with the improved battery life of the 2.0 or greater portability of the Lite is via that hardware mod.
- girvo 6y agoAre there open source versions of the new hardware mod for those patched consoles? The open nature of the simple GameCube drive chip (I forget the name) was neat — you can still buy them today for about $8 AUD, or even pretty easily make your own with a PCB printing shop and some time! Edit: XenoGC!
- jsheard 6y agoNot yet, for now the proprietary Xecuter modchips are the only game in town. IIRC the XenoGC was originally proprietary too, but open sourced by the designer after a few years.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoSuper Mario 64 reference. I think they changed it for Super Mario 3D All Stars.
- jsheard 6y agoIt wasn't really changed for 3D All Stars, rather they based 3D All Stars on the 1997 Japan-exclusive re-release which never had that line to begin with. That version added rumble support and fixed some bugs, but being intended for Japan where Bowser is called King Koopa they used a different voice line.
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- numpad0 6y agoThey were not the first. IIRC they stole RCM exploit as soon as it went public, and started selling it along their “operating system” which was reskinned original Nintendo firmware.
- j_walter 6y ago"even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games" That's a reach...technically they charged a license fee to use SXOS which allowed homebrew. It can also be used for playing stolen games, but it is not marketed as such.
- ReverseCold 6y ago“ To support this illegal activity, Team Xecuter allegedly helped create and support online libraries of pirated videogames for its customers, and several of the enterprise’s devices came preloaded with numerous pirated videogames.” This is probably more of a smoking gun.
- Gamemaster1379 6y agoThat sounds somewhat inaccurate. That seems to suggest they facilitated online marketplaces where these are sold -- and I don't believe they've ever sold pre-loaded games in these. At most they advertise possibility of using homebrew. If you can run unsigned code, you can write unsigned code to dump retail games. But Team Xecutor doesn't explicitly encourage those specific actions nor distribute them online (only to cover their asses, of course that's what people buying them buy them for)
- stripline 6y agoIt's amazing to me how lawyers can spin the same set of facts in opposite ways, to tell any story they want without telling a lie. In college I dated a girl in her first year of law school. This technique was something they are taught as a 1L (first year). I remember she would have assignments to write the arguments for both sides using the same set of facts. Made me realize that a good lawyer can convince a jury of anything.
- umvi 6y agoThe media can do the same - tell any story they want from the facts. And that's how you end up with headlines about "fiery but mostly peaceful protests"
- anfilt 6y agoOne of the charges is "trafficking in circumvention devices" that's a huge concern! If they are successfully charged as such it's going to set a horrible precedent!
- bitwize 6y agoPeople have been convicted under the anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA before. The law explicitly says it's a crime.
- monocasa 6y agoThey live in France and Shenzhen. Are circumvention devices illegal there?
- bitwize 6y agoIn France, almost certainly. The DMCA was implemented under the auspices of a WIPO treaty which mandates anticircumvention legislation.
- monocasa 6y agoI don't think DADVSI's anti circumvention provisions have been tested in court.
- smnrchrds 6y agoI remember VLC reading many years ago that VLC could do what it did, playing region-locked DVDs, because the French author could legally implement circumvention methods into VLC. However, America's focus in free trade negotiations over the past decade and perhaps longer have been protecting their intellectual property. For example, due to America's pressure and as a part of the New NAFTA negotiations, Canada agreed to increase its copyright term from life + 50 to life + 70 years. I wouldn't be surprised if what was once legal in France has become illegal since. Decades ago, US decided it wanted banks everywhere to follow American regulations. It was a resounding success. That's why US can now block Iran from trading with the rest of the world through national legislation rather than international sanctions, or make Canada hand over a Chinese national to be prosecuted in the US for alleged crimes done in Hong Kong. Now that banking is done, the new frontier is intellectual property. I expect national laws everywhere to one by one become like US laws.
- rbecker 6y ago> sold illegal devices that hacked popular videogame consoles so they could be used to play unauthorized, or pirated, copies of videogames How long until that turns into "sold illegal devices that hacked popular smartphones so they could be used to run unauthorized, or pirated, copies of apps"? How long for PCs?
- atomi 6y agoIt all depends on their budget.
- the_only_law 6y agoDidn't some guy get prison time for selling a book explaining how or some tools to unlock cable modems several years ago?
- cbozeman 6y agoHis book publisher stuck behind him... https://nostarch.com/blog/thoughts-indictment-ryan-harris-hacking-cable-modem-author.htm https://nostarch.com/blog/thoughts-indictment-ryan-harris-ha...
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- jccalhoun 6y agoI haven't followed the console hacking scene for years but Team Xecuter has been around since at least the original Xbox. Back then they always said "this is only for home brew" to try to cover thier asses. So I wonder if these guys were were doing this on their own.
- ganoushoreilly 6y agoThey deviated away from that many years ago. They’re brazen with the switch advertisements and playing bootlegs.
- millzlane 6y agoI remember using the xbox and the xecuter modchip to run XBMC on there before it was KODI. It did have the ability to copy games to the hdd.
- leahshule56 6y agoDVD2Xbox wasn't written by TE, nor was it a function of their chip chips.
- gavinray 6y agoI still have an original Xbox with the Xecuter chip soldered into the front of it, also running Xbox Media Center. And it still runs. It has an SNES emulator with hundreds of games, a lot of music from the 90's, and about a dozen Xbox games on the internal HDD. Will never get rid of it, I'm pretty sure there aren't many left in existence.
- seastonATccs 6y agoMy xbox with my xecuter chip is a family treasure. I ripped all my xbox games to the hdd. My kids have never played a console beyond the xbox. They've never asked.
- tomc1985 6y agoI have an Xbox with Xecuter 3 and the four-line front-panel display. At some point the modchip and front display stopped working and now the Xbox boots like a retail unit. One of my projects on the shelf is to go in there and fix it After all theres a copy of topless-modded DOA Beach Volleyball on the hard drive to greet me once I get around to it
- anfilt 6y agoA charge in "trafficking in circumvention devices"!!!!!!!!! A mod device should not be illegal. This is horrible for device owner freedoms. I am worried this could be used to set a precedence for that fact. The EFF or some good legal team is needed to make sure that does not become precedent. If they did something else to facilitate copyright infringement the hardware should not be part of the issue.
- bitwize 6y agoIt's black-letter law that modchips and other copyright circumvention devices are illegal and trafficking in them is a felony. No precedent is necessary, and the courts are unlikely to overturn it on constitutional grounds.
- monocasa 6y agoI don't think the constitutionality of the law has been tested here. Can you point to an example of it being held up in these circumstances?
- AmericanChopper 6y agoI’ve read the indictment, and the meat of it seems to rest mostly on their involvement in pirated ROM distribution and the marketing of their product as a piracy enabling device. It seems as though the way they operated had simply made them party to the ‘crimes’ of the end users. Ignore the grandiose language of the DOJ. An indictment is essentially a prosecutors wish list, it presents the ‘facts’ in the way the prosecutor wants them to be presented, and represents the law in the way the prosecutor wants it to be represented. When the DOJ say “this person committed this act”, or “this act is illegal”, it’s just an accusation. Those accusations aren’t “proven” until they’ve been tried in court. Only pay attention to the core details of the allegation and ignore the rest of it. Software is constitutionally protected speech. But if your software contains copyrighted material, or is accompanied by copyrighted material (as is the case alleged here, with their ROM library), then it can still break the law. I’m also pretty sure the way that you market it can influence this too. I imagine marketing software as “to help you play pirated games” would be the same as marketing a gun as “to help you commit armed robberies”. Also the fact that they sold their software seems to have made things worse.
- meritganset 6y agoModifying something that _you own_ should never, ever be a crime. It saddens me that indictments like this are the direction everything is headed.
- bitwize 6y agoThen write your congressman.
- ahelwer 6y agoLadies and gentlemen - in one corner we have a handful of citizens concerned enough about an issue to occasionally write an email to their congressperson, which if they're extraordinarily lucky will be digested by an intern and show up as a line in a memo the congressperson glances at the next morning. Truly intimidating! Now, in the other corner - a team of trained professionals paid full-time to get the congressperson to ignore that line in their memo, tirelessly working toward this goal every day because that is literally what they are paid large sums of money to do. Now - fight!
- ChrisLomont 6y agoCan I make my gun fully auto? Can I create store unlimited explosives without safety precautions? Both of these are modifying things I own.
- tortasaur 6y agoYes, you should be able to.
- nomdep 6y agoI think you should. But I also think it should be illegal to carry it or use it outside your property.
- gesman 6y agoWhen you do stupid things that can physically kill people - then NO. When you do things that violated someone's arbitrary TOS - this should be NON EVENT.
- DarkmSparks 6y agoIn related news. Team Xecuter is hiring again. hazard pay.
- smabie 6y agoGood to know that the DOJ works tirelessly to make the world a better and safer place
- barumi 6y agoIf the laws were passed then what do you expect them to do?
- triceratops 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement
- barumi 6y agoYou do understand that you're arguing for the complete subversion of a government system with the naive assumption that rules would only be violated according to your personal wishes? If you have a problem with the rules, place the blame where the blame is due: the rule makers.
- triceratops 6y agoI don't believe I argued anything like that, just pointing out the fallacy of "if the law exists what are they gonna do?". Some laws are enforced more stringently than others and it's always a matter of priorities and resources. I have no opinion on this particular case. You are, of course, right that if a law can lead to bad outcomes of justice we mustn't rely on prosecutorial discretion.
- barumi 6y ago> I don't believe I argued anything like that, just pointing out the fallacy of "if the law exists what are they gonna do?". It's not a fallacy,it's the whole point of rule of law. Arguing in favour of the virtues of a corrupt system just because you believe it benefits you personally is not only naive but also very dangerous, because as we see on a daily basis rules are bent to harm you, not to benefit you. If you care anything about a free and just society, you don't argue fora corrupt system that arbitrarily picks which rules applies to you. It's this simple.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoGary Bowser is a proper name for a real life videogame villain. Name checks out.
- monocasa 6y agoI wouldn't call him a villain.
- jessehorne 6y agoAh yes, Team Xecuter. The notorious. The infamous. The scoundrels! A household name, in fact. The textbook definition of organized crime! Our kids aren't safe with all these...video game console hackers. I can't believe a bunch of feds are getting paid to investigate and track down geeks in their basement. I think there's more important issues to focus on. Regardless of how you view this, I think we can all agree that it's a waste of resources. I think they should all go get a real job. Maybe Captain America will bust into some nerds house one day and beat the crap out of him for hacking his xbox. Would pay to see that movie. It probably wont come out though because it would make no sense at all.
- Kaze404 6y agoWhile I agree with you, the notion that hackers are unemployed 16 year olds living in someones basement doesn't really correlate with reality, at least in the circles I'm in.
- wolco2 6y agoAnd how many 16 year olds are employed? Some have part time jobs, some have full time jobs in the summer. They generally treat education as a full time activity.
- Kaze404 6y agoDepends where you live. When I was 16 (this decade), where I lived it was expected for 16 year olds to have full time jobs to help with family expenses.
- jessehorne 6y agoI'm on HN I think we can assume I agree with you. I think you misunderstood or I didn't explain correctly. The people working on this case should get a job, instead of going after a bunch of hackers. I have a basement and really I was envisioning some really cool space with all sorts of computers, rom chips, LED's, monitors and all that. IDK if I ever become a super notorious, evil, DANGEROUS, absolutely insane video game console modifier, you can bet your butt that I'm gonna be doing it in style, in my basement. EDIT: Some people work for a living...others have a suspect board on their wall with pictures of people that modify video game console, thinking that they're doing good in the world by putting these people in prison. If someone on this case walked by my house, I'd lock the door. You have to be a straight up psychopath to want to throw these people in prison.
- AgentME 6y agoI bought a Team Xecuter mod chip for my original Xbox years ago, and I got a lot of my early computer experience by participating in the modding scene of xbox games like Halo. I spent some time helping reverse parts of the file format used by the game. I loved finding and creating ways to remix the game's existing levels and gameplay. (I didn't have any interest in using mods to cheat online, and cheating was looked down on in the modding community. Besides being assholeish, there was nothing clever necessary in making or using a cheat mod online in Halo.) In order to mod an xbox game, you needed to mod an xbox (through either installing a physical modchip or installing a software hack, which each had their pros and cons) so you could edit the game's files. Modding an xbox let you run unsigned software, including launchers which let you start homebrew software, homebrew games, and ripped retail games directly from the hard drive instead of the game disk. Many people would rip retail games they owned off of the game disk onto their hard drive so they could conveniently launch the game without putting the disk into the console or so they could make the game's files editable on the hard drive, but it is true that some people would borrow game disks to rip or just pirate games from the internet to their console's hard drive. It's true that the features for running homebrew software or ripping or modding your own games were useful to pirates, but to my knowledge, none of the software associated with the Xecuter chip I had or the popular launchers had any features that exclusively catered to pirates any more than Android's sideloading functionality caters to pirates. If it's true that they continued to create tools for running homebrew software, adding convenience features, and modifying your own purchased software, then I find this news distressing. But if they did directly cater to and profit from being directly involved in piracy (like if they sold consoles preloaded with pirated games, or provided software preloaded with easy-install links to pirated games), then I'm a lot less sympathetic. I don't find it clear which case it is from the article. The article alleges it's the second case, but I'm suspicious they may be spinning the first category as the second.
- marcan_42 6y agoThe days of Xbox hacking are long over. Xecuter's stuff has been subtly or not so subtly targeted squarely at piracy for many years now. They have also done things like try to detect "piracy" of their own software and brick consoles in response (with inevitable false positives), which is utterly against the spirit of any kind of legitimate console hacking/homebrew. I've been involved in the console hacking scene since the PS2 times and a major developer for one generation, and I won't shed a single tear for these guys. Legitimate console homebrew these days is pretty much all done in the open and not for profit now, usually via software exploits. Where hardware is necessary, which is rare, it is usually open hardware. The companies trying to do things for profit are pretty much all catering to the piracy crowd.
- emerged 6y agoIt doesn't surprise me since they have been pretty flagrant. You have to play the legal game to survive in this scene. I have a history as prominent member of the scene and would never consider being so brazen. That said this is big news for people who do play the game properly as it could set precedent and strike some fear.
- joshxyz 6y agofeels weird, i'm not sure if it's about money or making a statement.
- jessehorne 6y agoUnpopular Opinion: I think that if you're a game developer and you want people to go to literal prison for pirating your game, then you're a piece of trash.. In all honesty, I wouldn't trust anyone that disagrees with this even if they told me the sky was blue. Man capitalism has made people so heartless. Edit: This is getting downvoted by people that are mad their version of agar.io hasn't made them rich yet. Oh please. I've made a couple games myself that didn't do good. You can't wish someone in prison for not buying your game...I'm sure if they had the money they would pay. It's not like you lose money. You simply didn't earn any off that one person.
- Google234 6y agoUnpopular Opinion: I think that if you're a store owner and you want people to go to literal prison for stealing from your store, then you're a piece of trash.. In all honesty, I wouldn't trust anyone that disagrees with this even if they told me the sky was blue. Man capitalism has made people so heartless.
- musicale 6y agoSince shoplifting isn't a felony, prison isn't usually an option. In some states petty shoplifting might even be an infraction (more like a traffic ticket or a fine for littering) rather than a misdemeanor. It certainly doesn't seem to be commensurate (or cost-effective) to send someone to jail (much less prison) for stealing $20 worth of merchandise (or passing a counterfeit $20 bill for that matter.) Not to mention that piracy (or illegal copying) isn't theft - it's copyright infringement. (Though that might actually be worse since the penalty could be $150K in statutory damages.)
- jessehorne 6y agoThat's not really how it works. :P
- musicale 6y ago> It's not like you lose money. You simply didn't earn any off that one person It's tricky to quantify the financial harm (such as lost sales, higher prices, reduced production, cost of anti-piracy enforcement, etc.) caused by or associated with piracy, as well as the effect on the economy as a whole. Overall, it seems likely to be a small redistribution of wealth from companies to pirates, where the benefit to pirates is likely greater than the loss to companies, since each pirate copy is not necessarily a lost sale. This overall benefit (mainly accruing to pirates) is probably offset somewhat by slightly reduced sales and production as well as the cost of anti-piracy enforcement.
- x3haloed 6y agoHoly crap! I had an Xecuter3 modchip on my Halo Edition Xbox. Crazy stuff.
- eecc 6y agoFrom the US website inciting public hatred for these despicable criminals: “This conduct doesn’t just harm billion dollar companies, it hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video-game industry.” Uh, harming billion dollar companies doesn’t seem to be like stamping on a poor and miserable kitten, they’ve made a billion FFS. As to who exploits the work of individuals in the videogame industries, we all know what kind of sweatshops they are, and the shit moves they pull like firing all staff the day before release date, thus voiding vesting clauses... It’s like these monsters didn’t really do too much harm except stepping on some other gremlin’s toes
- aranelsurion 6y agoMight be wrong, but from online discussions it seems to me Xecuter's SXOS goes a bit farther than merely being a rooting tool, it also seems to include some functionality that ties to Nintendo's proprietary code & keys, which would be a big no-no if it's indeed the case. In that sense they're probably not the same thing as open-source Atmosphere and homebrew ecosystem around it. Apart from this, I just couldn't help but notice the overall negativity in the comments. It's thinly veiled in excuses, like opportunity cost for law enforcement or whatever, but it's there. Maybe the real concern here is that we simply don't agree with the law. DMCA was enacted 10 years before Spotify started business. If I hazard a guess many of the people here in HN, and out there in your neighbourhood were downloading mp3's back then. These laws were not made by popular support. They weren't made by the people, or for the people. It seems to me, majority of the people here and outside haven't really internalized IP laws, and would rather live in a world without them if they could. I think it's fine if our moral compasses don't align with the law. It's one thing to obey the law, and another thing to actually agree with it. No amount of pressure from anti-piracy groups can turn a law into a holy commandment. So we don't have to beat around the bush. If you can't symphatize with the massively profitable huge gaming company and if your symphaties lie elsewhere, maybe it's time to discuss why reality, laws and government don't reflect your will.
- dbuder 6y agoBut yet I know if I sell an electronic device all my competitors will buy one and rip out all the code and reverse engineer it and I will have zero protection from this.