Modern Warfare 2 Pirate Thwarted by Investigators

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A report in VentureBeat tells a tale of software piracy in our own backyard, and its serious consequences.

Eighteen-year-old Christian Del Amo was arrested by Miami-Dade police officers yesterday after allegedly attempting to sell pirated copies of Modern Warfare 2.

On October 30, Activision Blizzard hired online investigation firm IPCybercrime to look into suspicious posts on Craigslist advertising Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundles for sale, roughly a week and a half before their release date.

Posts in the piracy forums on xbox360iso.com seemed to indicate that Del Amo had obtained a copy of the game and cracked the copy protection this past weekend. The fact that pirated digital release copies of Modern Warfare 2 hit the torrent sites the next day doesn't seem like mere coincidence.

Investigators used social networking sites, user posts in online piracy forums, and several sting operations to identify those involved in the pirating operation, which ultimately lead to Del Amo's arrest yesterday.

Prior to this run-in, Del Amo had a site for selling modified Xbox 360 hard drives loaded with pirated software. For just $150, he'd sell you a 250GB Western Digital hard drive containing 125 pirated games.

"We plug leaks every day," said Rob Holmes, owner of IPCybercrime, "but this was one of the biggest ones of the year."

From The Chatty
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    November 6, 2009 6:51 PM

    5'8, 125 lbs, 18 yo, prison.

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      November 6, 2009 7:22 PM

      Hey guys! I'm going to prison isn't that cool!?!?!111one

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      November 6, 2009 9:53 PM

      someone is going to pirate and sell his rape video.

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      November 6, 2009 11:09 PM

      Prisoner: So what are you in for? Dumbass: Pirating Modern Warefare 2. Prisoner: Come wipe my ass bitch!

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        November 7, 2009 1:49 AM

        You'd be lucky to only wipe someone's ass in prison.


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          November 7, 2009 8:48 AM

          He meant wiping it with his mouth :<

          "WHERE'S THE RESPAWN BUTTON HERE?!?!??!!?"

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      November 6, 2009 11:35 PM

      no doubt he will come out full of respect for the law and its institutions, and use his experiences in prison to become a more productive and well-adjusted member of society than he would have been otherwise.

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        November 7, 2009 1:44 AM

        I hope thats sarcasm. Otherwise, I would like to know how you come out when you would go to jail.

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          November 8, 2009 5:48 PM

          No, it's sarcasm. It's gotta be.

          Still, the point of putting this kid in jail isn't to rehabilitate him, if anything it's probably going to destroy him. The purpose of putting him in there is to serve as an example to the rest.

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            November 9, 2009 11:17 AM

            prison isn't about recuperation. arguing that has always been a dead end. its a punishment. your parents dont send you to your room so that you can 'get better'. they send you to your room becuase you need immediate tangible feedback to teach you early on there is at least one reason not to do it. same reason you spank a child. if they cant get their own orders in gear by the time their 18, of course prison isn't likely to do anything positive for them. he knew the risks, he got caught, hes going to do the time. you dont send drug abusers to prison to get better, you send them their because some part of our society deemed that it was a necessary tangible punishment. there are two kinds of respect. admiration and fear. if he cant learn to respect the law through fear, he cant connect basic cause and effect. there probably isnt alot thats going wake him up. it never is (or should be) the governments responsibility to make sure that each and everyone of us has 'proper' morality (who's morality would we then choose?).

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      November 7, 2009 12:09 PM

      Good argument for having separate jails for violent and non-violent offenders.

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        November 7, 2009 9:08 PM

        To do that you'd have to raise taxes (or let the private sector plug those holes - thanks, supermax) and appear soft on crime (thanks, politics).

        Also, prison rape jokes are incredibly humorous.

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      November 8, 2009 6:47 AM

      Hes going to go to minimum security prison, his rectum is safe.

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