451 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
451 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
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The Pirate's Manifesto for 1994
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-* RELEASED ON MAY 22 1994 *-
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- Read this and learn the only real facts -
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about the police, software companies,
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and the hidden agenda of phone companies
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Dear Fellow Pirates :
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Well... it certainly is beginning to get kind of tiresome about all
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the wienies that are trying to fuck up the pirate scene around the
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world. But I think the time has come to spell out some simple info
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to try to clue some folks into the big picture.
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Let us first begin by talking about all the supposed rats that think
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a phone call to SPA, CAAST, BSA or FAAST are going to bring about the
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instant death of some bulletin board - YOU ARE SO FUCKING MISTAKEN.
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These coalitions of software publishers are like a company. They make
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money from all the software publishers who lamely join them hoping it
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will make some form of difference to the amount of warez being spread.
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They are wrong. Each of these lame organizations exist solely to make
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money from the software publishers - think about it - if there were no
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pirates than these organizations would have no reason to exist. Ok so
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you ask how come we hear of them when a big bust occurs - well that is
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exactly the only time you ever hear of them - when it is a major bust
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that occurs. These organizations only bust bulletin boards where it
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will make them money to do so. Look at the Rusty & Edie bust, do you
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think they went after them because they were 'elite' ? No, they went
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after them because they could sue their asses off and make money off
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them. Look at any other genuine bust in the last four years and you
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will find that the targets they decided to eliminate all had a solid
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financial base against which to sue for $$$$$ Remember the pirate
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system in California run by a doctor... lots of money there. Each
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time there has been a real raid by the feds it has always turned out
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that the system raided was worth $$$$$ to them. Face reality, court
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cost are expensive. These organizations don't raid anyone just for the
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hell of it. They pick their targets carefully so that when they win
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in court they will get back $$$$$ from the targets. When was the last
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time you ever heard of any 14 year old zit headed sysop with a 20 line
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BBS being busted - it just never happens - cuz they know they can't sue
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him or his parents. So there is simply no point trying to drag him into
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court.
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Now what about these supposed anonymous callers who try to rat on a BBS
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by calling these organizations and providing information. Well in most
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cases the organizations simply take the information, act polite and than
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never do anything with the info. After all, anonymous info is not worth
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shit to them. It simply serves to keep sysops scared - and fear is the
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only weapon they have to keep pirate systems in check. Let's face it
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dudes - with over 10,000 pirate BBS's in the United States alone there is
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no way they could ever hope to kill all of them. So by means of fear they
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try to control the pirate epidemic. But for every elite system that goes
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down 10 new ones appear - so the organizations simply cannot win against
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the pirates overwhelming numbers.
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One of the problems that face the users who take time to try to rat on a
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BBS is that things are not as anonymous for them as they thought. All
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phones at SPA, CAAST, FAAST, BSA and others are monitored. All incoming
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phone numbers are recorded. If some fools think that 1-800 phone numbers
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do not record the incoming phone number than they are seriously mistaken.
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All calls are tape recorded - they like maintaining the information they
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receive on tape. Think about it for a sec. What is the value of voice
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recordings ? A voice recording is like a fingerprint. With the use of
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voice analysis they can accurately identify the caller if they should ever
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want to check up on him/her and take them to court. A text file like this
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is truly anonymous - no one will ever know who typed it. A voice recording
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of this same information would absolutely identify myself. So the point
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of this little paragraph is to simply mention that people who get into the
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habit of making calls to these organizations usually find that information
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about themselves has been passed to the Secret Service or FBI or RCMP or
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New Scotland Yard. After all... if you have information to give about a
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pirate system, than indirectly you have implicated yourself as being a pirat
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as well. The cops are only too interested in investigating the informers to
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see if they can use the information that they gain on the rats to subvert
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the rats to do their bidding. Trust a cop - yah - they will burn anyone if
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if fits their agenda.
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Now let us go further into the strange relationship that pirates have with
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the software publishers to find out why they do not take a greater level of
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interest in the zillions of warez that are spread throughout the world each
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year by pirates. I believe gentleman that we have been the unwitting dupes
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of the software companies. Over the past ten years the software publishers
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have found that by allowing pirates to run wild it has helped them sale more
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of their products than they would have sold if we did not exist. Face it
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dudes - we spread their warez, it gets into the hands of hundreds of
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thousands of users, and eventually people do go and pay for the software
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after analyzing all the different packages. For some companies this is the
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only way their product would have ever made it into the hands of prospective
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clients. If the pirates had not helped distribute those files many of the
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software companies would have died a long time ago. Another benefit
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the pirates provide to the software companies is an excuse for the massive
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overcharging they do on software products. They blame the pirates for them
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having to charge 10 times what the damn stuff is actually worth. Convenient
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to have the pirates as a scapegoat for their bloated profits. We all know
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that a $ 59 game is really marketable for $ 6 - but because of pirates they
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can cry that they are not making sufficient profit margins to cover their
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losses and so the lamers blindly accept this crap and pay the higher markup.
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But let us face another fact of reality and that is that pirates may indeed
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steal software - but NONE OF US would have bought it in the first place, we
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simply steal it to steal it. Most of us spend ten minutes looking at the
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particular piece of software and then we delete it cuz it was crap. So it
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lets a lot of steam out of the software publishers claims that we stole
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anything or that they lost anything - nothing was lost cuz they would never
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have sold it to us in the first place. You can't lose profits that would
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never have existed in the first place.
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So why do some software companies really hate pirates. In most cases it
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is the software company that produces inferior products that hates us the
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most. You know which companies I mean - the ones who usually have the
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most spectacular advertisements in the trade magazines - the ones who
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spend more on their advertising campaigns than on the development of the
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software. The ones who by glossy advertisements suck the unsuspecting
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public into buying their product - only to find out that the game/util
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was vastly inferior or useless compared to other software products out
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there. The pirates analyze all the warez that pass by them. In a way
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we become specialist at detecting inferior and superior products. We make
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recommendations everyday amongst ourselves and with outsiders about which
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software product rulez and which one sucks. We analyze warez upto 3 months
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before a review shows up in the magazines - they have 3 month lead times
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for publication, we operate in less than 24 hours from the time we receive
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the warez. Pirates expose inferior warez for what they are - rip offs -
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and this pisses off the low life software publishers whose only existence
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is based on selling inferior products to the uninformed.
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Now let us take a moment to look at the telephone companies as they also
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operate on a hidden agenda that is not too well known. Pirates make
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extensive use of telecommunications and long distance phone calls. In some
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cases pirates actually pay for their long distance - this benefits the
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phone companies who make $$$$$ on each of those phone calls. In some cases
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pirates use calling cards and hacked PBX's to make their phone calls - this
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also benefits the phone company because in most cases THEY MAKE THE OWNER
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of those cards or PBX's pay even though it was not them who made the calls.
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Does anyone not remember how the phone company held Kodak to ransom for
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over 1 million dollars worth of hacked phone calls made on their phone
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system. Or what about the $ 500,000 worth of phone calls made against
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the Digital phone systems. The phone companies have a really simple
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approach to this - if a companies phone system is hacked and a ton of
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illegal calls are made on it - it is not the phone companies fault - they
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hold the company that owns the phones liable for all long distance charges
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made against their phone system. It is the responsibility of the phones
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owners to safeguard their calling card number or PBX passwords and if some
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luckless pirate happens to gain access to it than it is not the phone
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companies fault - the owner of the phone number has to pay. So you can
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see that we help greatly to boost the profits of the phone companies. In
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Canada for example, Bell Telephone is that countries highest profit company.
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Statistics taken from Bell Canada's own annual report show that their bigges
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area of profit is long distance charges that occur during the off peak hours
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These are the prime times that pirates operate... overnight express. But if
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you think about it, what would that phone companies phone lines be doing
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from midnight until 6:00am the next morning - does anyone really believe
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that there are zillions of legitimate phone calls occurring during those
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off hours - NO those calls are almost exclusively being made by pirates.
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So by pumping through those calls in the wee hours of the morning we are
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helping to put profit into what would otherwise be totally dead time on
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their networks. If we weren't there - there would be only 5% of the
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call traffic that they presently enjoy. And so for that reason I say
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the existence of pirates have helped profit the pockets of the phone
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companies. And if you need further convincing about the crooked motives
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of the phone companies than consider this simple fact. When a long distance
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call goes from one country to another, or from one phone company to another
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the destination phone company receives COMPENSATION directly from the
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originating phone company. Between the two companies they split the profit
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of the phone call - this is because it took their two networks to complete
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the one call - and for that both deserve a percentage of the $$$$$ made on
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that phone call. Now think about this for a second - a pirate system in
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the 201 exchange receives 10,000 illegal calls per month. This represents
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quite a few dollars for which the destination phone company is going to
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make $$$$$$$ no matter what happens - it is going to be paid by the phone
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company where the calls originated from. I think you can see that the
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destination phone company has absolutely no motivation to assist the police
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or anyone to kill that pirate system that is bringing in these long distance
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phone calls. But how about one final stab at the scum that manage the
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phone companies - just to expose how crooked they are - Like the software
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companies, the phone companies use the pirates as scapegoats when they go
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to seek higher phone rates. Yes, they use us to extract higher rates from
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the regulators who control how much they can charge. They cry that they
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are being burned to the tune of millions of dollars and have to charge the
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honest law abiding phone callers higher rates to make up for all the losses
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they suffer at the hands of telecomm pirates. Well I think you can see
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now that they never loss anything in the first place because Bell always
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makes money - even on a pirated phone call.)op, (>), More?
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I will not bother to discuss how the modem manufacturers have gotten a free
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ride on the backs of pirates. But let's face it - without pirates the
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world would still be limping around with 2400 baud modems. It is the
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pirates - NOT BIG BUSINESS - that demanded and got faster and faster
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modems. Our needs for the movement of files are far greater than all
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of that of Big Business. In a way you could say that the demands of the
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pirate world have helped Big Business. We force cutting edge technology
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to do our job and the modem companies are glad to supply us AT A COST.
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Who do you think will make up the majority of purchasers of the new 28.8
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baud modems ? I laugh if you thought it was the government or some big
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companies. We all know it is the pirates. It sure as hell isn't going
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to be Henry PD Dickwad who calls CompuSlave or Genyuk. Let's face it
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dudes - pirates made US Robotics the leader in the industry by making it
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the modem of choice of the underworld !! And I believe you can rest
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assured that they know that all to well ! Have you ever wondered why
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US Robotics never gave to the cops a list of all the sysops who have
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bought their high speed modems ? Course they wouldn't - without us
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John Q Pirate would have no need to keep upgrading to the latest
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product offering coming from them.
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Lastly, let us share a few fast words about the police. The cops do
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not even have enough money to eradicate drugs, illegal weapons or
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prostitutes. Do the lamers of the world really think that in these
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tough economic times that the cops would dedicate the ever shrinking
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budgets that they have to use it up chasing pirates. Get real. The
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cops are FORCED to spend their ever shrinking budgets fighting real
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crime - ones where there are victims - and as I have already shown
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software piracy is a victimless crime. So to the lamers of the world
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who operate under some mistaken impression that there are thousands of
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police out there with nothing better to do than chase pirates, I simply
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say to you to 'Wake up and smell the coffee you uninformed dickwad'
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Now that I have exposed the hidden agenda of the phone companies, the
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software companies, and the supposed anti-piracy organizations I will
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now slip comfortably back into my silent mode again and smile knowing
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that after 13 years in this pirate business I will still have at least
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another 13 years of this fun to enjoy. The wienies that attempt to
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scare pirate boards with their idle threats of bust simply do not know
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the big picture, the hidden agendas or how their lame actions simply
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do not matter. The only people their lame actions hurt are themselves
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as they find themselves kicked out of all the pirate circles and they
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are removed from the elite world that we know as piracy.
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It is too bad that a few lamers surface in our underground world trying
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to act tough by speaking of bust and betrayal. Grow up kiddies and
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learn to play the game or leave it.... because you will never change it.
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In closing I extend special greets to all the groups that are out there
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bringing warez to the masses. Your efforts are greatly appreciated by
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all, including the software companies, telephone companies and yes even
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the anti-piracy organizations. For without your excellent efforts they
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would never have continued to exist either.....or made such profits !!
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--* TC *--
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May 22 1994
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PS : Hey... you didn't really expect me to put my full handle here
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( believe me... they will be pissed to learn this info is out )
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