#anti-piracy solutions

[reachartwork]

(again crossposting from twitter)

at this point i consider the genie so thoroughly uncorked that anyone wanting ai art to go away is just fucked. there are totally open source models that can be stored and run on consumer hardware that make capital G Good quality output.

sorry if this isnt what you want to hear. apologies for being the bearer of bad news.

it's not going away. i'm not going to hold it over your head and go neener neener neener because i'm not a child or a cryptobro or a silicon valley fash loser but the sooner we can come to terms with the fact that generative art ai is here to say the sooner you can begin planning productively for the actual future that will exist for real.

like i've said to other smarter people, the best point to strangle this baby in the crib was before it even started, and the second best point was probably around a year ago, but now it's proliferated and there's just no way it's going away no matter what copyright courts say.

sure, theoretically if everything goes the way various pro-copyright people wanted it to (big ask! not likely to happen!) you could make having and running a model *illegal* but look at how far making digital stuff illegal got every other industry in terms of piracy (not very). a *lot* and i do mean a *lot* of things would need to go "right" and the stars and the moon would need to align to get it made "illegal" and that wouldn't actually stop anything at all. and that's if we're accepting the framework of the anti-ai people's argument to begin with!

fundamentally this is an issue of art piracy. when you strip away all the word games and playing w/ language what you get is people arguing about art piracy and IP rights. and you tell me how well the International Struggle Against IP Piracy fight has been going for the past 20 years.

there's no legal OR technological solution that will get local copies of stable diffusion off people's hard drives. sorry! if you were hoping for one, well, better start thinking up a new plan.

[thewertsearch]

GG: so anyway, that reminds me ive got to talk to john! GG: ive got to get him to make me some new gizmos… TG: no dont bother john TG: hes on like his fuckin TG: wind mission or whatever [...] TG: in any case egbert lost his computer and game disc TG: so he cant do anything for you anyways

I honestly didn't think that was going to be a problem. Dave's Turntop had Sburb preinstalled when he alchemized it, so I assumed John could make another Sburb machine without the need for a disc.

Maybe John just didn't save the code for his computer. Damn it, Egbert!

TG: we just have to think outside the box here [...] TG: [...] honestly i figured wed have to do something like this TG: so i guess here we are doing it GG: doing what?? [...] TG: i need you to deploy something first [...] TG: deploy the intellibeam laserstation

Ooh, I remember that thing.

I originally thought it was a turret - but a turret wouldn't help Jade recover her Sburb devices.

Maybe it's a range-extender for the Sburb Server program, allowing Dave to move his cursor from Rose's house to Jade's, and deploy her gear himself.

TG: it reads captcha codes GG: on the back of cards? TG: yeah GG: but GG: we can already read those! TG: some are too garbled and complicated TG: the human eye cant decipher them

Captcha codes! Hell yes, it's been so long since we've done anything with the Captcha system.

I did always hope that we'd eventually be reading the 'locked' codes we occasionally saw in earlier Acts. The Laserstation breaks one of the final limitations of the Alchemiter, allowing us to duplicate forbidden items like pumpkins - and, notably, Sburb discs.

It also allows us to perform alchemy with these objects. We may have just unlocked some very, very powerful items.

GG: but isnt the whole point of captchas that only humans can read them? GG: and not robots???

Cackling right now.

TG: so the solution to the anti piracy measure is to override the anti spam measure [...] TG: cause god knows the last thing youd want was some web bot being able to figure out the code for like TG: a potted plant

The idea of Sburb alchemy being automated by computers is fascinating beyond words - it just begs so many questions.

Can a computer take on the role of a Server Player, or maintain a Grist Cache for itself? Can an AI be a fully-fledged Player, created in the Veil and sent to Earth on a reinforced hard drive?

We're pretty deep into the comic now, and I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that Homestuck isn't going to go there - it's just not what the comic is about. But I'd love to read a fanfiction which dealt with ideas like this.

TG: basically robots are in control now TG: which is good news and bad news TG: the bad news is theyre all pornbots and theyve got LOADS of provocative material theyre just dying to share with us GG: whats the good news? TG: thats also the good news

This page came out in 2010

[magz]

@trans-leek-cookie

Yes, Karla Ortiz and other big popular artists in her group in the anti-ai art scene are basically pro-capitalist grifters.

They helped with + promoted nightshade n glaze (made by UCLA and Chicago Uni), and established part of the narrative surrounding these tools as "solutions" while barely understanding it; so this groups' influence on these discussions can't be understated too.

(Am going to focus mainly on Karla Ortiz tho) The popular artist groups in question established:

The "Concept Artist Association" as a non-profit org in september 2022, with little transparency. This does not trustworthy. It used to also be a private LLC.

Made gofundme of $270k us dollar for part of class action lawsuit and lobbying, "protecting artists from AI technologies", while hiring and become part of Copyright Alliance (with notorious members such as Adobe, Disney, UMG). These tactics are known for making the lives of artists and creators hell (example: the many comic artists, writers, illsutrators, musicians that don't own their stuff n can't make anything of their creations IP because it's owned by Disney, or Marvel, or Nintendo now.)

Has supported and followed other "pro-artists" that try to extend this crusade of being against "art stealing" and "copyright stealing", to the Internet Archive being a menace. And gave support to others' efforts to shut down Internet Archive's library book lending, using same rhetoric. Synonymizing "book publishers" and big companies with "creators". (Though atm, only have 1 foto abt it on hand bc it's been a while)

Those professional popular artists have been criticized by smaller artists as copyright expansion benefits bigger rich artists while harming small ones n those that don't have resources to go against giants like Disney.

In the case of Karla Ortiz, she is known to do whatever benefits her as a big creator n barely listens to smaller artists. Support of NFTs, pro-capitalism pro-copyright, anti-archival, being generally reactionary about art. Whatever.

Obviously, with nightshade and glaze specifically, there are other criticisms to be made. like the apps' high requirements to run thus inaccessible to many, the technology and premise being outdated, this barely affecting the "big companies" people are worried about, the users' not understanding how any of this works, the doomscroll spiraling n fearmongering that many of its users do (inducing panic attacks in some artists about their "art is going to be stolen" bc they can't glaze their work).

Honestly, it gets very repetitive and it is very easy for people to start being anti-piracy classists (example: "don't pirate banned books even when it's by definition not accessible to you bc it's stealing from authors" is a common one) + anti-archival and pro-copyright when someone frames things a certain way, even when basically grifting and harming. Its a whole overarching cycle.

Tweet threads of related old discussions:

About concept art alliance.

When searching "karla ortiz nft".

[ugackminer]

A wild prediction about Unity

So, Unity's just made it so that any install of a Unity game will cost a game publisher $0.20 for every time that a game is installed (past a threshold, of course).

Now, this makes one thing really clear. Piracy now directly hurts the game studios making games. By making it so that the developers have to pay $0.20 for every install of their game, piracy now isn't removing theoretical sales, but instead taking actual money from the developers.

WILD PREDICTIONS WITH NO EVIDENCE BEHIND THEM: With Unity making it so that piracy can theoretically bankrupt a game studio, many developers will be desperately searching for a solution to stop piracy at any means necessary.

And here's where Unity would swoop in with a new free tool, called some form of "Unity DRM". This new program would be sold as a combination anti-cheat and DRM package, making it an obvious choice for developers wanting to stop piracy along with cheating and modding.

However, most client sided anti-cheats and DRM software are very, very invasive. They have more power on your computer than you do. That's not a prediction either, that's just true. An admin level rootkit running on your computer, that Unity would be in charge of.

They could then use this theoretical DRM/anti-cheat in order to collect massive amounts of data on users. People often forget that they run their own ad agency. Unity Ads would get tons upon tons of new amounts of user data, all with a simple new agreement that you would be forced to sign in order to install any game with Unity DRM.

Again, all just predictions. This post is only so I can make the most ridiculous "I told you so" post if it turns out to be true.

Unity was my introduction to actually writing code, and has gotten me super far in my journey as a developer. I'm really sad to see it destroy itself in this way, and the fact that this prediction isn't even all that far-fetched is honestly super scary to me.

[spoonietimelordy]

So amazon reinforced their anti piracy protection on their ebooks, I cannot convert them to epub anymore, I've looked everywhere and no one has managed to find a solution yet. Which fucking suck because the amazon format and the kindle app do not support text to speech. Turning them into epub was my only way to read them.

My only way to read ebooks right now is to pirate them. It's not a joke or an hyperbole. People who depend on TTS cannot legally read books anymore.

I have bought books that I cannot read. And I cannot ask for a refund, which I deserve, because amazon take money from the author to refund, which is actually stealing from writers.

[quinndae]

A Small Look Into 0xEmpress

Alright so I was a little bit bored so I did a dive into a figure I thought was... interesting, to say the least. If you know the name 0xEmpress, you probably already know what you’re in for, but for those that don’t:

CONTENT WARNING: A LOT OF TRANSPHOBIA/HOMOPHOBIA AND SLURS

OVERVIEW

Alright so recently Hogwarts Legacy was cracked by a pretty infamous figure in video game piracy, 0xEmpress (Empress for short).

Empress is a Russian games cracker (as in they crack video games, I'm not sure if there's a better operative for this, sorry) who accrued attention in the games piracy scene for their specialty; routinely bypassing Denuvo DRM. A feat which no one had been capable of doing until, or since, Empress.

A DRM (Short for Digital Rights Management) is something added to a piece of software to prevent or restrict unauthorized redistribution. This is usually in pieces of code which check digital certificates which, if not present, will prevent the software from operating.

DRM is known for being annoying, even to players who play games legitimately. To pirates, though, it is the major obstacle they need to overcome when cracking a game. And with how often DRMs are updated, this makes the challenge an active battle between the creator and the pirate.

Cracking is simply the act of making the game not limited by this DRM and putting it into a state which allows it to be pirated and distributed.

Empress is known amongst video game pirates specifically for her ability to bypass Denuvo.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper is a DRM developed by Denuvo Software Solutions and is notoriously the toughest DRM to bypass for most pirates. 

This is due to the methods Denuvo used, being “integrated into the games code” and “assigning a unique authentication token to each copy of the game” according to Empress. That, coupled with just how frequent Denuvo updated made any attempt at bypassing the DRM hopeless.

Very few had cracked Denuvo games, and none did so frequently. Until Empress.

Every game she cracks uses Denuvo. Her refusal to share her methods also means she practically owns the market when it comes to cracking those games.

Other than being free copies of otherwise expensive games, Empress’ cracks of Denuvo games have been reported to actually speed up the performance, as the DRM seems to be rather CPU intensive on games it is installed on. 

Her ability to crack impossible DRM quickly and efficiently has given Empress a reputation as a one-of-a-kind legend in video game piracy circles.

So Empress is, in short, incredibly good at cracking games. She's gotten past the worst of the worst when it comes to DRM and publishes her cracks online for the masses.

Except, like many of history's greats, Empress is fucking insane.

NFOS

Within a lot of pirated games are included specific types of files, .nfo files. NFO, short for info, is a type of text file created by a videogame cracker which contains information about the game and the specific pirated copy, such as language changing options.

Like many text-only formats, the users of NFO files have gotten creative, drawing elaborate ascii art within the files as a way to distinguish themselves. Empress is no different.

Empress' NFOs include her name in giant bold letters, held up by pillars which stretch the entire length of the file. Additionally, she includes boxes of text with a distinguishing calling card.

--EXPRESSES--

ALL HATE & INSULTS

--DEPRESSES--

ALL DENUVO SCUM

--IMPRESSES--

ALL PIRATES ACROSS THE SEA

This is followed by a mention of the game's title, the type of DRM the game had/has (For example, Denuvo v10, Steam, Epic, VMProtect), as well as the emulator a game may be using.

Below the info are Empress' donation links to various cryptocurrency wallets, such as BTC, ETH, and Monero. These donations are said to "fund further DRM research and cover living costs."

Donators of $500 or more are able to request any game they want a crack for, so long as it has Denuvo DRM.

Further are contact links, including e-mail (notably protonmail), qTox (a secure instant messaging service), as well as her subreddit link.

The penultimate section of the NFO are the ~Release Notes~ and ~Install Notes~, which detail methods for installing the game onto a machine, as well as what DLC or edition of the game is included.

The final section, however, is the reason her NFOs are special. Aptly titled ~Special Notes~, this section is for any personal messages Empress wishes to send out to readers.

~SPECIAL NOTES~

Empress uses this ~Special Notes~ section to communicate with her audience, wax philosophical, and generally ramble to a non-specific audience. Often, these are related to videogame drama and events.

This section of the NFO is where Empress will break formality, switching to her signature typing style. Her RANDOM capitalization of WORDS she uses for either EMPHASIS or just GENERAL SHOUTING, her fondness of profanity, the creativity in her insults, ending a large amount of her statements with (middle finger), "quotations, both for emphasis and to actually quote general statements."

This typing style truly makes the ~SPECIAL NOTES~ stand out, especially since a lot of her rambles are utter nonsense.

It is comprehensible, yes. It has a point it is trying to make, yes. It is not as if she is being silly for the sake of it. She is unhinged.

Many of the NFOs are, to put it lightly, mean. Within a good amount of her NFOs, she includes messages to the companies who created the games, as well as Denuvo.

For example, the following was included within the Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak crack.

"Message to capcom:

How dare you charge $430 for 98% worthless DLC

How dare you even charge to make edit to the

main character in the game?

FUCK YOU A THOUSAND TIMES YOU GREEDY FUCEKRS.

It didn't really help paying like little SLUTS

to denuvo to protect your DLCs, did it?...

It also didn't help that you made retarded DRM

of your own on top either, did it?...

Next time, please don't waste more of your

money and don't shame yourselves - focus on the

actual game instead, FAGGOTS.

Message to denuvo:

With this release, I have just proven that I 

CAN and I WILL destroy your pathetic protection 

no matter what you do. And now you can kindly 

go fuck yourselves because your "Anti-Tamper" 

has been TAMPERED with by me once again, and 

is completely destroyed, LOSERS (middle finger)."

You may have noticed how she ended the statement to CAPCOM. Empress seems to hold many of the same opinions as the far-right gamergate crowd (i.e TheQuartering, Rags, etc.), bashing newer games with representation as "gay garbage".

"Games like: 'Gays Gone, Spidershit, Gay of War" get very high scores. Every fucking gay garbage comes out and you all love it..."

Except, seemingly, female representation. In her Dying Light 2 NFO, she states:

"STOP COMPARING 'SR' to 'GTA' you 

DUMB PIECES OF SHIT. And I am 

already aware of the "pre-hate" on 

GTA 6, just cause people learnt it 

will feature a 'female' character. 

What the HELL is WRONG with that, 

you sexist motherfuckers?"

Additionally, within the NFO for Dying Light 2, she praises the Saints Row reboot, stating it "is the BEST saints row game made." Saints Row, of course, being a series known for featuring gay relationships.

Despite this, Empress claims to be "bi-sexual and fully lesbian." The following statement was also included in her NFO for Maneater:

"3-Yes, I think any game without a female protagonist to be either gay or garbage. And YES,

I fucking hate most female characters in games whom are skinny and skeleton figure.

Big 'FUCK YOU' to every developer who thinks a skinny female is beautiful."

From these details, it can be inferred that Empress is a person with complicated and downright bizarre political views.

Though, this does not compare to her stance on trans people. A stance which has garnered her a bit of attention as of late.

FITGIRL

Fitgirl is a Russian-born repacker, responsible for repacking and distributing a large number of pirated games.

Repacking is the act of taking a game's files and compressing them down into something smaller, while still playing as normal. Repacking can be done to legitimate versions of games, however within the pirating community repacking is an essential practice as it reduces file sizes of cracked games for easy internet transfer.

So while repackers are distributors and do work with cracked games, they are not the ones to crack the game. This is a common misconception, many people believing Fitgirl is the one to crack the games. This results in a lot of people thinking Fitgirl is behind the cracks, thanking her specifically for the game.

Empress does not enjoy this fact. At one point during 2021, Empress got into a feud with Fitgirl. She intentionally limited the download rate of her crack to 200kb/s in an attempt to stop Fitgirl and other repackers from accessing it.

This was under the belief that repackers "steal the spotlight" from her work. After this, Fitgirl made a statement saying she would not be repacking any more Empress cracks.

The drama did not end here.

In 2023, the developer build of Atomic Heart was leaked, a developer build which used Denuvo as its DRM. As such, Fitgirl made a statement that, since Empress is the only person who knows how to crack Denuvo, she would not be repacking the build.

In a post on the r/piratedgames subreddit, a user posted a screenshot of Fitgirl's statement and asked why "Fitgirl is butthurt." A comment on this post, notably with more upvotes than the original post, stated:

R-Slur warning:

"FG (Fitgirl) is not ,butthurt'

Empress was the one who got butthurt and went full retard."

Empress, in a move which probably didn't help to clear the "butthurt" label, responded to this comment in a 436 word reddit post on her subreddit r/EMPRESSEVOLUTION. The full post is quite long but contains quite a few accusations against Fitgirl, as well as the typical flavorings of Empress ranting. Notably, Empress does not capitalize the start of her sentences like in her NFOs.

To summarize, Empress claims:

Fitgirl was pretending to have actually cracked the games that Empress herself had done as a way to boost her image.

That Fitgirl is actually a man, along with some transphobic language around that (Sissy and faggot, specifically). (This claim is difficult to prove as no proof was given. Fitgirl uses a picture of a french actress to represent herself online. As I cannot validate the claim, I will stick to she/her pronouns for fitgirl.)

Fitgirl was locking any post about Empress. (I am assuming she meant reddit posts on r/piratedgames, but Fitgirl does not seem to be a moderator so it's unclear if that is what she meant)

Fitgirl was begging for money, including a screenshot of Fitgirl's donation page. (A notably hypocritical statement)

The second point is particularly important because it leads into-

RECENT EVENTS

Her latest crack, Hogwarts Legacy, is a divisive game. To say even that much would be an understatement. It also includes Denuvo DRM, which made Empress the only one with a method of cracking it. Coupled with the fact that it is a popular triple-A release, there was no doubt it would be Empress' next target.

Less than two weeks after the game's official release, Empress announced the game had been cracked. The crack, which was quickly distributed across the internet, contained another one of Empress' rants in its NFO.

This ~SPECIAL MESSAGE~, which is 549 words long, details Empress' support of JK Rowling and virulent hatred of trans/WOKE people, though is surprisingly more legible than most of her other rants. This is not to say that the words she said had any actual weight to them.

The rant contains all the workings of an Empress NFO. Unhinged, half-baked philosophy wrapped with a bow of profanity. The only thing lacking compared to most of her other NFOs is a particular anti-corporate sentiment. Empress even tried her hand at poetry towards the end. It isn't good.

Not long before the Hogwarts Legacy crack was released, Empress made a certain post to Reddit, seemingly trying to “call out” trans people as well as a generalized leftist sentiment. The whole thing is full of logical fallacies and blatant bigotry. Unsurprisingly for Reddit, this had consequences. If you have paused reading this at any point to look up r/EmpressEvolution, you may have noticed a little notice.

"r/EmpressEvolution has been banned from Reddit.

This community was banned for repeatedly violating Reddit's Moderator Code of Conduct."

Her reddit account, unsurprisingly, got the same treatment.

In what I assume was a revised version of the NFO for the latest update of Hogwarts Legacy (And thus the latest crack of the game), she added:

"To reddit admins: hey, keep collecting TRASH and

don't be ashamed whenever you drop yours pants in

a BACKLASH.

To reddit slaves: suck it harder bitches, you are

not doing good ENOUGH. Keep on it and do try to

forget the CUFF."

DENOUEMENT

Honestly, I can't think of a great way to conclude this. It's like stopping a story half-way through, since Empress seems to be going strong, as well as how much I glossed over in just trying to get this much out.

There were a lot of details I could have gone into, such as,

Empress' Dark Souls 2 fever dream which got her into cracking games.

Empress' self-proclaimed cult.

Her weird obsession with calling DRM a "Cancer" (which might relate back to her Dark Souls 2 fever dream)

Whoever the fuck Mr_Goldberg is.

The true extent of Empress' weird philosophy. I glazed over it a lot but she's really into pretending to be a philosopher.

Her hatred for Stray. Like she really fucking hates that game.

Her "cult" having a $10k entry fee (I think it's a bit weird in how she words it)

People think she's actually a guy a lot and that infuriates her.

Empress got arrested at some point??? and she blamed Fitgirl??? This one is pretty hard to verify for a number of reasons.

The Sergiu situation

She might possibly include viruses and mining code in her cracks? Difficult to verify as I only saw it from a single source.

Is Empress real? Is this a persona she puts on to attract a cult of personality so people notice her more? Or is this truly how she is, a one-of-a-kind video game piracy expert with incredibly strange worldviews? Either way, she's become an icon, not just because of her skill, but also due to her controversy and unordinary but enrapturing personality.

I would like to say that, while I did write all 2655 words of this document, I do not in any way support Empress. I mean don't get me wrong, piracy is ballin'. But Empress as a person is just... gross. Her views and ideologies would make even some alt-right pundits look meek. However, I think you can admire a person for being strange and bizarre, as well as captivating, while also acknowledging their many, many flaws.

Links (CONTENT WARNING: SLURS, TRANSPHOBIA, HOMOPHOBIA):

A github of all of Empress' NFOs.

https://model-map.github.io/EmpressNfo/

A timeline on the CrackWatch subreddit of Empress. I actually didn't find this until I finished writing this (and tbh cannot be bothered to verify most of the stuff I've said through it) but if you want to do more reading, here it is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/lqibnh/empress_there_and_back_again/

Fitgirl's statement about Empress.

https://fitgirl-repacks.site/my-statement-about-empress/

The post/comment of Empress and Fitgirl being called butthurt.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PiratedGames/comments/1171usf/comment/j99oueq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Empress' response to being called butthurt.

https://www.unddit.com/r/EmpressEvolution/comments/117e8tz/important_message_to_rpiratedgames_moderators/

The post allegedly by Empress claiming to have been arrested. Again, this is pretty unverifiable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/lqs91b/finally_caught_by_the_police_goodjob_everyone/

List of a bunch of recently archived Empress activity. https://justpaste.it/8c1w0

Same thing as above. https://pastebin.com/uhF3JiWu

The reddit post she made that got her banned off the site.

https://www.unddit.com/r/EmpressEvolution/comments/117ywff/the_top_tier_contradiction_hypocrisy_of_the_human/ https://archive.vn/856Do

Wiki page for Denuvo, featuring a little mention of our problematic fave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo

Wired article about Empress.

https://www.wired.com/story/empress-drm-cracking-denuvo-video-game-piracy/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

There are only four more days left in my Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

#20yrsago Your customers don’t want DRM, part MMMCCXI https://www.wired.com/2004/01/stores-nix-disposable-flicks/

#20yrsago Jason Schultz on American Blind versus Google https://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/

#20yrsago BugMeNot: circumvent annoying registration https://bugmenot.com

#20yrsago Hundreds of BBCers protest director’s resignation http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3442825.stm

#20yrsago Marxist fairy tales https://web.archive.org/web/20040420002251/http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Audiopage.html

#15yrsago Bruce Sterling on our global psychosis, ca. 2009 https://web.archive.org/web/20090201010959/http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2009/01/2009_will_be_a_year_of_panic.php

#15yrsago Digital Britain report proposes to save Britain’s future by destroying the Internet https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/digital-britain-leaving-consumers-out-of-the-picture/

#15yrsago UK fingerprints foreign six-year-old children at the border https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jan/29/eu-idcards

#10yrsago Not just Environment and Health: Canadian government attacks libraries from 12 ministries https://web.archive.org/web/20140303074337/www.desmog.ca/2014/01/27/loss-librarians-devastating-science-and-knowledge-canada

#10yrsago Republican Congressman threatens to kill reporter after State of the Union https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2014/01/29/1273288/-GOP-Congressman-Threatens-to-Kill-Report-After-SOTU

#10yrsago Network Solutions not sure if it will opt random customers into $1,850 “domain protection” plan https://www.techdirt.com/2014/01/28/network-solutions-tries-to-auto-enroll-users-into-its-1850year-domain-protection-plan/

#10yrsago Writers Guild of America tells US government that copyright shouldn’t trump free expression https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-writers-warn-against-draconian-anti-piracy-measures-140127/

#10yrsago Top lawyer finds GCHQ spying is illegal & UK spies who help US drone strike may be accessories to murder https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/28/gchq-mass-surveillance-spying-law-lawyer

#10yrsago Extorted out of a one-character Twitter ID by a hacker who seized control of Godaddy domains https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-username-24eb09e026dd

#5yrsago Undercover who targeted Citizen Lab over Israeli cyber-arms dealer is an ex-Israeli spook linked to black ops firm used by Harvey Weinstein https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/world/black-cube-nso-citizen-lab-intelligence.html

#5yrsago Major vulnerability in 5G means that anyone with $500 worth of gear can spy on a wide area’s mobile activity https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/5g-protocol-may-still-be-vulnerable-imsi-catchers

#5yrsago Citing terms of service and “bad actors,” Facebook locks out tools that catalog ads and ad targeting https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-blocks-ad-transparency-tools

#5yrsago A 70% tax on income over $10m is designed to correct inequality, not raise revenue https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/28/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-70-percent-tax-rich-isnt-about-revenue-its-about

#5yrsago Words, but not deeds: the Democrats as climate-deniers https://jacobin.com/2019/01/climate-change-2020-democrats-green-new-deal

#5yrsago The EU’s plan for algorithmic copyright filters is looking more and more unlikely https://memex.craphound.com/2019/01/29/the-eus-plan-for-algorithmic-copyright-filters-is-looking-more-and-more-unlikely/

#1yrago “Conversational” AI Is Really Bad At Conversations https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/29/conversational-ai-is-really-bad-at-conversations/

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28 - TOMORROW!) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

[catandsusim]

I don’t have vpn, and if you pirate a game that’s no longer available like the sims 2. can they still turn off your internet?

What country are you in? The download linked in my All in One post is not anything that would catch the attention of anti-piracy organizations. Also, it is abandonware, meaning that EA is no longer selling or supporting the game, so there is no financial harm that could be claimed. And no, they don’t turn off your internet. Not here in the US, anyway.

I do apologize that the download may have to be done in two parts, 6 hours apart. I am looking for a better solution, since I had to remove it from my Personal Google drive.

[viewmonster-deactivated20230122]

when are people going to stop acting like piracy is the solution to playing video games made by shitty people ohhhhh my goddddddddddddd. piracy is morally neutral meaning that nobody gets hurt if you make a copy of a video game BUT if you pirate a game and still talk about it and post about it and draw fanart etc etc etc You Are Still Promoting It. and even if you pirate a game that, say for example, has racist antisemitic charicatures in it, you are still deciding to play a game with racism and antisemitism present in it, which isn't a good look for you or your internal politics as much as you want to act like youre totally anti racism in public online. i just dont get why someone would want so badly to make up bullshit excuses to be into any sort of god-awful bigoted media by saying "but but but i dont support the creators monetarily!!" while still willingly consuming media with literal bigotry in it

[hoodiesnatcher]

It's the fact that (anti-piracy) people come with a "moral" ground but also have no solution for when the monopolies decide they don't want something airing.

"I don't want you to pirate because it hurts the creator."

And somehow the monopolies on media don't?

People with most mainstream tastes imaginable should not open their mouth on how anti piracy they are btw. Yea no shit you can depend on legal sources to watch Marvel and listen to tswift and Maroon 5. Thank you so much for signing the petition to close that platform that was the only one i could download this 2008 romanian dungeon synth ep from

[ayoneeza]

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[saikrishnaassociates]

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[a-girl-called-bob]

Use Linux - either directly on your computer or in an emulated virtual machine. Or redirect your hdmi output to an external capture card and record that. Either one seems a little overkill if you just want screenshots of your shows, but thems the breaks. There's no apparent software solution if you're going to keep using windows or macos.

Edit: Or pirate your shows - the system-level thing that censors screenshots is triggered on a per-app basis, so things like netflix and certain websites have it on by default. If you get your show as a plain old video file, though, you can open it in something like VLC that doesn't have the censorship flag set. So essentially, this is yet another anti-piracy measure that makes the pirated version more convenient - which figures.

hbo max blocks screenshots even when I use the snipping tool AND firefox AND ublock which is a fucking first. i will never understand streaming services blocking the ability to take screenshots thats literally free advertising for your show right there. HOW THE HELL IS SOMEBODY GONNA PIRATE YOUR SHOW THROUGH SCREENSHOTS. JACKASS

[music-industry-updates]

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