January 03, 2005

Underground Pirate Scene

Wired covers the underground pirate scene from the release of Halflife 2 source code to plain old new release movies. The culture and organization of these modern day pirates is shown in vivid detail.

The upper reaches of the network are a "darknet," hidden behind layers of security. The sites use a "bounce" to hide their IP address, and members can log in only from trusted IP addresses already on file. Most transmissions between sites use heavy-duty encryption. Finally, they continually change the usernames and passwords required to log in..."Half the kids in the scene work at Best Buy or Blockbuster to get their hands on stuff they can release," says Frank. "At the factory, maybe 15 percent of CDs and DVDs are defective," says Forest, "usually just because the label is off a little bit." They're dumped into a rubbish bin, ripe for the picking.

It's going to be difficult for the authorities to close this leak down as these kids probably get paid minimum wage.

Toby is a master ripper. At 22, he's got a big man's frame but looks malnourished, like he doesn't get enough vegetables. He spends most of his time preparing movies for the Netflix Project. Started by an anonymous donor - again, an angel investor willing to devote money but not time to media piracy - the Netflix Project aims to archive every film offered by the subscription service. "Netflix offers about 25,000 movies," says Toby. "We've got maybe half of them." Each time Toby finishes condensing and packaging a movie, it gets placed on a central server. The archive is free for members who score a password and can get through the encryption. (Asked for comment, Netflix politely declined.)

Netflix project? This sounds like the build up of the Netflix Tivo video-on-demand project. It seems a few lucky insiders already have free access to this movie archive. Naughty, naughty Netflix. I bet Toby is in a deep doo-doo for telling the reporter about this.