Operation Fastlink Nets 1000s in Pirate Sting

womanfiend writes "The Iowa City (Iowa) Press Citizen has been reporting the last two days about "'Operation Fastlink,' a multi-national investigation launched in April." Apparently, the investigation has netted a local college student hosting 13,000 titles worth a bundle of money both in simple value and liability for as many times as logs show the titles were downloaded. According to the P-C: "...'Operation Fastlink,' which targeted the underground community's hierarchy with [FBI] agents conducting more than 120 searches within 24 hours in 27 states and 11 foreign countries. At the time, authorities identified nearly 100 people as leaders or high-ranking members of international piracy groups." Sounds like somebody's in deep doo doo."

I'd reply to this

[atarione]

.... but I'm too busy formatting my HardDrives..Must destroy evidence.....mmmmm evidence

And in other news...

[suso]

Copy protoction still fails to stop rampant software piracy.

Don't copy...

[Phixxr]

...That Floppy!

Cute!

[jargoone]

the investigation has netted a local college student hosting 13,000 titles

13,000 titles... awww, that's just adorable. I hope someone got a new hard drive from Santy Claus.

Re:I'd reply to this

[saintp]

Luckily, I know just the program [amazingmagnets.com].

Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

According to dictionary.com, piracy is: Robbery committed at sea, which leads me to assume that Iowa has been moved to the high seas. . .in light of this new data, it really doesn't matter that someone downloaded a few songs, does it?

Re:College kids?

[krbvroc1]

Yeah, before you know it, these little fuckers will be ripping the tags off their mattresses! Obviously, P2P is a gateway crime to bigger things.

I once heard that Bernie Ebbers of Worldcom once shared a copyrighted VHS tape with his neighbors. If he had only been stopped then...

Re:Poor college students easy targets

[LocoMan]

Yeah, how evil of them to go against the poor college students that couldn't afford the 13,000 software titles he obviously needed for his studies... :)

Re:My collection is bigger than yours ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad that this guy will be the one cutting your pay check in a few years as you toil in middle management.

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[TheGavster]

That's a sex dollar bill (not a typo ;)) with the face of Bill Clinton: http://www.books4you.addr.com/ClintonSexDollarBill .html [addr.com]

Re:I'd reply to this

[AviLazar]

Residual data is pretty real. My friend works for a company that used to do data recovery (they have evolved to selling wholesale lockboxes to financial industry). Everything from formatted hard drives, to hard drives that were in a fire. There are plenty of articles on the web that discuss the different methods of recovering data from a formatted disk. Google it and you should find plenty of articles:

Dawn of the Undead Data [computerworld.com]

Re:Call me when the headline reads:

[op00to]

NBAHAHAHAHA HOLY CRAP BILL CLINTON SEX HAHAHAHA

Did you make that one up yourself? Cause it's SOOO funny! I've never ever heard anyone make a reference like that before!

sharing is careing

[Anonymous Coward]

When i was in pre-school i was told i should share everything.

When i was in junior school i was told i should share everything.

When i was in senior school i was told i should share everything.

Now that i go to college i share everything and get told i'll go to jail.

Someones been telling me porkies!

Internet Pirates unfazed by latest Attack

[ubernoob22]

Internet piracy is, surprisingly, still alive and doing very well, despite the FBI's latest attempt to discourage individuals from doing so by holding them personally accountable for their actions.

"We understand how much our clients are suffering," reports Jonathan Smith, head FBI agent of 'Operation Fastlink'. "I mean, can't these pirates see what they're doing? They're dashing all these poor companies hopes of making their money. And without money, how can their employees enjoy their temporary, godless, materialistic life?"

Neither side seems willing to budge.

"Them reality-lubbers be causin' lots of trouble in the cyber-seas," says one pirate who wished to remain anonymous. "we be tryin' to pay for nothin' and do nothin'. Yearg, but it's never good to see one of your own walk the plank."