Hacking Sites under Investigation

[camper.]

Bwahahahaha, I wonder where all those random cheating knobs that signed up to say it would be fruitless are...

[Vreki]

Bwahahahaha, I wonder where all those random cheating knobs that signed up to say it would be fruitless are...

Yes, I think that it is interesting to see that many people sign up just to claim that nothing can be done, and the owners live in Russia anyway.
That shows that Mitch hit a nerve with this.

Remember Al Capone? The police couldn't touch him, but in the end the IRS got him.
I will not be surprised to learn that people who make a living by selling hacks also have a relaxed attitude to other moral issues, like paying your taxes.

Good initiative Mitch, even if it should fail.
At least you appear to have scared them.

[LightBred]

what a big man you are talking about entirely ending/ruining someones life over a cheat program for a g a m e.

Lets hope he's in the USA. Where the FBI and IRS will go after his azz even if hes a minor. If hes a minor its the parents responsibility to keep him in check. I could just see his parents losing all property, HOUSE, CARS, BOAT and ETC. All they have to do is follow the money.

[Vreki]

what a big man you are talking about entirely ending/ruining someones life over a cheat program for a g a m e.

They have made a living out of ruining the game for thousands of honest players, so they get absolutely no sympathy from me.

Besides this could not happen to them if they weren't breaking the law. They have done this to themselves.

[=98=]

what a big man you are talking about entirely ending/ruining someones life over a cheat program for a g a m e.

So, forgot it's a game. Is it still acceptable to commit fraud?

[LightBred]

They have made a living out of ruining the game for thousands of honest players, so they get absolutely no sympathy from me.

Besides this could not happen to them if they weren't breaking the law. They have done this to themselves.

Not all are breaking the law, next your top statement is just eh. No one should have legal action taken on them for something done in a game. That'd be near me getting mad at you for baseraping because it's against server rules and filing a suit against you for electronic harassment.

They're not ruining anyones game but their own, players have every option necessary to avoid playing with cheaters.. Join another server, get screens/video, report them to ea, report to server admins... There are so many ways to deal with them.

So, forgot it's a game. Is it still acceptable to commit fraud?

It's not fraud "IF" they are using the donation system just to allow access to the area where the cheats are provided. Some of the sites I cannot vouch for since I have seen the "buy it now" button on those before or they require a subscription.

[Vreki]

Not all are breaking the law, next your top statement is just eh. No one should have legal action taken on them for something done in a game. That'd be near me getting mad at you for baseraping because it's against server rules and filing a suit against you for electronic harassment.

Baseraping is not illegal, so your analogy fails.
How about someone posting child porn in a game, say by using the tag system in TF2. That would be illegal, and I don't think they are going to get off the hook because "it is just a game"

If the hackers are not breaking the law, then they will have nothing to worry about.

They're not ruining anyones game but their own, players have every option necessary to avoid playing with cheaters.. Join another server, get screens/video, report them to ea, report to server admins... There are so many ways to deal with them.

Just knowing that the guy who repeatedly kills me could be a hacker is taking away some of the fun for me.
And judging by the number of complaints about cheaters there are lots of people who feel the same.

It's not fraud "IF" they are using the donation system just to allow access to the area where the cheats are provided. Some of the sites I cannot vouch for since I have seen the "buy it now" button on those before or they require a subscription.

You seem to have a lot more experience with cheat sites than me.
How does the subscription method prevent them from doing fraud?
Fraud can mean a lot of different things, I haven't seen it specified what they are charged with.

[=98=]

It's not fraud "IF" they are using the donation system just to allow access to the area where the cheats are provided. Some of the sites I cannot vouch for since I have seen the "buy it now" button on those before or they require a subscription.

So, in theory, what you are saying is that i could access these hacks without paying anything. A donation system implies that giving money for a product/service is encouraged, but not compulsory.

If it were a donation, the product/service would still be available to those who didn't pay.

[LightBred]

So, in theory, what you are saying is that i could access these hacks without paying anything. A donation system implies that giving money for a product/service is encouraged, but not compulsory.

If it were a donation, the product/service would still be available to those who didn't pay.

Nope, the donation system that I know of is used on more than three sites works basically on the forums only. You donate to remain a member of a group, this group can only access the release forums.

They release hacks constantly the last site I seen was on a 30 day basis, after 30 days the program becomes locked and cannot be used, you must re-download the latest released version. Again you would have to donate again or be in this group to gain access to the release forum again.

So long as it's a donation, they're paying for access to the forum and not the service pretty much nothing can be done. Unless they start rewriting laws just for this.

[troybob]

sounds like lightbred has a lot of experience with hack sites

not surprising really.

[LightBred]

Baseraping is not illegal, so your analogy fails.
How about someone posting child porn in a game, say by using the tag system in TF2. That would be illegal, and I don't think they are going to get off the hook because "it is just a game"

It may not be illegal but could qualify for electronic harassment for the same reasons you gave, "ruining the game :cry:" so the analogy didn't fail it just went above your head.

If the hackers are not breaking the law, then they will have nothing to worry about.

Most of the sites? Don't have anything to worry about.

Just knowing that the guy who repeatedly kills me could be a hacker is taking away some of the fun for me.
And judging by the number of complaints about cheaters there are lots of people who feel the same.

So according to you either way if you're getting killed the game is ruined for you... whine much?
No one likes a cheater at anything, but attacking the source rather than the user isn't the answer. It will just cause the free cheats to flourish and again the users not suffering anything except a banned cdkey or ip and reset stats at most.

Attacking the programmers isn't the answer, attacking those causing the problem is. If more efforts were made on the users part to prevent them from using/playing with cheats it would be eliminated completely.

You seem to have a lot more experience with cheat sites than me.
How does the subscription method prevent them from doing fraud?
Fraud can mean a lot of different things, I haven't seen it specified what they are charged with.

If you read CLEARLY i said DONATIONS, NOT SUBSCRIPTIONS. Subscriptions if they are in fact not registered properly or is NOT reported to the IRS as income are illegal.. On the other-hand according to the investigation and the reports I read, the sites in question of tax fraud, if they had just made it known as a form of income, there would be no tax fraud.

That would probably then make it a civil action since its nothing more than a violation of the user license agreement and then again would be back on the producers of the software/game to take action which is who should be in the first place.

sounds like lightbred has a lot of experience with hack sites

not surprising really.

Not at all considering how many servers I've ran/had.

[Vreki]

So according to you either way if you're getting killed the game is ruined for you... whine much?

No, I can easily handle getting killed by a better player.
But if there is a real possibly that the "better player" is in fact just a cheater, then the game will los a lot of its attraction.

No one likes a cheater at anything, but attacking the source rather than the user isn't the answer. It will just cause the free cheats to flourish and again the users not suffering anything except a banned cdkey or ip and reset stats at most.

Free cheats? So tell me, why is it that people prefer to pay for cheats when free cheats are just waiting to flourish?

Attacking the programmers isn't the answer, attacking those causing the problem is. If more efforts were made on the users part to prevent them from using/playing with cheats it would be eliminated completely.

The users are already targeted in various ways.
Why do you feel the need to defend the makers of hacks?
Do you not feel that what they are doing is wrong?

It may not be illegal yet, but I think a good argument could be made for a law against these kinds of attacks on online communities.

If you read CLEARLY i said DONATIONS, NOT SUBSCRIPTIONS. Subscriptions if they are in fact not registered properly or is NOT reported to the IRS as income are illegal.. On the other-hand according to the investigation and the reports I read, the sites in question of tax fraud, if they had just made it known as a form of income, there would be no tax fraud.

I do not care about their subscription model.
The "Fraud" charge can also mean credit card fraud or a host of other types of fraud.

But for arguments sake, I seriously doubt that the IRS will buy the "donation" argument. If that was a valid tactic all online transactions would be done that way.
Want a free book from Amazon? Sure, just donate to gain access to the "Order a book" forum.

[LightBred]

No, I can easily handle getting killed by a better player.
But if there is a real possibly that the "better player" is in fact just a cheater, then the game will los a lot of its attraction.

That possibility will always be present unless on LAN or when those responsible for the servers step up to the task.

Free cheats? So tell me, why is it that people prefer to pay for cheats when free cheats are just waiting to flourish?

People mainly pay these prices because of advertising. Same reason they pay for a ton of other things these days... Take a look at those sites? Most advertise "Undetectable" or something to that effect making the would be users believe they can use the cheats and get away clean with it.

Free cheats are how it all started, this paying for cheats hasn't became a common occurrence until the last few years, I'd say 3-4. They can and will be produced regardless of someone being paid to produce them or not.

It's true cutting off funding will shutdown a few programmers from making the effort but many others will just freely distribute theirs.

The free cheats are not "just waiting to flourish" remember the commander hack? It is still free and will remain free just like aimbots/esp/clearwalls/blacksky etc.

Any three year old with google can find cheats for nearly any game they want if not on google then it just takes monitoring a few popular IRC channels to get exactly what they are looking for.

The users are already targeted in various ways.
Why do you feel the need to defend the makers of hacks?
Do you not feel that what they are doing is wrong?

Users targeting isn't half of what it should/could be, like I said before if you take away the cheats you have to buy, the freelance programmers will remain and will receive more recognition.

As for me feeling it is wrong? I don't see a problem with releasing something for educational or information purposes only. Some people have used these things as class/school projects in computer courses, etc. I don't see problems with that, I do see a problem with a user taking them out and using them against the agreement of the stated use. Only thing is the ones producing the cheats in this manner cannot dictate what someone will do with the cheats just like a gun maker can't dictate whether or not someone will purchase one of their firearms and go on a school shooting rampage... Do you think smith & wesson is charged when someone smears anothers insides everywhere with one of their products? hell no..

It may not be illegal yet, but I think a good argument could be made for a law against these kinds of attacks on online communities.

The FBI and everyone else have bigger things to worry about and I highly doubt we will see a legislation in favor of removing game cheats from the face of the earth, there are far more important risks and areas to cover. Scammers, internet predators, among other things that actually threaten users.

I do not care about their subscription model.
The "Fraud" charge can also mean credit card fraud or a host of other types of fraud.

It's not your place to care and no one asked for you to care or stated that you should and quite frankly no one cares if you don't care. Again it's not your place and you can't do a single thing to affect this in either direction other than reporting cheaters the same old way it's been done for years.

Also type of fraud mentioned, listed above and being discussed is tax fraud. Not credit card fraud. On the sites where subscriptions are being paid the users are getting exactly what they pay for, however I do think that they could catch possibly a "false advertisement" case since the cheats are advertised as "undetectable" when they are most certainly not.

But for arguments sake, I seriously doubt that the IRS will buy the "donation" argument. If that was a valid tactic all online transactions would be done that way.
Want a free book from Amazon? Sure, just donate to gain access to the "Order a book" forum.

That is a company, they have a business license, they charge for the product you purchase. Are you dense?

The donation system runs simply by allowing those that donate extra access to forums areas. If the releases are made there then so be it, they are still not directly paying for the services therefor it's not a purchase.

The sites I have mentioned above about the donations? Unless they exceed I believe it's in excess of $10,000 in the us, there is nothing that can be done by the IRS.

[sober]

Very Nice job Mitch!! Nice to see *** go down and I am sure more will follow!!

"Unless they exceed I believe it's in excess of $10,000 in the us", As I recall thats $10,000 a year, most these big pay to hack sites make that in a month so if they are not paying taxes they will go down. *** shut down for a reason and I gurantee that reason was not due to lack of income, cannot wait to see which one goes down next!!!!

[signa]

Bwahahahaha, I wonder where all those random cheating knobs that signed up to say it would be fruitless are...

lol QFT. I've never seen so many people come out of the woodwork to post in defense of cheating. :laugh:

That is a company, they have a business license, they charge for the product you purchase. Are you dense?
The donation system runs simply by allowing those that donate extra access to forums areas. If the releases are made there then so be it, they are still not directly paying for the services therefor it's not a purchase...

if they are not paying for the "services" (aka 'cheats'), and those are by donation only, then what exactly is the product you mentioned they are purchasing from the 'company' ?

In any event, even if this is legal, you can bet the government will come after them if they find out they didn't pay taxes, no matter how much it is.