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Games Entertainment

Sega Giving Stock To Stop ISO Pirates? 135

Posted by CmdrTaco from the never-heard-of-that-before dept.
atheos acording to this story kalisto was given stop options to cease releasing ripped dreamcast ISOs. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I don't think I've ever heard of this. I mean, its a lot nicer then sending in the legal attack sharks (and the page proclaims that they will move on to the PSX) but something feels odd about this. Emulators and ISOs are very different things in my eyes. Anyway, take this whole story with a big old salt lick since we don't really have much to go on here, but I just found this odd.
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Sega Giving Stock To Stop ISO Pirates? More

Sega Giving Stock To Stop ISO Pirates?

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  • So they're given Stop Options to stock their ISO files?
    --
  • Is it just me or does that site crash Netscape under Linux? Every time I try to load the page... Kaboom!

  • Please, it's not real. (Score:5)

    by toast- ( 72345 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @05:04AM (#798746)
    Jesus. Why do people buy into this shit?

    Kalisto wanted out, and didn't have a witty thing to say. So they made something up. If you read their previous NFO's they were rather pissed off at the 'scene' and one would easily say they did want out.

    Now the issue of Sega giving stock options is ludicrist. Sega would rather hand them some handcuffs rather than money or options. You better believe that sega still wants them in jail.

    And finally, if the 'warez site' in question was more up to date, you'd notice a new group has formed (named echelon), right after kalisto has 'exited'. Seems a little suspicious to you, doesn't it?

    Finally, here are some links that are comparibly better than the one provided in the story.

    Isonews [isonews.com]

    152.org [152.org]

    You can see the 'nfos' from the new group 'echelon' and give youself a better picture of the dreamcast pirate world.


  • Perfect move by Sony!

    Now they can trump the guy with extortion charges!!!

    He will do REAL time, cuz all judges hate h4x0r5.

    First they get him to stop doing what he was doing -- ripping & distributing the DC ISOs. Sony can claim he forced them to give him stock, or else he wouldn't stop his dirty distribution ring!

    I mean this is perfect! I think I saw it on Law & Order!!! :P

    There is no question that kalisto was in the wrong, as far as any judge is concerned. Now Sony can really stick it to kalisto!

    Sony offered the stock, and now they can claim duress, and then first get a conviction in kalisto's home state for extortion. Then they can bankrupt him by a civil suit.

    Are these Sony guys Bony or what? :P /d

  • Of course it's real! Didn't you read the article?

    Take note this is NOT a joke.

    See? C'mon, these guys are fine, upstanding young men. You don't think they'd actually lie, do you?

    </SARCASM>

    First rule: if the person saying something explicitly tells you that it isn't a lie...it probably is.


    --

  • You can burn the file as an ISO-9660 compliant image, it's International Standards Organization, I think, and governs the file format of a CD.

  • No more penis birds (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Slashdot has offered me a Slashdot Cruiser to stop promoting Penis Birds, so this will be it, our last promotion. Thanks to all who have supported us throughout my stay in the PB scene. Take note this is NOT a joke. We are really stopping all PB operations with this release. We continue on with the PF. Bye."
  • Up, up, and away-ay-ay!
    In my beautiful, beautiful ... stock option!
  • >Issuing stock

    Selling/giving stock or options is not always the same as issueing new stock. Companies keep a larder of their own stock for a lot of reasons (executive compensation, employeee options) plus it is very popular to 'buyback' your own stock when the price needs a little boost. Handing out 10,000 shares to a Sr. VP doesn't dilute the stock (create new issues without raising the capitlaization) and neither does giving 1000 options to a bunch of pirates.

    Now, whether a sane company would even consider offering options in exchange for stopping pirating or if this ever happened...
  • It seems very possible that it isn't even true. The Aug 30 post on the site says: "Here's our last release before we take a little break from the DC scene. We are frankly tired of all of you ungrateful assholes out there who do nothing but whine about our releases. We will give you this game today, but we have chosen to keep our current rips of Ultimate Fighting Championship and Sega GT internal. We don't have to release to the public nor are we really interested in doing so right now with the attitude that most of the end-user base shows."

    So this may be just a bit of a prank played on the "ungrateful" hordes who don't appreciate the work that they do...

    But if the stock option thing is true, this may encourage the people who doing the same thing or even contemplating getting into ripping DC games. Either you get the thrill of being part of the "underground" scene, or you get recognition and money from Sega saying "you're too good for us, please stop, we surrender, here's some money." There isn't much of a downside.

    -------------
  • Kalisto made a lot of improvments (I'm on the dcdev mailing list and dabble in some dreamcast programming via my stupid serial cable :)) but KALiSTO has done a lot of major enhancements to the Dreamcast programing scene.

    I follow the iso scene a little bit (just for kicks, my cable modem caps would kill me) but the day after KALiSTO supposedly "quit" doing the Dreamcast a new group appeared called Echelon appeared on the scene. This group could do all the things KALiSTO could do, and now they're doing some more things (like being able to swap 2 cd's without booting the dreamcast again etc)..

    So it's most likely KALiSTO renaming themselves to either shut people up or they were taking heat from somewhere. I very much doubt SEGA would be giving them stock option for pirating their games, however weirder things have happened. But I just think it's very odd that another group appeared with the same capibiliteis as them. I mean hell, all the other groups releasing games on the DC scene aren't nearly as skilled as either of these groups. Just funny to see one appear out of nowhere... heh

  • Sheesh, ya can't give 'em away to hackers, let alone offer them to new employees as part of the offer...

    "Options, getcher options, heeya!"

  • This sort of reminds me of terrorism. If you give in to terrorists, then other terrorists will do the same thing knowing that you will.

    If they are giving out stock options, how long will it take for every schmoe out there to start figuring out how to rip CDs and create ISOs just for the stock options.

    Screw college, I can make more in stocks by stealing shit, plus its funner!
  • stop options

    I think it's about time Slashdot started editing the stories that go on the main page. There are SO MANY grammatical and spelling errors seeping into thse posts that it is getting to be unbearable. We are the nerds, and it makes sense that we should be more intelligent than the average human being, but some of these mistakes are getting.

    Face the truth. /. is now a commercial news organization (with a good community). Invoke a little common sense, a spell checker, and a grammar checker.

  • Re:hire them! (Score:4)

    by toast- ( 72345 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @05:07AM (#798758)
    F.Y.I PSX2 games have been hackable for the same amount of time or longer than dream cast.

    They come on DVD's and they simply apply the same ripping or downsampling procedures to get it to fit on a CD.

    The dreamcast is tougher due to the custom 'data' format (gdrom), and the group 'utopia' was the first to break the protection.

    Kalisto uses the same anti-protection that utopia created to break the games.

  • We need a new RFC (Score:5)

    by Rombuu ( 22914 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @05:07AM (#798759)
    For the SBP (Slashdot Bullshit Protocol). Basically, you send a story out to 5 people before you publish it on the front page. If 5 of them go "Bullshit!", then you don't publish the story.
  • 10,000 stock options, eh? Do they all have to be different prices, or what?

    a "stock option" is the ability to buy stock at a fixed price as opposed to the trading price, not actual stock itself.

    ----------

  • Well you know what they say: 'Nothing more reliable than a man whose loyalty you can buy.'
  • I think no matter what ppl or companies do there will be pirates (i.e. Warez, Radio, etc.) I mean if the company makes there products vulnerable enuff to be exploited and fucked wit ..then it's their fault!!@$~ No matter what ppl say or do FREEWAREZ, ISOZ and etc will thrive and go on. All this media is doing is attracting more ppl to burn iso's and now wit proggies that HELP you burn iso's this will never end.

  • .. (Score:1)

    by vbrtrmn ( 62760 )
    What's a "stop option"?

    --
    you are not what you own
  • ...Although I am pretty skeptical about this particular case. Useually when a company offers to pay off game crackers/pirates/etc they useually ask for some form of NDA too, to stop these kinds of stories from getting out to the general public.

    I remember from way back on the Atari ST a crew called "Pompeii Pirates". A friend of mine was actually involved in that group and they were given money/free stuff/etc by several games publishers on the understanding that they would leave their games alone and uncracked. That didnt stop them from taking the money and cracking the game on occasion, but still, thats the nature of the game =).

    Nick
  • Even though they have a legal right to go after people and attempt to shut them down, if they gave out stock options in consideration for signing a contract saying "I agree not to distribute any games in the future", they have a lot better legal case, not to mention the PR value.

    Hmm, make a pirate site, then take money to shut it down...maybe it's not such a great precedent after all. :)

  • They've coined a new term for giving away stock options to pirates in the hopes that they will stop. Stop Options. ;-)

    This is BS. So these so-called 'pirates' have been granted some options in exchange for their agreement to stop distributing ISO's and to not divulge to anyone else how to do it (I would guess). Think how unlikely that is from several angles.

    If that did somehow happen, I imagine the 'pirates' would have had to sign something. Something that says 'I'm taking these 1000 options in Sega at an exercise price of $$ in exchange for the promise to stop distributing unauthorized copies of Dreamcast software and to not divulge to anyone how to create these unauthorized copies. And, by the way, I won't tell anyone about this deal or I will lose the options and face prosecution.'

    Can't even find what the Sega Enterprises stock ticker symbol is or what it is currently trading for. Only thing that omes close is sega.com Asia Ltd which trades on the Hong Kong exchange as 1196.HK -- is Sega's stock even publicly traded in the US?

    And why would Sega not prosecute? They presumably have the real identies of these persons, you don't just leave stock options under a rock in the park at midnight.

    Whole thing is very fishy.
  • I have to wonder if maybe this is a new tactic in the console wars. Everyone knows that the consoles are loss-leaders. The money is made from the games.

    Now, if Sega, realizing that everyone is basically waiting for the PSX2 (in theory) works out a deal with DC pirates to stop distributing their games in exchange for stock and FOCUS on distributing PSX2 images, might this not be a pretty good stratigic move on Sega's part?

    Recruit the underground pirate scene as allies against a rival. Maybe this isn't so far fetched after all.

  • I believe you could actually play the games on the dreamcast without using an emulator.

  • I can see it now (Score:4)

    by Auckerman ( 223266 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @04:49AM (#798769)
    Sega: Hey, if you don't steal our stuff, we'll sell you this stock for really cheap.

    Pirate: j00 m$t B k1dd1ng m3, b1tch, ur $t0cK 1$ g01ng t0 b w0rthl3s s00n. P$x2 0wnz all.

    Sega: How about if we give it too you?

    Pirate: n0 th4nx

  • Please. (Score:1)

    by Gray ( 5042 )
    If Sega was gonna play that way, I'm sure they'd dispatch some ziabatsu ninja assassins before they resorted to handing over stock..
  • The article reads Stock Options not "stop options", I don't even know what the hell a "Stop Option" is. But I think that Stock Options is a Much better topic for discussion. This seems almost like it could lead to blackmail.

    Give us stock/food/caffine or we release all of your games for free...
    "Freedom of speech has always been the abstract red-headed stepchild of the Constitution"
  • Let's say you are given half-price options for x shares of stock. You buy x shares at half price and then sell x/2 shares at market. What you effectively got was x free shares of Sega stock.
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • Two large Geezers who come round and say
    'You have an option, stop or we break your legs'

  • Comment removed (Score:5)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @05:09AM (#798774)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • KALiSTO "quit" the scene before only to return, this time they look to have switched names to ECHELON or HOOLIGANS or some other name. This is an unconfirmed rumor and should never have been posted on /.
  • Re-read it slowly. It says: "atheos acording to this story kalisto was given stop options to cease releasing ripped dreamcast ISOs"
  • A simple way this could have been far more interesting.
    1: sega gives these guys X amount of stock for not messing with thier games any more.
    2: Sega then gives them X amount of more stock for picking on Sony/nintendo.

    Ahh let the hacker mercenaries draw forth.
  • Is it just me or does that site crash Netscape under Linux? Every time I try to load the page... Kaboom!

    I was just about to mention that. You have to turn off Java/JavaScript (I turned them both off so I don't know which one fixed it)

    This is actually the first page I've ever been to that crashed Netscape. I've had it lock up before, but never just die.
  • I firmly believe they ARE echelon.

    Or echelon consist of most of the old members.

    One or the other.

    And it's almost guaranteed to be true.. this is not a rumour, it's an observed fact.

  • Lucifer was seen giving ice water to the denizens of Hell today.

    More related news: Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and Scott McNealy held a press conference today. The Big 3 have apparently decided that in best interest of the computer industry, they will be releasing all current and future software as Open-Source.

    And finally: In startling turn of events, the Gnome and KDE development teams have reconciled their differences and have decided to merge and concentrate their efforts on a single GUI utilizing the best-of-show components from both of the existing desktops.


  • Wow. I can't believe you actually believe this crap. Moderate this whole story and style of "link first, check later" reporting down.
  • For those of you who were wondering what episode that motor boat gag came from, it's 5F05 [snpp.com].
  • ever hear of "tongue in cheek"?

  • Kalisto didn't want 'out' -- the just came upon the new copy protection that they couldn't crack.

    Hence the earlier "We're Out" .nfo which was quickly retracked when they released a game 16 hours later. That game had copy protection which at first they thought they wouldn't crack for some time, but as it turns out, it was rather simple.

    However, the later games have had better copy protection, and one which Kalisto really couldn't crack, so rather than saying "we don;t know what the hells going on now", they feed the kiddies and announce their 'outing'

    Of course, then Echelon comes along, and actually knows what they're doing -- read their .nfo's to see how they broke the new 'encryption'
  • What a crock of shit.

    The PS2 has enough bandwidth to swap the whole of the GS's memory several times a frame. VRAM that's on the same bit of silicon as the rasterisers I might add.

    Dreamcast, OTOH, seperates the VRAM from the rasteriser by an external bus.

    It takes as long to move texture and screen data to and from the PowerVR as it does to swap textures on the PS2.

    Be very wary of using such simple metrics as VRAM size when you don't have the full picture.
  • first off, this is old news. sept 2. which is ages ago in the scene. secondly, this is from kalisto, a group who is second to no one for fake nfos and groups. not even the famed trdog nfos come close. eg the whole nbc thing, kalistos "break" from the scene (which lasted 16 hours, and coincidentally ended when they released the first cracked dreamcast release)

    its a load of crap. and doesnt matter for shit now that echelon is in full force, which may or may not be kalisto in disguise. who gives a damn. let nbc be the shit division, echelon the elite, and the other no name groups fill in the blanks every so often.

    point is, this isnt newsworthy at all. maybe if this was slashdot, news from the scene, stuff that doesnt matter, itd be a big deal. but it isnt.
  • If you only copy games and don't buy any, Sega is making as much money as they would with the Dreamcasts sitting in a warehouse. Companies that release consoles sell at a loss, instead making their profits off of game licenses. Every game you buy, reguardless of company, gets some money to Sega. By buying the actual hardware, you're just decreasing their debt, not making them money.
  • I think this is all a stupid prank, or a Kalisto inside joke/coverup on why they're not releasing anymore.

    Why am I skeptical?

    1-I'm unsure about the legality of this in the first place. Basically, Sega is bribing these people with stock options, and I'll eat my own shorts if there isn't some law out there that prohibits this.

    2-Let's say bribing people with stock is actually legal. Don't you think Sega would make them sign some agreement that they may not disclose this transaction publicly? If I was running a big corporation, I would sure want my bribes to criminals kept secret ... maybe Sega of America has a different philosophy about this?

    3-Continuing with #2's assumption, what are Sega's stockholders going to think, when they find out that the people who may possibly cripple the Dreamcast console are getting free stocks? Would Sega really be so bold/stupid? How would they explain these actions at stockholder meetings?

    4-Just before their announcement, Kalisto had briefly stopped releasing Dreamcast ISOs because they think the Dreamcast ISO "scene" is ungrateful. Shortly thereafter, they released about 4-5 games, then stated that they are no longer releasing anything because Sega is bribing them. This all stinks of trying to find reasons to stop releasing. They could have easily stopped releasing due to the first reason, rather than publicly announcing that they are being paid the "ransom".

    5-Just after Kalisto stops releasing, a "new" group called Echelon emerges and immediately starts releasing games using fairly advanced ripping/booting techniques, as if they've been doing it for ages. Looks like Kalisto, smells like Kalisto. Hmmm, maybe this is all just a big name change for a piracy group?
  • It's people like you who make people like me set my limits at 1 instead of 0. Personally, over half AC's have something worthy of saying and those who don't get moderated down, I read. Then you come along post and Off Topic reply to my post, it gets moderated down, then you post it again.

    Don't be a dick. There is a time and place for everything.

  • It just goes to prove that copyright protection in the modern era is an oxymoron. I suppose they could do some big brother thing like divx did, but that failed too...

    Bummer, I feel so bad for the big corporations...
  • All protection is beatable. The only unbeatable protection, is size, and this only matters if a game really can't be reduced.

    When macrovision first released C-dilla to the world (for PC), it took groups days (or week(s)) to break it, and it was considered to be extremely tough and almost unbeatable for a while. But crackers are smart and they always find ways around any protection that is thrown at it.

    I don't believe kalisto quit over not being able to crack. Considering echelon is likely consisting of mostly EX KAL members, it's just a new name facing the uphill battle of new challenges.

    whatever the case, sega et al (developers included) will all take their stabs at copy protection. Crackers will always find ways around it. Always has been this way, always will.

  • no, kalisto (and utp) took marcus's work with bootable dc cds and made it their own. hardly innovative.
  • If I wanted fake news, I would go to Segfault.org and get it there.
    Good point. Lately there's been quite a bit of flamage from folks who feel software releases don't belong on the front page. Many comments in such a story read "Slashdot is not Freshmeat".
    I think a similar movement needs to be started for stories like this one:
    Slashdot is not Segfault!
  • There's also a the tiny flaw that Sega is a privately held company. There is no stock for them to offer. Follow the "Investor Info" link on their main page and see for yourself.

    The truth is that Kalisto spent months getting everything just right. They were the first group to do PAL/NTSC conversions. They were the first group to get CDDA audio to function. They were the first group to create self-booting CD-ROM games (something that Sega continues to say is impossible to their game developers). Just recently the first games came out with new "copy-protection" which is basically a single dummy file so large that the game won't fit on a CD-R (well, until Sony releases their new 99 minute CD-R). Kalisto was the first group to apply standard PC ripped skills (removing CD and file checks) to a DC game.

    All in all, Kalisto ends up with a product that is pretty much as good as it could possibly get. So, they want a clean slate. Bye Kalisto, hello Echelon. This new group releases only ripped, self-booting, full-converted games. So all their releases are guaranteed winners and they will become, without a doubt, the biggest thorn in Sega's side until the release of the PS2, X-box and GameCube.

    I myself considered submitting this story but I didn't because even a cursory check of the facts turned up this theory as baloney. Is Tim the only one who calls a company to confirm a story or get a comment?

    I agree with the statment that this story should have never been posted because any Slashdot readers who follow the warez scene already knew this and any Slashdot readers who don't follow the warez scene probably make it a point to go out of their way NOT to follow the warez scene.

    - JoeShmoe
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • You're a tad incorrect. By owning options, you can directly trade those options just ask if you were trading stock. You need not excercise those options if you choose not too.

    While this is technically true, it is not the norm in terms of the "options" that most of us think of when it comes to tech stocks. If I own an option to buy a stock at a reduced price, then it's likely that I can find a buyer to buy my option. These kinds of options are usually the type you would have if you approached your broker directly and bought options on any stock.

    However, granted options typically operate differently. You can not (generally) trade or sell a granted option, you can only exercise it to buy the stock at the stated price. If Sega were to _give_ options to an employee or an 3l33t cr4ck3r then that "gift" would have clauses not found in regular options.
  • Do you really think a company is going to give stock to software pirates? If Sega has enough information on Kalisto to give them stock, then Sega has enough information to have them arrested for copyright violations. Unless they are outside of the United States, but in that case I am sure Sega has valid copyrights elsewhere. You don't stop bank robbers by giving them a savings account.
  • Sillies -- Sega gives them options if they promise to stop. Hence "stop options".

    "I am the dot in .duh"

  • Sounds like Homer and his free motor boat. (Score:5)

    by bob_jordan ( 39836 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @05:24AM (#798798)
    "Hi, I'm Calisto, I'm here for my stock options"

    Bob.
  • Metallica could really learn from this. Let's call it the "if you're being stolen from, give up some cash" model.

    Sega is paying off the guys who have ripped off their games. Similarly, Metallica could give everyone who has been ripping off their music, say $10. Then we could all afford to go down to the record store and buy the records, and actually buy the CD, since it would be cheaper after this subsidy. After all, how many times have people bitched here that they are into mp3s because of overpriced CDs.

    not_cub

  • What's a "stop option"?

    It's a quick, easy way to tell if someone actually read the article before posting.

  • sounds definately cheaper than hiring out a legal staff, and no negative press against Sega that would blow up in their faces, such as some (Metallica).
  • Some people say to disable javascript, css, and images and its stable. Then whats the point of using a graphical browser?
  • Phone companies have offered free long distance to people that show them new ways to steal long distance service. In this case, they figure that once they know how it's being done, they can keep anyone else from doing it. The people that they're giving free service to were getting free service anyway, so it's no loss to the phone company.
    Having said that, this story smells funny to me.

    -B
  • I call it. Maybe, just maybe, sega hired these guys with a stock option policy. But as stated, no corporation on earth would give such a reward to bootleggers of their products.

    -Be
  • I mean, its a lot nicer then sending in the legal attack sharks

    Why the hell should Sega be nice to pirates? Especially in the console market where most of the income is from selling games, not hardware.

    -jfedor
  • Stock options are stock which are given to you by the company at a price which you pay back at that price when you sell them, so basically you get the difference between what you sell them at and what price they were at when they gave them to you.
  • You people that even believe any of this is true crack me up.. how can you be so stupid.. not to be mean or anything but come on.. giving money to people that help rip you off.. that doesn't even make any sense even if you ignore all the other evidence.. get a clue. who allowed this to make front page /. news anyway?
  • I heard Kalisto has ties with Microsoft and is hacking the DC and PSX2 to bring down Sega and Sony sales so that XBox can skate in and grab hold of the video game market. Interesting theory at least...

    -gerbik
  • No, Sega is not traded publicly in the US. This is straight from Sega's website:


    Are you an investor? Since we're not public we don't have an investor relations department.
    -Reuben

  • I agree with the statment that this story should have never been posted because any Slashdot readers who follow the warez scene already knew this and any Slashdot readers who don't follow the warez scene probably make it a point to go out of their way NOT to follow the warez scene.

    No, I have to disagree with this - certainly for myself I don't bother following the warez scene, but am curious to know what is going on from time - I would think those on Slashdot whom are interested in intellectual property, which is a fair few of us, would be interested in knowing of activity in the warez scene.

  • The PS2 has enough bandwidth to swap the whole of the GS's memory several times a frame.

    So what do they do? Draw a whole bunch of polygons using texture set 1, swap in texture set 2, draw more polygons, swap in texture set 3, etc. until the frame is built? Sorry, rendering didn't work that way last time I checked.

    It takes as long to move texture and screen data to and from the PowerVR as it does to swap textures on the PS2.

    For several textures to be displayed on the same screen, they must all be in VRAM simultaneously, correct?


    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • of what? dosent a company need to ACTUALLY HAVE STOCKS to give stock options.
  • I call it. Maybe, just maybe, sega hired these guys with a stock option policy. But as stated, no corporation on earth would give such a reward to bootleggers of their products.

    -Ben
  • That sounds like a rather interesting approach to the problem. By giving stock options Sega would accomplish three things:

    1) Buy off the pirate for a cost much lower than lawyer fees

    2) Establishes a motivation for the pirate to want Sega to make money (and thus reducing the motivation to undercut them through piracy)

    3) Sets up a nice legal argument should he ever reneg. Basically they can include in the contact under which the Options are given a clause that makes it very easy to prosecute for huge penalties (relying on contract law rather than the vaugeries of current copyright law).

    Now having said that, this seems a lot like paying terrorists to give back hostages. This creates an incentive for people to be pirates because if they do so, they can get some options. If this became a common practice, everybody and their grandmother would be distributing ISO's just to get some options.

    It will be interesting to see if this turns out to be legit...

    ---

  • And with the PS2 being released soon - holding Sega shares would properly not be a wise idea.

    PlayStation 2 is a fighting game platform. (Coincidentally, fighting is one of the four arcade genres, the others being racing, shooting at a movie, and pinball.) It doesn't have enough texture RAM to hold detailed textures for more than about four characters, and this is coincidentally the number of players in some fighting games (trying to show up Nintendo's Smash Bros. [smashbros.com]?).

    Dreamcast, OTOH, seems more balanced in its technical capabilities.


    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • Just a little warning.. it appears that this link crashes netscape under linux (redhat 6.2)..
  • say "Oh, let's be nice to him." www.ridiculopathy.com [ridiculopathy.com]
  • I think it's about time Slashdot started editing the stories that go on the main page. There are SO MANY grammatical and spelling errors seeping into thse posts that it is getting to be unbearable.

    thse posts no grammer have, nor speeeling, /. this is, use to it you are not, get use you must. speel checker for post not bad idea might not be
  • I agree. Besides, what moron at Sony would actually see this as a good idea?

    Just think of all the kiddies out there that think 'Hey - if I can succesfully pirate enough Sony warez, I'LL GET FREE SONY STOCK!!!'. Not a very smart move.
  • No sh!t, seems like such a bunch of conspiracy theorists like the Slashdot crew would be a little more careful about which information they post in a quasi-journalistic forum such as this. Especially considering that the information on this site reaches most of the technically inclined population some way or another. Considering Slashdot would be the perfect forum to distribute false information, I think it would be in proper form if they verfied there sources *before* they post content. To optimize the amount of verified information that reaches the masses of people, who will believe anything they are told, by what they consider to be a reliable source.

    That's just me though, I don't want to be a pawn of the element which trickles this sort of information thru supposedly reliable sources to get everyone to believe it. ::looks around suspiciously::

    You know how you see those "updates" at the bottom of stories. A better solution to help maximize the amount of correct information posted might be to have that update system done internally before it was dissiminated. Heck, you might even want to take some classes on Journalism, er read a book about it or something to improve your technique. No offense...

  • This has got to be the most ridiculously improbable story I have ever read on Slashdot.

    1. Warez is a competitive sport. If one group stops releasing another will immediatly take their place. Will Sega then buy the next group off as well? The stock won't be worth much if this keeps happening -- who wants shares in a company that knuckles under to pirates?
    2. How is Sega going to stop ALL the members of this (likely large) group of (likely anonymous) people from changing nyms and joining some other group? Do they ALL get stock options? Maybe they get tickets to Disneyland too? Free lollypops? Give me a fucking break.

    How can this not be painfully obvious?

  • 5-Just after Kalisto stops releasing, a "new" group called Echelon emerges and immediately starts releasing games using fairly advanced ripping/booting techniques, as if they've been doing it for ages. Looks like Kalisto, smells like Kalisto. Hmmm, maybe this is all just a big name change for a piracy group?

    Bingo.
  • ...of being completely full of shit.

    Not 12 hours before this release, they released another game wherein they claimed it would also be their last release. Obviously it wasn't. They've made similiar claims in the past, all unsubstantiated. Kalisto seems to like nothing more than being the subject of conversation. They released somewhere around %90 or more of the Dreamcast games available for download, so there was a lot of speculation as to whether the DC warez scene was going to continue without new releases.

    As always, nature abhors a vacuum. ECHELON and others have immediately started releasing self-booting DC games in the absence of Kalisto.

    Good riddance to another stupid warez group.

    If you have too much time on your hands, you can read all the apropos .NFOs and watch the forums on http://www.isonews.com
  • They stated they would continue to release PSX games. Perhaps this is a blackmale attempt with the upcoming PSX2 release. Then again this is typical bait and switch for the cops. Get Kallisto to give up the names in exchange for 'stock' then arrest them for copyright infringement. The tactic is used regularly to entice people with warrents. "You've won a new TV! Just stop by NNN Anywhere Blvd to claim your prize." Once the criminals come in and verify their identity, they all get arrested.
  • ? What better legal stance do they need than a bunch of guys with nice web pages *openly* spreading DC iso images around? There is no 'grey area' here as far as copyright goes....

    Perhaps the stock options are cheaper than the court battle?
  • >but on the other hand, if they SIGN
    > A LEGAL DOC saying they won't
    >do it again...

    It was illegal in the first place. They're not allowed to do it again whether they sign something or not.

    Care about freedom?

  • Could you imagine, no company would do anything to legitamize the piracy of there IP. If they started its just inviting more people to join in; wouldn't you like to rip software games for fun and profit ;) Come on, this is obviously BS
  • 1. A company would never pay a ransom to a cracker group. This would just give 10 other groups the signal to try to do the same. 2. A "Stock Option" is the right to buy stock in a company to a fixed price (Hopefully below the current trading price :-) So this requires that they actuallly have some money to invest in stocks? 3. If they have money to buy options it would be great for Sega to sell them the stocks (And thereby getting the revenue from the pirate copies) - And with the PS2 being released soon - holding Sega shares would properly not be a wise idea.
  • Guy, that is not protection.

    That is server-side protection. This is totally differnet and relies on you, the end user- to provide some information to the company in order to play this game.

    I spoke in the assumption that the protection is built into the CD, not in a 'cd key' format but in some form of 'cd check'.

    Server-side checks (serial checks, etc) HAVE NEVER AND NEVER WILL be broken. If it is EVER broken, the company is STUPID and can't manage a list of SERIALS PRINTEND AND SOLD IN STORES. This is the EASIEST form of protection, but don't forget the infrastructyure that goes into protecting your game(s) (hint: it must be an online-only game or if not online-only heavily online -based)

    Quake3, Diablo 2, Everquest, Ultima-ONline (all games their online-only variations) are such games that have NEVER been broke and NEVER will.

    Want to break these games? Socially engineer some CD KEYS from your store, or local game-players, and that's the only thing you can do. You can't force yourself around the protection by sheer technical knowledge (in almost all circumstances).

    Remember: WON NET and others are assumed unbreakable. Anyone with pirate-scene knowledge would know this to be true.

    Some basic theory: A CD KEY is based on a mathematical formula. The cracker can break this formula in it's basic form to allow you to install the game. But the real kicker is that amongst the successful permuattaions of this formula, there is a 1 in 1,000,000,000 chance of getting a KEY that will work. How is this important?

    The games printed with keys are the ones stored in a SECURE database only the game-provider knows about. These are autnenticated against, and the casual pirate who has a CD KEY GENEERATOR will be shut out unless he/she happens to break that 1/000,000,000 chance of getting a right CD key.

    This is exactly what is in the protection for Diablo 2. It has not been pirated for Battle.net. Further, Everquest and Ultima Online (which are exclusively online only) have yet to be pirated, and likely never will (aside from server emulators)

    I could go on.. ask if you have more questions.

  • So... how can Sega have given stock options when there company is not traded publicly? I admit, I don't know much about this part, but my assumption was that options don't do you any good unless the stock trades on the open market where the price would go up making options exercisable at a lower price lucrative. Like I said, this is crapola.

  • Re:hire them! (Score:3)

    by .pentai. ( 37595 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @05:40AM (#798842) Homepage
    GDRoms are just more "dense" that CDroms, and can be read by a standard cdrom with some modifications. And, they didn't make the boot disk OR figure out how to rip the GDroms, they took someone elses work, called it there own, and tried to play it off and claimed others stole it from them.

    Wow, with those skills, maybe they SHOULD work for a corporation.

  • Hey. (Score:3)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @06:19AM (#798846)
    Just a thought.. but..
    Couldn't Sega be doing this?

    1) Offer them all stock options.
    2) This means they all have to sign contracts, and be *identified*. (You can't anonymously get options, I don't think).
    3) Now, Sega is legally bound to give them these options; however....
    4) Now Sega knows who each and every member is, so they can proceed to sue them for copyright infringement *anyway*!

    Hypothetically.. the fact that sega would agree to pay them to stop is not the same as saying sega is not going to press charges for their past actions.

  • Re:hire them! (Score:3)

    by Frizzle Fry ( 149026 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @06:24AM (#798850) Homepage
    they took someone elses work, called it there own, and tried to play it off and claimed others stole it from them.

    Huh, imagine that. Pirates trying to benefit from someone else's work.

    Care about freedom?

  • Route 1: Government Subsidies
    (a) Buy land. Lots of it.
    (b) Threaten to grow corn. Or peanuts. Or something.
    (c) Wait for corn growers lobby to talk to congressman.
    (d) Get nice fat check to not grow corn.

    Route 2: Stop ... er, Stock Option Hijacking
    (a) Buy domain names. Lots of them.
    (b) Threaten to steal games. Or other programs. Or something.
    (c) Wait for game developers to complain to bosses.
    (d) Get nice fat stock options for not stealing stuff.

    Route 3: Tin Cup
    (a) Buy tin cup.
    (b) Threaten to wallow in your own filth outside of a nice department store.
    (c) Wait for department store to smell you.
    (d) Get nice fat wad of $100s for not scaring the customers.

  • hire them! (Score:5)

    by eries ( 71365 ) <slashdot-eric@@@sneakemail...com> on Thursday September 07, 2000 @04:56AM (#798857) Homepage
    Have you guys seen the specs on how these games were ripped? Dreamcast GD-ROMs are supposed to be incompatible with CDRs a hundred different ways. For one, they hold more data. These hackers managed to rip the games, edit them down to CD-size and then create a boot disk for the dreamcast that disables all the country-code checking. These are some serious 3l33t HaX0rZ. Sega should hire them immediately. Hell, maybe even pay them to start whacking the PSX2 :)

  • Following this logic
    Record Companies will be giving out stock to Napster and all it users, so they will stop "sharing" mp3's

    Imagine that ?

  • When I was little and and lived at home, I didn't always remember to turn off lights when I left a room. My mother would say "we don't own stock in the electric company" which meant "we are losing, not making, money by leaving lights on".

    Maybe Sega gives stocks to pirates to turn them into people that want to stop piracy.
    --

  • Re:shouldn't (Score:3)

    by Mechno ( 181128 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @04:58AM (#798861) Homepage
    heh heh, this story is not actually true. The person who writes the .NFO files for Kalisto is leaving the group and played a prank. That's the story.
  • LOL
    ========================
    63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
    ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
  • ISO: International Organization for Standardization. www.iso.ch [www.iso.ch].

    "ISO" is also a common term used for CD images in ISO-9660 format.

  • I tried several times as Netscape's fine browser crashes relatively frequently for me. After restarting Netscape more than once, I'm forced to the conclusion that whatever the linked page looks like, it makes Communicator blow chunks in a rather messy manner

  • okay... i'm gonna go for some informative karma here i know this is fake, this (a story on a highly respected forum) is what they wanted... here are some things from the kalisto .nfo's when they release their games.. here's the first one, from sydney olympics-8/30 "Here's our last release before we take a little break from the DC scene. We are frankly tired of all of you ungrateful assholes there who do nothing but whine about our releases. We will give this game today, but we have chosen to keep our current rips Ultimate Fighting Championship and Sega GT internal. We don't have to release to the public nor are we really interested in doing so now with the attitude that most of the end-user base shows. This game has been forced to display at 60HZ for PAL users, and it fits on 74 Minute Blank. Adios, we're off to play UFC." okay, their next release, 16 hours later ... ultimate fighting championship - 9/1/00 "Ok, Back from our 16 hour break. Really funny to see most of whiner's reactions. Did you guys ever sit down and wonder which group has given you 95% of the DC releases out there? To those of you who think we're arrogant/childish, all I can say put your money where your mouth is, and do something about it, don't download any of our releases. Simple as that. And to the people who can't get DJ working, do you really think we give a fuck about your shitty burner's problem? Take what you and if you dont like it, FUCK OFF and do it yourself. Never bite the hand that feeds you folks, otherwise you'd be stuck playing lame NES emulators on your wonderful 128bit machines. But its not all negative here, we'd like to say thanks to all our and supporters, and this game is dedicated to you." note: DJ is discjuggler, the only program they use to burn their releases of their games ... alot of people whine about how they can't get dj to work with their burner, and want releases in another format (like nero, or a .iso image) next releases:virtual athlete 2k & Sega GT, nothing our of the ordinary next release:Ganbare Nippon Olympics 2000 8/2/00 "Sega has offered us stock options to stop releasing DC, so this will be it, our last release. Thanks to all who have supported us throughout our stay in the DC scene. Take note this is NOT a joke. We are really stopping all DC operations with this release. We will continue on with the PSX. Bye." granted, this is just crap, anyone who is given stock options to stop what they are doing, don't do it anymore .... just wouldn't release this one ... granted, the irc channel on efnet, #kalisto is invite only... i think it's just cuase they don't want to be bothered... no company would PAY someone to stop doing what has hurt their company so badly other release groups have learned from kalisto, and still release games... good, self booting, quick loading, games ... sega wouldn't be so stupid to PAY pirates, when they can simple just put them in jail, free of charge ... another rumor: is that echelon, a new release group that appeared 1-2 days after kalisto quit, and has released most of the games since, including 3 in one day (which only kalisto has been able to do) is now thought of to be refugees of kalisto just a rumor ... i get most of my info from the http://www.dcisos.com forum and the http://www.isonews.com forum but, if you go there, be warned, there's thousands more lamers, just like atheos, who is just another idiot speading rumors use common sense when thinking people
  • **Adam Sandler's Crazy Mode On**


    Hi Bill Gates! I'm CRAZY WINDOWS PIRATE MAN...I am a Pirate and I steal Window's Software...I'm soooooooo Crazzzzzzzy.

    Now GIMME SOME STock Options!

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