Two members of Team Xecuter - one of the world's most "notorious videogame piracy groups" - have been arrested. This is the same enterprise infamously known for exploiting vulnerabilities in Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft video game hardware.
The United States Department of Justice revealed Max Louarn - a 48-year-old French national, and Gary Bowser - a 51-year-old Canadian national, were caught in September and now face 11 felony counts each:
"Each defendant is charged with 11 felony counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices, trafficking in circumvention devices, and conspiracy to commit money laundering."
Louarn and Bowser were "leaders" of Team Xecuter. The agency also charged Yuanning Chen, a 35-year-old from China.
Court documents describe Team Xecuter as a "criminal enterprise" comprised of over a dozen individual members worldwide. Members include developers who exploit vulnerabilities in video game consoles and design circumvention devices. There are also website designers who create pages to promote the devices, suppliers, and resellers that distribute them.
Just earlier this week, Nintendo won $2 million in a lawsuit against an online store that was selling Team Xecuter's devices.
[source justice.gov, via engadget.com]
Comments 85
For a brief moment I read these members were executed...
I was very confused when I saw another article about the same topic say:
Bowser Arrested for Switch Hacking
I thought that it meant Doug Bowser for a second lmbo
For a moment I read "Gay Bowser" instead of "Gary Bowser". Mario 64 has really gone into my head.
"So long gay bowser" grabs him by his tail and throws him into a bomb "fatality"
That Bowser family is full of sibling rivalry. One went on to become CEO of a huge corporation, the other tried to bring it down. This could be the new Dallas!
He's called Bowser... he was born to rage against the House of Mario. They should let him off... extenuating circumstances.
@Liam_Doolan
I understand that this is a serious issue here, so you had to use the appropriate tone but, c'mon... tell us... between friends... how tempted were you to fill the story with Bowser jokes? 😆
So a literal criminal enterprise were working to exploit consoles & make games available for free.
Unless of course the wire fraud was just them "backing up" their money. Should be fine then.
Very, very good news. Software piracy literally takes money away from Nintendo. (and other developers / publishers) Me being a professional software developer am very happy about this.
using the same mario pirate image twice in one week...diabolical
I thought I saw the word trackF**king I was like: what the hell?
I bought an xecutor mod chip for my og Xbox in college over 15 years ago. It allowed me to load up a new menu system and play movies off hard drives and all sorts of things. Mod chips always seemed like a grey area because they only allow more access, they usually don't provide the software to do the piracy or the pirated apps themselves.
I'm not saying people should pirate but I also hate the concept of buying a product and having it be illegal to modify it. Opens the door to people going to jail over rooting their phone and such.
Man, that dudes name actually being Gary Bowser is just gold in this context.
@doctorhino You should be allowed to modify your console. However you should not be allowed to sell tools that allow consoles to run illegal (pirated) games. It's very simple.
Alot of these people who mod their systems always say as long as you're not selling or distributing roms you're good. I've never known anyone personally to be arrested for downloading the games off the internet. It's not like they will send cops to your house to ask if you've been downloading roms. They got bigger fish to fry.
nintendo is up there w/ disney in terms of being generally evil wrt pursuing ip and copyright in courts, so actually it's morally and ethically good to pirate their games. pushing for felonies for "notorious video game pirates" is Boring Cyberpunk nonsense. sorry folks!
@myMaudlinCareer i appreciate the moxie you bring to the NL comment section
@somebread somebody's gotta beat the "the international corporation that brings in a trillion dollars yearly is not your friend" drum and im online brain enough to do it despite having a million other things to do
If they were "notorious", the authorities would have been chasing them ans building a case against them prior to the arrest. If illegal, it's illegal shrug
@ThaBEN It's a lawsuit with Nintendo, not Apple
Nintendo may tout themselves as righteous and moral champions, but this is about their bottom line. As Nintendolife reported 2 years ago, Nintendo still has problems ensuring and fully committing to safe supply lines. To me the human rights abuses outweigh some hacker pirates selling mods and Nintendo needs to be at the very least as vigorous as they are about IP laws.
From latest reporting on issue:
“suppliers identified 320 SORs, only 266 of which were conformant (83%). This is another slight improvement from previous years, though still leaves a meaningful chunk of Nintendo's supply chain in unknown territory. Nintendo does point out that following reception of these results, it made direct visits to "production partners we determined to be at high risk" to improve communication.
However, Nintendo does not say that it will cease business with SORs found to be supporting conflict. Instead, it will "ask our suppliers to make procurement changes or otherwise act towards ensuring their non-use."
@Liam_Doolan Thank you for using restraint and not using the title clickbait title of “Nintendo arrests bowser” that I’ve seen elsewhere.
@sanderev You absolutely hit the nail on the head - if the team actively made it impossible to play pirated games on the mod, it would be fine in my eyes. How many people would buy it then? Not many as most people buy it to pirate.
So, he finally did it, he finally found a way to defeat Mario once and for all. Bowser has broken free from the virtual world and given himself a new alias (or maybe two?)... It is up to the mustachio'd attorney wearing the flag of red to stop his schemes of taking down our hero, but will he realise the threat also comes from within? Live and adventure that spans across several years and many legal battles in this all new adventure!
@myMaudlinCareer So it will be fine when I rip off your IP then, right?
@myMaudlinCareer Then give me your house key to make a copy and I will come later when you are out to steal some of your things. From your comment it seems that you don't mind me doing that and that I am not evil.
@myMaudlinCareer there is nothing evil about defending property.
I'd have to agree on this, the direct profiting from tools actually touted as piracy enablers is bad form, even among pirates. The vast majority of folks in the console modification scene openly detest Team Xecuter's business practices, especially when it was learned that they had their own "anti-piracy" check to their software that would literally brick Switch consoles if you didn't purchase their product.
Xecuter basically violated any and all principles that would make console modification even remotely defensible, including charging for code and software that was not their own work.
"No matter what you think you pull you'll find it's not enough
No matter who you think you know you won't get through
It's a given L.A. law
Someone's faster on the draw
No matter where you hide I'm comin' after you..."
In my opinion, the Nintendo and the feds are going after the wrong people. They should take down those sharing and distributing illegal content.
I am one of those people who has an SX core but hasn’t pirated any Switch games. Why? Emulation. It is absolute bliss being able to carry my library of NES, SNES, and Gameboy games everywhere I go. The official Nintendo Online releases pale in comparison. The other reason? Save game backups. Pokémon Shield I’m looking at you.
@CorruptPhoenix
They took down the guys making and selling tools to hack their consoles for piracy 🤡
@NinChocolate Nintendo doesn't tout anything. People wishing to spin an anti-Nintendo narrative tout that they tout such things. It's similar to how people wishing to spin an anti-Nintendo narrative will take a topic and immediately segue into an unrelated topic.
I'm not surprised you did both. Nobody hates Nintendo like its fans.
@MasterJay When we've already got an NoA president named Bowser - yeah, a headline like that might confuse some people (in more ways than one).
@Ooyah This is the reason why I didn't fill the story with Bowser jokes.
@0L1V14 are you a dev like the other guy?
They’re facing worse charges than actual murderers. That’s what happens when you threaten the profits of major corporations.
@SirAileron Absolutely agree, these guys are not well liked. They just draw unwanted and unnecessary heat because they want a quick profit.
Catching the real criminals. Eyeroll.
@nessisonett they added bricking code in their OS when it detected tampering, they are trash and they deserve all the hate.
So long, Gary Bowser
@JimmySpades Nintendo has called the activities of the defendants of its lawsuits “notorious” and “brazen”. They repeatedly state they are “vigorous” defenders of law, never “infringing another party’s patent”. Well ‘notorious’ and ‘brazen’ is how I would describe the activities of conflict mining and smelting. In defence of their business in the sphere of patents they do tout a high-road position above those taking them to court. It would be better if such statements of condemnation as well as being vigorously lawful were also applied to the sourcing of the minerals their profits absolutely depend upon. But in that arena, as with many other tech corporations, there are few statements of real commitment
Glancing at the headline, I read it as "Two Members Of 'Notorious' Video Game Piracy Group Team Executed", and I thought, "Damn, they're really taking piracy seriously now!"
Good. They were heavely crticized in the modding scene for trying to make a profit (which they did) out of hacking the Switch with their USB thing. I live in a third world country, and I actually find it kinda stupid, to hack the Switch. I work, I can buy my own games now, and price difference in games is minimal now.
@doctorhino Modifying hardware/software you own isn't itself illegal, but it gets murky when you establish a means to profit off of it. Kind of like the rom sites that would require a monthly subscription fee before you could access their site.
Clearly im not the only one who thought of “So long,Gay Bowser!”
While reading this....😂😂
The Mario pirate pic. Never fails.
https://twitter.com/Reggie/status/1312198347684364288
Let's goooooooo
@The-Chosen-one *tail
Wooo go Canada!
@nessisonett way of the world my friend, all that counts is money.. that's why in my country government say it's ok to go school, work, restaurants, pubs yet cant have more then 6 people in a household
I definitely understand protecting IP and fighting piracy, but these kind of things always make me concerned about precedents they set. It should not be illegal to write code to exploit a vulnerability, as long as that vulnerability is reported to the owner of respective property. I'm quite sure these guys didn't do that, but the charges don't really enumerate that fact. Also, as some have said, it also sets a bad precedent for the owner of the hardware, because if I want to hack my hardware, that's my business. There needs to be parameters set that define what is acceptable hacking and what is not. Obviously these guys were on the bad extreme end of things, so I'm not saying they should get off. I'm just saying there needs to be parameters defined.
@GigaNibba Right! I never really questioned it, I thought I just misheard.
@sanderev that limits things to soft mods. Any physical hardware mod is going to cost money to make. I'm not defending them because they clearly marketed their tools for piracy but just saying. If it's illegal to sell hardware mods than no, you can't modify your own device.
I don't think this eliminates soft modders from prosecution either. They are being targeted for what they made, the fact that it was a for profit company is just more ammunition. This could easily be applied to open source software hacking, saying it allows people to open up locked features.
Mario: So long, Gary Bowser!
@Cosats damn, wow, you're right, taking an individuals personal possessions is exactly the same as not paying sixty u s dollars to hear mario go "wa-hoo!",, you got me! these two things are exactly the same and not just really lazy moral equivalizing! wow! good job my guy
@Heavyarms55 this is such a dumb gotcha im not even gonna dignify it with a real response, go read any book or listen to any music
@jobvd "Property", especially corporate property, is fake. We made it all up. I'm sorry to break it to you like this. It's not real in any tangible way.
Nice. Now that you've done this... please, Nintendo, rerelease old games like Chibi Robo for Switch.
@shonenjump86
I prefer Rakham Red from the Tintin comics.
@myMaudlinCareer it's all very real in a court of law.
@jobvd ok cop
Excellent choice for the article image!
@myMaudlinCareer I'm no cop but I'm not a thief either
Not happy about this. Because they made video games available to large crowd lacking 60$ to pay for them.
@doctorhino It should be illegal to sell chips designed for modding. Or these chips should be limited that they can't run retail code. (yes, that's technically possible)
However modding something yourself does not only include softmods. You could open your console up and solder to the main board and modify it like that. Or buy blank chips and program those. Sure, it wouldn't be as easy as buying a pre-programmed chip in the first place, but for that see my first paragraph.
Like I said, I'm a software developer. If I want something to work a certain way I either; buy the software that does that, download an open source / free to use version OR I start my IDE and make it myself. I do not steal from others to get what I want.
I buy my software because it's the right thing to do. And like the developers that make those programs / games, I also like to be paid for the work I do. And sure, Nintendo is a big company that wouldn't notice if a few people pirate their games. But the money lost rarely goes from the paycheck of the corporate guys. No, it's usually the developer that will be affected by it.
@sanderev I have been a software engineer for the past 12 years professionally. I get what it does but I also see technology as a sense of freedom. When the government starts trying to define what we can do with it they usually end up going too far.
"It should be illegal to sell chips designed for modding". That is so generic though. That would include the types of stuff this own site has promoted, such as CD emulators for GameCubes (Dreamcasts) with dead drives.
This isn't even about software piracy at this point, it's hardware mods. There is a whole other side of people who rip games, make OS mods and such to pirate the actual software
That side I am much more split about because growing up when ROMs and emulators were getting their start I was fascinated by it and it really helped lead me into software engineering. But copying of PC games led to the whole market being left behind for consoles development and exclusives until platforms like Steam allowed companies to feel more in control.
"developers who exploit vulnerabilities in video game consoles and design circumvention devices"
And that'sssssss.......bad 🙄 Right up there with serial killer, for sure.
Holy heck, it really IS bowser that's been kidnapping The princess!
Let's not all jump to conclusions. We need to hear Bowser's from-the-inside story here.
@myMaudlinCareer and you support them them buying their products? Sounds pretty hypocrite to me. Fake? What’s next earth is actually a triangle?
Starting to believe people think the internet is real and reality is fake. lol
On the one hand, I'm all about the idea that if we buy a product we should be free to do with it what we will, just so long as we aren't actually pirating any actual products in the process. Like if people are modding their systems strictly for homebrew apps and games on the device (like there is a Switch homebrew app that allows you to remote play your PC and with some extra jumping through hoops, remote play your PS4. This is the kind of content I can get behind users exploiting their systems to get to). It's when you're using your hacked device to play pirated content that you're no longer doing something that I think should be allowed. In other words, depending on whose hands a product like this is in, I don't think it's inherently a device that should be illegal in the individual consumer's hands. Having said that, I do think that anyone that sells devices that can open up a gaming system to piracy and they did little to nothing to try and close off that aspect of their device, then they're absolutely breaking the law and they almost certainly know it.
@Scrubicius "Property is fake" in the sense that "property" is a concept that we made up, and not something that has any inherent actual natural worth. Property, typically has no real relation to the physical object itself in any way that a normal human being would conceive of without being taught- a landlord "owns" a couple apartment buildings, even if the tenants are left to their own devices to take care of upkeep or the "owner" never sees the building outside of a cursory inspection. Not to stretch the metaphor, but we see the same thing with intellectual property: the game is not "owned" by the people who made the game themselves, but by the broader corporate apparatus. No matter how any of the designers and builders of the game may feel, they ultimately have very little control over this thing they have made themselves because it is not "their" property. Even when the people who made, or even just associated with the creation, have long since croaked, the object itself is "owned" by a corporation that is entirely tertiary to this (mickey mouse's marathon sprint from public domain being a clear example of this). The "ownership" of this IP is fake, because it's arbitrary, and decided by the people who would profit most from this and not from a more democratized process or the wishes of those actually involved in creation and usage of the "IP".
Or, in conclusion, property and laws are fake and you are simply mad because you are angry
@myMaudlinCareer wow you put allot effort in your text. Are you mixing up the term Intellectual property with actual property?
Okay maybe here is misunderstanding how business works today. You actually pay the time people use to create this IP plus the right to use it. You are aware when you buy a car you don’t only pay the material but also the time that went into the development and the ideas or IP people came up with it.
If someone pays to come up with a IP it’s still own by the payer in your explanation the large company or group of companies that is controlled together as a single organization in your case corporation.
So in your case Music, literature, movies or any other form of IP should be free and legally copied by anyone?
Man, this goes way beyond piracy. Those are some hefty charges. Glad I decided to wait on modding my Switch, who knows what they were attempting to do with all their customers information?
@jobvd It’s only as real as the illusion of reality allows it to be. In other words, it’s only tangible for the time that we decide it’s important. Eventually, even courts will abandon old ideas, to make room for new ones. We are literally making things up as we go, which is fine. We are creators by nature. I think what the other guy is telling you is important, he seems to be suggesting not to grasp too tightly to ideas that may, over time, change or be abandoned.
@Mr_Kaos Maybe Bowser is gay, it’s ok, it’s a free world. 😃
@TG16_IS_BAE As of now, criminals were caught.
@jobvd Yes, I read the article. I’m sure you noticed I was talking about something else, to help you understand a different concept, right?
@TG16_IS_BAE u didn't help though
@jobvd That’s ok, I can only share, I cannot also take care of your comprehension.
just putting a reminder here that this isn't a lawsuit, or even anything (directly) to do with Nintendo.
it's a criminal case(the government says you broke the law, and now wants you punished) and not a civil case(there's a dispute between you and another person/company)
while Nintendo may have nudged the FBI(no way this is a regular police case) in one direction or the other, but in the grand scheme of things they have no say in wether this gets pursued or not.
it's up to the discretion of the FBI, a federal prosecutor, and a federal judge.
@TG16_IS_BAE my comprehension is fine, troll.
@doctorhino That last part seems pretty true but I'd imagine the difference is rooting a phone is a thing you'd do on your own purchased device vs commercializing a device that makes it doable for the general public to purchase. If I'm not mistaken it's already FCC regulation that you can't modify certain devices in a specific manner. I forget how it reads exactly. So even though rooting a phone possibly already falls into that category, it's a personal use sort of thing so who's gonna know your phone is rooted? But if you're blatantly advertising it on top of making it available to anyone PLUS making a profit on it..... 🤷♂️
Shame on them! Only the government is allowed to steal other people’s property...and get away with it.
@doctorhino Perhaps, but you also have to see it from the developers' viewpoints. If electronics were allowed to be legally unofficially modified (even if attempted to restrict it to more benign uses, which is a can of worms in itself), it would open the doors to many customers being taken advantage of by low quality hack jobs and even purposely malicious hackers. The average joe simply can't guarantee that unofficial modding will consist of benign, quality work. If that were to happen, too much of the blame and legal responsibility, both critically and financially, would be placed on the makers and sellers of the original electronics. As such, they need to protect themselves with those fancy licensing agreements (that hardly anyone actually reads) that discourage modding.
As such, the only truly defensible mods are do-it-yourself jobs and software mods of open source PC games (as long as the latter aren't being sold).
@BulbasaurusRex really? So people can't just be responsible for their system after market at their own risk? Cause warrenty breaking seals have been on every system for generations now and people try to repair them on their own without the maker being responsible.
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