Edit: I'm still considered in-custody due to being on house arrest, and I have decided to take this site offline to prevent any potential confusion with my probation officer. It was never meant to be made public—at least, on the front page of HN. It was originally for perspective employers and passed along with my resume, and sometimes cited in casual internet conversations.
Wow, so this is what it feels like. Holy shit.
Author here, really didn’t expect this kind of attention. I have been told my tone/writing style can be misinterpreted. It’s important for me to emphasize accountability and responsibility, even if I disagree with certain elements.
This informational site was passed along with my resume for transparency. I never expected it to be here, or seen any anyone. I’m a little shy.
I’m happy to answer questions the best I can while respecting the the courts, the BOP, and the DOJ. The technical or financial aspects of the site and the case I’ll pass on, though.
(PS if anyone at GitHub can help me recover my account—I had it hijacked from me by a “friend” while I was incarcerated—that would be great)
Btw I found your site because it is in your profile. I looked at your profile because of a comment you made earlier today which piqued my curiosity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45430992
I am considered still in-custody so I have taken the site offline. I never, ever expected any kind of attention given to it. I don't want to provide mixed signals to any BOP of DOJ employee that may misinterpret the purpose of this website.
I am flattered by the reception here, though. Maybe in due time I can talk more about things and it can find its way back to the front page of my CMD+T muscle memory.
You seem to have created something that was technically complex and therefore difficult, and have done it relatively cheaply. Is it worth repeating the effort / rebuilding "as a service" for legitimate businesses that need a 100Gbps CDN for streaming, file distribution, whatever else. Like low-key sports that don't get much distribution because the big networks aren't interested?
(There's a lot I don't know, I'm just impressed by what it appears you were able to build whilst working other jobs)
Are you legally prevented from pursuing such an endeavour?
Does your criminal record unspokenly make it likely not worthwhile pursuing a legitimate version of what you created?
I wasn't intending to ask how it worked, rather whether it's able to be legitimised; whether the knowledge can be re-applied on the right side of the law. It would be a shame if it couldn't or if he was prevented from doing so given that it appeared to be competent / successful.
The economics just would not have worked, let alone being the one to break the contractual agreements between the leagues and cable companies: my customers were more concerned about availability (see: no blackouts) than they were about price.
In the US, if you are physically located in Los Angeles, you're unable to watch the Lakers (or Clippers) without a cable subscription: having the league-provided streaming package NBA League Pass is not enough. Getting around this limitation was the selling point.
I actually read this earlier because you commented on another post about Charlie Javice's sentencing. Based on that sentencing and others, it seems like the going imprisonment rate for "losses incurred by the powers that be" is around $2-3 million/month of prison.
By that metric, you received an unduly harsh sentence. Would you happen to have some insight as to why?
Also, I sincerely appreciate you sharing this, and the means by which you shared it. I honestly think that with your situation (unlike Charlie Javice, Theranos, etc), anyone who reads your candid disclosure would interpret it in a positive way.
There’s a lot of factors that go into a sentence calculation—in the fed it’s all on a grid called the sentencing guidelines. Loss amount is just one lever.
You should message the MN Ruby meetup, I think this would be an interesting talk and I heard they may be looking for upcoming speakers https://www.meetup.com/ruby-mn/
We did have a library! It wasn't all that bad, or so I heard. My partner sent me books on the regular that were more my taste. I found a lot of my fellow travelers were more interested in sci-fi and fiction than my taste for biology/neuroscience/behavioral sciences/food science.
Oh good I'm glad they had one that wasn't so bad. I'm not sure why but I've always been interested in prison libraries and making sure people have stimulating things to read when they're going through hard times.
And I'm glad you had a partner who sent you good things to read :)
" I'm not sure why but I've always been interested in prison libraries and making sure people have stimulating things to read when they're going through hard times."
If you want a book to make an impact on people .. prison is probably the place where many people start reading they would not otherwise. The right book can make all the difference..
If I understood correctly, he found bugs, informed the site that he'd found bugs, they asked how much bug bounty he wanted, he gave an amount, and that was enough to be charged with extortion?
Sounds like a bogus charge where the only purpose is to scare you into pleading guilty to something else.
Btw it sounds like it's a good idea to never report bugs to Major League Baseball. Refusing to pay beg bounty is one thing but offering bounty to then paint it as extortion by the researcher?
The thing I found most interesting in these articles is the claim that he didn't pirate the broadcasts, which would have required his site to provide a large amount of bandwidth. Instead, he connected users directly to legitimate streams offered by sports broadcasters, using misappropriated login credentials.
I think this is the original complaint [0]; the first count was for computer intrusion by collecting (unauthorised access to) accounts and on-selling access to the streams using those accounts. Then it kind of goes on.
Most impressive to me is that he implemented apps for every single platform around (like 20?) I wonder how much work that was. If he's not lying about the 11k customer amount, I guess he must really love hacking!
> Apple TV, Android, Android TV/Fire Stick, ChromeCast, fourth-generation game consoles and newer, Roku, smart TVs, smart fridges, Tesla, and the usual web platforms.
I am a builder at heart. I absolutely hated doing anything with that Roku app, though.
Most of those platforms had web support which made my life easier. I had a bridge with the Android apps that kicked the stream out to a native player—nothing unique. It was otherwise just ReactNative.
> My sentencing guidelines were so high because of the loss amount.
> The system incarcerates people for years and expects them to go back into society and do something with their life. The truth is that the programming that is offered is a world-class joke and 99% of inmates don’t really do all that well when they’re out.
Americans: Do you feel like this is justice? Do you feel like dealing with criminals this way is helping make your society healthier?
You need to give people a class below them that they can be better than. That is the permanent criminal class in the US.
Our foundation was built on offering second chances to groups marginalized or persecuted in Europe. A place those cast aside by the old world could start anew, contribute to society, and reshape their destinies away from the strictures and conflicts that had defined their past.
In the American wild west, criminals could go on be to lawmen. People were given a second chance. Second chances are what made America strong (that and opening our country to immigrants to give them a first chance).
Modern America doesn't believe in those things. It doesn't believe in it's foundation myth on immigration and second chances. It doesn't believe in it's 'wild west' myth of immigration and second chances. We have become something very angry and ugly.
No. But what can we do about it? The government is on fire right now, and just like your average developer working for a company, our moral desires are powerless.
I've never heard of this case or person. I went in interested in his story. But the information and writing makes it seem like he was reluctant to share anything at all. Why even start a website?
What's the point of risking your freedom to give away stuff for free pirated stuff? I understand uploading to the pirate bay but streaming is a different beast entirely.
I'm not going to lie, I've used some streaming sites. But I can't understand the people behind them.
Who's giving away 100s of TB of video decode and bandwidth for free. And why?
The thing is called freedom. There was a time on the internet where people shared media not to make any profit, but to supply those who could not afford them. There was a time in my life where I earned 215€ per month. Later 343€. There was nothing left for any entertainment after expenses. No console, no games, no movies and no music. These times are over, plus there is affordable streaming services, but I still know and understand the spirit.
I don't know how old OP is but I did a lot of dumb stuff on the internet 25+ years ago when I was a teenager. Including writing viruses and stealing credit card information. I'm glad things were a lot different back then.
I was old enough to know better, but I knew a couple of younger people who were doing it because "it was easy" and policing of such things hadn't caught up to the internet yet, so for someone at their age they would have just considered it to be "dumb stuff on the internet".
It doesn't translate to today's Internet.
(This would have been ~25 years ago, maybe a bit more)
Probably depends on how they acquired them (breaking into an online store's payment transaction database / trading for the CCs on IRC / lifting them using a physical skimmer / etc.)
Yeah, I never actually used or shared/sold any of it since it was mostly a game for me. But nowadays I understand it is a very bad idea even just to store this kind of stuff.
> Who's giving away 100s of TB of video decode and bandwidth for free. And why?
Not everyone is doing it for the same reason, but there are anarchists doing it because they want people to be allowed to freely access media, and that's the entirety of the reason. No profit motive or clout chasing, they just are frustrated that access to information or media is locked behind a paywall and only available to people with a credit card, or in countries allowed to view that content, or have enough money to subscribe to the services, so they do something about it.
Though I would imagine the majority of the most popular websites are just using client computers as compute, or serving ads.
I appreciate your interest in this and the interest of the community at large. It's comforting in a way—I feel like the world's worst criminal still. At the same time it's validating to have done something that this community—which I hold in high regard—finds interesting. Maybe in due time I will feel more comfortable to talk more about it; I think I found more product market fit with my words.
I'm so sorry that we live in this weird temporary state of humanity where some of us put others in cages over the copying of bytes - one of the most obvious proclivities of the internet we've invented.
Not sure why very nice people on the internet are apologizing for laws that prohibit ripping off other people's work. These laws are very important.
The guy clearly understood he was stealing, paid his debt to society, and now has a bunch of knowledge and experience that he can put to use doing something legit and hopefully profitable. I wish him well.
"I’m really proud of what I made, yes. I come from a broken home, and the community was a home to me for six years, so I have solace there. It also taught me an endless amount about running a startup, achieving critical mass, and talking and listening to customers. If I were to do it over again, I would have probably made an effort to make money instead of just coast."
He was streaming sports events live.
"These laws are very important."
For what? For the critical service of big commercial sports event? Society would break down, if they loose too much paying customers to teenagers who make a website and a little profit?
Now sure, he was making profit, he is and was not a free information idealist. But also not really a criminal in my perspective deserving prison. Definitely not if prison is what you imagine to better someone.
> For what? For the critical service of big commercial sports event?
Thank you, TIL. For some reason I assumed that those big sport events bring money to hosts. Your question reminded me of this and I went to check and was surprised to find out that it's not true.
> Not sure why very nice people on the internet are apologizing for laws that prohibit ripping off other people's work. These laws are very important.
I would argue that they are not. In fact, I don't think life without intellectual property laws would be at all that different. Ideally, IP would reward creators and inventors, but in practice, it protects the rents of publishers, Big Pharma and Big Tech instead of fostering innovation.
The fact that people, for instance, write free software, and that such software is often superior to commercial, copyrighted software clearly shows that such a model is viable. There would also clearly still be people making music, movies, etc.
Another issue is that enforcement of IP laws is very uneven. In many parts of the world, people already freely share copyrighted materials and freely copy drugs. Effectively, all of this is subsidized by American consumers who don't sail the high seas for their software and movies, and spend thousands a month for their prescriptions.
> Not sure why very nice people on the internet are apologizing for laws that prohibit ripping off other people's work. These laws are very important.
FYI, I'm a bluegrass musician. And I don't know who you think these laws are important for, but it sure as heck isn't us. The copyright industrial complex is screwing musicians first and foremost.
> The guy clearly understood he was stealing,
...then he understood wrong. Stealing is when you take something from someone. In that case, the person from whom you stole no longer has that thing. Copying is not stealing.
If you regard copying as stealing, then I encourage you to steal my music. And if you like it, encourage your friends to steal it from you.
Copyright, like property rights in general, is really about control, not about physical things or spaces. Stealing is when you usurp control for yourself over the rightful owner’s objections. If you tell people to take your stuff or use it however they like, they can’t be stealing.
That, although it's true that stealing is taking without permission, it must involve taking away, and not merely copying, just as trespass is not stealing somebody's land and assault is not stealing their body.
Wow, so this is what it feels like. Holy shit.
Author here, really didn’t expect this kind of attention. I have been told my tone/writing style can be misinterpreted. It’s important for me to emphasize accountability and responsibility, even if I disagree with certain elements.
This informational site was passed along with my resume for transparency. I never expected it to be here, or seen any anyone. I’m a little shy.
I’m happy to answer questions the best I can while respecting the the courts, the BOP, and the DOJ. The technical or financial aspects of the site and the case I’ll pass on, though.
(PS if anyone at GitHub can help me recover my account—I had it hijacked from me by a “friend” while I was incarcerated—that would be great)