The United States Department of Justice has shared some news regarding Team-Xecuter, which doesn't appear to be a good sign for the company. Gary Bowser, known on GBAtemp as garyopa, Max Louarn, and Yuanning Chen have all been arrested in Seattle, Washington. The US Government classifies these men as "leaders of one of the world's most notorious videogame piracy groups", and will be facing a federal indictment charge, for the selling of illegal hardware that facilitates piracy.

“These defendants lined their pockets by stealing and selling the work of other video-game developers – even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games,” said U.S. Attorney Brian Moran for the Western District of Washington. “This conduct doesn’t just harm billion dollar companies, it hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video-game industry.”

The FBI has also been involved, with each defendant to be charged under 11 felony counts, ranging from wire fraud, trafficking circumvention devices, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. One of the defendants, Louarn, has not yet been extradited, though Bowser has, where he was seen in the court hearing that took place today.

In September 2020, Louarn and Bowser were arrested abroad in connection with the charges in this case. The United States will seek Louarn’s extradition to stand trial in the United States. Bowser was arrested and deported from the Dominican Republic, and appeared today in federal court, in New Jersey.

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.

Source

 

[AngryCinnabon]

How does this affect atmosphere users?

How would you feel if code from something you worked on/really supported was stolen and used in a cfw that goes against the "Please no piracy" motto atmo tried to live with. a PAID cfw at that...I'll miss sxos somewhat but i know why the fuck i'm also happy to see it (likely) capsized.

 

[linuxares]

Bypassing copy protection is itself a felony under the DMCA, which needs repealed like yesterday.

Atmosphere isn't bypassing the TPM. The glitch is. (and I totally agree with you)

Damn I just realized it's April 1st @garyopa still here?

He is in jail in New Jersey. If you read the article posted as source. It clearly tells you exactly what happened.

According to Torrentfreak, Max was arrested in Canada and is going to get extradited to the US.

 

[HideoKojima]

Y'all are happy about this but TX are the only ones willing to make mod chips for the new Switches. ReSwitched already said they want nothing to do with it and idk who else would. Besides what other group has a rich module to fund hardware research? Say what you want about their practices but if you care about the hackability of future consoles you should be saddened by this.


They're not. Don't know the SXOS dev very well but I spoke to him enough on the TX private chat to know he's not in China.

Edit: Although I'm also pretty sure he's not one of the three who were arrested either. We all knew who Gary is, it is a open secret that Max was involved in funding TX after Paul sold his shares, and the other guy is in China.

Your comment will get you in trouble...

 

[djnate27]

Moral: If you want to make money off someone else’s hard work...well don’t.

 

[AngryCinnabon]

Atmosphere isn't bypassing the TPM. The glitch is. (and I totally agree with you)


He is in jail in New Jersey. If you read the article posted as source. It clearly tells you exactly what happened.

According to Torrentfreak, Max was arrested in Canada and is going to get extradited to the US.

this is a great thing tbh, never liked max and the stuff he did and supported

 

[MasterJ360]

How does this affect atmosphere users?

Its poetic justice basically.

 

[Teletron1]

"purely designed to circumvent copyright protection"
again no , TX didn't do anything illegal
those chips are NOT "PURELY DESIGNED TO CIRCUMVENT COPYRIGHT PROTECTION"
they have other purposes you can load linux you can load Android ,they can enable homebrew, same for most of the flashcards
by that logic CD DVD BR burners should be illegal too because you can use them to make copies of copyrighted music,movies,software

no that’s not the way it works and movies are encrypted but back up copies are a grey area excluding movies but laws are region base

 

[XD2020]

Has to be a hard mod never a softmod like fuse gelee

If SXOS updates stop - will have to move over to something that’s getting updates.

Sx cfw should still work fine without updates if emunand is on version 10.2 or below. Even if you update the sysnand past 10.2 to play online and leave emunand as it is because they're seperate.

The only thing I don't see working on the emunand are future game updates and newer games requiring a newer firmware until there's a patch tool that makes the game get rid of the messages.

I think this is going to make modded lites that much more rarer and valuable.

maybe buy another switch now to get a current firmware and sx core chip to mod it? Have another system ready when atmosphere supports mariko?

 

[Soulsilve2010]

Wow Ninty sure gets booty blasted over piracy, don't remember this much crying over the 3DS though.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

How would you feel if code from something you worked on/really supported was stolen and used in a cfw that goes against the "Please no piracy" motto atmo tried to live with. a PAID cfw at that...I'll miss sxos somewhat but i know why the fuck i'm also happy to see it (likely) capsized.

Who the fuck cares? We're all pirating games here. The idea we should give a shit if some homebrew code gets lifted by some other group is laughable when your pirating thousands of dollars of games.

I couldn't give a shit if 100% of TXOS code was stolen.

 

[Ygolonac]

I don't know why people are sperging so hard over paid piracy. Like didn't it cost like less than a game and it gets updates for years? It's not like they are charging a subscription fee or something. The 50$ was well worth just the few months when SXOS was the only option/only safe option to avoid bricking when it first came out. I mean don't groups that don't charge have pay pigs that donate to their patreon or whatever? I never felt the SXOS cost was anti-consumer/unreasonable or unprincipled. It was a very fair price for the product they were offering me, unlike actually buying software.

really sad because these were talented and motivated devs. Mostly worried about the future of hacked consoles. Thankfully it's really more of an annoyance for switch since we have good alternatives. I don't know if we will get CFW as timely next gen and I was hoping to crack PS5 asap.

 

[the_randomizer]

I don't know why people are sperging so hard over paid piracy. Like didn't it cost like less than a game and it gets updates for years? It's not like they are charging a subscription fee or something. The 50$ was well worth just the few months when SXOS was the only option/only safe option to avoid bricking when it first came out. I mean don't groups that don't charge have pay pigs that donate to their patreon or whatever? I never felt the SXOS cost was anti-consumer/unreasonable or unprincipled. It was a very fair price for the product they were offering me, unlike actually buying software.

Using the term sperging, wow, that's a stupid thing to say. How much are they paying you to suck up to them?

 

[Deleted User]

Some of you are such hypocrites yet you probably don't even realize it yourselves. You're mad that SX OS "pirated" Atmosphere while you're "pirating" Nintendo games. Oh the irony.

In before reply "I don't pirate"

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Who the fuck cares? We're all pirating games here. The idea we should give a shit if some homebrew code gets lifted by some other group is laughable when your pirating thousands of dollars of games.

I couldn't give a shit if 100% of TXOS code was stolen.

It's people being on their high horse while they turn around and do the same thing they're mad at SX OS for, pirating.

 

[seany1990]

Is it possible for the sx core users to migrate to atmosphere?

 

[mattyxarope]

Is it possible for the sx core users to migrate to atmosphere?

Not on Mariko, not yet. Maybe never now. It's completely up in the air currently.

 

[JuanMena]

That's The Cruelest thing I've seen that people are expecting for TX to be accused of.

The boat was clearly sinking from the getgo. The only thing I can say if it truly goes down, is good riddance. Paid piracy really grinds my gears.

PAYING FOR PIRACY?
WHI THE F PAYS TO PIRATE?

 

[Deleted User]

Is it possible for the sx core users to migrate to atmosphere?

There's a better chance of Nintendo and Team Xecuter merging.

 

[XD2020]

Anyone holding on to a sx core or lite chip I guess needs to grab their license real quick. Sucks the process to get it requires a full soldering job.

 

[Pickle_Rick]

I haven't seen anyone mention this, but the press release seems to confirm that TX was indeed behind Gateway all along.

It also confirms Gateway and Stargate were the same team.

 

[ombus]

Was not on latest sxos version.. just got it... funny how the page still up