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

 

[Tenny]

~snip~

It is not Illegal in my Country as long you do the Copies for private use.
if you sell/Upload or give it to a friend or for example if you Rent a Game and make a copy of that, yes that's Illegal!
It's also legal to Modify your Console for Private use in my Country.
I don't need to Pirate my Games since i am not really interested in the majority of Games on the Switch and i own a lot of PSP Games.

Just please don't respond to this, you don't live in my Country nor you know our Laws...

 

[osaka35]

yes well they can spin it all they like but in the end the chip is necessary to accomplish the running of alternate OS's on mariko consoles , and they're the only game in town
without SX core and SX lite end users would have no other way of running Linux and Android on their systems or running homebrew and that is a major deal
it's not like there is some other way users can run Linux or Android on their mariko systems without the core and lite chips
and there are plenty of instances and examples of people using core and lite chips and the pro dongle to do things other than run backups like running those OS's and homebrew
it doesn't matter what the marketing is focused on it is clear that these devices have other uses besides just running backups
if they lose this case it would set a very dangerous precedent by establishing case law
more than likely this will get thrown out like the Crippen case
this is an absolutely disgusting abuse by the feds
it is criminal what they are doing , it is racketeering , they are acting as hired thugs to protect Nintendo (even though they are not protecting anything because not even .0001% of switch owners use these chips and it has 0 effect on Nintendo's' bottom line) and
violating the rights of these defendants using violence/threat of violence, harassment ,intimidation , kidnaping etc.
make no mistake these people are anthropomorphic human excrement
and if such a case is won it would be a huge blow for the community

Agreed. Yes, a case can be made for protecting your IP. But that's civil court (money), not criminal court (jail time) I'd hope. I am worried this will make them embolden to go after those "grey areas" where they could interpret arbitrary code as illegal circumvention. I do not like this.

 

[ghjfdtg]

Serves them right for what they did to the homebrew community. I doubt it's the end since they only got 2 people but we will see.

 

[Spider_Man]

It is not Illegal in my Country as long you do the Copies for private use.
if you sell/Upload or give it to a friend or for example if you Rent a Game and make a copy of that, yes that's Illegal!
It's also legal to Modify your Console for Private use in my Country.
I don't need to Pirate my Games since i am not really interested in the majority of Games on the Switch and i own a lot of PSP Games.

Just please don't respond to this, you don't live in my Country nor you know our Laws...

your a funny one arent you, do you live in a fantasy world.

so you claim to have legally made backups, not one single game you downloaded off the web.

hmmm sure, ill leave you to play with the fairy's and elves.

 

[ChokingVictim87]

So is there site/discord down? I cant get their forum to load at all

 

[Tumbleweed]

So is there site/discord down? I cant get their forum to load at all

https://team-xecuter.com/community/...iracy-group-“team-xecuter”-in-custody.135512/

Looks totally fine.. OFC no official reply but u have a few VIP/Mods saying the old mantra "keep calm" lol

 

[Tenny]

your a funny one arent you, do you live in a fantasy world.
so you claim to have legally made backups, not one single game you downloaded off the web.
hmmm sure, ill leave you to play with the fairy's and elves.

I'm not living in a Fantasy World.
Yes the PSP Games on my Switch are Legal Backups. It's only GTA:VCS,LCS and THUG2 anyways.. so it's nothing you should risk a fine for.. unless you really wanna save five fucking bucks.

 

[Vorde]

While I think this was always the end for them, it's unfortunate to see this happen so soon. Hopefully someone will be able to clone their Core and Core Lite chips so there's still options for newer Switch owners. I don't agree with the piracy, but you should be able to do what you want with your own devices

 

[huma_dawii]

View attachment 226842​

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.



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.



Source

Horrible!!! :/

 

[Ev1l0rd]

I feel that most of the "backup" people here (even if I give y'all the benefit of the doubt), are either not aware or intentionally overlooking the fact that SX OS has Horizon modules in it, as well as copyrighted gamecard headers to make their gamecard loader work.

 

[Tenny]

While I think this was always the end for them, it's unfortunate to see this happen so soon. Hopefully someone will be able to clone their Core and Core Lite chips so there's still options for newer Switch owners. I don't agree with the piracy, but you should be able to do what you want with your own devices

Pretty sure the other members will still work on this or may leak the Source Code & Chip
Yea you're absolutely right i really love the Switch but the lack that you can't Backup your Savegames or add Custom Themes sucks.

 

[lolcatzuru]

@lolcatzuru & @The Minecrafter

Here is an example Atmosphere doesn't ship it with piracy you are correct but a 3rd party enable piracy on the CFW. The team is turning a blind eye versus killing the exploit to allow the sigpatches so in a way they are aiding and abiding illegal activities. Its just like a thief used you car to steal even though you didn't steal but you are aiding and abiding the thief to commit the crime. I'm pretty sure Gary is going to get a plea deal but he is going to rat out evreyone including SXOS and Atmosphere they are on the opposing side but again it's all the same thing. I'm afraid the switch scene may turn into the PS4 scene really soon.

my entire point is that its alot harder less worth it to prosecute someone who has no money. You might be right, this might be the last stretch of game piracy, but lets hope we are both wrong.

 

[AmandaRose]

https://team-xecuter.com/community/...iracy-group-“team-xecuter”-in-custody.135512/

Looks totally fine.. OFC no official reply but u have a few VIP/Mods saying the old mantra "keep calm" lol

I clicked on the link you provided and I get

 

[NoNAND]

Looks like Bubba will be exploiting a vulnerability in their bums in federal prison

One question. What's with this hostility and negative attitude towards TX.

Sure they are pirates but not the first people to invent piracy. Many others have existed before them and many more will succeed them.

Back in the days of the 3DS era gateway was a renown and well known team of hackers. Yet no one spewed hate and toxic attitudes toward them.

This question isn't directed at you specifically but to this community as a whole.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

I clicked on the link you provided and I get

View attachment 226916

UK govt. has network banned TX sites.

 

[DJPlace]

then end of getting new people to switch piracy?

 

[ChokingVictim87]

I clicked on the link you provided and I get

View attachment 226916

Use a VPN. UK providers block SXOS site

 

[AmandaRose]

One question. What's with this hostility and negative attitude towards TX.

Sure they are pirates but not the first people to invent piracy. Many others have existed before them and many more will succeed them.

Back in the days of the 3DS era gateway was a renown and well known team of hackers. Yet no one spewed hate and toxic attitudes toward them.

This question isn't directed at you specifically but to this community as a whole.

TX and gateway are the same people

From the Department of Justice website.

From approximately June 2013 through August 2020, Team Xecuter used a variety of product names for its devices, such as the Gateway 3DS, the Stargate, the TrueBlue Mini, the Classic2Magic, and the SX line of devices that included the SX OS, the SX Pro, the SX Lite, and the SX Core

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-members-notorious-videogame-piracy-group-team-xecuter-custody

 

[Tenny]

UK govt. has network banned TX sites.

Can't you bypass that with Cloudflare DNS?

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Can't you bypass that with Cloudflare DNS?

Yes, I think so?