Busted by FBI: Real-life story of teenage uploader
In the early part of the last decade when they were still the innocent side of 15-years-old, one schoolfriend showed another an Iomega ZIP drive (right) full of ‘warez’ – games and software with a big fat zero written on their price tag. Having never seen anything like it before, James (as we shall call him for now) became hooked, and quickly began to display a trait inherent in many addicted file-sharers. “I simply couldn’t get enough,” he told TorrentFreak. “It was more fun downloading and sharing the stuff with all my friends then actually using it or playing the actual games.”
Having become inspired by these simple beginnings, James began chatting with other like-minded people on warez sites and ICQ, going on to share warez via PUBS, FTP-enabled servers conveniently left open by companies with more bandwidth than security sense. Sharing files wasn’t a simple process back then and James took exception when Napster began dumbing down the process. “We hated it, simply despised it because it made a mockery of the hard work we put in to obtain all these different warez,” he recalls.
But despite these early bad feelings towards Napster, the future would eventually see James become a facilitator of even easier ways of downloading. Not for just his friends, but for more than a hundred thousand people. After working his way up to become one of the top members on the GraveyardFXP warez board, James says he became a moderator of DelusionalFXP. It was there, on their IRC channel, that he would meet people whose new project would suck him in and change his life forever. At some point along the line, ‘James’ became better known to his peers as StonyVision, and he was invited to join a new project being set up by, among others, a fellow pirate known as Sk0t.
Under Sk0t’s leadership, a torrent site called Elite Torrents was taking shape and preparing itself for an eventual membership of some 130,000 active users. It would also become the only US-based BitTorrent tracker ever to be busted by the FBI and ICE. After he’d installed BitComet and began sharing content in February 2004, staff on Elite noticed something very appealing about StonyVision – his impressive upload capability. StonyVision told us he’d “followed instructions” on how to use two instead of the regular one modem his cable connection usually allowed, which gave him business-standard upload speeds. When you’re delivering content on BitTorrent, upload bandwidth is king, and Elite wanted some of Stony’s.
But as file-sharers are often heard to complain, you can never have enough bandwidth, so Stony acquired a 100mbit server at The Planet in Texas and began seeding his files from there. Once around 150 of Elite’s users had grabbed his latest release he’d begin releasing his next torrent, usually the very latest movies. His performance eventually meant that he became a member of staff, later going on to organize other Elite Torrents uploaders.
Of course, StonyVision needed content to share and he wasted no time in getting it directly from source – The Scene. He’d gained access to this elite network through his contacts at DelusionalFXP and ended up adding his own server to something called T.O.P. or “Tower of Power” – 53 dedicated 100mbit servers acting as a single giant RAID FTP piracy site. But still Stony needed more. “At that point I was on four or five top sites, and my main interest was always movies. I loved movies and still do,” Stony explained. “Since my server was tied up I ended up renting two more, one to race with and another for seeding content on Elite Torrents.”
In common with his more old-school peers, Stony saw himself as something of a Robin Hood, “taking from the rich and giving to Average Joe”, and reveled in the positive feedback left by up to 130,000 Elite Torrents users. But the environment in the United States had become increasingly unfriendly towards The Scene. The FBI and DoJ’s Operation Fastlink was underway and there was a growing fear that torrent sites would be targeted next. Stony sensed the tension and stepped down from the site’s staff around April 2005. He was 19-years-old – and too late.
Elite Torrents and its operators were already being watched and no amount of IP-address obfuscation would prove effective in hiding Stony or his fellow staffers on the site. “Truth be told I did hide my IP and was the hardest one to find but [the FBI] used the Patriot Act and came up with an asinine amount of money lost to these companies and the movie industry and labeled me as a possible domestic terrorist who was conspiring to commit copyright infringement,” Stony explains.
“I woke up to banging on the door over and over, the dogs started barking. I got up thinking who’s the asshole banging on my door at 6am? Next thing I know there’s 10+ FBI agents in my house. I started laughing at first – I thought it was a joke – until the reality sunk in.” It was 25th May 2005 and Operation D-Elite, which was to claim several admins and staff members at Elite Torrents, was underway.
“That was the day of days, I was in total and utter dismay and couldn’t even wrap my head around what had happened. I had no clue what was happening to the others. I lawyered up immediately which in itself is a funny story. I opened up the Yellow Pages, looked under ‘lawyer’ and there it was – an ad with a firm that had dealt with computer crime.
“I think I need a lawyer,” Stony told the gentleman on the other end who inquired “Why?”
“Well, the FBI had just raided my house along with a group they called ICE,” Stony responded.
A few awkward seconds of silence was followed by: “How fast can you get here?”
What came next was mountains of litigation and Stony being told to expect the worst – 5 years in prison. The pressure proved too much and Stony went off the rails, turning to alcohol. In December 2006 he would learn his fate for the uploading of 53 movies, 6 pieces of software and 10 video games. The government demanded a prison sentence in order to deter others from infringement. To Stony’s huge relief, they didn’t get their way. “Luckily for me I had the most liberal federal judge there was at the time. I was given a fine of $3,500, 6 months house arrest, community service and 3 years probation in which I was not allowed to touch a computer. I had somehow escaped doing time and the U.S attorney was furious.”
But despite avoiding prison, Stony says that he’s still paid a price. “It’s been the bane of my existence and yet made me who I am. I continued on a self destructive path for quite some time doing crazy things, still working out, getting in bar fights. Truth be told I’ve been to hell and back, stared the devil in the face with its trillions of dollars of influence (RIAA, MPAA) and laughed and walked away.” Stony says that confessing to a double felony on job applications hinders him, but the support of a new woman in his life has helped tremendously. So how are things today?
“I of course no longer pirate anything anymore as I’m sure I’m still on numerous watch lists. Its simply fun to look every now and again,” says Stony. “My story isn’t one of inspiration but one of caution. It could happen to anyone out there. I know people are thinking ‘nah, not me’, but that’s what I thought too and now here we are.” Stony told us that he recently got back online again with his own computer and was inspired by the huge anti-SOPA and PIPA campaigns. “Thanks to everyone who spoke out on Internet blackout day. It really did give me goosebumps to see people finally stand up and be heard,” he concludes.
Source: Torrentfreak
Comments(27)
Frightening to see how repulsive the U.S government finds piracy.
I hope some day they will embrace the adapting technology instead of trying to control and censor it.
I can’t remember the FBI raiding teens who would sit on a park bench listening to their favourite tapes while he recorded a copy for his friend.
Oh well, c’est la vie
umk?
Daniel Kandi – Sagittarius (Original Let The Light Shine Rip Off Mix) | 6:46 | 320kbps | Armind | ARMD1113
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Pirate for life!!
TLDR
the only ones that should get busted should be the ones that make money from upload scene files
See, that is how you really share, for free. Not uploading to some filehost which pays you cash money per download or pays to spam their ad (Zevera).
@7 totally agree with you!
Brings back memories… but this story is one of many and is the reason I stopped racing and left the fxp scene years ago… p2p killed the scene as far as I was concerned… but there’s a part of me that will never be able to let go, although I must admit I don’t miss the constant tension and love letters from lawyers.
Joe
\liberal\ judge – wrong word these days – it’s not conservatives running the MPAA, RIAA, hollywood or the music industry. It’s libtards. Think about that on election day.
Sounds like some P2P kiddie got what he deserved.
I hope it gets crazy enough that they decide to raid every house in America to take away our cassette recorders, VCR, dvd burner, bluray burner, pens, pencils, scanners, fax machines, etc… anything that can be used to make a copy or copy information from copywrited material.
Put us all in jail for having everything we see and hear embedded in our own natural neural nets (our brains). Please.
I seriously hope it gets that crazy here, because that’s what it’ll take to push people into resisting the censorship.
Come get me, I’ve been ready for years. I’m in dire need of a vacation from all the mass stupidity here on the outside.
Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s logo reads: Art for art’s sake.
There is no such thing as liberals and conservatives in corporate culture. There are 6 studios that comprise the mpaa with enormous wealth and plenty of politicians more than happy to accept it. Piracy is the cover story washington and other world governments are using to take control of our online lives. This is the same crap we endured over terrorism which has given us the patriot act. The role of government is to serve the governed not to tell us what to think, write, say or believe in. We need to bring the troops home and repeal the patriot act, dismantle the office of homeland security and end the drug war.
@mike man you hit it right on the head, plus its gonna be the guy that uploades and downloads 24/7 they will go after not the regular guy that does it like once or twice a month
Might want to edit out the references to pictures that aren’t there when you’re copying the text of a story from another site.
“showed another an Iomega ZIP drive (right)”
@ 15 – Untrue. They will go after anyone they can get to. Uploaders are most vulnerable as most anti-piracy organizations wants to kill the suppliers.
Grand uploaders are more wanted but they are also easier targets as their IPs are all over P2P networks.
@bricks through windows.. well said man..i too am waiting for the masses to wake up, doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon though
Nicky
“Frightening to see how repulsive the U.S government finds piracy.
I hope some day they will embrace the adapting technology instead of trying to control and censor it.
I can’t remember the FBI raiding teens who would sit on a park bench listening to their favourite tapes while he recorded a copy for his friend.
Oh well, c’est la vie”
This is because US gov’t is nothing more than puppets now working for the billionaires and mega corportations, and MPAA/RIAA are among them, FBI/ICE/etc now does nothing more than appease these giants who have over-shadowed the government itself. This is the end result of a money driven capitalist system. The end result is worse than Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. In fact its the worst possible because these companies and super 1% rich have under this system been allowed to take over not only the USA but also the world! But USA and its size and gave them the power to do it. End of the world times are coming. Its not like the Romans when they got to their end, it wont just be “them” being wiped out, but this time the whole world will collapse. I just hope it doesnt happen for the 30-40 more years that I am alive, but likely it will :/
One thing: definitely dont have kids, dont put them through the hell that the future will be.
i started with pubs and fxp too.. and i have always hated p2p.
“James” got greedy. He should have stuck to FTP.
This is why the Scene will always be safer than p2p.
ppl say with sopa acta etc that this is the end, no it is not the end its just the end of the beginning,scene is adapting,some are testing means of putting our satellites into orbit using balloons,group in Canada tested and it worked,last week another group almost! got a rocket into orbit,they plan to flood 1000 of these cheap designed sats into orbit,Snony is right groups like Anon,Lolz,m@d etc,as next free filesharing,free blogging,gps,mobile calls,internet and much more,one day the miaa etc,will regret ever starting this we are going to take the whole lot from them.
And all of you are talking about USA. You have no idea what’s going on outside USA, for instance in Argentina, my country. If there was a “raid” here, I believe that NO ONE (no company or individual) will ever work again for 99% of the software is pirated! Can you imagine that? There is a simple explanation for this and is the cost of software that is unobtainable for us, but even that is no excuse. Some people profit downloading and selling dvds on the streets and sometimes they are caught too, but the police is also in this business so nothing “improves”.
Get over it we steal stuff. Movies music games we don’t pay for it. Are the measures these companies enact / try to pass invasive and downright scary hell yeah. We want the law to protect us while at the same time we break it. I dont wrestle with the thought that what I’m doing is wrong frankly I dont care. But at the same time I dont envision myself as some defender of the free world when I get the latest BD rip or game….
Elite torrents and peerden.. Man that was good times for me..
Thank you for posting this, Martin. It’s an excellent read.
F*** the US and its laws.
Thanks for sharing an awesome post.
Piracy will never be gone.
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