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The Pirate Trap

Submitted by Dr.Spangle

Today, I caught two software pirates in a trap. They were trying to steal a copy of 3d studio max 2.5, in order to make models for their “paintball mod”. This wasn’t the first time. The first time, they were trying to find download locations on warez pages. I told them quite simply to ‘leave me alone, stop stealing software”; expletives deleted. This time, they went right up to me and asked for help to get it to work, now that they had downloaded it. I thought it would be fun to play a little trick on them. Idiot1 and Idiot2, as they shall henceforth be known, were in a group conversation with me, and Dumbass (an accomplice, who was benefiting from the idiots).
Idiot1 and Idiot 2 were telling Dumbass how they had just “finished downloading”. I recognized the tfontee names immediately, and knew the direction this conversation would take. I was reluctant to say anything at first, so I simply asked them, “What do you want?” They explained their intentions. It was at this time that I decided to get them to destroy their own computers. They would learn a valuable lesson in the process – don’t steal software, it really does hurt everyone. The beginnings of the conversation were not logged, however, once the deed was done, I decided to log it. The situation was simple. The former was running windows ME, the latter XP. I told them each to go into a command prompt, shut down all programs, and perform a deltree command (RD command in XP). I also included parameters which would make it go into quiet mode, so they would be oblivious to what was happening. I told them it was “restructuring their file system for the NT kernel”. Obviously they didn’t see tfontough the technical terms, and went right along their happy way, not questioning me whatsoever. Idiot1 even recognized that it was deleting files, since he didn’t put in the appropriate arguments in the deltree command. Oh well, he didn’t seem to care much. Obviously “deleting” really means, “making 3d studio max work”. They needed to learn their lesson; however, they wouldn’t do this if they didn’t realize what they had just done, and why! Later I found out that they were running other pirated software too, so this pretty much scoured them clean.

At this point, once Idiot1 has completed the job, he comes back online:

Idiot1 says:
this is extremely fucked up
Idiot1 says:
no quicklaunch icons, no desktop icons cept for the default, no 'my documents'

Dumbass seems to think everything’s fine though:

Dumbass says:
lol
Dumbass says:
dude chill its still there
u didnt fuck his computer did u?
Dumbass says:
Idiot2 doesnt seem to be having any problems
Dr.Spangle says:
is he back online?
Dumbass says:
no
Dumbass says:
but im sure if he washaving problems he would be back on

Little does he know...?
I was thinking to tell the guy to defragment his hard disk, to make sure nothing was restored, but I didn’t want to be THAT mean. Back to the action!

Idiot1 says:
its saying it cant find shit cos its in use
Idiot1 says:
and ive stopped all the processes
Idiot1 says:
cept for system ones
Idiot1 says:
and its going on bout some shit
Idiot1 says:
and half my icons have come back

Oh, I see. So, he hadn’t exactly finished the whole thing? Feeling a little mischievous I thought I’d make sure the whole job was done. I told him to boot up in safe mode, and do it again.

However, he came back! How is this possible? Well, apparently he wised up:

Idiot1 says:
oh yeah thats real good advice, delete all directories on c quietly
Idiot1 says:
ive got shit on c!

Uh-oh!

Dr.Spangle says:
but you have to do it on all your drives
Idiot1 says:
so? im only 14...
Dr.Spangle says:
then you restart
Dr.Spangle says:
and run another command
Idiot1 says:
how?
Dr.Spangle says:
and then it's reset
Dr.Spangle says:
and then 3d max will work

...

Idiot1 says:
ok its done
Idiot1 says:
now what do i do?
Dr.Spangle says:
okay
Dr.Spangle says:
do the same for your other drives
Idiot1 says:
no
Idiot1 says:
i dont want max to work
Idiot1 says:
i want my shit back

Looks like he wants to back out. Too bad, maybe he shouldn’t have downloaded the warez in the first place. At least I’m saving him the effort of removing the virus that he might have gotten elsewhere, right?

Dr.Spangle says:
well
Idiot1 says:
u never told me this is gunna take forever to do
Dr.Spangle says:
once you've started you hve to finish
Dr.Spangle says:
or you can't get it back

WHAT!? He still doesn’t realize!

Idiot1 says:
ur bsing me!

Oh, I see.

Idiot1 says:
RD = delete
/S all directories
/Q quietly
Idiot1 says:
cant i just do one drive?

I couldn’t believe it myself.

Dr.Spangle says:
no
Dr.Spangle says:
to reset your file tree you have to do ALL drives
Idiot1 says:
well wtf do i do, i dont wanna do the others

I guessed this was enough. I sort of left him to his own devices at this point. But wait, there’s more! He decided to come back with news!

Idiot1 says:
no
Idiot1 says:
dads
Idiot1 says:
chucking
Idiot1 says:
a
Idiot1 says:
fit
Idiot1 says:
gtg
Dr.Spangle says:
well
Dr.Spangle says:
good luck
Dr.Spangle says:
think about this next time you pirate software
Idiot1 says:
il be back in an hour
Dr.Spangle says:
better tell him what you did before this all started
Idiot1 says:
duh
Dr.Spangle says:
BYE MR.PIRATE
Dr.Spangle says:
HOPE YOUR DAD SEES THIS, PIRATE

And that’s the end of that chapter. He signed out, and didn’t come back online. However, you’re saying, what about Idiot2? First, Dumbass had something to say.

Dumbass says:
Idiot1: FUCKING WANEKR
Idiot1: WANKER
Idiot1: HE GAVE ME THE COMMAND TO FUCKING DELETE ALL MY C DRIVE DIRECTORIES 'QUIETLY'
Idiot1 signed off at 6:16:07 PM.

Idiot2 had gone offline like a good little boy when I told him he needed to boot up in safe mode and delete… I mean “fix 3d studio max”. He then came back.

Idiot2 says:
hey
Dumbass says:
spangle..
Dumbass says:
lol
Idiot2 says:
that was cute
Dumbass says:
Idiot2 is it working now?
Idiot2 says:
my system is fried I'm using my other one here
Idiot2 says:
looks like I'll have to reload
Dumbass says:
it deleted ur system?
Dumbass says:
it deleted ur system?
Idiot2 says:
yep
Dumbass says:
dude spangle
Dumbass says:
u fucker
Dr.Spangle says:
well
Dr.Spangle says:
better not pirate software next time
Dumbass says:
it did the same thing to Idiot1
Dumbass says:
lo
Dumbass says:
l
Dr.Spangle says:
hope you learned a lesson
Dumbass says:
thats fucked up

Well, anyhow, after this, I tried to be civil and explain to the two remaining gentlemen how piracy works, and why it’s bad. Apparently Idiot2 learned a lesson, even. Dumbass didn’t. He just decided to slander Canadians as much as possible (myself being one), and be a total moron. Guess what the last thing he told me was:

Dumbass: do u want to make some pb guns?

I responded with a hearty "no".

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