Estimated time to complete: 1 hour (not including any stability testing)
Changelog:

[v.04.06.2024] Updated minor things. If you like testing things, you can try this (currently poorly-written alpha alpha) PowerShell script to fix common issues. This may resolve crashes, blackscreen issues or identify devices that may cause them.
[v.03.25.2024] Overhauled memory test section to TestMem5 w/Extreme1anta777 profile. Shortened and simplified instructions. Updated Discord link & mentioned that currently only one file is replaced during File Integrity Verification (nplsm.des) Removed black screen fix; this post is at the character limit 😭
[v.03.22.2024] Updated minor wording and Does not Fix section with an AMD GPU blurb/fix, deleted older changelog to free up space
[v.0.955] Added disabling Memory Context Restore for DDR5 in initial checks

If you are experiencing REPEATED CRASHING AS THE HOST, this guide can probably help you. It can also be applied to any game you're having issues with (not just Helldivers 2).
The Goal: At the end of this guide you will probably be able to play Helldivers 2 without work arounds in most cases (some hardware currently requires them) or you will have identified a hardware component that is causing stability problems.

What This Does NOT Fix:

❌ Known issues or throwing grenades back or throwing snowballs (crash at extract is... 🤷‍♂️)
❌ Networking issues. I have an in-progress guide for those here.
❌ DX11 not working on some AMD/Intel/Nvidia cards (but this might help you get DX12 running). There's an temp DX11 partial fix but game assets will be missing etc. and it will likely only get worse (not Vulkan).
❌ Verifying Steam files: Anti-cheat updates: Helldivers 2\\bin\\GameGuard\\nplsm.des if you verify files you will always have this file reverted back to the original file. This is normal and is not a problem.
❌ Helldivers 2 is a P2P game. Joining someone else's ship means they are the host and their game crashing can take you with them to the intergalactic bitbucket of space! 🚀☄️
❌ If you have an AMD GPU, and you complete this guide to rule out simultaneous issues, you may have GPU stability issues that can be fixed by creating an Adrenaline profile and setting the clock speed to the factory frequency specs.
❌ Low-end hardware won't be able to run the game on high settings. Updating your PC software/firmware using this guide may help with micro stuttering & performance; so feel free to follow those parts!

🧠 Sanity Checks (Please Don't Skip): 🧠

1. Is your computer using the correct GPU?
   1. Check by pressing Windows Key + R and pasting in: ms-settings:display-advancedgraphics
   2. Select the correct GPU for Helldivers 2
2. Did you install Windows on this computer?
   1. If you re-used a hard drive that already had Windows installed from another computer, this can (not always) create all kinds of issues that are difficult to troubleshoot (i.e. time-consuming)
   2. Please reset Windows first!
   3. If that is not possible, well... none of this guide may fix your problem, but have at it!
3. If you switched GPU brands ensure old drivers are removed using DDU
   1. Old drivers can cause crashes.
   2. Check for new graphics drivers for all GPUS-integrated GPUs included! (Laptop users see laptop section)
4. ⚡If your computer completely turns off instantly, verify that your PSU meets the GPU wattage recommended from AMD's, Intel's or NVIDIA's website. No, you don't need a 1000W PSU if NVIDIA said you need an 850W PSU. But if you have a GPU and AMD/NVIDIA/Intel say you need a 600W PSU and you have 400W PSU... that is a problem.
   1. If your PSU meets the recommended wattage per AMD/NVIDIA/Intel, move along! You're good!
5. 🚨Do you have any lighting control software or hardware monitoring software like:
6. iCUE Intel XTU G.Skill Logitec G-Hub NZXT HWInfo MSI Afterburner RyzenMaster Razer Synapse Samsung Magician etc.?
   1. Make sure they are up-to-date! (or you can uninstall them, if you don't have a CPU AIO cooler being controlled by them 🔥)
      1. They have low-level drivers, usually aren't well-written programs, and can definitely cause issues with performance in general and anti-cheat software.
      2. Go to the manufacture website to obtain the latest version
7. 🔥 HD2 is CPU intensive, partly because it simulates everything. Check your CPU temp. If it's 90-100C you likely have a cooling or power limit problem. Each CPU is different. So you may need to do some research, or ask for help if this seems to be your issue.

💻 Laptop-Specific Guide:

I can't write an accurate guide that covers all laptop-related issues.

• The first thing you should do is go to your manufacturer's website and check for updates.
• If there are any UEFI updates, you need to make sure you install them.
• ⚠️ Your laptop manufacturer's update software may not update the UEFI and may not tell you there is a newer version. You will need to specifically check the website manually for your model.
• Be careful installing drivers for GPUs & chipsets on laptops from the component manufacturer. Most times it will be fine; sometimes you have to update to play a new game; sometimes it will refuse to install newer drivers, and you'll have to uninstall old drivers first. Sometimes you will have severe problems like constant crashing or freezing. If you are not comfortable troubleshooting these kinds of issues, it's better to use the drivers the laptop manufacturer provides, or use your favorite search engine and see if anyone has already tried the latest and greatest. 😆
• Do not skip drivers like Intel Dynamic Thermal Platform Framework. These apps are critical to managing CPU load etc.
• Update Windows to the latest version
• The is the end of the laptop guide. It should solve most laptop issues; for others, you may have to keep checking for updates.
• If you'd to keep troubleshooting, you can test your RAM stability.
  • Jump to Memory Troubleshooting and follow Option 1 through step 10

Desktop Guide:

📝Getting Your Hardware Info:

1. Download the zip file version of CPU-Z and extract and run it. (No need to install it.)
2. Collect this information:
   1. CPU Name [CPU tab]
   2. CPU Codename [CPU tab]
   3. Motherboard Model [Mainboard tab]
   4. Chipset [Mainboard tab]
   5. RAM Kit Part Number: [SPD tab]
      1. On the left side, check each Slot #. Make sure you have the part number for each populated slot. You may discover you have 4 DIMMS (RAM sticks) with 2 different part numbers, or two different DRAM manufacturers (SK Hynix, Micron, Samsung, etc.!
      2. If you have 2 DIMMS, verify that the memory is in slots #2 and #4 in CPU-Z. These are almost always the correct slots (not #1 and #3), but verify with your motherboard manual.
      3. Your RAM will report at half-frequency in CPU-Z since it's double-data-rate (DDR).
3. [This section may not be applicable, if you have a Pre-built PC] 🔍 Research!
   1. Search for your motherboard model on your motherboard model's manufacturer website
   2. ⚠️ Make sure you find your exact motherboard. There can be revisions, DDR4 vs. DDR5 etc.
   3. Click the Support tab for your motherboard
   4. Look for something like Compatibility you will likely need to select a certain Memory tab or something like that. It may also have CPU selection menus. Ensure the correct CPU is selected so that the website reports the correct Memory Qualified Vendor List (QVL) (The website tabs are terrible, verify you're looking at the Memory tab, not the CPU tab)
   5. Check your RAM part number & see if it's on your motherboard's Qualified Vendor List (QVL)
      1. If it is, awesome! Look at the # of DIMMS on the right-hand side of the table. This explains if you can use 1, 2 or 4 DIMMS
      2. If you bought two, identical kits and combined them, and the QVL shows 1,2 in the DIMM column... that means that 4 DIMMS likely will not be stable using the overclocked profile setting.
      3. ⚠️ If it is NOT on the QVL, check the RAM manufacturer for your RAM part number. See if they say it's compatible with your motherboard. For example, I have an AM5 system and I have CMH23GX5M2E6000C36 so I Googled it, and uh-oh Corsair says it's only made for 700 series Intel chipsets
      4. If you're running an overclocked profile, this is almost guaranteed to be the issue. Recommend pausing here & returning the RAM you bought. Pick out some RAM that's on your QVL. 🧠 Remember: the info two steps above this one! Don't buy two of the same kit if your QVL doesn't list 4 DIMMS! (Unless you're willing to tweak settings.)
      5. If, when you searched your RAM part number, the RAM Manufacturer mentions your platform/chipset, but it is not on the motherboard QVL, than you may need to adjust RAM settings manually.
   6. For AMD AM5 7000/8000 systems, you can also check AMD's memory list here.
   7. Keep your motherboard support webpage open, we will reference it later

Initial Configuration:

1. Do you have Sonic Suite or Hamachi installed?
   1. ❌ If so, disable the device driver from Device Manager or uninstall it.
2. Do you have Cepstral SwiftTalker installed?
   1. ❌ If so, uninstall it. It's also known to cause crashes in HD2.
3. Are you overclocking your CPU?
   1. If yes, please disable for this guide
   2. Multi-core Enhancement (MCE) is one that is likely enabled by default. Disabling it may resolve issues.
4. Are you undervolting your CPU?
   1. If you have an Intel 13th or 14th gen CPU, skip to Intel Platform Fixes below
   2. For all other CPUs, if you are undervolting your CPU, disable it for this guide. If the CPU is unstable, it may cause issues testing memory.
5. Are you undervolting your GPU?
   1. If you are, please disable it. If removing the undervolt fixes your issue... this is okay and your GPU is fine. (see end of post for brief explanation)
6. If you have DDR 5 RAM, disable Memory Context Restore. MSI boards may call it something like DDR5 Fast Boot. Change from Auto to Slow Training.
   1. This will increase boot times, but may fix RAM stability issues with no other work. It allows the motherboard the normal length of time to train the memory each boot. DDR5 has tighter tolerances than DDR4. It may also enable you to run overclocked RAM profiles without issues. If you're having GPU timeouts, especially on AM5, do not skip this. See if it fixes everything.
7. Move to either AMD or Intel Platform Fixes next based on what you learned in Getting Your Hardware Info

AMD Platform Fixes:

1. For 5000/7000/8000 series CPUs, use your motherboard manufacture's website to update to the latest UEFI version.
2. ⚠️ If you have Bitlocker enabled, make sure you have access to the recovery key in your Microsoft account. If the UEFI resets the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), you will need to input your recovery key to access your data. Yes, you will lose all your data if you don't have your recovery key.
   1. Scroll down on the motherboard model website and make sure there isn't other firmware
   2. AMD has released USB PD firmware and other firmware in the past to address AMD-specific issues with USB devices. Please update these if your motherboard support site has them listed.
3. For 1/2/3000 series CPUs, refer back to your hardware info/verify the codename. Go to your motherboard website and look for the last UEFI update that supports your CPU. Some manufacturer's use codenames, some use CPU model numbers. Read carefully!
   1. ⚠️ Some motherboards may have UEFI updates that will cause your 1/2/3000 series CPU to not work at all. Make sure you only update to the latest firmware that still supports your CPU codename.
4. AMD officially supported RAM Speeds (anything higher is not guaranteed by AMD to be stable). Random CPUs are linked as the source for each Ryzen generation.

CPU Series	2 DIMMS	4 DIMMS
8000	5200 Mhz	3600 Mhz
7000	5200 Mhz	3600 Mhz
5000	3200 Mhz	Unspecified < 3200 Mhz
3000	3200 Mhz	Unspecified < 3200 Mhz
2000	2933 Mhz	Unspecified < 2933 Mhz
1000	2667 Mhz	Unspecified < 2667 Mhz

1. If you have an AMD GPU, download the latest Adrenaline driver. It will update your chipset drivers.
2. If you have an NVIDIA or Intel GPU, go to AMD's support page, and pick out your chipset (chipset name should be in the CPU-Z Mainboard tab) and download/install the chipset drivers.
3. ⏸️ Give your computer a good Restart (Not Shutdown as Windows hibernates the kernel by default). Test as host! Is it fixed? If so congrats! Post below on how it went.
4. If it's not fixed, do you have any riser card/riser cables connected to your GPU and/or M.2 drives? If so, you need to rule them out as the cause of PCI-E uncorrectable errors.
   1. If you have an NVIDIA card you can open PowerShell and run: nvidia-smi dmon -s et -d 10 -o DT to see if you're getting errors on the PCI-E slot. Uncorrectable errors with a riser cable/card are just part of using one. However, if you see ~50 or more errors each cycle, it's likely that this is going to cause issues in some games... or only HD2 🙃
   2. Set PCI-E to 4.0 on your motherboard, or remove the cables/cards
      1. If this works, great! Your riser cable/card is likely causing the issue. Comment below!
      2. If not, move on to Memory Troubleshooting
   3. If this does not work, and your motherboard supports it, try setting the motherboard to PCI-E 3.0
      1. If this works, great! Your rise cable/card is likely causing the issue. Comment below.
      2. If not, move on to Memory Troubleshooting

Intel Platform Fixes:

1. If you have an Intel 13th or 14th generation CPU (first two numbers of model start with 13 or 14) complete this guide/fix first
2. Update your UEFI from your motherboard support website you used in Gathering Hardware Info⚠️ If you have Bitlocker enabled, make sure you have access to the recovery key in your Microsoft account. If the UEFI resets the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), you will need to input your recovery key to access your data. Yes, you will lose all your data if you don't have your recovery key.
3. Update all the Intel firmware (Intel Management Engine, Thunderbolt firmware, etc.)
4. Update all Intel drivers (Chipset drivers, Intel Management Engine) Even if they don't sound like they matter, update them so that they do not conflict with anti-cheat or cause stuttering/performance issues.
5. ⏸️ Pause and test as host! Is everything fixed? Great! Post below on how it went.
6. If nothing is fixed, check this your motherboard manual. Read carefully to determine Intel's officially supported memory speed for that motherboard and CPU combination. Remember: 4 DIMMS will need to run slower than 2 DIMMS.
   1. If you want to try a quick fix, set your RAM to one of the officially-listed speeds for your CPU gen. if you're trying to find it quickly in the motherboard manual, Ctrl + F for speeds like: 2133, 2667, 4800, 5200, 5600
   2. Keep this in mind as you move to the next section!

Memory Troubleshooting:

1. Prechecks:
   1. Boot into your UEFI (BIOS) and verify your RAM is set to default speeds (XMP, DOCP, EXPO disabled)
      1. Do not mess with any of the settings! Unless you see RAM voltage that is above 1.4V leave the automatic settings alone.
   2. You have two choices below, use TestMem5 (Option #1) if possible. if you have to use your computer a lot, and don't have a few hours for it to be barely usable running memory tests, you'll have to pick Option 2:
   3. OPTION 1: Start with TestMem5 (TM5)
      1. 🛑 If you had an undervolt or overclock on your CPU, you removed it, correct? Otherwise... this may be for nothing. You can get false positives that will report issues. If your CPU is stock clocks (not overclocked AND not undervolted), we can trust the CPU engineers did their job, that if MemTest86 fails it will be caused by RAM/CPU memory controllemotherboard
      2. Download TM5. Yes, it's hosted on MegaUpload and looks sketchy. Upload it to VirusTotal yourself if you'd like. It's one of the best free RAM tests.
      3. Other memory test programs may not detect issues or take many hours to detect issues*.* 12 passes in MemTest86 can be used in addition to TestMem5, but if you can only choose one... use TestMem5. If you purchased Karhu that will also suffice for this test.
      4. Extract the TM5 folder from the RAR (You can use 7-Zip if you don't have a program for RAR files.)
      5. Start TM5 as the Administrator, and load the Extreme1anta777 profile from the bin folder.
      6. TM5 will need to be restarted to use the new profile.
      7. Run TM5!
      8. TM5 will either report errors, or it may just close (crash) without any message. Both cases are test failures.
      9. If TM5 🟢 PASSES we can likely rule out the RAM as the issue for Helldivers 2 (and probably for your entire PC)
      10. If TM5 🔴 FAILS at some point (hopefully early) run TM5 again with each RAM stick one at a time in the motherboard using the slot the motherboard manual states for 1 DIMM
      11. Verify that both sticks or all 4 sticks give errors somewhat equally.
      12. If you have one stick erroring and the rest are fine, than you probably have a bad RAM DIMM
      13. At this point, you have a few options: If you bought RAM that wasn't on the QVL, and you're in the return window, probably best to purchase RAM on the QVL. Pay attention to the number of supports DIMMS! If you buy two kits of RAM on the QVL, that does not mean it's on the QVL. The QVL should indicate 4 (four) DIMMS of that part number are okay if you're going to buy two kits. (Also, remember that for DDR4 & DDR5 RAM, 4 DIMMS always stresses the memory controller more... so if you're trying to get the fastest speeds, purchase a 2 DIMM kit).
   4. OPTION 2: Use HD2/applications that are crashing as the test
      1. If you have 4 DIMMS, remove 2 DIMMS per your motherboard manual image that is mentioned in the Memory Troubleshooting >> Prechecks section of this guide
      2. RAM should be in the A2 and B2 slots on most motherboards. See your motherboard manual to verify.
      3. See if it works, if it works fine, congrats! This is why your game has been crashing repeatedly. The RAM is not stable.
      4. This does not mean the RAM is BAD. Buying new RAM may not fix it either! Your CPU memory controller may not be able to handle 4 DIMMS at that speed, or may be defective if you can't run 4 DIMMS of RAM at slower, default speeds. The motherboard may also have issues. Feel free to post below if you're trying to figure out what to do, now that you have discovered there is an issue somewhere.
      5. If this happens, ideally you want to test with two sticks at a time swapping out one stick at time to see if you can determine if you have a bad stick or all the RAM seems to behave similarly.
      6. If all RAM seems to behave similarly, try putting all 4 DIMMS in and move to the Stabilizing RAM section and see if you can get it stable.

Stabilizing RAM (probably XMP/DOCP/EXPO, yea)?

1. (Temporarily) Disable PBO and undervolting on your CPU
2. Go into your UEFI
3. Set your RAM to the XMP/DOCP/EXPO profile you want to run
   1. 🔍 Find the RAM Voltage setting in your UEFI
   2. It will likely be set to something near 1.35V
   3. ⬆️ Raise the voltage one small increment. Different motherboards will be different, but 0.05 increments are fine.💡Some RAM integrated circuits (ICs) can become unstable with more voltage... we're trying to find a sweet spot that makes it stable. If going up in voltage seems to make things worse, try lowering voltage instead. It will be immediately obvious if that helps, or makes it worse.
   4. Examples: Voltage set to (Auto) 1.35V increasing to 1.355or Voltage set to (Auto) 1.4V lowering to 1.38
   5. 🛑 DO NOT GO ABOVE 1.4V
   6. 💾 Save the setting
   7. Use TM5 Helldivers 2 or whatever program is crashing
   8. Keep raising/lowering voltage a little at a time >> 💾 saving >> 🥼testing
   9. If you get to 1.4V and nothing seems to be any better... there are probably other issues. If stability improves, it's likely a stability issue with your RAM and fixable by you, the citizen! Comment below if you're trying to figure out what to do next, as it's not always the RAM.
   10. ✅ If you get it stable, with no crashes, move on to Checking for Data Corruption

Checking for Data Corruption:

1. ⚠️Only do these steps if you've completed the rest of the guide or you've been instructed to follow them by someone. There is no point otherwise... if your machine is unstable, it will keep having issues until the underlying issue is fix.
2. Verify that Windows is not corrupted:
   1. Run Open Command Prompt or Powershell as an Administrator
   2. DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
   3. Repair if there is corruption: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
   4. Run Windows Resource Checker sfc /scannow
3. Verify Steam and Games
   1. Download Steam and install it (re-installs/fixes Steam)
   2. Verify each game
   3. Steam errors can reappear any time HD2 crashes... and 1 or 2 anti-cheat files will always be repaired. This is normal. (see top of guide under the What this does NOT Fix table)
4. ⚠️ Errors should not keep re-appearing after you do this in Windows! Windows shouldn't continue to have errors every time you run DISM/sfc. If this is happening you have (listed in order of likelihood if overclocked):
   1. RAM or CPU is unstable, causing arithmetic errors
   2. Uncorrectable errors on the PCIE lanes
      1. This can corrupt your Windows install if the PCIE lanes connect your storage disk (like most M.2 drives).
      2. If you have any GPU/M.2 drive riser cable/cards, try removing them
   3. A bad drive, back up your data now!
      1. Search for your brand of drive and "SSD Toolbox" to see if your drive offers a toolbox to check drives. This can be used for firmware updates/analyzing it for issues
      2. The SSD Toolbox may report a drive is good when it is not good 🤷‍♂️
      3. If you're having micro stuttering in games, and/or weird short, quick freezes while playing games, this is a sign you may have an SSD that is going bad.
      4. Remember, SSD drives normally just... fail, any warning should be heeded
      5. You can try swapping the drive with another drive, move game installation files, etc. to see if you can rule it out.

🚧Undervolting:🚧

If you remove CPU/GPU undervolts and your issues disappear, that was the problem. Scroll up to Checking for Data Corruption if that is the case.
One other way of saying is: If undervolting was that great reliable, and 100% stable, the voltage from the factory would be that lower voltage you applied. That's why the factory doesn't undervolt things below the specs they've determined. It takes a lot of manual work to determine if it's actually stable.

tldr; Kim Dotcom's crypto business, Bitcache, has been liquidated after failing to launch. The platform, which aimed to revolutionize online payments for content creators and sharers, raised millions from investors but never took off. Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, had promoted Bitcache as the preferred option for online transactions by 2022. However, the company will now be broken down to pay off unpaid legal fees. Dotcom, who is currently fighting extradition to the US on fraud charges, was listed as the "evangelist" for Bitcache but was not involved in its day-to-day operations.
This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.
https://www.reddit.com/ethtradecomments/14yhdlf/kim_dotcoms_crypto_business_liquidated/

tldr; Kim Dotcom's crypto business, Bitcache, has been liquidated after failing to launch. The platform, which aimed to revolutionize online payments for content creators and sharers, raised millions from investors but never took off. Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, had promoted Bitcache as the preferred option for online transactions by 2022. However, the company will now be broken down to pay off unpaid legal fees. Dotcom, who is currently fighting extradition to the US on fraud charges, was listed as the "evangelist" for Bitcache but was not involved in its day-to-day operations.
This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.
https://www.reddit.com/ethtradecomments/14yhdlf/kim_dotcoms_crypto_business_liquidated/

This class ends up being a pair with D210, in that you're using Tableau Desktop to generate dashboards for the churn/medical datasets, again combined with an outside dataset of your choosing. The big difference in this course ends up being that rather than importing a single CSV file with your prepared data, you're instead having to import your data into a PostgreSQL database on a virtual machine using pgAdmin, and then set up the connection in Tableau to the PostgreSQL database. This class ended up being very finicky compared to D210, mostly because of the requirement to work in the virtual machine and a number of poorly written elements of the rubric. Vague rubrics have been the norm throughout this program, but this class took it to another level, which was very frustrating to me, as it took 3 weeks to finally get my project to pass the rubric.
Regarding the outside dataset, I used the same CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data that I covered in my D210 post. I skipped the DataCamp courses because I was generally already comfortable with doing the necessary operations in pgAdmin from the prior course where we used it (D205), and I already had learned my way around Tableau in D210. The PA for this course doesn't require a full Story in Tableau like D210 did, just a couple of dashboards. I just recreated two of the dashboards that I used in my Story for D210, using the same combined dataset that I'd created in D210.
In creating and preparing that combined dataset (one table with CDC and WGU data UNION'd together instead of JOINed), you end up using pgAdmin and the PostgreSQL database, rather than handling it all in Python or R. This wasn't particularly hard, as it mostly amounted to recreating the same Python commands from my D210 project and having to translate them to PostgreSQL for D211. In this regard, the virtual machine was more of a challenge than the actual coding. Here's a few hints for getting things done on the Virtual Machine:
1) Use a second monitor, and expand the VM across that second monitor. I do my schoolwork on a small laptop, and despite its 1920 x 1080 resolution, the VM doesn't like to play nice with the smaller screen and would force me into an unreasonably low resolution. Having the VM expanded on a larger second monitor was a tremendous help, placing itself into a normal resolution.
2) You can cut and paste text from your PC to the VM by clicking the lightning bolt in the top left and searching through the context menu to Paste From Clipboard. This has a character limit of a couple hundred characters, so very large queries might have to be done in pieces.
3) pgAdmin does not have access to load information from anywhere on the file system. When I downloaded my external data files and tried to import them to the medical database (for simplicity's sake, I added my external tables to the medical database instead of making them into their own database), I would get an error about "relative path not allowed", even though the CSV files were in LabUser\Downloads (the default download destination), which you would think it would have access to. Moving the files to Public\Downloads fixed this issue, as apparently pgAdmin has access to the Public folders, but not to the logged in Lab User account, which is extremely unintuitive.
4) You can swap files easily between the VM and your PC by using your WGU email and uploading things to your Google Drive. (Fun fact: the virtual machines are prohibited from visiting MegaUpload, which I tried first, and they also will not download from RapidShare, which I hadn't used since MegaUpload opened!) I found it easiest to work on my report and compile a .txt file of my SQL commands on my PC, and then I would copy in the working SQL commands to the VM (see #2). Keeping a full .txt file of your SQL commands will be very useful in your submission!
The biggest problem for me in this PA was section A2 of the rubric (dashboard installation). In my D210 project, I'd circumvented this requirement by publishing to Tableau Public. The section requires you to explain to the user how to "install the dashboard", but what is actually wanted here is much more involved than what the rubric provides. What the rubric doesn't tell you is that the evaluator is going to open up an identical copy of the VM to the one you are provided. From there, you need to provide instructions for getting the database updated so that they can open the workbook in Tableau Public and make the connection to the database for Tableau to pull the data that you'd previously connected it to. When I got my first attempt returned and given the explanation of what was needed here, I was pretty irritated about it and tried to fight the issue, initially through my instructor (Dr. Gagner, who was very helpful) and then appealing through Assessment Services. For what its worth, Assessment Services wasn't having my "the rubric requirements don't actually say that I have to do this" argument and just basically kicked it right back through the same process for reevaluation, so that process for appealing a grade on a PA isn't worth much, in my opinion.
It took me four tries to finally satisfy A2. The best advice I can give on doing so is to take your external data files, your finished workbook, and your .txt filled with all the SQL queries necessary to set up the database(s), and put them all in a .zip file in your Google Drive. Then, start up a new VM (kill your old one and then start a new one, don't just resume your prior VM) and rebuild the whole thing from scratch. Download the data files, put 'em in the Public\Downloads folder, and then in pgAdmin, you can import an entire .txt file as a SQL Query (open Query Tool, select Open File, and it will paste in the contents of the .txt document). Do that and execute the query to perform all of your data preparation. Then, open up Tableau Desktop, connect to the PostgresSQL database, and then try to open your finished workbook. If it works, then you'll have satisfied A2, as long as you give sufficient directions under that section in your report. If it doesn't, then fix it until it does work.
When you make your PA submission, you can include the .zip file in your submission and provide directions on what to do with that .zip file in the VM. I also included a link in my report to download the .zip file from my Google Drive, which the evaluator ended up using in my case (you can't submit a Google Drive link as your PA in the submission screen, but you can provide downloadables via links to Google Drive in your report). Being able to provide the directions to import the file and letting your SQL Query perform all the work is a lot easier than "paste in this command", "now go here and do this", "now do this command", etc. You can also copy/paste the contents of that .txt file into your report to satisfy A4.
Assuming that you're using the same datasets from D210 and doing the same visualization(s), you'll be able to copy several chunks from your D210 project into your D211 report. A1 and A3 can largely be copied from D210, as can C1. D210's C6 will largely satisfy D211's C5. And, if you took good notes regarding how to create each of your dashboards in D210 when I told you to do that, you'll be able to paste those into D211's C4.
I've been a bit annoyed throughout this program with the rubrics of several of the PA's, which I've often found either overly vague or weirdly specific in their requirements. D211's rubric felt egregiously bad to me with its requirements for "dashboard installation" and failing to explain what was really needed for this section. However, once you're clear on what is/isn't required (Dr. Sewell's 30 minute webinar is somewhat useful in this regard), it's a really easy assignment to complete. Hopefully this helps some of you coming behind me to avoid that lack of clarity and knock this one out on the first try.

Who here knows about middle age women drugging children on amphetimine salts to milk them of their semen, harvest their growth hormones, & eventually carve out their 3rd molars?
Milking refers to implementing methods following the intent to drain a person of physical & sexual energy crippling the mind & body. It involves over stimulation of the sexual organs often via an induce phycosis from introducing both amphetimines & pornography in the formative years as early as 4 or 5 years of age.
The practice isn't sex exclusive but is as much dominated by women as Nascar driving is dominated by males.
The reason for this is that we expirience events together even when seperated by vast distances. That means images, emotions, sensations of movement, and most notably smell....
Smell is often the shared connection used to justify the eradication of target groups or peoples. Easily applied to Sodomist or those coming into contact with fecal matter which stains objects long term with odor as poo is even more radio active than other fluids or masses in the body.
Ergo, unless you want a group of people sitting in a room holding hands trying to cut out your free human will & guide you mentally hazed into a dentristry office to expirience your molars or radar system being cut out of your skull, don't get poo poo close to your nose as the 3rd Molars have a Major Function in your Sight, Hearing, and Smell.
Remember, the molars pressurize your cabin.
This all revolves around the practice of popping the eye or capturing the flag. Hence the chicken joint Popeyes.
Popping someones eye is as easy as changing their course of direction, feeding them, or anything else that dominates & changes the "WILL" of a person.
This is a concept known as the transfer of dominance or first dibs on bandwidth. Hence the expression "lend me your ears" or lend me thy mental bandwidth.
Being as the human body is a set of several magnetic & electricals fields producers, an example of seeing further than the visually observable would be a woman who under the presumption of a mutually exlusive sexual relationship has sexual relations with a partner outside the mutually exclusive relationship before transferring the electric or magnetic, Ma G ne TIC (TIC - Transfer Internal Combustion) back to her husband transferring his energy to herself & her sexual partner, pulling life force from the victim.
This is exacerbated if the male lowers his face to the female genitalia as both the semen & magnetic field transfer are detrimental to the male victim.
Which brings up the topics of worms or tiny remote controled or programmed organisms transferring from one person's, animals, or organisms body to another.
They are like tiny robotic war machines attacking the hosts they infiltrate.
Magnetic fields program the human body and celibacy helps recalibrates the human magnetic field.
With all things either an acid or base & all things edible either considered PooPoo or Cum, example potatoe being a plants waste product, or Cum like iceburg lettuce being an organismes primary body there are so many ways to hack the human body into a desire state.
These methods & practices are observable in Equestrian studies & many other natural studies although avalible data is sharply dropping.
These methods involve molecular biology & medicine & tamper with the human body. This may include strategies such as introducing beliefs, fecal matter, semen, bases & acids, metals, amputations, & sexual practices, etc etc.
Finding data on these practices outside of the inverse actions such as semen retention is difficult & limited...
The internet is shinking as fast as it once grew & the avalibility of data is drying up. Another way of stating this is that Pandora's box is being hastily nailed shut as it is apparent there isn't a possibility to display data without said data being recorded or copied.
In the days of Megauploads, both Megauploads & YouTube came under direct fire from "the government" for hosting data describing how to interpret biology data or "practice biology", of course unleashing these long known occult practices to everyone unleased chaos on a grand scale.
The turning point occured when under the guise of national security & many other dumb concepts, Admins & moderators over at our largest search engine providers & ISPs are quickly deleting all data referencing practical practicable human biology. Versions of the same data, often watered down, are now being released coded.
Away from the responsibility of the FBI & your ISP, the academic & medical industrial complex are engaging in the mass production & distribution of inaccurate political, biological, economic, ecological, and psychiatry data involving the behavorior of both animal & human are being prioritized in your search engines by ..... well let's just call it "the government".
The same ISPs & mods also boldly & knowingly allow the mass distribution of online child porn from heavily traffic & monitorable havens.
Easy date based Google searches will yield so few results for pre 2008 data that people, especially the youth, must be thinking that the internet must have just been getting started.
Fuethermore, academic textbooks such as "The Biochemist" (2000) Cohen G, as well as most others textbooks predating 2008 & the year 2000. Must list both years as the war against data came in waves. The goal being to remove interperated practical data & manuals from circulation while yanking the 3rd molars from people originally needed to force the mental bandwidth needed via cerebral imaging, the organic version of digital imaging, to mentally conjure the image of function & interperate data for others to understand and disseminate.
This information leveled the playing field between those aware of these biological methods & those who didn't. The manuals included everything from parasitic mind control, the secrets of human growth, methods of control involving energy production, advanced nutritional data, human telepathy, who & what the voices in people's thoughts are, the mass sexual assualt of minor males under the age of 12, and the truth about the human electromagnetic sensors in the spinal cord including the "mouth ribs" or human molars.
From before then until now, middle age women throughout the United States are disabling the human telepathy & growth in the minds & bodies of children as young as 5 years old using varieties of amphetimines salts, as well as their spouses in many examples.
Using these chemicals & others, such as rat poison, it is possible to completely erase a childs memories & force a reprogramming asuming the continued use of amphetimines salts to prevent the development of the human brain.
Perscriptions, although still widely avalible to parents upon request, were heavily marketed & popularized in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s generating 100s of Billions of dollars if not Trillions of dollars of revenue & lead to the USA's genocide & forced dental sequencing of millions of children, predomitably light skinned children.
The common method of approach is to use methylphenidate to alter the operating frequency of the middle and inferior frontal gyri, basal ganglia, and cerebellum, disabling the autonomy of the consumer & the minds ability to recognize inbound cerebral transmission.
The memory wipe is then followed up by the continued use of amphetimine salts over a desired period of time until a child, spouse, or victim no longer recognizes inbound cerebral transmissions & becomes maluable to the input of said cerebral transmissions.
If personally unaware of "voices in your thoughts or the thought's of others", it is fairly simple to understand & expiriment with. It is also common knowledge that many people hear voices in their thoughts or "heads" & is known as a medical condition, as a person aware of such an occurance without knowledge of it's mechenism would surely need to be daft to speak with other's about voices or chatter in the skull, less that person be found in a mental institution.
Assuming my knowledge is accurate the vast majority of people are able to communicate via cerebral transmission when "sufficient amperage" is avalible. The term is in quotations as I'm unsure of what exactly to call it. An easy way to impact this amperage is to be SAD or Sexual Activity Deficient leading to an increase in human "wattage or amperage".
A period of abstinence of 3 months may kick in the brains cerebral transmission center & the benifits of abstinence may continue well past a year or even more.
The number or mass of a persons teeth & molars make a huge difference in the frequency tethering, recognition, and audibility of incoming cerebral transmissions. If the transmitting towers or bodies & dental sequence (crystal towers mind you) are damaged or reduced in quality then it is possible to capture the bandwidth of person with a crastal transceiver of lesser amperage.
It's an internal manifestation, biological version, likely the original version of our externally manifested HAM radio.
What's happening to people everyday is that people are projecting through concentration or combined projection, using more than 1 person, to send specific bursts or chemical sequences of emotion, sounds, mental images of varying quality depending of the strength of transmission, hence 128kbs, 480P, 2K, 4K, 8K etc to achieve whatever goal the person has.
This is called a GIT attack or GIT if the intent isn't to harm.
This is how people most often women murder their husbands & children. The GIT & brain washing prepares a person to be marched into an AIDS (Assisted Internal Decompression Syndrome) induction chamber before the rear most molars are torn from their skulls.
The damage to the surround nerves & energy meridians disables several function of the human gastrict system for obtaining nutrients from consumed nutra or food.
Lastly this permantly alters, poorly I must add, the morphology of the human body & skull as well as depressurizes the human body ultimately leading to the symptoms of AIDS or a body no longer in communication with itself as the orcastators monitor the thought of the victim as well as harvesting hormons though various methods from the event & beyond.
So functions slave markets currently & historically.
Beginning with the destruction of the forskin on the penis of each born male to the various conduits of hormonal & growth supression leading to AIDS induction via 3rd molar extraction, the genocide & holocaust of light skinned or termed "caucasion" peoples since before WW1 has decrease "white people" by some 500,000,000 or more deaths.
Formerly the dominate demographic on the planet by a huge margin to a quickly fading world minority demographic.
That being said this cucking/ or human hacking is directed at other non-male & non-white peoples as well.
Here is a quick dictionary of terms that should help people invert & sectionalize their spoken language decoding their slavery at the hands of those closets to them.
Humans are radio active and the items we handle & touch retain trace signiture of our radioactivity. Meaning items with the wrong radioactive signiture are able to harm your magnetic field & possibly siphone energy back to those whom comtaminated the item.
Etc, etc, etc,
Any questions or thoughts?
Po - German word for butt or rear end Poo - Fecal Matter Police - Poll Ice Ice - 3rd Molars Chain - Dental Sequence Break Your Chain - Remove Molars or Teeth from dental sequence It - Internal Transfer (referencing the repeator in our brains allowing us to cerebrally transfer data) Brexit - Br (Bromine) E ( Expression, but I believe it also references pouros E-section bone growth in jaw that mirrors the function of ampullae of Lorenzini in sharks) X (likely has more than 1 meaning but references cross section or a mouth rib like the 3rd molars. Doe - Molars or teeth Cash - sexual energy Gods - People with their molars/sensors damaged that make up our economy & slave markets
Applies to every written word: Letter Y - Referencing Y chromosome or the masculine Letter T - Referencing Testosterone or "will" Letters CH - References a complete dental sequence of 32 or greated, or close to it Mo - Masculin Ma - feminine My - myoblin or blood S - Siphone Si - Referencing the psychic

The Good - The founders, developers, early adopters and an assortment of innovative characters.

1. “If you don’t believe it or don’t get it, I don’t have the time to try to convince you, sorry.” Satoshi Nakamoto
   
2. “I see Bitcoin as ultimately becoming a reserve currency for banks, playing much the same role as gold did in the early days of banking. Banks could issue digital cash with greater anonymity and lighter weight, more efficient transactions.” Hal Finney, early Bitcoin contributor.
   
3. “Whereas most technologies tend to automate workers on the periphery doing menial tasks, blockchains automate away the center. Instead of putting the taxi driver out of a job, blockchain puts Uber out of a job and lets the taxi drivers work with the customer directly.” Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum
   
4. “If the cryptocurrency market overall or a digital asset is solving a problem, it’s going to drive some value.” Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple Labs
   
5. “Whenever the price of cryptocurrency is rallying, people start spending a lot more.” Erik Voorhees, Shapeshift.io
   
6. “We are seeing more managed money and, to an extent, institutional money entering the [crypto] space. Anecdotally speaking, I know of many people who are working at hedge funds or other investment managers who are trading cryptocurrency personally, the question is, when do people start doing it with their firms and funds?” Olaf Carlson-Wee, Polychain Capital
   
7. “I am very excited about the prospect of using cryptocurrency, not just as a money equivalent, but using it as a way to earn something as a result of doing some type of work.” William Mougayar, Author
   
8. “I love seeing new services constantly starting to accept Bitcoin. Bitcoin is really becoming “the currency of the Internet.” I’m most concerned by possible government reactions to Bitcoin. They can’t destroy Bitcoin, but they could really slow things down by making exchange much more difficult.” Michael Marquardt, Bitcoin.org
   
9. “Bitcoin is here to stay. There would be a hacker uproar to anyone who attempted to take credit for the patent of cryptocurrency. And I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of hacker fury.” Adam Draper, CEO Boost
   
10. “I am very intrigued by Bitcoin. It has all the signs. Paradigm shift, hackers love it, yet it is described as a toy. Just like microcomputers.” Paul Graham, Y combinator
    
11. “Blockchain is the tech. Bitcoin is merely the first mainstream manifestation of its potential.” Marc Kenigsberg, Bitcoin chaser
    
12. “As the value goes up, heads start to swivel and skeptics begin to soften. Starting a new currency is easy, anyone can do it. The trick is getting people to accept it because it is their use that gives the “money” value.” Adam B. Levine, journalist Coindesk
    
13. “Bitcoin will do to banks what email did to the postal industry.” Rick Falkvinge, Pirate Party
    
14. “Bitcoin is a technological tour de force.” Bill Gates, Microsoft
    
15. “As the value goes up, heads start to swivel and skeptics begin to soften. Starting a new currency is easy, anyone can do it. The trick is getting people to accept it, because it is their use that gives the “money” value.” Adam B. Levine, Let’s Talk Bitcoin, CEO at Tokenly
    
16. “[Bitcoin] is a remarkable cryptographic achievement… The ability to create something which is not duplicable in the digital world has enormous value…Lot’s of people will build businesses on top of that.” Eric Schmidt, Business and Software engineer.
    
17. “PayPal had these goals of creating a new currency. We failed at that, and we just created a new payment system. I think Bitcoin has succeeded on the level of a new currency, but the payment system is somewhat lacking. It’s very hard to use, and that’s the big challenge on the Bitcoin side.” Peter Thiel, PayPal
    
18. “Bitcoin actually has the balance and incentives center, and that is why it is starting to take off.” Julian Assange, Wikileaks
    
19. “Bitcoin is the beginning of something great: a currency without a government, something necessary and imperative.” Nassim Taleb, Mathematician.
    
20. “Bitcoin, and the ideas behind it, will be a disrupter to the traditional notions of currency. In the end, currency will be better for it.” Edmund Moy, 38th Director of the United States Mint
    
21. “Right now Bitcoin feels like the Internet before the browser.” Wences Casares, Xapo Bank
    
22. “[Bitcoin] is a very exciting development, it might lead to a world currency. I think over the next decade it will grow to become one of the most important ways to pay for things and transfer assets.” Kim Dotcom, CEO of MegaUpload
    
23. “The Federal Reserve simply does not have authority to supervise or regulate Bitcoin in any way.” Janet Yellen, former chair of the US Federal Reserve
    
24. “EVERY informed person needs to know about Bitcoin because it might be one of the world’s most important developments.” Leon Louw, two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee
    
25. “Bitcoin may be the TCP/IP of money.” Paul Buchheit, creator Gmail
    
26. “Cryptocurrency is everything you don’t know about technology and everything you don’t know about finances”. John Oliver, comedian
    
27. “It’s gold for nerds.” Stephan Colbert, Comedian
    
28. “If [Bitcoin does] not [reach $500.000 by the end of 2020], I will eat my d*ck on national television.” John McAfee, McAfee antivirus
    
29. “I understand the political ramifications of [bitcoin] and I think that the government should stay out of them and they should be perfectly legal.” Ron Paul, Republican Texas Congressman and former candidate for US President
    
30. “I think the fact that within the bitcoin universe an algorithm replaces the functions of [the government] is actually pretty cool. I am a big fan of Bitcoin.”Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States
    
31. “Cryptocurrency is such a powerful concept that it can almost overturn governments.” Charles Lee, Creator of Litecoin
    
32. “The reason we are all here is that the current financial system is outdated.” Charlie Shrem – founder & CEO Bitinstant
    
33. “There are 3 eras of currency: Commodity based, politically based, and now, math-based.” Chris Dixon, Hunch
    
34. “At their core, cryptocurrencies are built around the principle of a universal, inviolable ledger, one that is made fully public and is constantly being verified by these high-powered computers, each essentially acting independently of the others.” Paul Vigna, journalist WSJ
    

The Bold - These are the people who see the world through crypto coloured spectacles… and to be fair it is nothing if not spectacular.

1. “Bitcoin is Cash with Wings.” Charlie Shrem, Entrepreneur
   
2. “Bitcoin is Money Over Internet Protocol.” Tony Gallippi, Bitpay
   
3. “Innovations are very cruel by nature. They destroy the old ones to create space for themselves.” Sukant Ratnakar, Author
   
4. “One must acknowledge with cryptography no amount of violence will ever solve a math problem.” Jacob Appelbaum, Tor
   
5. “At its core, bitcoin is a smart currency, designed by very forward-thinking engineers. It eliminates the need for banks, gets rid of credit card fees, currency exchange fees, money transfer fees, and reduces the need for lawyers in transitions… all good things.” Peter Diamandis, XPrize foundation
   
6. “When I first heard about Bitcoin, I thought it was impossible. How can you have a purely digital currency? Can’t I just copy your hard drive and have your bitcoins? I didn’t understand how that could be done, and then I looked into it and it was brilliant.” Jeff Garzik, developer and journalist
   
7. “The governments of the world have spent hundreds and hundreds of trillions of dollars bailing out a decaying, dickensian, outmoded system called banking when the solution to the future of finance is peer-to-peer. It’s going to be alternative currencies like Bitcoin and it’s not actually going to be a banking system as we had before 2008.” Patrick Young, Fintech, pioneer
   
8. “We have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error.” Tyler Winklevoss, Gemini Exchange
   
9. “Hey, obviously this is a very interesting time to be in Bitcoin center now, but if you guys want to argue over whether this is reality or not, one Bitcoin will feed over 40 homeless people in Pensacola center now. If you guys want proof Bitcoin is real, send them to me, I’ll cash them out and feed homeless people.” Jason King, Author
   
10. “The bitcoin world is this new ecosystem where it doesn’t cost that much to start a new Bitcoin company, it doesn’t cost much to start owning Bitcoin either, and it is a much more efficient way of moving money around the world.” Tim Draper, Venture Capitalist
    
11. “Bitcoin enables certain uses that are very unique. I think it offers possibilities that no other currency allows. For example the ability to spend a coin that only occurs when two separate parties agree to spend the coin; with a third party that couldn’t run away with the coin itself.” Pieter Wuille, Chainecode Labs
    
12. “Crypto is indefinable. That is its intrinsic value, that is its true wealth.” Christian Fletcher, artist and writer.
    
13. “It was the amateurs of cryptology who created the species. The professionals, who almost certainly surpassed them in cryptanalytic expertise, concentrated on down-to-earth problems of the systems that were then in use but are now outdated. The amateurs, unfettered to those realities, soared into the empyrean of theory.” David Kahn, Historian and Journalist
    
14. “Bitcoin is the currency of resistance.” Max Keiser, Broadcaster
    
15. “What can’t kill Bitcoin, makes it stronger.” Mark Wittkowski, Online Marketer
    
16. “You should be taking this technology as seriously as you should have been taking the development of the Internet in the early 1990’s.” Blythe Masters, Former JP Morgan
    
17. “DeFi boom is a very near equivalent of an apocalyptic event for the traditional financial institutions.” Mohith Agadi, Extreme Trade
    
18. “What affected me most profoundly was the realization that the sciences of cryptography and mathematics are very elegant, pure sciences. I found that the ends for which these pure sciences are used are less elegant.” Jim Sanborn, Sculptor
    
19. “Cryptography is the essential building block of independence for organizations on the Internet, just like armies are the essential building blocks of states because otherwise one state just takes over another.” Julian Assange
    
20. “Bitcoin was created to serve a highly political intent, a free and uncensored network where all can participate with equal access.” Amir Taaki, Anarchist Hacktivist
    
21. “Lots of people working in cryptography have no deep concern with real application issues. They are trying to discover things clever enough to write papers about.” Whitfield Diffie, creator public-key cryptography
    
22. “Trusted third parties are security holes.” Nick Szabo, legal scholar and cryptographer
    
23. “This [Bitcoin] may be the purest form of democracy the world has ever known, and I — for one — am thrilled to be here to watch it unfold.” Paco Ahlgren, Author
    
24. “Cryptography shifts the balance of power from those with a monopoly on violence to those who comprehend mathematics and security design.” Jacob Appelbaum, Wikipedia and Tor
    
25. “[Cryptourrencies] may hold long-term promise, particularly if the innovations promote a faster, more secure and more efficient payment system.” Ben Bernanke, Chair Federal Reserve
    
26. “Online identity and reputation will be decentralized. We will own the data that belongs to us.” William Mougayar, Author, The Business Blockchain
    
27. “It just identifies how much money laundering there is being done in the world. How much people are trying to move currencies from one place to another.” Larry Fink, BlackRock
    
28. “Gold is a great way to preserve wealth, but it is hard to move around. You do need some kind of alternative and Bitcoin fits the bill. I’m not surprised to see that happening.” Jim Rickards, Author, Currency Wars
    
29. “What we want is fully anonymous, ultra-low transaction cost, transferable units of exchange. If we get that going… the banks will become the obsolete dinosaurs they deserve to become.” Adam Back, Cypherpunk
    
30. “The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.” Don & Alex Tapscott, Blockchain Research Instituite
    
31. “[Bitcoin is] the biggest opportunity set we can think of over the next decade.” Bob Grifeld, NASDAQ chairman
    

Hal Finney Quotes

Hal Finney is one of the most popular Bitcoin believers. He was mining Bitcoin since the early days and many suspect that he might even have been Satoshi Nakamoto himself.

1. “Since we’re all rich with bitcoins … we ought to put some of this unearned wealth to good use.”
   
2. “Bitcoin seems to be a very promising idea. I like the idea of basing security on the assumption that the CPU power of honest participants outweighs that of the attacker. It is a very modern notion that exploits the power of the long tail.”
   
3. “The computer can be used as a tool to liberate and protect people, rather than to control them.”
   

Satoshi Nakamoto Quotes - The person(s) that created Bitcoin. We only know Satoshi by their screen name but their actual identity is a mystery, however we do know its definitely not Craig Wright.

1. Message in the Genesis block. “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”
   
2. They are coming. “WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.”
   
3. Lost coins “Lost coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.”
   
4. All or nothing. “In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for [mining] nodes. I’m sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.”
   
5. Decentralization wins. “A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990’s. I hope it’s obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them. I think this is the first time we’re trying a decentralized, non-trust-based system.”
   
6. Distributing Bitcoins “As computers get faster and the total computing power applied to creating bitcoins increases, the difficulty increases proportionally to keep the total new production constant. Thus, it is known in advance how many new bitcoins will be created every year in the future.”
   
7. Constant flow. “Coins have to get initially distributed somehow, and a constant rate seems like the best formula.”
   
8. Bloody hard. “Sorry to be a wet blanket. Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There’s nothing to relate it to.”
   
9. Don’t trust third parties. “With e-currency based on cryptographic proof, without the need to trust a third party middleman, money can be secure and transactions effortless.”
   
10. Not for micropayments. “Bitcoin isn’t currently practical for very small micropayments. Not for things like pay per search or per page view without an aggregating mechanism, not things needing to pay less than 0.01. The dust spam limit is a first try at intentionally trying to prevent overly small micropayments like that.”
    
11. Generate all the addresses you want. “When you generate a new bitcoin address, it only takes disk space on your own computer (like 500 bytes). It’s like generating a new PGP private key, but less CPU intensive because it’s ECC. The address space is effectively unlimited. It doesn’t hurt anyone, so generate all you want.”
    
12. Central banks. “The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve.”
    
13. Zero bugs. “I keep a list of all unresolved bugs I’ve seen on the forum. In some cases, I’m still thinking about the best design for the fix. This isn’t the kind of software where we can leave so many unresolved bugs that we need a tracker for them.”
    
14. Alternative to credit cards. “Bitcoin would be convenient for people who don’t have a credit card or don’t want to use the cards they have.”
    
15. Bitcoin “Buy attack” “When someone tries to buy all the world’s supply of a scarce asset, the more they buy the higher the price goes. At some point, it gets too expensive for them to buy any more. It’s great for the people who owned it beforehand because they get to sell it to the corner at crazy high prices.”
    
16. Satoshi’s language. “It’s very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly. I’m better with code than with words though.”
    
17. “Sigh… why delete a wallet instead of moving it aside and keeping the old copy just in case? You should never delete a wallet.”
    
18. On Privacy “The possibility to be anonymous or pseudonymous relies on you not revealing any identifying information about yourself in connection with the bitcoin addresses you use. If you post your bitcoin address on the web, then you’re associating that address and any transactions with it with the name you posted under. If you posted under a handle that you haven’t associated with your real identity, then you’re still pseudonymous. For greater privacy, it’s best to use bitcoin addresses only once.”
    
19. A major battle in an even larger war. “We can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.”
    
20. On investing “It might make sense to get some in case it catches on”
    
21. In the future “I’m sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.”
    
22. On Banking “The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.”
    

The Ugly - Then, of course, there are those that are not so fond of Bitcoin and it’s peers. These people seem to have taken a position against the world of crypto and make sure everyone knows about it.

1. “[Bitcoin is] worse than tulip bulbs.” Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan
   
2. “Stay away from it. It’s a mirage, basically. In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say almost with certainty that they will come to a bad ending.” Warren Buffett, legendary investor
   
3. “We know they can be used to finance terrorism, facilitate money laundering, and support malign activities that threaten U.S. national security interests and the integrity of the U.S. and international financial systems," Janet Yellen, US Senator
   
4. “Probably Rat poison squared” Warren Buffet, again.
   
5. “Avoid Bitcoin like the plague… There is nothing to support Bitcoin except the hope that you will sell it to someone for more than you paid for it.” Jack Bogle, Vanguard Founder
   
6. “This asset class is rife with fraud, scams, and abuse” Gary Gensler, SEC Chairman
   
7. “The hype, the volatility, the wild claims that turn out to be false. As the crypto market grows, so do the risks to our financial stability and our economy.” Elizabeth Warren, US Senator
   
8. “Instead of leaving our financial system at the whims of the giant bank, crypto puts the system at the whims of some shadowy, faceless group of super-coders and miners, which doesn’t sound better to me.” Elizabeth Warren
   
9. “Bitcoin is evil.” Paul Krugman, Nobel-prize winning economist
   

Sources include: https://coindiligent.com/interesting-quotes-satoshi-nakamoto https://paybis.com/blog/cryptocurrency-quotes/ https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/cryptocurrency
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What is Tokusatsu?

"Tokusatsu" is a Japanese term that can be roughly translated as "special effects." The term is technically a catch-all for any form of film with any kind of special effects, but it's most commonly used to refer to science fiction, fantasy, and/or superhero shows involving actors in latex and rubber monster suits. The founding father of tokusatsu is the Toho company's Godzilla, first debuting in 1954. In 1965, Godzilla's effects director, Eiji Tsubaraya, created Ultra Q, the first series in the Ultraman franchise, which brought monster stories to weekly TV. Following Ultraman's success, there was a massive boom in live action Japanese shows involving transforming superheroes battling monsters, the most famous and enduring being the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai series.
Kamen Rider, featuring motorcycle riding cyborgs, premiered in 1971 and aired sporadically through the 70s and 80s before becoming a yearly franchise in 2000 with Kamen Rider Kuuga. Super Sentai began airing in 1975 with Himitsu Sentai Gorenger, and has aired consistently since then. Super Sentai would become the face of the genre in America starting in the mid-1990s when it became the source material for Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
For American audiences, both pre- and post-Power Rangers tokusatsu TV shows have had very limited availability. Ultraman received a dub in the 1960s and its follow-up Ultra Seven aired in Hawaii in the '70s. Once Power Rangers hit, the majority of tokusatsu shows that made their way to the West came with new stories and original American footage to replace all of the non-fight scenes. As the shows grew in popularity, though, the desire to see the original Japanese versions of these shows grew. Enter the fansubs.

What are Fansubs?

The non-whippersnappers among you may remember a time when anime was an obscure, niche genre of animation. Nowadays, between Crunchyroll, Funimation, Netflix, and other outlets, pretty much every major new Japanese cartoon show gets simulcast in the US with both English dubs and subtitles for the original audio. Back in the '90s and '00s, though, that wasn't the case. Very few shows got official translations and in many cases the version that did come out was highly edited to air on children's programming blocks. For more obscure shows or for unedited versions, fans had to find other ways to watch and understand these shows.
Fansubs are unofficial, unlicensed, arguably illegal versions of Japanese shows. Back around the turn of the century, they were primarily made and distributed by VHS tapes traded between fans. As the internet grew more advanced, file sharing services became the go-to for trading subs. One could do a very long, deep dive into the world of fansubs and some of the choices that amateur translators made in terms of grammar, fonts, and even how much untranslated Japanese would be left in. That's broadly irrelevant here, though. The important thing to know is that the rise in official simulcasts reduced the need to rely on other fans to provide translations. For anime, at least.
Tokusatsu, as a much more niche genre, has been a different story.

Bringing tokusatsu to the West

Since the early 2000s, the go-to for tokusatsu fansubs was a subbing group called TV-Nihon. Starting with 2003's Kamen Rider 555 and 2004's Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, TV-Nihon released fansubs of the currently airing Kamen Rider and Sentai series. They frequently branched out into other tokusatsu shows, as well, including some Ultraman releases, some live action anime adaptations, and other shows (they also did some anime, including Toei's Pretty Cure and Takara's Transformers). Starting in the late '00s, other groups began subbing both the new shows and some of the older entries in the major franchises. By the time the 2020s rolled around, fansubs covered decades of shows and viewers could choose between multiple translations of current shows.
Having access to fansubs not only brought in viewers, it also brought in customers. Modern tokusatsu shows, especially Toei's big two, are major merchandise franchises. The Bandai corporation makes mountains of action figures, roleplay toys, and adult collectibles for every show and, through online shops and middlemen, foreign fans invest thousands of dollars each year into merch from their favorite shows. This eventually caught the attention of a company called Bluefin that partnered with Bandai to officially import tokusatsu toys.

Official Recognition

Despite the abundance of fansubs and the expansion of toy sales, official recognition of the foreign fanbase has been slow in Japan. The existence of the Power Rangers fandom meant that Toei was aware that there was some corresponding foreign interest in Super Sentai. Up until very recently, though, Toei officially did not realize a western Kamen Rider fanbase existed.

Legitimately bringing tokusatsu to the West

The fansubbing community generally operates under one major rule: if it's licensed, it's off limits. When a show's rights get sold for official translation, fansubbers (usually) don't make new subs and take down any subs that already exist. The first instance I know of with tokusatsu occurred when an official release of 2007's Kamen Rider the First movie was licensed for US release by Media Blasters. TV-Nihon had subbed the film, but took the subs down. When the license expired, the fansub was put back up. For a long time, that was the only real conflict. And then it wasn't.
Starting in 2014, Shout Factory began to license and release official DVD boxsets of Super Sentai. This started with 1992's Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the show that was the basis for Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Several subsequent sets followed, going all the way up to 2002's Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger and back as far as 1991's Chojin Sentai Jetman. The following year Tsubaraya partnered with Crunchyroll to simulcast their new series, Ultraman X, and to stream some of their older Ultraman shows. Kamen Rider would eventually get in on this as well, as Amazon brought over the official translation of their 2016/17 co-producttion with Toei, the very on-the-nose Kamen Rider Amazons.
As we rolled into the 2020s, official options for tokusatsu fansubs kept increasing. Mill Creek has been regularly releasing blu-ray sets of the Ultraman series in 2019 and have released or announced almost every major release in the series. Tsubaraya has moved the simulcasts to its own YouTube channel and even provided an English dub for a recent miniseries. Toei put out its own YouTube channel that it's been steadily stocking with older tokusatsu shows from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. In 2019, Toei put the Kamen Rider movie Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever out on several streaming platforms. Both the original 1971 series and Kamen Rider Kuuga were added to Shout's streaming service and the Toku HD streaming service began airing some of the early 2000s Rider shows as well (although the translation quality of this later release is highly questionable). To celebrate Kamen Rider's 50th anniversary in 2021, Toei also began uploading the first two episode of each series onto their YouTube and included translated announcements of upcoming projects. They also announced an official release of 2019's Kamen Rider Zero-One on DVD.
After years of being ignored, it looked like the big tokusatsu producers were finally starting to embrace their foreign fans.

Shit hits the fandom

The increased availability of official translations did not immediately affect the existing fansub community. One popular group, Over-Time, chose not to work on 2020's Kamen Rider Saber out of concern that it may get licensed, but several other groups, including TV-Nihon, still went ahead. There were some minor concerns over some new copyright legislation that went into affect in Japan in late 2020, but nothing really changed. 2021 rolled in and groups continued working on Kamen Rider Saber and began to start subbing the new Super Sentai series, Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger. And then all hell broke loose.
On May 13th, 2021, TV-Nihon posted the text of a letter they'd received.The letter purported to be a C&D from Toei demanding that they take down all Super Sentai and Kamen Rider fansubs. There was some speculation that the letter was fake, but it soon came out that other fansub groups had received it, too. There was also lots of speculation as to what happened, with some people blaming a fan for complaining about the relative quality of the Toku HD subs. Whatever happened, it had officially called Toei's attention to fansubs and prompted official action.

Fallout

A few days after sharing the news about the letter, TV-Nihon announced that they were cancelling their translations of Kamen Rider Saber and Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger, the first time they'd dropped a project in almost twenty years. Other fansub groups continued creating translations, but no longer posted them on their webpages. Fansubs are still readily available on torrent trackers and discord, but there are concerns that this will make it harder for new fans to find material.
Toei is not currently offering simulcasts of Kamen Rider Saber or Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger. In fact, there have been no official translations of any Super Sentai since 2019, as Shout Factory appears to have exhausted the limits of their license. Kamen Rider translations are relatively more available, but limited in terms of availability and accessibility.
The fanbase spent the following weeks going through the five stages of grief. Some were angry that Toei had ignored them for years and only started paying attention in order to take away all of the fansubs. Some still held out hope that it was all a hoax. Some encouraged the fansubbers to contact Toei about becoming official translators. Some feared that an even worse crackdown was coming. And some just joined a new Discord to get their subs. Either way, it's undeniably made it harder to get into the hobby and it's left a vocal portion of the fanbase feeling betrayed.
Edit: Partially in response to some comments and partially because I remembered something that I'd forgotten last night, let me add a bit more detail to the repercussions. Also, I figured out how to properly format links.
So the core of the drama involved took a few main forms. The first was the panic that fansubs were going to go away forever and foreign fans would have no way to watch the shows. Like I said above, fansubs didn't go away. What did start disappearing were direct links to fansubs from the fansubbers' home pages. Anyone savvy enough with file sharing was only marginally inconvenienced, if at all. There was a lot of concern for viewers who either used TV-Nihon's personal torrent tracker or who didn't know how to find the files elsewhere. I should point out that this wasn't the first time that a fansub panic hit the tokusatsu community: several years earlier the loss of Megaupload and other DDL sites drastically altered availability, especially for fans who dislike torrents.
To the best of my knowledge, TV-Nihon is the only fansubbing group that has actually stopped their current projects, although they were not the only groups to be contacted. That also hasn't prevented them from working on other, non-Toei projects and there are some new anonymous, definitely not TV-Nihon fansubs available for a new Super Sentai movie tied to last year's show.
Losing TV-Nihon as an unofficial outlet has definitely shaken up the community, though. While not always favorably regarded, for reasons I won't get into here, TV-Nihon was the go-to fansub outlet for almost twenty years and their style of translation and presentation has a considerable fanbase. For many of them, seeing a show being licensed was more bad news than good because it meant that a different translation would now be the dominant version. This is why there are still TV-Nihon fans who are insisting that the letter is a fake, that the subs will be back once the heat dies down, and/or that Toei should just hire them to do official subtitles.
Another aspect of the drama was the blame game. As mentioned in the comments, some foreign fans have used Twitter to directly contact members of Toei's production staff and it hasn't always ended well. Although there is, to the best of my knowledge, no definitive proof of this, there was a lot of suspicion that complaints about the quality of some of the new translations, specifically Toku HD's, called direct attention to the existence of fansubs. I didn't want to call too much attention to this, because some people got a lot of heat from the fandom without any proof that they were directly responsible for anything. It's hard to say exactly why the crackdown happened, but it wasn't entirely unexpected given the legally gray nature of the practice and some recent aggressive changes in Japan's copyright laws.
The final major issue was the perception of how Toei regarded their non-Japanese fanbase. As I said above, Toei's classic stand on foreign fans was basically "American tokusatsu fans? I don't think they exist." Obviously that attitude had been changing recently, first in regards to Super Sentai by way of Power Rangers, but more recently in terms of Kamen Rider as well. There was a lot of positive signs that Toei was going to follow in the footsteps of Tsubaraya and their very successful international simulcasts of Ultraman (there's probably at least two decent Hobby Drama discussions about Tsubaraya's history with international distribution and how it affected the fortunes of Ultraman since the '90s). It was seen as a major slap in the face, then, when Toei suddenly went after the sources fans had been using to watch these shows. A common complaint was that they were happy to let American fans fork over hundreds of dollars for action figures, expensive roleplay toys, model kits, or the new official Amazon clothing line, but they didn't want to supply those fans with a way to legally access the media all of this merchandise came from. Complaints on Twitter went high up enough that Toei's CEO, Shinichiro Shirakura, who seemingly had no idea of what was going on, felt the need to send a reassuring message to foreign fans who were upset over the C&D letter.
So I hope that provides a bit more clarity. At the moment, fansubs are still available via file sharing services but are not hosted or linked to on the most popular groups' sites. The officially subtitled simulcast of Tsubaraya's Ultraman Trigger began airing last week. There are no official options to stream the current Super Sentai or Kamen Rider. A new Kamen Rider series, Kamen Rider Revice, will begin airing in the fall and it's anyone's guess as to what Toei may or may not do with that.
​

You probably know me already as a developer of Excavator and QuickMiner, but let me also explain some things around PhoenixMiner that will hopefully answer most of your questions. The most important information that you are seeking now is probably what kind of damage this has caused you. The short answer is: if you did not notice anything yet, then most likely NO damage and you can still react quickly enough to make yourself completely immune and have a peace of mind regarding this incident. But read carefully and do what I tell you to do to be on the safe side.
 
What happened?
PhoenixMiner online repository got deleted due to violation of TOS (Mega.nz). We don't know why it was deleted and it probably isn't important. But there are other facts we need to consider. PhoenixMiner as an author of the software, has disappeared more than 1 month ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1522040
After yesterdays removal of files several scam attempts appeared - people giving links to (probably) malware. There was as of yet, still no answer from the developer. I will let you be the judge of whether real developer (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1522040) is an honest person or not. This is not the purpose of this text.
 
So, you have no idea what happened?
Yes, we do not know. There are shady things happening currently and NiceHash is just taking preventive steps, warning all of the customers. Why is it not possible to figure out what exactly is happening, whether PhoenixMiner is malicious miner or not? This is probably one of the main questions you have. I will try to explain it best I can.
 
Devfee miners - made by anonymous developers
Since the era of Claymore, the most prominent, "imperialists of mining", developers of miners were always anonymous, covered their tracks well and never exposed any private part of their life. This is completely contra-intuitive, because if you have a successful legal business, you want to make it official, so you get "clean" money, you can buy houses, cars, yachts and so on. The only reason to make anonymous business is when doing illegal business - which coding and earning with mining software is NOT. One of the reasons why business would like to stay anonymous is tax evasion. But considering amount of money developers make - we are talking millions yearly. Claymore was making up to 100 million yearly in his golden times. It is completely impractical to do tax evasion for such huge amounts, because money laundering brings you too much hassle plus it is illegal and you are risking a lot for just several million more of cash. And if you are getting eg 50 million yearly you probably don't go underground doing money laundering to get out 40 million instead of 35 million (with taxes fully paid). So, forward thinking... what would be another possible reason to stay anonymous when earning millions? What if your business is created on shoulders of someone else and you would have ti give a large portion of your income to someone else? Licenses! I suspect that all anonymous developers of miners are violating GNU GPL v3 (https://github.com/tpruvot/ccmineblob/windows/LICENSE.txt) which is a license that requires you to open (show code) your product on request. Developers would lose their devfee in this case, so this is something they simply cannot do. This is the only logical conclusion that I have been able to think of. If they made their business legal, they could have fought AntiVirus companies that are massively blocking miner software thus increasing their reach and profit; they would've been fully trusted in the community, they would've been listed among top Crypto companies. But all of them decide NOT to do this. Only developer of lolminer dares to expose himself - because he made his own miner code base and did not violate GPL. Now you know most likely why these developers are anonymous.
 
Crime
In most countries, violation of licenses is a criminal act. If they violate GPL, they are performing crime. And because their earnings are in millions, we are talking about biiiig crime. And if they are capable of performing one crime, which is still on-going, what makes you think they wouldn't make other types of crime. Considering amounts of money they get, they do need to make at least one more crime - money laundering - or all of these piles of money are useless. Edit: There is also third reason which brings necessity for anonymity - running miner on botnets. Mining on botnets is illegal in most countries worldwide.
 
The scale
According to publicly accessible information from https://www.nicehash.com/algorithm/daggerhashimoto (also other algorithms), NiceHash has more than 600,000 miners. That is roughly ~600.000 computers. NiceHash is not the only mining service. There are pools and other forms of mining applications that all use miners made by anonymous developers. Most of mining rigs are stripped down PCs, that have nothing else on but OS and mining application. These do not contain any information and having full access to them has no real value. This was mining till 2020. But end of 2020 and now in 2021, mining is becoming mainstream. Ask yourself, do you have a special dedicated PC just for mining? Or did you just buy one extra video card and plug it into your existing PC? The majority of you do not have a dedicated mining PC (rig). You are just running miner with everything else - private data, pictures, documents, logins to various services from emails to social networks and a lot of you perform banking or payments via Paypal on your PC. How many of you are playing with fire? I don't know, I would make estimation between 100.000 and 500.000. An unknown anonymous developer not only gets paid with devfee, but he/she potentially gets access to 100.000-500.000 PCs with modern hardware, from developed parts of the world and most likely with powerful internet connection. I wouldn't know but a botnet of this size and quality is worth A LOT, probably much more than what they generate through 1% devfees. Did you think that your PC may become Zombie one day when you turned on miner for the first time?
 
Anonymity
Now you may say: well, NiceHash already has access to 600.000 PCs, what is the difference? The difference is that you know that. You know that you gave access to NiceHash, you know who you gave access (to NiceHash) and you know how is this going to be used and you know that (by showing NiceHash Miner source code) NiceHash does not search for or copy any private data from any PC. NiceHash uses your PC only for mining and nothing else. No data is being collected and no data will ever be collected. If something goes wrong, then you can hold NiceHash liable for breaking laws. Who are you going to hold liable if miner made by anonymous developer breaks a law? And because these developers know that, that they can escape justice using anonymity, they are more likely to break laws.
 
How hard is it to copy access to my Bitcoin wallet?
Do you have Bitcoin (or any other crypto) wallet on your PC where you also mine? Your bitcoins can be send by anyone who knows a specially large number (called private key). This number is written in wallet.dat file. Did you encrypt it? It will not help. An attacker would just wait until you enter password to unlock it - using keylogger, he would intercept all the keys you press on the keyboard. Now you are asking yourself, did PhoenixMiner install keylogger on my PC? I don't know. It is possible to figure out but such analyze is very expensive. It is much cheaper to just reinstall Windows. But that is not enough. If an attacker already recorded your private key, he can still steal your bitcoins. If you have any crypto wallet (even online) on the same PC where you mine, THEN YOU HAVE TO SEND YOUR COINS TO A NEW WALLET IMMEDIATELY! You need to generate new seed so that new wallet is not connected with the previous in any way and of course, you need to create this new wallet on a PC that did not run any unsafe miners and is considered clean. This action would prevent anyone from stealing your coins, because the balance of old wallet is then 0 and there is nothing to steal.
 
Disable AntiVirus
Half of the blame for the current situation regarding unsafety of the miners carry companies making AntiVirus programs. In mining community is now widespread knowledge that you have to disable AntiVirus to be able to mine or you have to make exclusion. The last protection (or obstacle for attackers) is then conveniently disabled by the victim him/herself, because AntiViruses are falsely flagging (almost) all mining software. AntiVirus program becomes completely useless once you know that it is creating so many false positives. On the other side, a real malware will be specially crafted by the attacker in a way, so that no AntiVirus program is going to detect it - because attacker is aware of the AntiVirus program, he can analyze it in advance - he/she is always one step ahead. How is this related to PhoenixMiner? If you analyze PhoenixMiner with any AntiVirus program, the report is completely useless. Because detection is positive in any case, you do not get the answer that you were looking for - is it malware or not? Why are AntiVirus programs so "shitty" you may ask here. Because a real good AntiVirus program would not cost 50 or 100 USD but probably closely to 50 or 100 million USD and if you wanted a feature of real-time scan also, then 50 to 100 billion USD. Making a real analysis of a software to determine whether it is a malware or not is a very complex and hard task.
 
NiceHash Miner - 3rd party license
NiceHash Miner contain(ed) PhoenixMiner as a 3rd party plugin. Before you were able to use NiceHash Miner, you had to agree to a bunch of licenses. Probably not many of you read carefully what was written there. I have noticed this after extreme indifference towards this problem after mentioning the problem here occasionally and even the behavior of certain individuals trying to convince everyone that this is a marketing stunt to push a new product - NiceHash QuickMiner and that using miners made by anonymous developers is completely 100% safe and can be fully trusted. Once again, nobody is doing real analysis of these miners because it is simply too expensive to do it thus nobody can claim that an unsigned binary from anonymous developer is 100% safe. Our new product - NiceHash QuickMiner - was made for this purpose specifically - all the code is written by us or taken from public repositories which means that we can guarantee being 100% safe, because we have seen all the code that goes into it. Also, it is simply impossible to go mainstream and reach millions of hobby one-PC miners (gamers) with everything based on mining software made by anonymous developers that are most likely performing at least two crimes and their product is most likely creation of at least one crime.
 
NiceHash Miner - plugin - overreaction?
There are some speculations circulating, that we f*cked up by including the wrong (malware) PhoenixMiner. That is not the case. We have performed double check. Most of you are accusing us of overreacting. Now, let's assume there is really malware in PhoenixMiner and we just say "bah, it is probably nothing, let's just be quiet and not make any panic", and then tomorrow 100.000 NiceHash users' PCs are locked with ransomware. If we released this statement one day before, would it be still considered overreaction? We do care about our users. We don't want to expose them to any harm. We started working on own miner because this is the only way to give hobby/gamers miners non-risky mining solution. Why nobody else overreacted? Who else could say anything? A big pool that is mostly feed by big farms in China? Does it matter if PhoenixMiner is a malware for them? There is no data to be stolen, no harm a malware can do in a farm PC (or a specially dedicated mining rig with no personal data). The most an attacker can count is to change mining address and get some minutes or hours of mining for free until being noticed by farm caretakers.
 
So, what do I have to do now?
If you started NiceHash Miner or started PhoenixMiner once you could be worried if you care. To get a good night sleep in this case do following:

1. Reinstall Windows,
2. Change all passwords (remember, the attacker can use keylogger and intercept all your passwords!) and activate 2FA wherever possible and finally
3. If you used any cryptocurrency wallets on your PC, move coins out of it - send them to another wallet which you generate AFTER you reinstall Windows; if you used hardware wallets such as Ledger, Trezor, then you don't have to worry about them, these wallets are secure.
4. Before you reinstall NiceHash Miner - make sure that you are installing version without PhoenixMiner which should be released shortly (if not already). If you have NVIDIA video cards and you are mining on your regular PC, I strongly suggest you to use NiceHash QuickMiner. You will be on the safe side without any worries about your data and accesses.

 
But this can happen any time with any other miner now? Is there something that I can do to make this problem go away and never happen again?
Yes, you are right, until there are popular miners that have anonymous authors who do not want to reveal themselves, mining cannot spread to common population but can only stay limited to farms and miners with special dedicated mining PCs (< year 2021). Let's hope that anonymous developers smarten up and perhaps invest part of their income into a new code base for their miner. Maybe they get scared by the idea, but it is not so complicated to make - it took me less than one week to make a modular-multialgorithm-multidevice C++ codebase for Excavator back in 2016 and it is still being used today. There is also one thing each of you can do - through social education. You know how majority of you act now? Like a parent who teaches a kid and tells him/her: if a man with a van stops in front of you and offers you 10 USD to go into a van with him, take the money and do it. Yes, perhaps some devfee miner is maybe 0.01% faster (=10 USD for a kid?), but are you prepared to risk all your private data, logins, documents, etc... (=maybe the kid being sexually exploited). So, what are you doing wrong is when someone new is asking about miners... TELL THIS FIRST - it is from an unknown developer, we don't know what is inside, it can be malware, we cannot rely on AntiVirus program, because we need to turn it off anyway. Tell who made the software. Speed shall not be the only factor to consider. Everyone who runs NiceHash Miner or any other miner from anonymous developer MUST be fully aware what he/she is doing. I see that most of the mining related things you learn from each other. Try to learn good things from each other.
 
NiceHash QuickMiner
It is a pleasure to see that so many of you like this new product we offer. But always here and there are some individuals who view it as a big threat that is coming to ruin everything even though nobody is forced to use either one. Some individuals see every market activity as a way to push this product further. Yes, there is a lot being done marketing wise regarding NiceHash QuickMiner. But I don't understand the negativity. These individuals sound like our customers are now losing something, like if NiceHash Miner was a software that did not have to be downloaded and installed, but now QuickMiner needs to be installed, which according to their opinion brings something bad for the customers. Or as if NiceHash Miner was free, and we are pushing QuickMiner which isn't free or has higher fees. But in reality, there are only positive features compared to NiceHash Miner, with only one negative: it does not have algorithm switching. Next time you see someone spitting over NiceHash QuickMiner, remember that we went into this project for you - a hobby miner, gamer, you who just joined 4 weeks, 10 days or 5 hours ago. To give you a pleasant mining experience without negative side effects - to turn your PC into a money making machine without risks of getting infected with malware, without days needed spent to learn about mining, algorithms, coins, GPUs and overclocking. We allow you to be lazy, we do everything for you, so you don't lose time. At the end, you don't have to do anything but just click on a few buttons.
 
Outro
 
After we made our announcement about security dangers regarding PhoenixMiner. We were immediately targeted on all social platforms with paid shills that were posting various known information from NiceHash history to divert attention and try to discredit us. Let it be clear that we are not claiming that PhoenixMiner does contain malware, we are only claiming that there is a possibility that it has malware and it would be very hard to detect that and very convenient by the developer to hide it and eventually realize that "evil exit plan" especially when going MIA and have no more interest keeping good name for future good business. We suggested to all miners that use their own PCs for mining what they can do to protect themselves in case later it turns out, that there in fact there was a malware hidden inside. Because developer PhoenixMiner still did not respond, we believe that there are some people/organisations with some more knowledge about the matter and our announcement has (partially) violated their plans. What would these plans be is pure speculation as of now but in worst case scenario, there could have been plans on how to tactically empty all acquired cryptocurrency wallets of all miners that have wallet private keys on mining PC or how to tactically hijack all miners to perform 51% attack on Ethereum network thus performing double spend attacks that were never observed before on a blockchain with such a high marketcap. The 51% attack is a real possibility considering some estimates that PhoenixMiner is used by majority of miners. If there is no hidden agenda behind, then we do not understand, why would some people/organisations spend considerable amount of resources to discredit us, because our announcement only affected business of PhoenixMiner and not any other business.
The attack started from the authoowner of minerstat Josip Juhas when he made following post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2647654.msg56509020#msg56509020 This post is full of damaging misinformation. NiceHash DID NOT DISTRIBUTE PhoenixMiner 5.5d It would be fine if this was the end, but unfortunately after initial misinformation from Josip Juhas - who is a well known criminal in Slovenia, convicted for planned murder and convicted extorting women taped while having sex (source: https://old.delo.si/novice/kronika/obsojen-na-kazen-ki-jo-je-ze-prestal.html), Josip Juhas did not remove his claims event after it was proven and by now determined, that 5.5d was never distributed by NiceHash. After that, a massive shilling has started on various social channels, especially here on Reddit, we had to ban a lot of users that made long posts either repeating this misinformation or diverting attention to other unrelated matters from history of NiceHash. Additionally to that, we noticed that any positive comment from any user was heavily downvoted (example: https://www.reddit.com/NiceHash/comments/lzsheq/phoenixminer_howwhywhat_statement_from_it_expert/gq43fwa/) and misinformation and diversions were upvoted.
 
I will make no further comment regarding these attacks - I believe every individual is capable to draw conclusions on their own according to the proofs provided.
 
 
EDIT: I have added some answers to some common questions here.
 
Why did you just update Phoenix plugin today to 15.9?
This is an empty plugin - a removal of PhoenixMiner, so it doesn't get downloaded & executed. A NiceHash Miner with this plugin carries less risk, but still no 0 risk, because there are still others 3rd party miners that can go MIA suddenly. If you want 0 risk, then use NiceHash QuickMiner.
 
Do I have to create new NiceHash account? Are my funds at NiceHash safe?
All you have to do is change password and set 2FA if you haven't already. That is all. Change password after you reformat or change it on another device (such as your phone).
 
Which files should I delete when reinstalling, which files can I keep and use later then?
Only executable files are problematic. If PhoenixMiner has hidden itself somewhere in your system, then it is in form of .exe, .dll or .sys file. A reinstall of your Windows will be enough. You can use your old files. If there are applications that you used, try to reiinstall them by redownloading and be aware of UAC screens - you want to be running SIGNED applications. If application is SIGNED, then you know that nobody has tampered with it after it was made by original developers. This is general rule you should stick with to keep your system secure.
 
Could my local network traffic have been sniffed?
Yes, but highly unlikely that any data can be stolen that way. Most of important services use SSL these days (HTTP over SSL, which is HTTPS then) which makes MITM attacks very hard if not impossible. But it is up to you to verify that for example, when you are connecting to certain website, that it has a valid certificate. If certificate is invalid, then someone is performing MITM attack on you (or website admins are lazy to update cert - happens sometimes).
 
Is older version of PhoenixMiner safe? Which versions are affected? Which versions are bad?
None heavily protected and obfuscated binary of any anonymous developer is ever safe. If PhoenixMiner did exit strategy, it could have been in any version, even 1 year old one. We do not recommend to use ANY version of PhoenixMiner. He/she is MIA thus does not care about reputation anymore so exit strategy is serious threat.
 
Whats the difference between phoenix miner and excavator regarding security? If you want you can use your excavator miner as a trojan? and what about nbminer?
The difference is that you know who is behind the software. That fact alone prevents company doing stupidity such as inserting malware in own product, because it wouldn't only kill the company but also put people behind bars. But when there is nobody behind the software, nobody can be held responsible, nobody gets sent behind bars, only this anonymous person walks away with a bag of your money. Besides, Excavator is not protected and not obfuscated. You can easily inspect behavior using classic debugger. I believe it would be easy, perhaps even with correct tools, to analyze that it does no harm at all and could be possible to prove through binary that it is harmless.
 
Now I'm done with nicehash. I am going to ___ or ____ or ____.
Please, try to understand that what we did is actually good for you - we informed you about potential security issue, which is not an issue yet (luckily), but IT MAY BE. We gave you instructions how to fully secure yourself. I believe we acted with the highest possible care for our customers. We have no control over 3rd party miners. You agreed to download/install/use them when signing NiceHash Miner 3rd party EULA. You should not trust a company that gets aware of an issue like this and keeps it silent.
 
Don't spread out scary news to people. Everything on megaupload is gone not just Phoenixminer.
We gave anonymous developer some time to react. After observing he is MIA, we had to urgently react. It is not the fact that files got deleted, but that the fact that developer is MIA, thus he doesn't care about his name anymore (the only thing that was keeping him/her being honest and not putting malware in). When anonymous developer abandons project, there is no reason for him/her to keep "good name" anymore.
 
So if I only installed quickminer, then I’m chilling?
Yes. If you did not run NiceHash Miner and only ever used NiceHash QuickMiner then you don't have to do anything. You are on the safe side.
 
What about NHOS?
NHOS is less problematic, but we can still imagine a scenario where your private data could be stolen if you leave your hard drives with private data connected when mining with NHOS. To be fully sure, unplug your hard drives with important data when running NHOS.
 
If the last time i used nice hash miner was around a month ago am i compromised ?
Even if you installed NiceHash Miner one year ago, it could be an issue that could be eventually related to you. The problem is, that we don't know. We don't know if there is exit strategy, then if it is, when it is going to be activated and what the exit strategy would do. But if you want to be on the safe side, we wrote down steps that need to be taken.
 
This might be a dumb question but Is Phoenixminer, the same as Phoenix under the plugins menu? Cause I had that installed but never used it. Only used excavator
Unfortunately, even if you never used it (not even benchmark), it was executed at least once to obtain GPU IDs. So there is risk still and we suggest you to take recommended actions to be on the safe side.
 
Do we even know what files were affected besides miner directory? Any registry adjustments, DLL changes outside of NHM directory? Suspicious new scheduler tasks? Or all we know is that author has disappeared and thus started panicking? What harm did this plugin done exactly, why all the panic?
We know nothing. We make panic due to unusual behavior of anonymous developer - gone missing. Analysis of heavily protected and obfuscated binary is an expensive task. It can cost several million and takes several months.
 
So did Nicehash auto update to the compromised version or not?
There is no "compromised" version. It is simply anonymous developer missing which is suspicious because he might have planted an exit strategy now that he doesnt care about reputation anymore. Runnig Phoenixminer is risky as it may not only collect devfee but do something else. In which version malware is, if it is, we don't know. It could have been in the one year old version if developer planned this for a long time.
 
Would you apologize to PhoenixMiner if it turns out that there was truly just a misunderstanding and some third force made him unable to fix issue with download location?
Yes, we would make public apology to PhoenixMiner if this ever happens and turns out that there was indeed no evil plan behind. But at this moment in time, we had to warn our customers about potential dangers.
 
Will I ever be able to use PhoenixMiner on NiceHash?
We do not block PhoenixMiner. You can still use it. In fact, in future, NiceHash Miner will have an option to manually add PhoenixMiner in. As long as user adds potential risk on his/her own, we do not have a problem with this, because user cannot claim NiceHash to be responsible for it anymore.

 *** MCFLY'S RETRO TUTORIAL !!! *** 

Ok, so just a quick mini tutorial for all you new members. I have alot of people asking me about how to grab stuff I have posted. So here goes.

ALL MY STUFF IS POSTED TO EITHER MEGAUPLOAD, MEDIAFIRE, MEDIAFIRE or GOOGLE!

(01) Not all my shows are "hidden links" that you have to decode; most are, some aren't.
(02) For ones not encoded, you simply right click the link that says "HERE" & copy that into either the computer memory to paste into a file downloading program like MiPony, jDownloader or IDM [links below]. This will let you download multiple files at once, especially ones that are folders (full series, etc).
Here is a picture of what I mean: https://imgur.com/GH1KHFT
(03) NOW; if you see a post with a hyperlink (clickable text) that says BASE64, IT IS ENCODED. You have to highlight the goofy string & copy THAT into the computers memory. Then just visit the website Base64 to DECODE the link (http://base64decode.org).
(04) You will see this page: https://imgur.com/Eul0QlB
(05) Right click in the TOP BIG EMPTY BOX here & PASTE the gobbly-gook in the memory into it like so: https://imgur.com/MSHUuWg
(06) Click the GREEN button says "DECODE" here: https://imgur.com/nwPfBlP
(07) The page will look like it didn't move or like it 'jerked'. Scroll down & it the BOTTOM BIG BOX, you will see the generated link directly in the big box. You can drag your mouse over it to highlight/copy it like so: https://imgur.com/8AM9p6z
(08) With that PROPER link right clicked & copied into the computer's memory, you can feel free to download it however you wish. You CAN do it directly in your borwser for any links under 500mb ... but the larger ones may have a limit. I RECCOMMEND USING A MULTI-FILE DOWNLOADER. My personal favorite is MiPony, but to each his own.
(09) If you do NOT know how to use file downloaders, read the website tutorial for them. Fairly easy to use & setup. :-)

LINKS (click on them to goto the page & download the program):

MiPony
IDM: Internet Download Manager
jDownloader
GetRight [A CLASSIC! MY FIRST FILE RESUMER !!!]

*** THANKS FOR COMING! ENJOY YOUR STAY! BRING YOUR FRIENDS!***

Recently felt like getting back into the game again. Did a clean install and reinstalled every mod, sorted load order with LOOT and no errors showing. Made the suggested changes to skyrim_default.ini + skse.ini and also disabled some mods that looked like they might conflict or be overly intensive. Gone through the troubleshooting guide and removed dangerous mods.
​
ALAS the issue remains. I'm not even sure that I've managed to increase the amount of time I get before crashing. My game is also not generating papyrus logs (or generating them in the wrong location?) despite my changing of the file to create them.
I know this reddit probably gets a million of these threads so I apologise for filling up the board. If anyone has any suggestions or insight I'd be very grateful. This is one of my favourite games.
​
I've uploaded my NMM install info folder, my loot load order and loot's 'copy content' output to a folder in case anyone needs to look through: https://megaupload.nz/Zc42r2ldbb/Skyrim_install_info_zip
​
Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/jXBD49vm
PC specs:
Windows 10
i5 4690 3.50ghz
12GB RAM
GTX1060 6GB VRAM
​

I am trying to upload a couple of files (~36GB totally) and MegaUploader "uploads" them fully, but in the end generates this error: "Upload Failed. * Error type: An error occurred while trying to upload the file: The file could not be transfered to server. * Internal info: MEGA could not generate a File ID, it is necessary to restart the upload."
Has anyone faced this issue and resolved it? Is it because I am uploading huge files? I have 50GB free on my Cloud, so its not an issue of storage space.
Using MegaUploader v1.1

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Jokes	I lost my fathers's 10k Rolex at Berlin's Christmas market	Rolex
funny	I have viruses on my Apple iPhone. Why don't we recommend an app in the Google Play store to download to fix it.	Apple
funny	I have viruses on my Apple iPhone. Why don't we recommend an app in the Google Play store to download to fix it.	Google
pics	Recently downloaded headspace and synced it with my Google calendar. The abbreviated daily reminders caught me off guard at first.	Google
worldnews	Russia bath lotion poisoning: Putin orders crackdown as death toll rises - BBC News	BBC
videos	The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme, except it's put through every language in Google Translate and back to English	Google
worldnews	The Kremlin said on Wednesday it did not expect the incoming U.S. administration to reject NATO enlargement overnight and that almost all communications channels between Russia and the United States were frozen, the RIA news agency reported.	United
gaming	My local Target has got the "Red Ring of Death"	Target
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worldnews	Snoopers' Charter 'not justified in a democracy', rules EU court	Charter
AskReddit	Why is Google putting increased emphasis on Gay love rather than other important events or causes around the world in its Year in review video?	Google
videos	Adam Saleh Getting Kicked out of Delta Airlines	Delta
videos	Adam Saleh famous youtuber get's kicked off a Delta plane for speaking Arabic!	Delta
news	Famous Youtuber Kicked off Delta flight for speaking Arabic to his mother on the phone.	Delta
worldnews	Chapecoense plane crash: Bolivia blames pilot and airline - BBC News	BBC
news	YouTube star kicked off Delta Air Lines flight 'for speaking Arabic'	Delta
mildlyinteresting	Our UPS drivers had to rent a Penske truck to keep up with the amount of holiday package deliveries	UPS
videos	Oculus Rift CV1 - New Porsche 919 Hybrid 2016 @ Le mans - Assetto Corsa	Porsche
videos	Mount Everest fly by then south towards Northern India - Google Earth Flight Simulator	Google
nottheonion	Lawsuit: McDonald's Extra Value Meal too big on price	McDonald's
television	Comedy Central, MTV Chief Doug Herzog Exits Viacom	MTV
todayilearned	TIL that the United States Government Built Alaska's Highway System to Help Repell an Anticipated Japanese Invasion of Alaska in World War Two	United
gaming	Got a Ferrari in FH3 and put a Gundam themed paint on it.	Ferrari
Jokes	TIL That Subway have a no-returns policy if you order the wrong sandwich	Subway
videos	YouTuber Adam Saleh claims he was 'kicked off Delta flight at Heathrow after 20 people complained he was speaking Arabic’	Delta
gaming	[A Pet Named Steve Thomson	Google Feud](https://www.reddit.com/gaming/comments/5jlt8h/a_pet_named_steve_thomson_google_feud/)
worldnews	YouTube star known for pranks claims he was kicked off Delta flight for speaking Arabic	Delta
todayilearned	TIL Sprint mobile subscribers disconnect from mobile internet when in a call since Sprint is the only major carrier network to not support Voice Over LTE VoLTE	Sprint
videos	The official Youtube channel of the Greek Police Force just uploaded one of the coolest versions of the Mannequin Challenge ever.	Youtube
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worldnews	Israel has informed the United States that Lebanese Hezbollah fighters in Syria are using U.S. armored personnel carriers originally supplied to the Lebanese Army, a senior Israeli military officer said on Wednesday.	United
OldSchoolCool	1971 Porsche 911E	Porsche
AskReddit	Serious What is the best way to advertise a Youtube gaming channel?	Youtube
AskReddit	Why can the federal gov take down MegaUpload but Youtube can continue business as usual violating copyright laws daily?	Youtube
worldnews	YouTube prankster Adam Saleh says Delta booted him for speaking Arabic	Delta
pics	This Sweater at Target has one section that is inside out.	Target
worldnews	YouTube star Adam Saleh 'kicked off' Delta Air Lines flight	Delta
IAmA	I'm Brad Wright, co-creator of Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe! My newest series Travelers is coming to Netflix and I'm here to talk all things sci-fi. Ask Me Anything!	Travelers
nottheonion	YouTuber Adam Saleh gets kicked from a Delta flight for speaking Arabic to his mother on the phone.	Delta
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worldnews	'Syrian Twitter girl 'Bana Alabed meets Turkey's Erdogan	Twitter
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WritingPrompts	WP In 1974, U.S. Intel agencies began a test run for remote mind manipulation. The test was a success. By 2020, they intend to mass produce wearable mind reading and manipulating devices and make them widely distributed. What comes next?	Intel
news	Spaniels 'drunk' from lapping up Christmas booze - BBC News	BBC
funny	I Googled "what color is green" and Google answered "blue".	Google
videos	Adam Saleh kicked off of Delta for speaking different language.	Delta
television	Netflix, Marvel Twitter Accounts Taken Over by Hackers	Twitter
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worldnews	Syria conflict: Aleppo evacuations resume after 24-hour delay - BBC News	BBC
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news	Bana Alabed, Aleppo's tweeting girl, meets Turkey's President Erdogan - BBC News	BBC
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videos	Guy interviews mall Santa to find out if Coca-Cola invented him	Coca-Cola
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movies	Could Lytro's Cinema camera change film-making? - BBC Click	BBC
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gaming	Trying to decide if I should make the switch from Playstation to Xbox.	Playstation
Music	Rae Sremmurd - Black Beatles feat. Gucci Mane.mp3 Download	Gucci
funny	So either Google is a troll or there was a small, massively coincidental glitch. Either way, this is the most i've laughed in a long time.	Google
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explainlikeimfive	ELI5: How do companies like Comcast and AT&T get around the anti-monopoly/antitrust Sherman Act USA of 1914?	AT&T
science	Emergence of the Noncoding Cancer Genome: A Target of Genetic and Epigenetic Alterations	Target
todayilearned	TIL that Kirkland Signature generated more revenue than Coca-Cola did in 2015.	Coca-Cola
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movies	Denis Villeneuve, Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling talking behind the scenes of Blade Runner 2049	Ford
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Verified? (This bot cannot verify AMAs just yet)
Date: 2016-04-24
Link to submission (Has self-text)

Questions	Answers
How come the law doesn't do anything about torrent sites?	Every country has different laws, and the internet is a very weird place when talking about whats legalities or even morality.
	Technically speaking, a torrent site doesnt actually host anything illegal nor anything infringing. It simply has some cover arts and text data (same things you can find on IMDB for example) When you download a torrent you download the infringing from other users, not the websites.
	With that being said, people's next argument is usually "Lets make torrent sites illegal for aiding piracy", but when you really think about this, it could be a massive slippery slope. If you ban a torrent site for aiding the infringement of content, on the same premise you should make google illegal too, and why stop there, you could make the the whole internet illegal since its used to aid piracy.
	Its a very complex and delicate ongoing issue.
Have you shared any of the workflow, automation tools or encoding settings you used?	Before everything was automatic, I used to look out for people who can help with the encoding and uploading. If memory serves me right, there were a total of about 8 off helpers throughout 2012 who helped out with the encoding. For those people I wrote up a detailed tutorial of how to go about with the encoding.
	I didnt really go out of my way making a public tutorial because I never thought it was relevant, anyone could technically go and use mediainfo to see the encoding settings which were used.
What are your sources? Why are you making it for free? Does the job cost you a lot of time?	The video sources varied throughout the years, the majority were from scene groups (same stuff any joe blogs can find online)
	It was a hobby, it was never intended to make money.
	In the first few years a single movie took ~4 hours to download, ~3 hours to encode and ~1 hour to prep all the meta information and upload to multiple torrent sites. As the years went past I started to automate most of the tasks to easy work load and increase throughput of movies being uploaded.
What made you get into the torrent business?	Hmmm, its just something I started doing.
	There was '300mb United' team back in the day and they only uploaded movies to sites like rapidshare and megaupload. I started by taking their movies and uploading to torrents (just another medium really) and people started to download and seed them.
	After a little while, I decided why not just encode the movies myself instead of taking them from other groups, thats how the YIFY 'brand' was born really.
Well as a young parent that never has time to go to the movies anymore my family and myself thank you. You're a real world hero.	I assume as a young parent you will have to buy your kid an Ironman toy after seeing the latest iron man movie at home. You too are giving back to the industry :)
What are the new hobbies you are working on? Who are the people you look up to now? (Do not know how that is related but it felt like the right question ;))	As you expect once one project dies I had to start on another. Currently I am working on a little tool that helps visualize the structure and connectivity of the internet and how ISPs are connected to each other. Real nerdy stuff ha.
	I dont have one specific person I look up to right now. I guess the best thing I can say is that I look up to my colleagues at work. They are the smartest people I know when we talk about technical computer things.
I have since bought many DVDs of movies and shows I only saw because of you!	Thank you so much for saying that! My honest opinion is that piracy is actually helpful for the movie industry in terms of profits If someone was unable to download a movie for free on the internet it does not directly translate for a loss of sale in the cinemas or at the DVD shop. However if you introduce to someone (for free) a movie that they really loved, they will go to cinemas when the sequel comes out.
Do you think if more production companies moved their shows over to streaming services like Netflix's who stream their own shows/movies or having the movie hosted on YouTube with ads would it kill off pirating?	For sure! Look at the music industry and spoitfy for example. Can you imagine yourself going to a torrent site and downloading a song you want to listen to? thats a ridiculous concept in 2016.
	What spottily has done for the music industry is exactly what we need more of for the film industry. Netflix is definitely getting there, but with the geo blocks its still a big hindrance to see some very popular TV series.
	Just my 2 cents.
Did you keep the whole YIFY part of your life separate from family and friends? If so, any close moments that compromised that? Also, what made you decide to go into this? Thanks for your great work!	I didnt really go out of my way to keep the YIFY thing a secret in my real life. I loved bragging about it.
	All my friends knew, all my family knew. It wasnt really ever a big deal.
	When ever I told this to a new friend or a new colleague, I used to love seeing their initial jaw opening reaction. Might make me sound like a bit of a show off, but it was a cool feeling.
What you think is gonna happen in the future with torrent movie pirate sites and all the piracy industry behind movies? i mean, you see a future with no longer more pirate sites and all this content provided by sites like youtube and spotify (in a legal way)	Pirate sites will always be around in some form. As long as there is internet there will be piracy. The idea and the goal is to not give any reason for an average consume the need or want to go out of their way to pirate a film.
	Now in my opinion this is happening very well with spotify for example. As one of my previous comments said, Netflix is also on the right path but there are still so many limitations like timing and locations.
Thanks for all your work over the years.	There was no formal nor any official take over. The YTS site was taken offline and I guess these people saw the chance and took it. I was a little angry about what happened that someone is happy to lie and trick users into thinking its was all planned move, but I guess that is life and was some what expected.
What's your thoughts on what happened last winter. Do you know the folks who are now running the service? Was it a 'takeover' as it was reported to be? Was it the same people behind the EZTV changeover?	As far as I can tell it was the same people who did the hostile takeover on the EZTV sites too.
Have you ever been in trouble with law enforcement? Also, did you ever have direct contact with scene groups?	I never had an direct contact with any scene groups. The YIFY name was not really what they stood for. Most private torrent sites banned the use of the name altogether and i wasnt very well loved there :(
	Not 'law enforcement' specifically, but as you can imagine the movie industry was not happy with what I was doing.
Maybe they didn't love you, but lots of people watching movies thanks to you surely do :)	I think they didnt like me because the YIFY movies were shitty quality. And they are right! the movies I uploaded were not even close to the same quality standard as the original 13GB files. (just look at rule number 6 on /torrents)
Do you think that the scene groups disliked you because it could draw more heat on them, maybe exposing them more than they'd like?	I was always of the mindset that I was filling niche, people with crappy internet and that are happy to watch a movie on their laptop for example.
Did you ever need to get legal advice, take precautions in case something went really bad? Considering what you said about the movie industry (obviously) not being happy with you, it must have been a concern at some point, right?	Like many other internet users (who arent even doing anything wrong) I went out of my way to use false aliases and what not. To put it in perspective, I didnt go nearly as far as using VPNs/Tor and all the jazz. I was really easy to find, hiding underground was never something that I was aiming for.
	What was going in mind was more "Oh this is fun and I am learning lots, lets continue this hobby till I get sick of it or till it comes to an end"
I love your work! I used to swear by YIFY torrents because I had crap internet and they were always reliable for what I needed. Did you ever see what you were doing as "criminal" and were you ever actually concerned what may happen to you as a result of this hobby?	I never really saw this as a criminal thing to be honest.
	It all started just as a 'for fun' thing, I never really thought anything of the ordeal when I started uploading in 2010. I essentially just went along for the ride as the YIFY name grew.
	I guess what I am trying to say is, I wasnt smart enough to think ahead of what could the consequences be in the future. To my luck everything ended up being smooth and ok :)
Why did you quit? You were the best one out there! Any recommended movies and uploaders?	One could say I was forced to quit: Here is an article by TorrentFreak that should shed more light: Link to torrentfreak.com
	To be totally honest with, I dont know any uploaders. I never even watched my own encoded movies. No body got time for that :P.
off, I'm a huge fan of your work--I feel like your absence has left a huge hole in a land where credibility and reliability is king. When was the "oh shit" moment where you realized that people/downloaders really took a notice of your name and work?*	That a really tough question. I think it was when I hit 50,000 likes on the facebook page.
Edit: *That is if you had one at all, I assume you did.	This was before there was even a concept of the YIFY-Torrents/YTS website and I was only uploading to public torrent sites. It was hard to see a 'user base' number as the best you could see the seed/peers counts. When reached 50k likes on the facebook group I think it hit me that people really do follow the 'YIFY' name.

Last updated: 2016-04-24 07:21 UTC Next update: 2016-04-24 07:31 UTC
This post was generated by a robot! Send all complaints to epsy.

How is it that there can be several different repositories for pirated content on the internet like movreel, billionuploads, megaupload etc. not seeming to generate much money through ads? I mean who actually clicks on those ads? Where is the money coming from to sustain the hosting services and stuff?

I'm a good consumer. I have a network TV provider, and I watch shows when they come on the air to help them generate much-needed ad revenue. I pay my bills on time and never miss a payment. I think that, because of this, if I want to watch episodes of those shows that have already aired, I should not have to pay an extra $20 a month for Hulu plus or the exorbitant fees that iTunes charges just to go through and watch my favorite series again. So I use sites like onechannel and watchseries, to catch up on episodes I might have missed and refresh my memory on the story of larger series (i.e. Game of Thrones).
Over the past few days, however, I've noticed a disturbing trend. Every hosting site has been quietly and systematically wiped of all its videos. Every series, from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to the aforementioned Game of Thrones, is being purged from the internet.
Now, why is this disturbing? Well, it's simply because these sites have hosted the videos for months, and, in some cases, years. It's never been a problem for them before. But now they're being silently purged of all their content, just like MegaUpload was a few short years ago.
But this time, there's no outcry. No one is even talking about it. Why? Because we're all scared. We've seen what happens to people who speak up in this country. We're afraid that, if some government agency is indeed behind this, that we'll be labeled as terrorists for speaking out against it. We're afraid because the government is using malware and viruses to slowly strip away any anonymity we have left. We're afraid because the NSA is provably collecting huge amounts of metadata on every online American, data that could be used against us if we ever decide to do something meaningful like try to run for office to change the direction this country's headed. We're afraid of getting that envelope in the mail with every embarrassing email we've ever sent and every questionable site we've ever visited listed out, along with a message to quietly drop out of our respective political campaign before they are "forced" to make the information public.
We're afraid because, quite simply, no one is innocent. We've all watched copyrighted videos on an unlicensed hosting site. We've all broken the law, even if it's in minute, harmless ways online. Harvey Silvergate argues that the average American commits three felonies per day. I argue that, with the advent of the Internet age and an entire generation growing up online, that number has doubled or tripled. Not because we're evil or bad people, but because we were young. Teenagers are stupid, and we all did stupid things when we were that age. The difference is, now an entire generation is being cataloged for it. An entire generation is have every little mistake and slip-up recorded online, and every day more and more is revealed about the NSA's vast scope and reach of monitoring programs. This is the equivalent to one day finding out that every government-installed lightpost has a little camera hidden inside. Even if you have nothing to hide, you should still be terrified of this.
Now, you may think I'm overreacting. You may think I'm just going off on a rant because I can't watch Tits and Swords (or Game of Thrones, as it's more commonly known). And to some degree, you'd be right. I am pissed about the video purging. But that's not what has me terrified. What has me terrified is how silently Americans are accepting it. We've had it hammered into us with Manning and Snowden that anyone who shakes up the system will face consequences. And we believe it. How long before we don't speak up against anything? How long before Americans start passively accepting the violation of their Fourth Amendment rights? How long before we just accept the fact that whistleblowers will be tortured and demonized, like Manning and Snowden are being?
It starts with this. With people becoming so inured so the idea of always having to be careful, always having to worry that what they do or say will come back to haunt them, that they can't even speak up. I was unable to attend the Restore the Fourth protests in my city the last time they were held, but rest assured I will be going to the next ones. I hope you will too.
Stay strong, and speak out.

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Date: 2013-02-25
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Questions	Answers
Helen, I heard you were instrumental in getting Paul holmes his knight-hood before he passed. Under your government they abollished the titles all together and you were a real advocate for becoming a republic. Why did you push so hard when you were morally against the titles in the first place?	Greetings all! Kia ora, Kiwis! IN NZ everyone knows I don'y agree with knighthoods - my government abolished them. But I do think the late Paul Holmes was worthy of a top honour.
You were considered one of the best political managers in New Zealand history from the way you ran the fifth Labour Government. How has your management style changed in the different environment of the UN?	Re management style - same at UNDP as in NZ ! Stay on top of the issues, and be proactive and inclusive.
As the former Prime Minister of New Zealand what are your thoughts on Kim Dotcom and the whole Megaupload mess?	While you can ask anything - don't expect me to dive back into Kiwi political debates! Been there, done that!
Round 2 from /newzealand... From mattsteroyster. What do you think of the current National Government and their policies? What opinion do you have of the current Labour Party? Any advice for them? What do you think about the Green Party, especially as Labour will need them if they wish to be re-elected? What is one bill/act/law you wanted to enact in your time as Prime Minister but couldn't/didn't? From precociousapprentice. 'What was the greatest single challenge you faced as Prime Minister of NZ, and how has this compared to the greatest single challenge in your role in the UNDP?'	Re single biggest challenge - getting unemployment down and keeping it down - which I'm happy to say was achieved!
What do you think is contributing to our 7.3 % unemployment rate? and what steps could the government and the people take to create more jobs and opportunities for New Zealanders in New Zealand.	NZ has firm constitutional arrangements - I don't think it necessarily needs a document titled "The Constitution". Perhaps if it changes its status from constitutional monarchy to republic one day, it will have to be more formal...
To what extent did you experience sexism and misogyny during your time as prime minister?	Ididn't experience sexism and mysogyny during my time as PM -but there was a bit on the way up !
Do you think the next Secretary-General of the UN might be a woman? Yes, this is a loaded question ;)	Let's hope that the glass ceiling can be broken one day!
Are Bret and Jemaine as cool in person as they seem?	I guess so! Haven't met them - would be excited to!
When/where do you draw the line between a humanitarian aid-setting and the development stage?	Let's see the humanitarian-development interface as a spectrum. In the context of conflict and disaster, people need food, water, shelter, and medicine. But, as soon as possible, early recovery leading to development needs to begin. Building resilience to future crisis and/or disaster is an agenda humanitarian and development actors can unite around.
Which living politician do you look up to the most? How can private corporations be roped in to help your cause?	There can only be one answer - Nelson Mandela - an inspiration to all.
	On the private sector, UNDP works with companies who are willing to incorporate local people and their micro businesses and SMEs into value chains - would welcome new participants in this inclusive business model work.
Do you believe it is economically feasible for all nations to have first world level development, or is the western standard of living only at the expense of less developed nations? Could technology fix this, hypothetically?	The aim is for all human beings to live in dignity and have what they need for healthy and fulfilling lives. This is achievable.
Do you have a favourite inspirational quote?	Favourite inspirational quote ? Never look back. Move on. Aim high. Etc.
Do you eat chups?	Pommes frites ? Yes.
What was the biggest change in your life style from when you lived in NZ to moving to the United States and what do you miss the most from back here at home?	Biggest change ? The difference between commuting 400 miles to work from Auckland to Wellington - and being able to walk from home to work in NY !
Greetings from Christchurch! :D.	What do I miss most ? Family - but everyone is only a phone call, text, or email away.
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions! :) What do you think other nations around the world could do to work on their human freedom, as NZ has proved to be #1 in this spectrum?	NZ is generally right up the top of the transparency/anti-corruption index. That rests on strong institutions and values, a free media, active civil society, and parliamentary scrutiny.
1) How do you think we as a planet are doing on the MDGs? 2) Are there any goals you think should be added to the MDGs that are not there or should be expanded on?	Overall the MDGs have been a success - at the global level. But there are huge differences within countries and between countries on the rate of progress. The post-2015 agenda development should not lose sight of the unfinished MDG business, while also taking up issues which weren't fully incorporated in the MDGs we currently have.
Hi Helen I'm a New Zealand Uni student hoping one day to work somewhere in politics so this AMA is like a dream come true to me. I have so many questions but firstly I would like to to take this opportunity to give a shout out to your husband, who took the time to talk to a unimportant student (that's me) at a labour function and was honestly one of nicest and friendliest people I have ever met. My question is: How do you think we can make New Zealanders more engaged and interested in politics? We can be quite the indifferent bunch.	Democracy anywhere doesn't work well if citizens are disengaged. Everyone should take an interest in the decisions before governments. Will pass on your kind words to Peter !
In any great undertaking there are always failures as well as successes. And the failures are just as important. What was UN greatest success in the area of MDGs? and what was it's greatest mistake (and what has it learned)?	The greatest success was getting international buy in to the MDGs. I don't think there's a greatest mistake - just less progress on some areas than others.
Why is NZ against nuclear power so much? I understand not wanting any plants on your soil due to earthquakes and such, but why not any nuclear powered ships in your harbors, etc?	There is a long history around NZ's nuclear-free status - which I fully support. Nuclear power has inherent risks - and the huge issue of dangerous waste. NZ does not need any of that.
What are your thoughts on the use of RCTs in development projects? Is there a better way to measure outcomes for the programs of UNDP?	Pros and cons on randomised control trials - on the positive side, it can give information about what works. On the negative side, it's not equitable. Is it right to withhold support from one group while giving it to another to collect evidence ??? As well there is also debate about the science of this approach.
Concerning the UNDP, what comes after the Millennium Development Goals and what are your thoughts on the goals? Were they realistic to achieve? What obstacles stunted their progress? Should the international community expect MDG 2.0 in the near future?	UNDP is fully involved in supporting the current global consultations and debate on the post-2015 development agenda. It should be bold and ambitious. The UN's member states will deliberate on the agenda - decisions need to be made in 2015.
What might influence New Zealand to change their non-nuclear policy? In what ways do you think New Zealand could strengthen its relationship with the US, and perhaps reengage a role in the ANZUS trilateral alliance, without budging on its nuclear policies?	Nothing could - it's part of the Kiwi DNA.
What do you think of what happened to Kimdotcom?	It's before the courts - no comment.
What is it so hard to find a job at UNDP? Do you share your personal email address that I can reach you? Thanks.	UNDP jobs are all advertised - follow @UNDPJobs on Twitter and follow the UNDP website.
As a uni student looking to work in the development field and perhaps even the U.N. after graduation, what do you see as the best way to introduce myself to field? and where should I start in order to increase my chances at job opportunities in the international development field?	Apply widely; be prepared to work in places off the beaten track...
What are your views about the MDGs. Are they realistic and can be achieved within the timeframe??	The MDGs are global goals - therefore more easily achieved by some countries than others - but they do set basic development benchmarks which are vital for all to achieve.
New Zealand was recently awarded the #1 spot on the CPI by Transparency.org. What did you personally do in order to diminish corruption in New Zealand to a non-existant level?	I answered the NZ transparency achievement issue earlier.
The UNDP has been tasked with the MDG and attempting to see their fulfillment. Now, you have two years before the original timeline is past and there is almost nothing to show for it. Do you feel like the MDGs were put in place as a way to bring attention to the issues, or was it a realistic goal at the time to complete as many of these goals as possible within the 20 years?	On the MDGs, there is an enormous amount to show for all the effort!
Do you think monitoring and evaluation part of MDGs needs improvement?	In general everyone involved in development needs to improve the design of initiatives so that the intended outcomes are clear, and then be able to monitor, evaluate, and report on progress towards those.
	On the MDGs, more than 400 national-level MDG reports have been published.
Thank you for doing this. I am currently working on my Master's Dissertation on using sport as the vehicle for development programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. From your experience as Administrator, do you feel that this is nothing more than a "vogue" idea that wil fade in the coming years or do you think that through assistance from wealthy sports clubs around the world that such programs could succeed and foster peaceful development for communities though a shared love of sport (football (soccer), basketball, etc.)?	Sport is definitely a vehicle for development - teaches teamwork, discipline, dedication, setting and achieving goals and more. Women's sports can promote empowerment of women and girls. See Link to www.un.org
What reforms do you think are necessary in the UN structure and administration to make it a more effective governing body for fighting poverty?	It's important for the UN development system to deliver in a co-ordinated and coherent way - this is a work in progress.
Could you please arrange for the 60 members of the New Zealand Youth Choir to sing at the UN when it is in New York on tour on 5 and 6 December 2013? Roger Lloyd, Chief Executive, Choirs Aotearoa NZ Trust, ceo@choirsnz.co.nz	Can you work through the New Zealand Permanent Mission to the UN and Ambassador Jim McLay ?
Do you think MDGs may be aligned to the needs of a country like Pakistan?	Yes - the MDGs are highly relevant to advancing human development in Pakistan. They are incorporated in Pakistan's national development and poverty reduction strategies.
In your opinion, what are the main reasons of failure of MDGs and what changes are being introduced for the success this time?	Overall the MDGs have been a success, and have energised development around the world.
	In countries experiencing conflict or post-conflict fragility, however, it's very hard to progress the MDGs, or development in general. See my Oxford lecture of 2 weeks ago on conflict and development - it's on the UNDP website.
	As well strong leadership and champions are important in driving MDG achievement. Funding helps too!
Dear Mrs. Clark, You visited Croatia recently. Have you been informed about violance of human rights of Serbian population there? More than 250.000 Serbian souls were expelled from their homes, they are facing problems with their schools accreditation, they are not allowed to use their cyrilic alphabet, Croatia moves to revoke ID cards of Serb refugees, Croatia celebrates the biggest ethnic cleansing in Europe as National Holiday. What do you intend to do about it?	War anywhere often sees human rights violations on both sides. War is to be avoided at all costs, anywhere, any time.
What are your thoughts on the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly?	The UN and parliamentary organisations do link closely. As it stands, the UN is a member-state based assembly - at which governments represent countries.
Out of 10, how many points would you give the world for its performance on the MDGs?	7.5/10 to date ! But we can achieve more in the last 1,000 days !!! Help make it happen ! That's what the Bogota conference is about. Please promote MDG acceleration via Twitter #MDGs2013 and @UNDP - and to Link to www.undp.org which will have livestreaming from the Bogota conference from Wednesday morning.
Do the the threats of cutting foreign aid in the American government's budget worrying? As an American, there are a small but very vocal minority here who see the U.N. as some sort of dastardly, sovereignty-stealing organization and this attitude is concerning.	USA must make its own decisions. Secretary of State John Kerry recently made a powerful case for supporting development co-operation.
Given that Climate Change is expected to effect populations in the developing world the worst, in what way is your organization taking to address that?	UNDP is very involved with strategies and practical action to address climate change - check out the website - Link to www.undp.or - I've given a lot of speeches on the subject and on sustainable debelopment generally.
As you were in charge during the infamous 'Urak-hai' insurgancy of the early 2000's, as New Zealand has managed to achieve peace and stability do you not think you are a more appropriate candidate to get peace in the middle east than Tony Blair?	Haven't heard of that one !
Many people still do not know much about the MDGs. How can we make sure that more people are aware of what should happen after 2015, with the post MDGs bechmarks?	We have to keep promoting achievement of and knowledge of the MDGs - and of the process being followed in developing the post-2015 agenda. Go to Link to www.myworld2015.org and follow @UNDP on Twitter and other Un organisations to keep up with the latest.
I guess you could consider this question a bit off topic, but It's eventually my goal to work for the United Nations, and I was wondering if you had any advice for young professionals hoping to get into this area of work?	Follow the job sites - opportunities across the board.
What's the word on the implimintation process of agenda 21 or what's now called rio +20.	Agenda 21 promulgated at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio inspired people for two decades. Last year's Rio+20 takes it forward.

Last updated: 2013-03-01 21:38 UTC
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Date: 2013-02-22
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Questions	Answers
What will it take to get politicians in DC to recognize that copyright is not a mere business issue for some companies, but something that actually impacts everyone, every single day?	Good question, I touch on this in my Boing Boing piece. To many people in DC it's a simple situation, piracy = bad, copyright protection = good. But of course it's much more complicated that that. I personally support copyright, but until you disentangle this thought process to a more rational one based upon what works and what doesn't we will be in trouble.
According to this website the average age of house members is 56.7 and 62.2 for senate members. Do you think age factors in to some of these decisions about SOPA/CISPA? How much of it is personal perception for congressman vs. special interest groups pushing it through?	I'm not going to comment on age, obviously they tend to be older. Both parties will have to embrace technology, the question is whether they will embrace technology in order to win elections, and keep those tech savy people on the campaign trail, or whether they will use that tatent to develop tech-savy policies. That's really their choice. They will embrace technology, but it's up to us to make sure they do it for policy rather than just to get elected.
	SO far I have seem massive strides on digital campaigning on the left, and a few steps on the right that are positive (of course way behind) but they need to include tech for policy too.
	SOPA was pretty simple really - most Members don't understand technology or care about technology - and the biggest baddest interest group says that they have a solution that will save American jobs and defend IP, and people are like umm ok, cool! I was in meetings like this, and when I started to argue on the DNS etc. people just rolled their eyes because then it became complicated -- well, sometimes these things are complicated. When you are talking about a DNS level censorship regime it's pretty damn complicated.
Hi Derek, thanks for taking the time to do this. The question I have is this, do you think despite our best efforts that there will inevitably be something passed along the lines of SOPA. Perhaps in its current form, or something closely resembling it?	Some of the elements of SOPA already were passed. Merchants cut off payments to "infringing" websites as part of a deal. After SOPA websites have been shut down through other means - look at Megaupload. Of course the TPP treaty may be an opportunity for them to sneak in some provisions that aren't done yet.
Hypothetical question ... Suppose I hear a song/band I have never heard before through Pandora or something like that. I go online and download an album and really like them. Then I go to a store or itunes or something like that and buy their other albums.	They'd say downloading is stealing period and therefore wrong. They don't care about the net equation you point out.
Why does the music industry see this as detrimental? It is getting more music into the ears of consumers and then giving them a way to find more interests which inevitably lead to more sales due to more discovery.	Industry was scared of Pandora, but now they kind of embrace pandora as an example of how they are helping new market models -it's kind of the poster child that they point to to say, "hey look, Record industry isn't against innovation.
Hi there, thanks so much for doing this.	Haven't really thought this through. Maybe I can get back to you.
If you had the option to strike down any three pieces of law, be they articles of the constitution or riders on bills, which three would you choose? Also, if you were able to impart one piece of wisdom to every American consumer, what would it be?	Not most important, but of course start with getting rid of the penny, getting rid of farm subsidies, and reforming most aspects of how people interact with the government. We want a smarter and leaner government. There's no reason why people's experience with the DMV and Social Security office is slow, inefficient and technologically behind.
Are you still going to law school? How do you have time to do all of this stuff?	Very good question, I am kind of killing myself right now with many projects. I talk to a lot of Congressional staffers about these issues to and am on the Hill most days. I go to Georgetown Law at night.
Not entirely sure, that's more of a trade question. We have lots of trade tools at our disposal. However, if you are worried about American jobs, isn't it nice that if you ship this stuff oversees there is a chance that the Chinese will rip you off? More of an incentive to stay domestic I suppose.	But this issue, I don't think anyway maybe you can correct me, should affect overall patent/Copyright policy in the US.
I apologize for showing my tin-foil cap. :) I did say "I may be way off-base with that". If you legitimately came here on your own, not at the behest of your boss then I apologize & applaud you for venturing into the liberal-hivemind.	I came here on my own, I don't have a boss - I no longer work in Congress.
I don't think that the Republican party is stupid. Quite the contrary, actually. But, I must insist that the typical "right-wing" person is generally a 'low-information' person. Can you tell me with a straight face that Fox News is not utterly idiotic at times? I mean, don't get me wrong...you can say the exact same thing about MSNBC. It's scary, man. Television is so powerful! I know that this has absolutely nothing to do with the OP, but I would like to know your thoughts on this subject. It's not everyday that I speak to conservatives (who aren't Kool-Aid drinking parrots, that say 'Murica un-ironically) on the internet. Also, how long do you think (if ever) it will be before the people in this country realize that we don't need to send people to vote on our behalf? Wasn't the whole idea of sending a "representative" to the Capital to vote in our place just a way of making sure that everyone's voices were heard? Since back then people weren't able to drop everything and utilize the modes of transportation of the era (horse & carriage) to go do it themselves, because it would consume all of their time/money/lives. I mean, it's technologically feasible now... We would still be in need of someone to write laws that would impact their constituency, and listen to the people, but why can't the people vote on them directly via modern technology?	Unfortunately, sensationalism sells. But neither party has a monopoly on good ideas. I'm interested in solving problems - it's more than red v. blue to me, in fact that dynamic is kind of irrelevant.
That's very interesting. Can you expand on that at all?	I do below, tweet something like ""Member of Congress]Have you read, [Link to boingboing.net Will you fix the law to allow unlocking cell phones? @Dkhanna11"
What policy do you feel most needs to change and what's your solution?	Overall we need policies that foster innovation rather than inhibit new business models.
It scares me at the same time. I see the local political level and everytime a property dispute or a policing issue gets complicated so many people disengage. It really will come down the the better soundbites. How much more on a national level ?	Sound bites are important, and piracy =bad=jobs is a pretty good one on the other side.
There was an interesting article in the NYT about Republicans and their technological ineptitude during the election, and why this will be a contributing factor to future loses if they don't get with the times: Link to www.nytimes.com. Any thoughts on this (if you've read it?)	I was with "Lawyers for Romney" during the election and I saw first hand how the technology wasn't really beta or field tested and it was a complete failure on game-day - so it rang true (I was not involved in the tech with them at all). That's an interesting article.
Why are you a Republican?	I believe in a small federal government, I believe in property rights (in real property) as pretty-near absolute, I believe that the federal government is bloated and inefficient.
	I'm a fiscal conservative and on most other issues I believe in letting the states set their own policies to be laboratories of democracy.
Didn't the federal government balloon under Bush, and haven't the largest deficits accrued under Republican presidents in the last 30 years? It seems to me that the Democrats are the fiscal conservatives.	The Bush years were very bad ones for fiscal conservatives like me - but just because Bush was bad, does not mean that all Democrats are inherently the alternative. I can see why Democrats argue that - and we can disagree.
I believe in small government. And you're a Republican?	I am a conservative - I consider myself a conservative first and foremost. I vote for the party that represents closest to that ideology.
Thank you for your time and good luck with the campaign. How/why did this area become a passion of yours?	I care about innovation. If we are serious about economic growth we have to be serious about innovation. And how the government inhibits innovation through crony-capitalism has always been of interest to me.
Do you think an appropriate role of the federal government is to invest in new and emerging technologies that have social benefits? I ask because I feel like your party doesn't - or at least doesn't prioritize it enough. Also, UMass, right?	I am a UMASS Amherst Alumnae. You can read about my UMASS days here: Link to polsci.umass.edu
	Yes, I think that there can be an appropriate role for the federal government. Particularly in areas of market failure. And I think that basic research is one of the areas where the private sector tends to have difficulty correctly allocating resources too. My grandfather worked for Bell Labs and they used to just create stuff all the time just to invent - I don't know if there is a modern Bell Labs. So yes, government can have a role, but we have to establish the WHY - not just assume that it's good so government is the solution. Basic research = good, applied research = should receive more strict scrutiny.
Yep I remember them - I was there.	And do I know you?
	Remember when I was escorted out of a student government meeting by police - because I filibustered to save a newspaper from being shut down for speech that the student government didn't like? The content industry this fall tried to use that as a negative on opposition research on me. . . but I'm kind of proud of that actually.
	I don't regret standing up for free speech.
Hey Derek, Tom from Pike. I've been following what you've been doing lately. Keep it up, we need more people like you in Washington.	Let me know what you're up to as well.
Last year, in Japan, the copyright act was tightened so much by surprise. Do you know that? If so, what do you think about that, and copyrights around Japan?	Please send article, that's fascinating Khannaderek@gmail.com.
Here is an example: Link to www.nbcnews.com.	Let's hope this isn't in TPP. . .
What is something I can do to help move this country toward more reasonable and practical laws that govern our digital lives?	Well there is small scale activism, e-mailing organizing etc. You can e-mail me if you want to help me with my ongoing projects (Khannaderek@gmail.com)
What organizations have been really at the front on issues like this? Do any of them endorse or rate politicians, to give us a sense of how Congresspeople do on tech issues? EFF springs to mind, but I don't think they endorse.	Can't think of any that do that - but I think the metrics on that may be hard as well. But interesting idea to consider.
So I briefly talked to you about some legislation, what can I do in addition to signing petitions and sending comments through things such as PopVox?	We need to start advocacy movement on ideas on a regular basis. Ask to meet with your Congressman. Set up a website, launch a campaign. Take a non-issue and make it a real issue.
Buying songs on iTunes for $0.99 is legal and moral. But iTunes sells songs so cheap to discourage piracy. So, we legally purchase content at prices that were determined by piracy. How do you feel that stands on a moral ground?	Interesting point. But for my work largely irrelevant. I'm not against IP or against IP enforcement - rather I want our IP laws to be effective.
Not a very serious question, but have you watched House of Cards?	Disagree, that is a serious question.
	YES, it is amazing. I watched West Wing religiously, and tell every person who comes to DC to re-watch. Now I tell them to watch West Wing and House of Card. It is so good.
	Unfortunately, it's stunningly accurate. I mean the last episodes go a bit overboard, but other than that highly accurate.
What do you think about Sweden's newly formed Church of Kopimism (Sweden's officially recognized "copying" religion)? Their articles of faith includes the notion that information is holy and copying is a sacrament.	Pardon my ignorance but off hand it sounds kind of crazy.
Do you view the abandonment of the principles of Public Domain as valid justification for blatant copyright violation? Do you think people will ever engage in a copyright system that is prepared to treat them this way?	Civil disobedience is often justified, I'm not sure if it is in that case. But civil disobedience of cell-phone unlocking, I'm right there with you :).
"[Member of Congress]Have you read, Link to boingboing.net Will you fix the law to allow unlocking cell phones? @Dkhanna11"	This strategy could actually be very useful - not just on my article I mean as a strategy overall. Because followers of that Member may be exposed to it for the first time, and if enough "constituents" tweet at them they will have an internal discussion on what to do. Often the answer is nothing, but if pressure continues they'll feel that they have to address. We want that internal conversation to take place. The biggest problem is the lack of that conversation in the first place.
	I should mention that this strategy really works with issues that aren't ones with "stock responses." If you tweet, "Support women's rights . . ." etc. they will already have a stock answer to go so a campaign is pretty ineffective. But cellphone unlocking? I can tell you (from personal knowledge) that no one in Congress had stock language on that. As a result of the campaign on this issue enough people wrote in such that they had to create form letters on this.
How do lobbyist working for or against you have an effect on this particular issue?	I don't have colleagues.
Thank you for this AMA it is a great way for you to talk to citizens without any erroneous filters. Please encourage your colleagues to do the same with their time, though I'm sure you are all very busy. Thanks again!	Lobbyists represent interests of existing organizations. My problem is that I fundamentally care most about the companies and business models that don't exist but could - so in that regard lobbyists do not normally represent that perspective. A joke in DC is that once a company has stopped being innovative then they sent lobbyist to ensure that they still make money.
What are your feelings towards Marsha Blackburn?	In her press release after the memo went out, she called the idea of going back to the Constitution and the ideas in the RSC memo as "radical" and "bizarre" - I'd be interested in other people's thoughts on going back to the Constitution and finding a system that fosters the most innovation.
Another thing that needs to change about our trade policies are our asinine restrictions on exporting cryptography. I basically can't contribute code to the OpenBSD project because I live in the US and the project is hosted in Canada to avoid those same export restrictions.	Patents on software are something I'm still reading about and looking into. I don't like to weigh into things until I'm entirely well versed in all sides in the argument.
Many of your recent pieces speak against the DMCA, but it is merely an implementation of policies set in practice by WIPO and the WTO. TRIPS (the copyright treaty that WTO member countries must adhere to) even was helped written by the IIPA, which is comprised of organizations like the BSA. Do you see some kind of balance between combating specific injustices (e.g. phone unlocking) and systemic problems (The neocolonial global spread of neoliberal corporate-sponsored laws)?	Good points about being linked to the treaties - all the more reason for us to be careful about TPP. I haven't really delved into the systematic problems you point to.
Why should we bother to support you on this issue when we can just break the law without consequence? I have no ther reason to support you and your party other than this wedge issue. Thanks in advance for your response.	I explain in my Atlantic article how just because a law is seldom enforced - it doesn't make it any more ok. In fact I would argue that it's worse, it's insidious waiting to strike. If you have terrible laws that are actually enforced, then people will respond, but a law that isn't enforced is (to me) the worst of all worlds.
	I'm not asking you to support my party, I never have. That's your call. I care about practical solutions, and fixing the problem. I'm not recruiting.
How do you the memo?	I can't change the title, sorry.
Do you see copyright as a property right, or a government subsidy?	I address this here about why it isn't a natural right. It's a government created property right and therefore a subsidy: Link to www.cato-unbound.org
I am not an American and I am often befuddled by the fact that most of my American friends have different definitions for the same ideology. I know that you have explained why you call yourself a Republican by stating that you are conservative. Would you explain what you mean by conservative? Does this just mean that you prefer a government that is fiscally conservative or do you also see yourself as socially conservative?	This will take a while, maybe google "conservative vs. Republican" or something - but it's complicated.
	Basically Republican is the party. Conservatism is a ideology.
Who is to blame for the intransigence of congress in passing major legislation? Do you think that this is the main reason for the abyssmal approval that most Americans have of the legislative branch?	Congress.
Any resume banks actually worth it for someone looking to start, ideally as a Legislative Correspondent? I've got no nearby Republicans to really try for geographic advantages.	Resume banks are kind of hard because everyone puts their resume in.
Why petition the white house? The decision for cell phone unlocking rests with the Library of Congress, a purely legislative branch. Was the petition merely to focus public interest (and, if so, good work!)?	I didn't create the petition, Sina did. But once it was created it was the right way to proceed on this issue. There aren't many ways that US citizens have to easily petition their federal govt., this is one of them. The We the People website- to me - is broader than just President Obama. With over 100,000 signatures, I can, and have, gone to Congressional staffers and Members and said, "So President Obama will weigh in, where are you?"
	This being said, the White House has previously responded on similar measures. Fixing this requires legislation, they often comment on legislation. It's definitely an area they can comment upon.
Some quick googling tells me you're at GULC. Do you plan to practice law? Also, I suppose I'll plug /lawschool.	Not sure.
What phone do you personally use? What phones do you see most often used in government?	I just bought an IPhone 5 - on the advice of counsel I decline to comment on whether or not it is unlocked.
Wow you answer alot of questions. Im thinking about becoming a politician(I am currently a Junior in highschool.) Any advice you could give me? BTW love what youre doing :)	Definitely not the right person to ask, but for what it's worth. . .
	I have found that activism and politics is basically the same thing at different scales even on a small level. You get better at it with practice. People say this, but they don't KNOW this and act upon it in politics.
	My limited skill set is a result of having tried to be politically active even in high school. Then in college there was a corrupt student government that was stealing money and an illegal affirmative action program. Almost everyone said, whatever, I said, no. And I stood up for what I believed and got a lot of crap, but in the end I won but more important I learned how to do this stuff. Coming to DC was clearly a different level ball game, but it was still a ball game and I knew some of the rules etc.
	So my point is, find something your passionate about, and fight like hell and build upon it. Start small, want to change your school lunch for example?
	Don't just say I want to be a politician; rather, be successful in changing the world around you, build a movement and a group of allies. Then you'll know what this world is like and when you're ready you can decide to run and all that jazz. But the electoral guys won't tell you if you are ready to govern, only you can really know that.
Are you of any relation to Jim? I'll show myself out.	No.?
Who the memo?	I can't change the title, sorry.
I'm over it. Now about my Note 2, can what you are doing help me flash it over to Metro PCS? Trying to connect the dots here.	No idea sorry.
Hi Derek...I admired your paper, and am wondering how much of the eventual legislation that becomes SOPA/PIPA/CISPA type bills is pushed to the committee staff and Members by lobbyists.	Unfortunately, most Hill staffers do so many different issues it's almost impossible for them to have anything close to "expertise" on any of them - I'm not disparaging them many work very hard and most would admit this themselves.
Thanks for your candor on this matter...I wish more of the GOP would recognize that the broken patent/IP system is because rent-seeking media companies are gaming DC to protect their profits.	So as a result, staffers often rely upon lobbyists who are seen by most as industry experts. Sometimes these lobbyists have decades of experience in an industry and really do know their stuff - often times they do not however. But either way, they are not trying to present the facts, they are presenting their facts. I always realized that this should be taken with a grain of salt. But in answer to your question, they are VERY involved.
Unfortunately, most Hill staffers do so many different issues it's almost impossible for them to have anything close to "expertise" on any of them - I'm not disparaging them many work very hard and most would admit this themselves.	To give an example, technology was just part of my portfolio, I also did Labor, Education, Government Oversight, Defense, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Oversight, District of Columbia stuff etc. And to be honest, I think I know technology pretty well for a Hill staffer, but I didn't know the rest that well - labor in particular I had no expertise in at the time. I was previously given a portfolio of issues and I said no because I didn't know anything about them and they got very angry and said that's not the point. . . for a brief while I had to do environmental issues?. . . so we kind of have a system that isn't recruiting the experts in the field. (I am not disparaging these important issue areas they are just ones I didn't know that well at the time). That being said, many, particularly committee staffers - are VERY knowledgeable about a few areas.
Very good question, I am kind of killing myself right now with many projects. I talk to a lot of Congressional staffers about these issues to and am on the Hill most days. I go to Georgetown Law at night.	So I try to do everything at once.
Good points about being linked to the treaties - all the more reason for us to be careful about TPP. I haven't really delved into the systematic problems you point to.	This is what I said on TPP in my Cato-Unbound piece: "This treaty includes provisions on intellectual property that are above and beyond those in the Berne Convention. Setting controversial and contested copyright terms in stone through treaty was wrong then, and it’s wrong now. It’s an affront to the legislative process to try to “re-codify” legislative wins into treaty agreements. That would make it significantly more difficult to ever change course.
	The length of copyright terms has always received significant debate and disagreement. This was likely the intention of the Founders in not specifying what a "limited time" meant within the Constitution itself. But current drafts of the TPP allegedly establish the law at life plus 70 years. Additionally, it would include or even expand portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) relating to anti-circumvention technologies. To be clear, I am strongly against unauthorized copyright infringement, but the DMCA outlawing of anti-circumvention technologies is extremely controversial—and rightfully so.
	The DMCA created rules that until recently made it illegal to jailbreak your own iPhone or to develop a program to read a Kindle book aloud to someone who is blind. The DMCA still bars developing, selling, providing, or even linking to technologies that play legal DVDs purchased in a different region, or to convert a DVD you own to a playable file on your computer. Because no licensed DVD playing software is currently available for the Linux operating system, if a Linux user wishes to play a DVD that they have legally bought, they cannot legally play it on their own computer. The DMCA’s rules have also made legitimate fair uses of copyrighted material much harder. Using snippets of video for classrooms is legal fair use, but to do so, teachers have to use illegal technology to “rip” the DVD to a playable and editable file, or they must illegally download the file online.
	Within the leaked details of the TPP Treaty there are many troubling features, but perhaps most troubling is the secrecy surrounding the negotiations. Members have been allowed to view documents, but most of their staff and the general public have been denied access. Outside of the national security realm, this type of secrecy in regard to a treaty is particularly troubling and perhaps unprecedented. Another troubling aspect is that despite this secrecy, there have been “stakeholder” presentations representing one particular side and vested interest, rather than the perspective of the general public or the requirements of our Constitution. One of the stakeholder presentations at the latest TPP negotiations was titled "The Walt-Disney Company: Creativity, Brought to you by Copyright.” At the same time, representatives from the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) were denied access and not allowed in the building for recent negotiations.
	For all these reasons, the TPP treaty will be a major battle in reforming copyright. The United States is the party asking for many of these provisions on intellectual property, and elected political leaders can and should get involved now to put an end to that. If a treaty is submitted that includes this type of language on intellectual property, 34 Senators should ensure that this treaty is not approved."
I assumed there would be lobbyists from the cell phone companies working against you.	There absolutely are.
Wow this is one hell of a thoroughly answered AMA. Just commenting to say thank you for doing this. The effort for communication is more than most congressmen or party affiliate have done.	I will answer you as well.
	You're welcome, I'm happy that people are talking about some of these issues and taking time out of their day to discuss them with me.
I just wanted to say as a person with more liberal/libertarian leanings I don't often find a lot of common ground with most Republicans but people like you give me hope your country may be able to reach reasonable compromises on issues. Keep up the great work.	I think a lot of people would be Republicans and conservatives if the party was serious about innovation and actual conservatism rather that rhetorical conservatism.
For your unlocking campaign, the whole /android community loves you. <3. That is all.	I love them back! we still have 24 hours, can they run up the score card and get us more signatures? The more signatures the better.
Derek, I used to work with you in Russell. Happy birthday!	Team Scott Brown?
Hello, I just wanted to say that I thought your memo on the current state of copyright law was spot-on. Keep up the good work!	Then let's get to work!
Derek, I think you a word in your title, bro.	Yes, sorry was rushing to set this up and can't change it.
YES, it is amazing. I watched West Wing religiously, and tell every person who comes to DC to re-watch. Now I tell them to watch West Wing and House of Card. It is so good. Unfortunately, it's stunningly accurate. I mean the last episodes go a bit overboard, but other than that highly accurate.	Except for the fact that he's the House whip, but I digress.
Hey bro, you misspelled the — in the article's 8th paragraph.	I already told the editor - not in my draft.
Man if you posted this on Monday morning, it would have over 2000 upvotes, not to mention top of the front page.	Wish I had you as my PR person - I have no PR person - I thought that 3 PM EST would be good for each time zone. And I wanted it today because of the petition window closing on Monday.

Last updated: 2013-02-27 11:04 UTC
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Date: 2013-01-21
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Questions	Answers
1) I saw some girl with Alice tattoos. Isn't that grand? I would like to make people stain their body with my ideas at some point.	It's weird. Someone once sent me a porno clip (I swear!) where the actress had tattooed the Cheshire Cat's face/mouth around her ... naughty bits. It was awful. After that, I never wanted to see another Alice-inspired tattoo. Or naughty bits.
2) What was the deal with Marilyn Manson's Alice involvement? I've heard a lot of things on the internet but internet things are unreliable.	He was involved, then he wasn't. They (Manson/NIN people) are a mercurial bunch. Never figured out what the real motivation for the sudden departure was. But we did get a couple of really beautiful tracks out of it - sadly, I'm legally forbidden from releasing them. So I listen to them by myself and smile.
3) Regarding Bad Day LA, after reading this: Link to www.americanmcgee.com I was wondering if you had advice for people who are in a similar position of not wanting a potentially bad game to define them.	Wow. That is a LONG post. I forgot I even wrote that. Advice for avoiding that? Not sure what I wrote in that post, but honestly, if you gave me the chance to avoid it today... I wouldn't. If I had not been involved with that game I never would have moved to Hong Kong or China and the last 8 years of my life would have been a lot more mundane.
4) I kind of thought the mad-hatter level in Alice seemed distinctly different from the rest of the game, a bit more horrific what with the little mangled kids. Any reason for that?	You'd have to ask Alice. It's her imagination after all ;)
What's Shanghai like? - What made you get into making games? - If you had to have one of your past games made by another company/person, what game and what company would you choose? - As a game developer, what's your take on the whole "violent video games" debate? - What's different about working in your own indie company rather than a huge studios?	Shanghai is like what LA looked like in "Blade Runner", except the cars don't fly (on purpose). It's a mix of incredibly modern and amazingly old. High tech and dirt poor. Our studio is 1km from the heart of the city, but there are chickens running around outside he front door! You really have to visit to appreciate it. And I wouldn't want to live anywhere else!
	Wow, excellent question. So I'd LOVE to see Ken Levine do something with the Alice series. Or Tim Schafer do something with Grimm. If you've played either game, you probably get how awesome that would be :)
	Violent video games... media/content has an impact on our brains. We know that's true. What we don't know is what sort of impact violent games have on our sensitivity to violence. I DO NOT think violent games make people go out and act in violent ways. Actually, I would lean towards them making people care less about violence in the real world, while subduing their own impulses to act out real violence. If anything, I'd worry about a generation of kids being raised on hyper-violent video games losing sight of things like the true cost of real war. Odd I have to say things like "real war". See?
	Working as an indie means having a terrifying amount of freedom. We make decisions that we know might simply put us out of business 6 months from now. I don't actually mind the idea of someone else paying our bills and supporting us while we develop something (AKA a publisher), but I HATE the idea of someone shaping the types of products we make to fit on a limited amount of shelf space and structuring recoup deals so we can NEVER earn enough money to be free to pursue our own designs. These days you can't have cake and eat it too ;)
Plans for more Alice games?	I do have plans but I don't have control. If I made another Alice today it would complete Alice's hero-journey arc and see her realize the full potential of physical mastery combined with psychological mastery. Remember when Neo figured out he could mess with the Matrix and reality? Like that.
What inspired you to make "Alice?" Was it just a huge fandom for Lewis Carroll or did you think the concept was just perfect for a game? I remember playing it when I was a kid and thinking it was fantastic! Also, what made you decide to make a sequel about ten years later?	It was a song. "Trip Like I Do" by the Crystal Method. I heard it while zooming along the coast of California (Highway 1) and thought, "Huh, dark land of wonder?" I later realized the sampled lyrics came from "The Dark Crystal," so in some round-about way you could say that movie helped inspire the idea.
	The sequel was something I always had in mind. The 10 year timing had to do with my having left EA, moving to China, building a studio capable of doing a sequel, then going back and proposing the idea to EA.
What exactly do you mean by 'largest indie Western game development studio in China'?	Btw, we're the largest indie Western studio because we have 50 people working here, including 2 cleaning ladies, a receptionist, accountant, Office Manger, etc. Our core team is around 40 people. 6 of that group are from places outside China (U.K., Aussies, U.S., etc). Indie development is very rare here, especially on the "scale" we've achieved and maintained. It's just not an environment conducive to the kind of business we've built. We're an oddity. If we were corporate, I think you'd see a lot more studios exactly like ours. You don't.
Because to me that just sounds like you've gone and hired cheap Chinese labour to make games for a Western audience, which strikes me as more a corporate attitude than anything Indie.	I guess the thing that makes me different is that I actually live here and have done so since I left the U.S. eight years ago. Would it make you feel better if I'd used my God-given freedoms as an American to move to a less threatening country, like Australia or the U.K.? Or one where I had to pay people more to work for me, even though less of their wages went into their pocket at the end of the day (or paid for social services they could actually use, as opposed to dropping bombs on innocent children/families in the mountains of Pakistan)? Corporate? If it's because you think I've hired "cheap" labor, I'd once again ask you to look at the twisted manner in which big corporations (EA, Activision) skirt labor laws in places like California by denying healthcare and basic benefits to employees by labeling them 'contractors' or forcing them into part-time positions. Labor here in Shanghai isn't "cheap" by comparison. That being said, my own compensation has never been lower - certainly not compared to when I worked for EA or id Software. Then again, my cost of living is also relatively lower. Our employees are paid on a scale that is directly competitive (in many cases) to what they would be paid in the U.S. - but I take a local salary because I'm living locally. I dunno... I choose to live in another part of the world because I wanted to see the world and be exposed to new culture and new ways of thinking. I make games for a living so I opened a studio here. We focus on high-quality of life for everyone in our studio, which means we don't crunch or overtime (though it has happened a few times in our 6 year history). I feel the work environment I've created here is healthier and more sustainable than anything I could have created in the U.S.
Any plans to make an Alice movie? I'd love to see one.	Yeah, that gets asked very often. Sadly, I don't control the Alice franchise. I created it while working as an employee for Electronic Arts, so they own and control it 100%. Ask them!
How does it feel knowing that a company like EA is in control of one of your titles? Are they as bad to work with as they are with their customers? Also, thanks for my childhood, haha.	They are just a corporate machine. Machines are neither good nor bad. They are simply programmed to attain certain results - and to find ways to become more efficient at attaining those results. As long as you understand the forces acting on the market in which they operate you can "accept" the decisions they make. In a sense, they have no choice. That's the sad thing about becoming a massive, publicly traded corporation. Entities like that no longer make decisions based on what's best for their developers, IP libraries or customers.
I just want to ask, what steps did you take to get where you are now? And are those the same steps you would take today?	Mine is an unusual story. I was forced, due to family issues, to drop out of high school at age 17. Until I was 20 I worked as a car mechanic. I was then brought into id Software by John Carmack and the rest is history. My experience with computers goes all the way back to age 11 or 12 - and everything I know today has been self-taught. Because I'm a big fan of knowledge and learning, self-teaching comes quite easily... and based on what I've heard of institutional higher level learning, it sounds like this was/is the right path for me.
	I would NOT change anything in my past, btw. Some really bad things had to happen for me to get where I am today - but I recognize the value, even in those awful moments; things happen in a certain order and if we could change that order we'd not end up in the same place. I like where I am today.
Hi American McGee! Of course, I wanted to get the obligatory thank-yous out of the way. I actually found the first Alice near a dumpster when I was taking out the trash, and the discs were all fully functional! One man's trash is truly another one's treasure :) I thought that you concept did such a great job of highlighting the darker sides of Lewis Carroll and really brought out what I thought was Alice's "true" character. 1) What do you think is your greatest strength when it comes to bringing a game/idea to fruition? Ideas for the gameplay and immersion/experience? Or do you think you do well with the character development and the story? 2) Continuing on the last question, which one do you think is the most important? There are many games such as Counter-Strike and Starcraft that make their living based on gameplay, whereas almost all Square Enix games make success because of the super deep and consistent character development in conjunction with an engrossing, emotional story with several plot turns. 3) I understand that you will want to make future Alice games. When you do, where do you think the story will go? There is a lot of speculation concerning the ambiguity around the ending of Madness Returns. Have you thought of a Chrono Trigger-esque storyline in which certain actions influence the ending of your story?	Hey there! Obligatory thank you accepted ;) Someone threw Alice in the trash!? Shame! My greatest strength in this business is being able to surround myself with really talented people - and to keep them happy (most of the time). I'm good with the big, high-concept stuff as well. When it comes to the details of making games or getting them done, I'm so-so. These days I spent huge amounts of time on running the business, which I've found I'm pretty good at. We're still here after 6 years! There shouldn't be ambiguity at the end of Alice! She's attained mastery of the physical world and we see that blended with her mastery of the psychological world (which she came away from the first game with). If there's a third game, my hope is to see her leveraging both of those powers to enter the minds of other characters - so-called "Otherlands." Yes, this has an element of Psychonauts to it. So be it. Imagine Alice mind-raping Jack the Ripper. They lived in the same time-period, I've done the research. Hehe. These days I'm mainly focused on Minecraft. I love the amount imagination it pulls out of me when playing it. As for books, my Kindle front-page currently has a book on evolution/social behavior (Wilson), several books on circuit design, books on Rasberry pi (hence the circuit design stuff), a book called "You are not so Smart," also, "I'll Go Home Then" (David Thorne), and "A supposedly fun thing..." by David Foster Wallace. I tend to read several books at the same time - which is OK as long as they are all different topics.
Why did you attach your name to the title of Alice? Was "American McGee's Alice" just a cute way to try to market yourself and make your name known or did you feel you were primarily responsible for so much of the game that it was no longer a true team effort?	There's a longer version of this story, but the short version is that I never had the powecontrol to force my name on a box of anything. EA legal and marketing decided it was a good way to establish a version of the "Alice" name which they could own and control. I signed a bit of paper giving them the right - and there you have it. Once that was done, other publishers came to me asking to use the name for marketing purposes. I did something akin to pure marketing use on "Scrapland." You'll note that the games coming out of my studio today DO NOT include the use of my name. When I have a choice about it, I don't do it.
Hey. I loved playing your games growing up. DOOM and Quake were amazing, and Alice was really awesome too. Cannot wait to try Akanerio: Demon Hunters.	Hey! :)
1 Just curious, but why did you choose the name American McGee?	Hahahaha. Awesome. I didn't choose my name. My mother named me that. She was a hippy. She said it was that or "Obnard" or "Marrakesh". Really, REALLY happy it wasn't Obnard.
2 Are there any new games you have in the works that seem especially interesting (besides Akanerio or course)	Yes. Please check out our shiny new gaming portal, SpicyWorld. You can do that via Link to spicyworld.spicyhorse.co
Edit: 4 What do you mean by "better days" when you talk about the industry shifting?	Just that when I started it felt a lot more like a happy relationship between audience and developer. These days there's a lot of animosity going around - people are angry at publishers, press feeding off drama, gamers feeling ripped off, developers being hid or kept in captivity. I just think that we're seeing a shift back towards a better relationship between devs and audience.
I'm a semi-professional voice actor (most of my activity is on YouTube but I am trying to get paid work) and the thing I'd love to do most of all is voices for games. What can I do to make that happen? How do you cast for your games? Is it still the old know someone who knows someone routine?	Honestly, I don't know what to say... other than there are TONS of people out there trying to do what you're doing. Next to "Hey, I'm a sound designer and..." the emails we get from "Hey, I'm a VO person and..." are the most frequent "job, please?" emails we get. It's a tough market you've decided to enter. For our studio, we simply don't have a need to hire anyone. And statistically, when you think about games, where you might have dozens of artists or tech guys... there are usually about 2 people doing VO or sound. The odds just aren't that great.
Hey, LOVED the first Alice when it came out. I don't get to play many games nowadays but the art direction was, and still is in my opinion, some of the best I've ever seen! Alice 2 is extremely gorgeous as well.	Hey there! Happy you liked the Alice games :)
When I heard that you were going to come out with a Wizard of OZ game I was so excited! My hopes were that this would start a series of adaptations with similarly dark and gritty imagery and story.	OZ was picked up for funding and publishing by Atari (this was after I'd left EA and started being an indie producer, living in LA). A year into development they killed the project. By that point we had a running (and beautiful!) game, so we tried to shop it around to other publishers. Problem was (and is) that the game's development to that point cost Atari ~1 million USD. In order for another publisher to acquire the rights, they have to repay that money. On top of that, the development rights on my side of the table are all screwed up with former business partners. So the chance you'll see that Oz getting made are about 0%.
My question is why did The OZ project fall through and is there any chance we will ever get to see this or something like it in the future?	That being said, the underlying Oz property is public domain. So if I'm ever feeling sassy (and wealthy) enough to risk being sued by a bunch of people for thinking up a new interpretation, there might be a shot at getting a game done.
Www.gameplanet.co.nz/news/1020661.20130122.Atari-files-for-bankruptcy-to-escape-parent-company/ Is this the same Atari that paid for the development? Wonder how much the rights are worth.	It's kinda-sorta the same. If you look at the history of the thing called "Atari" you'll see it's REALLY convoluted. Beyond the Atari issue, there are's also the problem of my having some irate former business partners who also "own" small %'s of the IP. Getting a game made would also mean finding a way to get them out of the picture, something that based on my experience with them, would be harder than the Atari rights buy-back.
What is the most important piece of advice you can think of for someone starting out in the games industry?	Keep in mind that everyone goes into the industry thinking they have "passion" and that their passion will get them noticed. That means your passion is just like everyone else's... it won't get you noticed. What you need is an ability to display a WIDE RANGE of skills. If you're an artist, be able to draw more than just transforming robots or ponies. Be able to draw transforming robot ponies at the drop of a hat! Programmer? Don't specialize in stuff you're interested in. Pursue broad knowledge around AI, physics, multi-platform targeting, game play programming, machine learning, etc, etc.
	Once you're able to do lots of interesting stuff, PROVE IT. Build demos, create an amazing portfolio; just show how awesome you are! At Spicy Horse we don't hire people based on their degree (a bit of paper) we hire them based on their ability to SHOW US how awesome they are.
	Lastly, don't be a sound guy! If sound guys were made of water we'd all live in boats. I love me some good sound people, but seriously, there are SO MANY of them out there. Sorry.
Mr. McGee, I was wondering, why wasn't the recent Alice game released to the Mac? And are there any plans to porting any new or old games to the mac?	Where and how Alice gets released is 100% up to EA. You'd have to ask them why they didn't bring it to Mac... I think they'd tell you there isn't enough profit (for them) in it.
Also I'm living in Shanghai right now, why work in Shanghai where websites like Facebook, Youtube, and file sharing sites like Megaupload are blocked? Where are your headquarters, and can I visit? :)	I don't choose where I live based on Internet access or censorship policies. If I did, there'd be a very small number of countries to choose from.
EDIT: Added a few questions regarding Shanghai.	Our office is located in ZhaBei District, just North of People's Square (about 1km). You are more than welcome to visit. Email me to arrange a time: american at spicyhorse dot com.
What do you think about the law (that may be passed) of ESRB ratings being manadotory on all games? How much would it hurt you as an indie developer?	Funny how a non-government ratings board can have laws passed to enforce their selection and control of media in the U.S. This type of stuff is a violation of our rights as artists (and consumers) to create and consume the kind of content we want without government getting in the way.
	Not sure how much this would directly impact us - and don't see how it would be applied to web games. Not going to worry about it just yet ;)
Back in 2006 you mentioned that you had switched to Linux on your primary work machine and planned to stay switched ( Link to www.americanmcgee.com ). Are you still using Linux as you primary?	Nope! Can't do these days because of China + game dev tools! Seriously, we run a Windows network and a lot of our source control tools simply don't exist on Linux. Also, China is not an environment in which you find a lot of people experienced on Linux. Know why? Because if you try to download a Linux distro without a VPN connection, YOU CAN'T! Crazy Chinese government blocks open source OS's. Go figure.
	That being said, I run no less than THREE boxes at home. Hope that makes up for it ;)
	Also, we ARE pushing more and more of our internal (and external) stuff to Linux these days. Mainly because we just imported a crazy-smart Russian programmer to Shanghai - he's a HUGE Linux nut, so he's been working to bring our back-end stuff over from Windows and will also be responsible for porting our games to Linux.
	That's actually one of the goals of our current Kickstarter campaign for Akaneiro - get it running on Linux!
What's your next project?	We're in the process of launching a new one RIGHT NOW. It's called "Akaneiro" and you can play it via web or client: www.angry-red.com.
This looks very beautiful. I look forward to playing.	There's a Kickstarter for it as well. Search and find. You might like what you see ;)
I haven't played any of your games, but they look great! How much work generally goes into a game?	Depends on the type of game, platform, budget, etc. Some games take 600+ people to make (see Ubi's "Assassins Creed" games). Some take only 1 person (see "The Fart App"). Development schedules can last between 1 day and 8 years. Large-scale games often consume more man-hours to produce than a typical film might, by way of comparison.
How was working with the Shy the Sun crew?	They are fantastic in terms of creativity and capability. If you check out the trailers they did for A:MR, all you can say is "Wow!" What was frustrating was how EA Marketing interfered - telling STS from the start that ALL creative direction and final say would come from them, not from us (the developecreator of the story/tone). That resulted in trailers that were much darker and gorier than the game ... and that was a calculated disconnect created by EA. They wanted to "trick" gamers into believing A:MR was a hard-core horror title, even though we refused to develop it in that tone. Their thinking is, even if the game isn't a hard-core horror title, you can market it as one and trick those customers into buying it (while driving away more casual customers, like female gamers, who might be turned off by really dark trailers). It's all a part of the race to the bottom EA, Activision and the other big pubs are engaged in. Expect to see it get worse before it gets better.
"(while driving away more casual customers, like female gamers, who might be turned off by really dark trailers)"	I'm already in hot water with EA for mention of this trailer stuff. This wasn't just about 'dark horror,' it was about a representation of the main character (Alice) that I felt wouldn't resonate with the audience as I understand them - having met many fans in person (male and female). When a character many consider to be a 'hero' is cast in a negative, psychotic light...
Sorry to break it up to you Mcgee, but female gamers also love dark horror games. So becareful what you say here.	I'd love to discuss more, but at this point I simply don't want to cause additional hurt feelings over at EA.
What advice would you give to solo indie developers who are trying to turn their hobby into a living?	Make stuff! Plain and simple. You can grab the Apple Developer Kit and secure a license to publish for $99 - that puts you in front of millions of customers (billions?) and provides a way to hone your skills while building fun stuff. With stuff in hand, you have an opportunity to present yourself to publishers as a viable development studio. Or you may hit on the next Angry Birds and I'll be coming to you for work and publishing! :P.
It is common knowledge that literature cultivates the mind, but how about video games? How do you see your own role (or that of video games in general) in shaping the next generation? Do you ever make design decisions on the grounds of avoiding bad influence or for the purpose of being an inspiration/role model?	My design decisions are more driven by what I think the story or main character "wants" than what the outside world is asking for. "Alice" is a great example - on both developments I found myself repeatedly saying things like, "Alice wouldn't do that," or "Alice wouldn't wear that." That being said, I did choose to work with the property because I knew the things Alice would be things I'd agree with. Psychological backflip there.
	As for avoiding bad influence... I believe people have a personal responsibility to handle that for themselves.
	And as for being a role model... I do try my best. Most of that's done at our studio where I tend to lead by example.
Who in your opinion is the most talented programmer you've ever worked with?	John Carmack. No question. Actually, I'm pretty sure he's the most talented programmer anyone has ever worked with ;)
Years ago there were rumors flying around about Sarah Michelle Gellar starring in a big screen version of Alice. Was there any truth to the rumblings? Also, any future plans for an Alice movie?	There was truth. She accosted me outside a restaurant in Hollywood and went ballistic about her desire to play the lead role in an "Alice" movie. It was... interesting. Nothing ever came of it. The movie is caught in the Hollywood doldrums.
Alice was the best game ever! It's one of the few I've played all the way through. We were going to dress my 1 year old as Alice from the game (with blood and all) for Halloween but backed out at the last minute because we figured no one would "get" it.	Thanks! Yeah, children covered in blood. Maybe not a great idea.
Wasn't there a movie that was supposed to come out?	Movie... maybe. It's stuck 'in Hollywood.' We'll all just have to continue waiting.
Props to you. That game is awesome!	Thanks for the props! I'll use those to fight off the 100 duck sized horses.
What do you think of the state of copy and paste FPS games penetrating the market today and breaking records left and right?	I think it's sad. But it's also a sign of the industry nearing the end of this particular cycle of content and development. It's a sort of distilling down of content towards the last remaining lucrative audience. That doesn't mean it represents the larger, more curious audience - or the new gamers who are coming online for the first time, never having touched a mouse/keyboard or console controller. The bright side of all of this is that other forms of gaming and other delivery system are breaking records too. Just give it more time to balance out again.
I wonder then if you've played Spec Ops: The Line? It feels like one of the aforementioned copy and paste shooters but takes on a very different approach and feel to the genre. If you have played it what were your impressions coming away from it?	Have heard it's great, but haven't played. I'm sure there's still room for expression and awesome content... Just seems publishers are less and less interested in making those kinds of bets these days.
Just curious if you've played Rage, and how you think id Software in general is doing these days?	I've not played Rage for more than a few minutes. It felt to me, like many modern day games do, very 'plastic.' One of the things I think id games used to do really well was capture a sense of dark humor - even when you were gibbing a imp or using exploding barrels to take out a bunch of 'pinkies.' No idea how id is doing. We don't speak :)
Also, Akaneiro looks pretty sweet!	Glad to hear you like Akaneiro. We're very proud of it. And it feels like something good is going to happen with it. Very positive noises being made around it - and that noise is growing day by day.
What's your favorite game you helped create, and your favorite that you didn't?	Kinda torn on this one. I really enjoyed working on the DOOM/Quake games because I was able to get involved with SO MUCH. That being said, the "Alice" games really helped established my name, so they're difficult to ignore. As for least favorite that would have to be "Bad Day LA," but not because of the game itself - just because of the terrible conditions we had to endure while creating it.
Dude, thank you so much for Quake 2 and Quake 3. So good. SO GOOD. Grew up on that shit. Helped me bond with my dad. You're the shit. What made you want to make games? How did you get started making games? Are you romantically involved with an asian girl? I love asian girls.	Thanks! Please note I had NOTHING to do with Q3. I was fired from id just as development at that project began. As for how I got into game, please scroll down. That's been answered in some detail.
	And yes, I am involved with a lovely 'asian girl,' though she prefers to be called by her name, Yan.
	I'm sure Asian girls love you too! You should come visit ;)
Why do you find it acceptable to brand a game that many different people worked on as "American McGee's"? Doesn't that strike you as arrogant and disrespectful to all of the other people who worked long hours on this game whose name doesn't appear on the cover?	Mr. Lander, I sense of degree of animosity in your query.
	Before I respond, I'd like to know what you think of Sting putting his name on his albums, despite the presence of other artists in his band and crew? Or Tarantino, that disrespectful jerk, taking ALL the credit for his films when we all know perfectly well there are 100's (1000's?) of people responsible for getting those made. What about Captain Crunch, that arrogant Sea Bastard, claiming all the credit for cereal that remains crunchy despite the nefarious efforts of milk. And damnit, milk! How dare it claim right to describe that liquid goodness we all know wouldn't exist without the cow?! These are outright atrocities! Mr. Lander, we must do something! Quick, to Reddit! That's where we make things better! :P.
	Seriously, my friend... I think you might want to scroll down and read my previous response(s) on this topic. I could have just said that, but I really thought someone needed to put milk in its place. Also, I do my best to point credit for "my" work towards all the wonderful people who've made the choice to work with me over the years. I know I wouldn't be here without them. I think that's pretty obvious.
Where do you get off calling yourself Americanmcgee while setting up operations for your business in China rather than America?	You'd have to ask my mom why she called me American. I've heard a number of different stories from her on the subject. But, a pretty consistent theme is that, being newly born and without a voice, I didn't have a lot of say in the matter. Pretty similar to your own story I imagine.
	As for starting a studio in Shanghai. Actually, I moved to Hong Kong back in 2005-ish. Then around 2006, Gametap, a subsidiary of Time-Warner, asked me to make a game for them. For a number of reasons (detailed in previous responses) I decided to start the studio (for developing that game) alongside another business I'd helped start in Shanghai. I've been living here for 6 years now and am pretty happy with the decision.
	I "get off" on it most every day. It's an incredible time to be here. It all aligns really neatly with my favorite Mark Twain quote,
	“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

Last updated: 2013-01-25 17:19 UTC
This post was generated by a robot! Send all complaints to epsy.

So we have this lovely piece of jerking here [2100+ upvotes, 600+ comments].
Long story short, some 9-year-old kid used her laptop to find some music, and happened to end up pirating some music. The pirated music supposedly "didn't work", so her and her father went and bought it. Of course, they got caught, and instead of paying the 600 euro fine they fought it, and the child's laptop got taken by the police.
Now stop right there. We have all the classic elements for a MASSIVE redditor-powered piracy circlejerk. But will it all come together? Of course it will! This is /technology, home of TorrentFreak blogspam and a hub for piracy news of all types!
The drama started a day or two ago with a different TorrentFreak article, but I'm not going to go through that thread, I'm going to go through the more recent thread. Let's start with the title.

Raided 9-Year-Old Pirate Bay Girl Came To Save Us All

This 9 year old girl is going to save everyone! From what, having to pay for music? Let's check out the article, maybe TorrentFreak has something interesting.

The news this week that Finnish police had seen fit to raid the home of a 9-year-old file-sharer has turned into one of the biggest stories of the year so far.

Biggest story of the year. Huh, I thought Megaupload was the biggest? That shitstorm has gone on all year! Oh well. Back to the thread.

148 points 8 hours ago link
This story highlights some of the realities of the internet world for our society. Children, either through a lack of understanding or through simple being children, can get wrapped up into much more serious issues. On the same time, government organizations are stepping in to defend property right laws. What happened here was beyond silly and the "debt" issued was nothing short of extortion. One can only hope a modicum of common sense breaks out with this case.

Woah there. It's beyond silly, because of her age? What about the parent, who gave a 9 year old unrestricted and unsupervised access to a laptop, without educating her about even the basics of where she should be looking for music? Since when is a fine extortion? Her father chose not to take the easy way out, he's to blame for her loss of the laptop, not the authorities.

98 points 4 hours ago link
So the total infringement cost is $600. How much did the police's time cost? The lawyers? I would wager more than $600. This is not about recovering loss, this is about generating fear. I know people who won't download from anywhere including iTunes because they are afraid they can't prove ownership of the music. Too afraid to buy.

But it's about the message, not the price. Should they not enforce laws against, say, murder, just because it's expensive? We have the typical redditor anti-authority circlejerk starting here...

Japan instigated some extremely harsh laws regarding copyright infringement. Their legal music sales have gone down substantially since.

They've been going down every year since 2004, this is nothing new. Yet again, misinformation is employed by the pirates... Why am I not surprised?

43 points 4 hours ago link
We should start up a fund and buy the girl a new laptop. And maybe some toys and stuff. Poor thing.

The kid broke the law and lost her stuff. Let's buy her more stuff. Logic. These redditors have none of it.

8 points 2 hours ago link
I really wish that the flamingo was a good example but everybody always seems to overlook one detail; With File-sharing AKA "Piracy", there is never any removal of an original piece of data.
A more proper example would be that my daughter came into your yard and made an exact duplicate, left your flamingo where it was originally and then brought her duplicate home, where I answer the door to some thugs telling me about how nice my TV is and how it would be a shame if anything happened to it, a fate that can be avoided if I just fork over a couple hundred pounds to compensate for the "loss" of the flamingo.

Aha, the classical argument! "It's not stealing, it's copying!". The piracyjerk is strong with this one! Of course, he conveniently ignores all the effort that goes into producing the song, and ignores the difference between physical and virtual items.

19 points 2 hours ago link
the fact that a corporation can use the police force as its personal bill collectors sickens me...

But.. It's the law... TTVK is allowed to collect fines.. Fuck it, I can't deal with this level of jerking.

10 points 4 hours ago link
If I received a letter from a content producer demanding money I would countersue them for extortion, attempted theft, misrepresentation, stalking, violation of privacy, possibly eavesdropping and other hacking statutes, consumer protection UDAP laws, and conspiracy of same, both individually and as a company.

Here we have a brave redditor who don't need no laws. Look at him, he's going to sue them for, wait, what? Extortion? Theft? Misrepresentation? Stalking!? Privacy violations!?! HACKING? What is this guy, some sort of anti-government lawyer-nerd? Is this guy serious?
And finally folks, buried down at +4 points, I found a voice of reason!

4 points 3 hours ago link
I may get downvoted, but I feel the need to point this out. IF I had a 9 year old, and I caught him/her torrenting, he/she would AT LEAST get yelled at and grounded off the computer indefinitely. For no other reason than this is an ADULT issue, a 9 y/o is not mature enough to be able to conscientiously break the law in this way.

Yay! Finally, someone reasonable! It's a pity that I had to go so far down to see this. There's a few more comments like this one, but they're all very low down.
I've seen a lot of piracyjerks on reddit, but I'd have to say this one is among my favorite for the most absurd and the most ridiculous.

(Thanks to hazysummersky and _electricmonk helping with the edit!! I indulged in some free thought but you can jump down to VPN to get to the fun stuff.)

"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"

Brothers, sisters, friends - have no doubt, in the fight for the free flow of information, we are winning.

• Both RIAA and the MPAA are seeing their budgets crash.
  
• They burned many millions in lobbying money on SOPA and ACTA.
  
  • Comcast in its pro SOPA lobbying came out to over a quarter million dollars
  • Total spend by the pro-SOPA lobby came out to more than $100 million
• Their shakedown strategies are getting stonewalled in the courts as judges start rejecting their John Doe lawsuits.
  
  • Furious judge decries "blizzard" of copyright troll lawsuits
  • IP-Address Can’t Even Identify a State, BitTorrent Judge Rules
  • Copyright trolls: “We don’t care if you did it or not, we just want your money!”
  • Judge tells copyright troll to put up or shut up on porn lawsuits
• Their MegaUpload raid has turned into a promotion for Kim Dotcom's new sites, Mega and Megabox. The case becoming a major embarrassment to the DOJ.
  
  • Kim Dotcom meets with Woz, restarts launch of MegaBox music sharing
  • Kim Dotcom plans new cyberlocker service that feds can't reach
• The Pirate Bay still stands.
  
  • Pirate Bay Ready For Perpetual IP-Address Whac-A-Mole
  • Pirate Bay Moves to The Cloud, Becomes Raid-Proof

The game is about to enter a new phase and the MAFIAA is finally making it's play with Six Strikes. Basically, the ISPs will now work in co-operation with the MAFIAA to streamline consumer shakedowns and disconnect corrupted nerds from the network.

• The Copyright Alert System: Moving to Implementation
  
• "Six strikes" system goes live this fall, appeals to cost $35
  
• The "Six Strikes" program will be here in six weeks. How it works and what it means.
  

This post is about how the six strikes plan is flawed because users will simply encrypt their file sharing; but I feel there are other criticisms to be made aside from being doomed to ultimate failure.
Access to the internet is a basic human right. It's not just about access to torrents. Access to the internet is increasingly needed to take part in modern culture. It seems an over-reach to break someone's economic, educational and social opportunities; for what is still just a civil offense. It is crazy that we are talking about copying of an infinite supply of goods as a reason to disconnect someone. It would feel more appropriate to at least be talking about disconnecting pedophiles from the internet. But the copyright maximalists are pushing their crusade too far. They are becoming a bigger problem than the one they sought to stop. We shouldn't be impeding on the social freedoms of the many, to protect some hollywood rent seeking models. There is already a legal system ready to settle civil matters and we should keep things there. There is little reason to elevate a civil offense to a national scare. Especially at a time when wider society is at a point of debating whether it should be civil offense at all.
The scheme overly depends on an IP address as evidence. They should know from their own office networks, how hard it is to control an IP address. And I should hope they begin the Six Strikes by issuing shakedown letters to the offices of the USCongressional House, RIAA, Homeland Security, Sony, Universal, Fox and Microsoft.

• While Drafting SOPA, the U.S. House Harbors BitTorrent Pirates
  
• RIAA and Homeland Security Caught Downloading Torrents
  
• Busted: BitTorrent Pirates at Sony, Universal and Fox
  
• Busted: Microsoft Harbors BitTorrent Pirates
  

Given the above evidence that RIAA cannot protect it's own IP, why are they planning to begin holding average people to a standard they cannot achieve themselves? What stops someone from continuously spoofing someone's IP address as a means to get them blacklisted by Six Strikes? Even in cases where people are taking reasonable measures to protect their connection, they can still be vulnerable because of inherent flaws in some routers.

• Hands-on: hacking WiFi Protected Setup with Reaver
  
• Cracking WPA using the WPS vulnerability with reaver v1.3
  

I can see innocent people getting screwed by the MAFIAA. Without the public judicial system to keep things at least a little balanced, this will be gangster style shake downs done at an industrial pace.
During SOPA, it was a legislative fight. We needed to sign petitions, pressure congressmen, boycott companies. The same anti-SOPA strategies won't work in this particular battle because the six strikes strategy seeks to side step the public legislative and judicial systems; it is law by corporate cartel.
Have no doubt, this is a cartel. It only makes sense because all the major ISPs and MAFIAA corporations are on board. Verizon would be committing suicide if it decided to be Hollywood's lapdog all by itself. But with Comcast and AT&T on board, it is difficult for the consumer to simply choose a better service. In effect, ISPs are limiting our service and lowering their costs while charging the same price. Without another major ISP offering an alternative, we can't do another GoDaddy boycott. They are very much saying, "fuck you and what are going to do about it?".
Well, they underestimate our collective ability to find shit out. Technology is the field where we hold advantage, they have made a mistake. We will evolve beyond their reach.
VPNs
The easiest solution is to use a private VPN to encrypt your torrenting. The ISP can only log that your connecting to the VPN. The swarm can only see your VPN assigned IP. This shouldn't be too hard; and most VPN providors will have step-by-step guides somewhere on their sites. Use a private VPN. Don't use a free VPN. Use OpenVPN or IPSec vpn tunnels. Don't use PPTP.

• Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously?
  
• How To Make VPNs Even More Secure
  
• DNS Leak Test
  

The added bonus here is that you can encrypt all your internet activity, not just your torrenting.
I2P
I2P is very interesting. There has been a renewed push to get more seeds going; so I think the I2P network is about to go through a new growth phase. Definitely something to have a second look at and keep an eye on. It is also opensoure, p2p and free. I think it has the most long term value but at this point needs another wave of early adopters.

• Torrenting with I2P. The why and how of secure filesharing using the I2P network.

Guides to setting up I2P:

• A text-only tutorial on eepsites and I2P torrenting
  
• https://encrypteverything.ca/index.php/Installing_and_using_I2P
  
• https://encrypteverything.ca/index.php/Installing_and_using_I2P_%28GNU/Linux%29
  

Torrents
Use the built in torrent manager, I2PSnark. On the tracker page for the torrent you want to download (in this example we are using Postman's tracker, the link to which is located at the top of I2PSnark), right click the image of a magnet and select "Copy Link Location". Paste this link into the bar next to the "Add torrent" button. After you have pasted the link, click "Add torrent". The torrent will now appear in I2PSnark. Press the play button next to the torrent to start downloading it.
screenie example -> https://encrypteverything.ca/index.php/File:I2PSnark.PNG

Download:

• http://www.i2p2.de/download.html

Some eepsites:

• http://tracker2.postman.i2p
  
• http://torrent.repo.i2p
  

Bonus:

• /i2p
  
• "An easy way for people to lrn 2 i2p is tails as i2p is built in and configured by default. This makes a live usb and external hard disk an easy option for the n00bs " - ancient chinese proverb
  
• TorrentFreak Top Ten Torrent / I2P mirrors to test out (oct 2012)
  
• Port Forward Guide
  
• http://www.i2p2.de/manualwrapper
  
• http://stream.i2p/torrent2magnet.py
  
• http://zw3crggtadila2sg.onion/imageboard/dl/
  

VPS
It's a bit more involved but you can use a VPS as a seedbox.

• Extensive list of seedbox providers
  
• Guide to setting up your own Seedbox
  
• /trackers FTP Guide
  
• What methods do you use to pull files from your SeedBox?
  
• Automated LFTP Sync from SeedBox to Home
  
• Kimsufi
  
• Feral Hosting
  
• Bacon Seed
  
• /seedboxes /piracy
  

Usenet
Usenet has been around forever, mostly full of old people but old people usually have interesting things to share. If you do try Usenet, apart from the fast file-sharing, it is worth checking out the usenet newsgroups.

• Free Anonymous Usenet Downloading With Just a Web Browser
  
• http://just4today.net/
  
• http://usenetstorm.com/
  
• http://www.astraweb.com/
  
• http://www.giganews.com/
  
• http://nzbindex.nl/
  
• http://binsearch.info/
  
• http://xsusenet.com/
  
• /usenet
  

Keep in mind, usenet is also being targeted lately. Although it's unlikely the entire usenet network will be taken down.
Retroshare
Retroshare is a litle tricky. It really should be used as a genuine friend to genuine friend network (F2F Networks). But if you do have interesting friends, Retroshare offers encrypted communication and filesharing.

• RetroShare: secure communications with friends
  
• Anonymous, Decentralized and Uncensored File-Sharing is Booming
  
• RetroShare Brings Anonymous File-Sharing To the Masses
  
• Unofficial Retroshare Wiki: Adding Friends
  
• /retroshare
  

Alternative ISPs
If your lucky you might have the choice to switch to an ISP that isn't participating in Six Strikes

• Sonic
  
• Charter (I am genuinely surprised by this...)
  
• Google Fiber doesn't seem to be participating; which might be interesting as Google rolls out nationally.
  
• You can keep track of participating ISPs here.
  

During SOPA, Reddit was an important player in getting the initial awareness out about the SOPA threat and generating ideas about how to respond. /SOPA and /technology were important places from where viral action started. Once again, we are not going to be getting help from CNN about how easy VPNs are to encrypt communication; so we need to use our social media networks as a counter balance to msm blackout. There will be lots of places on the net where people post a frustrated "FUCK YOU Verizon", not realizing they can simply evolve and laugh. We need to teach our friends who might be a little intimidated by the jump. This evolution of the network is fought by a million conversations between one friend to a another. The MAFIAA's Six Strike plan depends on our ignorance. But they underestimate our collective ability to find shit out.
So please - share, tweet, email, remix, repost, etc etc.
Keep Fighting the Good Fight!! Evolve Beyond Their Reach!!

EDIT 1: "This account's public links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!" Oh no!!! T-T So, apparently they got pretty popular really fast, and DropBox doesn't like the high traffic. So I need to move all of my login downloads to a different file share provider. I usually use MegaUpload (obviously, can no longer do that) so I'll have to look around for a new one. :/ Sorry about this guys!
EDIT 2: All that links that currently available are the video links and the downloads that have been moved to a new files sharing service (MediaFire). [: Sorry for this delay on the downloads, but I'm working to fix it ASAP! Be patient please!
I'm taking requests for login screens to be made. [: Put your request in the comments, and I'll get to it soon.
Currently made custom login screens (videos and DLs):

• When I'm Draven
• When I'm Gems
• When I'm Bored
• Party Lux
• I'll Quit LoL
• HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA
• Bubble Pop!
• Charm You Baby
• French Maid Nidalee
• French Maid Nidalee Dubstep
• Mundo Heart Vayne
• You Can't Touch Mormon Jesus
• MOUTH DUBSTEP
• Nyan Cat Beatbox
• Teemo I Love You
• Nunu Doing His Thing
• Zul'Aman Music [Bagpipe]
• Charlie Schmidt's Keyboard Cat!
• I'm A Stupid Cat!
• Nunu Zul'Aman
• What's Geming On?
• Corporate Takeover [Mundo Tribute]
• Dance Master Phreak
• HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA v2
• I Like Trains
• Pikachu On Acid

Currently made custom login DLs (DLs of login, videos will be added soon):

• GANGNAM STYLE
• GANGNAM STYLE [ft. HYUNA]
• Dance Master GANGNAM STYLE
• When I'm Ahri

Currently made custom logins without DLs or videos (YET):

• ~~~~~~~~~

You can click the "Disable Login Music" box under your login to mute the Diana music.
Or go to C:\RIOT Games\League Of Legends\RADS\projects\lol_air_client\releases\0.0.0.187\deploy\assets\sounds\ambient and remove the LoginScreenIntro and LoginScreenLoop mp3 files.
But beware, clicking the "Disable Menu Animations" box under the "Disable Login Music" box will disable the custom login screen, so do not do that. [: Enjoy guys.