Quote:

---

Meanwhile, the person on the web forum said that he had received a copy of Modern Warfare 2 on Oct. 30. Over the weekend, the hacker went to work on the copy protection built into the DVD disk with the game on it. He cracked the code ? something that isn?t that hard for hackers to do these days ? and announced that he had done so on Monday. Coincidentally, pirate digital copies of Modern Warfare 2 flooded onto torrent sites, which are peer-to-peer sites for sharing software, on the same day. That has likely caused untold losses for Activision Blizzard, Holmes said.

---

Quote:

---

IPCybercrime sent an investigator to the address and then determined that the cyberhacker was Christian Del Amo, an 18-year-old who was known as a modder and had a site for selling modded Xbox 360 hard disks on iOffer.com, an eBay-like site. The modder advertised 250-gigabyte Western Digital hard drives, loaded with 125 hacked games, for $150.

---

Quote:

---

That meant that not only was Del Amo making pirated digital copies on DVDs, he was also sophisticated enough to know how to make disks that look like legitimate copies. On his Twitter account, Del Amo was in a conversation with an underground hologram maker. Holograms can be used to make the disks look like legitimate copies of the game. Those who bought the pirated game would be able to play it in modded Xbox 360s.

---

Quote:

---

The modder advertised 250-gigabyte Western Digital hard drives, loaded with 125 hacked games, for $150.

---

Originally posted by leerage:

---

Why make them look like legitimate discs when you need a modded 360 to play them?? This reporter is brain dead.

---

Originally posted by bhetrick:

---

Originally posted by leerage:

---

Why make them look like legitimate discs when you need a modded 360 to play them?? This reporter is brain dead.

---

Wait, think about it. You can lift a warranty sticker, flash a 360, then replace the sticker. Then if you could reproduce the hologram cheaply, imagine how much money you could make selling cheap 360's (used, x clamped, whatever) and any games you wanted to unsuspecting buyers. They wouldn't know the difference.

Only way to tell the difference would be to look at the data side of the disc. Stamped discs are silver/gold while burnt disc are blue/purple. Of course, most don't know that.

---

Originally posted by funksoulb:

---

Originally posted by bhetrick:

---

Originally posted by leerage:

---

Why make them look like legitimate discs when you need a modded 360 to play them?? This reporter is brain dead.

---

Wait, think about it. You can lift a warranty sticker, flash a 360, then replace the sticker. Then if you could reproduce the hologram cheaply, imagine how much money you could make selling cheap 360's (used, x clamped, whatever) and any games you wanted to unsuspecting buyers. They wouldn't know the difference.

Only way to tell the difference would be to look at the data side of the disc. Stamped discs are silver/gold while burnt disc are blue/purple. Of course, most don't know that.

---

He could also have been looking into making counterfeit discs that look legit, but obviously won't work on unmodded consoles. If he was offering a modding service and keeping people's consoles, he probably wouldn't think twice about ripping people off with dodgy copies that the buyer thinks are legit originals. Whatever he was doing, he was a greedy scumbag and he got what he deserved.

---