From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
DrinkOrDie
DrinkOrDie ASCII .nfo
header. Their slogan reads "warez bearz from Russia and
beyond". |
| Origin |
Moscow |
| Country |
Russia |
| Years active |
1993–2001 |
| Category |
warez |
| Founder(s) |
deviator
CyberAngel |
DrinkOrDie (DoD) was an
underground release group and warez trading network during the 1990s. On
December 11, 2001, a major law enforcement raid - known as Operation
Buccaneer - forced it to close under criminal charges of infringement. DoD, as a rule,
received no financial profit for their activities. The DoD
network - which primarily consisted of university undergraduates - was
also supported by software company employees, who would leak copies
of software and other digital media. DoD was also actively
involved in illicit file-trading with other networks.
History
Start up
and trading
DrinkOrDie was founded in 1993
in Moscow by a Russian with the handle "deviator" and a
friend who went by the code name "CyberAngel." By 1995, the group
was global.
One of its earliest major accomplishments was the Internet release of Windows 95 two weeks
before Microsoft
released the official version. It is also known for its DoD DVD Speed Ripper released in 1999
shortly before DeCSS. The
activity of the DoD group diminished after 1996, and they were not
considered major players in the warez scene by 2000.
Member
raids
In 2001 the group was busted in a U.S. Customs operation
called Operation Buccaneer. The global
raids were initiated after information was given to United States Customs by James Cudney,
known as Bcrea8tiv. Cudney quickly rose up the ranks of DOD council
where he spent a year working undercover for US Customs, logging
conversations in chat rooms and channels visited on IRC.
Large amounts of intelligence were collected by U.S. Customs
agents on many warez groups worldwide e.g., screenames, ftp
locations, nationalities. At the time, DrinkOrDie allegedly had two
leaders, one in the United States and another in Australia.
The Australian co-leader Hew Raymond Griffiths, known by
his handle "Bandido", from Bateau Bay on the Central Coast of New South
Wales, was charged in 2003 with copyright infringement and
conspiracy to commit copyright infringement under US legislation.
He was involved in opposing extradition to the USA in Australian
courts for a period of almost 3 years.
Griffiths was ultimately unsuccessful and in early February
2007, he was transferred to the US detention system. He pleaded
guilty on 20 April, 2007 to one count of conspiracy to commit
criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright
infringement.[1] On 22
June, 2007 Griffiths was sentenced to 51 months in prison for
conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. But the US District
Court Judge, Claude M Hilton, took into account the almost three
years Griffiths had spent in Australian jails while fighting
extradition, meaning he will only have to serve 15 months in a US
Jail.[2]
The self-confessed American co-leader John Sankus Jr. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known by his
screen name "eriFlleH" (HellFire spelled backwards), was convicted
and sentenced to 46 months, later reduced to 18 months by
cooperating with the government in capturing other members of the
group. Sankus was also a member of the group HARM at the time of
his arrest.
US
Also charged and convicted were:
- Christopher Tresco age 23, of Boston,
Massachusetts, who used the screename "bigrar", pleaded guilty
May 28, 2002 to conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws,
and was sentenced to 33 months jail. Tresco was also a member of
Rise in Superior Couriering (RiSC). Tresco at the time of his
arrest was the Systems Administrator for the MIT Economics
department.
- Barry Erickson age 35, of Eugene, Oregon, who used the screename
"radsl", pleaded guilty on May 2, 2002 to one felony count charging
conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws, and was
sentenced to a term of 33 months, with three years of probation to
follow. Erickson was a systems engineer at Symantec Corporation and provided
prerelease software to DoD and RiSCiSO. He was also a founding
member of Parents On ‘Puterz (POP) a warez group that specialized
in the release of children’s learning software and games.
- David Grimes age 25, of Arlington, Texas, who used the
screename "chevelle", pleaded guilty on March 4, 2002 to one felony
count charging conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws.
Grimes was a computer engineer at Check Point Software. Grimes
supplied Check Point firewall software to DrinkOrDie on at least
two occasions, and he operated an FTP site known as High Octane and
was affiliated with RiSC, MYTH, RTS, and DrinkOrDie.
- Richard Berry age 34, of Rockville, Maryland, who used the
screen name "flood", pleaded guilty on April 29, 2002 to one felony
count charging conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws.
Berry was Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at
Streampipe.com in Alexandria, VA. A longtime member of DrinkOrDie,
he supplied members with computer hardware, occasionally tested
software, and operated BNCs for the FTP
sites known as Fatal Error, Packet Storm, and Lake of Fire. Berry
was also a member of POP.
- Sabuj Pattanayek age 21, of Nashville, Tennessee, who used the
screen name "buj", pleaded guilty on April 16, 2002 and was
sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for conspiring to violate
criminal copyright laws. However, Pattanayek did not spend one day
in prison nor was he ever arrested. Instead, his sentence was
reduced to 6 months community confinement, 3 years probation, and
100 hours of community service. Pattanayek, a student at Duke
University, was a council member, and a skilled software
cracker. Pattanayek had also been a senior member of the courier
group Request To Send (RTS).
- Stacey Nawara age 34, of Rosenberg, Texas, who used the screen
name "avec", pleaded guilty on March 19, 2002 to one felony count
charging conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws. Nawara
was a Council member in DoD, a senior member of the warez courier
group RTS, and a leading courier for the warez group Razor 1911.
- Michael Kelly age 21, of Miami, Florida, who
used the screen name "erupt", pleaded guilty on April 10, 2002 to
one felony count charging conspiracy to violate criminal copyright
laws. Kelly was a systems network administrator for Gator Leasing,
Inc., of Miami, Florida, from where he conducted many of his
activities. A senior member/botmaster for DoD, he also had past or
current membership in the warez groups AMNESiA, CORP, and RiSC and
the underground artscene group Remorse.
- Nathan Hunt age 25, of Waterford, Pennsylvania, who
used the screen name "azide", pleaded guilty on April 3, 2002 to
one felony count charging conspiracy to violate criminal copyright
laws. Hunt was a senior member in DoD and the group’s leading
supplier of software. From November 2000 through October 2001, Hunt
provided the group with more than 120 individual software titles.
Hunt was also a senior member of The Corporation (CORP).
- David Russo age 50, of Warwick, Rhode Island, who used
the screen name "ange", pleaded guilty on April 24, 2003 to
conspiracy to violate criminal copyright laws and received 13
months in federal prison. Russo was responsible for testing the
programs to determine if they functioned properly before
release.
- Kentaga Kartadinata, 29, of Los Angeles,
California, who used the screen name "tenkuken", pleaded guilty
on January 22, 2002 to conspiracy to violate criminal copyright
laws. Kartadinata operated an electronic mail server for the
group.
- Andrew Clardy of Galesburg, Illinois, who used the
screen name "doodad", pleaded guilty on April 4, 2002 to criminal
copyright infringement and conspiracy to violate criminal copyright
laws. Clardy was also a member of POP.
- Derek Eiser of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who used the
screen name "psychod", pleaded guilty on June 21, 2002 to
conspiracy to violate criminal copyright laws.
- Robert Gross of Horsham, Pennsylvania, who used
the screen name "targetpractice", pleaded guilty on May 22, 2002 to
criminal copyright infringement.
- Myron Cole of Warminster,
Pennsylvania, who used the screen name "t3rminal", pleaded
guilty on July 10, 2002 to criminal copyright infringement.
- Anthony Buchanan of Eugene, Oregon, who used the screen name
"spaceace", pleaded guilty on August 19, 2002 to criminal copyright
infringement. Buchanan was also a member of POP and worked as a
computer administrator at the University of Oregon.
UK
As a result of Operation Buccaneer, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit
in the UK also
arrested six members residing in Britain.
Two of those arrested ran a 6 month trial at the Old Bailey and were
charged and convicted for Conspiracy to Defraud, Alex Bell (aka
"mr2940") of Grays, Essex and Steven Dowd (aka "Tim")
of Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside,
Andrew Eardley of Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, (aka
"Maverick") pleaded guilty in May 2005 to conspiracy to violate the
criminal copyright laws and was sentenced to an 18 month suspended
sentence after previously being remanded in custody and under a
stringent 24 hour house arrest order whilst under suspicion of
contempt of court. Eardley was also a member of Parents On ‘Puterz
(POP) which was founded as a joint venture by Eardley, Cudney &
Erickson and allegedly other various other groups of which Cudney
had various senior positions.
Mark Vent of Essex (aka
"British") entered a guilty plea in July 2004 and received an 18
month sentence. Denis Oshdashko, a Ukranian national (aka
"Vizitor"), who had been instrumental in the reverse-engineering
part of the conspiracy, was deported after his arrest.
Bell, Dowd & Vent served their time at HMP Belmarsh.
Elsewhere
Apart from the Australian and British defendants, others
implicated in DoD were Swedish, German, Norwegian and Finnish
nationals. All except the Australian were dealt with under the
copyright or fraud laws of their own country. Griffiths was the
only member of the international network to be extradited to the
USA. This has set an important benchmark in copyright enforcement
for the US Department of Justice.
References
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