By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff U.S. Customs officials raided UCLA and other
major universities Tuesday, seizing computers used by suspected
members of a worldwide software piracy ring known as "DrinkOrDie."
According to the Customs Service, the raids were part of "Operation
Buccaneer," an investigation into a global network of cyberspace
groups who use the Internet to pirate billions of dollars worth of
software. In addition to software, the groups pirate movies and
music. For instance, the current theatrical releases "Behind Enemy
Lines" and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" were available
in digital quality before their respective premieres, said Kevin
Bell, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service. "We believe that
students and (computer network) administrators were involved in
using computer resources at these universities to illegally copy
software," Bell said. Federal agents executed 44 search warrants in
more than 27 cities across the United States and seized more than
129 computers. They conducted searches in businesses, residences
and other major schools nationwide, including Duke University,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue University, the
University of Oregon and the University of Rochester. U.S.
officials have not arrested anyone in the United States, but they
charged conspirators in foreign countries on Tuesday. Bell said.
Indictments should be handed down in the next several months.
University officials declined to comment on the matter, but issued
a statement Tuesday that UCLA is working in full cooperation with
Customs Service and "welcomes the opportunity to work with federal
agencies in this investigation." Because the warrants are sealed,
no specifics about the confiscated hardware could be released.
Customs agents will evaluate the evidence over the next two or
three months, combing over trillions of bytes of information, Bell
said. "This investigation underscores the severity and scope of a
multi-billion dollar software swindle over the Internet, as well as
the vulnerabilities of this technology to outside attack," U.S.
Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said in a statement Tuesday. The
roughly 40-member DrinkOrDie is part of the "WAREZ" community,
which Customs Service describes as "a loosely affiliated network of
software piracy gangs that engage in the duplication and
reproduction of copyrighted software over the Internet." WAREZ
accounts for nearly 90 percent of Internet software piracy,
according to the Customs Service. Software piracy violates the
Criminal Copyright Infringement Act and the No Electronic Theft
Act, according to the Department of Justice. DrinkOrDie formed in
the early 1990s in Russia and expanded to nations, including
Australia, England, Finland and Norway. Members are typically
white-collar citizens with good jobs, Bell said. "We don't
anticipate any violence," Bell said, adding that many members have
engaged in nonviolent criminal activities such as stealing credit
cards, satellite codes and cellular phone numbers. With insider
help at software firms, the pirates can acquire software before it
is publicly released, Bell said. The supplier of the software will
leave it at the group's drop box, often a computer hard drive. It
is then passed on to a "cracker" who removes copyright controls,
passwords and other security features from the program. A "courier"
then distributes the software over the Internet after it has been
cracked. The process can take as little as a few hours. Piracy
costs the software industry $12 billion per year worldwide,
according to the Business Software Alliance, and DrinkOrDie is
responsible for up to $5 billion of that loss per year. Eight to 10
groups in the world operate at a similar scale to DrinkOrDie, Bell
said, adding that they are to be targeted next.
With reports from Timothy Kudo, Daily Bruin Senior Staff.