Fan Translator Strike Force

[X-Calibar]

I was thinking boy, sure wish we had a nice black ops unit for the internet to 'take care' of scum.
What's worse then the moral extortionist, champion of free games and the illegal?
... I'd have to say hackers who go out of their way to attack small buisness'.
Example : Hirameki International, a niche buisness that translates japanese all-age Visual Novels, which from what I've read
http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3433 ; basically states Hirameki is doing their best to market their product but having a hard time reaching the consumers.  Still they state that "Hirameki is committed and very thankful to their dedicated fanbase; and to expect more quality games in the future. The company will do its best to continue to expand the English visual novel fanbase with quality titles and hope the fans will continue to support them. "
So it's just wonderful when some genius hacker(s) decide that they will attack Hirameki's community fourm, overwriting every existing topic, including technical support, valuable information not only about their games but information built up by fans relating to the whole Visual Novel buisness.  And replacing every topic with pirating links of Hirameki's games.

What's worse yet, I heard that right now the person who has the rights to the site, to fix or take it down is just unreachable.  So, what's the bottomline?
In worst case scenerio last week when they first started attacking I counted the amount of downloads, seeders, leechers etc...
Basically it amounted to about 35 thousand dollars worst case lost.  (Based on Rightstuf's prices.)

I just don't understand why a few screw ups in the world have to damage small buisness' or people who are all about bringing something new.  So, I think I'm starting to get a picture of how you feel NightWolve, every time some champion low life shows up to free the games, and to try to break those who make them.

[Oh and just so you know, most of the games can be obtained for about 15$ if you get them on sale, or 20 - 30$ if not.]
http://community.hirameki-int.com/

EDIT: One bit of good news, I assumed they had been hacked after hearing that and not finding any old topics...  But, apparently I found the old topics!  They were just buried under about 300 spam topics for each category.  Have to hit "a thread list is here" at the bottom of the page.

[Raigan]

I was thinking boy, sure wish we had a nice black ops unit for the internet to 'take care' of scum.

Now that's a job I would like to have! Imagine the pure satisfaction of removing this disgusting internet trash. Well, in my mind I've got some sort of Judge Dredd imagery going on mixed with total identity hacking. Like in "The Game" with Michael Douglas if you need an example.

[NightWolve]

[Oh and just so you know, most of the games can be obtained for about 15$ if you get them on sale, or 20 - 30$ if not.]
http://community.hirameki-int.com/

EDIT: One bit of good news, I assumed they had been hacked after hearing that and not finding any old topics... But, apparently I found the old topics!  They were just buried under about 300 spam topics for each category.  Have to hit "a thread list is here" at the bottom of the page.

That's fucked up. I never heard of Hirameki myself. Take it your a big fan?

Anyhow, I thought after I clicked your links I'd find official statements by the company regarding what happened. Instead, as soon as I scrolled down, I see the whole forum spammed with "DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!!". Clicking inside any thread you find tons of links to torrentphase.com, etc.

Man though, I'd hate to be the administrator that didn't make sure the server was up-to-date to patch whatever security holes allowed this to happen. It doesn't look like they've lost control of the e-commerce part of their site at least. Customer billing information could've been at risk or perhaps still is. Scratch that, I guess it's just automated spamming of the torrent links on their forum. Look at that current front page:

DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)
DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)
DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)
DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)
DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)
DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)
DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)
DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)
DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)
DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES FOR FREE!!! DOWNLOAD HIRAMEKI GAMES !!!! New (MWizard 2007/7/11)

You know, it's funny how I began to think of things in terms of a "war on selling" and this incident turns up, fitting the bill even more so than the random WAREZ groups out there. They don't, unlike these butt-pirates, try to make themselves directly known to the company whose product(s) they're plundering... They usually at least have some level of shame about it and don't take things this far.

I recall that many of the Felghana thieves decried, "Selling is illegal! Selling is illegal!!!", a direction I honestly felt a segment of the culture is headed in the general sense...  As such, this kind of action against a company WITH licensed material is not surprising. The seeds to lead to something like this were already planted. SkyWelse wrote a nice piece about it in that older thread here which articulates the point better than I can.

So yeah, what's the excuse in this case? The company didn't have licenses so therefore they're subject to getting fucked over? Perhaps the prices were too high? We certainly know that $5 for some members of the butt-pirate faction is a tremendous budget buster... It's greedy, it's a scam, etc. I guess at $15-$30, there's your problem.

So, I think I'm starting to get a picture of how you feel NightWolve, every time some champion low life shows up to free the games, and to try to break those who make them.

And interestingly enough, I started getting a picture of how Falcom feels. In the general sense, I have had the perspective of the consumer, which is the position where we are most of the time, consuming products by the producers, but now I also have the perspective of a producer having produced something people wanted, and later stole from me. Sure, it would eventually go freeware as I intended, but that BETA patch wasn't. And as you all would expect, as word of the leak spread, the donation frequency began to drop, and fast. Thus, it was robbery in that sense; that's how I judge it. You can imagine what I wanna do to the leaker, what I've thought about wanting to do him... The fact that you can never really obtain justice in this situation is what is most difficult to reconcile with.