Gary Bowser, of Team Xecuter infamy, is still serving his three-year prison sentence. The storied court battle may be over, but a new court transcript was released, and uploaded online, courtesy of Axios. In it, is further official comments from Nintendo's lawyers. According to the document, Nintendo's legal team wanted to use the TX case to send a message to other would-be hackers or those in the piracy business. During the proceedings, US district judge Robert Lasnik asked Nintendo's lawyers, "What do you think? What else can we do to convince people that there's no glory in this hacking/piracy?", with Nintendo's side responding, "There would be a large benefit to further education of the public."

Lasnik agreed with the sentiment, though he did not sentence Bowser to the full 5 years that Nintendo was seeking. "I always tell the jurors, 'Your role is not to send a message. Your role is to decide guilt or innocence on the facts'. But my role sometimes does entail sending a message." In response, Bowser said that giving him a longer sentence wouldn't be a deterrent to hackers, stating, “There’s so much money to be made from piracy that it’s insignificant.”

Additionally, the legal documents also reveal that Nintendo blamed hackers for the release of the new Nintendo Switch model, saying they had to design new hardware to circumvent the losses caused by TX. Nintendo's legal team also claimed that those using hacked systems could cheat, thus scaring off children who would lose to the cheaters and feel upset. “Parents should not be forced to explain to their children why people cheat and why sometimes games are not fair, just because one person wants an unfair advantage.”

2) According to the hacker Gary Bowser's lawyer, much of the time Bowser already served while awaiting sentencing was spent in de facto solitary confinement due to Covid and other health issues pic.twitter.com/BezqOq2oeZ

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) June 7, 2022

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Regarding the means of "sending a message", Bowser's lawyers sought a shorter 19-month sentence, to which Lasnik disagreed, and eventually sentenced Bowser to serve 40 months. The amount sentenced would have initially been 60 months, but was shortened due to the fact that Bowser suffered health issues as he awaited trial in jail, which caused him to be alone in solitary for 23 hours a day over the course of six months. As this also took place during the height of COVID, Bowser would only be allowed out of his cell to shower once every three days. He also had lost 90 pounds over those six months, and was confined to a wheelchair, as a result of his illness going untreated.

This was Bowser's statement regarding the above: "It has been a very traumatic experience for me getting arrested, coming here, going through this. This is my first time actually in a jail going through the court process and everything. And the amount of time I've spent already, 16 months in custody, a lot of that time - I spent six months, basically, locked up due to Covid. I went through all three of the Covid waves before there was even a vaccine available. I personally haven't got the vaccine [as] I am skeptical with my medical condition, how it will affect me, and I haven't been able to actually have proper medical treatment because I haven't been able to have a one-on-one with a doctor to see if the vaccine would be possible with my health conditions. When I first got arrested, I was 410 pounds. I had to use a wheelchair. I spent my life drinking, since I was age 15, after my mom died, and this is the longest time I have been sober in my life."

Source

 

[The Catboy]

Slowly and painfully killing the man is a terrible way to send this message and only shows that Nintendo is extremely evil. Seriously, this doesn’t make me not want to hack my system, this makes me want to hack it more. I don’t want to pay a dime to a company that seeks to abuse people to this level. Bowser doesn’t deserve this abuse, it’s fucked up and cruel.

 

[Elodain]

If you don't want your health to be at risk in prison, don't willfully violate the law repeatedly. He's right where he should be, and is getting free healthcare.

Healthcare in prison is not what it's cracked up to be. They offer that absolute bare minimum, which usually isn't enough, in order to say "Well, we ARE providing care"

Hell my state doesn't even offer routine teeth cleaning. You know, that thing that basically everyone universally agrees is required as a part of good and basic oral hygene...? The family member I discussed in a different thread took absolute IMPECCABLE care of his teeth while he was in and walked out with gum disease.

Mind you, you aren't wrong about the "Don't violate the law" bit but that doesn't excuse the prison system's tendency to not care about providing adequate health care to the people it is basically responsible for keeping alive...

Especially when they tossed this dude away for three years for basically being the PR guy for a group making modchips for game consoles. THREE YEARS for advertising, to put things simply. Yet the guy that did absolutely heinous (I think you know what I mean) things to a four year old only gets a year and a half in my state.... the "Justice" system is a fucking joke.

 

[HideoKojima]

Wishing a speedy recovery to @garybowser. I enjoyed every second of using SXOS.

 

[Deleted member 546149]

If you don't want your health to be at risk in prison, don't willfully violate the law repeatedly. He's right where he should be, and is getting free healthcare.

The law is broken

 

[Noctosphere]

Wishing a speedy recovery to @garybowser. I enjoyed every second of using SXOS.

lol, a game developper hacking a console? Damn...

 

[DbGt]

Sx os best cfw ever. Gary does not deserve this

 

[ChibiMofo]

I see some of his criminal co-conspirators have chimed in. The law is not broken, the law was broken. And the law was enforced. That may not be how it works in your JRPG, but that's how real-life works.

 

[Elodain]

lol, a game developper hacking a console? Damn...

Certainly not unheard of. One of the Turok games for N64 was developed using the V64 (a piracy focused device) as a makeshift dev kit.

 

[WG481]

There's no glory to piracy, but there's a surge of exultation when you hack a console.

Why is the hacking illegal though? "Circumventing technological security measures" or whatever? I bought the dang thing.

 

[Elodain]

I see some of his criminal co-conspirators have chimed in. The law is not broken, the law was broken. And the law was enforced. That may not be how it works in your JRPG, but that's how real-life works.

So it's okay to intentionally provide garbage healthcare and risk someone dying because he advertised piracy?

I think you need to reflect on your morals before you go criticizing others on theirs...

 

[bodefuceta]

It's terrible, but I hope we all learn a lesson. You can go to jail for the pettiest crimes in the world, sometimes not even your anus is excused, just because someone powerful didn't like what you did. And remember, the law is too big and complex, so you can't even know what is legal. The modern world is a full-blown Thrasymachus-style "justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger".

 

[CompSciOrBust]

It was obvious to anyone following the case that they were going to throw the book at him to send a message to the rest of the scene. Here's what someone from TX said in their private chat on the 10th of February:

i finally had a good night's sleep and had the time and patience to read through that bullshit filing by usa feds
[17:51]
my god it was so aggravating
[17:52]
they spend most of the document talking about how he reported on upcoming products, and then just stating that he was a defacto leader of team xecuter as a result
[17:52]
like what kind of fucking illogical leap is that
[17:53]
"Mr. Bowser was not a peripheral player in the criminal enterprise."
[17:53]
except thats literally what they describe in detail
[17:53]
"The need to promote respect for laws that prohibit cybercrime is particularly high
given the major increase in attacks by foreign actors against domestic entities. It is rare
that a member of a sophisticated cybercriminal organization is identified, arrested, and
extradited for prosecution in the United States. Too often, international cybercriminals
can conceal their identities or hide in countries where they assume that they are beyond
the reach of law enforcement (as is true with the Defendants in this case). Accordingly,
this case presents a rare opportunity to punish bad actors for attacking U.S. businesses
and consumers."
[17:53]
And they literally state that they want to fuck him up to scare the rest of the scene
[17:53]
like look if we can fuck this guy hard, imagine what we can do to you
[17:53]
i hope the judge can see through that bullshit

Also the whole thing about them releasing new hardware to thwart TX is bullshit. Anyone who dived in to the Gigaleaks (not me of course, I would never do something illegal like that) would know that the Mariko Bootrom Software Specification Document was finalized in 2016, a year before the first gen Switch released and long before TX set sight on the Switch. They were releasing new hardware anyway it's just convenient to say it's because of TX.

Everyone is saying that he deserves to be in jail but is completely ignoring that Bowser was living in the Dominican Republic where what he was doing was totally legal and is a Canadian citizen, so if any country was going to lock him up surely it should be Canada and not the USA trading favors with the DR to lock up a foreign citizen for the benefit of a Japanese country. How about we extradite all the American teens smoking weed to China for breaking Chinese laws. That's none of China's business but apparently if you break one country's laws you can just get shipped off there anyway because fuck your rights.

Anyway at least Bowser is going to pay damages. My friends working in the Game Dev industry are looking forward to their Cheques. Wait what do you mean it's only Nintendo who are getting money? 3rd party devs lost money too? Oh so you mean this has nothing to do with him harming an entire industry and everything to do with one company being pissed off? Okie dokie then.

 

[Valwinz]

If you don't want your health to be at risk in prison, don't willfully violate the law repeatedly. He's right where he should be, and is getting free healthcare.

funny coming from people on this site

 

[godreborn]

don't even know why ChibiMofo is here if every post pisses him off. he even got pissed off at me for buying games. that's why he's on my ignore list. sure, I don't much care for piracy, but it's not my job to tell others what they should do. I have no right to.

 

[aerios169]

uhmm i dont know why people is so mad guy this guy, even of if was a pay CFW they help to devolve emunand to not get banned and it helped a lot of us to avoid it ( i am not banned even from de 2018)

 

[godreborn]

uhmm i dont know why people is so mad guy this guy, even of if was a pay CFW they help to devolve emunand to not get banned and it helped a lot of us to avoid it ( i am not banned even from de 2018)

I think some people are angry when others try to profit off of piracy. tx was under a lot of different pseudonyms like cobra, true blue, gateway, sx os, etc. and they were having you pay for something that should be free. I know the reason why we even have cfw up to the latest for the ps3 is due to tx trying to develope yet another dongle with the keys built in but encrypted. that should make people mad.

 

[WG481]

I see some of his criminal co-conspirators have chimed in. The law is not broken, the law was broken. And the law was enforced. That may not be how it works in your JRPG, but that's how real-life works.

Yeah in my JRPG we disestablished capitalism and actually built a governmental system from the ground up that prevents anyone from being on trial for stupid reasons so we can keep the courts open and let those with the money suffer for the sins they've been paying people off to hide.

 

[CompSciOrBust]

There's no glory to piracy, but there's a surge of exultation when you hack a console.

Why is the hacking illegal though? "Circumventing technological security measures" or whatever? I bought the dang thing.

That's a question as old as time. Phrack article from 1986:
http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html

 

[godreborn]

btw, tx is also responsible for the fact that we don't have cfw on the ps4. I mentioned that to @KiiWii a very long time ago. it's too long a story to get into, but that's why we have to settle for hen.

 

[Elodain]

uhmm i dont know why people is so mad guy this guy, even of if was a pay CFW they help to devolve emunand to not get banned and it helped a lot of us to avoid it ( i am not banned even from de 2018)

It just makes the entire Hacking and Homebrew scene look bad to have one of the most prominent groups selling piracy.

As they say "One bad apple spoils the bunch" so for TX to be making having directly about piracy it makes public perception of homebrew in general look like nothing but piracy.

It also sets a precedent for more things like this to happen. If Nintendo and other copyright holders can establish an indisputable connection between homebrew enabling devices/software and piracy it's easier for them to shut everything down and keep us locked into only using what they give us, which means they can charge more for inferior products.