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Piracy Operator Goes from Jail to Getting Hired by a Tech Unicorn in a Month (torrentfreak.com)
tecleandor 1 hours ago [-]
BTW, "LaLiga" Spanish operator mentioned in the article as the one promoting the arrest of this guy in Argentina is the same mentioned this past weeks as getting Spanish ISPs to block wide ranges of IP addresses (specially Cloudflare) each time there's a football match on TV:

  - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45358433
  - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45195520
  - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45323856
gchamonlive 3 hours ago [-]
Meanwhile Milei got involved in a major crypto scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/$Libra_cryptocurrency_scanda... and nothing really happened to him.

I understand those are different circumstances, Milei having no such tech skills, I just find it ironic.

thrance 2 hours ago [-]
Trump and his wife both did the same thing on day one of his second term. No one cares. At least Milei faced some public outrage, but Trump has a cult that will defend him in literally any circumstances.

EDIT: I'm getting downvoted, as expected. Insane that just calling out the president on his crypto-scamming antics can get you anger from the right. I am yet to hear of a single republican even just acknowledging that Trump did something bad.

dvt 27 minutes ago [-]
You're getting downvoted because this kind of conversation gets old real fast, especially when it's not remotely related to the topic at hand. Even the Milei comment is slightly off-topic but at least we're dealing with the same country.
thrance 2 minutes ago [-]
I think it's relevant enough to tech, legality and justice, you know, the themes of TFA. I'm sorry you're tired of hearing that POTUS is a criminal, it does get old. I'm afraid it won't stop until he faces justice though.
mothballed 2 hours ago [-]
Because Trump literally ran on the campaign that he could shoot someone in broad daylight and no one would care. He ran as a felon.

Milei's schtick was that he would use the office for austerity and deregulation. Using his office to enrich himself at the expense of his constituents went against Milei's campaign promises, while Trump doing so only fulfills his promises.

immibis 44 minutes ago [-]
Enriching himself is literally the point of austerity and deregulation.
maerF0x0 38 minutes ago [-]
It's important for the left to consider that many, many of the right did not want trump, they just felt he was better than what the Democrats offered. Let's not debate who is or isnt better but appreciate the fact that when those right wing voters had a choice they preferred this clown over that clown.
gchamonlive 35 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, right, realpolitik
giancarlostoro 3 hours ago [-]
If he writes good code I dont care what his personal life before working for me entails, long as he isnt doing illegal stuff on company resources.
hollywood_court 2 hours ago [-]
I feel like that's true for most 'stuff', but there are a few exceptions where I will refuse to hire an individual based on things they've done with their personal lives.
gchamonlive 30 minutes ago [-]
I'd start drawing a line on fascist ideologies. We don't need fascists no matter how brilliant and skilled. We can do without just fine.
ramon156 3 hours ago [-]
define "doing illegal stuff". Piracy is such a weird grey area, especially for companies
bilekas 52 minutes ago [-]
> Piracy is such a weird grey area, especially for companies

I think most people will agree, torrenting/pirating on company resources is a dumb idea. You probably deserve to be fired for it, grey area or not. Unless you have Facebook's lawyers though, then it seems to be okay.

constantcrying 2 hours ago [-]
>long as he isnt doing illegal stuff on company resources.

Previous criminality is one of the most reliable indicators of future criminality.

Of course this depends on the crime, but it is absurd to believe that someones past crimes do not reflect on their likelihood to commit crimes again.

ActorNightly 43 minutes ago [-]
That applies to crimes dealing with theft or assault. I.e when you are willing to break basic rules of society, that indicates

On the flip side if you run something like a drug trafficking business, you can probably run a generic shipping business if you make the same risk adjusted money without reverting to do doing anything illegal.

In the same way, if you run a piracy website, you most likely can just get paid big bucks at a tech company to do very easy work because you are likely smarter than most people there, and cruise control without worrying about doing anything illegal.

triceratops 22 minutes ago [-]
> if you run something like a drug trafficking business

Violence and other crimes are inherent in the illegal drug trade once you get to any high level. Your local friendly weed dealer may not hurt anyone physically but the people above him are another matter.

> you can probably run a generic shipping business if you make the same risk adjusted money

The propensity to take a course of action based on "risk adjusted profit" rather than "right or wrong" is a pretty good predictor of future criminality.

mothballed 2 hours ago [-]
I would be shocked if a history of purely committing mala prohibita crimes had much correlation with committing mala in se crimes.
constantcrying 2 hours ago [-]
Why? This seems a totally normal thing for drug related offences, which turn from minor self harm, using the drugs, to major crimes, like drug dealing or killing people while driving drunk.
mothballed 1 hours ago [-]
It also goes the other way, though.

For instance, lots of Americans refused to sign up for the draft, which was illegal but prevented them from killing innocent people in Vietnam.

Or they helped slaves escape the South, illegal but stopped violence being used against them.

As for drug dealing, I'm not sure simple drug dealing is even considered a mala in se crime, absent some sort of fraud or dealing to incapacitated people. It used to be illegal to sell hemp, now you can legally buy it on the internet both federally and in the vast majority of states -- yesterday they were a "drug dealer" and today they're just a "farmer."

SketchySeaBeast 2 hours ago [-]
I wonder if there's more nuance there if we break down types of crime and then factor in economic and social conditions. If the only way I can see to get ahead is selling drugs and I end up in prison for it, when I come out now branded as felon do I have more options?
someothherguyy 2 hours ago [-]
> Previous criminality is one of the most reliable indicators of future criminality.

That blanket statement could use some nuance.

Supposedly, a brain is developing until around the mid-20s. That seems to line up with federal recidivism data [1].

1. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu...

constantcrying 2 hours ago [-]
Indeed, hiring a young criminal is even more risky than hiring someone older.

Especially if the older person has proven himself by not reoffending that would be grounds to trust them more.

someothherguyy 1 hours ago [-]
I think its still incredibly unlikely for an educated employed person to re-offend. You aren't really saving yourself from anything by not hiring on that sole fact, and are likely making the person's life and society overall worse by making that decision, which, arguably, is more ethically challenging than hiring persons with a criminal history.
brk 2 hours ago [-]
Sure, in theory. But then he is working on some important feature, and the code is on his laptop, which gets confiscated during a raid and now your access to the person and their in-process work is gone. Yeah, I know, code check-ins, documentation, blah blah blah. Totally the strong suit of the typical uber-hacker type /s.

The work/life boundaries are heavily blurred these days in even the best cases. Something like this, their personal life as a real potential to impact your business/product/brand.

winterrx 36 minutes ago [-]
The image of the person is hosted under their website as `/images/goat.jpg.webp`, interesting. Goat.
btown 3 hours ago [-]
If you're operating e-sports teams and want to build/market a new video livestreaming platform for fans, outside of the walled gardens of YouTube and Twitch and in a cost-efficient manner... bringing on an outspoken and talented entrepreneur who built that exact operation makes all the sense in the world!

And from https://9z.gg/equipos I see that one of their teams focuses on a racing simulator... so it seems the subject of this article is one of the few people in history to successfully reach the endgame of that legendary PSA that admonished viewers "You Wouldn't Download A Car." :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU

giancarlostoro 3 hours ago [-]
That aged poorly, I absolutely would download a car.
dghlsakjg 2 hours ago [-]
That ad was always recognized as stupid, that’s why it’s a meme.
immibis 43 minutes ago [-]
Also both the font and the music in the ad were stolen.
giancarlostoro 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I know, but now with 3D printing advancements, its even stupider.
edgineer 2 hours ago [-]
"You wouldn't download a car" never appears in the PSA
aleph_minus_one 1 hours ago [-]
That is also part of the joke. :-)
gus_massa 2 hours ago [-]
Obligatory link to "You wouldn't steal a font" https://fedi.rib.gay/notes/a6xqityngfubsz0f (HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43775926 | 1401 points | April 2025 | 407 comments)
hnlmorg 2 hours ago [-]
The also didn't have the rights to the techno track playing in the background.
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3 hours ago [-]
urmom157 1 hours ago [-]
from jail to getting hired by a slop factory meat grinder that pays like shit.

his punishment continues

vlan0 3 hours ago [-]
"tech unicorn" why use those words?
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