View Full Version : Massive Mod Chip Bust Sweeps US
Flack
09-07-2007, 04:58 PM
For those who haven't been following the story:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from nearly two dozen cities executed 32 federal search warrants in 16 states in the past 24 hours as part of a mammoth crackdown on chip modding. Operation Tangled Web, the result of a year long investigation headed up by the ICE office in Cleveland, is the largest national enforcement action of its kind targeting the sales of modification chips and "disc copyright circumvention devices" in history. (Link (http://kotaku.com/gaming/piracy/massive-mod-chip-raid-sweeps-nation-285007.php))
A friend of mine just mailed his Wii off to be modded xbox-modchips.com. After numerous e-mails he has now discovered that they were one of the stores that was raided, and that all their stock including all customer consoles were seized.
What's even stranger is that xbox-modchips.com was raided on the 17th of last month, but my friend's did not arrive until the 20th. That means that someone signed for it 3 days after this place was raided.
Anywho ... be careful.
s1lence
09-07-2007, 05:06 PM
Doh that sucks big time. Is it just me or are there more important crimes happening?
roushimsx
09-07-2007, 05:31 PM
Lamesauce. So they're actually going after people other than those that include bootleg games with the chips?
LifeGame
09-07-2007, 05:37 PM
Well i say burn all the burnt game cds and dvds, for me its original or nothing. Bigger crimes happening yes but still a good thing!
Thats my opinion!
Moo Cow
09-07-2007, 05:42 PM
Well i say burn all the burnt game cds and dvds, for me its original or nothing. Bigger crimes happening yes but still a good thing!
Thats my opinion!
You forget import games.
PapaStu
09-07-2007, 05:48 PM
Well i say burn all the burnt game cds and dvds, for me its original or nothing. Bigger crimes happening yes but still a good thing!
Thats my opinion!
You forget import games.
You forget importing systems. I can do it, so can you!
8-bitNesMan
09-07-2007, 05:50 PM
Seems to me like they've got bigger fish to fry than this, namely cracking down on all the illegal aliens in the country right now. Meh...
Joe West
09-07-2007, 06:02 PM
in my opinion, anybody sends there system out to be modded, has got too be nuts............theres always someone local, who can do it.....
well i hope you get your system back.........
roushimsx
09-07-2007, 06:08 PM
You forget importing systems. I can do it, so can you!
Importing systems isn't bad, but that's just more shit to have hooked up. It's nice to be able to consolidate as much as possible into one system. I love how the PS3 ditched the region protection idea for new games, but I hate how they still enforce PS1 and PS2 region coding. I was hoping to replace 3 systems with 1 (modded PS1, US PS2, JPN PS2) :(
Then again, I'm sure only a small fraction of a percentage of people actually mod their consoles just for importing. Guess not all systems can be like the Dreamcast (where modding only allowed you to play imported games). I love my modded DC :D
Kitsune Sniper
09-07-2007, 07:18 PM
Last I heard, some companies consider importing consoles illegal, too. Well, at least that's the case with arcade games...
PapaStu
09-07-2007, 07:30 PM
Importing systems isn't bad, but that's just more shit to have hooked up. It's nice to be able to consolidate as much as possible into one system. I love how the PS3 ditched the region protection idea for new games, but I hate how they still enforce PS1 and PS2 region coding. I was hoping to replace 3 systems with 1 (modded PS1, US PS2, JPN PS2) :(
Understandable, but sometimes compromises need to be made. I chose to go the no modding my PS route (not that I ever would have in the first place) and got myself a US PS debugger to play my Japanese PS1 games, It really doesn't matter now that i've got a Japanese PS2 as well, but it did at the time. I just replaced the debuggers spot with the slim PSTwo and the Slim Jap PSTwo and i'm at a no loss for space (or AV hookups in my splitter for that matter).
The 360 went the route of not requiring region coding on their games as well, however its up to the Publisher/developer discression if they do want to do that (and many have because of a games eventual release stateside Blue Dragon for example). However its not as noticable for Japanese 360 games since the system really isn't burning up the charts over there.
Tommy
09-07-2007, 07:53 PM
From my understanding the Wii and XBOX360 modding scene was basically to play bootleg games. This is why they cracked down on those guys. There is no real reason to have a modded Wii or 360 but for simply playing bootleg games. Alot of people claim to want to get their system modded is to protect their original. No one can determine the bootleggers from the mom and dad protecting their investment so ICE just cracked on everyone. I personally don't have any modded systems but I think it was only the importers of modchips that got busted.
Xizer
09-07-2007, 11:08 PM
It's like I fell through a hole in the space time continuum and ended up back in early August.
Magnum
09-07-2007, 11:55 PM
as long as they're not cracking down on copied NES homebrews and protos I'm meh to the whole deal
DeputyMoniker
09-08-2007, 03:00 AM
Seems to me like they've got bigger fish to fry than this, namely cracking down on all the illegal aliens in the country right now. Meh...
Yeah but we don't have crowds of modded PS2's protesting copyright laws. Arresting PS2's is way easier than rounding up a bunch of people.
Sothy
09-08-2007, 05:57 AM
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from nearly two dozen cities executed 32 federal search warrants in 16 states in the past 24 hours as part of a mammoth crackdown on chip modding. Operation Tangled Web, the result of a year long investigation headed up by the ICE office in Cleveland, is the largest national enforcement action of its kind targeting the sales of modification chips and "disc copyright circumvention devices" in history. (Link (http://kotaku.com/gaming/piracy/massive-mod-chip-raid-sweeps-nation-285007.php))
hey maybe immigration and customs agents could be working on ..I dunno... STOPPING THE FUCKING FLOOD OF ILLEGALS ENTERING THE COUNTRY.
but whatever.
Cryomancer
09-08-2007, 07:54 AM
From my understanding the Wii and XBOX360 modding scene was basically to play bootleg games. This is why they cracked down on those guys. There is no real reason to have a modded Wii or 360 but for simply playing bootleg games. Alot of people claim to want to get their system modded is to protect their original. No one can determine the bootleggers from the mom and dad protecting their investment so ICE just cracked on everyone. I personally don't have any modded systems but I think it was only the importers of modchips that got busted.
There is still the question of importing. Even the 360 with it's "not required" region coding has this problem. For me to play all the games I want to play when I get a 360, I'd have to buy two, because there are games I want that are region coded. And importing it hardly even considered legal anymore. It's dumb as hell.
Kitsune Sniper
09-08-2007, 10:08 AM
hey maybe immigration and customs agents could be working on ..I dunno... STOPPING THE FUCKING FLOOD OF ILLEGALS ENTERING THE COUNTRY.
but whatever.
IM IN j00r COUNTRY
STEELIN YER JOBS
It's much easier to round up a bunch of inanimate chips than a bunch of people who will run.
roushimsx
09-08-2007, 10:51 AM
There is still the question of importing. Even the 360 with it's "not required" region coding has this problem. For me to play all the games I want to play when I get a 360, I'd have to buy two, because there are games I want that are region coded. And importing it hardly even considered legal anymore. It's dumb as hell.
I thought that the 360 mods were still only functional for bootlegs, not for breaking region coding...or is that just the firmware hack? I'm out of the loop on that one.
icbrkr
09-08-2007, 11:15 AM
There is no real reason to have a modded Wii or 360 but for simply playing bootleg games.
Actually, I had considered modding my Wii so I could play some import games. There are other uses for a mod chip. I used the mod chip in my Xbox to use the XBMC to stream movies over my network.
hbkprm
09-08-2007, 03:41 PM
never modded a console but i want to hear more stories
Moo Cow
09-08-2007, 03:57 PM
You forget importing systems. I can do it, so can you!
I'm only seventeen and I don't have a lot of a money. As such, I'd much rather go the cheaper way.
ConsoleFreek
09-08-2007, 07:27 PM
Although I don't have any chipped consoles (except my DC)I am lucky I live in a country where the don't care if you chip your console or not.
I don't know the what the laws are regarding chipped consoles in the states but every man and his dog has set up shop here.
monkeychemist
09-08-2007, 07:57 PM
hey maybe immigration and customs agents could be working on ..I dunno... STOPPING THE FUCKING FLOOD OF ILLEGALS ENTERING THE COUNTRY.
but whatever.
yes but that wouldn't make sense with our current government.
1) illegal imigrants help big corporations by giving them cheap labor.
2) pirates on the other hand take money away from those greedy bastards.
Conclusion: the government is paid off by those big companies to chase down really bullsh!t crimes like putting a mod chip in a system instead of stopping the real crimes.
It sucks that america has become a big whore for those CEOs...
Bassgrabber
09-08-2007, 08:18 PM
Deportation is expensive, especially after "due process".
Consoles (with and without modchips) will be REsold to the GP once the "trial" is over. Probably on eBay, and as PayPal only auctions. Buyers will be forced to pay with a credit card, will pay for Priority shipping, and receive their crap via media mail.
The only console I ever got modded was my ps1. Mom wanted to save money by getting bootleg games from russia. In the end, the modchip never got used except maybe in the case of tekken 3 and FFIX (which was stupid because the bootleg version cost the same amount as the original one. Well, I wasn't with mom when she got it for me).
A lot of consoles in Finland get modded because Russia has a shitload of bootleg games for sale. And I imagine it's perfectly legal here because electronic stores do it. Or at least used to, I have no idea if they still do.
If I should choose to import games,I'd much rather use a disk to do this than let anyone mod my system. Or just buy and imported console.
Oh and I've heard a rumor going around about the new wii update screwing consoles with modchips and making action replay useless. I dunno if there's a thread about this here so I might as well ask if anyone knew if it's true or not.