My gf and I have had discussions about teaching morals to kids. In that vein, I asked myself, would I teach piracy to my kids? Yes, it’s technically illegal and carries inherent risks. But so does teenage sex carry the risks of teenage pregnancy, and so we have an obligation to children to teach them how to practice safe sex. So, is it necessary to teach them how to stay safe in the sea? How to install adblockers, how to detect fake download sites that give you computer aids? Show them how to use a VPN and choosing the right one (a true pirate must always choose a VPN with port forwarding capabilities, so you can still seed) I feel like this is all valuable info we all learned as pirates the hard way, and valuable information to pass on to our kids.
I definitely want my kids to know about libgen. Want a book you want to read about? Wanna learn about dinosaurs from a college level textbook for whatever reason? Just go to libgen, son!
And I attribute most of my computer literacy and education to piracy, trying to install cracks to various games, trying to make games work, and modding the fuck out of skyrim as a young teenager. That, and also jailbreaking android phones. All the interesting things i’ve ever done with computers was probably against some BS terms of service.
So, is piracy something you would actively teach your kids? Sit them down and teach them how to install a Fallout 3 FitGirl repack? Or is this something you’d want them to figure out themselves?
- piracy is not theft
- “If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing.”
- morality and legality don’t always correlate
- a good adblocker is worth more than an antivirus, you should always be running one regardless of activity
Piracy is just staying over at a friend’s house.
Remember how many years ago antiviruses kept track of such types of malware as adware and spyware? When did you last see that kind of alert when seeing ad filled pages or when using software from facebook on your computer?
Antiviruses don’t worth shit today. Their only purpose is to delete your keygens on the basis that kEyGeNs ArE mOrE lIkElY tO hAvE a ViRuS.
I’d teach them once they are old enough to understand it on a technical level, as well as the potential consequences.
And I find your comparison to sex ed very strange. Sex is something they will do with huge consequences if they fuck up. They need to understand it, and they need to understand it early.
Yee idk just a showerthought
They’ll learn on their own when asked to pay hundreds of dollars for a single textbook.
Absolutely. My entire network is behind a VPN, so they can’t fuck up. Windows is banned in my household, so I’m not worried about malware. I’m not paying 20 bucks a month for limited access to the ever shrinking Netflix library, which I can’t even use behind a VPN or share with other people. Piracy is the only way forward.
Windows is banned in my household, so l’m not worried about malware.
This is a false sense of security and just because you’re not running Windows doesn’t mean you’re immune to everything and can let your defenses down. For example, KDE recently had to announce that downloading themes will execute arbitrary code and cited someone who had personal information deleted because of downloading a theme.
TempleOS! You will never find malware for that holy OS
in regards to privacy using something like windows already has you fucked up. As opposed to something like using KDE which might rm -rf your system.
I knew I would get a comment about this. Yes, I absolutely know that Linux is not at all immune to malware, but the chances of finding Linux malware on a typical piracy website are very low. That’s why Anti-virus is unecessary on Linux.
well its a step up at least…
Exactly, like how an ocean liner is a step up above a sailboat. That doesn’t mean you’re unsinkable and don’t need to worry about icebergs.
My spirit animal!
Bro, I’ve started saying this line not that long ago, are we in a hive-mind?
Doesn’t sound like an easy task, perhaps a good start would be teaching them how to tie knots and learn wind direction. Once they are old enough to travel book a vacation to somalia and introduce them to the place, that’s where most of piracy is going on these days
It’s not as though the existence and mechanisms of piracy are a coveted secret. There’s a decent chance that they’ll learn about and attempt it independently, and the method they learn about online might expose them to greater risk than if they did it with more consideration.
On that basis, I think that knowledge transfer is at worst harm reduction. If it’s immoral, which I don’t believe it is, then at the very least your intervention could prevent them from being preyed upon by some copyright troll company when they do it despite your silence or protestations.
Look here Junior in this family we practice safe piracy like God intended using VPN and a seedbox paid using bitcoin!
Let me start by showing you how to compile a kernel that supports WireGuard.
Teach them how to root a device or at least do a grapheneos install. I’ll be honest I only know the latter.
And yes, teach them both piracy and emulation
Rooting isn’t recommended anyway, it completely destroys Android security. GrapheneOS is the best solution.
Didntbsay anything about security. But rooting is a good skill I want to learn
It varies depending on the manufacturer and model, though.
Yes, when they’re older. I’d rather be the “dad, can you find this for me?” guy, and then when they’re older and start talking about wanting to set up their own Plex server or something I’ll show them how to do it, if they even want to. I would be perfectly happy being the perma media pirate for my family.
And what if they get a love letter because they were too stupid to practice safety?
Nobody taught me, so I’m not teaching anyone. Nobody banned me from doing it tho, so there’s my answer. Piracy is a consequence of freedom, among other things.
I won’t have kids. I absolutely have taught other people’s kids though.
While I don’t plan on being a parent, I will say that I did learn a good bit about piracy from my dad when I was younger, which kept me away from obviously shady things and now that I’m older I pretty much have a routine in place for my stuff whereas he doesn’t even use a computer anymore. I think it’s worth it really.
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If I teach them, they’ll find it boring. Better to be a role model and answer questions if they have them.
I’d never thought about this but when the time comes I’ll teach my sons, but hopefully they’ll tell me some new way I don’t know yet. Also a true pirate should check out Usenet.
one time a student pirated some expensive CAD software and learned it, that student went on to become the purchasing agent for a company and guess what software the company purchased?
the software that was learned already.
$100 student lisc was pirated and that pirate purchased 10 license at $5k per.
Don’t have any data to back it up, but I’ve been using Photoshop for 25+ years, and got the clear impression that this was 100% part of marketing; from what I gathered from friends back then, pirating Photoshop was so astonishingly simple that it seemed deliberate. If you’ve got the software that’s the easiest to get hold of for kids and students, that’s what they grow up with, that’s what they know, that’s what they expect to have access to in future employment situations.
Now that they’ve managed to pull off Subscriptions (and consequently fucking us all over by making it a legitimate business model, which instantly spread to, what, +60% of all paid software?), I’m sure they’ve calculated that the higher bar for gaining access to their software is more than adequately offset by the readings on the yard stick in their Scrooge McDuck money vault building(s).
And still, nobody has managed to make something that can replace their bloated, shitty software for professional users.
Sure. To prepare someone to become a responsible adult, they need information. Learn things good and bad. Understand especially WHY people do things and consequences of actions.
I mean if you exclude half the truth, your kids will not learn how to judge things and make decisions.
And things not being etically 100% correct is not a reason to hide them altogether. I mean my mom also reads murder mystery stories and murder is not okay… I think beginning with a certain age it is important to learn also about ambiguous stuff. It’s part of life.
That doesn’t mean I’d have to teach them myself. But I’d talk to them and make sure they learned the right things.
She read murder mystery stories, but not a guide about how to get away with murder
I read a few and saw a few movies that tell me otherwise… Discussing an hypothetical “perfect murder”… Detailing how they were murdered with a frozen icicle so there won’t be any weapon or fingerprints left…
I mean those examples are a bit exaggerated. But there are pretty realistic stories. And I’d say the lines between story and guide aren’t always that clear. That’s part of the thrill. The good ones are kinda detailed enough to be both.
Same goes for historical records.
And I think if you grow up completely sheltered from evil and true life, you’re bound to miss out, not to know aboud bad things. You won’t have any understanding or defense against it and will get exploited. And you’re missing half of the fun and intelligence that would otherwise be your potential. Also you can’t keep kids from having to make their own decisions forever. At some point they need the tools and knowledge to decide for themselves.
I can recommend the sci-fi dystopia “The Giver” about that. (The sheltering part, not the murder mysteries.) But read the book, the movie isn’t good at all. And read it while you’re young, it’s probably more suited for adolescents than for adults.
