Theft Examples Mega-Thread

[LambdaDelta]

It's time we had a dedicated topic on this matter. Sources are irrelevant (personal experience, videos, books, research papers, movie scenes... any resource will do). Scams, cons, heists, etc. also welcome, but the subtler the better. The best theft not only goes wholly unnoticed, but has you thinking you gain something in return (e.g. clickbait). In the end, it all boils down to corruption. 

If a crocodile is the perfect animal to symbolize traps, for corruption it is the octopus. It can camouflage, release ink to literally muddy the waters, squeeze through any hole no matter how small; yet when its tentacles grab you, they won't let go. And there's 8 of them, so while you're busy fighting one or two or even 7, there's always another to nab you from behind. Plus it's slimy.
This is exactly how self-deception operates. And what is theft if not (self-)deception? Except Maya has infinitely many tentacles, is so well-camouflaged it's indistinguishable from your perception, and is completely intangible. 

 

https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/110777-octopus-awakening

Here's a visual I generated for this thread, heavily 'inspired' by an image taken from the Europol website and fed into an AI trained on stolen data, with a slightly different color scheme, a background overlay of the world map, and a correct placement of different industries the octopus has its tentacles wrapped around. Drugs/pharma between USA & Mexico, financial schemes in the Caribbean tax havens, law in the western EU (The Hague, Euroclear, Geneva), oil in the GCC, and construction (or more broadly, manufacturing) in China/India/Bangladesh. It's rather interesting that they all align pretty closely in a straight line just above the Equator. As though the places above or below are of little importance, serving only as sources of extraction of value.



But enough foreplay. I'll get us started with a personal story, at the risk of tarnishing my reputation or catching a ban. This one takes place within the microcosm of digital piracy, yet contains layers upon layers of theft, lies, self-deception, gaslighting, and exploitation. Got plenty more just like it, crazier and broader in fact. Even though the examples we'll hopefully assemble here are useful, truly understanding the depth of this matter requires massive and intimate real-life exposure to it, and even then most of it you'll never know due to factors beyond your control. 

Example 1:

Quote

Disclaimer: most of the methods described have since been patched or otherwise lost relevance. This is not a guide or anything of the sort, I am providing such exhaustive detail only to articulate the point of the thread and epistemic work as a whole.

I mostly operated in the WEB-DL (VOD streaming rips) field, so the stories come from there. 
It begins with piracy itself, stealing something and sharing a copy. [I know it's different from stealing physical goods, but this distinction can easily be turned into a rationalization] 
But how was the something produced? Oftentimes through exploitation and theft. A large company like Amazon steals everything ranging from taxes owed, to their workers' health, to the customers' data (more on that next). That money is then used to produce an Amazon Original show such as The Boys. Writers, musicians, actors, and other staff of course all steal ideas from each other, calling it inspiration. 
We'll stay on the Amazon example. I had a FireTV Stick 4K, and when I was reverse engineering their PrimeVideo API to emulate network requests required to perform my WEB-DLs, I'd monitor traffic and see in real time how every single button press of my remote was sent in a JSON object to one of their analytics endpoints. 
I discovered that due to preloading, when you rent a movie on Prime, the MPD (manifest) is requested as soon as the page loads, before you even press play, likely to optimize UX. So I'd simply grab the MPD link and request a refund, as starting playback is what voids the refundability. That way off a single 10$ gift card I could get dozens of movies. 
I'd publish my releases on private trackers, occasionally marking them as exclusives, but most would still end up leaked to public spaces. Not only that, they'd often be retagged and sometimes minorly remuxed to create the illusion of being a different release. All the WEB-DL groups would shamelessly steal scripts and keyboxes (cryptographic keys/certificates) from each other, simultaneously gatekeeping the most important secrets. For years almost everyone would use Widevine certificates believing PlayReady to be uncrackable, but that was merely a fabrication spread by the so-called 'WEB-DL mafia'. The reality is quite the opposite, you could trivially extract PR SL3000 certs from tons of eMMC dumps of smart TVs and such found all over the net, and they wouldn't get revoked for months on end, whereas Widevine L1 keyboxes got burned within hours of first provision and use. The largest platforms (PrimeVideo, Netflix, Disney Plus, etc.) maintain their own revocation lists as they're more than happy for pirates to steal from their competitors. This PR vs. WV myth was accepted by both the lower level WEB-DL guys and the streaming platforms alike.
There were/are companies like AnyStream and StreamFab that stole or bought the command line tools to remake them into idiot-proof mass consumer-oriented GUI programs. When one of our ChromeCDMs got revoked, together with a friend I invented a MiTM-like method to steal decryption keys for whatever video I wanted from the StreamFab API using spoofed premium subscription data (the backend didn't cross-validate, later they added more security that we also circumvented, until eventually implementing proper encryption, at which point I was no longer active in the scene). AnyStream sold lifetime licenses but shut down in less than 3 years, no refunds naturally — this a universal yet rarely discussed principle, any kind of lifetime access is for the seller's lifetime, not yours. There were also scammers who'd claim to have private L1/SL3000 certs and part fools that wanted to grow a reputation as genius 4K WEB-DLers from their money (hundreds of dollars per) with nothing but a fake scripted demo. 
Following a series of events I got banned on many cabal trackers and Usenet indexers. I then used Shodan (with stolen .edu account credentials posted on BreachForums that increase the amount of search results you can get) to find unprotected instances of NZBGet and the *arr programs (Prowlarr, Sonarr), stealing people's logins, passwords, RSS feeds, passkeys, API keys, and so on en-masse, compiling a giant list called PT-heist, basically fully regaining access to the places I was banned from and then some; more robustly in fact, just like a hydra.
There's more, but that's about the gist of it. No honor among thieves.

So just this little anecdote from a fairly niche domain illustrates the degree of prevalence and entanglement of the issue. The same pattern is present not only all over this planet, but across the infinite dimensions of reality. Unless you're unflinchingly prudent, it will get you. Especially when your guard is down. 
However, there exists a certain precipice where you see through all the deception with complete clarity and fall in love with it head over heels. But we'll leave that for the spirituality subforum.  

Some Actualized.org videos directly pertinent to the matter at hand:
 - How To Avoid Getting Scammed, Cheated, Exploited, Conned, and Screwed In Life
 - How Corruption Works
 - The Social Matrix - How Society Is A Mass Hallucination (fun fact: this one is somehow shadowbanned even on the direct channel page search; by keywords 'social' and 'matrix', 'hallucination' works)

I'd also throw over a dozen others onto the list, but as already stated that won't be anywhere near enough. 

Now, let's get the ball rolling. Of particular interest is the theft you've personally committed or are committing. Sharing that publicly will do wonders for your shadow integration work. Who's up for that?
Though first consider that this could all be an elaborate honeypot disguised as philosophy designed to trick people into openly confessing to their crimes. 

 

[Davino]

@LambdaDelta There's a crude Awakening when we realise we have all broken the law, one day or the other, hence we are all criminals on different degrees.

[LoneWonderer]

Pirating in any way shape or form. However f**k Jeff Bezos too for his overpriced corrupt Audible membership (notice what I did there? Offloading responsibility and blame for bad behavior on to another hehehe). Cheers!

Edited Wednesday at 09:46 PM by LoneWonderer

[LambdaDelta]

6 minutes ago, LoneWonderer said:

Pirating in any way shape or form. However f**k Jeff Bezos too for his overpriced corrupt Audible membership (notice what I did there? Offloading responsibility and blame for bad behavior on to another hehehe). Cheers!

In the rare event I cannot find an audiobook I create an Audible free trial account and rip it straight from there, the 1 credit they give can be recycled at least 3 times. Whether I had 1k or 400k in my bank account had no influence on this behavior, only the rate of content consumption changed over the years. Paying isn't even an issue most times, I often pay for stuff that I then rip all the same, 'cause money is just the surface layer. What matters more is infrastructure, convenience, preservation, and accessibility. In their naivety people don't consider that Leo could kick the bucket tomorrow, soon after which the Vimeo hosting charge will bounce, and there goes their access to the LP course, or any other online product sold by anyone. Probably very few here have taken the responsibility of backing up even simply the free public Actualized.org videos in an audio format with a quick yt-dlp script running as a cron job. One might say that it's still theft, just wrapped in reasonable-sounding justifications, and they'd be correct. 
Devilry can be conscious, but realistically it's damn near impossible to pull off without devolving into monstrous corruption, and even then you remain corrupt regardless. 

[LoneWonderer]

6 minutes ago, LambdaDelta said:

In the rare event I cannot find an audiobook I create an Audible free trial account and rip it straight from there, the 1 credit they give can be recycled at least 3 times. 

I used to do that too before I got serious about my pirating skills. I'd create accounts on different audible clients such as audible japan, audible usa, audible EU etc. and get one free credit each time 😅. 

Good points raised in your post I will consider...

Edited Wednesday at 10:36 PM by LoneWonderer

[LambdaDelta]

7 minutes ago, LoneWonderer said:

I used to do that too before I got serious about my pirating skills. I'd create accounts on different audible clients such as audible japan, audible usa, audible EU etc. and get one free credit each time 😅. 

Good points raised in your post I will consider...

Since you're in/from NZ, that reminds me how I invented, or at least popularized using a VPN to NZ for WEB-DLs of new movie releases. Before 2021 they'd mostly be sourced from AUS to leverage the timezone difference, and there aren't that many providers with servers in NZ, but after I beat every major group by at least 1.5hrs on Eva 3.0+1.0 people quickly transitioned to this method. The intelligence of evil 

[- Adam -]

Ok look: My boss who has a startup that's up to a slow start started paying me with entertainment temporary worker contracts as an artistic director even though I'm effectively a wage slave graphic designer not directing shit, because the French gov. gives those a special status with guaranteed monetary allowances as long as you work a certain number of hours every year. That number is low so it suits me to basically work part time for them, and it suits them because now they only have to pay me a few hundred euros per month for me to get a liveable salary, and the gov. fills in the rest.

I'm knowingly engaged in miss-declared work to leech money from the government. 

[- Adam -]

I've got one that's more sensitive, that I don't even want to say on here  -_ -

You can probably guess it.

[Leo Gura]

On 2/18/2026 at 1:45 PM, LoneWonderer said:

However f**k Jeff Bezos too for his overpriced corrupt Audible membership

How is it overpriced? Audible is so cheap. $10/book. I don't see how books can be any cheaper and still allow for authors to live.

Books are so cheap it hardly makes sense to write one.

Edited yesterday at 10:36 AM by Leo Gura

[museumoftrees]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

How is it overpriced? Audible is so cheap. $10/book. I don't see how books can be any cheaper and still allow for authors to live.

Books are so cheap it hardly makes sense to write one.

Yeah it's so cheap he's stealing customers...

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, museumoftrees said:

Yeah it's so cheap he's stealing customers...

From who? No author is obligated to release an audiobook.

[LoneWonderer]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

How is it overpriced? Audible is so cheap. $10/book. I don't see how books can be any cheaper and still allow for authors to live.

Books are so cheap it hardly makes sense to write one.

@Leo Gura Yes, you are right. We're completly spoiled. Same with Netflix, never has it been so cheap to watch media. Before a signle bluray dvd rental could cost you as much as a month of Netflix in the mid 2000s. I am only making justifications for bad behaviour I partake in. I have recently started reading Jeff Bezos biography book. The whole reason amazon and it's services exist is because of the commitment by our boy Jeff to produce better customer products than what was available, more cheaply and convienintly. It is a corrupt system but it works and we got what we wanted, yet we still complain.

Edited 12 hours ago by LoneWonderer

[LoneWonderer]

On 2/21/2026 at 10:51 AM, - Adam - said:

Ok look: My boss who has a startup that's up to a slow start started paying me with entertainment temporary worker contracts as an artistic director even though I'm effectively a wage slave graphic designer not directing shit, because the French gov. gives those a special status with guaranteed monetary allowances as long as you work a certain number of hours every year. That number is low so it suits me to basically work part time for them, and it suits them because now they only have to pay me a few hundred euros per month for me to get a liveable salary, and the gov. fills in the rest.

I'm knowingly engaged in miss-declared work to leech money from the government. 

Similar in hospitality and hotel buisness. It is cheaper for them to keep hiring and firing people every 3-6 months and avoid certain laws that state you have to pay workers x amount and give them x benefits after the've been working in the company over a certain period of time. That's why if a hotel is constantly looking for new hospitality workers that's a huge red flag. Either they have a bad work culture and their workers keep leaving or they have shady employment practices.

[UnbornTao]

[museumoftrees]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

From who? No author is obligated to release an audiobook.

Librairies, bookstores, etc. Being cheaper than your competition does that. Amazon is known for doing this. I am being loose and placing audiobooks and books in the same category though. I generally think Amazon is predatory business wise. But it's very efficient for customers.

Edited 6 hours ago by museumoftrees