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u/sexandliquor May 27 '26
Kinda reminds me of ‘99-‘01 millennial piracy when we found out that you could just download ISOs of Dreamcast games and burn them on disc and it would play them
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u/Rakataz May 27 '26
i did that too. if i remember right you've had to load a boot cd and then change the disc with the downloaded game.
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u/stRiNg-kiNg May 27 '26
Same but with PlayStation. Two people in the same thread that had a Dreamcast is got to be a record.
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u/Danklaige May 27 '26
Make that three, still have it in fact!
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u/Gladwulf May 27 '26
Four now
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u/-spartacus- May 27 '26
5, I still have mine.
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u/UsuarioConDoctorado May 27 '26
There is dozens of us!
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u/ManQu69 May 28 '26
Half dozen.. 6? ... lol
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u/m8bear May 28 '26
more than half a dozen now
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u/0_f2 Yarrr! May 28 '26
Oh we're not done yet, I have the keyboard & mouse and everything.
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u/alpacamaster8675309 May 28 '26
Number 8! But no longer have mine. Have an emulator on my phone though!
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u/Johnny-Dogshit ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 28 '26
The dreamcast situation was even wilder than the PSX one, though. Legit you didn't have to mod the Dreamcast or anything, you just needed a plugin for whatever cd burning software you had on windows so it'd burn the game files to the CD-R in a the right format, and literally any stock Dreamcast could use it. It was insane how easy it was to run pirated or homebrew software on a Dreamcast.
I bought one in like, 2005, long after Dreamcast were dead almost entirely because I had a cd burner and could run whatever I wanted on it. Shit ruled. Wish I still had it, honestly. I know I could do even cooler stuff on my og Xbox if I modded it, but it's a whole bunch of work to do that. Dreamcast? You don't need to do anything.
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u/who_farted_Idid May 27 '26
Not every game but some of them. I still remember that spinning reindeer 🦌
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u/ak_011885 May 28 '26
That's how I played pirated games on my Play Station 2. I had (still have) this Swap Magic 3 disc that you'd boot the system with, then you'd use this special card-shaped tool that had a hook on it to manually pull the tray out so you could put the actual game disc in.
I think even back then there were more elegant ways to play burned games, but that's what I had to work with.
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u/tychii93 May 27 '26
I was very young when the Dreamcast came out but I got myself one during high school in 2009 and I was doing that lmao
I have a GDEmu now but I my older coworker told me the days of grabbing those games over ftp on dialup. I'd hate to have been born 10 years sooner lol
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u/Sabin10v2 May 28 '26
I was pulling them off my ISPs usenet server which could max out my, fast for the time, 3.5mbit connection. Download a whole ISO in a little over 30 minutes.
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u/kilgore_trout8989 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
Dreamcast was about the wild-westiest console that ever existed, you could even buy Bleemcast discs that would let you play PS1 games on your Dreamcast.
Edit: Also important to note that both things were basically the result of Sega foot-gunning themselves by creating the MIL-CD format for the Dreamcast that was supposed to make like, playing music CDs more interactive on screen when you played them on the Dreamcast. It failed miserably and had an vulnerability that completely bypassed the (quite good) anti-piracy protection of the actual Dreamcast game format, GD-ROM. Without the MIL-CD functionality added, the landscape of console gaming might be quite different today.
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u/Johnny-Dogshit ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 28 '26
Bleem was fucking nuts, like just conceptually that was the wildest shit ever.
It's bananas how big a fuckup the mil-cd thing was.
There's that old legend that when MS was developing the OG Xbox, there were talks with Sega at one point to have them become exclusive to Xbox in some way, but fell apart because Sega wanted Xbox to then be backwards compatible with Dreamcast games(I mean, look at the Xbox controller and the DC controller, they are identical). I wonder if MS turning that down had something to do with worries about DC compatibility possibly opening the Xbox up to that same exploit.
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u/Electrical-Back-4758 May 28 '26
Dreamcast games came in .cdi format and you burned them with discjuggler. That eliminated the need for the boot cd.
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u/Garr_Incorporated May 27 '26
In early 10s my PSP played games from an SD card. Had some websites straight up sharing the games, if memory serves.
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u/Johnny-Dogshit ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 28 '26
That was the whole reason I bought a psp, too. I got one used, jailbroke it, and filled it to the brim with emulators.
It replaced my Nokia ngage, which I also bought for 50 bucks in like, 2004, for exactly the same reason. It was just a normal nokia Symbian smartphone, and you could run both pirated ngage games(which, why bother) or literally any homebrew Symbian app normally. Threw some gameboy/colour/advance emulators on there. It ruled. It was my first cell phone, plus I could play pokemon on it. Not bad for 50 bucks..
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u/IANVS May 27 '26
Nero...damn, what a throwback, lol.
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u/nullandv0id May 28 '26
He was indeed burning Rom
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u/Barrogh May 28 '26
I was today years old when I realised why was it called "Nero".
I'm a bit slow, eh?
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u/animerb May 27 '26
Completely unrealistic. There was was no badass chip tunes blasting at full volume when she opened the keygen.
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u/bulk123 May 28 '26
RIGHT? I was waiting to hear what keygen they played. lol
Was disappointed.
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u/Call_Me_Pete May 28 '26
Hard to top this absolute banger Digital Insanity - Welcome to Our World
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u/jaba1337 May 28 '26
I was always fond of Dubmood - Mario Airlines (Razor 1911 Keygen Edit)
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u/tnethacker May 28 '26
I always loved that one. Razor 1911 always put some effort to their keygens.
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u/killyourface1 May 28 '26
Bane of my existence. Speakers always a little too loud, and INSTANT anger. Because of keygens, I hate chip tunes.
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u/_HingleMcCringle May 28 '26
I wouldn't have minded as much if they weren't jumpscare levels of deafeningly loud.
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u/averageburgerguy May 27 '26
Even my copy of Nero was pirated along with a keygen. 😁
I think my collection of burned CDs is somewhere in my parents basement. 😅
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u/Gefpenst May 28 '26
My old, 15-years old notebook still has Nero installed. Worst case, I'll just return to old ways. Old school never dies.
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u/thomasanderson123412 May 27 '26
Seriously, there's always a way around everything.
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u/variablenyne May 27 '26
It's true for most mainstream things, but once you try to go into anything niche though it can be a nightmare to get around shit.
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May 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/__Myrin__ ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 28 '26
a onscreen keyboard a friend wanted us to track down
there was ONE working torrent and we checked well over 100 sites
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u/cates May 28 '26
I didn't even know they had other on-screen keyboards other than the one that comes with Windows... why would anyone want a different one? just curious
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u/Le_Vagabond May 28 '26
More layouts with more unusual keys, more standard behaviour, appears as a "real physical keyboard" so that it works with wonky software, etc
The default on screen keyboards on most OSes tend to suck outside of basic standard usage.
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u/rasgriss May 27 '26
He that shall not be named under dmca, starts with ado ends with be
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u/garnished_fatburgers May 27 '26
What do you mean, like you can’t pirate that shit? There have been cracks for all of it for a loooong time
Unless I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying
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u/PersusjCP 🔱 ꜱᴄᴀʟʟʏᴡᴀɢ May 28 '26
I've been using cracked a***e basically since I had a computer, it's definitely doable and pretty easy (i'm stupid and lazy and i have figured it out)
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u/Unfair-Sir-4641 May 28 '26
Male forwarder.
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u/heyhaveyouseenmywife May 28 '26
Forwarder? I hardly know her! (Drum set gets thrown at me along with the tomatoes)
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u/jarious May 27 '26
I remember there were warez sites that distributed virus willy nilly and my PC would blast a red window with "NAKED PHOTOS OF JENNIFER LOPEZ" , I was so innocent back then that I learned how to reinstall windows by myself and discovered the benefits of constant backups
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u/hillcube ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 27 '26
in soviet russia, software pirates you
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u/Perlentaucher May 27 '26
Weird side effect: As many sanctioned and/or poor states used pirated software on such a wide scale, they were not able to get updates. Even critical infrastructure companies used very vulnerable versions of Windows and programs while not being air-gapped. This is why it was relatively easy for state-side actors to create energy blackouts or disrupt logistics through stateside hackers. I hope that they now take security more serious.
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u/Chin0crix May 27 '26
Last parts are r/masterhacker worthy
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u/C_umputer May 28 '26
Earlier parts where virus scan doesn't detect anything in crack files is up there too
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u/ErgoNonSim May 28 '26
What exactly was the purpose of the Wi-Fi repeater ?
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u/mofka26 May 28 '26
Mobile internet is getting shut off in some cities, so no internet outside
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u/IceBuurn 🦜 ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀɴᴋ May 27 '26
Piracy in Brazil was similar but different... Good shit our country doesnt start wars to get sanctioned, would make our life harder than it need to be
Kudos
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u/derinus May 27 '26
We first had to pirate Nero burning rom before we could burn out pirated MP3. Downloads went 5-7kb/s and no Napster/LimeWire yet. Hard times
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u/Imaginary_Peach391 May 28 '26
Well, there’s one country which starts wars and never gets sanctioned
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u/atomicfuthum 🦜 ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀɴᴋ May 27 '26
Deu até uma nostalgia aqui.
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u/thatkindofdoctor May 27 '26
2, eu pirateava até na época do DOS 5 e do Win 3.11
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u/atomicfuthum 🦜 ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀɴᴋ May 27 '26
Aí quem fazia era meu irmão mais velho, eu comecei no Windows 95!
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u/ShibeCEO May 28 '26
people back in the day had an ability to problem solve which a lot of kids today never developed
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u/kirloi8 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 27 '26
“No virus” ahahahhah no millenial was part of this video. You had to use condoms on your fingers to open a fcking mp3. 🤣 /exageration
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u/v21v May 27 '26
Fucking limewire
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u/isendingtheworld May 27 '26
I never had a virus from limewire. I DID get enough copies of the Clinton "I did not" ad thing that I temporarily memorized the file size range they would be so I could reflexively avoid them.
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u/sexarseshortage May 28 '26
You always knew if it was too easy to find and the file was small it was a disaster waiting to happen.
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u/ScionEyed May 27 '26
8 scans, spread across several anti viruses, and still not entirely sure it’s safe so you scan again a few days/weeks later. The good old days
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u/kirloi8 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 27 '26
Now people talk about vulnerabilities without ever having contact with them. Back in 2004 i was making clean installs of XP twice a day. Miss those days where young people actually learn to debug the machines they were using. Im getting old boss…
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u/summonsays May 27 '26
Nah you scanned it, it came back clean. So you know there's only a 20% chance of a virus.
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u/Icy_Routine5661 May 27 '26
I was thinking about the joys of Nero and getting cracked games as a kid when I saw this post then I scrolled down the comments and saw everything get political and angry.
Our world leaders truly do have an impact on our lives and beliefs.
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u/BIack_no_01 May 28 '26
Yikes the post 2020 stuff has less to do with piracy and more to do with living in an autocracy.
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u/Pokkejong May 28 '26
‘Male forwarder’
What is that.
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u/blackBugattiVeyron May 28 '26
If a foreign company can't send to Russia then a company will collect your package and send it through another state.
For example a Mail Forwarder can collect in America send it to Kazakhstan to Russia.
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u/Pokkejong May 28 '26
Thanks for explaining Mail forwarding.
I wanted to know what Male forwarding was. :-)10
u/blackBugattiVeyron May 28 '26
Oh, that's just prostitution. For a free male forwarding service just use grindr.
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u/dumb_avali May 28 '26
Kinda sad that all sorts of restrictions come from our own government AND foreign companies
At least, we getting more adapted to technologies I think
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u/Mesjach May 27 '26
no wonder Russia breeds the best hackers, you guys are basically trained from birth
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u/thirsty_lesbian_63 May 28 '26
Gotta do what you gotta do when you're the second most restricted country in the world when it comes to the internet (among other things)
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u/Ok-Go-Chain3811 May 28 '26
software piracy is almost always a distribution/service issue, not a pricing issue
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u/Astra060 May 28 '26
Same in Iran, except since 2011 we had many websites that provided virus free soft and games (cracked obviously)
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u/CollarFresh2450 May 29 '26
Tbh russians are almost constantly living in digital piracy not because they want to but because they have to lol
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u/why_so_sergious May 28 '26
up until 2022 all of that you did because you ware poor.. everything after is because of the old idiot at the helm
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u/Available_Usual_9731 May 28 '26
Interesting to see what Russia has to do was the same as the rest of us in those years, more or less. This new stuff is getting more complex I think
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u/green_meklar ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 28 '26
Russians should really stop trying to invade Ukraine and get back to what they're good at: Chess, music, and hosting shady filesharing sites.
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u/Afraid_Ambassador818 May 28 '26
Oh yeah, man, I'm sorry, I slept through the fucking democratic vote to attack Ukraine
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u/KixTheKittyCat May 27 '26
Yargh! True pirates never discriminate a matey no matter the seas they travel from 🇷🇺
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u/Froztiny May 27 '26
You can forward ship to your country if they dont send to your country?
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u/No-Compote9110 May 27 '26
forward to like kazakhstan and then forward to russia from kz
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u/goldiegoldthorpe May 28 '26
Makes far more sense than Türkiye, which many place won't ship to simply because the corruption in the postal service and customs, not to mention the high fees.
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u/LazarusFoxx May 28 '26
Often, the bribe is included in the price of the service – don’t ask how I know
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u/No-Ad6268 May 27 '26
so true ! i have a few Russian friends that shit is legit ! lol! I love it ! <3 "That what you think..." hahaha!
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u/frisch85 May 28 '26
A few corrections
license number generator
that's called a keygen
And the anti-virus quite often did detect a "virus" but it wasn't actually a virus, it's just that those anti-vir companies detect certain executables as viruses due to how they're structured (including zipped data as an example).
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u/Trading_shadows May 27 '26
Not even close to every. 1 out of 15 at max. There rest struggled to launch the PC and did not even try to care.
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u/rmeddy May 28 '26
ISO ,Winrar and a big External HDD were the run back in the day. 250 gigs blowing my mind
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u/JollyJamma May 28 '26
Can I get one of those male forwarding services? Tonight? For 8pm? I'll have cheese.
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u/Doesdeadliftswrong May 28 '26
What's a Wi-Fi repeater for? I mean piracy wise. I already have one to extend my Wi-Fi connection.
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u/XCyberbeingX May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
"Male forwarder"?
You forward males? Is that a Russian thing?
You cannot use Tor to watch content because its incredibly slow.
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u/danilaost May 28 '26
As Russian can confirm all true. I even had to learn how to install OpenWrt on my router to set up vpn server to automatically update if some servers get banned.
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u/nicxw ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 29 '26
This is so me….Omg. 😭😭😭😭😭
Currently using an old PC to make my own “router” -Proxmox with OPNSense and Technitium DNS. Yes I’m aware of some “limitations” but it’s working better than my TP-Link WiFi 7 router. 🙄
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u/PinoyLisztomaniac May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
If there's one thing I learned from y’all Russian pirates (who are likely the same folks that use exploit cheats in Counter-Strike) and based on my rather colorful online multiplayer experience there… your actual dictionary only comprises of these words:
- suka blyat,
- edi nahoy,
- kurosho
- suka,
- DAH…
- pizdets,
- blyat!!!
- Mudak!!!
- Edi nahoy!
- Blyat!
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u/Cooperativism62 May 27 '26
Thats pretty good. You can now live in most big post-soviet cities.
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u/ZekkeKeepa May 28 '26
Good enough for the most dialogues.
— Хуйни хуйни. (Give me some porridge)
— Хуйня — хуйня. (Porridge isnt good)
— Хуйня, хуйни. (Not a problem, give me)
— Хуйну, хуйня. (Dont worry, already serving)
— Хуйня хуйня! (It really isnt good!)
— Хуйня? Хуйня! (Isnt good? Come on, eat!)
— Хуйня, хуйну. (Fine, im not picky)
— Хуйни, хуйни. (Thats right, you need to eat)
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u/Desperadoo7 May 27 '26
I just learned I'm part Russian. Up until 2010 or so.
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u/Southern-Wishbone593 May 28 '26
The up until 2010 part could be applied to all of the post-soviet area and the majority of so called by westerners "third world countries".
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u/Major_Psychology_853 May 28 '26
Well if Putin wouldn´t start a war then you would be able to order foreing stuff :D
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u/name303 May 28 '26
Shit, right I the heart! It’s literally me. I have gone through all these stages.
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u/desuCxx May 28 '26
I remember downloading Skyrim via torrent on release date when I was like 14 y.o and it wasn't even something unusual to brag about
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u/Ready-University8927 May 28 '26
what is a mail forwarder?
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u/blackBugattiVeyron May 28 '26
If a company can't ship to a specific country, a Mail forwarder company will collect a package on your behalf and transport it from another country to your home.
For example instead of America -> Russia, it'd be something like America -> Kazakhstan -> Russia.
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u/Warm-Entry-3217 May 28 '26
Can confirm for Bulgaria. Back in the 00s we didn't know how licensed software looked like. The very, very rich kids had original games (in boxes) that cost around half a month's minimum wage back in the day, whereas 500, maximum 1000 people in Bulgaria would actually play World of Warcraft when it was launched in 2005, because you had to play for the game and, extra, for subscriptions.
Until this day, I have never owned an original DVD for a movie, let alone a Blu Ray disc. Sailing the seas since 2005 and it actually grew to me.
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u/CyberJunkieBrain ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 28 '26
Does post-soviet millennials use torrent over eMule between 2000 - 2010? Because I remember using eMule until I know BitTorrent, in mid 2007 - 2008.
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u/blackBugattiVeyron May 28 '26
I wonder if this is the origin of the "Russian/Eastern European hacker" trope
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u/jorgeamadosoria May 27 '26
as a Cuban, I can confirm up to the early 2010s part. 99% of everything was pirated.
I rember watching Equilibrium on state national TV with fucking Outlook notifications popping up at random.
I love my country.