It all started with a Craigslist post, as many seedy stories these days do. Last Thursday a listing popped up for a Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundle, nearly two weeks before the eagerly anticipated game was supposed to hit store shelves. Activision hired Dallas private investigation firm IPCybercriume.com to track down the sale. A little investigative Facebook work later and the firm uncovered two men who had stolen a crate of the bundles from the back room at a video game retailer. They turned the criminals over to the store's loss prevention department, but that was only the beginning.

On the 30th of October, Activision directed IPCybercrime to an individual going by the handle cedelamo" and "cdelamo815," who had posted on an Xbox 360 ISO site requesting donations to buy one of the bundles so he could duplicate Modern Warfare 2. The investigators checked the email address used in the posts against Facebook users, which led them to a site offering console mods. From there they brokered a deal, acquired the culprit's cell phone number, and tracked him down at the address they had acquired through Facebook.

The investigators identified the culprit as 18-year-old Christian Del Amo, a modder known for selling hacked Xbox 360 hard drives filled with pirated games. IPCybercrime turned the investigation over to the Miami-Dade police department, which purchased a copy of Modern Warfare 2 from Del Amo, arrested the runner who had delivered the disc, who then led him directly to the Del Amo home, where the pirate was arrested.

"It all happened very fast," said Rob Holmes, owner of IPCybercrime. "If these guys get their stuff out, then they can do some major damage to sales and spoil it for everybody. We plug leaks every day, but this was one of the biggest ones of the year."

While the investigation didn't do much to curb the piracy already plaguing Modern Warfare 2, it is an excellent example of the lengths that publishers will go to in order to protect their property, as well as being proof that no matter how well you think you covered your tracks, they're probably not covered.

Hit up the link below for the full story.

How investigators tracked down a Modern Warfare 2 cyber pirate [VentureBeat]

One of the joys of PC gaming is the ability to screw with stuff, like Batman's costume skin in Arkham Asylum. Over at the official game forums they've got a fan-made skin collection going, complete with apps and instructions on how to implement them in your own game. If Arkham can have gargoyles on the inside, then I see no reason why Batman can't dress as Nightwing, or the Green Lantern, or yes - Captain America. I particularly like the Batman Of Zur En Arrh outfit, which mimics the bat-suit Batman wore when he went bat-s*** insane.

UPDATE: EternalStar let us know that, thanks to SecuROM's DRM, the skins only work in the demo version of the game. On the plus side, it's free?

Batman Arkham Asylum Modded Costume thread!! [Official Forums - Thanks Stancis!]

Blizzard wants to foster the best mod community in existence, and to that ends they've unveiled plans to single out premium custom-created maps for sales on a StarCraft 2 marketplace. Maps will be split into two categories - normal and premium - with the former free and the latter for sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to the map's creators. Blizzard hopes this will lead to more choice for StarCraft 2 players, and more innovative and creative custom maps fueled by the potential financial rewards.

Said Pardo, "This is really an opportunity for them to share in the rewards of our success."

The feature won't be available at the game's launch, and details are still being ironed out. Blizzard made the announcement today as a way to give modders time to gather teams together and start brainstorming premium content. Mod teams, start your engines!

In the above clip, Lucho shows the fruits of his labor.

*applause*

Elotrolado via YouTube via Hack A Day via Gizmodo]

This XCM Eye-Candy shell is a DSi replacement casing and comes with replacement buttons and a screwdriver. Yours for around US$30.

Smooth Crystal [XCM via MAXCONSOLE via OhGizmo! via Newlaunches]

While not exactly sexy, it is a fitted an Atari 2600 emulator into a SEGA Game Gear shell. What it lacks in slick good looks, the modder makes up in functionality. It's possible to load actual 2600 cartridges in the portable's back slot. Dubbed the "Atari Gear 2600," the handheld can go for 7-8 hours on AA batteries. Looks aren't everything!

Oh, and the guy who made this? His name is Chris Koopa. And he should really should be doing Nintendo mods, not Atari and not SEGA ones.

Atari Gear [CHRIS KOOPA via Ben Heck via technabob via Gizmodo]

Hit the link below to check out the whole project from start to finish, and then enter Bit-tech's contest for a chance to win the piece for yourself. Just in case you haven't been paying attention, the answer is Africa.

Far Cry 2 PS3 by Butterkneter [bit-tech]

Media Molecule has revealed plans to keep a close eye on user-created levels in Little Big Planet to see if any talented designers float to the surface.

LBP producer Pete Smith could not completely dismiss rumors that Media Molecule will resell popular user-created levels, but said that the company would like to get popular designers on board creating official content for the game.

"If a user becomes known as being great at making levels, I can't say we wouldn't but I don't think we'd want to take his level and then charge people for it, because it's free - that's the whole premise of the game," said Smith, "However, we will be aware of who those awesome designers are and certainly there's the potential to get them building levels as part of the dev team."

Make awesome LBP levels, get job at Media Molecule [CVG]

Graphic Designers! Don't waste money on expensive Apple Macintosh desktops - just gut your Xbox like a fish and stuff its innards into a Lan-Li PC-XB01!

The Lan-Li case really does look like one of Apples more industrial numbers with the cheese grater effect on the front. It has plenty of room inside to let air flow around your now warranty-free Xbox, plus housings for a water cooling system if you are really paranoid about getting the RROD or live on the Sun.

The PC-XB01 will be available later this month for around $150. Time to start looking for a minimalist Phillip Starke controller to go with it.

Lan-Li PC-XB01 [via The Register]

Work is currently being done towards an install solution for retail Xbox 360 systems, but you know what? I'll just wait. Hit the jump for a clip of the new dash in action, or hit the link for the full rundown of how they did it.

Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard 08 Leaked! [xHaVoK87's Blog - Thanks Madgame]

3PS60 Controller WIP, The Wario of the PS360
Ps360 Controller, Middle of a WIP [xbox scene]

Ben Heck's Latest Wonder Project: PS3 Laptop [Gizmodo]

We'll keep you updated if Dragula ever reveals his secret methodology and anyone is able to replicate the finding. Until then, you'll eat your hardware-gimped Linux and like it.

PS3 Hello World Homebrew Method Found, works with fw 2.20 [DCEmu]

The "Great Satan" Case Mod [ExtremeTech]

The process is far from simple as once you modify a save game it requires it be to signed with 3 keys. Here's some info from Bushing.

"Once the Wii decrypts the save game, it checks its signature. Every Wii has its own private key which is used to sign save games, and when you save a game, the Wii actually saves three bits of data:

* The encrypted save game
* The signature for the save game (using your console's private key)
* A copy of your console's public key, signed by Nintendo."

Of course, the end user wouldn't have to go through this process unless they were wanting to inject their own code into the save game, but that shouldn't be necessary...

It would appear that the Xbox modding business was a lucrative one, as the subject of this particular clip—thank you, Danny—seems to have quite the mortgage. There's not much to add to 1,500 original Xbox hard drives falling down in succession, but we certainly don't recommend disposing of yours in a nearby pond. Think of the fishes!

First up, we have one account of a raid in Ohio via Xbox-Scene - and while I'm sorry the guy is now up a creek without a paddle, supporting one's self via means of questionable legality is never a particularly smart plan:

... I have been out of work since early may, and modding is the only thing that was keeping me above water with the bills. Now I can't mod, and I can't even sell anything off to pay for bills either since it has all been confiscated due to a ludicrous interpretation of the DCMA. Now it's all said and done, and I just have to wait for them to decide what I did wrong, but while I'm waiting, I have NOTHING of any worth anymore, other than a computer monitor, and my car. Because of what happened I'm not allowed to see my girlfriend and our 4 month old daughter, and last night, I slept in my car and my girlfriend sent me a text message telling me it felt like someone was taking me away from her. They took my life away. I would like to formally thank Microsoft and Nintendo for cracking down on the little guy with a soldering iron in his garage, rather than going after the people that are responsible for the bootlegs being available.

Moving on to the nitty gritty, the Console Tech forums have a post with lots and lots of scans: a copy of the search warrant, and a surprisingly small list compared to what they had the scope to seize (and one, count it, one mod chip - hope the government feels that was worth the expense of manpower and resources to seize it). GP points out that "not shown is the probable cause affidavit, which would have explained the government's basis for the search. That document apparenly [sic] remains sealed by a federal court," which is more than a little odd, especially considering the results were less than thrilling. Wonder what they thought they'd be seizing?

And from the Xbox-scene forums comes a long rant that GP describes as "probably the most lucid, detailed and passionate criticism we've seen concerning last week's Homeland Security raids on mod chippers":

The root of the problem is the DMCA. The ideals behind the DMCA are good but the wording really is far too broad... Digital Rights management is being... abused to technologically lock consumers into a fabricated monopoly... our laws work to criminalize anyone and everyone and designed not in the best interests of the American people but in the best interests of politicians and big businesses.

And finally, conservative and liberal blogs jump into the debate. On the right, we have Conservative Gamer, tying mod chips and the illegal alien debate together:

ICE appears to be diverting resources to going after people with mod chips instead of dealing with the illegal alien influx .... How wonderful. It's great to know our government is looking out for us. Next time I hear someone complain about illegal aliens in their town, I'll just remind them that ICE has more important things to do. They'll understand.

And from the left, Freedom Democrats:

The Copyright Mafia is going to greater and greater lengths to take ownership of American culture. First there is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which effectively allows electronics manufactures to own our equipment even after they have sold it to us. This past week, we received news that reminded us that the Feds are serious about enforcing this new form of ownership .... And to make it worse, Google and friends point out that several media companies have been deceitfully undermining our fair use rights, by forcefully claiming that such rights do not exist.

Well, at least there's something that all of us can agree on, even if it's not for the same reasons.

Time will tell what the long-term fall out over these raids (and subsequent crackdowns, perhaps?) will be, but the chatter probably won't die down any time soon. What - if anything - of substance was netted from these raids? What is in those still-sealed probably cause affidavits? What's next?

Check out GamePolitics for what I'm sure will be continuing coverage, and to see their take on the articles posted above.