EMPRESS

Actually, it's about ethics in ...
Video games

Cutscenes

* Gamergate
* Video game
* Polybius
* Gamergate
* Shaun
* Gamergate (български)
* Ruben Sim
* Slender Man
* Star Trek
* Digital Rights Management
* PETA
* School shooting

v \- t \- e

“”i think the main problem is that people 'fail' to see Video Games as the pinnacle and max potential of 'art'[sic][1]

—EMPRESS

EMPRESS is the online alias of an anonymous computer hacker whose modus operandi is the circumvention of copy protection and Digital Rights Management on popular computer games. She[1] gained notoriety for breaking otherwise-impervious DRM schemes such as Denuvo, whose complexity has mostly thwarted early attempts by warez groups. Her skill in circumventing Denuvo and other sophisticated copy protection schemes drew a lot of attention to her activities, as she was able to break them on her own, having been responsible for over half of high-profile Denuvo hacks from 2020 to 2021.[2] As of 2024, she is among the few to have been prolific in the release of Denuvo-related hacks for computer games.

Such was her reputation that she was viewed by the PC gaming community as the antithesis of warez groups, operating alone,[note 1] having an open online presence (albeit still under anonymity for obvious reasons) where she regularly polls people on which games to crack next and her, ahem, philosophical views, the latter of which is of interest to RationalWiki.

## Contents

* 1 Cultist drama queen
* 2 Not on my TERF/turf
* 3 External links
* 4 Notes
* 5 References

## Cultist drama queen[edit]

While far from the only warez personality to openly discuss her adventures on the open web (Bulgarian hacker Voksi did so, though at great personal cost when the fine folks over at Irdeto had the Bulgarian police sic on him for copyright infringement[3]), she gained quite a reputation for being what the Warez scene was not: running polls on which games to crack, called out her rivals, shared her views, and provided ways for people to donate to her cause.[2] She cites the "dream" she had as well as some philosophical reason – among them a drive for video game preservation – as her motive to defeat security measures in video games, dismissing the normally male-dominated underground warez scene as driven by "fake meaningless Egos".[1] Given the revelations from the Wired interview, some have speculated EMPRESS to be neurodivergent, having been compared to fellow techno-eccentric Terry A. Davis.[2]

That being said, despite dismissing her male contemporaries as "ego-driven", she herself is in fact driven by it through the petty drama and the cult following she amassed on her subreddit and other socials. She was reportedly arrested for her illicit activities,[4] but cracks apparently appeared about her supposed arrest (pun intended) and speculation emerged alleging that the "arrest" was more of a fabricated publicity stunt given the drama surrounding her popularity in the (not-so) underground piracy scene.[5] She also became part of a feud with fellow piracy purveyor FitGirl, whose modus operandi is to repack existing pirated game releases for people with less-than-optimal connections, especially from developing countries, to download them easily.[note 2] FitGirl alleged that EMPRESS sabotaged the upload speed on her seedbox to deter repackers from redistributing her releases, stating “And why did she do it, you ask? The answer is mind-blowing: she hates all repackers for ‘stealing the spotlight’ from her work. Yes, you’ve read it right. It’s against common logic and piracy ethics.” and called on users to boycott EMPRESS's releases.[4] EMPRESS shot back, alleging that FitGirl is a "faggot" assuming a female online identity by way of a character from the 2001 French romantic comedy film Amélie.[7]

And to top it all off, she expressed racist views towards India, further stating that "but this doesn't mean i don't give them a chance. last night someone from india contacted me and i am talking with him, because he is actually a "person", not a fucking ANIMAL." This flew in the face of software pirates in India, where media piracy rates are notoriously astronomical due to economic conditions and general barriers to entry for the average Indian consumer, though some have simply been dismissive of her views, so long as they get the games they so desire at no charge.[8][2]

## Not on my TERF/turf[edit]

On February 2023, EMPRESS released a crack for the open-world role-playing game Hogwarts Legacy,[9] which in itself has been saddled with controversy due to the game being part of the Rowlingverse, regardless of Rowling's actual involvement in its production. EMPRESS, in her never-ending quest for egotistical drama, defended Rowling in an NFO screed for her cracked game release and played the persecution card where she cast transgender women as envious wannabe-female men who seek equal status with women and all that,[10][11] further cementing her status as a TERF and an all-caps abuser:

> I fully stand with J.K.Rowling as countless women who did, because most men are just dying out of jealousy of us and want to take a piece of the cake too. Even if it comes out corrupted, broken and completely ruined. And this is something only "REAL WOMEN" would understand, because we women are the ones that is getting damaged & stolen from, so we are hurt the most by it.

> As a result of the rise of this new WOKE movement, society now made every man today is always either a sissy bitch or misogynistic motherfucker, nothing in-between.

> "THE WOKE SYSTEM" of today runs with and "claims" that it mainly wants "fairness, justice, equality and total freedom". But then ... when someone with views against trans and tries to express themselves today, they are treated as GARBAGE and fired/banned from wherever they are, is a clear sign of huge "Contradiction".

> This is neither equality nor freedom. This is SLAVERY because you are "FORCING" ideas and thoughts on people or else they are ATTACKED & SILENCED. This "Freedom" is just 1 sided and those BITCHES have taken the "Actual" freedom out of all normal people away, and is forcing everyone to either forcefully accept this NONSENSE, or just swallow their thoughts and keep shut regardless.

> I CALL THIS BULLSHIT ! ! !

> J.K.Rowling spoke about this publicly and thus got hated for it. The funniest thing is that the fact most of the bitches whom are hating is just following the "HATE TRAIN". They absolutely have no fucking idea "What" they are actually defending, what it means, and if it's right or wrong whatsoever. You are all just following the hordes like PIGS. You REALLY thought by adding "phobic" at the end of your fuckery is going to turn it into some of "Weapon"?

> NO BITCH, it just turns YOU into a FAG! (laughing)

> You are all mostly "sissy men" who just couldn't accept being inferior to women, so you went into a trip to realize that **in the end** there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you can do about it. And NOW you are neither a man nor a woman, you have completely lost your identity, and now you are just a "unidentifiable freak" that is fucking disgusting. Good job, FAGGOTS.

> ... Fag, Faggotry, Faggots! ... oh god, I love english <3

> Why do I think like this?

> SIMPLE EXPLANATION:

> This life is made of a "Duality" nature. Like the famous yin & yang. It is always made of exactly "2" opposite forces. You can clearly see that in life as:

> -day/night -light/dark -heat/cold -life/death etc

> Genders work the same. They are also 2 strong different forces that oppose each other, hence making their impact "Greatest" as they complete each other to perfection.

> But what if we start mixing them without any rules and 100% "Freedom" as the woke generation want? Both sides lose their meaning and you end up with something gray with no SPARK, doesn't hit any MARK, just keeps you in the DARK.

> To reddit admins: hey, keep collecting TRASH and don't be ashamed whenever you drop yours pants in a BACKLASH.

> To reddit slaves: suck it harder bitches, you are not doing good ENOUGH. Keep on it and do try to forget the CUFF.

This clearly dismisses the fact that there have been studies stating that sex assignment isn't as straightforward as it may seem, regardless of whether the person has a penis or not.[12] Case in point intersex people, whose ambiguous sex characteristics have presented serious issues between themselves and the society surrounding them, especially in conservative regions.[13] Prominent Filipino intersex activist Jeff Cagandahan successfully petitioned the Philippine Supreme Court to have his gender markers amended on his legal papers on the grounds of his biologically-occurring gender ambiguity; Cagandahan was assigned female at birth, but his male features prevailed due to a case of congenital adrenal hyperplasia, causing him to suffer from ostracization.

Computers think in binary; life is a spectrum full of nuances. Only a Sith deals with absolutes, as they say. Simply dismissing life as zero or one fails in more ways than one, just as how the argument for or against media piracy has been grossly oversimplified without taking into account the reasons why people pirate, e.g. lack of availability or trade embargoes/sanctions against a particular country. Perhaps she should have known that all along, given her penchant for complex philosophical screeds.

## External links[edit]

* A (surprisingly high quality) write up about her online activity on Reddit

## Notes[edit]

1. ↑ Though she previously worked alongside and as part of larger warez collectives.
2. ↑ The aggressive use of data compression on pirate repacks comes at a great computational cost both on part of the repacker and the end-user, as it takes significantly longer for the compressed game to be installed, and even more so for the game to be repacked for illicit distribution.[6]

## References[edit]

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 D'Anastasio, Cecilia (22 February 2021). "The Woman Bulldozing Video Games' Toughest DRM". Wired. Retrieved 24 February 2023
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 The rise of EMPRESS
3. ↑ Notorious Denuvo gaming cracker Voksi arrested in Bulgaria
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Denuvo Cracker EMPRESS "Arrested", Blames Repacker FitGirl & Reddit For Witch-Hunt
5. ↑ EMPRESS announces her return and says she's saved!
6. ↑ New compression algorithm
7. ↑ Screenshot of the now-deleted Reddit post
8. ↑ Empress true colors
9. ↑ Hogwarts Legacy and the latest version of Denuvo have been cracked
10. ↑ EMPRESS.nfo
11. ↑ Hogwarts.Legacy.Deluxe.Edition-EMPRESS
12. ↑ The Myth of Biological Sex
13. ↑ Male or female? It's not always so simple