Denuvo wins subpoenas to unmask cracker 'voices38' after cutting demands from 46 to nine
Judge had called original requests for payment logs and post histories a privacy risk, revised targets still include IP addresses and phone numbers
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torrentfreak.com
A California federal judge has approved subpoenas for Discord, Valve and Reddit to unmask the game cracker behind the handle 'voices38' — but only after Denuvo stripped the requests down from 46 demands to nine.
Denuvo, the anti-piracy firm owned by Irdeto, filed a DMCA anti-circumvention lawsuit in September against the pseudonymous cracker, identified only through a Discord user ID, a Reddit account and seven Steam profiles. Its original proposed subpoenas went well beyond names: the Valve subpoena alone contained 35 requests covering payment methods, transaction histories, IP addresses with timestamps, device identifiers and linked accounts. Discord was asked to list the account's server memberships; Reddit was asked for every post and comment.
On October 8, Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. pushed back, writing that the requests "go well beyond what is needed for the limited purpose of identifying the defendant and could pose substantial privacy concerns." He gave Denuvo a choice: adopt a narrow subpoena model from a prior case, or justify each data demand individually. Denuvo chose the narrow path.
The revised subpoenas drop payment data, transaction histories, login logs, posts and comments. They still ask for IP addresses and phone numbers — which go beyond the model the judge pointed to — and Denuvo argues these are necessary because platforms collect little at sign-up and what they do collect is self-reported. "Denuvo has only a pseudonym," the firm writes, suggesting IP logs may be the only reliable trail.
The episode shows how much data a plaintiff will request when nothing stops it, and how quickly the appetite shrinks when a court asks questions. Denuvo's business model rests on the claim that its copy protection is attacked by sophisticated actors rather than casual copiers — and every lawsuit against a cracker doubles as advertising for that claim.
The nine surviving requests now ask Discord, Reddit and Valve for names, identification documents, email addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers and physical addresses — everything a company needs to serve a defendant, and nothing more it could sell.