no he doesn't mess with Gamerscore (i think) but i'm starting to catch a whiff of some roflwaffles cooking!

Easier method

1. go to Google
2. type boobies
3. press enter

Done.  You don't even need an Xbox.

It's just not the same....

In all honesty the people who were banned were the guys who connected to xbox live (they were warned not to connect till the release date) when they had dled the games(they can find out that way also). I'll fully admit I dled Gears 2 due to the fact that it was leaked 2 weeks early. Which one of you wouldn't if you had the chance to?

Anyways thats the reason why everyone's banned, they pretty much collected the data (I'm assuming) of who had the game in there recently played list before it was released and did one major ban.

P.S Yes I did still purchase Gears 2 day 1 as I had it reserved and actually paid in full before the release day. I support the companioes who put out quality games.

i'll cry for the fallen pirates once i'm done laughing.

 No it's definatley the people who were playing it 2-3 weeks before it was supposed to be released,lol.

I wouldn't.  And I love how you pretend you're all noble because you buy the game later (and that does make you better than most pirates) but then forget going to the torrent sites supports those sites that host the pirated torrents and then having that torrent lets other people pirate it.

I'll be the first to admit I'm not noble about it. I'm honest, thats it. I've purchased 15 games for my 360 and dled alot more than that. Piracy was the main reason I bought my 360 before my PS3 or Wii.

 P.S Because of those torrent sites I have the ability to come home and dl Prison Break after work, so god bless em

I love that comment about being a abnormaly large group are getting banned. I will say it again. It's mostly the hardcore orientated crowd that pirate. Online is mostly hardcore, especially anything based on the old central PC model(ie GameSpy, Heat, Live). This is why it seems unusual large, but really it's not. It's just concentrated hardcore.

Anyways dudes, you pirate and you lose. Take like a man and just live with the banning. If you commit data crime like this take data punishment.

Kotaku linked me to the xbox-scene forums, and that's where you get the collections of guys that got banned, since it's a site about hacking your console. Basically it looks to be one of two scenarios, or both:

1. The games each have a unique serial code built in and when they get pirated that one copie's serial code gets repeated onto each new download, meaning that every 360 that uses this game code would get banned. Microsoft basically scans everyone's games(I'm not sure if this would be legal) and they weed out these repeated codes and ban the 360's they are on.

2. Microsoft purposely planted the uncharacteristically early Fallout 3, Saints Row 2 and Gears of War 2 releases onto torrent sites to bait people into downloading them and catching them that way like it were inked money from a bank robbery.

It seemingly doesn't follow a pattern which has people believing that MS isn't banning every offender, but is doing them in groups to cause a hysteria among the 360 owners with custom firmware. The conspiracy at the forum is they are doing it purposely each Fall(this happened last year too) to promote these people to buy a new 360 as part of Christmas to replace their old one, which is unfixable and can never go online again.