Escena warez

From Hack Story

"SUBCULTURA DE SUBCULTURAS". Linus Walleij (1998). "Copyright Does Not Exist"

Virtual Zone Magazine

http://web.archive.org/web/19980216082008/http://canalwarez.islatortuga.com/ http://www.meneame.net/story/anuncio-antipirateria-los-80s

Al menos a finales de los 80 con las cintas de doble pletina había verdaderas colecciones de juegos metidas en cintas de 90 minutos. Serían el equivalente a las compilaciones que se hacían en CD hace unos años.

Y con los ordenadores Atari y Amiga empezó la escena warez y sus cracktros.
Guardo con mucho cariño discos de Medway boyz y Pompey pirates en los que metían 2 o 3 juegos con compresores y formateando un disco de 720K por encima de sus posibilidades junto a un menú con varias músicas, scrollers y algún gráfico molón. 

14 votos: 1

el 09-08-2009 07:55 UTC por musg0  

1. 27 #16 ¿que no había mucha "piratería" en los 80?

Supongo que en esa época no conociste el "Mercat de Sant Antoni" en Barcelona para mi el paraíso durante mas de una década desde mediados de los ochenta hata la gran redada de los 90.
Todos los grandes juegos y programas para mi amstrad CPC 6124 salierón de allí y mas tarde los de mi primer pc y esto siguió así hasta que en el 95 me puse mi primera conexión con Infovia y mi modem 3COM 33.600Kb. (por cierto menudo maquinón de modem aún hoy en día lo uso para enviar y recibir FAX).
¡Ah que tiempos aquellos! 

21 votos: 2

el 09-08-2009 08:09 UTC por Soseki 

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http://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhf/212/MH212_06.jpg

revista Microhobby. 15-21 octubre 1985. Año II n. 48

"Duro golpe a la pirateria" Las cuatro grandes distribuidoras de software de entretenimiento de nuestro país: Dro Soft, Erbe, Proeinsa y System 4 han decidido aunar esfuerzos para luchas seriamente contra el acuciante problema de la piratería. Los primeros resultados se han hecho públicos: unas 30 personas denunciadas o intervenidas y se han incautado más de 20.000 discos piratas.

(...) La historia comenzó unos meses atrás, cuando los responsables de las compañías citadas pusieron el asunto en manos del bufete de abogados Sol Muntañola & Asociados. Desde entonces se inició un minucioso estudio de localización y seguimiento de los principales focos de piratería en toda España.

Tras este análisis, se ha llegado a la conclusión de que existen dos vías básicas utilizadas para la comercialización de las copias piratas.

En primer lugar, tenemos la venta directa sobre catálogo, la cual se realiza principalmente en mercadillos. El vendedor muestra al comprador el catálogo en el que se incluyen las largas listas de títulos disponibles y, una vez realizada la selecciń, va en busca del disco o cassette -que puede encontrarse en su propio domicilio, en un coche o incluso en lugares tan inverosímiles como la cabina de una cajero automático.

Por otra parte, existe el sistema de venta por correo, el cual se inicia mediante un contacto a través de anuncios en prensa y en el que también se ofrece al posible comprador completos catálogos en los que a veces aparecen incluso títulos que aún no han sido editados en nuestro país.

(...) El Commodore Amiga es el más afectado. Se calcula que hasta un 60% del total de programas que circulan para este ordendor corresponden a copias piratas.

Tan espectaculares datos nos convierten en uno de los países líderes en lo que a venta de software fraudulento se refiere.

--

1986 se calcula que 80% de programas instalados en españa son piratas http://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhf/089/MH089_04.jpg

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Microhobby n.5 Especial. Diciembre 1986. "La piratería" http://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhf/MHEs5/mhes5_05.jpg El pueblo español es uno de los más ricos a nviel mundial en lo respectivo al ingenio. En este programa que necesitaba de un conector final para su funcionamiento, hemos visto en el Rastro que era duplicado de una manera totalmente artesanal fantástica con un artilugio de madera. Fue más difícil pero al final el resultado fue exactamente igual José Villar. Dirigente de Sinclair Store

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Microhobby n.5 Especial. Diciembre 1986. "La piratería" El punto de vista de los piratas del Rastro http://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhf/MHEs5/mhes5_11.jpg http://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhf/MHEs5/mhes5_12.jpg http://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhf/MHEs5/mhes5_13.jpg

Estas copias como las consigues? -Casi todas son traídas de Inglaterra -Pero vienen directamente desprotegidas o se desprotegen aquí -No, hay gente para desprotegerlas pero esa gente no está en Madrid. Esa gente es de fuera, entoces eso se manda a desproteger... bueno hay gente también aquí en Madrid, es gente antigua que desprotegía y se le sigue mandando esto. -Pagáis algo por desproteger? -A veces. A veces se paga por desproteger y otras veces se hace por cambio o por otras razones. Hay gente que se gana la vida en el Rastro, otra se la gana desprotegindo, hay de todos los tipos

--

Depeche Mode había entrado en este mundo en 1983, cuando se compró un Spectrum pero se le averió, dejándole tres meses sin máquina. Gastó ese tiempo leyendo un libro de programación en ensamblador, que aplicó "sacando las tripas a los juegos que tenía". Entre 1983 y 1986, Depeche Mode y un amigo, Manolo, se dedicaron intensamente a crackear juegos por diversión. Firmaban: Desprotegido por SRS (Super Rata Software, Manolo) & AWD (un indicativo de radioaficionado, Depeche Mode).

Formábamos parte de la mayor red de distribución de juegos crackeados de España. Un tío de la universidad de Zaragoza, un coleccionista, nos pasaba una o dos cintas cada semana, con 20/30 juegos para crackear que no sé de dónde sacaba porque le llegaban incluso cosas de Inglaterra. Y se los devolvíamos crackeados.^[1]

Depeche Mode asegura que no cobraba por los juegos, que pasaba a los amigos, aunque otros sí los vendían. La actividad crackeadora de la gente de Zaragoza llegó a ser tal que algunas tiendas del Rastro madrileño, que vendían juegos desprotegidos, tenían una sección llamada Desprotecciones Zaragoza.

Víctor Ruiz, de Dinamic, me llamó una vez, que no sé cómo consiguió el número, para que lo dejásemos.^[2]

Otro grupo de warez de la época lo formaban Pablo, Santiago y Emilio, también destacaban El Rocker y Angeloso, que años después pondría en marcha Isla Tortuga. Pablo, Santiago y Emilio y SRS & AWD protagonizaron la que posiblemente fue primera carrera por una "release" en la escena warez española:

El juego Daley Thompson's Decathlon^[3] fue el primero que llevaba un sistema anticopia, con un texto que ponía "Desproteger este programa puede ser perjudicial para la salud". Ellos lo desprotegieron primero, nos ganaron por dos horas.^[4]

SRS & AWD son una firma mítica del primer warez español. Fuero los primeros que introdujeron efectos, como espirales o líneas, para distraer la espera mientras se cargaba el programa, lo que sería un antecesor de las intros^[5]. También crearon grabadores y cargadores de alta velocidad. Ponían especial atención en facilitar la copia de los juegos.

Teníamos una filosofía: nuestras desprotecciones se podían copiar con el Copión de Argüello^[6], que tenía todo el mundo y que iba bien, además era fácil de escribir y se encontraba en todos los manuales. O se autocopiaban al terminar, con una combinación de teclas.^[7]

--

http://torrentfreak.com/interview-with-a-warez-scene-releaser/ http://pyramidofpiracy.ytmnd.com/ via https://linuxfreesite.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/entrevista-a-un-supplier-de-la-escena-warez/

http://torrentfreak.com/anakata-explains-in-court-how-the-scene-works-090220/

http://torrentfreak.com/warez-scene-member-sentenced-to-18-months-jail-080920/

http://www.zeropaid.com/bbs/threads/34494-Members-of-The-Scene-attack-P2P-users

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/5274/a_day_in_the_life_a_look_at_the_current_p2p_scene/

La "scene" nacional en el mundo DivX Enrique Rivas http://diariored.com/analisis/2002_04_05_21_44_52.html

Se conoce como "scene" al escenario de un determinado tema, concretamente hablamos hoy del mundo del DivX, el formato de video más difundido por Internet, usado generalmente para realizar copias de DVD´s y distribuir ilegalmente este tipo de peliculas u otras como pueden ser las distribuidas por señal de Satélite.

Cada uno de los grupos existentes realizan lo que se conoce como "release", que consiste en la salida a la "scene" de una nueva pelicula, documental, video o serie. Las releases siguen unos parámetros de calidad, y si estas normas no se cumplen la pelicula puede ser "nukeada*", o lo que es lo mismo, rechazada al ser considerada una release no valida. Una release debe tener, por ejemplo, una calidad de sonido de 128 Kbs y 44.1 kHz en MP3 como mínimo, una de video con 512 lineas horizontales de mínimo, dependiendo la calidad vertical del DVD; deben eliminarse las bandas negras para mejorar la calidad ("cropping"), el audio debe estar sincronizado con el video, etc.
En la calidad de la persona que copia el DVD a DivX (ripper) y en su posterior preparación está la calidad e imagen del grupo.

El Panorama Nacional

A nivel nacional nos encontramos una serie de grupos, los cuales gozan de diferente prestigio según lo que han hecho hasta ahora; para conocer la valoración de estos grupos, asi como sus releases, existen unas páginas web en la que se reunen para presentar en sociedad sus estrenos. Si una pelicula sale al mercado o va a salir en breve, el primero en publicarla se lleva el punto de la release, engrandeciendo a su grupo. En habla inglesa existe una web llamada isonews.com, en la que se publican las releases ampliamente documentadas; hablando del panorama nacional existía una web llamada spanish-news.org, cerrada recientemente por la falta de apoyo y problemas con la SGAE. Como restos a este hundimiento, una web recoge las release solo a efectos de contabilidad, si bien falta la neutralidad de un sitio que gestione los nukes y verifique la calidad de lo que se publica en nuestro pais. En esta web, podemos ver hasta la fecha esta situación, .

EiTheL 28% / 830 Releases
KREMA 15% / 468 Releases
SiRoKo 12% / 355 Releases
ESKV 8% / 257 Releases
Lhotse 7% / 227 Releases

Estos son los cinco primeros grupos, el porcentaje del mercado y el total de las releases medidas en esta web. En un notorio primer lugar encontramos a EiTheL, sin duda alguna, el dueño de la "scene" nacional; con un gran equipo y unos parámetros de calidad muy amplios, son los que más y mejor trabajan, marcando diferencias con el resto. Krema atraviesa una crisis bastante seria, y hay quienes plantean su pronta desaparición.

Las películas y sus fichas

Como os comentaba antes, cada Divx que sale al mercado va acompañado de una completa ficha sobre esa pelicula. Cada ficha contiene un gráfico ASCII del grupo, pero en esta ficha puedes conocer el Nombre, Nombre original, actores y director, duración, argumento y otros datos muy particulares de las releases como la valoración y URL del IMDB y las fechas de salida al mercado. En estas fichas tenemos la fecha de la publicación de la release y la fecha en que la película salió al mercado nacional (venta al público). Las valoraciones del IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base), una base de datos creada por Amazon que es una forma neutra de valorar una película, y la dirección de la ficha de esta película en la web son el complemento perfecto, y en conjunto leyendo una ficha podemos hacernos una idea del tipo de película en cuestión; en esta web podemos ver como la mejor película de todos los tiempos a El Padrino, y al Señor de los Anillos como la segunda.

En el primer caso es asi tras un 9.0 de media sobre más de 35.000 votos.

Hicieron Historia...

En el "Hall of fame" del mundo del DivX y el Video por Internet destacamos a películas como "La Amenaza Fantasma", primera parte de la guerra galaxias, que estaba en España al dia siguiente de su estreno en EEUU, muchos meses antes de su estreno en Europa; esta película fue grabada por una cámara de video en el cine, y aunque no tenía mucha calidad se podía ver bien. Siguiendo con esta saga, los capitulos 4, 5 y 6, que George Lucas se ha negado a publicar en DVD hasta dentro de unos años, fue un éxito en la scene la publicación por parte del grupo Ave Fenix estas tres películas pirateadas del Satélite, con una calidad perfecta equiparable al DVD.

Hablando de casos mas recientes, destacan "Spy Kids" o "El Señor de los Anillos", disponibles en el mercado nacional a la par que en las salas de cine, en ambos casos, pirateadas de DVD, en la primera de uno méjicano y en la segunda con sonido grabado de un cine.
La diferencia de salida de una pelicula entre los diferentes paises y continentes facilita en muchos casos, el poder ver una película mucho antes de que salga al cine en tu pais. Incluso puedes comprarte un DVD en EEUU o Chile y verlo semanas antes del estreno en ingles o español (con acento sudamericano).

La scene nacional está conformada por:

DoNuT, KREMA.iNC, EiTheL, SiRoKo, kRc, BiNWaRe,
LHOTSE, Avefenix, iSOSPHERE, Chic'n'Cream and ESKv

DISCLAIMER

Quiero agradecer a un componente de EiThel y otro de LHOTSE la información que me proporcionaron para acabar este artículo, y si bien todos conocemos la ilegalidad de sus actos, quiero agradecer el trato que me proporcionaron, asi como sus cualidades humanas. Este documento no es una incitación a estos actos, sino un escrito informativo sobre una realidad del cibermundo por muchos desconocida.

Tambien quiero reflejar mi pensamiento de que estos habitos, este tipo de grupos, apenas afecta a la venta de videos en DVD, dado que no llegan nunca al mercado doméstico. En la mayoría de estos grupos podemos encontrar a gente con un gusto de cine exquisito y con enorme afición al cine.

GLOSARIO (términos en los que podeis tener dudas)

- NUKE : Expulsión o exclusión de algo, normalmente, por el inclumpimiento de las normas.
- SCENE : Termino anglosajón que significa "Paisaje, Cuadro, panorama, escena"

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http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez

Este término fue creado inicialmente por miembros de varios círculos informáticos underground, deriva del término Software ( Soft- Ware y la Z representa lo oculto, sin ley, lo underground; la z cuyo significado en arameo es arma ), pero desde entonces se ha convertido en un término común entre los usuarios de Internet y media (medios).

Desde la llegada de las señales digitales de televisión a España (TDT) es común encontrar capitulos de series o programas por la red. Estas capturas son realizadas desde las señales SD mayormente e incluso HD algunas veces. Recientemente, debido a los cambios en aumento de calidad, se esta empezando a ver contenido de HDTV 720p en Español. Este material es (en España) normalmente distribuido por paginas de DDL (Descarga Directa), grupos de scene españoles como FCC, XPERT, sPHD, grupos de P2P españoles como PERCEPTiON o usuarios anónimos. La calidad de estas grabaciones (ripeos) depende de la fuente y del grupo que lo libere. Cabe comentar que recientemente también, se está apostando mucho por el encoder x264 encapsulado en MP4 o MKV para estos ripeos.

Distribución de warez

Grupos organizados operan con reglamentos muy estrictos sobre qué puede ser liberado y en qué formato. Estos grupos también pueden tener sitios privados para propósitos internos como archivar sus propios lanzamientos y transferir material sin modificar entre sus miembros. La comunicación entre un grupo es usualmente manejada a través de canales cifrados, usando servidores de IRC (Internet Relay Chat) con seguridad privada SSL. La comunicación entre un grupo es importante para coordinar sus lanzamientos. Los grupos usualmente se transfieren material usando sitios muy visitados.

La distribución desorganizada consiste, usualmente, en usuarios de computadora promedio, quienes usan algún tipo de conexión p2p para transferir material. Estos usuarios suelen confiar en robots de Usenet, emule, BitTorrent o IRC XDCC para distribuir su material. Típicamente estos nuevos lanzamientos no se distribuyen muy lejos, pero como no hay una manera real para rastrear qué fue lanzado y dónde, esto es difícil de hacer. Los grupos desorganizados muy raramente liberan programas, porque para liberarlos se requiere un programador competente para parchar el programa original. Usualmente estos tipos de lanzamientos son MP3, imágenes clonadas de juegos y películas, aunque a veces basta con cargar un poco más.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene

The Warez scene, mostly referred to as The Scene (often capitalized),[1] is an underground community of people that specialize in the distribution of copyrighted material, including television shows and series, movies, music, music videos, games (all platforms), applications (all platforms), ebooks, and pornography. The Scene itself is meant to be hidden from the public, only being shared between the groups. However, as files were leaked straight from the beginning, and the popularity of the files outside The Scene started growing, unknown individuals from The Scene itself started leaking the files and uploading them to filehosts, torrents and ed2k.

The Scene has no central leadership, or location, or other conventional distinguishing marks of an organization. The groups themselves create a ruleset for each Scene category (for example MP3 or TV) that then becomes the active rules for encoding such material. The groups must follow all these rules when uploading material, and if their release has a technical error or breaks a rule in this ruleset, other groups may "nuke" their release. Groups are in constant competition to get releases up as fast as possible, even though there are no real "rewards" for their work (that is, except for access to The Scene). These rulesets include a rigid set of rules that warez groups (grps) must follow in releasing and managing material. First appearing around the time of BBSes, The Scene primarily relates to a community of people dealing with and distributing media content for which special skills and advanced software are required.

History

The Warez scene started emerging in 1970s, it was used by predecessors of cracking and reverse engineering groups. Their work was made public on privately run BBSes.[2] The first BBSes were located in the USA, but similar boards started appearing in Canada, the UK, Australia and mainland Europe. At the time setting up a machine capable of distributing data was not a trivial matter and required a certain amount of technical skill. The reason it was usually done was for the technical challenge. The BBS systems typically hosted several megabytes of material. The best boards had multiple phone lines and up to one hundred megabytes of storage space, which was very expensive at the time.[3] Releases were mostly games and later applications.

As the world of software development evolved to counter the distribution of material and as the software and hardware needed for distribution became readily available to anyone, The Scene adapted to the changes and turned from simple distribution to actual cracking of the protections and non-commercial reverse engineering.[2] As many groups of people who wanted to do this emerged, a requirement for promotion of individual groups became evident, which prompted the evolution of the Artscene, which specialized in the creation of graphical art associated with individual groups.[4] The groups would promote their abilities with ever more sophisticated and advanced software, graphical art and later also music (Demoscene).[5]

The subcommunities (artscene, demoscene, etc.), which had nothing inherently illegal with them, eventually branched off. Also, the programs containing the group promotional material, that is coding/graphical/musical presentations evolved to become separate programs distributed through The Scene and were nicknamed Intros and later Cracktros.

The demoscene grew especially strong in Scandinavia, where annual gatherings are hosted.[6]

The Scene currently has over 100 active groups releasing material. Over 500 releases are made each day, with a cumulative total of more than 5 million releases over the years.

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http://scenegrouplist.com/scene_info_About_the_scene_tsh.php

What is the scene?

The Scene The scene aka the warez scene is the pretty unknown worldwide network where people trade pirated goods, like dvd's, movies, games, applications etc. Warez refers primarily to copyrighted material traded in violation of its copyright license. It does not refer to commercial for-profit software counterfeiting. First warez is released by releasegroups, groups which are specialized in publishing warez. They copy a dvd or break the security of game, and will make it available for other people, as a so-called release. When these releasegroups finish a release it will be uploaded to sites. These sites are very fast private ftp-servers, and the first stadium in the distribution of a release. Eventually, at the end of the distribution, the releases are available for everyone on p2p-software.

The speed of this worldwide network is enormous. Within minutes a release can be copied to hundreds of other sites. Within an hour, it's available on thousands of sites and fxp boards.

Within a day or two it's available on newsgroups, irc and in the end, on p2p-software. It's not all one big happy family. The warez scene consists of certain groups/layers. At the top we have the releasegroups and the topsites. These groups are the scene core. The other groups officially are not a part of the scene. Though most people consist them as a part of the scene. Read more about the scene hierarchy here..

The scene isn't just a distribution network, it's far more than that. There are the scene rules which are there to guarantee good quality releases. If not, a release will be nuked. This means it will be marked as bad. Nuked releases are not spread well and the releasegroup will get a bad status. More about how the scene works, and the scene system, click here.

Security is an important issue in the scene. Since their activities are illegal the sceners have to secure themselves, to be safe from the anti-piracy organisations (such as the feds, national anti-piracy organisations, etc) and avoid being caught in a takedown.

The scene is build up in a certain hierarchy. To explain the structure of this, here is a global overview of the piracy food chain. Not all these 'layers' are considered as a part of the scene by everyone. The anti piracy organizations and most of the other parties which are not in the scene themself, do consider all these groups to the scene. Though they are not a part of the scene. In fact, the releasegroups and the people on the topsites hate these other groups. The reason for this is that fxp boards, irc traders but mostly peer to peer users bring the scene in danger. The sceners (people from the scene) want to keep the releases for a limited amount of people. Since everyone who knows how to use a computer knows how to user p2p-software, everyone would be able to download releases. This causes big losses for record labels, movie producers etc, what leads to the anti-piracy organisations, police/fbi-attention etc. On their turn, this brings the sceners in danger, so that's why they dissaprove these groups. FXP boards consider themselves in the scene. Irc-traders and newsgroups might now even know about the scene, and p2p-users defently don't know about the scene.

Here is the hierarchy:

Releasegroups - Groups of people who release the warez into the scene. Often linked with Site Traders.

Topsites - Very fast FTP servers with people who trade the releases from the above groups to other (top)sites.
FXP Boards - People who scan/hack/fill vulnerable computers with warez.
IRC Trading - Users of IRC who download from "XDCC Bots" or "Fserves".
Newsgroups - People who download from alt.binaries newsgroups.
Peer-To-Peer - Users of p2p (peer-to-peer) programs like KaZaA but also BitTorrent who share with eachother.

FXP Boards

FXP is the File eXchange Protocol. It isn't an actual protocol, just a method of transfer making use of a vulnerability in FTP. It allows the transfer of files between two FTP servers. Rather than client-to-server, the tranfer becomes server to server. The fxp'er just gives a command to 1 server to send files to the other server. FXP usually allows very fast transfer speeds although it totally depends on the connection of the servers. Still it's ussually faster since the hackers are able to hack very fast servers. The fxp boards layer in the piracy food chain is quite unknown and therefore rather safe. Though the hacker's activities are very illegal, and therefore dangerous. Security is important. The members are ussually a lot smarter than irc-traders/p2p-users and have a greater knowledge about computers and internet.

The boards usually run a vBulletin forum with custom hacks. The boards ussually don't work with a credit system. Though the admins do an user cleanup once in a while. The board's members consist of scanners, hackers, and fillers. They each have their own tasks:

The Scanner

The Scanner's job is to scan IP ranges where fast internet connection are knwon to lie (usually universities, company's, etc.) for vulnerable computers. We're talking brute forcing passwords from programs, or scanning on ports for certain programs which contain a bug. The scanner will oftten use slow previously hacked computers for his scanning (known as scanstro's), using remote scan programs. Once the scanner has gotten his results, he'll run post this at the board. This is where the Hacker" comes into play.

The Hacker

HackingHackers are the people who break into computers. There are many easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities. Hackers get in to a computer using an exploit to get in via a program's bug. An exploit is a script which uses the bug to get in the pc. The program/exploit he uses (of course) depends upon the vulnerability the scanner has scanned for.When in, the hacker runs his rootkit (a modified version of Serv-U ussually). This rootkit is the server where other people can download from. Most likely he will also install remote administrator software (ussually Radmin), so he can get in to the computer easily. Once the server is installed and working he'll post the admin logindata to the FTP server on his FXP board. Depending on the speed of the compromised computer's (aka pubstro or stro) internet connection and the hard drive space, it will be used either by a filler or a scanner.

The Filler

Filler Now if the pubstro is fast enough and has enough hard drive space, it's the filler's job to get to work filling it with the latest warez. The filler gets his warez from other ftp servers hacked/filled by other people. Fillers sometimes have site access, and fxp releases from there to their pubstro. These people who are in sites and in fxp boards are considered corrupt, and if other sceners find out, they will be scenebanned (banned from all his sites). Though it is said that it happens quite often. Once he's done fxp'ing his warez, the filler goes back to the board and posts leech logins for one and all to use. Fillers (with site access) all try to post a release the first. It's kinda like a race, who ever wins it get the most credit. The speed of these pubstro's depend on how fast the pc is they hacked. Though the hackers from these fxp-boards are rather good, and are able to hack 100mbit's.

Pub/Pubbing

Pubbing is not so important anymore nowadays. This scan/hack/fill methodes are from the old days when many university and business ftp servers had write access enabled on anonymous ftp-servers. So instead of break ing into a computer, they would just upload their warez and give the IP address to their friends. This was very popular but died out for obvious reasons. It works like this; there is someone who scans for ftp servers with anonymous logins with write-access. Once found a pub would be tagged (a folder with the name "tagged.by.name"). The idea was that if a pub was already "tagged" other pubbers would leave it alone. This apparently worked for a while, with people respecting other people's tags and leaving the pubs alone. But it certainly hasn't worked for a very long time.

A method against retagging is dir locking. This is used in pubbing to stop people which are not allowed to get into the directory of the tagger (and slowing the server down). There are a couple or dir locking tricks. The first and easiest is to make a maze. When you make a maze you just make a lot directories and other people would never know in what map your stuff is since you would have to try them all out. Second is UNIX tagging. That's about a the magical character, the ÿ (alt+0255) which is an escape character on UNIX machines. When give a directory a name containing that character, the name will be displayed different then when you typed. The creator can get in by typing in the original name. Last is dir locking NT systems. More about this and other dir locking here.

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http://www.defacto2.net/wayback/apollo-x-demo-resources-1999-december-17/wrzhst.htm The History Of The Warez Scene (unfinished)

Piracy has always existed on all systems for as long as computers have

existed. Another known fact is,that most likely, a program that's written
will be dewritten (taken apart) 1000 times faster than the time it took to
write it. Since the PC cracking scene really took off in late 80's and early
90's it has gone through many stages. Many thought it would die off when 
the CD-ROM's started to get into our lives. But the cracking scene survived
and will probably live forever if you ask me. Many programmers have tried
to code algorithms and tricks to make programs uncopyable. But for the
many skilled crackers out there, nothing is a problem. Most of the crackers
actually end up as programmers and coders for games and programs 
themselves in the future. And many coders that work in gaming companies
etc. now, started out in the scene themselves.

Let's look at the beginning of the scene as we know it today. It all started

on the old Commodore 64 computers. Mostly teenagers existed in this 
scene. And cracking programs wasn't very hard in those days either.
The spread of these games wasn't very wide. It happened mostly around
where the pirates lived. And wasn't a specially broad scene,though it
existed everywhere there was C64's. I remember myself, my pals that
had C64 only had copied games, no originals. I myself had an Amstrad
computer. We had no copied games,only originals, that was mainly
because almost noone else in Norway had Amstrad, only C64. Though
the Amstrad was better,and had just as many cool games. The 
Amstrad was more known in England than the rest of the world.

According to sources, it is said that the PC cracking scene actually

took off around 1987. That's when people started to spread games
they had cracked, and started to form groups. Before that only
individuals had done the cracking, maybe credited themselves in
the game. Let's take a look at the now most important scene:
"The Pc cracking scene"

As said earlier, individuals first cracked the games. They leaved

notes in the downright corner f.x. saying "Cracked by Nomade".
In the late 80's groups started to emerge, and cracking groups
got more known and common. These groups often had CGA
images or animations or ANSI's to credit themselves of the 
cracks. Bentley Sidewell Productions is said to have made the 
first cracktros, because they credited themselves with CGA
animations in their cracks. The old cracktro scene is also said
to be the origin to the PC Demo Scene. This scene emerged when
the people making cracktros found it cooler to make cracktros
than actually cracking. International Network of Crackers
used ANSI in their cracks, not as fantastic as BSP but also a 
start of something better.

Baseline of this history is (C) ipggi & Defacto2 1998

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http://web.archive.org/web/20110725143825/http://home.c2i.net/nirgendwo/cdne/ch5web.htm Chapter 5 SUBCULTURE OF THE SUBCULTURES Linus Walleij (1998). "Copyright Does Not Exist"

It was the games, with their (for the time) advanced graphics and sound, that would be copied and distributed through the so-called Scene. The Scene, a kind of virtual society, started in the U.S. around 1979, when Apple II and Atari games were hot stuff. The software companies were angry, and called the Sceners pirates and criminals. Pirate BBSs for personal computers (usually consisting of an Apple II and the program ASCII Express Professional ) had mushroomed and mixed their own values and electronic magazines into the underground hacker/phreaker movement. The most notorious BBS was Pirate's Harbour , which had such prominent users as the well-known crackers Mr. Xerox and Krakowicz .

The concept of a "scene" is the same as in a theater or music stage. A scene is the location of a performance, where the purpose is to show off one's abilities, not to make money or dominate other people. Scenes (or stages) are found in almost all cultural spheres, and, fascinatingly, also in techno-cultural ones such as those of radio amateurs, model airplane hobbyists, and hackers. What separates the personal computer scene from other scenes is that it ran against commercial interests, and therefore it came to be considered a dangerous and criminal subculture.

The Scene (capital S) is thus a label for the large group of users that exchange programs (primarily games) and also so-called demos. The thinking was straightforward: why buy a game for 25 bucks if I can copy it for free from my neighbor? This practice was, of course, illegal (which most people realized); however, it was a crime comparable to copying the neighbor's records to a cassette tape, with the exception that the copy did not suffer a loss of quality and could be infinitely reproduced. A copy of a copy of a copy would be identical to the original.

The personal computer had incredible penetration as a medium, and several hacker groups soon formed, spending all their time removing copy protections from games, and then compressing and distributing the products (known as wares or warez). Among the first groups was the American Elite Circle , which had its roots in both phreaker and hacker culture, and had already managed pirate BBSs for Apple II and Atari software. The notion of cracking and distributing games came from the USA, where it had started with an Apple II program called Locksmith . It could remove copy protections from programs using certain parameters. In the beginning, it was enough to simply change the parameters for this program to crack a piece of software, but later it became necessary to spend more work on the actual cracking, and the cracker him/herself would have to be a programmer.

The hackers cracked programs because they were pissed off at the software companies for putting in copy protection routines that prevented them from looking around inside the programs and copying them for their friends. They wanted information to be free. This was the true reason, even though many gave justifications such as "The programs are too expensive, I only copy programs I couldn't afford to buy anyway, I want to test it before I buy it", etc., which were only partially true. The fundamental belief was that information was not property, and that they did not want to be part of any software industry.

One of the first programs to be pirated, and perhaps the first ever, was Altair BASIC It was delivered on a punch card for the computer with the same name. BASIC stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, and Altair BASIC was written by none less than Bill Gates himself. Behind the reproduction was one of the members of Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley, a hacker ( Dan Sokol ) who would later be known as Nightstalker . He wrote a program that copied the punch card pattern and thus became the world's first cracker. The 19-year-old Gates was up in arms: he wrote an angry letter to the user groups in which he claimed that copying a program was theft and would ruin the industry. Most thought little Bill was an idiot; no one had ever tried to sell computer programs before, and the norm was for everyone to share everything.

Some of these groups started their own BBS's where ideas were exchanged and programs distributed. The word elite was adopted as a term for the groups that were the most productive and had the most distribution channels (especially to the USA). The European part of the Scene had an obsession with distributing their cracked games to the United States as quickly as possible. It was probably due to a form of "sibling rivalry", since the Scene itself started with the American Apple II computers, and the most experienced hackers were from the U.S. It was important to impress "big brother" with your cracked games. In the European Scene, more ties to the USA meant higher elite status.

The demand for open communication channels led to the hackers attacking the Internet (among other things), and cooperating with European and American phreakers to open more channels to the West. The phreakers and network hackers called these newcomers from the world of personal computing Warez d00ds , since they were always bringing "wares" in the form of pirated or cracked games. They referred to themselves as traders, or, more expressly, modem traders, since they used modems to connect to different BBSs.

Norms for telling the bad from the good evolved quickly, and the widespread expression lamer was introduced as a term for people who didn't want to program, and instead used presentation software to produce demos. Probably, the term originates in skater slang. The word lamer spread far outside hackers' circles, and soon applied to any computer-illiterate person. Many similar slang terms have been derived from the Scene, but these relationships are not expressed in the Jargon File; rather, the document serves to perpetuate the negative view of subcultural hackers (to whom it invariably refers to as warez d00ds). This view is both erroneous and prejudiced.

Not even hackers always get along: confrontations between groups or individuals often escalated into "gang wars", mostly involving psychological warfare. The objective was to ostracize a person or group by refusing to exchange disks, and encouraging friends to join in the boycott. In this manner, an individual or a group could be "excommunicated" from the community. To reach this goal, lengthy text files containing pointed truths or pure lies were distributed, whereupon the accused retaliated using the same technique. The wars basically never produced any tangible outcomes, and copy-party melees were extremely rare. Conducting psychological warfare against other hackers should be regarded as rather harmless, even though the participants were often fervently committed to the battle. It should be assumed that these schisms taught teenage hackers a great deal about the true nature of war: it rages for a while, then dissipates, only to flare up elsewhere. Some leave the Scene (or die in a real war), but most remain, and some day another disagreement occurs.

I would like to take the opportunity to mention that among the phreakers, these wars ended much more quickly: you simply reported your enemy to the police. This was the only way to practically interfere with a phreaker's life. Among both the phreakers and hackers, however, friendship dominated over strife. Through the occasional wars between hacker groups, yet another aspect of human behavior was transferred to cyberspace. Abstractions of war as an advanced chess game in the form of confrontations on the Scene as well as in many different role-playing games, or tangibly as in the movie War Games, have given many hackers a cynical view of human nature.

Those who are (and were) active on the Scene participate because they have a relationship with the computer that is different from that of any previous generation. Where one person only sees a box, a machine with a screen and keyboard, the hobby hacker sees an entire world, filled with its own secrets and social mores. It is these hidden secrets that spellbind and beckon the hacker, and makes him or her forget everything else. The search for more knowledge accelerates toward a critical mass, a sustained level of intensive productivity. This is the state in which a hacker produces a demo in two weeks or cracks one game per day. All social interaction outside the realm of the computer and its users becomes insignificant.

The Scene reveals a great deal about the true nature of hacking culture; it is a roof under which to gather. Hacking is about the exploration of computers, computer systems, and networks, but also an inquiry into the workings of society, and the creation of new and personal things through experimenting with subcultures. That is why hackers break into systems to which they are not authorized, spray fixative on postage stamps, and blatantly disregard any form of copyright. They want to explore and see how things work. Perhaps subconsciously, they want to prepare for the future. The hacker culture emphasizes exploration, not cold-blooded theft, and hackers are not egocentric criminals that only seek destruction

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http://www.elotrolado.net/noticia_ofensiva-contra-la-escena-warez-en-centroeuropa-actualizado_10087#.UUIGZF1B9tU http://www.elotrolado.net/noticia_Comienzan-los-baneos-en-%3Cb%3EXbox%3C/noticia_duro-golpe-contra-la-escena-warez-en-alemania_5796#.UUIEQV1B9tU http://balonmano.mforos.com/940732/4175804-ofensiva-contra-la-escena-warez-en-centroeuropa/

Publicado por mademicu, el 7 de Febrero de 2006 a las 12:31 

Según leí en ElOtroLado.net, ha sido llevada a cabo una importante intervención internacional (Alemania, Austria, Holanda, Polonia y la República Checa) contra grupos Warez, dando como resultado 300 redadas, 30 detenciones y 20 servidores confiscados, a través de los cuales se distribuía todo tipo de material ilegal a través de FTP. Entre los afectados se encuentran los siguientes grupos: RELOADED, KNIGHTS, TFCiSO, Cinemaniacs, German-Friend, ParadieseBeach, Klapsmuehle, Unreality, DRAGON, Laboratory, Heaven, code talk, GTR, ECP, TRCD, AOS, MRM, SITH, GWL, Cine VCD y AHE. Como nota destacar que la GVU, organización antipiratería que inició las acciones, apoyó económicamente varios servidores warez, con el objetivo de atraer grupos y recopilar información, incumpliendo con ello la legalidad, por lo que también ha sufrido las redadas.

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http://www.theinquirer.es/2008/01/15/el_warez_ya_no_es_lo_que_era.html

Publicado el 15 de enero de 2008 por Javier Pastor

La prestigiosa revista 2600, todo un referente de hackers, destaca en un artículo de su último número la penosa situación por la que atraviesa la escena warez, antes un referente a la hora de conseguir películas, música y software de forma gratuita.

Antes de que existieran las redes P2P uno de los métodos más frecuentes para conseguir todo tipo de contenidos era acudir a páginas que eran verdaderas leyendas de la escena warez. Sin embargo, de un tiempo a esta parte dichas páginas han ido desapareciendo o perdiendo fuelle frente al uso de clientes ed2K – como eMule – o BitTorrent.

El último número de la revista 2600 refleja precisamente este hecho, y en ella se afirma que los administradores de este tipo de sitios web ya sólo mantienen este tipo de páginas por dinero, utilizando las donaciones que realiza la gente que los utiliza para beneficio personal en lugar de para mejorar las propias páginas. Demasiada cantidad, muy poca calidad. http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/8019

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Predb http://predb.in/

Demoscene. Doomsday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGWP5uvGLx0&list=UUrMhQRpmu_0ycUvUSxHgEyw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demo_(computer_programming)

http://www.demoscene.ru/

The Recollection Magazine - Recollections of the early scene. http://www.atlantis-prophecy.org/recollection

"Scene Town". http://www.atlantis-prophecy.org/recollection/?load=online_issues&issue=0&sub=article&id=2 The Recollection Magazine Issue #1

May You Pirate In Interesting Times: A Peek into the North American C64 Scene (circa 1983-1990), and Other Ramblings... by The Shark of International Network of Chaos (INC) http://www.atlantis-prophecy.org/recollection/?load=online_issues&issue=0&sub=article&id=6 The Recollection Magazine Issue 1

ArtField 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9wA_UErg0I&list=UUrMhQRpmu_0ycUvUSxHgEyw

Warez Scene Intros http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVD9FAbfwSI&list=PL5DA66D55F514E6DB

Defacto2 is a web site that is dedicated to the preservation of the computer underground counterculture with a focus on the PC cracking scene. Defacto2 documents and hosts the legal productions that are derived from the PC cracking and warez scenes. This means all text files, demos, music, art, magazines and products that are cracking related but are not illegal in themselves will be hosted and discussed here. http://www.defacto2.net/

C64 Scene Mag Archive http://www.atlantis-prophecy.org/mags/

Standard (warez) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_(warez)

The Scene (miniseries) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scene_(miniseries)

NfoRush http://nforush.net/new-scene-releases.html

Demoscene española http://escena.org/

Don't copy that floppy! (1992) www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI

Anti piracy advertisement from 1980’s http://www.thisblogrules.com/2009/08/anti-piracy-advertisement-from-1980s.html Back in the 80s, one of the first ads against piracy and coping games on floppy.Poster is made in Europe.

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