The history of pirated DVDs

WAREZ/0day Invisible Empire

It is already late at night, and they are all asleep. If you look coldly at a dark window of any building, you may see a white computer lying quietly on the master's desk. If the host sleeps deeply enough, you open his drawer. What do you see now? Oh, I didn't mean his personal diary, and I didn't ask you to look through his photo album and pencil box. Didn't you see some pirated software as a result?

Who can say that none of the software in his personal computer is illegal? What supports us to enter the IT era is a huge invisible pirate empire. It doesn't seem too much to say so. So, do you want to know the identity and origin of their initiator? Do you want to know their organizational structure and system? You want to know the truth? It is an accidental opportunity that we know all this and hope to make it public. That's what we did.

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The earliest software piracy organization appeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is a strange spontaneous non-governmental organization born abroad. Its members are some young computer enthusiasts. They are purely technical gangs, using their own technology to crack the software running on various models (including personal computers and electronic game machines) and illegally play it, but not for profit. In the early days when there was no Internet, they used telephone lines to transmit games and some self-made demonstration programs for irregular technical exchanges, and members of organizations in the same area frequently communicated. These organizations are located in North America, South America, Europe and South Africa. In the 1990s, the global popularity of personal computers and the growing development of the Internet created a good soil for the growth of these organizations. This organization is invisible, they have their own beliefs and established rules, they don't have their own website, they don't make money, and the cracked games are just uploaded and downloaded through FTP and exchanged information through BBS. Its members are very dedicated and proud to be members of "WAREZ" or "0DAY" organizations. In some American universities, if a student is a member of "0DAY", his computer teacher will even consider adding points to his report card-because joining this pirated organization means that you are technically excellent. Some early leaders of these organizations have now become the backbone of society, such as lawyers, doctors and government officials.

Here I want to explain the meaning of "WAREZ", which is a general term for foreign software pirates. "WARE" means to crack the software, and "z" means zero, which means that the software can be cracked in less than one day. Then the meaning of "0 D AY" is self-evident.

Let's introduce the process of cracking genuine software by such institutions.

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First, the provider group is responsible for buying games or obtaining information, and then the decryption group is responsible for decrypting the software. This group is often the largest and most technologically advanced. Then there is the packaging group. Here, the "rules" of the CD cracking mechanism and the hard disk cracking mechanism are different. The hard disk version requires 2.8×65, that is, no more than 65 compressed packages, and the size of each compressed package cannot exceed 2.8 megabytes. They think that beyond this standard, it is not a hard disk version, which is a deception to the downloader. The CD version does not have this restriction. Users can download an ISO CD-ROM image package of 15 MB, then decompress it and burn it on the CD-ROM, and then they can play a complete CD-ROM game. The general rule of specific compression is as follows: an ISO package contains a ZIP package, and the multimedia files contained in the ZIP package are compressed by ACE. This ensures the compression ratio of 1: 12, which is convenient for online communication-the above is entirely for the benefit of players. Finally, the distribution team is responsible for uploading the cracked game software on FTP.

Games cracked by these organizations are usually placed in underground sites abroad. When downloading through FTP, you need to verify whether your IP is a member, and after the IP passes the check and enters FTP, you will see a welcome message and the words "This site is the XX publishing station of XX organization in North America". It will also tell you which games were uploaded today, which games were uploaded yesterday, how many games were uploaded, how many games were downloaded, and how many interesting demo programs were made. If you haven't cracked the game upload record for a long time, your IP record will be cancelled.

Various organizations don't have their own special FTP download base, so you can provide resources voluntarily, and of course webmasters can also join various organizations. Whether it is a member of an organization or a webmaster, anyone who voluntarily joins such an organization has a considerable sense of responsibility. When a game cracked and uploaded by a member is first cracked and uploaded by others in other stations, your cracked game will be cancelled. And if the hard disk version he made is not as perfect as yours, then he will automatically cancel his own version. This rule ensures the survival of the fittest. There is only one version of all cracking software, but it is absolutely the most perfect.

The peripheral members of major organizations come from all over the world. As long as they are willing and technically capable, they can join several piracy organizations at the same time. And when you graduate from school and have a proper job, you have no energy to do this kind of voluntary labor, then you will automatically fade out of the organization.

It can be seen that this kind of organization completely relies on a self-improvement mechanism from joining to management to quitting. It is loose and reasonable at the same time. However, due to its openness, sometimes there will be insufficient personnel in some aspects. If you use WordPad to open it. For NFO files in pirated software, you are likely to see "We are short of decryption team and provider team at present, and sincerely invite those who are willing to join us ...".

In addition to illegally spreading pirated games, members of "0DAY" organization are also keen to make a small demo program with animation and music, which can be played automatically. They use it to promote their organization, show off their technology, and sometimes attack their competitors through this small program-this move is really civilized. The smaller the number of bytes in this program, the longer it will last. In this respect, the record is a program of class members, only 27 K. Decompressing the execution files in the PC hard disk version of the game is also a way to crack the technology of organizing competitions. The installation interface of MYTH, an old British organization, even provides Tetris game to kill the time you wait when installing the game. At present, internationally renowned PC game software piracy organizations include RAZOR 19 1 1, FA IRLIGHT, DEVIANCE, CLASS, MYTH and DD, which specialize in hard disk versions. CORE, FOREST, ING and PARADIGM are the most famous organizations of application software piracy. Among them, FOREST specializes in cracking graphics software. At present, almost all pirated graphics software circulating in the world is cracked by this organization.

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This section will briefly introduce RAZOR 19 1 1 organization's experience on Commodore64, Amiga and PC since 1985 (both C64 and Amiga were 4-bit /8-bit game consoles in 1980s), because it is the most representative one in the development of such organizations.

1985 10 On a rainy night, three young Norwegian computer enthusiasts decided to set up a computer team to crack the game software of Commodore64. They don't know what it takes to form a team, but they get a lot of inspiration from famous software cracking teams such as 194 1, Section 8, Jedi200 1, Hellmates and SCC.

A good organization should have a good name. A friend named them RAZOR2992. They didn't like the name and soon changed it to RAZOR 19 1 1. Many people asked them why they used this name. They replied that because there are too many brainless children in the cracking organization of C64 game consoles who use numbers like 666 on their DEMO, letterheads and disk boxes, they feel naive and they need a sense of mystery. 19 1 1 can be converted into 777 in the binary algorithm of 16. Later, they also made a DEMO of Amiga game machine under the name of Project$777. C64 era is very short, they have done a lot of DEMO and some software cracking, and become one of the famous groups in Norway. There are not many of their representative works, and some of them are still circulated on Commodore64 commemorative CD (C64 can be simulated under MS-DOS and UNIX systems). Later, some members of the group split up and entered TCC and egaforce. The rest decided to join the active CrackingCrew(ACC) organization. There, they learned how to work like professional software crackers and set their eyes on the whole world for the first time. They publicized themselves widely. Half a year later, they attended an international gathering called "Top Elite" in Denmark. Another name for this kind of party is "copy party". At the meeting, they selected the best decryption master of the year from 65438 to 0987. Mr. Z of the triad team narrowly beat Raffin of RawDeal and won the title of "Best Decryption Master of the Year". At that time, FAIRLIGHT also cooperated with ACC to crack a James Bond 007 game. After returning to Norway from Denmark, the excited young people reorganized RAZOR 19 1 1 and cooperated with RAW DEAL on the AMIGA model to make a comeback.

AMIGA's development started very slowly, and it was not until 1988 that some DEMO were made one after another, and it has some members all over the world. At that time, many DEMO were quite primitive, but they had good ideas, good pictures and beautiful music. Most of them were lost later. Unlike the imagination of many new members, the old members of RAZOR 19 1 1 understand that what they really want to do is the best game cracking mechanism, not just a DEMO production team. When they become famous in DEMO production, they often come into contact with many specialized game software cracking institutions. 1989, some organizations were dissolved and their members were absorbed by Razer1911. Zodact and Onyx are the main game cracking organizations in the United States and Europe respectively. With the participation of these experienced members, RAZOR 19 1 quickly transformed into a real game cracking organization-in the later PC era, Razor191was absorbed at that time. At the same time, they have mastered a lot of techniques to steal telephone lines, which enables them to easily extend their contact network to the whole world. In the last two weeks of 1989, they had two world-class cracking works-Pocket Rocket and strip pokerⅱII II. At the same time, it is also subject to vicious competition from other organizations. By April of 199 1, they had cracked 50 AMIGA game softwares. AMIGA software is hard to crack after that. Every disk has a password lock, and you have to face all kinds of new problems again and again. The difference between NTSC and PAL makes it impossible for Americans to play European games without patches. Moreover, there are too many competing groups now, and everyone often competes secretly to solve the same game, and the pressure becomes greater. At this time, the whole social economy is in a weak state, and many organizations do not have enough financial support.

There is not enough clear direction for the future creator of RAZOR. But then Darwin, a talented PC software cracker, brought PC into their sight. The razor quickly closed the amiga line. They completely reorganized the organization, including anonymous investors and a group of past elites such as Doc Tono, Onex and Zodak. Together, they cracked a lot of computer game software and gained a good reputation in the industry. They quickly changed from a compact, capable and efficient team to a huge and invisible game cracking mechanism. Razor has become a big company-style gadget. They have been cracking games, making modifiers and extracting game animations ... In four years, they have cracked nearly 600 games and countless other products.

After 1995, the internet has made great progress. The razor mechanism is fully utilized and the distribution channels are wider. They help hungry people faster and more than ever before. This year, they also set foot in the field of optical discs. At first, I just cracked some CD games in the name of RAZOR 19 1 1. They didn't pay much attention to this field at first, until there were fewer and fewer floppy disk games, and they really paid attention to CD games and gained a dominant position in this field. At present, they are still the world's largest PC CD-ROM game piracy organization, and deeply admired by some young people. They are also fascinated by the attack of game cracking technology, and like to parade in the city wearing jackets with RAZOR 19 1 1 logo.

As such a huge organization, they also have such and such problems. They had two major divisions in 1994 and 1995, and some people were even arrested and put on record by the police. But they survived the difficulties and continued to develop. More detailed historical information about these pirated organizations is available at. They have cracked the nfo files attached to PC games for many years, from which they can learn many forgotten secrets.

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We have a preliminary understanding of foreign pirated production organizations, but how do foreign governments treat these organizations? As we said before, pirates have a hacker spirit: they pursue absolute technology and complete sharing. This has objectively violated the interests of software vendors. What's more, just because you are not profitable doesn't mean that others don't want to be profitable! In Canada, Germany and South Africa, the sales of pirated software are rampant, while in Russia, everything is almost open. In fact, DD organizations in Russia are directly engaged in profitable sales. Almost all piracy organizations have been brought to court by big companies. The latest example is about the game FIFA2000 produced by EA. As members of the piracy organization "Supply Group" infiltrated EA Company, resulting in the outflow of the master disk, the pirated FIFA2000 was released 1 month earlier than the genuine one. EA brought DD, myth and class to court in Russia, Britain and Germany respectively. Members of the Russian DD organization were arrested and sentenced, and later the judicial department took bribes to release the members of the organization. The British court held that the myth only spread the hard disk version on the Internet, and there was no website or advertisement, no link to the World Wide Web (WWW) and no profit, so it was acquitted. The German squad is only fined and will not be investigated for any criminal responsibility. However, today's piracy organizations dare not touch a big company like EA, and always wait for EA's genuine game to be produced before making a cracked version. Because this kind of company is too powerful. Other times, piracy is always faster than the original. Diablo II pirated version (cracked CD) went on the market two days earlier than the official American version, and the crack was quite perfect! For the reasons mentioned above, some real practitioners are "WAREZ" members themselves.

These are just game software. To some extent, the application of software cracking in foreign countries is much more difficult and risky than the cracking technology of game software. In North America, for example, the highest price of any genuine game is only $49.9, while the price of genuine application software is 100, and that of pirated software is only $9. This price difference sounds easy to remind us of the current situation of piracy in China. How did the branches of piracy organizations spread in China?

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The earliest individual "WAREZ" volunteer in China, the stationmaster of China "Chinese Decryption Base", wanted to set up his own "China 0DAY" organization, and there were many like-minded people in China, but they soon found it impossible to set up a "0DAY" organization in China. Many people simply attribute the reason to some kind of "nationality" obstacle, which is wrong. There are a lot of economic factors, social factors and technical factors. Economically speaking, the IT industry and telecommunications industry in Europe and America are already very developed, and the annual consumption of software and hardware or the cost of network services is negligible relative to the per capita income. Economic development has promoted the development of society and the progress of education level, which means that more young people with computer talent in developed countries can have the conditions to engage in this hobby. In China, if a computer genius is born in a mountainous area, he will never be able to prove himself. Even when a young man in China can finally afford the money he put into his computer, he no longer has the conditions and energy to join "0DAY". Speaking of technology, China's current network bandwidth is difficult to meet. How does the speed above 10 K per second compare with the speed of 50 M/s abroad? Don't say 0 DAY, even uploading and downloading may take more than 5 5 days. Aside from these restrictions, it is unfair to say that "China people don't have this kind of quality and consciousness". At present, some young people in China who yearn for the "WAREZ" organization hope to display their talents abroad. If the above-mentioned young people are only obsessed with computer technology, then the GAMEZ88 organization is not like this. It is said that FAIRLIGHT, a member of Stanford University who is 18 years old, is a purely profit-making organization in China. The specific distribution of its members is unknown. GAMEZ88' s game was cracked abroad and then pressed into discs at home. The really good technology is abroad, and domestic piracy organizations have almost no ability to crack it. It is said that FAIRLIGHT has a foreign team to crack multilingual game software. The hard disk version of the simplified Chinese version of Heroes Invincible 3 was probably cracked by a foreign team. This is a pirated organization with a long history in China, while other scattered organizations make pirated CDs by stealing from each other or downloading from foreign WWW websites. In addition, Hong Kong is also a paradise for piracy, and a lot of pirated software from the Mainland flows in from here.

There is a big strange circle here: pirates hate fake and genuine dealers because they make more profits than themselves. A piece of cam-costs 2 yuan, and the profit is only 1 yuan, which is shared by wholesalers at different levels. The fake and genuine manufacturers are likely to collude with some insiders of the genuine manufacturers, get pictures, strategies and manuals for 1000 yuan, and then copy them and sell them to players who support genuine games at the cost of piracy and the price of genuine ones. On the other hand, pirated producers are eager for the country to make efforts to catch piracy, and pirated sales are restricted, and pirates lose money. However, due to the reduction of CDs, manufacturers will make more money by looking for rare goods! This is the tip of the iceberg in China's piracy market.

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This is the end of the article. Due to the limitation of information sources, we have no way to verify the authenticity of some specific details. Welcome interested readers to continue to communicate with us. Finally, the purpose of writing this article is not to praise piracy. It is a disrespect for labor and a cancer that hinders the normal operation of the economy. No matter what the original intention of pirates is, they will always be our targets.

It is mentioned in the article that WareZ is a "purely technical gang that is not for profit". "They have their own beliefs and established rules. They don't have their own website, and they don't make money. The cracked game is only uploaded and downloaded through FTP, and information is exchanged through BBS. Its members are very dedicated, and they are proud to be members of "WAREZ" or "0 Day" organizations. Only their achievements were used by those businessmen, and today's so-called "pirated software" came into being.

This is like the difference between the "hacker" that everyone is talking about now and the "hacker" in the real sense that was referred to before.

I hope this article will help you understand WareZ.