A Walk Down Warez Way

From DocDroppers

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and I am not responsible for any actions you take as a result of reading the following article.

"warez

/weirz/ n. Widely used in cracker subcultures to denote cracked version of commercial software, that is versions from which copy-protection has been stripped. Hackers recognize this term but don't use it themselves. See warez d00dz." -definition from The Jargon File

Recently I was talking to a friend and he made the claim that "warez is dead." I immediately replied saying that nothing can kill warez short of all software, music, and movies being wiped off the face of this Earth. I decided after hearing this to write this up to outline the history of warez, what it is today, how it works, and where to find it.

Time for some of Warez's 20 year history. Warez can be traced back to about the mid 80's on BBS's. People traded mostly games and script kiddie programs, but still a few other types of software, between each other. In the beginning, Warez mostly flourished on AOL because AOL, unlike Compuserve and other services of the nature, did not crack down hard on Warez in its beginnings. This is much different from the AOL of today but at this point Warez has grown too big for AOL or any other entity to stop. Warez changed drastically in 1987 in that they moved from working as individuals to forming groups. As groups these people were able to be more effective in what they did and were able to get bigger and better software on the net.

Throughout the 80's and early 90's warez was all on very underground places of the internet. Then Napster came. They brought it to the average people and the RIAA freaked. They sued and demonized Napster for stealing from the artists, failing to mention that 95% of the money made from cd's goes to the record label and the artist makes money with concert and tours and enterprising outside of music.

Today Warez has become a force that nobody, be it AOL, RIAA, or MPAA, is going to be able to stop. It extends into all electronic media be it music, movies, games, office software, porn, or ebooks. There are too many Warez d00dz out there to get them all and the industries are going to have to adapt to it.

So enough history, I am not the best resource when it comes to that part (hmm maybe because through part of that history I was fetus...). Lets move on to the Warez of today. So without further hindrance let us map the path of warez:

This map can be found at warezmap.txt

So lets interpret this. The media corporation is "0wn3d" by a cracker (oops almost said hacker ;)), who then uploads what he has obtained to what I like to call the Meccas of Warez. These sites have the most comprehensive collections of Warez. If you want something, then it can be found here. However these sites are very exclusive so the chances are you will not get to see more than a message that tells you to "fuck off." These sites are very exclusive and you get in by doing something to earn respect, like getting a movie or a game to them 3 months before release. Also allowed in are so called "couriers" whom we will discuss next.

So the next guy that comes into the Warez "scene" are the couriers. These people are allowed into the Mecca sites and upload all of the hottest new things on the site. Then they move it over to their site or IRC channel where it is uploaded by all users, who can now frolic in the fields and be happy until the MPAA sues them so bad they have to live in a shopping cart.

So you say you want to frolic in the fields of no cost media entertainment while you're still young eh? The best places to find the Warez is IRC search engines like PacketNews. This is better than just hanging around one IRC channel because one probably won't have everything you are looking for. IRC search engines have huge lists of many files to download on IRC (including Warez) and because of this you can search for things and find the best download speeds easily and quickly. Warez can also be found searching google but since google is a compliation of websites instead of files, you can't as effectively find the right file you want. Lastly you go to p2p. P2p is good and you can find many things but it is also where the MPAA and RIAA look first (not to mention it includes spyware up the ass), so if you use this method you must move content out of your shared folder.

Some Warez names to remember: Da Chronic - Wrote AOHell, SHiZZa - first organized Warez group, UPS, Legion, and Arise - uber 31337 Warez groups

Resources:

• List of warez groups
• History of the warez scene
• Warez articles
• History of all warez
• P2p history and future