JOURNEY INTO THE PAST
]-----------------------

 by Muhammed Ali 1.2.1992


    It was a cold and unfriendly day in
February 1992. I was sitting  in  front
of  my  flickering colour-monitor and I
looked  with sadness  in  my  eyes on a
Intro  from  a  crew who lived fast and
died young... And then I remembered the
good  ol'  time  were  the  scrolltexts
started  with  'Europe's number 1'  and
ended with 'Take care and enjoy'...

]   Yes  you  know  which  crew  I  mean
]the unforgettable 'Blade Runners'.

     But I shall start at the beginning
were the Atari ST was a future-plan and
the C-64  was  ruling.  More  and  more
Softwares  was  produced for this 8-bit
machine and some users found out how to
make back-ups, so  they mustn't buy the
software.Of course the companies wasn't
lucky   with  that  fact  and  so  they
started  to protect their software with
copylocks , especially with new formats
that  can't  be  copied  with the early
copy-programs.That was the time when in
Germany the first crackers appeared.

     It was in early 1984 when Crackers
like Antiram/Antirom, MAM, Snoopy, ABC,
FCG and Eaglesoft started.  Many people
joined in this freaky-scene of computer
experts who gets large knowledge  about
their machines. Two years later  the ST
was in the shops and some of  the  C-64
Freaks  changed their  eight-bit 'Tuer-
stopper'  with   a  high-tech-look-like
sixteen-bit  machine. And, who wonders,
fastly   some   Crackers    established
themselves and built an ST-Scene.

]  The breakthrough for the Atari ST was
]mainly in Germany, Holland and later in
]the UK and France.The  big names in the
]business  were   Copy Service Stuttgart
](CSS) , B.O.S.S. , The Exeptions (TEX),
]42-Crew ,Electronic Cracking Crew (ECC)
]The  Sunny  Boys (TSB) ,  Watch Me Soft
](WMS)  ,  Untouchables  ,  Black Widows
]Collection (BWC) , GMC , HC-Crack (HCC)
]Conan the Barbar  ,  Angels of Darkness
](AOD), Desaster Area , Tsunoo  and some
]more.  80 per 100  of  the  crews  were
]germans and  the first cracks were done
]by members (and ex-members) of the CSS,
]especially by Mikel & Nic, Arthur Dent,
]Casiopaia & Dr. Nobody.  The 'CSS' made
]large parties called  'CSS Conventions'
]on   which  most  of  the  freaks  were
]present.

  'TEX' started to code Demonstrationen
(Demos) and fastly most of the good (!)
Crackers   signed   their  cracks  with
Intros.  More and more freaks started a
underground-career,not only as Crackers
but also Original-Suppliers, Swappers &
Spreaders and  some crews even had have
their  own  Intro - Coders  who haven't
anything to do but coding Intros...

   But  in  the  same  time  some  very
experienced people left the Atari-Scene
to  work  as professionals or to change
their  computer-system  ( mainly to the
Amiga or for a PC).  At  that  time the
left members of the  42-Crew  was about
to  change  his  name to Blade Runners,
when the  Mad Max Coperation (MMC)  and
the guys from the  42-Crew set up a new
alliance , which  they  called  ' Blade
Runners '.  In this Group many  of  the
wellknown  people  joined  in , 42-Crew
( Cracks, Intros ) ,  The  Blue  System
(Cracks,Intros), Gigabyte-Crew (Intros)
Mr.Atari (Cracks), HCC (Cracks, Intros)
TNT (Originals ?) , MMC (Originals ?) ,
Mr. Unknown , Syrius,Fusion, The Bozos,
STCS (Cracks, Intros) , Hotline , MCA ,
Ator (Cracks)  and some more.  Many  of
the Crews  were  only part-time members
and  left  the  'Blade Runners' and the
Scene quickly.  From  now  on , at  the
beginning of 1988 till middle of 1989 ,
nearly  all  programs spread in  Europe
were cracked by the 'Blade Runners'.

]   As a way out  of  that situation the
]other single cracking crews joined in a
]second alliance called the ' Union '.

[  Members were: TEX (Cracks, Intros and
[Musixx-Suppliers for the whole scene) ,
[Level 16 (Intros), Replicants (Cracks),
[TNT Crew (Cracks), TCB, XXX Int , Delta
[Force (Cracks,intros) ,Softrunner Group
[(Originals) & Howdy (Cracks, Orginals).

   From  now  on  a  big ( but FAIR ! )
competition begun.  The 'Blade Runners'
were  undoubtable  the  fastest but the
'Union' was able to do even the hardest
cracks (for example: Starglider 2). The
Scene  was  still  growing up  ,  first
Compact Disks appear in the U.K (by Was
(Not Was) and LSD ), and Demos like the
B.est I.n G.alaxy Demo (TEX),AMIGA demo
(TEX), F.ast  I.nteresting  N.ew L.arge
Demo (TNT-Crew) and several Fullscreen-
'Tricks' (Level 16) appeared.But in the
same time some  Software-houses  ( Data
Becker, Ariolasoft )  started to defend
themselves by finding out the hackers.

 Many poor guys were busted in this way
from the police and  had to pay quite a
lot of money.Especially the lawyer from
Ariolasoft  'FRH. von Gravenreuth' find
a method to let the freaks pay a lot of
money.  He puts  advertisements in some
computer-newspapers like 'I seek a Hot-
Stuff to swap !  Write to Bla-Bla'  and
when  you  have  written  to one of his
spies  he  gave  your  address  to  the
police.After that he tells you how many
damage  you  have done to his Software-
house  ( for example: if you are busted
with 30 illegal copies he says that the
damage you have done is about   180 000
DM !!!  Ridiculous, if you ask me !!! )
after that he told you  that you didn't
have to pay the full amount if you sign
a 'Abmahnung'  (  which mean you should
better not get bust again,else you will
pay your whole life long !!!) and pay a
amount of 1000 to 2000 DM (which is for
a  children  between 15 to 19  years  a
fuckin' lot of money ) ( In my  opinion
this is nothing else than blackmail !!
  And  FRH  von  Gravenreuth  is  still
earning money with this method !!!)
 But also the german police experienced
a  lot in finding hackers most  of them
were totally surprised by them and  had
have  their address-books full of other
hackers-addresses (...)

But back to the masters (?!) the 'Blade
Runners' and the 'Union'. Some  of  the
members  of  these  groups  were   also
contacted   by   Software - Houses  not
because they are  in  the  Underground-
Business but of  their great  knowledge
about  the  coding  on the ST.  So  the
'Union' stopped  cracking and even some
parts  of  the  'Blade Runners'.  Other
groups  stopped  because  cracking took
too much of their sparetime,  that  was
at the end of 1988. New groups appeared
and  destroyed the  monopol of the 'old
kings'. At the middle of the year  1989
the   last  'Blade Runner' cracks  were
seen. 

]  Some  of  this guys are still in  the
]Business,  as  Authors  for  magazines,
]employed by Software-houses etc...
]but  the  illegal-scene  has  died   in
]germany  with  the dead  of  the  Blade
]runners (...)


[ LITTLE NOTE from Def KLF:

  The  ST  scene  and  Atari  St  sales
got  down  with death of  the  cracking
bands in Germany. The lack of ST owners
( lack of cracked  games ) killed  also
software companies income.

( NO NEW ST OWNER = NO GAME SOLD).

 French software companies  think  they
will sell more games  without  cracking
bands,but they simply are going to kill
French ST scene.