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PAST.TXT
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1992-05-09
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7KB
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202 lines
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.