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-
- ...presents... The Gnu-Warez Kidz' Guide
- to Pirating on the Internet
- by Tarkin Darklighter
- 01/01/1996-#308
-
- __///////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\\__
- \\\\\\\/ Everything You Need Since 1986 \///////
- ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___
- |___heal_the_sick___raise_the_dead___cleanse_the_lepers___cast_out_demons___|
-
- In the early '80s, fans of the Apple II fell in love with ASCII Express
- (AE). A seemingly simple terminal program, it contained an important feature -
- a host mode. Most people overlooked it, but not the underground file traders.
- A person could call your computer and, with a simple password, have access to
- all your files. The potential of AE was soon unlocked, and some of the
- earliest and simplest pirate file trading boards were created.
-
- After a short period of time, the sysops of AE's were tired of users'
- tendency to simply download and not contribute any software (leeching). Thus,
- the AE:TAC (Total Access Control) was born. This allowed user registration and
- maintenance of upload/download ratios. After another short period of time, the
- AE file transfer system was integrated with the popular GBBS bulletin board
- software, which gave board sysops the same file transfer flexibility of AE.
-
- Fifteen years later, the same progression is emerging again. This time,
- however, the medium is the Internet. Pirate sites are slowly changing from
- anonymous FTP sites, to IP-specific FSP sites, to telnetable BBSs.
-
- Anyone with local dialup access can easily obtain the latest commercial
- software for their own perusal. This is by no means supposed to be a complete
- guide to obtaining pirate software over the Internet, but it is a good starting
- place.
-
- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
-
- WHAT DO I NEED?
-
- A computer (heh).
- A connection to the Internet.
- A terminal program capable of displaying control characters.
- A UNIX shell account and a basic knowledge of UNIX. You must have a
- UNIX shell account to use these methods. Most graphical interfaces
- simply don't give you the control you need.
- A site with software you want.
-
- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
-
- HOW TO OBTAIN SITES
-
- There are many ways you can obtain sites. I'll outline some of the best
- methods below:
-
- Archie: For those of you who don't know, Archie is a utility that will
- search systems on the Internet for filenames that you specify. This can be
- used to find sites. Unfortunately, by the time the Archie servers are updated
- with filenames that are typically on sites, the sites are dead. Still, you can
- gain by the use of this utility. Common filenames to search for are listed
- below:
-
- .apps .appz
- .games .gamez
- .util .talk
- .tlk .mac
- .pc .ibm
- .amiga .console
- .warez .sitez
-
- Once you have found a site that has one of these filenames (or variations
- thereof), FTP over to it and see if it still exists. You can often find old
- wares still on the site. More importantly, you can find the email addresses
- of people who trade site lists.
-
- Site list: The usual rule is that you must have something to get
- something. In other words, you usually must trade one or two good sites to get
- a current list of active sites. Alternatively, you can beg the keeper of a
- list to give you a current copy (see above for obtaining email addresses).
- Another good technique is to start your own list. This is actually quite easy
- to do. Find a site and post a message asking people to send you sites in
- return for a list. Compile all the responses you receive into a list and mail
- it out to all the respondents. Also, it's a really good idea to use an
- anonymous mail server (i.e., info@anon.penet.fi <-- send email to
- this address for instructions). A typical site list looks like this (IP
- addresses have been changed):
-
- FTP DIRECTORY SCORE SPEED
- ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
- 198.80.x.x /incoming/"^[[K^[[A^[[K"/".GnuWarez"/ [4/10] [5/10]
- 199.222.x.x /incoming/cursci/"^[[K^[[A^[[K^I "/"P8^H^H"/ [6/10] [8/10]
- etc...
-
- Legend:
- FTP - The IP address to use
- DIRECTORY - The directory where the warez are located (more detailed
- instructions are contained later in this file)
- SCORE - Rating in terms of the quality and quantity of the warez
- SPEED - A rating of the file transfer speed of the site
-
- IRC: Just like real life, it's all about who you know. Once you're in the
- loop and are actively trading sites, you may be invited to participate in live
- IRC chats. Or you can look for channels such as #warez and #pcwarez if you're
- good at begging.
-
- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
-
- COMMON FORMATS OF SITES
-
- FTP: I'm assuming you know at least a little about FTP, so I'm certainly
- not going to write a manual on it. However, I will reveal how to maneuver
- through seemingly impassable directories. There are only three rules you
- need to know:
-
- 1. The ls switches are essential. It's extremely important that you are able
- to see a directory name. The best way to see the entire name is to use the
- command 'ls -aFl' (without the quotes). This will display all files in a
- directory. Read the online ftp help for a complete description of ls switches.
-
- 2. How to use quotation marks? Quotation marks are invaluable tools when
- navigating in FTP. If you encounter a filename or directory with a space in
- it, you must use quotes or the client will become confused. For example,
- suppose you came across the following directory:
-
- drwxr-xr-x 9 ftp killer 512 Aug 16 21:51 StickyBear ABC
-
- If you wanted to change to this directory, you must type 'cd "StickyBear
- ABC"', else it will not work. It's also necessary with some control characters
- (see next section). It's really much easier just to put the quotation mark at
- the beginning of each cd command. Incidentally, only the first quotation mark
- is necessary.
-
- 3. Control characters and the magic Control-V are important. Control
- characters are a common method to keep out the casual browser. They are
- embedded in directory names, and will cause your screen to clear or do any
- number of confusing things. To get around this, you MUST have a terminal
- program that allows you to turn on the display of control characters. You can
- then type the directory name (complete with control characters) and get to the
- desired files. For example, let's say you come across a directory called
- "WarezORama^H^H^H^H^H". If you didn't have your "Show Control Characters"
- option checked, you would just see a directory named "Warez". Hardly useful.
- But, if you can see the full directory name, you simply have to type 'cd
- "WarezORama^H^H^H^H^H"'.
-
- If you encounter any control characters that suspend your FTP job or
- disconnect you, all you have to do is use the character ^V. For example, let's
- say a directory is called '.^Z^I^P^P^O'. If you were to type 'cd
- ".^Z^I^P^P^O"', your FTP session would immediately be suspended after hitting
- Control-Z. You can circumvent this by immediately preceding all problematic
- control characters with a Control-V. To get into the '.^Z^I^P^P^O' directory,
- you would simply type 'cd ".^V^Z^I^P^P^V^O"'. Generally, you will only have to
- preceed Control-D, Control-O, Control-R, and Control-Z with Control-V. Your
- FTP client may vary.
-
- For practice, let's use one of our earlier examples:
-
- 198.80.x.x /incoming/"^[[K^[[A^[[K"/".GnuWarez "/ [4/10] [5/10]
-
- To use this site, you would type:
-
- ftp 198.80.x.x (an actual site would have numbers in place of the x's).
- cd /incoming/"^[[K^[[A^[[K"/".GnuWarez"/
- ls -aFl
-
- A list of files and directories should follow.
-
- FSP: FSP is simply another utility (similar to FTP) for transferring
- files. The commands are very much the same as for FTP. Read the online manual
- for specific instructions. FSP gives a sysop tighter control over a site since
- he can limit connections to specific IP addresses. This means that you have to
- register (usually involves sending some k00l warez) before you can use the
- private section of the site. You also must have a dedicated IP address, since
- it will do you no good to register an IP address you may not have every time
- you log on to your provider.
-
- Telnet: Telnet is yet another Internet utility that allows you to connect
- to a remote computer system. This is becoming very popular, since it allows
- BBS's to have connections on the Internet. It looks just like you are calling
- over telco lines, except you have extremely fast transfer rates. This allows a
- sysop the same level of control as a typical BBS (upload/download ratio,
- message boards, and user validation).
-
- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
-
- DIRECTORY STRUCTURE ON SITES
-
- The following example is a typical directory you will see on a pirate
- site:
-
- -rw-r--r-- 1 ftp killer 30 Aug 5 19:38 ** Another gNuWarez site.
- -rw-r--r-- 1 ftp killer 30 Aug 5 19:39 ** Site Op - sOOpurChUnK
- drwxr-xr-x 19 ftp killer 1024 Aug 23 22:49 .appz
- drwxr-xr-x 2 ftp killer 512 Aug 16 21:53 .cracks...etc
- drwxr-xr-x 11 ftp killer 512 Aug 18 19:19 .gamez
- drwxr-xr-x 4 ftp killer 512 Aug 13 17:42 .irc
- drwxr-xr-x 9 ftp killer 512 Aug 16 21:51 .oldappz
- drwxr-xr-x 52 ftp killer 2560 Aug 23 10:07 .oldgamez
- drwxr-xr-x 7 ftp killer 1024 Aug 23 06:15 .oldreq
- drwxr-xr-x 22 ftp killer 1024 Aug 23 15:43 .req
- drwxr-xr-x 2 ftp killer 512 Aug 23 05:11 .talk
- drwxr-xr-x 7 ftp killer 1024 Aug 22 06:44 .users
- -rw-r--r-- 1 ftp killer 0 Aug 16 13:55 bout 30 megs free now
-
- The subdirectories are used as follows:
- .appz - put all applications in here
- .cracks - contains patches to defeat copy protection
- .gamez - put all games in here
- .irc - usually contains IRC hacks, such as bots, etc.
- .oldxxx - contains old software upped by request
- .talk - any miscellaneous comments
- .req - requests for files
- .users - put your alias in here to show that you've visited the site
-
- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
-
- RULES ON SITES
-
- I know this is a pointless section, since most of you will totally
- disregard it. Still, I feel an obligation to pass on a few rules of etiquette:
-
- 1. Don't be a deleter. There are those out there who get a perverse thrill
- out of deleting files just for the hell of it. Don't do this.
-
- 2. Don't be an artist. Don't go around making directories or filenames in
- k-k00l ANSI colors just because you can. And don't use control characters to
- screw up directory listings. After all, how many times can 500 CTRL-G's be
- entertaining?
-
- 3. Follow the upload rules. I think somebody already wrote a file on this,
- but I'll go ahead and paraphrase:
-
- Put files in the right directory. If it's a Win 95 app, put it in the
- Win 95 Apps directory.
-
- Use QUOTE APPE. Do not use MKDIR to make comments or requests! This
- makes you look like a complete idiot! Read the online manual for proper
- syntax.
-
- After uploading, make a zero-length file saying something similar to:
- "MK VIII done. Upped by Bill Gates." This will let everyone know that the
- upload is complete.
-
- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
-
- WHERE ARE WE GOING FROM HERE?
-
- Since history already seems to be repeating itself, I will make the
- following prediction based on what happened to the Apple II underground:
- anonymous pirate sites will soon disappear (or at least they will greatly
- diminish). Advancing technology soon eliminated AE's, and it will do the same
- thing for underground FTP sites. As the cost of ISDN and other direct
- connections diminish, more and more BBS's will be directly connected to the
- Internet. This will allow people to use Telnet to connect to them.
-
- What sysop will bother to constantly upload software to an anonymous site
- only to have it immediately deleted? It's much easier to control access on a
- user-by-user basis. In this manner, he can enforce download ratios, have
- message boards, etc.
-
- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
-
- A FINAL WORD
-
- I'm not responsible for how you use this information. If you're stupid
- enough to pirate software and get caught, it's your own fault. Also, I don't
- trade sites or files. I've got little enough time as it is!
-
- Any comments are more than welcome. I can be reached on DRU.
-
- "Yes I eat cow, I am not proud."
- -Nirvana, "Mr. Mustache"
- .-. _ _ .-.
- / \ .-. ((___)) .-. / \
- / \ / \ .-. [ x x ] .-. / \ / \
- -/-------\-------/-----\-----/---\--\ /--/---\-----/-----\-------/-------\-
- / \ / \ / `-(' ')-' \ / \ / \
- WORLDWIDE \ / `-' (U) `-' \ / WORLDWIDE
- `-' .ooM `-' _
- Oooo / ) __
- /)(\ ( \ Copyright (c)1996 cDc communications. / ( / \
- \__/ ) / All rights reserved. Award-winning CULT OF THE DEAD COW \ ) \)(/
- (_/ is published by cDc communications, P.O. Box 53011, oooO _
- oooO Lubbock, TX, 79453, US of A. Edited by Swamp Ratte'. __ ( \
- / ) /)(\ / \ ) \
- \ ( \__/ Save yourself! Go outside! Do something! \)(/ ( /
- \_) "THE COW WALKS AMONGST US" Oooo
-
-