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Class (warez)
CLASS (CLS) was a notorious and prolific warez group that existed between January 1, 1997 and January 9, 2004. The group was the target of federal raids such as Operation Fastlink. They specialized in cracked games, and sometimes had elaborate art in the cracktro or release (i.e. music, 3D animation, logo designs, etc.). They were a global group and had many members worldwide. Class used their group abbreviation, ''CLS'', as a suffix at the end of the files they released. This group was involved in a long-standing rivalry with a competing game pirating group known as MYTH. The two groups released strictly ripped games, as opposed to the CD image content released by groups such as Fairlight. Games would be split into the base rip, which would have as little content as possible to fully play the game; additional media (usually movies or digital music) would be released as add-ons. For some releases, intro movie add-ons were released as well. They used advanced compression method ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ASCII Art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters (beyond the 128 characters of standard 7-bit ASCII). The term is also loosely used to refer to text-based visual art in general. ASCII art can be created with any text editor, and is often used with free-form languages. Most examples of ASCII art require a fixed-width font (non-proportional fonts, as on a traditional typewriter) such as Courier for presentation. Among the oldest known examples of ASCII art are the creations by computer-art pioneer Kenneth Knowlton from around 1966, who was working for Bell Labs at the time. "Studies in Perception I" by Ken Knowlton and Leon Harmon from 1966 shows some examples of their early ASCII art. "1966 Studies in Perception I by Ken Knowlton an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myth (warez)
Myth was a warez group, focused on Software cracking, cracking and Game rip, ripping PC games. Besides ripped games, the group also released Trainer (games), trainers and cracked updates for games. Myth's slogan, "Myth, always ahead of the Class (warez), Class", was referring to the rival group class that existed from 1997 to 2004. History Myth was formed in February 2000, in a merger between ''Origin'' and ''Paradigm''. On June 29, 2005, the group was targeted alongside several other groups in "Operation Site Down" conducted by the FBI. Myth made no further releases following this raid, and in October 2005 they released an .nfo, NFO declaring that the group would enter hibernation. Max Payne 2 controversy A cracked version of ''Max Payne 2'' using a no-CD executable by Myth was made available on the digital distribution service Steam (service), Steam until May 13, 2010, where it was rolled back to an older update. However, the ASCII Myth logo is still present in the file called ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warez Groups
A warez group is a tightly organised group of people involved in creating and/or distributing warez such as movies, music or software ("warez") in The Scene. There are different types of these groups in the Scene: ''release groups'' and ''courier groups''. Groups often compete, as being the first to bring out a new quality release can bring status and respect – a type of "vanity contest". The warez groups care about the image others have of them. Description ''ANALOG Computing'' observed in 1984 that software piracy did not make sense economically to those performing the software cracking. The primary motivation of warez groups is not monetary gain, but the excitement of breaking rules and beating competitors, although at least two Scene groups have been asking for bitcoin donations, PoWeRUp and spamTV. Individual members of these groups are usually also the authors of cracks and keygens. There are warez groups publishing new content outside of the Scene, often referred to as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pouet
The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual art, and musical skills. Demos and other demoscene productions (graphics, music, videos, games) are shared at festivals known as demoparties, voted on by those who attend and released online. The scene started with the home computer revolution of the early 1980s, and the subsequent advent of software cracking. Crackers altered the code of video games to remove copy protection, claiming credit by adding introduction screens of their own (" cracktros"). They soon started competing for the best visual presentation of these additions. Through the making of intros and stand-alone demos, a new community eventually evolved, independent of the gaming and software sharing scenes. Demoscene productions can be made with the latest consumer techno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warez Scene
The Warez scene, often referred to as The Scene, is a worldwide, underground, organized network of pirate groups specializing in obtaining and illegally releasing digital media for free before their official sale date. The Scene distributes all forms of digital media, including computer games, movies, TV shows, music, and pornography. The Scene is meant to be hidden from the public, only being shared with those within the community. However, as files were commonly leaked outside the community and their popularity grew, some individuals from The Scene began leaking files and uploading them to filehosts, torrents and ed2k. The Scene has no central leadership, location, or other organizational conventions. The groups themselves create a ruleset for each Scene category (for example, MP3 or TV) that then becomes the active rules for encoding material. These rulesets include a rigid set of requirements that warez groups (shortened as "grps") must follow in releasing and managing mate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Warez Groups
Warez groups are teams of individuals who have participated in the organized unauthorized publication of films, music, or other media, as well as those who can reverse engineer and crack the digital rights management ( DRM) measures applied to commercial software. This is a list of groups, both web-based and warez scene groups, which have attained notoriety outside of their respective communities. A plurality of warez groups operate within the so-called warez scene, though as of 2019 a large amount of software and game warez is now distributed first via the web. Leaks of releases from warez groups operating within the "scene" still constitute a large amount of warez shared globally. Between 2003 and 2009 there were 3,164 active groups within the warez scene, with the majority of these groups being active for no more than two months and with only a small fraction being active for many years. The warez scene is a very competitive and volatile environment, largely a symptom of parti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is an American lawyer, lobbyist and former politician who served as the 79th U.S. Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2005. A former U.S. Senator from Missouri and the 50th Governor of Missouri, he later founded the Ashcroft Group, a Washington D.C. lobbying firm. Ashcroft previously served as Auditor of Missouri (1973–1975) and Attorney General of Missouri (1977–1985). As Missouri Governor (1985–1993), he was elected for two consecutive terms (a historical first for a Republican candidate in the state). He also served one term as a U.S. Senator from Missouri (1995–2001). Ashcroft had early appointments in Missouri state government and was mentored by John Danforth. He has written several books about politics and ethics. Since 2011 he sits on the board of directors for the private military company Academi (formerly Blackwater) and is a professor at the Regent University School of Law, a conserv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Fastlink
Operation Fastlink is a coordination of four separate, simultaneous undercover investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Cyber Division, the Department of Justice, the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Criminal Division and Interpol. The four different investigations have not been publicly enumerated, but the U.S. Department of Justice has said in at least one press release that "Operation Higher Education" is the largest component, with participation from twelve nations. Mention has also been made of an investigation into pre-release music groups led by FBI agents from the Washington Field Office. As of March 6, 2009, the FBI states that Operation Fastlink has yielded 60 convictions. The raids occurred in similar fashion to those from Operation Buccaneer and Operation Site Down. Other somewhat-related law enforcement actions include Operation Gridlock and Operation D-Elite. The operation led to the successful busts of nearly 100 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Echelon (warez)
Echelon is a warez group which specializes in the illegal release and distribution of copyrighted console games, such as Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 ISO images. They also created demos on both platforms. Between September 4, 2000 to April 30, 2002, Echelon's Dreamcast division released 188 game titles and 34 other various fixes, tutorials, trainers, and loaders. On December 19, 2001, Echelon released ''Final Fantasy X'' as their first of several hundred PlayStation 2 titles. As of 2007, Echelon continues to release games for the PS2 platform. In 2004, Echelon was named as one of six groups targeted as part of Operation Fastlink by the United States Department of Justice. On November 15, 2005, Echelon's '' Dragon Quest VIII'' USA PS2 nfo file stated that Echelon was indeed Kalisto: ''We errr Kalisto released it on November 2nd 2001 as Dragon_Warrior_VII_USA_PS1-KALISTO'', referring to the previous game in the series and the nfo ended with ''-- the dragon warrior of KALiSTO'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Department Of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United States. It is equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries. The department is headed by the U.S. attorney general, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the president's Cabinet. The current attorney general is Merrick Garland, who was sworn in on March 11, 2021. The modern incarnation of the Justice Department was formed in 1870 during the Ulysses S. Grant presidency. The department comprises federal law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It also has eight major divisions of lawyers who re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ACE (compression File Format)
In computing, ACE is a proprietary data compression archive file format developed by Marcel Lemke, and later bought by e-merge GmbH. The peak of its popularity was 1999–2001, when it provided slightly better compression rates than RAR, which has since become more popular. WinAce WinAce, maintained by e-merge GmbH, is used to compress and decompress ACE files under Microsoft Windows. When installed, it lets the user choose between paying for a registration or installing WhenU SaveNow adware. e-merge GmbH also produces a Commandline ACE for DOS; and a freeware command-line interface decompression tool for Linux (i386) and macOS called "Unace". e-merge GmbH also provides several libraries for developers, including a freeware decompression DLL called "unace.dll". Some third-party archivers can read the format using this DLL. None of the above is open source free software. On November 23, 2007, version 2.69 of WinACE was released, including a less-intrusive adware application, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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