Predator, who doesnt want to give his reallife name, is Insider of the scene described in this article.
He designs Logos and ASCII Arts for the Groups, which are placed in there ".nfo" files. These files come together
with the Release and show informations about the released game and the Group which cracked it. In his RL Predator maintains
networks for big german Companies.
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ct:Why do u speak with us about the scene, if nothing shall be revealed about its organisation und its members in public?
Predator:
In the Past Media spreaded things which were not true about the scene. I finally want to clear up, that we dont have the intention to harm anyone
or cause any damage. We have a reputable Hobby- unfortunatly Outsiders wanna profit from it and with that they draw the attention of the Feds to us.
ct:
Why do the groups crack the games anyway?
Predator:
These groups see a sport in there actions.Evry game is a race for us, which the group wins, if it provides a final working "illegal" Copy of it.
Often Groups like "Razor1911","DEViANCE" or "FairLight" have the races decided between them, cause they have the contact to insiders and fast internet connections.
Only this way they can upload a release on all of their own FTPs("Topsites") and the ftps of the other groups to win the race.
As Reward they dont get money, but the Respect of the Scene.
ct:You allways make prominent that ur Releases are for the internal use.Although u form the source of the illegal Copies of which the companies feel damaged.
In the End arent it ur "Warez" that are publically available?
Predator:
Suspectedly Releases are put to Peer to Peer and to Public FTPs by Traders.The Releases in "eDonkey" are seemingly given away by "sceners", which think of
themselves as if they are some kind of Robin Hood.They seem to have forgotten that they draw attention of the Investigators with such actions.
It is impossible to find these Persons cause they hide themselves.The accusation that we damage the industry is wrong.Cause not evryone that downloads a
a cracked copy of a high price product, would have bought it in the first place.
ct:
How are crackergroups organized?
Predator:
Usually two peeps lead the group(Leaders).2-3 peeps assist the leaders(Councils).15-20 simple Mebers organize and crack the games.Couriers on the other hand
try to spread rlses as fast as possible.These Persons even have there own statistics, in which the best spreaders are listed weekly.
Some Admins at universities have special accounts ,so they tolerate Topsites in there own network.
ct:
Where are these Topsites located?
Predator:
Evrywhere,where big Traffic isnt noticed.In one case the siteop was a employeee of a cleanin company which also could access Universities.It was said he
planted a Box in a cupboard/closet.
Another Guy had his Topsite even at a Berlin University.
ct:
In december 2000 the fbi infiltrated the Release Group "Drink Or Die"(DOD) and 60 persons were arrested.How did the scene react on this?
Predator:
We are used to such FBI actions.In the same year some members of "Razor1911" were also arrested.We were surprised though that the Federal Agency apparently for the first
time has encountered the existence of the Scenes internal DB "CheckPoint".To see that Sceners are convicted to big sentences time after time hurts badly.
Instead of givin "Eriflleh" the leader of DOD 36 month or the Cracker BUJ alias Sabuj Pattanayek in the USA 41 Months, they should better imprison the true copiers.
Traders,which sell Windows copies in Chinatowns of evry bigger american city for a few dollars, damage the industry far more than the scene.
Infocenter Checkpoint
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ct:
What functions does the till now secret kept Checkpoint have?
Predator:
Checkpoint 2.0 automatically searches all big Topsites for new releases and puts them in its own Archive.This Archive functions for us as a Noting and Searchsystem,
to prevent that u accidently release a allready released Software.Not part of the scene is the public available Releasedatabase "iSONEWS.com".
ct:
How do members of the groups interact with eachother?
Predator:
Some sceners run a passwordprotected IRC-Server.On which all dialogues are crypted- only the Server Admin can see it in cleartext.
Thats why many official Chans of Topsites are on those.
A few Sceners [maybe he ment oldschool sceners] even have access to to discussionsboards.These are available for a certain grp of peeps through a
webinterface, because also pics of sceners are saved there.Sometimes you see each others on Meetings.
ct:
How does the scene recruit new members? Maybe over the Email-Adresses, which are in the .nfo files?
Predator:
An uncountable amount of Emails are sent to those adresses.
The groups only respond to offers of secure and fast FTP-SPACE and to serious "Applications".
Only a few peeps come into the scene via this way.
Outsiders normally arent aware, what privation they have to take.Guys familiar to sceners though, know how much money,Time and mostly work is
involved in the seemingly easy hobby.
ct:
For why System / Platform do the groups release the most Games?
Predator:
The PC is favorized by all groups.AlThough the scene counts numerous grps, which only releases console titles.Many consolegrps are however
fraternized to teams which only release PC-Games.Kalisto and Myth for instance are examples for that. They have released on good days 20 cracked Dreamcast Titles.
As Reaction on that Sega offered Kalisto Stocks to prevent the group from releasing more Dreamcast titles.
ct:
wouldnt the acclaim be bigger, if anyone would be able to download ur Releases?
Predator:
We dont need that kind of respect.
I only need Respect from persons, which are on my level.Thereagainst webmasters that put Group-Releases into the net do need the publicity.
Would i have the bandwith for it i would DDoS such Websites.
ct:
the internet connections get faster and faster.Why do groups still release Rips besides ISOs?
Predator:
A CD-Image can be made by evryone.The true Art is it to rip a 4 CD big game to the size of 400mb without breaking the rules.Also some members still have dialup 56k.
ct:
Do u fear a warrant to seach ur house?
Predator:
They can come if they want to.All the data on my pc related to the scene are saved on a PGP image, which i can mount as a harddrive.
A push on a Button crypts the data or deletes is completely.
[ 27 September 2002: Message edited by: wazza ]