The Warez scene, often referred to as The Scene,[1] is a worldwide, underground, organized network of pirate groups specializing in obtaining and illegally releasing digital media for free before their official sale date.[2] The Scene distributes all forms of digital media, including computer games, movies, TV shows, music, and pornography.[3] 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 warez scene started emerging in the 1970s, used by predecessors of software cracking and reverse engineering groups. Their work was made available on privately run bulletin board systems (BBSes).[5] The first BBSes were located in the United States, but similar boards started appearing in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and mainland Europe. At the time, setting up a machine capable of distributing data was not trivial, and required a certain amount of technical skill; this was usually taken on as a technical challenge. The BBSes typically hosted several megabytes of material, with the best boards having multiple phone lines and up to one hundred megabytes of storage space, a considerable expense at the time.[6] Releases were mostly games and later software.
Scene Pd 5 Serial.rar
Download: https://tinurli.com/2vJeZ8
As the world of software development evolved to counter the distribution of material, and as the software and hardware needed for distribution became readily available to anyone, The Scene adapted to the changes and turned from simple distribution to actual cracking of copying restrictions and non-commercial reverse engineering.[5] As many groups of people who wanted to do this emerged, a requirement for promotion of individual groups became evident, which prompted the evolution of the artscene, which specialized in the creation of graphical art associated with individual groups.[7] The groups would promote their abilities with ever more sophisticated and advanced software, graphical art, and later also music (demoscene).[8]
The subcommunities (artscene, demoscene, etc.), which were doing nothing illegal, eventually branched off. The programs containing the group promotional material (coding/graphical/musical presentations) evolved to become separate programs distributed through The Scene and were nicknamed Intros and later Cracktros.
When releasing material, groups must first encode properly so as not to be nuked, which shows up as a cautionary flag to potential users. After encoding, they upload the files to a topsite, an FTP server with a large amount of bandwidth where all the files originate. When the upload is complete, they execute a command that causes the name and category of the release to be announced in the topsite's IRC channel using a IRC bot hosting an IRC script which keeps track of activity. This FTP server and IRC are hidden and closed to the public. New releases are also announced 0sec (meaning seconds to minutes after official scene pre) on various public websites. This is called a "pre" release. Once this is done, all other releases for the same material are nuked as duplicates ("dupes"). However, if there is a technical error or the file breaks the ruleset for the category, the original "pre" release will be nuked. Other groups then encode the same material and release it with a "PROPER" tag in the filename. The same group may re-encode the file, with the new release marked as "REPACK". If the issue was with something other than the main content, the same group can release a "fix", labelled "DIRFIX", "NFOFIX", etc. as appropriate. Release groups are exempt from FTP Share ratios in most cases, while "racers" in Topsite IRC channels will be given a ratio. Racers use FXP software and custom auto-trading software to transfer releases from one FTP to other FTP's and FTP Site-Rings (group of dedicated servers linked together) around the world. IRC site channels will use modes such as +s (secret) +p (private) and +i (invite only) to avoid detection.
Cracking has been the core element of The Scene since its beginning. This part of The Scene community sometimes referred to as the crack scene specializes in the creation of software cracks and keygens. The challenge of cracking and reverse engineering complicated software is what makes it an attraction.[12] The game cracking group SKIDROW described it as follows in one of their NFO files:[13]
Keep in mind we do all this, because we can and because we like the thrilling excitement of winning over the other competing groups. We absolutely don't do all these releases, to please the general user that rather want to spend their cash on updating to the latest hardware, and sees the scene releases as a source to play all these games for free. Enjoy playing and remember if you like it, support the developer!
We do this just for FUN. We are against any profit or commercialisation of piracy. We do not spread any release, others do that. In fact, we BUY all our own games with our own hard earned and worked for efforts. Which is from our own real life non-scene jobs. As we love game originals. Nothing beats a quality original. "If you like this game, BUY it. We did!"
David Grime, former DrinkOrDie member, describes the motivation of the warez scene as follows: "It's all about stature. They are just trying to make a name for themselves for no reason other than self-gratification."[15][16]
With respect to cybercrime, the crime scene is not limited to the physical location of digital devices used in the commissions of the cybercrime and/or that were the target of the cybercrime. The cybercrime crime scene also includes the digital devices that potentially hold digital evidence, and spans multiple digital devices, systems, and servers. The crime scene is secured when a cybercrime is observed, reported, and/or suspected. The first responder (discussed in Cybercrime Module 5 on Cybercrime Investigations) identifies and protects the crime scene from contamination and preserves volatile evidence by isolating the users of all digital devices found at the crime scene (e.g., holding them in a separate room or location) (Casey, 2011; Sammons, 2012; Maras, 2014; Nelson, Phillips, and Steuart, 2015; see "Note" box below). The users must not be given the opportunity to further operate the digital devices. Neither should the first responder nor the investigator seek the assistance of any user during the search and documentation process. The investigator, if different from the first responder, searches the crime scene and identifies the evidence. Before evidence is collected, the crime scene is documented. Documentation is needed throughout the entire investigative process (before, during, and after the evidence has been acquired). This documentation should include detailed information about the digital devices collected, including the operational state of the device - on, off, standby mode - and its physical characteristics, such as make, model, serial number, connections, and any markings or other damage (Casey, 2011; Sammons, 2012; Maras, 2014; Nelson, Phillips, and Steuart, 2015). In addition to written notes, sketches, photographs and/or video recordings of the crime scene and evidence are also needed to document the scene and evidence (Maras, 2014, pp. 230-233).
Unique constraints that could be encountered during the investigation should be identified. For instance, cybercrime investigators could encounter multiple digital devices, operating systems, and complex network configurations, which will require specialized knowledge, variations in collection procedures, and assistance in identifying connections between systems and devices (e.g., a topology of networks). Anti-forensics techniques (discussed in Cybercrime Module 4 on Introduction to Digital Forensics), such as steganography (i.e., the stealthy concealment of data by both hiding content and making it invisible) and encryption (i.e., "physically blocking third-party access to a file, either by using a password or by rendering the file or aspects of the file unusable;" Maras, 2014, p. 204; for more information on encryption, see Cybercrime Module 10 on Privacy and Data Protection), could also be encountered during an investigation (Conlan, Baggili, and Breitinger, 2016). Because of this, the investigator should be prepared for these situations and have the necessary human and technical resources needed to deal with these constraints. The actions taken by the investigator in these cases (e.g., the ability of the investigator to obtain the passwords to those devices and/or decrypt the files), if any, depends on national laws (see Global Partners Digital interactive map for more information on the encryption laws and policies of countries). Digital forensics tools (discussed in Cybercrime Module 4 on Introduction to Digital Forensics) can assist in this endeavour by, for example, identifying steganography and decrypting files, as well as perform other critical digital forensics tasks. Examples of such tools include Forensic Toolkit (FTK) by Access Data, Volatile Framework, X-Ways Forensics. Along with these resources, a forensic toolkit is needed, which contains the objects needed to document the crime scene, tools need to disassemble devices and remove other forms of evidence from the crime scene, and material needed to label and package evidence (e.g., for smartphones, a Faraday bag, which blocks wireless signals to and from the digital device, and a power bank are needed and used to transport them), among other items (Casey, 2011; Sammons, 2012; Maras, 2014; Nelson, Phillips, and Steuart, 2015).
Evidence preservation seeks to protect digital evidence from modification. The integrity of digital evidence should be maintained in each phase of the handling of digital evidence (ISO/IEC 27037). First responders, investigators, crime scene technicians, and/or digital forensics experts must demonstrate, wherever possible, that digital evidence was not modified during the identification, collection, and acquisition phase; the ability to do so, of course, depends on the digital device (e.g., computer and mobile phones) and circumstances encountered by them (e.g., need to quickly preserve data). To demonstrate this, a chain of custody must be maintained. The chain of custody is "the process by which investigators preserve the crime (or incident) scene and evidence throughout the life cycle of a case. It includes information about who collected the evidence, where and how the evidence was collected, which individuals took possession of the evidence, and when they took possession of it" (Maras, 2014, 377; Cybercrime Module 4 on Introduction to Digital Forensics). In the chain of custody, the names, titles, and contact information of the individuals who identified, collected, and acquired the evidence should be documented, as well as any other individuals the evidence was transferred to, details about the evidence that was transferred, the time and date of transfer, and the purpose of the transfer. 2ff7e9595c
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