Propaganda 22 ch10

+----------------+              +------+
|Listen and Learn|              |Neotec|
+----------------+              +------+

         +-------------------+
         | Hey Crackers!     |
         | Here's another    |
         | game to crack!    |
         |                   |
         | Wouldn't you like |
         | to have a smacky  |
         | firstrelease?     |
         |                   |
         | Do it!            |
         | Crack it!         |
         | Link your intro!  |
         +-------------------+
                 from MATHEMATICA
                    by REFLEX



The quotation taken from the best demo
released at THE PARTY 5 made me write
this short article. Many people have
shared their views, that the cracking
nowadays is something oldfashioned.
Some even claim (see above!) the crack-
ing business may be useless. Useless?
Well, in the days of few originals, and
no protections, it is easy for you mock
the cracking groups. This is ignorance.
In fact, statements like the above only
reflect a state of igorance, concerning
our scene-history. In the beginning, al-
most every program was copy-protected.
The users had to find a possibility to
copy the originals, and so crackers ap-
peared. Cleverl people, who had the
abilities to remove the protections and
gave their cracks to the users. Removing

protections was the reason to work to-
gether, to form groups in order to be-
come more effective in matters of cra-
cking and spreading.

The case of our scene orginates from
cracking (de-protecting originals), and
that's a fact you cannot deny. To give
the users access to a program was, and
still is the basic idea of cracking. It
was much later that trainers increased
the userfriendliness (especially of
certain games like shoot'em-ups and
jump and runs) and thus made a cracked
game better than the original. If you
are an old scener, you know what I'm
talking about.

Crackinggroups are our roots, no way I
could make fun of them. I know that -

at that time - groupnames like SOLDIERS
AGAINST PROTECTION (SAP) or FEDERATION
AGAINST COPYRIGHT (FAC) made sense.
Sometimes a shiver runs down my spine
the moment the eagle (from the ESI-
intro) appears or whenever I heard the
music from the FAIRLIGHT-intro. I under-
stand that the new breed doesn't have
the same feelings, and that people who
joined our community in recent years
don't know about the old legends. But
if such statements (as the one above)
are the result of that ignorance, I
suggest you better take a course in
64-history. Then it's possible for you
to copare current groups with old ones,
let's say SCS+TRC with IKARI+TALENT and
AVANTGARDE with HOTLINE, and you will
notice that technically the crews of
today are at least as good as their

predecessors.

Taking a closer look at our scene, you
will become aware of the fact that
everything, the basic structure, the
infrastructure and even its very own
underground-character originates from
the illegal activities of the old crack-
ing groups. I know that this is old-
school vs. new school, I know there are
hardcore legalgroups that do not care
about the illegal sector and our scene-
history. But every time you log on to
a BBS, every time spread one of your
demos, you take advantage of the spread-
ing system that was established by the
cracking groups in ancient times. Legal
groups hardly have any reliable mail-
or modem-traders, or own boards for that
matter.


What I am trying to tell you, is that
there is no such thing as a purely legal
or purely illegal sector. The scene is
- more or less - one community in which
certain people do certain things (hope-
fully things they can do the best), and
nothing else. I sometimes have to laugh
at people ignorant of our history who
strictly reject illegal activities, do
not respect crackinggroups and call
their work intro-linking. Before you
do that next time, please think about
the origin of the scene and notice that
you offend the honour of respected
crackers and their groups. And of
course, you throw dirt on your own scene
and your own activities by insulting
them. Stupid or what?


Note that this essay was not meant to
offend REFLEX, I only quoted their
MATHEMATICA as it is the most recent
and the most explicit statement against
cracking. My intention is not to start
trouble, but to overcome these segre-
gationist views and igorance behind.
Never laugh at anything you don't even
know.

                       NEOTEC

                   for PROPAGANDA