A Guide to the Underground: Warez and Torrentingby DeepCopy of EvilZone.orgWelcome to my guide to the Underground. Now I am extremely biased in my opinions that I will share here, but I don't really care this is my opinion and guide and you are more than entitled to your own opinion. None the less I will share a wealth of information and knowledge to educate you on the piracy portion of the internet. Now instead of building a glossary of terms and defining them, I will instead just carry on as I go, explaining what needs to be explained. So anyway, here we go.
Chapter 1What is PiracyIn lamens terms, Piracy as used in this guide, will pertain to downloading content that is copyrighted. What this means is illegally downloading practically any media you can think of. Everything from the big ones like Music, Movies, and TV Shows, but also Games, Applications, eBooks, Mobile Applications, etc. As I'm sure you've seen our eBook section is loaded with tech books that I've collected all over the net in various corners, including the deepweb.
Now in the Piracy "Scene" there is kind of a hybrid hierarchy. I will try to explain. There are the top 2 sets, one is called "Scene" the other "P2P". Although they both release pirated material, they go about it different ways.
The SceneThe scene is comprised of several "groups" that carry a group name. An example of some of these are as follows: Razor1911(PCGAMES), CoRE(Appz), etc. These groups are several different people with different skills. Some of these people are the Rippers, Crackers, Suppliers (I think you can figure out what they did, if not, stop ready) and then there are runners/racers. That's where the general population and torrents and warez get scene content. In order to get "Scene Access" you need to be a ripper, cracker, or supplier with connections. Other than that, run a dump site and get it that way. That's where racers (or runners) come in. They, in most cases, have a script running that when a release gets pre'd they do a bunch of FXP transfers to various boxes around the world. Now I used the word "pre'd" which means that someone in a private IRC network, and 'ADDPRE' was sent and a release for some movie/game/app/etc get raced to affiliate Topsites. Now an affiliate is groups that are friendly to each other, say CoRE and Razor1911, they like games and the other likes apps, yet it doesn't mean they don't want games or apps respectively so they share between themselves. Now there are also competing groups as the fame is for those who get there first. However with the scene, there are delegates voted from each scene group from each category that creates a rule set for all groups to follow that insure quality. However we're humans and for that we have "nukes" and "propers" Nukes are when the pre channels that pre'd something had any faults or errors or that they break the rules. When a release gets nuked, the release group OR another group can then release a "PROPER" which practically means download this one. Now how do people know what groups did what, etc. That's how things are named. The scene will always be like this (however P2P took some of this as well)
Name.Of.Release.WinALL-CoRE
Name.Of.Release.PCISO-SKIDROW [nuke]non.working.crack_get.proper
Name.Of.Release.PCISO.PROPER-Razor1911
Now different categories have different rule sets which you can actually google and download. But it's time for my guide to move on.
P2PP2P simply stands for "peer2peer" however here P2P is a scene similar to that of "The Scene" in fact P2P is essentially an Open Scene when comparing the two, but I digress. P2P took its roots from the scene but have branded themselves differently. P2P advocates free and openness (however a lot of that has changed) Anyways, unlike the scene P2P have no rule set or guidelines to follow, no pre system, no real hierarchy, etc. P2P is also a lot easier to get into because of its openness. Now that doesn't mean everyone in P2P is going to welcome you with warm arms. I have been in the P2P scene for quite a while which eventually led me right here to EvilZone, but again, I digress. P2P is a sharing protocol that describes several different methods of downloading. These include Torrents, DDL, DC++ Hubs, XDCC IRC Transfers, FTP/FXP, etc. Now I will go into detail later in the guide about the different downloading techniques. So P2P is shared with everyone and isn't locked down like the scene, no rules, and no hierarchy.
Chapter 2Torrents, Trackers, and ClientsSo I decided to go with the long chapter first, discuss torrents. Torrenting is a VERY popular way to download and is P2P at its purest. So what are torrents? Torrents are metadata that contains information on what and where you are downloading something from. These come in a file format *.torrent now you will need a client to be able to download the content that is linked with your torrent file. Although there are several clients available for torrenting, I will tell you the only ones you need.
Linux: Transmission
Mac: Transmission
Windows: uTorrent
Sure there are other ones, but trust me, I've used about 90% of the torrent clients out there and those are the best for the respective operating system. Now that you know what torrents are, and have your torrent client installed, where do you get the torrents? We get these from places called "trackers" these tracker do exactly what their name implies. They track and index torrent files so they can be downloaded. There are two types of trackers, public and private. Now public trackers these days are actually EXTREMELY dangerous as well as ridden with virus and other malware, incorrect downloads, corrupted downloads, etc. They are also infested with Anti-Piracy outfits that go after suppliers and downloaders giving out those DCMA and Notice of Copyright Infringement letters. Now private trackers on the other hand are much more controlled. Now private trackers are not anything like TPB, isohunt, etc. Not anyone can register an account, none the less upload. Usually with most trackers is there are a dedicated team of uploaders that take the content and upload it to the site. Some of the larger general trackers are more relaxed about who can be an uploader, but a fast connection/seedbox is always a requirement, as well as being active. So I won't go into detail about public trackers other than to warn you to stay away from them.
Private TrackerNow there are WAY too many private trackers to list them all, but I will just go into how they work. First off you have user classes, just like forums, they are based on several things, all sites are different. Most however revolve around your download/upload and your ratio. Your ratio is defined as in how much you download vs how much you upload. Most private trackers make you maintain a ratio of 1:1 which means however much you download you should be uploading. That's why on private trackers you get a lot more seeders, as well as MUCH faster downloads. Also many of the users use seedboxes. Seed boxes are remote servers (VPS, Dedi, 'Seedbox') that are usually on 10mb-1gb lines that are on 24/7 they also have a remote torrent management system (Torrent-Flux, ruTorrent, wTorrent, etc) that is a web gui front end for a torrent client back end (usually on a Linux system, however some use uTorrent WebUI on a Win server). Now in order to gain access into private trackers you need to know people. If you don't know people then you're shit out of luck... Just kidding. There are two options, 1. You can watch sites and when they have open registration you can hop in, or 2. Trade invites. Now MOST private trackers look down on trading invites, however it's a lot easier than waiting for them to open their doors. (Although holiday time is the time most doors are open) Start off on low level trackers. You can gain access to these low level torrent trackers as their doors are usually open to many, however it will get you used to maintaining a good ratio:
http://www.opentrackers.net/Keeping a good ratio is what will get you invited to other trackers. Also on some torrent trading sites, there are Official Recruitment threads that are done by the staff at the tracker to let fresh blood in. This is definitely a way to go, however they will have stipulations, and those stipulations usually require 'ratio proofs' these are pretty much screenshots of your ratio on your private trackers. If those are good, and they like your answers to their questions, you may very well get an invite. There are different options for where to get invites, some are called "giveaways" others are trades, then the recruitment. For example if you are EZ VIP you will see my giveaway threads for SCC, What.CD, etc. Other sites also have an "invite application" that could work in 2 ways. One way would be an open invitation where there is a page you can fill out an application, or one that a member of the site fills one out. Also a different way of obtaining invites is joining various sites IRC networks, hang out make friends, get invites. Just remember Google is your friend.
Also, you can buy invites, but I DO NOT RECOMMEND ITChapter 3Direct Download LinksDirect download links, otherwise known as DDL are exactly what it says they are. Often times these are share on forums such as this (Think eBook section) where information is posted, and then DDLs are posted. More recently, especially with the take down of Megaupload, a lot of the better uploading sites have gone down, however a few good ones remain. These include:
http://www.mediafire.comhttp://www.rapidshare.comhttp://www.4shared.com (need to create an account)
Now of course there are others, but those are some of the larger ones still around. Many of these uploading sites are reliable anymore which makes DDL's no longer a good way for downloading, but its still there. As far as where to find DDL's back in the day there was a site called katz.cd (RIP) where warez sites would submit their posts for them to be indexed. Have no fear I have a few DDL sites to get you started:
http://warez-bb.org (also porn-bb.org if I remember correctly)
http://irfree.comhttp://shareodie.net (I used to staff on this site a LOOONG time ago)
http://softarchive.nethttp://www.tinydl.com/Again, of course that's no where near all of them, it's up to you to find your own warez sites xD.
Chapter 4DC++ Hubs, XDCC IRC Transfers, and FTP/FXPSince these are pretty straight forward, I will give a quick rundown.
DC++ Hubs are rarely used these days, as like torrents, requires a client, you use a DC++ client, the standard client is this one:
http://dcplusplus.sourceforge.net/For alternatives, this site has a HUGE list:
http://www.dcstuff.nl/With these clients you can connect to private or public hubs which are the servers you connect to. It's similar to IRC where there is a chatroom, however you have a shared folder set up that people can download from you, and you can download from them. You can also run your own hub from any computer. Also most of the hubs these days has a "share requirement" where you need to share a certain amount of files in exchange for downloading files from them. Google is your friend for finding hubs (also you can get started with the link above)
XDCC IRC transfers is a sharing function where you can send files through IRC. Probably the largest IRC network for XDCC transfers is:
http://www.rizon.net/You connect to a channel on the network, they usually have a bot that you send commands to and then you can get downloads that way as well. I'm sure there are plenty of private networks as well, however I don't really use this method, and have only used XDCC transfers for anime-hq
I'm sure you guys have heard of FTP people use private and public FTP servers to serve up downloads as well. I used to use the kingdom-kvcd FTP server at one point (I believe I was posting them in EZ VIP BACK in the day as well
oldfags might remember). FXP transfers are pretty much two FTP servers sending the files between themselves (like the scene topsites that race content from one FTP server to the next).
Now there are more methods of downloading piracy (such as UseNet) but I will never advocate for a service you have to pay for to get free shit, especially when you can get the same shit elsewhere
So there you have it. Get hunting, torrents are the best, DDLs are next. If you have the money and a fast FTP server, start fishing through scene groups and build a topsite or a dump site where they will just race their content onto your servers
Ok, now I know I said I wasn't going to do a glossary, but some terms are best explained when they are just defined.
Movie Releases:
Movie releases come in various quality, some straight forward, some you may not understand.
CAM - This is someone sitting in a theater or at the Drive-in recording the movie
TS - This stands for TeleSync which is a CAM video source with "Line" audio
LiNE - This is direct recorded audio either via recorded over FM (Drive-in) or IR (Most theaters) or Line out ports (Theaters are usually hearing impaired features that will be the weakness to record the audio)
TC - This stands for TeleCine and are rare to come by as there is like $5,000 hardware that is required. This is also getting outdated as it pretty much copies the film reels into a digital format
Workprint - This is an uncompleted movie that will SOMETIMES get leaked from various studios that usually do post processing of the videos. Often times these will be missing special effects or CGI's, others will have parts of the movie that aren't in the theatrical releases, etc.
R5 - This stands for region 5 which is Russia. Out there in Russia to help combat piracy studios release movies in Russia that are either still in theaters in other parts of the world, shortly after they leave theaters, etc. People will sync either CAM or LiNE audio to these releases for English as most R5's only contain Russian audio tracks.
DVDRip - Do I even need to?
BDRip - I don't think I need to.
Also releases come in different extensions and are encoded differently (more-so in P2P as they don't have strict guidelines)
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If you have any questions or ideas to add as I can't think of anything else, let me know and I will explain and add it to this "guide