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Vanishing Point ANSI
NFO is short for the word information. It is now the term used when talking about the descriptive text file that groups include within their releases. Originally these text files only contained information about the cracking process of the program. But as time progressed other details were included such as information about the game, quick 'HOW-TO's and release credits. Eventually these text files became more formalized and were included as standard in every release by every group. A Wikipedia description can be found here.

We have collected 14 NFO viewers and editors. All of which can be found at our NFO utilities page. If you are after a simple viewer for Windows, we recommend ACiD View. It's fast, doesn't require installation and displays both ANSI and ASCII files perfectly.

An electronic document means any computer data (other than programs or system files) that are intended to be used in their computerized form, without being printed (although printing is usually possible).

Originally, any computer data were considered as something internal - the final data output was always on paper. However, the development of computer networks have resulted in that in most cases it is much more convenient to distribute electronic documents than printed ones. And the improvements in display technologies mean that in most cases it is possible to view documents on screen instead of printing them (thus saving paper and the room required to store the printed copies). Quoted from Wikipedia
162 documents; 108 text, 18 html, 0 XML, 14 PDF and 18 links
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Rules
Text file
Beowulf's Thoughts on the CD-RIP'ing Scene   (View as a PDF) (1810)
Date: 1998
Author: Beowulf'
I have written this text file to vent my general frustration and to attempt to re-establish some basic standards for game releases and cracking in the CD-RIP'ing scene. This is not a group politics rag, a personal name-calling .TXT or any other such garbage.
HTML file
The ISO rules agreed upon by CIFE, RiSCiSO, and RAZOR ISO (2915)
Date: Jan 1998
Author: n/a
Before you plan on packaging up a piece of software for release, please make sure that it complies with the guidelines for acceptable releases. These rules were agreed upon through a meeting with a number of the top ISO release groups, which include: CIFE, RiSCiSO, and RAZOR ISO.
Text file
The Faction Manifesto   (View as a PDF) (906)
Date: 13 Oct 1998
Author: Mr Skill, Zeus & The Punisher
In lieu of recent events contributing to the breakdown of the now defunct S.P.A. (Software Piracy Association), a private meeting between the key contributing and contending groups was held. On October 15th, 1998 an agreement and compromise was reached between the 3 attending parties, CLASS, PARADIGM and RAZOR 1911. Let it be known that this type of compromise could not be achieved under the S.P.A. environment; it took a clean break to accomplish in a day what had previously gone unaccomplished in 2 months.
Text file
NSA (Network Software Association) Final Rules   (View as a PDF) (967)
Date: 26 Mar 2000
Author: NSA
In 1998, three people decided the future of how the scene should shape itself and released a 10-point information document stating how a game release should be conducted. In the past year, many of these rules have been broken by its founding members and other groups have purposely broken the agreement. In lieu of recent events, the deciding figures of three groups, Class, Myth and Divine, have converged and agreed upon a new set of rules based on the original Faction rules and Myth's recent proposal and have been updated, modified and agreed upon by a consensus to a new standard to better suit the scene in this millenium.
Text file
Standard Rip Rules (S.R.R)   (View as a PDF) (4779)
Date: 5 Mar 2004
Author: S.S.R.
In 1998, and again on March 26th 2000, three rip game groups collaborated to bring about rules with the hope of ensuring quality in a constantly evolving rip fscene. These rules lasted a long time, but as technology moves forward, so to must the rules governing it. It is time once again for the standards by which the games scene operates to be updated.
Retirements
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Sought After   (View as a PDF) (956)
Date: 3 Feb 1992
Author: Sought After
After seeing what has happened to The Grim Reaper, and TNSHB, their boards, their groups, all that has happened since their bust, and the reaction everyone is showing, I got pretty shook up about it. (Yes, I got shook up)
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CyberChrist   (View as a PDF) (3091)
Date: 11 Nov 1993
Author: CyberChrist
Well guys, this is CyberChrist. I am sure that there have been rumors flying around about how I got busted or something along those lines, but I wanted to set the record straight. For all intents and purposes, I am out of the scene for a good while, but more on that later. I wanted to warn everyone about something that happened to me from a guy that was supposed to be my friend: Warchild.
Text file
Pirates With Attitudes Final Release   (View as a PDF) (922)
Date: 5 Mar 2000
Author: Pirates With Attitude
With pain in my heart I have to announce, the death of a very prestigious group, who set scenestandards in the period 1992-2000. Today, the remaining members of the original PWA council have decided to disband the group. The scene has become too dangerous for us to continue, and our advice to current group leaders is to watch your backs very closely. With the venue of the internet age, our standards have gone downhill, and it doesn't look like we learn lessons from the past. The scene is too open for the external world, making life easy for moles to enter our ranks. Unfortunately, we had to experience this in a very hard way recently.
Text file
Class - The End   (View as a PDF) (4907)
Date: 9 Jan 2004
Author: Class
On January 8th 1997, the world changed. From the ashes of Prestige, as the new year came, so too did a new group. Several of dedicated, determined and often emotional people formed the group that was to be known as CLASS.
Text file
Fairlight Demos Lives On, But The Cracking Days Are Over   (View as a PDF) (976)
Date: 15 May 2004
Author: Bacchus
You all read the news - Operation Fastlink struck hard to the heart of the scene and hit the FairLight ISO section, but mind that the demo activities on the PC and C64 are still naturally untouched, as there is nothing to complain about from a legal point of view on what they are doing.
Text file
Farewell ᄅ Myth   (View as a PDF) (2836)
Date: 9 Oct 2005
Author: Myth
A group built off the ashes of two others. Two top groups putting aside their differences to merge and make something brilliant. The first title we put out was C&C TS - FIRESTORM *STANDALONE* back in 2000. The amount of major titles since then is unbelieveable, regardless of what some people may try to get you to think.
Published Articles
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A Beginners Guide to Cracking   (View as a PDF) (1212)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
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What Is Piracy?   (View as a PDF) (794)
Date: n/a
Author: J. Goodman
Am I a software pirate? The people at Lotus would claim I am. I disagree. In fact, I think the term "software piracy" needs a new definition. So let's talk about that first.
HTML link
Warez, Abandonware, and the Software Industry [external link] (497)
Date: n/a
Author: Stephen Granade
What does it mean to own software? When I buy a game, what can and can't I do with it? Does illegal copying of software really hurt anyone? If a company no longer sells a game, should I be able to download a copy of it? Not too long ago, most people would never have given any of these questions a thought. But as computer use has spread, and with it the use of software, these questions have gained in currency.
Text file
Copyright: The Gospel according to CompuServe!   (View as a PDF) (744)
Date: 3 Oct 1987
Author: n/a
CompuServe has copyrighted the contents of the CompuServe Information Service as a compilation copyright, just as many magazines and newspapers reserve such a copyright on the contents of their publications. This copyright is held in accordance with the 1976 Copyright Act of the United States.
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Software Piracy Rampant, Survey Shows   (View as a PDF) (729)
Date: 1990
Author: n/a
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Software Piracy: An Alternative View   (View as a PDF) (754)
Date: 5 Mar 1990
Author: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer
The university policy against computer software piracy has been widely publicized, including in a recent issue of Computing News (December, 1989). There is no question that the university must protect itself against actions of the NIU community for which it could be held legally accountable. However, based on our current research of the "computer underground" and the activeities of "phreaks, hackers, and pirates," we find no evidence to support the many value judgments offered in the rationale circulated by the university.
Text file
Lamer Pirate Magazines, Etc   (View as a PDF) (728)
Date: 3 Feb 1992
Author: The Grim Reaper
This was originally going to be an article for iNSANITY Magazine #4 called 'Lamer Pirate Mags, Etc' to straighten out the complete bullshit and lies in Badnews #7, but seeing as there are so many rumours floating around, and the future of iNSANITY is undecided I decided to just put out this textfile to explain what is really going on, less a few lamers out there spread all kinds of bullshit and lies, as they seem to do so often.
Text file
The Cracking Manual   (View as a PDF) (1362)
Date: 3 Mar 1992
Author: The Cyborg
elcome to the wonderful world of cracking. What is cracking? If you don't know and you're reading this, ask yourself why? Anyway, cracking is the art of removing copy protected coding from programs. Why do this? In recent years, software companies have been fighting to keep copy protection in their software to avoid their work to be illegally copied. Users feel that such copy protection is ridiculous in that it violate their own rights to make backups of their sometimes expensive investments.
Text file
The Software Piracy Bluff   (View as a PDF) (748)
Date: 12 May 1992
Author: John C. Dvorak
People still copy software, and most of us who work for a living have little sympathy for the plight of the software vendor. After all, the software industry will eventually generate more millionaires than any other business in history. Bill Gates, with a net worth of $7 billion, is now the richest man in America, and his money was accumulated from scratch-zero-in 15 years flat.
HTML file
Hacker Crackdown (719)
Date: Jan 1994
Author: Bruce Sterling
HTML file
LA Times - The Pirates of the Internet (500)
Date: 3 Nov 1994
Author: Adam S. Bauman
In the early hours of July 6, Jenny, head of a software piracy ring based in the Pacific Northwest, paced impatiently in front of a rack of high-speed personal computers, waiting for the phone call that would make her a superstar in the pirate underground. It would come from an employee of LucasArts Entertainment Co. in San Rafael,who for $300 would supply Jenny's pirate group with one of the most anticipated games of the summer: "TIE Fighter," based on the "Star Wars" movie trilogy and priced at about $60 per copy. At LucasArts, the employee attached a small cellular modem to the back of his PC - a technique that would keep any record of the call off the company telephone bill - and dialed. Within a few minutes, the program had arrived in Jenny's computer, lacking only the code keys that would make it possible to play the game without an owner's manual.
Text file
Demo Reviews   (View as a PDF) (751)
Date: 6 Sep 1994
Author: DMW
This is a huge list of demos, intros and cracktros released on the PC up until 1994. Included is a brief summary, a review and release information.
Text file
Warez Wars   (View as a PDF) (1048)
Date: 1996
Author: David McCandless
The Keyboard Caper Biography (599)
Date: 3 Nov 1997
Author: The Keyboard Caper
Due to some requests I decided to write this biography of my life in cracking scene, not about my full life. Just how I started with cracking and what I've done at all..
Text file
How To Crack, A Tutorial   (View as a PDF) (867)
Date: 15 Feb 1997
Author: Orc
The best way to learn cracking (i.e. understanding, broadly individuating, locating exactly and eliminating or suspending or deferring one or more protection schemes inside a software application you do not possess the source code of) is to begin your tampering experiments using OLDER applications which have OLDER protection schemes.
HTML file
A primer to the ISO scene (787)
Date: 1998
Author: DToxR
Enter the "iso scene": One day, Pirate1 figured out that he could transfer his iso image of GameX to Pirate2 over the internet where Pirate2 could then burn the image and essentially have an exact duplicate of the original! Imagine the possibilities... to share one massive CD collection with all of the greater pirate community. PC games, utils, and console games can all be traded the same way. Expand your PSX or Saturn collection for the mere cost of a blank CD ($2). Download company patches and version upgrades without worrying about compatibility with your rip. Get the latest programming/graphics utils with full online docs and examples (finally!) instead of seeing them ripped out. Build a massive CD library and be the envy of all the other kids on your street!
PDF file
Interview with Neofish9, the founder of SceneLink (378)
Date: 20 Feb 1998
Author: Ayon Nandi
The Yale Herald conducts an interview with Neofish9 in regards to his new and alternative online project, SceneLink. He goes into why he choose the underground scene for his experiment as well as what he hopes to achieve through his efforts.
HTML link
Digital Anarchy: Part Three of an Analysis of Software Piracy [external link] (386)
Date: 12 Mar 1998
Author: David Laprad
During his last visit to Singapore, Vicarious Visions president Karthik Bala found a software store. Being a game developer, as well as someone interested in playing games, he ventured in to check out the latest releases. What he ended up absorbing was a bit of unique local flavor.
HTML link
Digital Anarchy: Part One of an Analysis of Software Piracy [external link] (434)
Date: 5 Mar 1998
Author: David Laprad
Hundreds of people are in attendance, feverishly maneuvering to score that elusive, coveted file. The time and date are irrelevant -- this fury of activity takes places 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The place, however, is highly significant, given the task at hand. I am exploring the world of software piracy, and my first stop is the free market economy of an IRC warez channel. The trip was remarkably brief and uncomplicated, and now I sit hunkered in my seat, certain that any moment, my front door will be hammered down by government officials intent on prosecuting this reluctant deviant.
Text file
Digital Anarchy: Analysis of Software Piracy   (View as a PDF) (646)
Date: 5 Mar 1998
Author: David Laprad
HTML link
Digital Anarchy: Part Two of an Analysis of Software Piracy [external link] (406)
Date: 8 Mar 1998
Author: David Laprad
The mass media in this country want us to think in two dimensions. While many forums for intelligent, and often entertaining, social discourse exist, the primary thrust of the mainstream media is to present issues, and the corresponding schools of thought, as inherently polarized. According to this elementary manner of thinking, you are either a racist or open to ethnic diversity; you are either sexist or supportive of fundamental rights, regardless of gender; and you are either a software pirate or a Bible-thumping, halo-toting, law abiding citizen. Americans have been unwittingly subjected to a dumbing down of content because things are supposedly easier to digest when they have been refined and processed, and all opportunity for personal critique removed.
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The Life and Legend of tKC - The Keyboard Caper (1056)
Date: 10 Oct 2000
Author: The Keyboard Caper
The Founder of PhRoZeN CReW/Crackers in Action 2000.
Text file
Underground   (View as a PDF) (946)
Date: 2001
Author: Suelette Dreyfus
HTML file
Warez World (9207)
Date: 26 Jul 2001
Author: David McCandless
PDF file
Warez All that Pirated Software Coming From? (551)
Date: 1 Nov 2002
Author: Seth Fogie
In this world of casual piracy, many people have forgotten or just never realized where many software releases originate. Seth Fogie looks at the past, present, and future of the warez industry; and illustrates the simple fact that "free" software is here to stay.
HTML link
Abandoned Games for All Who Enter Here [external link] (435)
Date: 12 Jun 2002
Author: Gavin Carter
About 14 years ago, I discovered a gem of a game called Life and Death. It was a doctor sim in which you diagnosed and treated patients. The most exciting and challenging parts of its gameplay were the surgery sections, when you had to perform entire operations - from laying out the sheet and disinfecting the gear all the way through putting the final stitches in the incision. Although I was too young to appreciate the title's finer nuances, I did have a tremendous amount of fun carving my name in the patient's flesh with the scalpel and listening to his resulting screams. I eventually put Life and Death aside and moved on to titles more appropriate to my temperament such as Wolfenstein 3D and Blake Stone.
PDF file
Toughening Software Protections (850)
Date: 13 Jun 2002
Author: Sabuj Pattanayek
Although this paper would have been ultimately written, much impetus was provided by the Federal Government's (U. S. Custom Department's) investigation into Drink Or Die (DOD), the "underground" software securities group. The following critique on software licensing systems given in this essay is meant to increase the effectiveness of already available software protections by shedding light on their vulnerabilities and strengths. This paper will also attempt to demonstrate how software hackers think, what tools they use, why they attack certain targets, and how to keep software from being "cracked".
PDF file
Ordered Misbehavior - The Structuring of an Illegal Endeavor (524)
Date: 2003
Author: Alf Rehn
In the discourse of business ethics, illegal economic undertakings are usually presented as archetypal cases of unethical behavior. This article tries to nuance this view by studying the ethics of an illegal subculture, and particularly its formalized 'codes of conduct', as a valid area of inquiry for business ethics. Based on a prolonged ethnographic study of warez, i.e. illegal games of competitive donation undertaken on the Internet, this article thus argues for a more pluralistic approach to the study of business ethics by showing how formalized ethics can arise out of economic activities that are usually perceived as amoral. By doing a reading of the community's set of rules and the moralizations entailed in these, the role of codes of conduct is discussed as a general case of ethical argumentation. The article closes with a call for an extended view on business ethics.
PDF file
A Road to No Warez - The No Electronic Theft Act and Criminal Copyright Infringement (699)
Date: 2003
Author: Eric Goldman
This Article examines the No Electronic Theft Act (the Act or the NET Act). The Act represents a significant change to copyright law because it subtly shifts the paradigm underlying criminal copyright infringement. For 100 years, criminal infringement punished infringers who derived a commercial benefit based on someone else's copyrighted work. However, through the Act, Congress adopted a paradigm that criminal copyright infringement is like physical-space theft, specifically shoplifting. As a result, the Act significantly extends the boundaries of criminal copyright infringement.
HTML link
History of AOL Warez [external link] (439)
Date: 2003
Author: RajuAbju
Before I begin, let me state the following: This is my personal perspective of the history of Warez and the scene in general on America Online (AOL). How the scene developed in the beginnings, and where it has evolved to today. I also would like to thank Mat Stars, Reflux, and Da Chronic himself for their input and insight. Enjoy.
PDF file
Warez Trading and Criminal Copyright Infringement (521)
Date: 10 Feb 2004
Author: Eric Goldman
Warez traders have been blamed as a significant cause of copyright piracy, which has led to several dozen conviction of warez traders in the past two years. The article analyzes how criminal copyright infringement and other laws apply to warez trading. The article also describes the prosecutions of warez trading, including a comprehensive chart of all warez trading convictions.
PDF file
Online Software Piracy of the Last Millennium (678)
Date: 27 Apr 2004
Author: Ben Garrett
Ever since there has been the ability to store data on a personal computer and commercial software for sale, there has been the existence of pirating. Pirating, cracking and even pirate scenes go all the way back to the late seventies, and maybe even earlier. By the early eighties some machines (such as the BBC Macro in Europe) where so riddled with pirates that the programming companies gave up. They discontinued producing and porting software for the affected computers because there was simply no money to be made. This article has been written with only the PC scene in mind.
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Games Protections and Cloning Question and Answers (568)
Date: 12 Dec 2005
Author: MiRROR
As a final word, this Q&A was made because of all the confusion concerning Cloning and CloneCDs, hopefully things are clearer now that a detailed explanation has been presented, cracking is becoming a very difficult thing to accomplish, even with all the skill and experience of seasoned crews, recent changes and customization of popular copy protection systems need to be approached using manual tools and methods, since it sometimes takes nearly a month to produce a NoCD, the community will have to accept and learn what to do with CloneCDs especially how to establish 'Quality Control' acceptance of these is still not fully decided, however most surely understand the necessity and can no longer avoid their practical appliance.
Newbies
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SOP Is Proud To Present .. Group/Acronym Lister   (View as a PDF) (779)
Date: n/a
Author: Corruption
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Why YOU Should Be a Software Courier   (View as a PDF) (881)
Date: n/a
Author: Dixie Flatline
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The Black List Door   (View as a PDF) (3274)
Date: 17 Oct 1992
Author: B]E]E]F
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The GlobeList World BBS Listing   (View as a PDF) (1070)
Date: 4 Oct 1993
Author: Cayliph
Dis is da first GlobeList from da dudez of KraftSchlag! We took a lot of time getting the numbas for da list, and we hope dat most of dem are 100%.
Text file
DELiRiUM Acronym List v1.1   (View as a PDF) (754)
Date: 1994
Author: Acidflux and Darkhand
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DELiRiUM Acronym List v1.3   (View as a PDF) (819)
Date: 1994
Author: Acidflux and Darkhand
Text file
Are The 'Elite' Real Pirates?   (View as a PDF) (782)
Date: 1994
Author: Zardoz
Text file
The Lamahs-Guide to Pirating Software on the Internet   (View as a PDF) (735)
Date: 25 Dec 1994
Author: n/a
PDF file
WareZ101.org - A Reference For The Scene (759)
Date: 17 Dec 2006
Author: WareZ101.org
A newbie guide to the pirate scene including how to extract, burn and copy releases.
Miscellaneous
Intro GENERATOR 1.0 beta (598)
Date: 17 Mar 1992
Author: Golden Dragon
The King Intromaker v.2 (562)
Date: 11 Jan 1993
Author: World Warez Federation
A Kawl IM with realy lots of featurs like doc's,cmf,mod,meny Art Options And packed with a good Scrambler.
BoniJoni IntroMaker 0.4 (486)
Date: 27 Mar 1993
Author: BoniJoni
Making intros, is something that can be very enjoyable. Most people don't know how to write a simple intro. BoniJoni IntroMaker, made especially for those who don't know how to write their own intros (but, those who knows how to use software).
Text file
Yeah Fuck It #42   (View as a PDF) (814)
Date: 1995
Author: EoF
Responses to Warez Groups by name only:

INC - International Network of People Who NEED TO DIE.
Fairlight - FLT - What the fuck?
Razor/1911 - What the fuck?
The Dreamteam - What the fuck? Is it wet? I hope so.
Text file
The Truth About Rapier And Some Of Their People   (View as a PDF) (790)
Date: 23 Jan 1997
Author: The Third Son
Well it is a dark day in the warez scene now. Apparently this little group called Rapier has single handly broken all the "unwritten" codes we purveyors of warez have established. Let me tell you what happened.
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SSA meeting logs   (View as a PDF) (675)
Date: 8 Jun 1998
Author: n/a
SSA was an attempt by various scene groups to secure the scene, especially it's exposure on IRC. Also of interest is the #ISO channel log were they discuss setting some uniform ISO standards.
HTML file
The Ice Flames Board, this is the entry page dedicated to the flaming of ICE (MythPC) (470)
Date: 2001
Author: n/a
HTML link
XP Cracks Appear Before Product [external link] (565)
Date: 5 Sep 2001
Author: Andy Patrizio
In Microsoft's battle against software piracy, the first round goes to pirates, even though the starting bell hasn't even rung yet. Microsoft's new operating system, Windows XP, won't be in stores for another seven weeks, but pirated copies are already floating around on the Internet.
HTML link
OldSkool DemoMaker [external link] (564)
Date: 21 Aug 2006
Author: Testaware
The OldSkool DemoMaker creates demos like cracktros on the good old Amiga. Here a list what you can do with it: Horizontal and sinus scrolling text, bouncing copperbars, starfield in three modes, colorfull plasma effects, logo with old stylish deforming effect or as gif anim, 3d ball, dot & vector object view with rotation, replays music in different sound formats eg. SID and V2M, free use of display (window or fullscreen), export optimized standalone executables (no files needed), compressing executables will shrink size upto 90%, able to pack medias to use real large files. A lot of bitmap fonts and tracker modules included. O.S.D.M could be an ideal tool to put your own demos within archives to introduce yourself.
Group Applications
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Crimefighters membership   (View as a PDF) (655)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
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Ultra Tech   (View as a PDF) (699)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
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Razor 1911   (View as a PDF) (1101)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
Application to Become a Razor 1911 Courier
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Dread membership   (View as a PDF) (641)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
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DV8   (View as a PDF) (675)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
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Pirates Analyze Warez   (View as a PDF) (678)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
Pirates Analyze Warez (PAW) Reviewer Application
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The Humble Guys   (View as a PDF) (692)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
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Morgue courier   (View as a PDF) (669)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
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Pirates Analyze Warez   (View as a PDF) (721)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
Pirates Analyze Warez (PAW) Generic Application
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Pirates Analyze Warez   (View as a PDF) (634)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
Pirates Analyze Warez (PAW) Reviewer Application (2)
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Riders of Death   (View as a PDF) (664)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
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Ultra Tech site   (View as a PDF) (592)
Date: n/a
Author: n/a
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USA   (View as a PDF) (709)
Date: n/a
Author: Suicidal
USA Courier Application
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