Defacto2 - The Scene News with Site News

Jason Scott Of textfiles.com Needs Our Help

2009-10-23T07:55:51Z

Jason Scott, the man behind such legendary projects such as textfiles.com and the BBS Documentary is currently engaged in a Kickstarter fund raiser. Recently he was made unemployed and so he is looking for pledges to reach a goal of $25,000, within a month. Using this money to live off he plans to spend the next number of months working full time on his various computer history projects.

If his past projects are anything to go by then this in itself is worthy of a significant donation. Without Jason's and his supporters' work over the past decade hundreds of thousands of historic, computer files and computer related documents would have most certainly been lost to the black hole that is data rot.

What is happening to Defacto2?

2009-09-28T11:07:46Z

I am in the very slow process of updating the whole backend of the Defacto2 website. This has meant rewriting the site's database from scratch. Before then transferring all the data from an old, poorly designed MySQL catalogue, which itself was once migrated from an earlier Windows 2000 Access database. So because of this I have avoided adding new files to the site and this is why the it seems a little quiet.

I will continue to add certain, popular files such as The Scene Charts issues, but lesser known, obscure files will only be added to the new database, which obviously will not show up on the current site at www.defacto2.net.

Please DO continue to submit your old, scene related files though as all the submissions are collected, catalogued and stored. They will be placed online when the new site is ready for public consumption.

Defacto2 Twitter

2009-06-08T08:51:32Z

For those of you who use Twitter I thought I would remind the readers that Defacto2 tweaks. Not only are the latest updates from the site published to the Twitter account. We also tweet when files previews and progress updates on the website revision, news that you will not find on the website itself. You can find our Twitter page at Defacto2 Twitter.

No replies to Contact Us messages

2009-05-23T07:14:09Z

In the past month if you have sent us a message using the Defacto2 contacts forms and have not received a reply, then I must apologise. Unfortunately it seems that the e-mail address those messages were forwarded to expired; so all the messages submitted in the past month has been lost. While the issue has now been fix there is not much I can do to recover the lost messages. So if it was important I would ask that you please resend.

Random Visitor Statistics for Defacto2

2009-05-15T07:29:25Z

Today I thought I would do something different and list some of the more interesting statistics for defacto2.net in the past month. To give some idea of the type of users who visit this site and where you go.

For web browsing, 62% of you use Firefox, 20% use Internet Explorer, 9% use Opera, 4% use Chrome and 2% use Safari.

91% use Windows, 5% use Linux, 3.5% run Macintosh machines.

22.7% use a screen resolution of 1280x1024, 19% use 1024x768, 15% are at 1680x1050 and 13% are at 1280x800.

A massive 81% of you have Adobe Flash 10 installed, the remainder have Flash 9 installed, while only 3.5% of you have no Flash plug-in at all.

84.46% have some form of Java support, with 15.5% having no support.

Speed wise, 34% of you are on DSL, 24% are on cable, 5% use a T1 line and fortunately only 3.7% still use dial-up, I feel for you guys.

22% of you come from the United States, 12% from Germany, 7% from Russia, 6% from Sweden.

The Japanese spend the most time on the site with an average visit of nearly 6 minutes, while the Indonesians spend the least with an average visit of only 27 seconds. The median visit is 2 minutes and 15 seconds.

Only 19% of traffic was direct, 40% of you were referred from other websites and another 41% were referred from search engine results.

The top five referring sites for past month were Wikipedia, the Russian site Softboard.ru, a blogspot.com item on our recent scene artpack, stumbleupon.com and aboutthescene.com.

Top search engines are Google with 96% of the referrals, Yahoo with 1.6%, Search with 0.8% and Microsoft Live with only 0.35%!

The most popular pages on the site were the front page with 21% of the total views. 2nd was the Defacto2 - NFO Utilities; 3rd the Razor 1911 group page at 3.1%; 4th the Scene Documents, text and NFO files page at 3% and 5th was the Reloaded group page at 2%.

New Art Pack

2009-04-16T12:09:36Z

Today we have released a new file pack, the Group Logos Pack. This is a collection of over 1,560 scene group logos and art pieces that were once collected by Climbatiz. Climbatiz once ran a web site at http://crackart.95mb.com/ which housed all these pieces but it has long since been abandoned. So the collection has been donated to us for hosting.

The pack is released under a Creative Commons (cc) Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike licence. The artworks within are still copyrighted by their respective artists.

You can download the pack here.

Defacto2 YouTube Video and Site Updates

2009-01-23T23:43:14Z

I thought I would let you know of a few updates that we have recently introduced to Defacto2. Firstly you might have noticed the site's

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is slightly longer. We have added an extra 200 pixels to every page on the site to increase legibility.

Also in the process is an upgrade to our YouTube account. Hopefully soon, where possible we will have every DOS crack and intro hosted as a 'high quality' on YouTube video. We are planning to also update the older low quality videos that were put on the channel a couple of years ago into high quality video.

Once this project is eventually complete the videos captures we have created will then be released as a crack-intro video pack. You will be able to download the pack from Defacto2 and play the videos using your favourite media player. This pack will also be included in an updated release of the Defacto2 ISO DVD image.

Finally we have added a new category to our webpage portal, 'Legal Scene Torrents'. Currently we have 5 entries but we hope this will be expanded at a later date.

Download Our Files With Care

2008-12-12T09:22:01Z

Virus/Trojan warning!

UPDATE: Some people have reported that the Trojan reports are false positives due to the way certain crack-tros are packed using combined compression and encryption. This is the same way these Trojans are often packaged. But still our advise on running them in an isolated environment stands.

The Maktone Cracktros and Installer pack contains a number of installers and cracktros originally designed for Windows 98. It has come to our attention that 5 files within this pack are infected with Adware Trojans.

class-gameboy-installer.zip - Trojan Vundo
class-peanuts.zip - Backdoor.Bifrose
cls-1999_04_03.zip - Trojan Vundo
cls-1999_02_15.zip - Trojan Vundo
class-bubbles.zip - Trojan Horse

Unfortunately this means these files have to be removed from the pack as they cannot be disinfected.

Also 21 cracktros and installers have been infected. These infected files can also be found in the Defacto2 ISO Collection 2007 and the The Scene Archive Cracktros Pack. A full list of the infected files can be found in this text document.

As always common sense dictates that you always run an up to date scan over any execute/program files contained in a download. Especially from a historical scene site such as ours where at the time of upload, the infection might not have been detected by the scanners of the era. While we do scan every file we put online, we do not often run periodic update scans on the files already on the server.

So we as always recommend that with any file you download from Defacto2. If it contains an execute or program file you should run with caution. We always suggest an isolated virtual environment such as Virtual PC, DOSBox, VirtualBox or VMware.

Defacto2 Sitetro 2008

2008-05-19T09:11:18Z

You can download it here. Credits goto to the guys at electric druggies and s!p. Feel free to vote for our sitetro.

Bandido of Drink or Die Fame Gives TV Interview

2008-05-12T06:40:58Z

Hew Griffiths, aka Bandido of Drink or Die fame. The man was caught up in Operation Buccaneer back in 2001. Who spent many years fighting an extradition order to the US, for a crime that would not have warranted jail time in home country of Australia. Was release from a US Federal Prison in Virginia the earlier in the year. Hew has since returned home to Australia and has conducted a television interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Lateline current affairs program.

Under the guise of "Elder of Internet Piracy talks to Lateline", Hew talks about his time in prison, his time as the leader of Drink or Die and why he thought the previous Australian federal government did nothing to help his case.

A transcript of the interview in full can be found at the ABC's Lateline website, as can the video.

Former Fairlight Leader Turned Republican Chairman

2008-05-03T00:16:42Z

Last Thursday the leftist, sensationalist, US political blog The Raw Story had outed conservative San Diego Republican Chairman Tony Krvaric as one time scene member Strider. Strider is probably best known as one of two guys who co-founded Fairlight back in 1987 on the Commodore 64. Later in 1992, after being inspired by Ronald Ragan he migrated to the USA and for a short time continued the group's activities on the PC.

Mr Krvaric has never shied away from his scene past. In 1993 he incorporated Fairlight Trading in California. He has used the strider alias with e-mail addresses and the Fairlight web domain for politicial campaigns. What did Mr Krvaric have to say about his recent expose?

Apparently there's a hit piece floating around on me, 'exposing' my wild high school, teenage years where I was in a computer club where we swapped Commodore 64 games (similar to how kids swap mp3 music files these days). This was in the 80's, on a computer that's long since defunct!

This is not the first time the Internet has been used to attack Mr Krvaric. It was only 13 months ago when an online publication known as the Californian Christian News wrote an article accusing Mr Krvaric of being pro-American flag burning. They cited a 1995 public forum message board, quoting a reply apparently written by the Republican Chairman on the hot topic.

Now that everyone knows Strider's current political stance and position with the Republican Party. The old Commodore 64 Fairlight tag, 'kill a commie for mummy' certainly takes on another meaning for many old schoolers.

Westbam Passing

2008-05-03T00:09:00Z

After the recent unfortunate news in regards to the death of Dr. Detergent. It was alerted to us that Westbam had also passed away two years ago at the age of 36.

Westbam was most known for his European based activities with TRSI, Razor 1911, INC, and Legend in the early to mid-1990s and later with the original Divine.

Dr. Detergent Passes Away

2008-04-02T07:59:14Z

We have the unfortunate task of relaying some sad news today.

I just found out that a friend, Dr. Detergent has passed away. It's been some time but I just managed to find him again since we lost contact for a very long time. Unfortunately I found out he had passed away in his sleep at the age of 33.

Dr. Detergent was a well respected cracker and programmer the 1990s. Known for his cracking ability, his name could often be found on various cracks and trainers for various games from the golden era of PC gaming. A former member of many renowned groups he will be missed by the many people who worked with him during those legendary Razor 1911, The Dream Team, Syndicate, Phoenix, INC and The Humble Guys days.

Untouchables Tutorial by Dr Detergent from 1993
The Dream Team NFO written by Dr Detergent
Untouchables NFO written by Dr Detergent

Defacto2 Scene Site Pack

2008-01-07T02:19:20Z

Today we are proud to release the Defacto2 Scene Site Pack. This new package is replacement for the old and forgotten The Scene Archive BBS Pack, which hadn't been updated since 2001. The replacement pack contains extensive BBS-tros, ANSI, ascii and image adverts for numerous worldwide elite sites from the nineteen nineties. These have been all sorted into directories derived from the site's original and complete name.

There are 375 different Bulletin Board Systems listed containing over a thousand different adverts. While over on the Internet side we have an additional 60 elite FTP sites which hold 62 adverts.

A complete list of all the sites included can be found here, while the pack itself can be downloaded from here.

Former Leader of Mage Sentenced to 12 Months

2007-11-05T00:06:02Z

Justin Emch, 27 of Kenmore, Washington has been sentenced to 12 months prison on one felony count of conspiracy to infringe on copyright. He has also been ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and serve two years of a supervised release.

Emch was one of many scene members netted in the April 2004 worldwide bust known as Operation Fastlink. His group Mage was a minor player in the underground application ISO scene who continued to release for over a year after his arrest.

Incidentally Mage used to include a generic disclaimer in the NFO file of their releases. It would state that the release is copyrighted, and that the warez release was only allowed to be used as a personal backup or archive. This type of disclaimer was quite common in the old BBS pirate scene days during the early 1990s. Obviously disclaimers are nothing more than wasted space.

MaGE LEGAL DISCLAIMER; It is against the law to reproduce copyrighted material for the purpose of selling it to third parties. US Law only allows for you to make one backup copy of any software or media for personal and archival purposes, which is the ONLY intended use for this software. This program is not meant for those who intend on breaking copyright laws. In no way will we be held responsible if you do. Any other use of this software is strictly prohibited.

Kortelio from Fairlight and Kalisto Fined US$7500

2007-09-19T11:19:38Z

ALBERT BRYNDZA, also known as "Kortelio," age 35, of Parlin, New Jersey, was sentenced by Chief United States District Judge Robert N. Chatigny in Hartford to three years of probation, the first six months of which BRYNDZA must serve confined to his home. Judge Chatigny also ordered BRYNDZA to pay a fine in the amount of $7500 and to perform 120 hours of community service. On March 8, 2005, BRYNDZA waived indictment and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. This matter stems from a multinational software piracy investigation known as "Operation Higher Education."

According to documents filed with the Court and statements made in court, between June 1999 and April 2004, BRYNDZA was a participant in the "warez scene," an underground online community consisting of individuals and organized groups who engage in the large scale reproduction, modification and distribution of copyrighted software over the internet. BRYNDZA was a member of Fairlight and Kalisto, online piracy release groups that specialized in the illegal distribution of computer games, including PC and console games. BRYNDZA has admitted that he built and operated two large servers for use by members of the Fairlight and Kalisto groups (among others) to store and distribute thousands of titles of pirated software and other digital media. From June 2000 to April 2004, Kalisto was responsible for releasing to the warez scene pirated copies of more than 500 well-known, copyrighted computer games, often before the date of their legitimate commercial release.

Former Kalisto Ripper Fined and Sentanced To Three Years Probation

2007-08-12T10:12:43Z

Kevin J. O'Connor, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that JEFFREY LERMAN, also known as "asdgadg," "kall," "ht," and "reg," age 23, of College Park, Maryland, was sentenced today by Chief United States District Judge Robert N. Chatigny in Hartford to three years of probation, the first six months of which LERMAN must serve confined to his home. Judge Chatigny also ordered LERMAN to pay a fine in the amount of $7500. On March 8, 2005, LERMAN waived indictment and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. This matter stems from a multinational software piracy investigation known as "Operation Higher Education."

In pleading guilty, LERMAN admitted that, between January 2002 and April 2004, he was a participant in the "warez scene," an underground online community consisting of individuals and organized groups who engage in the large scale reproduction, modification and distribution of copyrighted software over the internet. Specifically, LERMAN was a prominent member of the warez group known as "Kalisto," where he served as a "ripper" for pirated copies of computer games so that each game would fit onto a single CD-ROM. LERMAN eliminated or circumvented the games' copy protection controls in order to facilitate the further unauthorized distribution of the games over the internet. From June 2000 to April 2004, Kalisto was responsible for releasing to the warez scene pirated copies of more than 500 well-known, copyrighted computer games, often before the date of their legitimate commercial release.

Bandido, Former Drink Or Die Leader is Sentenced to 51 months Jail

2007-06-25T07:51:21Z

Caught up in the whirlwind following the raids were Australian native Hew Raymond Griffiths. Hew was the administrator, or "ring leader", of DrinkOrDie. For the last three years, Hew has been fighting an extradition to the United States, where the US DOJ wanted him to face trial - or plead guilty - on American soil. The US DOJ got their wish in February, when the Australian government released him into American custody. On April 20th, 2007, Hew plead guilty to criminal copyright infringement charges.

The US DOJ, as do many sources, point out that this is a unique case in the fact that Hew has never laid foot on American soil, nor has he ever committed a crime on US soil, yet was still successfully extradited for his crimes. The US DOJ annunciated this fact in their statement on Friday, reveling in 51 month sentencing of Hew Griffiths.

So it appears that Hew was not safe on Australian soil, where according to his lawyer the penalties would have been less severe.

"Effectively my client was sent to face charges in a foreign country where he has no knowledge of the legal system and no friends or family," his lawyer told The Sunday Age. "He has been surrendered to a country where the penalties for such offenses are much harsher."

The only mitigating circumstance for Hew Griffiths is the US Judge took into consideration his time already served in Australia. Although he was sentenced 51 months, he was granted 3 years already served. According to The Age, he should be out of prison in 15 months. With good behavior, it's likely he'll be out sooner than that.

Defacto2 Web-Intro

2007-06-13T09:31:32Z

Today Defacto2 is proud to publicly release their first production for eight years. A new web-intro that will be included in a number of the file packages that we offer on the website. The oldskool inspired production was created by a new group known as Electric Druggies.

As you can see from the screenshot the intro looks very snazzy. Comprising of completely new source material, the font, logo and music were all purposely created for this production.

Thanks go to Electric Druggies with their very cryptic aliases
- Code and Font by Widow Maker
- Logo by Shadow Maker
- Music by Noise Maker

You can directly download the intro here

Update: Feel free to vote for our intro at Intro Inferno

Operation FastLink body count now totals 50

2007-05-15T11:30:06Z

Today the US Department of Justice was proud to announce the successful conviction of their 50th criminal arrested and charged under Operation Fastlink.

Christopher E. Eaves, 31, of Iowa Park, Texas pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. Admitting he had been an active member and supplier for the former pre-release MP3 warez group Apocalypse Crew.

Mr Eaves now faces up to five years prison and a $200,000 and a three year supervised release. His sentencing is set for August 10th.

In addition to the 50 convictions Operation FastLink has netted over 120 search warrants in 12 countries; the confiscation of hundreds of computers and the removal of more than $50,000,000 dollars worth of illegal goods.