Habrainterview with the former sceneryr

Interviews with the former scener, a Russian, a member of a top crack group in the mid-2000s. There were not too many questions, so he answered everything. I combined similar questions, if something is lost - write, add. The structure and principles of the scene have long been known, so here we almost did not touch them, but in order to fill in possible gaps in the near future, I will continue to translate the site aboutthescene, the first part of which I published earlier. Despite the fact that there were already many articles about the scene, practically in each of them the question arises whether the sceners receive some profit from their activities. And in this interview, he was asked again. The answer to it and all the rest - under the cut.


How did you start hacking programs? What started it all? How did you get on stage?
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I remember when I first saw keygen for some dense version of ACDSee32, signed with nutcracker / CORE, for the first time in the late nineties. How cool is it to be to parse such a program, study the algorithm and write your own generator ??? Some were my thoughts at that moment. Keygens of top groups have always been associated with something very cool and unattainable, like the work of a skilled craftsman. I was especially impressed with the work of guys like tE! / TMG and MackT / uCF. I was in seventh heaven when, after a few years, I managed to communicate with them and even work side by side.

It began harmlessly with programming hobbies. BASIC, C ++, assembler - I always wanted to get to the essence. I did not have the Internet then, and I lived in a small town, somehow I managed to get books and learn from what is. I taught an assembler according to the enchanting course for those who are (if anyone remembers :)) downloaded to floppy disks at his father's work.

Over time, the fascination with assembly began to drag me to the dark side, and it all started, it seems, with articles on woodmann.com. After that, I went headlong into reversing, chatted on forums, read / wrote articles, visited a couple of public groups, nothing particularly interesting until I came across trial keygenme of one of the top 0day groups. I wrote to one of the members of this group, with whom I had contact, to clarify whether their keygenme is valid until now. He replied that he was already gone, but if I’m so eager to get into their group, then I can start right now and send a small list of programs that I had to zaicenate. Each of them gave me a lot of unforgettable hours in the debugger :) After a few months of hard work, I became a full member.

Was there a case when you or someone in your group were close to arrest?

One of the groups in which I was in, the authorities covered the server. Another came under the operation of the FBI, many were arrested. But since I am Russian, no one has been concerned with me. In Russia, they could have arrested you, unless you cross the road to monsters like 1C, the story of Sobol is a sad example. Since I did not do anything like this, I slept soundly.

Was it all just for fun, or did it also bring money?

Just for fun.

How do you feel about copyright? Has the attitude changed over time? To free non-commercial file sharing like our trackers?

Negative attitude to the marazm of copywriters and authorities.
Once I had extremely radical views, but now, apparently, matured :) If a product is worthy - I am happy to cry, it is often even more convenient. If I were releasing my product, I would not have to fight pirates, a waste of resources.

I treat trackers normally, I use it myself.

What do you think about all sorts of banned sites / blockers?

I do not think that the idiots are sitting in the government as they appear before us. They just want to control the internet.

What do you think about the situation that now occurs with anonymity on the Internet, to which, in your opinion, will we eventually come to?

There was never anonymity on the Internet, we were always watched and it was always obvious (for me, at least), it just now got a lot of publicity. I do not think that something will seriously change in the near future, maybe tor and i2p will become more popular and more accessible for a simple inhabitant.
I also note that cops have many ways to catch a hacker besides calculating by ip :) The recent arrests of Eric Owen Marquez and Ross William Ulbricht are examples of this.

How true is The Scene?

Specially looked at the first few episodes to answer this question. I am not familiar with the internal cuisine of rip-groups, in order to give some adequate assessment, I can only say that the atmosphere of the race for release was conveyed well.

Have you been hacking software or toys too?

I released exclusively keygens to the programs, like most of the group members. Toys sometimes broke off for interest, but not released.

Where did you get the software for releases?

Mostly shareware, sometimes suppliers managed to get software before release via their own channels.

Do you often come across some kind of original protection, which spent hundreds and thousands of man-hours? A few words about the most memorable of them.

Once I wrote keygen for a program on VB6, which was also compiled into p-code and used cryptography. Writing keygens to programs protected by Armadillo was a very difficult task, but then it was put on stream. There was a program in which the key verification algorithm was obfuscated and wrapped in vm, and the vm itself was also processed from the top by a metamorph, fortunately, the algorithm itself was not very complicated and a lot became clear by analyzing the inputs and outputs. Some authors improved the protection after the release of the crack and we played cat and mouse until someone got bored :). There was a lot of interesting things, this is what was especially remembered. It took a lot of time to research libraries (miracl, CryptoPP, FGInt, etc.), to remove protectors. Now I do not see anything complicated in this, but then it was a real challenge.

It is easy to find a worthwhile defense: if some software is constantly released only as Cracked, but it has an input field for the serial, then it's time to get the debugger and show who's the coolest here :)

How advanced are the software protection techniques on average, and maybe for some individual instances especially? Did you meet software for which the crack / keygen was impossible to write? (mb encrypted via serial number of code, etc.)

I don’t think that key verification techniques could make any serious progress. A valid key or the full version can always be bought (and then make a charge back). If you can't write keygen (for example, in the case of RSA-1024 or online checks), you can always write Patch + Keygen

At its best, how many releases did the band do?

Records do not remember, but it happened a few dozen a day. Quality is always more important than quantity.

Is the concept of the scene relevant now? How do you see the future of the scene and file sharing in general? Will there be a time when the activities of the scenery will become meaningless / impossible?

The scene will never die.

What changes have occurred with the scene, after the demonstrative, massive operations of special services aimed at its destruction?

Someone went into the deep underground, someone at all tied up with the scene, someone (like me) did not care.

What methods of anonymity were used? Tor and I2P were not there yet, as far as I know.

Anonymous proxies, vpn-s, for irc message encryption (FiSH plugin), BNC server. We did not use proprietary software because of the likelihood of a built-in backdoor. Had different nicknames on 0day and on public sites.

How did you communicate with other scenes groups? Was there a fight between the groups?

On the irc channels, by icq. I would say that there was a competition: who is cooler and faster. Often, not only greetings, but also rays of hatred were sent to other groups in the NFO. In general, among the members of the top groups there was always a warm and friendly atmosphere, as among the competing athletes.
Picture of past years in the topic -

What software yuzali?

My choice: IDA + SoftICE, your tools, based on cryptography.

Did you study or did you learn most of the other sceners? Teach / would like to teach someone your business?

Here everything is the same as in programming. Basically, the older comrades themselves helped with something, studied something by tutorials, but, alas, there are no tutorials on the most interesting topics. The skill grows very much when working in an experienced team, we were always ready to help each other, answer questions, prompt with an incomprehensible problem.

Tell interesting life stories.

Do not even know how to answer.
Once in one program, next to the public key, I saw an interesting line, not literally: "suck it cracker, we have RSA-1024 here." Zarelizil Patch + Keygen :)
Once, I managed to zaigen RSA-1024 only because the developer was so kind and left a private key in the code in plain text.

What is it like: to be a super cracker on stage and at the same time stay completely in the shadow of everyday life? Or perhaps there was no daily life, all life was only in a network? Did your family, relatives, friends know about your hobby?

Patient theme: (Successes on the stage - this is not something that can entice girls. No one from my circle knew what I was doing, no one could understand what the scene meant to me.

Can you explain why the nickname and group names are not disclosed? If it was a long time, why not reveal it.

The habit of past years.

Are there many Russian groups?

I know about the groups created by Russians and whose members are mostly Russians. They can be counted on the fingers. It seems that none of them is active at the moment.

Where did you get such great music for keygens ?!

To begin with, this is not “music for keygens”, but tracker music. Music and graphics (no less remarkable) were made by friends from demo groups. For details, refer to the history of the demo scene.

Where did they study cracking, optimizing, and developing the demostsen? How to share the functionality of the scenes? Did everyone know everything or everyone was responsible for specific functionality? Were there any template parts of the code or was each new scene designed in a new way, with new inspiration?

This is a question for demoscenters :)

noob question. Who are the main suppliers of crack / keygen now, if you can say so?

I did not understand who is meant by suppliers. People who make them? They are still doing their job, both "then" and "now."

Why do you think the scene is stalled, and resources such as kryaklab, you quietly die? (no new articles, discussions)

I did not really communicate on Russian resources. I sat on the mall for the last time when he was on a free board and looked like a porn site. I suspect that old people are slowly leaving work, and there is no influx of fresh blood.

How do the majority of crackers relate to the unbroken? After all, the set of knowledge / skills is similar, only the application is different.

Mostly negative. The scene is just for fun, by definition, people who make money and mallvarschiki in particular do not like it. But the idea of ​​blocking a computer with a message like "you caught a virus while watching gay porn" is brilliant :)

Whether the sites were used for team interaction (ex. Ctfery use rizzom or mopad, but there are no guarantees of anonymity).

For the first time I see these words. IRC was enough.

What do you think about the future of MESH networks and, in particular, about cjdns?

They have prospects.

Did your hobby help in finding a profession, or did your hobby remain, and do you work (for example) as a chemistry teacher?

I work as a lead programmer, I participate in the development of AAA games. Hobby, of course, helped.

Do you know what crackers familiar from those times are doing now? After all, many settled in Virlab ...

I lost almost all connections, so I can not say anything. By the way, I knew a lot of crackers, whose work was in no way connected even with computers, not like programming :)

Are there any other hobbies like fishing / hunting?

There is.

What is your computer at the moment (Laptop / PC, OS, software, services)?

Dell Inspiron 17, Windows 8 / Ubuntu Linux 13.04, I use the services of Google, Mindjet, Evernote, Dropbox, Feedly.

Why left the stage?

It’s hard to say ... on the one hand, the time has decreased, more time was spent on real life, and in the virtual world I achieved everything I dreamed of. The feeling of the race has passed, and somehow the interest began to fall. On the channel in efnet there were only old men talking about how it was good before. Sooner or later everyone leaves.