What's happening with The Scene?

[toyo]

A few facts:

- many games are first released by P2P groups now. When the Scene come (usually late) with their release, sometimes it's broke and needs a proper, and sometimes is a shameless partial rip of the P2P release.

- many applications are now P2P only. The only fixes you will ever find are on forums. It seems the Scene has almost totally give up in this domain. A small example: Ableton Live used to be periodically fixed by AiR. Now, it is version 8.2.5, and the latest AiR release is 8.2.1. There is a P2P version of 8.2.2 out there, though...

- music Scene releases are almost useless. Elite music trackers have better quality releases of almost everything.

- there seems to be still some life in the movie Scene.

I am very curious about your opinions on this. Please vote

Before voting, make sure you know what the Scene is. There seems to be some consensus that it has gotten a little lazy. How about a few thoughts on the possible reasons for this?

[RileyReefer]

Before voting, make sure you know what the Scene is. There seems to be some consensus that it has gotten a little lazy. How about a few thoughts on the possible reasons for this?

(-1)

[HX1]

You know time itself, along with the needed resources ... matched with the changes which have taken place are a consideration when it comes to observing thing of this nature.. People are having to take crappy jobs with little pay and have to work longer hour just to cover the basics.. forget getting anywhere these days... That was a dream lost long ago.. Now we are simply enslaved to try to pay the bills and forced to use the only available methods to do so..

Some say what does that have to do with anything.. but try to work a 16 hour day and come home to Rip/Record, Possibly encode, Upload and post... ( or to even search and download and play war games in the background inside a CMD Prompt or other windows - so to speak.. :P ) or come home and rip apart something to try to make sense of it as your already hours passed your point of mental fatigue...

Some simply cannot stay healthy and behind a computer for as long as it would take to keep such a thing alive for o long.. and change must take place.. some move on.. faces change.. and with many thing can happen...

..Another point, people making mistakes and being ignorant of measures taken; which were not in place.. and becoming vulnerable to threats and malicious letters, hate mail and messages.. angst from haters.. conflict and ungrateful people..threats of lawsuits and even picking up on areas where systems are being port scanned or probed rather its anti-sec or the government.. It will still remain.. however sites and several places which have hosted these things n the past have long since either decided to conform or perish.. Many of these were sources for these types of releases.. Other avenues will always come and go as they should anyway for various reasons but the way everyone does everything has changed.. including those users who do not know or even doubt the sources and do not know how some circumvention has occurred.. They begin to psychologically target their own guilt or actions which would be lent to any and all media, sites and so forth.. even some quite weathered users ask themselves really from time to time.. and some always state that in fact .. truly the only way to go is to cut it all out.. Many can't see taking the chance as well .. especially when the true scales of justice and actual damages are so extremely dis-proportionate to the crime.. especially when technically people are going to share with one another until the end of time... Harder to concur than Hitler himself.. I mean look at the resistance corporations have been met with, when the try to monopolize and commercialize a humanist effect which speaks to our true nature.. and what we really are meant to do.. in the name of some machine that is supposed to make the world go 'round yet is really done nothing but constipate the whole thing..

Now.. quality issues.. I attribute a lot of this being that we have been flooded my these little device called iPods.. and such..many if not all of the generation which own them.. Use earbuds and low quality hardware on which it almost would not matter anyway.. and in fact is the majority of the places these things are placed anyway.. and teens and young adults, while able to afford these small toys, do not have real systems.. AND have been taught and shown for years how to encode for an MP3 Device.. according to its requirements, and to maximize space... Rarely do we see an example of this done properly even for YouTube video.. That and supposedly we are to pay for better quality.. a drive to cause us to OOOze money in which we do not have to invest into a system which will never invest in us.. People still must live their live before it has passed by.. as well..

We also have the bandwidth requirements and time to upload these .. this is time consuming for a generation who is being shown and taught how to make ADHD work for your favorite corporation by way of sell out and true belief that it makes a difference in the world.. The focus necessary to actually accomplish these tasks does not exist.. when you are not being distracted by an ad that your convinced should have air time in your life.. your texting or taking calls.. with each sentence being misdirected from your work or point of focus in which you were originally.. so much so in fact that it is problematic to even get a direct answer targeted at the question you asked.. instead you get a response that is dissociated with the subject matter and relative to nothing of which it is pointed at.. NOW I am not necessarily targeting those new t the scene as I have seen many make this move, thinking its the NEW direction and yet within themselves become tainted by the disease.. as somewhere in the world some short little man rolls in his piles of dough..

We also have issues as far as even simple circumvention is concerned.. WHERE have they all gone the names of the days of old? Are they working for the government.. Have they moved on in their lives after seeing how much the give and what little in return comes from it.. even the fact of what people will enforce by law for doing good deeds.. For being honest and forthright and for being of good merit? What has really happened? ..at the mercy of crazed and ruthless animal .. convinced it is superior in every way... so much so to violently reach its goal..

Personally in my years, as I have typed before.. I have searched and installed and went through many different programs and applications, tweaks and changes.. Even to cover all of the bases these days there really is no need to post a thousand and one releases of different programs who do the same thing, or even to post up program which are new generic and of lower stature.. Instead there literally is a handful of programs and OS versions which stand above the rest... to accomplish all of these tasks.. The success of those companies speaks for itself even amongst the times in which are living now... Resources and works which are worth the risk and time in many cases are the only things we find and see out there.. :rolleyes: EDIT..: SHOULD... should.. Those days are over though and we know more.. than what it was in it's infancy.. :frusty:

We do more and better, the scene itself has evolved as well as the industry and those involved with writing these programs.. the better they become the less we need of others.. in many cases we don't need all that we did at other OSes and times..

We have..

SubCultural Changes

Economic Changes

Governemnt Changes

Legal Changes

Usage Changes

USER Changes...

Bottomline we have change.. The thing I have noticed several times over is the death of many programs which help us stay secure, the death of the development of several advanced tools,.. to give way for a much too simple approach which is geared at changing th computer out for nothing more than a machine to log data to use for studies to market back and well use it as a retail device.. Money and time speak to two of these things.. The money is there.. and so will be the devs as well.. the time invested is much so where do we fund and continue to resource the more advanced needs or the - What we used to call 'Underground', but truthfully its the knowledgeable.. The developed.. The MORE.. or real of it.. Where are those guys? I will give you three guesses why its called abandonware...

The direction of investment of money, the disgusting thing which seems to shape it all for one purpose.. is literally ( and I know there are dramatized examples of this ) but literally going to eventually monopolize/specialize the computer industry and make us ignorant .... Truthfully an informed user would not go for 80% of the things that are being tried as initiatives.. instead today.. with all of the hooked in devices... and all of the users..we have 90% of them even unaware of what these things even ARE.. This coming from people who view these devices as personal as well as those of US who know that it is.. These people get online to socialize and feel like they are maintaining relationship and interaction as well as facilitating real world situations.. It effects the decisions making process...

People are not worried anymore if they can really encode correctly or make their own music, digitally create art, write a program, run code, or create a website from scratch.. along with this we see devs change to survive.. Everyone has a .com.. LOL and a piece of software trying to live the dream.. which we all want..

We have witnessed a flood in last years.. a deluge of this sort of thing..Making it an announced issue and an easy target...

We have seen changes in all areas because of the interest itself... 15 years ago... not so much... in fact then it was about trying to make these things t where if we could get them created and working.. and installable in machines everywhere.. Then we could free the limitations of thousands of dollars of investments and bypass these corporations which demanded so much to deliver a service.. or create a product or tool... now that we are so there.. Leeching from every direction and angle in the real world to try to support the myriads of people who have become involved and the in-balance which it has created... is killing all of us.. Once we needed doctors.. intelligent people in demand.. now they are living n the streets not knowing what to do.. Other than to finance their life and add to the problem in development...

Just my momentary ramblings.. :troll: :dunno:

..sure I will have something more later.. :P .. it can be the long and twisted of it .. as well as those who have their own standards i which they say no more.. though technically it may not ever really matter until more issues are addressed which we so fervently avoid and even facilitate..

LOL.. there is always too much to talk about.. :P I always wind up explaining the universe.. :lmao: :frusty:

[toyo]

Heath, you're crazy :lol: In a good, sane way, I guess.

After all this almost unrelated typing, you didn't even vote!

Now... let's keep it about the Scene. I'd be happy to read documented opinions on this, or at least your sincere thoughts on the issue. It's a little surprising to me that on such a forum like ours nobody has a thing to say.

Thanks for voting though, keep it coming!

[shajt]

The way I see it is that there's no real interest anymore in cracking apps, games etc.

And the protection 'getting harder' is not the reason, anything can be reversible. It's just a matter of time.

And that's the problem, the time ...

Life is getting harder and harder, everything is going to hell it seems ...

Cracking apps/games or whatever, doesn't bring food to the table.

Movies, TV shows etc. is completely different and that 'scene' will never die , it's automated and no work is needed.

[toyo]

I mostly agree. It used to be competition that motivated the movement. The Scene should theoretically be constantly refreshed with young bloods, kiddiez that live on their parents house and have nothing to lose, only to learn. The old timers would slowly switch to "mentor" roles, teaching and counselling the new additions to the group. Somehow, this doesn't seem to happen, maybe the Scene is to exclusive to accept new guys, and they end up on P2P. Not that is necessarily a bad thing... but sadly, most P2P releases lack the stricter quality control enforced in the Scene...

But I also think it's getting harder (or just infeasible) to crack some apps. I'm obviously looking at x64 drivers and the new cloud apps. The Scene doesn't have the motivation to play hide&seek with Kaspersky (or find a quasi-permanent solution that would be enough for at least the next hotfix/version hits the webs), or to find a revolutionary way to deal with Sandboxie, to name a few examples. They're just out of the equation now.

And the games... just look at the Deus Ex thing. SHITROW? ALI123? What the heck are these? The Scene is nowhere to be found. Razor, Reloaded, FLT - absent. Not even the omni-present SKIDROW found it worthy to try their hand. Yes, a Scene release might come out at some time, but...

I lived through C64, Amiga and early PC Scene incarnations. This situation NEVER happened in all these years... not once.

[shajt]

I really don't know what's happening with some groups, but I can notice their absent.

I was talking from my perspective, and I'm alone in this 'biz' , cpl of guys working with me on the same app would make things much easier. But that's not the case.

It's very very hard to work alone on something complex, where several areas needs to be covered, that is just huge amount of time that is wasted for nothing.

But I'm guessing that 'no more time for this' is the same reason for those groups as well.

There really is no motivation at all for fixing things anymore.

Another problem is that .. yeah .. you can get a few 'Thanks' for your work, but sometimes you don't even get that, what you get most of the time is just the opposite, 'Dude..this shit isn't working, wtf ??', 'beware, this is a virus..' and similar ...

It can piss you off easily.

But like I said, protection techniques, always connected to the cloud thingy, etc. , is not a problem, really.

I mean... fixing Prevx is the proof of that , app is constantly checking with the server , yeah it was pretty hard to fix it, but I had the motivation ...

Sandboxie and x64 ... I mean ... fixing Sandboxie alone is not that hard, but not easy as well, however, if I need to mess with the way that OS is built and start patching that 'area' in order to solve that problem, I mean ... I can't find a motivation for doing that :)

However, of course that's doable too, all you need is the time and motivation.

Several people here know that I was ready to quit few times , I really don't know what kept me still going, but one thing is for sure, I'm not taking anything new for a long time now, I had the free time one day recently and decided to take a look at one request, I already regretted that :)

I can maintain fixes that are already fixed and that's that, but even that can stop anytime.

It all depends on the mood and the situations that life can bring at that point.

Point that I try to make is this ... reverser invests huge amount of time and hard work to fix something, and all that is for nothing .

There's no point , it used to be fun, education, and satisfaction that you defeated some protection, but it's not like that anymore.

But I'm sure there will always be 'some new kids on the block' who can afford to 'play' with this stuff , and that's why you're going to see more and more P2P fixes in the future....

[toyo]

shajt, you don't need to fix things to be a part of nsane. You can stay here just to enjoy yourself and have fun. We're happy to have you as a member. I'm sure you already noticed I always try to make people understand not to pressure any of the coders as there's nothing to gain, not to mention the lack of manners.

It would be amazing if a team of skilled people could be assembled. I'm sceptical though, because as you mentioned, I fear there is a lack of motivation. I also wish we could be able to set a proper reward for the hard work of the coders...

As for the Scene... it might have become an expired "business" model, just as the recording and copyright industry are now. They never intended their releases to see the P2P networks anyway. Maybe something good will come out from this chaotic P2P release model sometime in the future.

I'm happy to know that modern protection measures are still vulnerable. In the end, if the motivation will exist, things will start to happen again. Let's hope for that.

[HX1]

...After all this almost unrelated typing, you didn't even vote!

Well sorry to not vote.. but though it seems almost unrelated.. My thoughts actually state that it is not really just a yes and no answer.. so I feel options do not exist in the poll, as one answer or the other is not entirely correct .. or would represent something other than my proper thoughts on ..

Are they lazy...? Some very well could be.. but I firmly know for a fact it is not the case for all... AND you have huge legal issues with forces and task forces created specifically for it now.. Stating that other things instead of laziness are present..

Being replaced by P2P? I felt this would have been better asked about 3-4 years ago.. from a certain angle.. or as a shear point of volume..but really I don't even see how the two can be compared technically.. unless you are an outside user.. and its from a perspective of that.. :think: I think...

Protection too efficient? No.. not worth it... not it...Yet his is assuming these individuals are sitting behind their systems still looking for something to do.. Like 'Johhny-on-the-Spot'..

But, I guess I went with what I feel is really being asked by the questions... I dunno...

[jalaffa]

Most of the fixes listed on the proxy are from groups&individuals not associated with the scene. I'm a bit confused with the P2P tag. I'm more costumed using the web tag for software fixes. (Like FFF is proud being a WEB Group and not some elitist scene one.)

[shought]

I think the model of 'The Scene' has become obsolete because it was once thought to be necessary to hide behind a wall of anonymity and a strict procedure for accepting new 'members', but this is no longer the case.

You should also take into account the changing social norms in the world, whereas it was normal for elitist groups to exist a few decades ago in the current social climate most people feel equal to each other and hierarchy is more frowned upon than ever. People are not as likely to contact a release group with an 'open application' since they would have to start at the bottom, where at the same time they can also post it on a message board and get praised immediately.

Once the software companies, much like the movie industry, combines their forces in an effort to defeat warez sites likes ours, maybe something much like 'The Scene' will start again; an underground group of die-hard coders who are motivated by the on-going battle between the large (software) industry and 'the little guy'.

[ben01]

Please note that skidrow scene group mainly steals (yes) its cracks from P2P. Especialy on a russian "P2P" board. There are proofs and facts about that. Skidrow is popular among leechers but is hated among sceners.

Groups like RZR or FLT are extremely talented, they should not be compared to Skid... I don't think that they are lazy nor quiet. They just have HIGH standards and they don't release crappy cracks. They are elitist, they don't care about playing quickly the game, they want to do a masterpiece crack.

[DKT27]

Wasn't Skidrow the one that cracked the always online Ubisoft DRM? Not saying no to it, but hard to believe they rips things. Shouldn't they be banned/nuked by now?

[toyo]

I don't like speculating but I've heard many rumours about bad SKIDROW releases. I'm not one to judge such things - I've played many of their releases and they were functional. I'd gladly take a SKIDROW release vs a P2P one.

However, take a look at this RELOADED scene notice:

Proper notes:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  The SKIDROW release uses a loader, which is not allowed by any scene rule,
  an issue that was already covered in an earlier nfo.

  SKIDROW, pressured by this, decided to argue by spreading irrelevant,
  speculative, and unfactual information about our work. We didn't know whether
  to laugh or to cry at this latest round of misinformation. One thing that
  makes us smile, is that the more they try to explain, the more they reveal
  themselves to understand little or nothing about Securom, or indeed any of
  the other copy protections mentioned. It also reveals that while they have
  permission to use an old group name, and are using the word 'scene' a lot,
  they are quite new to it, and understand little of what it is about.

  For those who have not read the propaganda, here is a short summary of the
  main points. According to SKIDROW:
  - RELOADED cracks are bad, because SKIDROW does not understand how they work.
  - SKIDROW cracks are good, because they do not know how to do it any better.
  - End users, who are not contributing anything to the scene, do not
    understand any of this anyhow, and do not care if they use good cracks or
    bad ones.
  - Conclusion: we're allowed to do whatever the hell we want, including bad
    cracks.

  To SKIDROW:

  As you say we are not living in the year 2000 anymore. But there are at least 
  three groups who are able to crack Securom in a proper way. Just because it
  is too hard for you does not make it acceptable to ignore rules, and start
  using loaders for this protection.

  We are not really sure why you would go off-topic and bring in examples of
  all other copy protections in your nfo. Well actually, we do: you're hoping
  that people will get distracted and buy it. But it does leave you with a
  bunch of claims that you are not able to prove technically.
  Especially when you start talking about copy protections such as Solidshield,
  for which you have never demonstrated any ability to crack. The issue that 
  we were talking about is Securom. Basically everything you say in your nfo
  is a complete fabrication, it is without proof, and although we should not
  have to defend ourselves against mud slingers such as yourselves, we will
  address some of the lies below.

  First of all we will say something about our Solidshield cracks, because it is 
  obvious that you do not understand how Solidshield works at all. If you had
  ever cracked any Solidshield game instead of using unprotected exes, you
  would know that dvm.dll contains tables with VMed functions for all protected
  modules.
  That is also why these DVM files are so big (~100MB). In our cracked 
  releases, the replacement dll is ~100KB. Perhaps you think we stumbled upon
  some fantasy land, overflowing with unprotected russian files, rode a
  unicorn, did some magic, and packed encrypted VM tables from 100MB to 100KB.
  If you would debug it you would see that our dll only decrypts modules in
  the same way as Solidshield does and it redirects stolen functions to
  completely rebuild functions, but you appear incapable of even doing that on
  your own.
  In the cases of Risen and Riddick you claim we did 'activation', but both
  cracks are complete rebuilds. In fact Risen does not even have activation,
  but a TAGES DVD-Check. There is not even any activation method present, so
  how could we activate something without activation? Magic & unicorns again?
  We'll chalk up this lie to a mistake, as it is also besides the point if we
  did activation keygens for SS1 and SS2.
  Keygens were always allowed and are often times the best solution, as they
  break the copy protection on its own premise, by actually activating the
  product. Many times they even work for updates, which is great, unless your
  main concern with updates is to patch every one for points. But if you are
  seriously arguing against activation keygens, you are also arguing against
  regular keygens, and indeed serials. So, better get patching, eh?

  About our steam emu. We are not sure what exactly the emu of cs.rin.ru does,
  but we do understand that you have spent a fair amount of time perusing that
  particular forum community, and to put it mildly, learning from their
  experiences. The claim sure does seem like a big case of "takes one to know
  one", but last time we checked TASM could not compile C++ files.

  Now we can finally go back to the real issue, Securom. You make a lot of 
  bold statements and strange comments in your nfo:
  1) Our method is "cheesy"? Come on. We seriously doubt that you even
  understand our cracks, but since we are cool guys, we will provide a brief
  description of how we make them, so that perhaps you may at last understand.
  We:
  - remove all pieces of x86 code that makes the game dependent on Securom
    section(s)
  - remove all references to relocated code that exists in isolated memory
    blocks
  - decompile (look up the word in a computer science dictionary) all VM
    programs and rebuild the original x86 code
  2) You speak of 'vm triggers'. What is a VM trigger? Could it be a simple VM
    call? Could it be that you are calling the SMS module a VM trigger?
   Either way, in our cracks we rebuild all VM functions, including a few custom 
   functions that only appear in certain games. 
   SMS, DFE and DFA systems are obviously emulated because the games heavily
   rely on it. Unless you completely rewrite parts of the game code there is
   no way to remove it. If you have problems understanding this concept, just
   think of your steam cracks that are still filled with original code
   (integrity checks, system checks, etc).
   How can you possibly say we emulate the exact same way as you do? Only
   people who have no clue about Securom would make such ludicrous claims.

  In conclusion, SKIDROW has proven that they do no care about the scene or 
  its rules. To them, the scene is not about sharing with people who
  contribute, but about becoming the darling of leechers by breaking rules and
  slandering the competition. As a means to an end, it is apparently their
  strategy to provide no evidence for claims that are at best misleading, but
  most of the time just direct and factual lies.

  To everybody else: Have a happy new year !

[DKT27]

Thanks for the info. SKiDROW does seem to use some sort of loader IMO. I'm leaning towards believing what is mentioned above, have used enough Skidrow releases to be able to say that.

But then again, I've faced lots and lots of problems when I used RELOADED releases. I have a bad memory but I think, once I had even decided to never use RELOADED fixes again.

Of course, as an end user, I'll prefer the one that releases first and works properly.

[toyo]

End users, who are not contributing anything to the scene, do not understand any of this anyhow, and do not care if they use good cracks or bad ones.

Yes, they found us :P

[ben01]

Wasn't Skidrow the one that cracked the always online Ubisoft DRM? Not saying no to it, but hard to believe they rips things. Shouldn't they be banned/nuked by now?

THIS crack is stolen. It was P2P cracked. Newer UBI games are also stolen. (shaun white and so on...) They released them just few days after the original crack was published on a well known board.

[tiliarou]

Skidrow's cracks are most of the time P2P repacks (stolen code). Reloaded is indeed a good cracking group, as were Razor 1911, FLT... Skidrow is only good for providing updates.

[sw33t]

There are so many pay to leech ftps today its a joke,look at some profiles on TL or BS and they will have"axx to topsites,just pm" but its mainly just race sites they are selling or it has a bunch of no name affils nobody would want except on your skiplist...

Plus you have torrent sites paying big money for axx to the better rings and racing releases and uploading them within seconds after pre.

As long as there is money involved the scene will still be there,its all about the $$$.

Is your favorite torrent site running a topsite or at least paying for axx? probably (hopefully they are not thieving)

Do they have groups capping tv/encoders doing porn/movies/cracking apps/ripping music? probably