SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection • Hacker News Board

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#11

Post by gxd » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 11:50 AM UTC

no_time wrote: post #3

I hope one day someone will make a movie about the warez scene. The only piece of media we have as far as I'm aware is The Scene (2004–2006) which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone with a love for moving bytes around illegally.

Not a movie per se, but one of the protagonists in my game is a veteran from the warez scene. He mentions BlueBeep, BBSs and Demoscene in the game :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3040110/Outsider/

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#12

Post by self_awareness » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 11:52 AM UTC

luke_skyywalker wrote: post #7

hihi, detailed list, of stuff i did, from 1992 to 1998 awesome, loveit. found my name in 79 pages of nfo files

i remember some guy luke_skyw, or similar. Did you write any tutorials back then?

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#13

Post by gtsnexp » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 12:18 PM UTC

Those really were the good old days. My BBS ran out of my parents’ attic, with two phone lines and Renegade on the server (on a beefed-up PS/1). It was pure magic.

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#14

Post by dovik » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 12:39 PM UTC

no_time wrote: post #3

I hope one day someone will make a movie about the warez scene. The only piece of media we have as far as I'm aware is The Scene (2004–2006) which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone with a love for moving bytes around illegally.

Not about warez but demoscene, the french movie "DEMO" is currently in pre-production. Demoscene from Atari ST and Amiga.

https://fr.ulule.com/demo-par-alex-pilot/

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#15

Post by xtiansimon » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 12:56 PM UTC

belZaah wrote: post #5

University of Tartu sysadmins used to point warez.ut.ee to 127.0.0.1 back in 1993 just to confuse warez-interested but ill-educated youth like myself.

That university of Tartu, https://ut.ee/en ? Which comes to mind because of the Department of Semiotics, founded by Juri Lotman.

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#16

Post by tdullien » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

The old warez cracking scene had an outsize impact on computer security. GRSecurity, Heartbleed vulnerability, most reverse engineering tools for security, etc. etc. etc.

There's so much history here, touching on all sorts of insanity including selling 0-day to the US government that was then used to apprehend high-level Al-Qaida personnel, random warez busts leading to people taking oversea jobs, etc. etc. etc.

If anyone still has old .NFO archives from 1990-2000, I'd be very interested in getting as many as possible.

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#17

Post by JasonADrury » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

no_time wrote: post #3

I hope one day someone will make a movie about the warez scene. The only piece of media we have as far as I'm aware is The Scene (2004–2006) which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone with a love for moving bytes around illegally.

Also not the warez scene, but the Swedish public broadcaster made a series about the pirate bay recently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay_(TV_series)

It's watchable, but not great. It unfortunately doesn't cover many of the most interesting details, such as what happened with TPB after the operators were arrested.

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#18

Post by phrotoma » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

JasonADrury wrote: post #17

no_time wrote: post #3

I hope one day someone will make a movie about the warez scene. The only piece of media we have as far as I'm aware is The Scene (2004–2006) which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone with a love for moving bytes around illegally.

Also not the warez scene, but the Swedish public broadcaster made a series about the pirate bay recently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay_(TV_series) It's watchable, but not great. It unfortunately doesn't cover many of the most interesting details, such as what happened with TPB after the operators were arrested.

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#19

Post by thijson » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 2:23 PM UTC

I remember various people from that time pronouncing warez in two distinct ways.

wares ware-ez

I'm not sure which is the correct way.

Re: SCiZE's Classic Warez Collection

#20

Post by jsonc » Tue, Jan 06, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

man, those were the days! I was a coder for an amiga crew in australia, we had a heap of bbs's going and we'd phreak calls to scene BBS's in europe, usa & eastern aus. Amazing what mischief we'd get up to with a usrobotics hst modem ha :D