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And the response is Twin & Wacky.
Twin = Twinblitz, ex-Abuse, ex-Agile. Wacky = Willy of BomberMan & Willy.Twin arranged the address as per request of Maximilian, before they were in bad terms – for some reason i know which doesn’t need to be developed here. That’s why the address didn’t follow us when we founded Interpol. Also the biggest case in France was for phreaking (bluebox) and it all started in September 1991. Twin was below the radar at this time, as was Max who arised at the beginning of 1992.@Bilbs: right, that’s it.
@Annatar: [quote: “I have studied this for many years. In the United States, the problem is in large part genetic. IQ is in large part inherited from parents…”]
This has to be one of the filthiest and wrongest arguments I’ve ever read, unfortunately not for the first time. There are so many reasons to disqualify this claim that I will only pick just a few. Also any proof of brains being arranged whatever you think they are does just point to your lack of scientific references. It seems you like to generalize even to people of your own country i.e. “most of the population is about as intelligent as a door nail“. I’ve been quite a few times to the U.S. – East Coast and West Coast, and at some periods I worked on a daily basis with American people. Besides the fact that you’re eating peanut butter and we prefer hazelnut butter mixed with chocolate, I don’t see many differences between us as human beings. We all have a certain small percentage of dull, completely stupid people, a majority of average people, and just a few geniuses. That’s everywhere the same. That said, educating systems are a good way to enhance brain logic and capacities to solve more difficult issues i.e. “science”, “research”, “engineering”…Here is a fact that some Educating systems are more Government-sponsored while others are privately-sponsored. I mean there that some systems do allow for more equal opportunities to access a better education. If the good schools are too expensive because their full revenues come from students and their parents, there will be no empowerment. Children of poor people will probably remain poor. Where’s genetic in this reasoning? Nowhere. Government policies do influence social conditions, and the laws of economics govern our lives.
Secondly, while evocating scientists, it reminds me that all the serious ones (not those with personal lucrative or political ambitions) say that we (any human being) are made up of 100% innate and 100% acquired characteristics. Apologies for simplifying a little bit the process, as it is longer and less obvious as it seems if you want to get a clearer and more complete picture. Please don’t refrain to do your Google work. So, these scientists are serious to say that there’s no objective criteria to state that our intelligence is inherited from our parents’ genetic capital. The fact that our parents do have books, computers, that they care for our education and are available to answer our questions, that they have received a good education by themselves, that other people around us also positively challenge our brains, etc. are far more objective criteria when it comes to enhancing our capacities.
Plus, limiting intelligence to one and only one thing is pointless. According to several representation models there are 16 basic types of intelligence. More complicated representation systems give up to 65536 possible combinations. To this, add the fact that we change over life, and are subject to both internal and external/environmental stimulations.
Lastly, any such reasoning that would be based solely on genetics would not only be wrong, but would doom us for the future. Why competing if everything is decided in advance? Why bothering to do any efforts? Let’s just wait for our death and hope for reincarnation in someone or something with better genetics. Laughs. Coughs. Let’s get some sleep now!
Annatar:
You just make things appear too simple about Germany. U.S.A reputedly have the best universities in the world (Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., Berkeley…). If you have a country of over 310 million people, statistics say your chances of having more smart & talented people are going to be higher (and it’s probably true in this case). Of course, Commodore and Atari were American companies. So there seems to be a “bug” in your reasoning.
First let’s not going to expand too far on this population criteria. Norway has a population of 5 Million individuals, while Italy has a population of roughly 60 Million. Now let’s count the number and quality of demos released in these two countries. Mmmh… no, it doesn’t match.
So let’s list a few other well known criteria.
a/ Equipment in previous generation (8-bits) computers. A very active C64 scene gave birth to the Amiga scene. There was competition, incentive, motivation. C64 had the best music on top of any other good features. Enough to be attractive for many teens during the 80’s, and a prime reason for creating your own “tribes”.
b/ No other 8-bits computers gave rise to a similar scene phenomena. Before the Amiga I’ve been active on the CPC platform since 1984 (coder, cracker, supplier, swapper). There were clubs, no real groups during the first years of CPC. Clubs also were like permanent copy-parties. Only stand-alone people spreading their own releases with their handles. No intros, no demos, no groups. Also we were programming tools, small games, and of course removing protections before swapping with others. The first CPC groups came very late and mainly got inspiration from the C64. I wasn’t here anymore. The Amiga got me before that.
c/ Sales figures: C64 was the leading 8-bits platform in Northern Europe. Speccy was number one in the UK (with a lot of C64s too). CPC topped the sales in France and in a number of Southern Europe countries. Read this and compare with the Amiga scene at its beginnings. No comment!
Oh, why these sales figures? Of course, this is due to sales and marketing policies of computer manufacturers, and nothing else. There’s no country with intelligent or stupid consumers. Just the shops nearby, what you can find in these shops, i.e. computers, software, hardware extensions, and prices at which they were sold. Again, just logic.
d/ Equipment in modems in the mid-80’s to early 90’s. The funny thing here is Minitel. Millions had modems in France (including me/my parents), with models ranging from 1200 to 9600 bps (yeah, it was possible with the Minitel 2!). Two drawbacks: the network was only nation-wide, and if you had a Minitel, why bother getting a standard modem? If you ask early American sysops if they had a lot of French people on their BBS’s, the response would be of course “no, just a few”. The C64 sceners in Germany, UK, Benelux, Scandinavia who had modems and connected to US BBS’s were called real elite, they were kings with their 300 to 1200 bps modems while lamers were begging for stuff. At the same time millions had faster modems in France, but these were useless to reach the US boards. So came the Amiga, along with a different marketing policy, and with the Amiga the challenge of making groups and competing internationally. More USR HST were imported to France, and the country rapidly caught up its delay.
e/ Why more demo groups or more crack groups in certain countries as compared to others?
Let’s start with demos. For long Scandinavia made the best demos and their sceners were the most prolific in doing so. Why? Mainly because of seasons, and daytime. In winter when it’s dark and cold outside you come home and you code your next demo. You meet with your friends inside, not outside. Are you doing the same in Italy or Spain? No. Not because you’re uneducated, but because you often think you have better to do thanks to the better climate. Oh, and are Scandinavians good at football? Well… And are Italian and Spanish people better at football? Seems like…
Now crack groups. Here it’s just about where the games were going out first. We did say there was competition between groups to be the more elite ones. If you did not have the originals in time, forget it. Of course later when fast modems were widespread, you could lead a group from whatever country on the earth. Elite also did not have the same meaning. In the early years of Amiga, the first elite groups had their core members in one country – even preferably in one main city – because of the proximity between the original supplier and the cracker, this when both were not the same person. A spreader/trader nearby would also be handy. International people were here mainly for swapping and spreading the word and stuff. So, your best bet to become an elite group was one of three countries where the most games were released: UK, Germany and France.
And of course, not because some nationalities are smarter than others. Racism and chauvinism truly have no rational basis.
Added 17 minutes later:
Also let’s add this, if you allow me:
f/ Music in the 80’s, and musical preferences. I mean, different tastes on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe new wave introduced electronic music to a wide audience. This was supplemented with ebm, industrial, and continued with techno music. These genres were marrying very well with computers. The group/band/tribe effect worked to its full potential. On the Western side of the ocean, music charts had more rock, blues, soul, with vocals, all things more difficult to reproduce on a computer. Hence, less motivation and incentive to make computer musics and demos.
g/ If you take US Robotics and similar manufacturers as the norm, modems were mostly “made in USA”. Also one should not forget that in many places in the U.S., distances are greater than in Europe. Los Angeles alone is 100 km long – and that’s a populated place! A lot of people live more remotely from downtown centers. Not only modems, but also radio communications, are more common than on the old continent. Thus, less demos of course, but also a lot more BBS’s and people using modems.
According to Tolkien mythology, “Annatar (Q, pron. [ˈanːatar], stem Annatár-) was a fair form used by Sauron to deceive Celebrimbor and the Elves of Eregion.” I was just wondering why you picked up this handle. Maybe just by coincidence…
BrainWalker: I loved your intros. We want all of them on Kestra/Bitworld/Janeway. Please contact me if you still have your Amiga disks 🙂
Annatar: you will get Foxy upset in saying such bad things about The Company 😉 But it seems he’s not around anymore. Anyway Foxy if you’re around just send me a pvt message, I would like to have some news from you.Anyway, that split between Skid Row and The Company, This is both true and simplification. True to some extent, after some time. Simplification because it’s a much more complicated story, involving many people with their own ambitions, and a wider reorganization of this part of the scene involving the birth of Angels, the nearly simultaneous collapses of Paranoimia and Vision Factory, etc.
Paranoimia died first in June 1990. At this time it was split between Angels (not The Company) and Skid Row. Again to simplify this a little bit, Angels was born mostly from the French-Belgian part of Paranoimia with a terrible leader (The White Tiger/TGS), and Duncan/ex-The Band in the role of the fancy puppetmaster. At least The Band was something. TGS was nothing before joining PNA. For The White Tiger I’ve never seen such other bad leader on the scene. Furtunately I left Paranoimia at this point and joined Avenger for a short time (Daniel was a very decent leader). I would have enjoyed pursuing this collaboration as there was a good atmosphere in this group, but I had to take a break of several months to manage personal things. And let’s get back to the main subject line.So Skid Row was mostly born from the German side of Paranoimia, minus Jürgen who made a tentative appearance in Vision Factory along with those who finally created Angels. For SR this meant basically FFC, ex-members of WoW who were later in Paranoimia such as Metallica and Eurosoft, Vision Factory suppliers (hi Subzero!) and other well-known efficient guys, also in the U.S, Then Skid Row became more or less a straight story, so let’s put it aside.
Angels was engineered on its side to be merged with the most active members of Dragons, a French group – let’s call it the frog who believed it was as big as the beef. In the end we have to recognize that the merger was a success, and that ex-members of Dragons clearly outperformed against all expectations. Of course they had to conclude associations with Genesis and Defjam, because they couldn’t reach out the same level as Paradox and Skid Row.
As no sane people could have worked for a long time with such a lamer as The White Tiger, ex-members of Dragons (say, Mr Video, Corsair, Foxy) left for Classic to meet another infamous guy (Zelnik) and work with their skillful cracker Ringo Star, then they joined Skid Row where they had bigger sharks around them. They ended creating Sprint, then The Company. This coincided with Jürgen’s reappearance at the head of a reborn Paranoimia zombi towards the end of 1990, The Company was born in January 1991, roughly six months after Skid Row, The Company was more a mix of several people including ex-Classic, ex-Angels, ex-Horizon, ex-Vision Factory members – only a few of whom were in Paranoimia. The split buzz takes into account the somewhat presence of Jürgen in the equation.
So basically Paranoimia split into Skid Row and Angels. Only later came The Company.
Annatar:
1. Killerette and Phonestud and all the other ones involved in this particular case (except for the German Kimble you know who) were U.S.-based. Most of them were sysops.
Edit: funny handle you have here. I bet you already know this and the rest also …
2. Using the bluebox in France got us all busted in 1991. No-one here ever got busted for using calling cards (at least during all the time when I was active). Do you know why? AT&T, MCI, Sprint… all of these were American phone companies, with no subsidiaries in Europe. Who was going to launch a complaint? They had to lure Max into coming on the U.S. soil for him to get busted, that’s the real story. Otherwise he would have never been jailed in Europe for that. France wasn’t safe for him because of Nintendo, that’s all, Spain was just safe for everything. Bluebox? A lot more dangerous as it equated to steal local (national) phone providers. I bet you were in a country where they didn’t care at all, or at least they didn’t while you were using this.
Edit: when you placed a call through a carrier switchboard located in the U.S. you were on U.S. territory submitted to U.S. laws. When you emitted control frequencies in order to takeover a switch to get an outgoing line while calling a toll-free number, the equipment was generally (besides a few exceptions such as MCI bluebox) located in your own country. If you don’t get the point, ask a lawyer.
3. Today. Well today is another story. Free unlimited calls to 40+ countries through fixed lines/VoIP have been common offers by phone companies for years. Otherwise use Skype, Google Talk or whatever. Today is another story for software too, so your pro-open source rants are funny reading (the more so as they are now a bit dated with cloud applications, pay-per-use, etc.). And what about the corporate software like ERP, CRM, whatever? Again, funny reading, completely out of the subject.
Edit: the network is the computer was already buzz at the end of the 90’s. Today ubiquitous/pervasive computing is where we stand. We could discuss somewhere about what will come next. Interesting discussions.
Anyway whatever to which extent you may be right or not in your views, having supplied, cracked and spreaded games the way we did it at the special time we did it, did some harm to game software companies and the Amiga platform as a whole. I’m not talking based on doctrinal views towards a more moralized worid, but only based on facts I can heavily detail. Which game companies died? When and why? Thalion, Silmarils, etc. The Amiga? Well of course the main reasons of its collapse were the greedy men behind Commodore: Irvin Gould, Mehdi Ali… but losing game developers to PC and consoles couldn’t have fuelled up the business prospects.
That’s how it happened. Later I’ve had the occasion to discuss with a few game developers who had been fired due to their employer’s (game companies) bankruptcies. Some got nice indemnities, others not. Ok that’s life, we can say that we do not care, or we can endorse responsibilities for our deeds. Also we could have dealt drugs, or trafficked human beings, which would have been far worse. We didn’t do that, so let’s keep it in the right proportions.
They “come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
Hi Wayne, I must totally second that about Anthrox. I came across these Power releases recently and thought “eureka” with Punishers > Power > Anthrox but you are totally right. They started as a demo group in the UK as far back as July 1990 at least, with Mungo, Hydro, Aztech, etc. Like most, I’ve always been considering Anthrox as a trainer group, and that’s why I came to this quick conclusion, but it looks like I should have double-checked before. When Ice and others joined in December 1991 the group radically changed. I didn’t have so many contacts at Anthrox past my access on Martyrium, and certainly no contacts with them before they did trainers.
Hi Annatar! I may be able to answer some of your questions._OK, how did these cracking groups pay for the hardware?_They paid their Amiga themselves, for the most part I think. Vast question, a lot of people, a lot of possible hardware, a lot of situations…_Where was Quartex headquartered, and how is it that after 1993. it just up and disappeared?_1988 born in Germany (fusion of The Champs-Bitstoppers) with Robin (ex-Dynamic Duo) as cracker, and in the U.S.A. (Waremonger, Bigfoot…). A few members from various countries joined over time.1991 became in majority a French group with members all over Europe, the U.S. and Australia, when Paradox renamed into Quartex. End of 1991 I was busted with a lot of other French members.1993 for me Quartex was in minimal service. 1991 was the last year they were very productive. Years later they were reactivated with some ex-Prodigy members. During all this time Waremonger/Steve (sysop of Link to Perfection) applied his motto about lifetime membership. He and Bigfoot remained loyal from A to Z._What started happening to PaRaDoX after 1993.?_I left Paradox in 1993 but remained friend with Max. He got busted for Nintendo copiers in France at the end of the year, then fled to Majorca/Spain. As far as I know they did less Amiga, more consoles. More business, more money. Me not taking part in anything related to this._Why does Mouscron 1 and Amay show up consistently in a lot of cracks, what was magical about those two locations, and please let us get to know the people behind them – as people. Who were they? Where are they now?_Thanks to Subzero you already have the answer about Amay. For Mouscron 1, there are several PO Boxes… Duncan (The Band, Paranoimia, etc.) was behind at least one of these._Did you know anyone from Skid Row?_Me, among others 😉 But although I appear in 1992 memberlists I was in the outskirts of the group, as supplier. Though, I knew a few other members…_They also resurfaced a year or two ago on the PC, in what seemed like a powerful demonstration that a true cracker will always crack on any platform. Then it seems like to me, that they suddenly disappeared again. Why, and what happened?_Cannot respond to this. Since I have a PC (1995) I never had any pirated software, neither on PC, nor on consoles._I am also fascinated by the fact that most, if not all of the titles by SSI were cracked by Skid Row. What is the connection? How did it work?_Some groups also had suppliers in the U.S. and SR was one of these. I guess also that you can find SSI games cracked by other groups. Looks like a coincidence. I don’t see any conspiracy theory._Which tools did the likes of PaRaDoX, Skid Row, Crystal an PRESTiGE use?_Tools available for everybody. Plus special monitors, helpers, warpers, etc. developed by the crackers themselves, depending on the crackers – some had more and/or better tools than others. Plus phreaking Tools, AmieXpress Tools, etc. some publicly available others not._What kind of hardware did they have?_Their Amigas, harddisks, blablabla 🙂 – oh yeah, USR HST modems of course (or some older stuff in the 80’s)._Prestige:_Cannot say anything. Didn’t have anymore Amiga and it was years after i had left the crack scene. There are late 90’s BBS dumps somewhere on the Web or on some FTP, where you may find a few answers._What happened to Hellion and Corsair?_Hellion: last time we heard about him he was in Diamonds & Rust with Bob Duncan. In 1992 I think.Corsair: stopped everything in 1991, like his brother Mr Video. A nice burnt smell was floating in France, enough to fear some of the toughest. Only Agile remained a little active here at year’s end, then they joined Quartex to not be so active.Plus, I guess, studies are more important to build a life than doing crazy things with pirated software._Who WERE the people behind Betrayal?_Mainly SCSI. Also look for FICA if you want more information. And a bunch of dudes like Xag, Caddie of Defjam, also English and Italian people.I think one of the reasons why people ask about Betrayal is that SCSI lived in various countries (first Italy, then Germany, NY/USA, Germany again, Switzerland…), so it made complicated for people to locate him and put a country name as home for this group._What about Anthrox? Were they U.K. based?_Anthrox had U.S. roots (see the group Power from which they were born) and a lot of U.K. members. Power itself was more or less a spin-off of Punishers which was mainly an Australian group also with a lot of U.K. members. You find all three continents well represented in Anthrox, which also opened to more countries in Europe._So many questions, so very few answers…_I don’t have all the answers but I hope this helps you now have less questions._I would really, really love to know how many of these people went into a legitimate career in computers? Where are they now? What are they doing today?_Most of them do have legitimate careers, some in Computers, others not (cf. Strider/ex-leader of FLT in US politics for instance). But I’m not sure they would like you and other people to know. In addition they also have wives, children, and Amiga is far back behind them. Let’s wish them happiness.The count wasn’t for you, but for Foxy aka “Dominator” – sorry I can’t help but laugh about this handle which is kind of a true synonym of impotence, according to Freud followers.
Sure I’ve seen countless intros with Subzero or SSR quoted as supplier(s). That makes a big difference between us, as I probably would have been much more “famous” if I kept the same pseudonym from the very beginning. But you’re from Germany, and at the given time you didn’t face the same legal threats as we did in France.
A good example of this was Push Over supplied by ????? to Crack Inc., a group you founded. So I’ve worked for you as a supplier. What a paradox, hehe!
Apart from this detail, it’s funny that there are quite some similarities between our courses on the scene. I’ve also been founder and organizer (Delight), co-founder (Interpol, Paradox II), 1st-minute member of various other groups, and musician – you haven’t mentionned this point, but it’s worth noting too!
Btw, you may hear from me one day or another.
Best regards,
Thank you for your kind message. I’m going to send you an e-mail.
Belgium: I’ve had some contacts there but not so many. In particular I’ve been a member of Fusion for a short time. Apart from those I’ve already mentioned: Duncan / The Band (Jean-Claude). He was group leader and founder. I’ve met him 2-3 times at parties or at others’ places (can’t figure out exactly, definitely did too many things and met too many people at that time). RAM (ex-The Band) and The Red Baron were the coders of the trainer menu used by Blackbird, but I didn’t know them personally.
Joey Beltram: Funny. I’ve met the real one (the DJ from Brooklyn) twice at rave parties in France, one which I’ve attended with Maximilian, and the other one with Spirit (Quartex). I’ve even made street art with NY DJ Frankie Bones and his brother Adam-X at the second one, held in an abandoned factory in Asnières near Paris.
Organizing a meeting :-)…: although France was one of the worst countries in the world for hackers/crackers (Foxy posted a lot about this, I could bring in more details – I got busted only one week after him!), here we wouldn’t need the equivalent of a Royal Pardon, except for the late sceners who continued after 1995. Thanks to having stopped everything in 1993, I don’t risk anything anymore for what I did in the past. The statutes of limitation were only five years for the category involved, before the new criminal code (Code Pénal) was voted in 1995. Then they became thirty years, which is a lot. But in France we have the Principle of Non-retroactivity of criminal law, which in particular applies to the statutes of limitation if they are prolonged by the new Law. If they had been reduced, the new delay would apply. That’s something which has been legally and formally established by the French Court of Cassation (equivalent of a constitutional court) in two steps at the beginning and middle of the 80’s.
Deature: I didn’t know him. Not as if I were like these Skid Row leaders who didn’t know their members… well… maybe… or maybe I was just as bad as Skid Row! After all I’ve been twice a member of that group. But I have an excuse for Deature, I was probably no more in charge of the whole activities at Delight when he became a member. Once I had decided to put a final period to my borderline activities, I just kept responsibility for the demo activities of the group.
Anyway I will add him in our all-times memberlist which I’m currently editing on our new unexotica wiki page.
Btw, I still live in Paris. Would be pleased to meet you one of the next times you’re here for business.
Hi Danny,
Thank you for your answer that was a nice one though. Also please accept my apologies for having suggested that you could be a Skid Row fanboy in my first post.
In fact I think that our paths may have already crossed, possibly on one of our BBS’s at Delight either The Chaotic Entity or The Lost Dutchman Mine in 1993. I’ve noticed two days ago that Global Overdose was well placed in the intro greetings in front of our release of Stardust playable preview which we did together with Blackbird from his home, including the scrolltext mixing both our lists of regards… so if it wasn’t me (sorry I can’t get a hold of everything I did 20 years ago), maybe you were in touch with Blackbird.
I’m currently in the process of rehabilitating the Delight brand as a scene group; in fact this is what brought me here. It was nice to see some of the Delight intros converted in Flashtros. And the one for Springtime also features one of my chiptunes (“Bingo.mod”). Ironically Skid Row also used a music of mine (“Atomic Failure.mod”) in one of their intros (not a flashtro but can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I28s-D7EGFI), while Paradox never did. Max was kind of worried that musics would take too much room and that replay routine issues would delay crack releases.
Also, I didn’t want to mean that you were a casual trader present only on a few BBS’s (sorry if i’ve left you with that impression). I didn’t know Killerette myself but have been a user on Unlawful Entry long ago. I met Kimble once at the 680xx Convention 1993 party organized by Complex, Sanity and others in Hamburg. As far as I remember I didn’t tell him I had been a member of PDX and SR and I knew Max and whatever. I had just retired from the crack scene and didn’t want to move the discussion there. He tried to sell me some cards and I said no, not interested.
About Lithium I was not involved in PDX “stealing” your BBS. I’ve “stolen” (I prefer to say I’ve convinced sysops, hehe) quite a few ones but not to your group.
Let’s get back a little on the points:
1. I already knew this article plus in my last post I’ve contributed a few others about the other affair involving Max and Intreq. I didn’t say that Paradox was bigger (How many members? Huh?) but that it was making more money. Also about better organized, well I wasn’t mentioning business (I have no idea, was not concerned with these aspects, did not see the account numbers…) but the group’s organization in itself.
Btw regarding money if you re-read all of these articles, you’ll notice a big difference between both affairs.
The MCI affair with Knight Shadow/Kim/Killerette/Phonestud/Major Theft etc. but also Max on a certain extent (I think one of his best contacts in the ring was Speed Master – trying to recollect my memory) had a rather similar number of cards involved, but all of these supplied over a three-years period (1992-1994), which means smaller quantities each time.
In the Cleartel affair involving Andy Gaspard/Max/Intreq the cards were supplied all at once. Yes that makes a big difference. It means bigger money, as the business was supposed to be recurring, and of course it means a lot of end users far beyond the scene. I have a little idea where a part of this business could have been supposed to occur, but as I’m not sure, I prefer to stay quiet on the topic.
At last someone previously asked whether cards were stolen or hacked. I’ve responded that here in these two affairs they were stolen of course. But if Kim or Max said something else to someone else, well, I also have an idea of what they could have been talking about – as far as I know it’s not in official articles. I’m not supposed to know anything so please don’t ask, I’m not going to respond.
2. Yesterday I’ve stumbled upon a page which says that Phil Douglas had been a member of Delight (along with The Fugitive) in August 1993, it was in a crack for Delirium and it seems to be right before he joined this group. This is something I should have known at this time, not only because I knew Phil Douglas but also because I had been founder & leader of Delight, so this kind of things may happen, yes. I guess that Blackbird or one of our German co-organizers probably recruited him but he didn’t stay long enough in the group so that it would matter to inform me when I came back from vacation.
3. One last thing about Skid Row, this time regarding the perimeters which could be defined within potential statistics methodologies (apart from what I said that SR was post-releasing many games).
Over their three-years high (1990-1992) it’s true that they did a lot of releases. But for limited periods of time within this era, Paradox, Quartex, Nemesis and Fairlight were better.
So for an all times high, it’s unfair to compare Skid Row with only, say, Paradox. Instead, one should consider the continuity of competition between core networks of members and their friends & followers, which means that in front of WoW+Paranoimia+Skid Row, the comparison should be made with The Champs/Bitstoppers+Quartex(1)+M.A.D.+Paradox(1)+Quartex(2)+Nemesis+Interpol+Paradox(2). There you get a different picture. Otherwise, if we should keep a name vs. name basis, due to longevity Fairlight would probably be the best, ahead of Skid Row. Of course I’m just considering Amiga, excluding past C64 and later PC releases.
Now I know that this aspect of the methodology has its limits, notably because Skid Row and Paradox sometimes exchanged members, the more so as I’m a living proof of this (PNA+MAD+QTX+NMS+SR+IPL+PDX among others). On the other hand, if someone asks I considered myself a member of the QTX+PDX network, something that won’t be surprising for anyone here. I guess that it’s the same for Max, Blackhawk, Babydock, and others who were also members of SR at once in their lives.
4. Mmmh I do not want to be ultra-picky, but:> Ackerlight: they were mostly based in the East of France (Strasbourg, Metz, etc.) with only one member in Paris, doing just some part of the original supplying.
> BS1: they were based in Belgium and to my knowledge had no French suppliers. They were notably supplied by The Kent Team in the UK. Also were one of the first groups with modems and BBS’s.
> Angels: you could ask Foxy, if he comes back here. As far as I know he made friend with Annakin, a salesperson in a northwestern shop in Paris (not a FNAC) who was also a member of the French Amiga demo group Concept, and he got some of his originals this way (closest to where he lived).
Before Angels, on the side of TGS / Paranoimia & Vision Factory, yes I did the FNAC (had an inside there) and a few others, and on the side of The Band they had a duo (Infernal Duo) based in Paris with a supplier and a cracker. The supplier was Wonderboy who also did the FNAC and sometimes got insides by a well-known ST troll fucked in intros by some groups (cf. the acronym FTDG!). The cracker was Dark Blitter (not Lord Blitter/BS1!) an ex-Alcatraz then lead programmer at Ocean, who coded Pang! for the Amiga after he stopped cracking.
5. “I had slower access to stuff that was uploaded in Europe first…” – at the beginning of the 90’s (1990, 1991) everything was uploaded first in the U.S. except if you were more interested in demos. Indeed like you, nearly all of my accesses were on U.S. 0-day boards.
“I sense you also liked to build up BBS’s from zero’s to hero’s as that was what we liked most at GOD.” – Mmmh that’s not really what I did, but I highly respect what you’ve done.
I was not a modem trader, except for Delight and occasionally for Quartex boards. I had most of my special privilege accesses from being an original supplier. I just came and said ‘hey I need unlimited access to your board because it will help bring more originals to our group’. That’s not modem trading at all.
Then for Delight I did not pick unknown BBS’s to grow them up, but I did “steal” the WHQs of Alpha Flight (The Fiend Club) and of Miracle (Inner City). I did like the aura of mythic oldschool boards which had already been well advertised in the past i.e. later I also got The Lost Dutchman Mine, in the same category. Chaotic Entity it was a two-nodes and the sysop was just cool. For The Fiend Club it also had second best H/P/A conference WW, plus it was run by Mitnick himself (years before he became really famous, so it was just coincidence). So they were WHQ of past renowned groups, but yes I grew them upper from the point they were before, until I got caught in a phreaking scheme… but that’s another story, less fun, which I don’t want to remind now.
Regards,
FrançoisMmmh, I know this article. I already used it as an example in previous discussions or somewhere else. Yes Max was in but he was not arrested in the same context. The “Knight Shadow” affair with Kim, Killerette, Phone Stud etc. is this one:
USA v. Kim Schmitz et al: Indictment
Indictment in USA v. Kim Schmitz, a.k.a. “Kimble”; Ivy James Lay, a.k.a. “Knight Shadow”; Claude Oliver Bilak, a.k.a. “Killer”; Joshua Neil Freifield, a.k.a. “Legend”; Michelle Lillian Goodzuk, a.k.a. “Killerette”; Enoch John White, a.k.a. “Sonny”, a.k.a. “Phone Stud”; Ted Anthony Lemmy, a.k.a. “Speed Master”; Leroy James Anderson, a.k.a. “Major Theft”; and Frank Ronald Stanton, Jr., a.k.a. “Mystery”, at the U. S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
_______
No Max here. And cost to phone companies (not profit for pirates) was estimated to “$23 million to $38 million”.
Other quote from your copy of the above article:
“Secret Service agents in Washington nabbed Frenchman Max Louarn in a sting for another calling-card scheme.”
_______
So there was another calling-card scheme, and it’s this one:
Guilty Plea in Multimillion-Dollar Phone Service Theft
AP , Associated Press
AP News Archive Oct. 26, 1994 6:34 PM ET
ALEXANDRIA, VA. ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) _ Federal prosecutors gained a second guilty plea Wednesday in a case involving up to $100 million worth of unpaid long-distance and international telephone calls.
Max Louarn, 22, of Palma de Mallorca, Spain, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to conspiracy and wire fraud charges in the trans-Atlantic case investigated by authorities in the United States, Britain and Spain.
Louarn admitted to one count of wire fraud and one of conspiracy to trafficking in the calling card dialing codes issued by telephone companies to enable subscribers to make long-distance calls without paying cash.
Louarn and Andy Gaspard, 23, of Woodbridge, Va., were arrested in September. Gaspard pleaded guilty on Oct. 12 to charges of trafficking in the codes.
Court documents said Louarn, Gaspard and a third defendant, Omar Flatekval, 20, of Northumberland, England, illegally obtained and sold between 40,000 and 100,000 code numbers.
Flatekval was arrested in Britain and is under investigation there, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
The trio used computer bulletin boards in Europe and the United States to peddle the telephone credit codes, authorities said. Profits from the enterprise were not disclosed in the court documents.
But investigators for the major telephone companies that issued the codes estimated losses averaging $1,000 per stolen code number, or a potential total of $100 million, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Louarn faces a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment on each count and a minimum $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on Jan. 20.
He admitted taking delivery in Spain of about 40,000 calling codes issued by such companies as AT&T, GTE and Bell Atlantic allegedly stolen by Gaspard from a firm in Washington.
The count to which he pleaded guilty also covered participation in a related calling code conspiracy in Greensboro, N.C., involving distribution of up to 100,000 codes stolen in 1992-94 from an MCI switching facility.
The thefts involved illegal use of 11-digit dialing codes rather than actual pilferage of calling cards issued to telephone subscribers, prosecutors said._______
Here there’s also reference to Max involvement in the “Knight Shadow” affair. Also in a Washington Post article (not quoted here) it’s written that one of the indictees said that Max was the biggest worldwide reseller of calling cards.
Fyi, Englishman Omar Flatekval was Intreq, sysop of Living Chaos, Paradox HQ in the UK.
_______
Another article:
“BRITISH CALLING CARD BUST”
British students have taken part in an alleged £65m computer fraud,
involving the electronic theft of cards that allow users to make free
telephone calls around the world.The hackers, one of whom was only 17 years old, were said to be earning
thousands of pounds a month selling cards… Police found one teenager
driving a new £20,000 car and with computer equipment worth £29,000 in his
bedroom.AT&T officials also found a computer noticeboard called “Living Chaos”
that was being used to sell the cards for up to £30 each. It mentioned
Andy Gaspard, an employee of the Cleartel telephone company in
Washington, whose home was raided. “We found 61,500 stolen cards ready
to be sent to Britain,” said Eric Watley, a secret service agent in the city.(The Sunday Times, 12 February 1995)
_______
Hope this helps…
Hi Old_Amiga_cracker,
First it would be nice to know who you are. You seem to spawn from nowhere. I would be glad that after you receive my responses you take the time to present yourself.
Still I will respond to your questions now, without waiting for your answer, as after 20 years I think it’s time to rehabilitate some facts. I’ve read so much bullshit on the Web for a long time about so many decent groups and people with attitude, through a lot of distorted information, and this is something that quite hurts my beliefs and my values. I have been journalist and market intelligence analyst for more than ten years so you can understand why I love the facts, and in a certain manner, I’m just doing my job in responding to you all.
Lastly, before we start with Max, one thing which is worth mentioning to everybody here: I’m now working in the sphere of the fight against counterfeiting and piracy, so although I’m interested in rehabilitating some facts for historical purpose, I don’t and I won’t support cracks and warez in any ways. Today Piracy and counterfeiting are harming the economy growth and jobs more than drug trafficking (although for the latter it harms even more on the side of public health and safety, and through global crime derived from these activities). I have all the figures. Today big mafia is involved, so it doesn’t compare with oldschool youngsters of the 80’s and the beginning of the 90’s. Still, I recognize that as one of them, I’ve committed bad deeds with the consequences I’ve measured, so I’ve done a lot since then, and I will continue to support actively the fight against counterfeiting and piracy, in collaborating with governments, law enforcement and of course, with the right holders themselves.
Now after this… let’s call it a “disclaimer’… the historical facts.
Max and I were close friends. When we established the first contacts late 1991 and when we met at the beginning of 1992, we had complementary objectives. I wasn’t member of any groups anymore on the crack scene, just being organizer of Delight which at the time was mostly a representative figure on the demo scene. I was required to cut the links with my existing contacts on the crack scene, which I did (Max was not one of my existing contacts). I was also required to stop phreaking, pirating warez, etc. which I did. On the other hand I was left with a sense of unfinished work and felt the need to reach some of the goals I still had in mind. I just had to find the right way to do this while staying in a legal framework. I was studying law and I somewhat knew what to do, and what not to do.
At the same time Max was a member in the occasional-release, second-ranking group called Agile. I don’t remember if he told me he did something on the C64 before, but I have vague memories that he said he had one. Personally I came from the CPC 464 scene (a very small one, with its main roots in France) so I did not show much interest regarding this. By the way, I felt a huge potential in him to become a strong leader, as he was smart, square and quick reasoning, had a strong charism, and was very action-oriented. Agile was not a group for him, something which he did already know, so we both came to the conclusion that co-operating together would allow us to reach our respective next-level objectives.
Finally I gave him some training & advice when needed, based on my experience with oldschool groups since 1988, I told him that I didn’t want to take any organization responsibilities and he could do this better than me. The only things I was ok to do were original supplying (an original is not warez) and sharing my opinions through consulting and expertise. Lastly, I gave him some contacts on the scene and advice to reach some specific people matching with his ideas and projects.
The co-operation lasted from 1992 to mid-1993, when I had a/ reached my own objectives, b/ the sense that if I continued I would be involved in things I would neither control nor approve, and c/ the imperative need to resume my studies and build my personal life outside of the scene.
During that co-operation we both joined Fusion, then Crack Inc., then Skid Row, then we co-founded Interpol, and at last we re-founded Paradox (with Blackhawk, Babydock, Zool and Nuisance). We also contributed to TRSI & The Dream Team PC.
After I left Paradox at the end of June 1993, I remained friend with Maximilien. We continued to see each others, to go out in parties, etc. but I’ve never been involved in any of his businesses. He continued sometimes to ask me for advices, but he rarely followed them (as I often told him to reduce his activities, to watch out for this and that, etc.).
So now you have the global picture about how all of this started. Now your next specific questions:
>>> Who were their closest friends? <<<
I was. And I was still here when he came back from his 5 years 7 months jail time in the U.S. He was very affected, a bit lost and not the leader I used to know. But he has always been strong-minded, and he gained a lot of muscles as a pasttime in the U.S., which helped him recover. I remember he said that I was the only one who was still here and welcoming, but it was early after his release, and a few others have showed up in the subsequent weeks and months. At the very least, ED-209 and Monty, if I remember well.
Before we were in touch, I know that Twinblitz/Agile and Frantic/Abuse were among his close relations. I also knew both of them. We shared the same opinion about Twinblitz, that he could be unreliable and possibly dangerous. Frantic was a clever and gifted hacker, and I think Max learned some good tricks from him.
Max also knew Olivier / Quartex as they were both based in the same town: Marseille.
When he was active, most of the central Paradox members were his friends: Blackhawk, Babydock, Zool, Nuisance, Bomberman & Willy, ED-209, Monty, Lincoln… He also spoke often of Papillon in The Netherlands, with whom I had been in touch years before, I think it was at Quartex. Kimble was a story mixing business interests, strange friendship, and betrayal. He also had probably other friends whom I did not know or suspect. You should ask him if you want to know.
>>>What groups he was member of?<<<
I already responded to that.
>>>Did he use any other handles?<<<
Possibly, but not to my knowledge: Max, Maximilian, Maximilien (his true name). At the opposite, I used many, many handles, so if you see some credits of unknown people in Paradox intros, it might as well be me, or any other Paradox members. If you have something more precise in mind, please ask.EDIT: Now that I double think of it, and if memory serves me well, there is another handle Max used when at least at Crack Inc. This handle was The Procurer.
>>>What about his arrests?<<<
Articles linked from Paradox wikipedia page are reliable. I don’t see what you want to know exactly.
>>>Was he a good leader/organizer?<<<
Yes, very good. The best I have known so far on the crack scene.
>>>Did he code or make any gfx or music?<<<
No. He hired some people to do that. For instance: Monty (music) and Ninja (code), Melon Dezign…
>>>Was he making really that much money?<<<
Yes, and possibly more than you can imagine with “that much”. Four special purpose entities in tax havens, is that talking to you?
>>>Was the scene that profitable?<<<
He was reaching far beyond the scene. That’s all I can say. I was no more involved in anything when he did that. I’ve never been involved in any business matters. I wasn’t here for the money. Nor for the fame. Indeed, I’ve always and only been interested in thrill, challenges and achievements.
>>>What was his relationship with Kim Schmitz?<<<
Mainly business. And faked friendship as when business is at the centre of everything. Here from what I know, I’d say that Max was probably the good guy, and Kimble the evil guy. One more thing: Kimble had “native” money, inherited from some family elders, while Max is entirely a self-made man with entrepreneurship skills, although I must admit that part of his family was above middle-class standards.
>>>Why he moved to Mallorca?<<<
The French Nintendo copiers’ affair. He was held in three-weeks preventive custody, enough for him to flee in Mallorca. And he had the money to afford the villa.
>>>Is true he paid crackers/suppliers and that some of them lived with him?<<<
Yes and no. Yes he paid crackers, suppliers and others, through various means: possibly money (never witnessed this, but seems logical), more often gifts (I have true stories but I will keep for myself), a lot of vacation trips to Mallorca, etc. The last responds to your second question. I don’t want to be ironical, but what is the use of an original supplier in Mallorca? Zero, so that sounds stupid. On the other hand many people came there, so he always had friends to go out partying with. And Mallorca is just next to Ibiza.
>>>What can you tell about his second arrest?<<<
Days before, he told me that he was going on a trip to the U.S. to arrange a CC deal. Once again I wasn’t involved with this. I didn’t use CCs anymore for a very long time. But he felt there was something wrong, and he did want some advice. Once more I heard the strange things and I told him to be very careful, and that Nintendo copiers could stand a good defence before the courts, but that he would be doomed with the CC business. Once again he didn’t listen to me, probably because of the attraction to the money involved, and everybody know what happened next. For the rest, read the newspapers.
>>>Rumours said the cards were not originally hacked, but just sold by a corrupted at&t/mci employee that was member of Skid Row (don’t remember the name but they were a couple).<<<
Never heard of Skid Row being involved. Kimble was.
For the rest don’t listen to rumours. Get the facts here:
http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usab4304.pdf
>>>What did he do after being released from jail?<<<
He recovered and took the time to restart enjoying freedom, and his life with family and friends. Anyone would have done the same in a similar fashion. Also before his jail time he was a serial seducer of women. After that, he finally found true love, married and had a child, or possibly several children now. But that’s another story.
>>>Is him the man behind MaxConsoles, The Supreme Factory and Divineo?<<<
Yes. Once again I tried to give him some legal advice. But money was, well… and for him I was becoming the same boring basher. So let him do what he wants to.
>>>We all have seen the paradox PS3 true blue dongle releases? Is he the man behind the PS3 true blue dongle?<<<
All… I haven’t seen this. I’m no more interested in anything related to crack, warez, etc. The last time I’ve seen Max was in the summer 2002, he invited me for vacation and lent me his appartment in Avignon during the Theatre festival. I was just pleased to see him as a friend, and we went out partying in the region.
Since I left Paradox in 06/1993 and even earlier (end of 1991), I haven’t had any warez or pirated software on any of my computers, I haven’t used P2P except for some legal porn, I haven’t used any cards or anything and I haven’t done anything illegal. Plus I’m now on the complete opposite side of the economy, in the camp of those who are fighting piracy.
Cheers and have a happy new year,
Yours,
FrançoisHi Musashi9, and happy new year!!! It may seem strange to some people that I’m busy writing and responding here during that period when I should be with family and friends, The reason is I’m sick and quarantined. As soon as I’ll get better I’ll be much longer to respond, if I respond at all.
For now, your questions are mostly relevant and they won’t take much time for me to answer. Let’s take them one by one.
<i>Can you walk us through the process of supplying originals, from the moment you had it in your hands to the moment of release by a group.</i>
Having supplied more than 70 games to a lot of groups, well, there were a variety of situations and I can’t say that it was always the same process. This said, the most often the efficient standard process was the following:
>>>1. Knowing that I was about to get the original, called either the organizer or the cracker (according to the group’s internal processes) in order to have a/the cracker ready and prepared to do the job, b/ the group’s organization oriented towards gathering intelligence, planning & operations tasks.
>>>2. Called the organizer when the original was nearby in the shop, before buying it (in case I wasn’t friend enough with the salesperson to have it for free). This step was necessary in case we were late and another group had just released it, in order to avoid any unrequired expenses. Called again when I had the original in my hands, for a get ready. Here please take notice that we had to go to public phoneboxes, there was no mobile technology at an affordable price at that time (only satellite phones with really huge costs).
>>>3. Ran to the closest modem available, either at my place or at a friend’s place (according to the period/year). Then immediately called again, for the go, launching step 4 at the same time and making comments on the fly (about the way it loads, the sound it made while loading, if there was password protection, how many disks, etc.).
>>>4. So, checked first if the original was running well (even if it was possible to test it in the shop, you never know if something may happen during transport, or due to the computer/chipset), and tried to copy it (each disk) with XCopy in order to have a preview of good/bad tracks. If it seems something it’s most likely what you see. Rarely used better tools, hex editors, etc. to have a closer look. This was valuable information to help choose the appropriate warp tool and give information in advance to the cracker/organizer.
>>>5. Warped the game with the appropriate tool and sent it directly to the cracker. I didn’t like when groups required to send the game to a BBS. It could be unsafe (BBS gets down or a user connects, BBS is attacked by competition or worse, the original is stolen), and a likely loss of time (me uploading, then cracker dowloading, then repeat the process in case of bad warping, in hoping that the BBS is still working).
>>>6. While the upload was proceeding, unwarped the game to a new disk to check if it was working. Non-working was not always as bad as it seemed. Data was sometimes wrongly unwarped but was here for the cracker to sort it out. I had the cracker on the phone and through questions he had and my answers, and then what he saw by himself after receiving the file, it was possible to determine if a second warp using a different tool or parameters was necessary. In some cases, with particular protections it was mandatory to call another cracker. Also according to software companies we were sometimes able to anticipate if it was going to be easy or difficult.
>>>7. While the cracker was making progress it was highly preferable to remain available, just in case a problem would arise later.
<i>How did you get it to the cracker? How long did it take to get it to the cracker?</i>
Already responded. In somes cases we had a local cracker so skipping the modem part, I immediately flied to the cracker’s place.
<i>Was it frustrating when another group released the game before your group?</i>
Yes of course. And the level of frustration was proportionate to a/ the time and energy devoted to the entire procedure and b/ the importance of the release (minor or major game).
<i>Did you meet other suppliers and if so was there a hostile rivalry between you all?</i>
Hehe funny question. I can only speak for myself. If you mean meeting other suppliers at the shop, then it depended on several case situations (all happened in real life):
>>>1. I was first and the other original supplier showed up. Well, good luck dude. Sometimes we exchanged greetings on a courteous basis, sometimes a little more provocating words. We never fought nor acted loudly, or at least I was never involved personally in such acts. There was work to get done.
>>>2. I came and saw another original supplier already there. I immediately tried to hide while keeping an eye on him. Good thing if he thought he was the only one or the very first in advance with the original, then he and his group wouldn’t feel the need to hurry – so it could give us a competitive advantage. And on my side a 5-minutes wait wouldn’t change much the course of the things.
>>>3. >90% of the time I didn’t see any other original suppliers at the shop. According to the shop I could ask the salesperson if I was first or if someone else came before me. Also knowing that I would have hidden if I came and see a competitor there, I was prepared to the fact that others could do the same. Thus, I always did fast and left quickly, not losing any time.
In addition:
a/ I knew where most of the other original suppliers were living, how long it took for them to get there, and sometimes even the same for their modem friends.
b/ If “competing” with a fellow supplier from the same group as me, we co-ordinated and decided who was best placed/located to go and get the original. So if internal, it wasn’t competition.
c/ Outside of real-time supplying situations I was generally friend or at least ok with most other original suppliers, and even if not, rivalry was not something worth fuelling. Once again I was not competing for fame, but to be the best according to my own judgment. Beyond me, I know that certain suppliers were hating each others to the point that they might have come to blows if both were present in the same room – but it was not my problem.
<i>Did you have any problems with difficult protections or bad originals?</i>
Not something which couldn’t be solved, from my point of view. I can’t remember having had any bad originals. For difficult protections we had good warp tools. It also happened that Blackhawk at Paradox developed a warp tool especially for the original in question and it worked. Then the problem of difficult protection was not mine anymore, but that of the cracker.
I did have another kind of problem, but with some inside games. I remember a huge blockbuster I had 6 months in advance of its release in shops. The game had no protection. I told the organizer to be very careful and to ask the cracker to inspect and remove anything which could look like a serial code, then to wait for two weeks before release. He said “yes” to me and promised but he didn’t commit and the game was released one or two days later, not even after a quick look and clean-up. My inside provider was caught and I was very, very upset. The group organizer acted very stupidly, he killed months of preparation of my contact on my side for him to trust me, and we didn’t get any insides for a long time after this.
<i>What did you do with the originals once you had sent it off to the cracker?</i>
1. Kept the originals for myself, as souvenirs.
2. In some cases I had to bring them back to the shops where I borrowed them (if I was in good terms with the salesperson).
3. More rarely, I screwed the disk, went back to the shop and managed to obtain (through negotiation) the next original I had to supply, for free.
In any case I didn’t like when the group asked me to send them the original for me to have reimbursement. I did this only once before I said “enough” and required to be paid in advance for multiple supplies, while being allowed to keep the originals – whether I paid them or not.
<i>What is the game you are most proud of supplying?</i>
Both games which made possible for Interpol and Paradox II to be born. Do a little research… should be easy for you to find.
<i>Who was the best cracker you worked with?</i>
1. The best on every kinds of protections including the hardest possible: T.I.C. (Australian)
2. The best overall for a crack group, very smart, always available, very friendly: Blackhawk. Ex-aequo with Phil Douglas, for the same reasons.
3. The best trainer maker and one of my best friends: Blackbird
4. The fastest possible (saw him crack three games in a day!) but sometimes not 100%: The Surge
5. The most underrated and a very talented one, also one of my best friends: Babydock
I also worked with many other crackers, and I knew dozens more, who surely had a lot of qualities, but I just had less experience with them, so my list is obviously quite subjective.@TCB!
Interesting presentation which is mostly accurate and insightful, but I’ve seen many exceptions to your rules where alternative ways proved to be better than the classical reasoning. In addition some of the strategies you have described could sometimes backfire against the organizers, and there is proof from historical facts. I have been original supplier for no less than 20 groups (of which 17 elite ones), founder and global organizer of Delight (1991), co-founder of Interpol (1992), co-founder of Paradox n°2 (1993), etc. so I propose to share my views, notably about your friends SR. Please read and let me know what you think.
1. You seem to be pro-Skid Row. Yes they were good, but starting from 1993 and on, Paradox was even better. With Maximilian (and Kimble) it was a matter of millions. Virgin CC’s were flowing by 10,000’s (I saw the thick listings at Max home, he told me to pick some here, pick some there, from any pages I wished…), Nintendo copiers were selling by thousands, etc. Selling software/games? Well, it couldn’t be as powerful as a cash-machine, so why bother? Skid Row was good at that, i.e. they were not playing in the same league. About Max there are quite a lot of articles from official sources which are documenting this. Fairlight was not bad also, with Strider at the top of the organization. So, for me, Skid Row was only third. I don’t know for you, but I’ve also been an official member of Skid Row, before we left with Max to create Interpol. Never joined Fairlight, despite Strider tried to lure me out of Paradox through some of his members I knew quite well. But I was loyal, and close to retreat.
2. Wildcard (hi Fred!): he was one of the best hackers/phreakers around, so yes he could be useful.
3. What happened to them?
– Quality of releases had always been low. Re-read Foxy’s post on another thread. They were kings of the cheap tricks. And arrogant, well, they had always been so, since World of Wonders/Paranoimia. In all regards I won’t argue/say it’s bad/whatever. I’ve seen this everywhere on the crack scene. I’ve been like that, too, and I won’t fire a shot in my foot. But sure it tired some of their members and there has been many spin-offs, say, Ministry, Hoodlum, Crack Inc., to quote only some of them. Creating your own competition is not very clever.
– The second Paradox was the next-generation group and Skid Row could not compete.
– For the rest, I like your analysis, it’s rather exhaustive.
4. Prestige / “To understand this, you need to understand where the originals were released” i.e. “fast distributors or shops” “FNAC in France” … Well, an original supplier who would have only relied on FNAC would have been on a strict par with low-life competition, which means it would have been like playing lottery. One day you’re first the next day you get beaten. Of course I did this in the beginnings i.e. for Paranoimia, Vision Factory, and even for Crystal, and Quartex to a lesser extent (I already had other tricks then). Through hard work and experiment I learnt the difference between being just an original supplier and being a good or a top original supplier, something which I finally achieved in 1993 in supplying 7 of the 10 best games of the year (and countless others).
By that time, I had a special address book set apart, entirely dedicated to original supplying. It contained the names of all the salespersons in more than 20 specialized retail brands in and around Paris, their preferences when it was possible to bribe them, on which day and at what time they received the originals, from which wholesalers/distributors, the itinerary of the trucks, etc.
In addition I had insides in French magazines. I had passwords to a few game developers’ BBS’s. I used social engineering techniques and called software companies to obtain English versions of the games which were released only in French. I also had an inside whistleblower at Innelec, the wholesaler who was supplying the FNACs and other similar outlets. So, it was a real job, not a lame “go to FNAC on a daily basis”, and I was most of the time on the phone, not having to run between shops. I was just out when needed, and it left me with plenty of time to attend university, organize Delight, make music, go out with friends, etc.
Other tricks were that I didn’t have a modem at home. I did have three modems at different friends’ places in and around Paris. Friends who did want the zero-day warez from the BBS’s for free, and who were either trustable or truly unknown from the scene. Also I didn’t have any pirated software at home. And at last, I changed handles many times in the intro credits, sometimes mentioning UK instead of France, etc. Ok it wasn’t good to appear on top of the charts, but it was good enough to be the best – and I didn’t want fame, just success.
That said you were talking about Prestige and if I’m not wrong the French suppliers were Bomberman and Willy. Not FNAC-runners but also top original suppliers with style and close relations whom I want to take the occasion to greet now.
5. “Skid Row truly dominated on an unparallelled scale and for a LONG time.” – Maybe depending on which BBS’s you had access to… When I had a modem at home, and I flowed through 4-5 elite groups including Skid Row (in fact, I’ve been twice a member, in late 1991 between Oracle and Crystal, and in late 1992, with two different handles, and they never noticed) over a short span of time, I kept my unlimited accesses everywhere. I was unlimited VIP on more than 50 zero-day elite boards! Thanks to this on that period Delight’s WHQ and USHQ were also zero-day, even better than most of the source BBS’s as I had everything combined, hehe!
So what did this teach me? That the casual modem trader who is generally present on 4-5 boards has a distorted vision of the reality. When I frequently accessed all the elite WHQ’s and multinodes, and when I compared to the so-called text charts, they were wrong on many aspects. What I want to say is that Skid Row often released games which were already cracked by others. They were simply not the best in reality. They were just cheating, and above all what they wanted was their intros ahead of any games, so that their customers would remain loyal.
