                           
                           ZeroDaHero's 
               Overview of Usenet and the Warez Groups
   
   Let me start by saying I am not an authority on Usenet or an expert
on the subject but I think I have been around long enough to compile a 
Faq for new users.

   I am going to try and present this information in an organized manner
and try to stay on the subject of posting to Usenet. I will probably     
update this every once and a while and anyone who has anything worth while
to add is welcome to.

USENET:  What is it ? How it works.

Usenet Newsgroups are the 2nd most popular feature of the Internet. E-Mail
in number one. As of this writing there are over 20,000 groups. Newsgroups 
are basically message boards that use special software and the NNTP Network 
News Transfer Protocol to distribute messages to news servers on the 
Internet. If you are interested in the technical aspect of NNTP you can get 
the RFC (request for comment ) which is a document discussing the protocols 
and Policies of the Internet. They are published by the Internet Engineering 
Task Force There are over 1,000 RFC's covering the protocol suite. 
RFC 0977 is the one covering NNTP. RFC,s are available at 

                http://ds.internic.net/ds/rfc-index.html
                http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/information/rfc

Newsgroup articles get put into a pipeline and become part of the "news feed"
then the newservers connect to one another at a regularlrly scheduled time
and update their messages. When they are done, both systems should have
copies of all the messages . The news is passed one connection at a time,
but with T-1 and T-3 lines as the backbone it doesn't take usually more than 
a day for the messages to be spread around the world. Not all systems carry 
all the newsgroups . Its is up to the system adminstrator and is usually 
based on storage constraints, but some system adminstrators sad to say  
censor the newsgroups such as the Warez groups, under the guise of limited 
storage, which is pretty hard to prove ,but if it is proven that they 
censored the group, then they open themselves up to a lawsuit, because 
they are then responsible for the content of EVERYTHING that is on their 
system. Messages are  kept on for a specified amount of time but this can 
also be affected by the number of posts. Thats why it is IMPORTANT that 
you post in a large number of lines, or you will bump other posts off
the server.


What Tools You Will Need:

    The first and most important thing you will need is an Internet Service 
Provider which you alreay have if your reading this, but I bring up this
point because   
                1) You may not be happy with your provider
                2) They may not carry all the Warez groups
                3) Their newserver just plain sucks

If thats the case you owe it to yourself to get another ISP. There are
lists of Public Internet Access Providers. Here are a few places they can
be found
          
          http://ds.internic.net/cgi-bin/tochmtl/provider/Ointro.pr
          http://www.umd.umich.edu/~clp/i-access.html                       
          http://www.phoenix.net/config/news.html
          http://www.primus.net/providers
          http://thelist.com
                                
                                or

          Check the following newsgroups:
            
            alt.internet.access.wanted
            alt.internet.services
            alt.online.services

A note for new users. The provider you choose must provide you with a
SLIP or PPP connection to get the most out of the Newsgroups, and for
that fact the Internet. Most of the providers on the above lists do.
So you don't have to worry. With one of the above type connections you 
get to choose the software you want to use, and you can do multiple tasks
at the same time, like ftp to a site while you download headers for 
your newsgroups or ftp to a site while your on IRC to check that site 
some guy just gave you. The reason I bring this up is that one or two 
people might be reading this from AOL or Compuserve  ( I intend to 
post this to a few of the Warez groups, and AOL and Compuserve both carry 
alt.binaries.games believe it or not). 
    If you already have a provider you have another option whereby to get 
news if you are not happy with your providers news feed. There are a few 
providers popping up, that give you access to a news server for 
between $5 and $10 dollars. Two I know of are
                
                              http://alt.net
                              http://www.net-link.com

Software Needed to Navigate Newsgroups:

     There are few basic tools you need to succesfully participate in
the warez newsgroups. The first thing is a newsreader, a software application     
that lets you read and post messages to newsgroups .The premier newsreader 
and most used is Free Agent. It is available at

      http:www.forteinc.com/forte

This is version 1.0 and is the free version. From time to time you will
see version 99b or the newer one 99c posted to the warez groups. This is 
the registered version and is not much different from the free one Except
for a spell checker for composing e-mail, and a few minor things .
I recommend you get the FAQ ( Frequently Asked Questions ) for Free Agent
which is available at
     
       http://www.webpress.net/forte/agent/csfaq.htm

To set up Free Agent unzip the file in a directroy of your choice. If you 
don't have the Pkzip program from Pkware skip down to the Compression,
Archivers and Zip software section to find out where to get Pkzip.After
you unzip the file you can make an icon for Free Agent if you want. 
You must connect to your Internet provider and then start Free Agent. The 
first time you start Free Agent it will ask you for your NNTP server and 
your SMTP server .If you don't know this information you must obtain it from 
your provider. Its usually nntp.providername.com or news.providername.com  
for your news server and smtp.providername.com for your mail server. There 
are public new servers but they are a well kept secret because once they 
become well known they become to busy to be usefull and they usually shut 
down. Once you have done that Agent will go Online to retrieve the master 
list of newsgroups. Since there are over 20,000 groups at last count so this 
will take some time,especially if you have a slower modem. After you have 
the list you can choose to subscribe to the ones you are interested in and 
then download the headers for that particular group. I can't explain every 
to you so your best bet is to open agent and then open the help file and 
size it so you can have both windows open next to each other and go throught 
Agent step by step with the help file open. One of the most annoying things 
people do is to post questions that could be answered by reading the help 
file.
                             
The following is a list of the current warez groups

                    alt.binaries.games
                    alt.binaries.misc
                    alt.binaries.pictures.leek
                    alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc
                    alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.old
                    alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.d    discussion
                    alt.warez.ibm-pc.apps
                    alt.warez.ibm-pc.games
                    alt.warez.ibm-pc.old
                    alt.cracks
                    alt.crackers

Remember not all services carry all of them!
Some more newsreaders and the places you can get them are listed below

                      
                      WinVN
                  ftp.titan.ksc.nasa.gov
                  ftp.ripem.msu.edu
                  
                      NewsXpress
                  ftp.hk.super.net/pub/windows/wskutil/nx1063.zip
                  http://www.albant.net/~ddoak/files/nxlob4-p.zip
                  New Xpress Faq - http://www.malch.com/nxfaq.html

A MUST on your list of stops should be Strouds Consumate Winsock Apps List
There are newsreader,ftp,irc and telenet clients HTML editors, mail clients,
graphics viewers. There are 16 bit and 32 bit versions. Windows 3.xx versions 
Win 95 versions, and even a few Win NT versions . CHECK IT OUT at:

                http://cwsapps.texas.net

Also check out:
 
             Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software
             http://www.tucows.com:80/catalog.html

             FreeWare Winsock Apps
             http://sage.cc.purdue.edu/~xniu/winsock/ws-ftp.htm

             University of California at San Marcos Windows Shareware Archive
             http://coyote.csum.edu/cwis/winworld/winsock.html

Anti-Virus Software:            

      Anti -virus software is a must if you download files off the Internet.
For that matter you should scan all files that you get that don't come
shrink wrapped from the store. I recommend  Norton Anti-Virus or McAfee Virus 
Scan. Get the registered versions. Take your time and READ all the directions 
so you can properlly protect your computer. You can run the programs as TSR's
so your always protected. Make sure when you configure the options,that you
configure the virus protection to protect your boot sector. Also always try
to get what is called updates. These are usually put out by the manufacturer
and are free. They update your virus software with any new virus signatures 
that have become known. If you need immediate protection you can get 
some shareware versions at:


            ftp.risc.ua.edu/pub/ibm-antivirus/fp-220.zip
                  F Prot 2.20
            
            ftp.mcafee.com/pub/antivirus/wsc-227e.zip
            ftp.sun3.mcafee.com/pub/virus           
                  McAfee
            
            ftp.thunderbyte.com/ftp/thunderbyte/software/tbav650/shareware/
            Thunderbyte versions for Dos, Win, Win 95

A great source of virus specific software as well as virus scanning programs             
reside at:
             
             http://www.acs.oakland.edu/oak/SimTel/msdos/virus.html
               

Compression,Archivers and Zip software:

    The next tools you will need if you don't already have them are 
programs that compress the files to save time and space transfering 
them and a program to encode and decode files .Files  posted to newsgroups 
must be ASCII. The Programs that you run on your computer are binary and 
must be converted to ASCII,in order to be posted to a newsgroup. Free Agent  
takes care of this automatially, but if you choose to use a different 
newsreader you must get a program calles UUencode UUdecode which is 
available at:
             
             oak.oakland.edu/Simtel.Msdos/decode/uuexe540.zip

Wincode ver 2.6 is a Windows Uuencode/Decoder which makes it easy to
decode and encode files . Wincode can be found at:
              
              ftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win3/utils/wincode


You will need Pkzip to compress the files you wish to post. Pkzip is 
a Dos based compression utility The registered version is posted to the 
warez groups often and the shareware version is available at: 
             
             oak.oakland.edu/Simtel/Msdos/zip/pkz204g.exe
             ftp.funet.fi/pub/msdos/packing/zip/

Winzip is a Windows shell that make it easy to use pkzip.Instead of having 
to shell out to Dos you can accomplish all tasks with Pkzip in Windows.
Winzip 6.0 can be had at:

           ftp.winzip.com/winzip/w260wn16.exe
           ftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win3/utils/winzip56

Arj is another compression/archiver that is used extensiely in the Warez  
groups. It is available at the following FTP site

        oak.oakland.edu/Simtel/msdos/archiver/arj241a.exe

Winzip also supports  arj files and arc and lzh. You have to get the actual 
programs though as Winzip is just a shell. It doesn't have any of the 
compression or archive software built in .Then you must set up Winzip so
it will work with the programs you choose. This amounts to telling it where 
to find Pkzip or Arj ( path  ex: C:\utilities\pkzip\pkzip.exe etc. 
Just READ the help file and you should have no problems.

How do I post :

I am going to use Free Agent as the example because it is the most popular.
There are  a few ways to post anomously. First you set up Agent with bogus
information. Under Options choose Preferences then from the tabs on top choose
user profile. Fill in your e-mail and full name with whatever you want just
keep the e-mail address in the correct format ( someone@fake.com ).While 
you are on the Preferences dialog box choose Attachments then under Lines
per message select 10000. Thats ten thousand, that should be okay for most 
servers . If you notice your posts are cut short or screwed up try lowering 
it to 7500 but no lower than 5000. Make sure its the server first before
you go that low. You can look at other peoples posts and check the header 
information to see if they use the same provider that you do.If they can 
post in 10000 lines you should be able to also . In Free Agent choose Article 
than choose Show all Header Fields .This will let you see where the 
article came from and alot of other info. Another way to post anomously
is to use an anonomous remailer. This is where you send your posts 
to a remailer and they strip the header information and then resend the
post or e-mail. The only person that knows who you are is the operator 
of the remailer. Recently the remailer at Penet in Finland was compromised
when the local police retrieved the name of one of the remailers users.The
system owner and administrator Johan Helsingius made the decision to give the
police the one name they wanted instead of having his whole computer seized.
The point being that nothing is 100 percent safe, but some things are a little
safer. Also most remailers limit the size of posts you can make so this 
option must be explored fully before you decide to go this route. If you want 
send mail to help@anon.penet.fi and you will be allocated an anonomous address 
and you will be sent instructions.If you want more info on remailers try 
 
         http://electron.rutgers.edu/~gambino/anon_server/anon.html
         http://www.stack.urc.tue.nl/~galactus/remailers

                     or these newsgroups      
                     
                     alt.cyberpunk
                     alt.privacy

If you do a search with the Webcrawler or Yahoo or any of the other search 
engines you will come up with much more info about remailers. The last way 
to post anonomously is to set up an account with a provider with fradulent 
credit info. I DO NOT recommend this only mention it as a point of interest. 
The credit card info must be a valid card number as most providers check this 
info while you are online and only after verfiying it will they issue you a 
password etc. This account usually doesnt last more than a week maybe a month 
unless the unsuspecting card holder pays his bill without looking at the 
charge descriptions. Before doing this I recommend getting a device from Radio 
Shack that blocks the caller ID information from being transmited from your 
phone line. As far as I know they don't check your phone number but it is a 
possability for the future. Better safe than caught. The only thing you have 
to do if you use this device is to change your modem initilization string. 
Usually you can change the X2 or X4 to X3s,but you may have to add some commas 
before the number to get a few seconds of pause before the number is dialed. 
This particular device makes a disticntive tone before the phone goes off hook
This method gives the dialing software a slight pause so it doesn't interfere 
with the caller id's block tone. 

Rules of Da Road

  Posting is a pretty simple matter if you just lurk for a while and READ
any help files that come with the software you use. I know its tempting to
just open her up and get started but if you take your time and pay attention
to detail it will be a much more enjoyable experience. These " rules " are 
not written in stone,in fact they ain't written anywhere .They are what has
come to be known as Net Etiquette. Yes even us Warez traders must sit up 
straight at the table if we want to be served. First, when you post, your 
Header should not be longer than 50 characters or people can't read the thing. 
You should also try to follow the commonly used format when creating headers 
           
           ATTN  addressed to someone in particular
           RE    regarding, usually a followup reply
           REQ   a request for something 
           REPOST another post of the same thing

When you post as I mentioned earlier you need to post in a large number of 
lines per message. This is due to the fact that posting in many different 
parts takes up more space on the servers where the files are stored
and also wastes bandwith due to the nature of the internet. There are many 
different layers of protocols used to transfer your posts, with each layer
adding information to the packet. More parts lead to more packets well you
get the idea. Posting many parts also lends itself to some of those parts
getting lost or misdirected etc. Another problem that I see quite often is
when someone tries to post  a multiple disk program, in one big file instead
of posting it by individual disks. The problem with posting it all in one
zip, is that more often then not the server times out, and you have to repost 
the WHOLE thing. If you had posted it in individual disks, you could simply 
pick up where you left off.


     You may see from time to time that some people have a strang entry
at the bottom of their signatures. Something called a Pgp key or Finger 
Print. PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy .It is as public key crytography
program that was developed by Phil Zimmerman. With PGP you can encrypt the  
files on your computer,encrypt your e-mail and sign your e-mail with a
digital signature which is tamper proof. PGP runs on many operating systems
such as DOS Windows about a dozen flavors of unix Macintosh and Amiga. PGP is 
free and is available in the U.S.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology. They have a ftp server and a web page which to get it from. 
The current version is 2.6.2
                    
                    ftp.net-dist.mit.edu
                    http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp-form.html

The process is a little involved but this is to make sure you are a U.S.
citizen. The ftp server is not accesable from outside of the U.S. If you 
intend to seriously use PGP, do yourself a favor and get yourself a book. 
I recommend " PGP " by Simon Garfinkel published by O'Reilly & Associates.

Another source of PGP and some good crypto software is the Official Cypherpunk 
repository at  the University of California at Berkeley

                    ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/pgp
                        
The user qwerty@netcom.com has put together one of the best collections of
crypto related stuff I have seen. The PGP Faq is here which gives you a list 
of other ftp sites to get PGP from.
                                     ftp.netcom.com/pub/qwerty 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation also distributes PGP at:
 
              ftp.eff.org/pub/Net_info/Tools/Crypto
 
There are two other ways to get warez that I am just going to mention
in passing. The first is FTP ( File Transfer Protocol ) This is where
you use FTP to download and upload files to a host machine. The addresses
of these sites are usually traded  for one another or some special request.
Some of these sites can have really good programs The Cons of FTP are
the posts are usually always complete . The bad news is that they aren't
to easy to come by. The best shareware FTP programs are Cute FTP ,WS_ftp 
and it cousin Showarez which is WS_Ftp modified to show hidden directories.

The second way to get warez is through IRC or Internet Relay Chat. This is
a program that lets you have a conversation in real time with dozens of
people at the same time. IRC has an option wherby you can DCC binary files
directly to another person on the same IRC server you are on. 

My personal preference is the binaries news groups. They may be the most
troublesome out of the three to get stuff, but you don't have to beg and
trade with people to get anything. The major contributors to the warez
groups post stuff without asking for anything in return. Compared to the 
IRC  scene where I hate to say ,but you don't get nothin for nothin there.
Sometimes you even get nothin for something. There are assholes that give you
bullshit sites or you give them a site and then they disconnect. I am not
painting all IRC users with the same brush but these are the things you
have to put up with if you use IRC, unless you deal with regulars all the
time. FTP sites are great but again, alot of sites are bullshit and they 
usually don't last long. People on the warez news groups are the BEST.

                             Tips and Tricks


       Sometimes you may have trouble with your news reader connecting to 
your Domain Name Server. This is a database of Internet addresses on your 
providers computer. It resolves the host name to its numerical equivelant.
This numerical address is sometimes refered to as a dotted quad. The idea 
is if you have the numerical Internet address of your news server you cut out 
the process of resolving the host name. This way, if there is ever trouble 
with your hosts Domain Name Server you can use the numerical equivelant and 
bypass this problem. There is a great program called Windows Socket Host that
runs under many TCP/IP stacks that are Winsock compliant. You can find this 
program at:
          
          http://coyote.csusm.com/cwin/winworld/winsock.html
          ftp.csum.edu/pub/winworld/winsock/wshost11.zip

       Have you noticed sometimes that when you unzip a file that a logo or 
message is displayed. This is done with one of the undocumented switches in 
Pkzip. You must make up a file to be displayed and put it in the directory
where the files you intend to  zip are. The format is as follows
  
               pkzip -z filename.zip *.* <comment.txt
        
        -z            is the switch that adds the comment to the file
        filename      is the name you want the zip file to have
        *.*           zips all the files in the currnt directory into the zip
        <comment.txt  is the comment file that will be displayed

     
     A simple trick I use to make working with zip files under windows is to
associate the file ending .zip with pkunzip.exe. This is done by going to 
File then Associate in File Manager. Under File with extension put zip,then 
select  browse and select the path to pkunzip.exe, hit OK and your set. Now,
whenver you double click on a zip file in File Manager the file will be 
unzipped. Just hit the F5 key afterwards to update the list of files in the
dirctory in File Manager. Your monitor might make some strange sounds 
switching between video modes when you do this but I have yet to have a 
problem.

                               The End
