The Humble Guys

Last updated
The Humble Guys
Formation1980s
HeadquartersNone (digital group)

The Humble Guys (THG) were a cracking group for the IBM PC during the late 1980s [1] founded by two friends known by the pseudonyms Candyman and Fabulous Furlough. The group was also noticed in the demoscene for some of their cracktros.

Contents

THG was the first group to make use of the NFO file as a means for documenting their releases before packaging and distribution. [2] The first release to contain an .NFO file was Nova Logic's remake of the arcade classic Bubble Bobble in 1989. This has since spawned an entire generation of ASCII artists devoted solely to creating artwork for the purpose of decorating NFO files for warez groups. To put things into perspective, there are now entire websites explicitly devoted to the collection and archival of NFO files, such as The iSONEWS.

Software contributions

Screenshot from the THG cracktro READTHG.EXE featuring The Humble Thug. READTHG - The Humble Thug cracktro.png
Screenshot from the THG cracktro READTHG.EXE featuring The Humble Thug.

THG also was one of the first groups to release an "intro tool" for the IBM PC demoscene, released by their coding subsidiary, THG F/X, called the THG IntroMaker. The THG IntroMaker would allow one to create a self-contained executable program which played music and displayed graphics on screen without the need for any knowledge of computer programming. A much more advanced and highly sophisticated extension of this today would be Farbrausch's .werkkzeug. [3]

Prior to THG's arrival on the warez scene the IBM world did not have anything other than text based intros usually quoting song lyrics. THG members brought the experience from the C64 and AMIGA warez scene bringing the first animated and graphical intros to the IBM scene.

In December 1991 , the "F/X division" of The Humble Guys released a first and only copy of an electronic magazine called "The Humble Review" featuring game reviews and articles. [4] Writer and weblogger Justin Hall would have his first article published in the Humble Review; a film review of Akira by "Fusty".

Members of THG also had their own custom BBS software, originally a "forum hack", called L.S.D. BBS (Lush Software Designs) which was first introduced on June 1, 1990, written by The Slavelord, Niteman and others. The original source code for this was Emulex/2, which was acquired by a THG member whose alias was Tripin Face. The source code was referred to as 'Jani' in some communities at the time. [5]

In the news

On the evening of October 27, 1992, NBC aired an episode about computer hackers on Dateline titled "Are Your Secrets Safe?". [6] This show prominently displayed ads for several warez BBSes, including one for The Slave Den BBS which was operated by a senior member and spokesperson of THG. As a result of this undesired exposure, The Slavelord voluntarily retired from his activities within the group. [7]

On September 5, 2006, David J. Francis, known by his username "Candyman" died in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, of heart failure. [8]

On October 4, 2015, Pierre Barkett, known by his username "The PieMaN" died in Florida of heart failure. [9]

Competition

THG redefined the manner in which the PC warez scene worked when they entered the scene in 1989. Prior to THG, warez releases were haphazard, with multiple groups releasing the same title, usually after the title had been available in retail stores for weeks. Often games were released to BBSes without being cracked. THG changed this by releasing titles days before the software made it to retail chains such as Babbage's. They did this by establishing relationships with the major wholesale software distributors, and ordering games with overnight shipping. For those cases where overnight shipping wasn't enough, THG found people who lived near the software companies, who could go to the company, and buy the game the day it was released. This beat the overnight shipping method by 2 days in most cases. Also, an advantage that they possessed was that most other warez groups were run by teens, who attended school during the day. THG was run by professional men, who were available each day "by 10:30" when FedEx, or UPS delivered. The other groups had to "wait until they got home" in the afternoons. A decided advantage considering most "cracks" were done in less than an hour, and releases complete shortly thereafter.

THG had members who worked for morning TV shows. Software companies, ever eager for free advertising, would send a box of new, or in some cases "about to be released" software to a TV show, for just a simple phone call. They also understood the "progression" of software. Once a title was completed, the box, manual, and final version of the game were shipped to a "duplication house" to copy the software for sale in stores. THG had contacts in these duplication houses, where they could get the games weeks before they would show up at the store. Activision's F-14 Tomcat was one such title, along with all titles from MicroProse.

At the height of their power, THG had game suppliers in the US (country wide), UK (Leeds), France, Germany, and many parts of Asia. [1]

THG introduced the concept of couriers in an effort to plaster their releases on their competitors' BBSes. The couriers were often told to make sure that the various groups received the latest crack on their HQ's BBS before other THG BBSes. The combination of using software wholesalers and couriers turned the PC Warez Scene upside down in 1990, but these are considered normal practice now. The fierce competition within the current warez and video scenes are directly descended from THG.

As a result, the majority of older, well established, warez groups disappeared from the scene. [1] Of the four or five groups that were around prior to THG's arrival in December 1989, the only group that remained was the International Network of Crackers (INC), which was one of THG's greatest competitors in the IBM PC cracking scene. The file header of the executable THG cracktro, READTHG.EXE (displayed above), contains text which reads: "Cool Hand but fucks his dog and Phantom from INC" (sic), an insulting reference towards the vice-president and courier coordinator of their rival organization, INC.

After Candyman shut down his BBS (Candyland, originally run on CNET BBS), setup, development, maintenance and unique customization were continued by The Maker who was on hand from day one. After Candyman left the United States, Fabulous Furlough took over the reins of the group. After political infighting among the remaining members of the group led to problems within the organization, several of the newer members of THG splintered off and formed a new group called USA (United Software Association) which included several noteworthy members such as, Niteman, Genesis and The Humble Babe (who changed her name to The Not So Humble Babe upon her departure from THG). USA released a few games, most of them coming from one of THG's suppliers in Illinois, whom USA had managed to "turn". After the bust of The Not So Humble Babe on credit card fraud charges in Michigan, [10] USA teamed up with the European PC warez division of Fairlight and were cooperatively known as "USA/FLT". This inevitably lead to the two groups USA and THG warring with each other [11]

A year after the USA/FLT fiasco, several of the original members of The Humble Guys left the group in an effort to once again capture lightning in a bottle. However, by the fall of 1992 several other groups, such as Razor 1911, had joined the scene and this new group, while having some brief success, [12] was never as successful as THG. The new group fell apart shortly after The Slavelord shut down his BBS after the Dateline story.

During 1992 though early 1994, many THG releases were cracked by the UK branch which consisted of Hi. T. Moonweed, Bryn Rogers and Hydro, who struggled to keep the group together due to US burnout. The UK BBSes, The Flying Teapot (known as active from 1991-1992 [13] ) and The Demons Forge (ran by Hi.T and Bryn respectively [14] ) became the UK's major landmarks.

By 1994, most of the founding members of The Humble Guys were no longer involved with the warez scene. After the Pits BBS in New York was shut down by Novell in 1995, [15] the group moved to IRC and had a presence on many different servers with the name #THG. They focused on distribution rather than cracking. The Humble Guys disbanded in the early 2000s when the last founding member left.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ASCII art</span> Computer art form using text characters

ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters. The term is also loosely used to refer to text-based visual art in general. ASCII art can be created with any text editor, and is often used with free-form languages. Most examples of ASCII art require a fixed-width font such as Courier for presentation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulletin board system</span> Computer server

A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crack intro</span>

A crack intro, also known as a cracktro, loader, or just intro, is a small introduction sequence added to cracked software. It aims to inform the user which "cracking crew" or individual cracker removed the software's copy protection and distributed the crack.

The computer art scene, or simply artscene, is the community interested and active in the creation of computer-based artwork.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.nfo</span> File format

.nfo is a filename extension for text files that accompany warez scene releases of pirated software or media.

Topsite is a term used by the warez scene to refer to underground, highly secretive, high-speed FTP servers used by release groups and couriers for distribution, storage and archiving of warez releases. Topsites have very high-bandwidth Internet connections, commonly supporting transfer speeds of hundreds to thousands of megabits per second; enough to transfer a full Blu-ray in seconds. Topsites also have very high storage capacity; a total of many terabytes is typical. Early on these warez sites were mainly distributing software such as games and applications after the release groups removed any protections. Now they are also a source of other copyright protected works such as movies and music. It is strictly prohibited for sites to charge for access to the content, due to decreased security, and sites found doing so are shunned by the topsite community.

FILE_ID.DIZ is a plain-text file containing a brief description of the content of archive to which it belongs. Such files were originally used in archives distributed through bulletin board systems (BBSes) and is still used in the warez scene. FILE_ID stands for "file identification". DIZ stands for "description in zipfile".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Superior Art Creations</span> Underground group of computer art scene enthusiasts

Superior Art Creations (SAC) is an underground artscene group which caters primarily to and is well known within the warez scene. SAC members have made, besides ANSI and ASCII art, VGA bitmap graphics, tracker music, and a variety of other works. SAC's character graphics have also been used in bottles and FTP servers.

A warez group is a tightly organised group of people involved in creating and/or distributing warez such as movies, music or software ("warez") in The Scene. There are different types of these groups in the Scene: release groups and courier groups. Groups often compete, as being the first to bring out a new quality release can bring status and respect – a type of "vanity contest". The warez groups care about the image others have of them.

International Network of Crackers (INC) was one of the premier cracking/releasing warez groups for the IBM PC during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warez scene</span> Organized network of pirate groups

The Warez scene, often referred to as The Scene, is a worldwide, underground, organized network of pirate groups specializing in obtaining and illegally releasing digital media for free before their official sale date. The Scene distributes all forms of digital media, including computer games, movies, TV shows, music, and pornography. The Scene is meant to be hidden from the public, only being shared with those within the community. However, as files were commonly leaked outside the community and their popularity grew, some individuals from The Scene began leaking files and uploading them to filehosts, torrents and ed2k.

The United Software Association (USA) was a warez organization which released games and software for the IBM PC platform during the 1990s. USA formed a co-op with the PC warez division of Fairlight which was best known as "USA/FLT". USA was formed as the result of a split of several members from another noteworthy PC group, The Humble Guys (THG). Key members, such as Genesis and The NotSoHumble Babe, left THG, eventually resulting in public displays of animosity.

CLASS (CLS) was a notorious and prolific warez group that existed between January 1, 1997, and January 9, 2004. The group was the target of federal raids such as Operation Fastlink. They specialized in cracked games, and sometimes had elaborate art in the cracktro or release. They were a global group and had many members worldwide. Class used their group abbreviation, CLS, as a suffix at the end of the files they released.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pirates with Attitudes</span> Former warez organization

Pirates With Attitudes (PWA) was a major international warez release group between 1992 and 2000. The group was established by two former International Network of Crackers members known by the pseudonyms Orion and BarManager. PWA was also very well known during the tail end of the BBS-era for their development of modifications and enhancements ("mods") for the PCBoard BBS software.

textfiles.com Archive of digital media

textfiles.com is a website dedicated to preserving the digital documents that contain the history of the bulletin board system (BBS) world and various subcultures, and thus providing "a glimpse into the history of writers and artists bound by the 128 characters that the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) allowed them". The site categorizes and stores thousands of text files, primarily from the 1980s, but also contains some older files and some that were created well into the 1990s. A broad range of topics is presented, including anarchy, art, carding, computers, drugs, ezines, freemasonry, computer games, hacking, phreaking, politics, computer piracy, sex, and UFOs. The site was created and is run by Jason Scott.

Aces of ANSI Art was the first group of artists specifically organized for the purposes of creating and distributing ANSI art. The group was founded and operated by two BBS enthusiasts from California, "Zyphril" and "Chips Ahoy", from 1989 through 1991.

Video game piracy is the unauthorized copying and distributing of video game software, and is a form of copyright infringement. It is often cited as a major problem that video game publishers face when distributing their products, due to the ease of being able to distribute games for free, via torrenting or websites offering direct download links. Right holders generally attempt to counter piracy of their products by enforcing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, though this has never been totally successful. Digital distribution of pirated games has historically occurred on bulletin board systems (BBS), and more recently via decentralized peer-to-peer torrenting. In terms of physical distribution, Taiwan, China and Malaysia are known for major manufacturing and distribution centers for pirated game copies, while Hong Kong and Singapore are major importers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Razor 1911</span> Norwegian warez and demogroup

Razor 1911 (RZR) is a warez and demogroup founded in Norway, 1986. It was the first ever such group to be initially founded exclusively as a demogroup, before moving into warez in 1987. According to the US Justice Department, Razor 1911 is the oldest software cracking group that is still active on the internet. Razor 1911 ran the diskmag 'Propaganda' until 1995.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Humble Guys". DemoZoo.org. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  2. Ben Garrett aka Ipggi. "Online Software Piracy of the Last Millennium" (PDF). Pdf.textfiles.com. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  3. Oosterhuis, Kas; Feireiss, Lukas (2006). The Architecture Co-laboratory: GameSetandMatch II : On Computer Games, Advanced Geometries, and Digital Technologies. ISBN   9789059730366.
  4. "The Humble Review". Defacto2. Archived from the original on 2012-04-02. Retrieved 2012-09-17.
  5. "The BBS Software Directory". Software.bbsdocumentary.com. Retrieved 2012-09-17.
  6. "Some comments on NBC Dateline's Hacker Segment, Tr". Archived from the original on 2005-02-12. Retrieved 2005-02-03.
  7. "Well, what I would basically like to say here is that I officially retire from the pirate scene" (TXT). Textfiles.com. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  8. "David J. Francis Obituary: View David Francis's Obituary by St. Louis Post-Dispatch". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2012-09-17.
  9. "Pierre Barkett Obituary (2015) Florida Times-Union". Legacy.com .
  10. "Phrack Magazine". Phrack.org. Retrieved 2020-05-29.
  11. http://www.defacto2.net/file/detail/a73d55 [ permanent dead link ]
  12. "Terminator 2029 - Yes, that's right! Term 2029!". Originally Funny Guys. Retrieved 2012-09-17.[ self-published source ]
  13. "Flying Teapot (Amiga Demo Scene BBS)". janeway.exotica.org.uk. Retrieved 2020-05-29.
  14. "The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops (The THG Years) – Part Six". Steemit. 2019-04-11. Retrieved 2020-05-29.
  15. "Novell Software Piracy Investigation Leads to Court- Ordered Shut Down of Pits Bulletin Board System". Novell.com. 1995-11-06. Retrieved 2012-09-17.