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Class (CLS) was a notorious and prolific warez group that existed between January 1, 1997 and January 9, 2004. The group was the repeated target of federal raids such as Operation Fastlink. They specialized in cracked games, and sometimes had elaborate art in the cracktro or release (ie. music, 3D animation, logo designs, etc.). 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. Image File history File links Class ASCII art header commonly displayed atop their warez NFO files. ...
ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from characters (preferably from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). ...
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Dytec Ascii Logo by member artist Roy. ...
1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Warez refers primarily to copyrighted material traded in violation of copyright law. ...
While being one of the first personal computers, the Altair 8800 was considered a mere toy due its lack of abilities. ...
Warez refers primarily to copyrighted material traded in violation of copyright law. ...
January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ...
1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
January 9 is the 9th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Operation Fastlink was a coordination of four separate, simultaneous undercover investigations by the FBI, the FBI Cyber Division, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Criminal Division and Interpol. ...
Software cracking is the modification of software to remove protection methods: copy prevention, trial/demo version, serial number, hardware key, CD check or software annoyances like nag screens and adware. ...
Tug of war is an easily organized, impromptu game that requires little equipment. ...
The Bath, a painting by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). ...
A crack intro, also known as a cracktro, or just intro, is a small introduction sequence added to cracked software, designed to inform the user which cracking crew or individual cracker was responsible for removing the softwares copy prevention and distributing the crack. ...
For other uses, see Music (disambiguation). ...
3D computer graphics are different from 2D computer graphics in that a three-dimensional representation of geometric data is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
This group was involved in a long-standing war with a competing game pirating group known as MYTH. The two groups released strictly ripped games, as opposed to the CD image content released by groups such as Fairlight. Games would be split into the base rip, which would have as little content as possible to fully play the game; additional media (usually movies or digital music) would be released as add-ons. For some releases, intro movie add-ons were released as well. Group specializes in PC-Game Rips, games that have been directly modified to reduce file size. ...
Fairlight logo by JED of ACiD. Fairlight (FLT) is a warez and demos group initially involved in the Commodore demoscene, and in cracking to illegally release games for free, since 1987. ...
They used advanced compression methods (most notably ACE) to reduce the size of the required downloads as much as possible; installers were specially crafted to use the abnormally compressed files. Many of their releases included a WAVE Injector/UHARC compression scheme, that decompressed and situated the files into a specific folder. These programs were at the core of their rip operation, as these programs (Wave Injector coded by CLASS/BACKLASH) are vital in decompressing the rips (i.e. games). In computing, ACE is a proprietary data compression archive file format with superior compression compared to the ZIP file format, but at the cost of a lower compression speed. ...
When one group released a rip that was in some way flawed or unplayable, the other group was sure to pounce on this occurrence as a sign that they were more talented or reliable. Class stopped producing as of January 9th, 2004, by releasing an "endtro." This stated that after 1,234 releases they were giving up their "throne."
 Famous EndTro that was the official group retiring from active scene in January 2004 Image File history File links Size of this preview: 518 × 599 pixel Image in higher resolution (608 × 703 pixel, file size: 415 KB, MIME type: image/png) Name: The End Author: Class Date release: January 9th, 2004 File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old...
Image File history File links Size of this preview: 518 × 599 pixel Image in higher resolution (608 × 703 pixel, file size: 415 KB, MIME type: image/png) Name: The End Author: Class Date release: January 9th, 2004 File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old...
Criticism
Class was sometimes criticized by members of the Internet community for its buggy or incompletely cracked releases.
Quotes On April 22, 2004, the United States Department of Justice repeatedly singled out Class and five other warez-related organizations during their Internet piracy sweep known as Operation Fastlink: April 22 is the 112th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (113th in leap years). ...
DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C. Justice Department redirects here. ...
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- Among the groups targeted by Fastlink are well-known organizations such as Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class and Project X, all of which specialized in pirating computer games, and music release groups such as APC. —Source: United States Department of Justice press release
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- Operation Fastlink has identified nearly 100 individuals worldwide. Many of them are leaders or high-level members of some of the most prolific international "warez" [WARES] release groups with names like Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class and Project X. —Source: Prepared Remarks of United States Attorney General John Ashcroft
Fairlight logo by JED of ACiD. Fairlight (FLT) is a warez and demos group initially involved in the Commodore demoscene, and in cracking to illegally release games for free, since 1987. ...
Echelon ASCII art logo designed by Rotox of ART. Echelon is a warez group which specializes in the release and distribution of console games, such as Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlayStation 2 ISO images. ...
ASCII art logo for aPC designed by NFO artist rnz. ...
John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) was the 79th Attorney General of the United States. ...
See also Fairlight logo by JED of ACiD. Fairlight (FLT) is a warez and demos group initially involved in the Commodore demoscene, and in cracking to illegally release games for free, since 1987. ...
Group specializes in PC-Game Rips, games that have been directly modified to reduce file size. ...
This is a list of warez groups. ...
External links - CLASS file and information repository on Defacto2
- An incomplete collection of cracktros released by CLASS indexed on Pouet.
- Link to Maktone's Website - a Musician that did music for Class installers and cracktros
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