The History and INC Today   for International Network of Crackers (INC)   by Adrenalin (adren)

INC - International Network of Crackers The History and INC Today Written by: Bar Manager <O2/23/93> Well I was asked to write an article about INC, so here I am writing an article about INC, the past, present, and the future. As you know, INC has been a driving force in the pirate scene for many years. It has also had its share of "ups and downs". In the past INC was formed as part of a hobby, a place for people to meet and share software. Our suppliers were people who worked for Egghead, Software ETC., Babbages, and a few other places. We had some fun competition with THG, but that is all it was, just having plain fun in a hobby. Then one day, The Not So Humble Bitch left THG and started a new group called USA, which changed the pirate scene as we all know it. INC, until recently, never charged for Distribution Sites. (For membership before, we always took donations, which at the time was enough to keep this hobby going.) Then greed took over. USA started the "0 day wares craze" by ordering from distributors and getting members inside the software companies. That's about the time I showed up on the scene (Bar Manager). The main force of INC at that time was The Cracksmith, Magnum, Cool Hand, Vigilante, The Stalker, and Line Noise. You also have to remember at that time, we were still not charging for Distribution Sites. We were only taking donations and also killing everyone with the big releases. (I remember on Oct. 31st of 1991, INC released Civilization, The Secret of Monkey Island, and another big release all that same night.) We were on a conference and heard that The Not So Humble Babe had been crying about how bad we beat her and USA, (remember we were still having fun and did it for a hobby). Shortly after that, TNSHB and The Grim Reaper Bust happened. INC lost a lot of members and many of the members became inactive. One member we lost was The Grim Reaper, which at that time, he was not sitting on his throne thinking he was The FelonyNet God. It was a lot of fun, but the loss and inactivity of The Cracksmith really had hurt INC. The Cracksmith was INC's main supplier in the late '91 and early '92; nobody but Line Noise was considered better. After The Cracksmith left, I inherited the supplying job though Cool Hand helped by distributing the work to many members. This took a lot of pressure off me. At that time, Cool Hand was pretty much running the group with the help of Ford Perfect, Hannibal Lektor, Night Ranger UK, Gunslinger, and myself. The group again began dominating the scene again. It had not taken long before INC to kill the competition again (RAZOR/THG/TRSi/TDT/FLT/SKI). The trouble began again when a report of Cool Hand taking SNES Cartridges for Distribution Sites started floating around. This pissed off some members who put a lot of money into the group. One such person was Ford Perfect and his claim of $1800 that he didn't get "reimbursed" for (which I find hard to swallow). After that report, there was couple of attempts to throw out Cool Hand and demote Line Noise. This all fell apart and caused the resurgence of FLT when Night Ranger and Ford Perfect left INC to join them. Well, that brings us to the present right now. INC is regrouping with some help from Tormented Soul and Digital Knight. We are looking for good members who want to have fun. Everyone should remember that this is a hobby, not a business. The future looks good for INC. We have just picked up some great new members including Orion from FLT (he will be in charge of making the group run smoothly, in other words, being the "Boss Man"), Shadow Angel from Sinister (he will be in charge of running the couriers), Service from Sinister (he will be in charge of the Distribution Site quality control), and Ricochet along with TMOD (from FLT) will be setting up the new INCNet, decided to be called INK, simply INK, not INKNet. So, you can presume the future for INC is looking bright. The one thing we are going to do that no other group is doing with the exception of THG, is to have fun! Also, if you are wondering what Line Noise, American Gladiator, and I are going to do, we are going to do what we do best, supply the wares... See ya around with the INC wares.. Bar Manager * NOTE * Bar Manager is now part of PWA, Pirates With Attitude. At the time of when this article was written, he was a Senior of INC.