Re: Raise the Jolly Roger!

["Sean Fahey" <a2fan@hotmail.com>]

"Who is this Roger fellow, and why is he so jolly?" That was the inside
joke, often used as code by members of Chicago Mafia phreakers/crackers
crew... it more or less meant "do you have any new <freshly cracked> games?"

That was back in the early 80's... the guy who ran the Mafia's AE/Catfur
back then was positive that he was under FBI and Secret Service
survelliance. So he developed a set of codes and sentences that meant
something else. We were all in our early teens, and it seemed likely to us,
that in our "struggle" against those "greedy, rich fatcats at <insert
publisher here>" that all the cracking, hacking and phreaking the group was
involved in would eventually draw undesireable attention from law
enforcement - we just had to cover our tracks, and as long as we were under
eighteen, we thought we were safe.

Looking back, the shenanigans we did weren't very sophisticated and our
imaginations got carried away in the teen geek-wannabe-rebel lifestyle. We
were underground, counter-culture, punk and leet before "leet" was invented.
We... were... dumbasses.

What motivated us was that we were pissed that the coolest new games often
cost $29.95-$49.95, way too expensive for the average kid to afford. It
didn't seem fair...

Well anyway - that brings us to today's Dumb Pirating Story <tm>

When I was a teenager (I think this was back in '84), I spent 12 or so hours
straight trying to crack the protection on Beyond Castle Wolfenstein - it
was brand new at the time, and serious bragging rights were on the line. Who
ever broke the disk first and got it out into circulation was going to earn
some prestige. Well, when I finally had it figured out, I was excited and I
was definately in a hurry... I couldn't wait to show the guys my work. So I
started to make first copy. However, because I had been at it pretty much
nonstop (I was fatigued and distracted) - at some point I crossed my disks
during swapping and I overwrote my original. All my work got toasted. Even
the neighbors heard me cry out in agony.

Dumb but true stories.