Phrozen Crew
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The Phrozen Crew (PC) is a group of computer software crackers.
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Formation
The Phrozen Crew was founded in 1993 by Aphex Twin. Along the way, Aphex recruited a hacker by the name of The Keyboard Caper (tKC), later responsible for PC's infamy.
PC came across a situation familiar to most software hacking groups — numbers dwindling as members left the group. tKC decided it would be worthwhile revinvigorating the group, creating the modern Phrozen Crew.
It was small to begin with, containing only four members: tKc (president), Psylocke (vice president ansi coder), Mutha (musician), and Lucido (graphics). They became more active in 1995, the year when their first crack, PC_CMNU5.ZIP, was written.
Activities
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1995 and 1996 were the years in which PC started to get recognized. Many people signed up to join their ranks: Archimede, Baloosh, AlieN, Dr. DooM, MegaByte, tHATDUDE, Saltine, LordByte, Killer+Bee, and surva, among others.
In 1996, tKC started up #PC96, the first Phrozen Crew IRC channel. Most people had not yet heard of PC at this time so the channel was not very popular. They spread illegal license keys through software named Oscar. The software itself was a kind of dictionary of serials. The rapid growth, however, led to the Phrozen Crew falling out in 1998. So many members left that the group almost disintegrated; only the core members remained active. Despite this, PC found its way back on track by the end of 1998.
As with most other cracking organizations, they have stated that they simply "promote free software" through cracks, rather than deliberately trying to hack security features on software.
Some of the old Phrozen Crew members are now active in a group known as Phrozen Hell; and with the recent retiring of President and long-time member Nitallica, the group is now under new management and is said to be thriving once again.
See Also
In print
- PC World December 1999. Alt.net column Cracking Up by Scott Mendham
External links
- Phrozen Crew official website (http://www.phrozencrew.net/)
- Autobiography by tKC (http://www.bitchx.ru/soft/books/tKC_history.html)
- History of Phrozen Crew (http://www.digital-kreationz.com/pcweb/history.htm) written by tHATDUDE
- History of Phrozen Crew (http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/phrozen/profile.html) (uncredited)
- History of Phrozen Crew (http://someone.one.pl/index.php?group=underground&site=crackingen) — "The Quick and Dirty Story Behind The Group" (uncredited)