Also need to mention one very rude fuck up releasing MS Explorer 2.0 beta that is double fucked - FREEWARE and DUPE of PNT :) We all can log to www.microsoft.com and get it directly from the first screen. What can i say? Shitload of meggage but 4 betas that got 70% of those meggage and also 1 dupe/fuckup. Anyway, the team released other fine utils that can and must award fine points.

Current Week Points: 09/10
Overall Score: 28/30

RBS (Rebels) - Very impressive. These Swedens exploded with many utils and cracks on the past week. Want to just mention MS Windows NT SNA 2.11 Server (25 Disks), Diskaccess for Windows 95 cracked, DS Standard Netware Tool for Win/Win95 on (5 Disks) and a few others. Also they were prolly jealous of PWA for cracking elite shareware/demos and beaten them fully on this week in that! 5 small cracked/unlocked things. I am glad that somebody is doing this dirty job - cracking sharewares! Have fun and r elease us some cool sweden blondes next time.

Current Week Points: 08/10
Overall Score: 10/30

As you could notice - nobody got perfect points. Because nobody actually WON! Each group did the best in one way and lost in another. Anyway, competition was rocking and we would like to see something special soon! Hope next week will be that special . If you dissagree with anything or simply wanna talk - email me on dod@ns.extech.msk.su

JIMMY JAMEZ [DOD BOSS]

---=[ 3. Interview - Dorian Hawkmoon - MAliCE ]-------------------------------

WWN : Rumor is or was that Ordnance asked you if he could be a Council member in MAliCE. Is there any truth to this?
Dorian: Not a rumor. This is true. However, the MAliCE council was not in agreement with allowing him in.
WWN : Another rumor is or was that you purposely brought RTS into it's doldrums type state as it is in now, is there any truth to that? While Ordnance was gone, of course.
Dorian: It was never my intention to "kill off" RTS. No RTS member was approached by me personally to join MAliCE. People made a choice and applied to MAliCE.
WWN : Why MAliCE? Meaning - Why did you choose MAliCE as the new frontier in couriering? Why not stick it out through in RTS?
Dorian: Well, if people remember, (and I hope some of the senior members of the scene do), MAliCE was a great courier group in the early 90's, and one of which I was an important part of then. So when it came time to do something new, I felt t hat the name would make people realize that the group was making a comeback, not a new "fledgling" group. RTS had a lack of responsibility in senior positions. NO one person can run a courier group by himself. MAliCE has a "council " of people who are dedicated to making this group #1.
WWN : To our knowledge, MAliCE has 8 INET sites? Needless to say, is MAliCE an INET couriering group?
Dorian: MAliCE is hardly in INET group. Although we do run that many net sites, we are very much into the BBS scene as well.
WWN : Percentage wise - How many MAliCE couriers are LD, NET, and Both?
Dorian: Strict net couriers - only 10%, LD people - about 20%, local board couriers - about 30%, and couriers that do both - about 50%. That's over 100% becuase of an overlap of duties.
WWN : What do you think about RiSC?
Dorian: NO question RiSC is the #1 courier group in the scene today, as well they should be. They have had little competition in the last 2 years. I like their organization, but I do not subscribe to the "Upload to the Top 10 boards only" the ory.
WWN : What do you think about EVR (Everlast)?
Dorian: It's hard to make a judgement on a group that has so few people in it, and one that appears and disappears so frequently. The guys who are in the group definitely know how to play the game though :)
WWN : What do you think about fATE?
Dorian: I will try and be objective here. And, just state that I don't see much of their stuff on the boards I call. They claim to be the #2 courier group in the scene, but I think most people see things in a different light.
WWN : What do you think about HTC?
Dorian: HTC is about where RTS was just before it died. I don't see a future for HTC unless they revise their senior staff and get back to basics.
WWN : What do you think about RTS and it's future?
Dorian: RTS will always be there. Whether it ever amounts to anything again, your guess is as good as mine. If the right people are put in place, I would imagine they could be a competitive group again.
WWN : What do you think about any future couriering groups out there?
Dorian: Good luck:) Seriously, I'm sure we in MAliCE would welcome the competition. People seem to forget that MAliCE is only 5 weeks old in it's current phase. So, we are still essentially, the "new" guys in town. But, we'll take on anyone in the future.
WWN : Vile was quoted in our last issue that MAliCE would put a dent in RiSC's market. How do you guys plan to do so?
Dorian: Reveal our secret plan? :) That wouldn't be fair. Let's just keep them guessing.
WWN : To our knowledge, MAliCE has one Distribution Site. How does one's board become a distribution site for MAliCE?
Dorian: Actually, distribution sites just need to apply. Minimum of three nodes is required, and reputation of the board is important WE do have a lot of affil sites and many member boards too.
WWN : What are the requirements to be a courier of MAliCE? Essentially, what does the Staff of MAliCE expect out of the couriers?
Dorian: Couriers are required to support their assigned boards. For board couriers that are local, we expect sizable uploads in meggage per week. For LD people, we expect dedication to uploading the MAliCE name to give the group exposure. And , for our net couriers, we expect movement of releases to sites ASAP as something comes out onto the net.
WWN : Back to the "Top 10 Board Theory," what is the theory of MAliCE?
Dorian: Anyone that knows me pretty much knows my theory. Courier groups were created for the sole purpose of mass distribution of files. I would much rather "create" a fast board in every AC in the country, rather than have people upload t o boards that would be fast regardless of which courier groups support them. There will always be independant traders for that function.
WWN : What group does MAliCE officially courier for and what exactly does that mean?
Dorian: WE "officially" courier for Pinnacle right now. What that means is that PNC gives us the releases first, so that we can spread them throughtout the scene.
WWN : What are your theories of tagging?
Dorian: Honestly? Tagging is bullshit. I would like to see a return to the days when a courier group is rated based on how well they support the boards they choose to upload to. Because, no SysOp really cares if a MAliCE guy uploads RiSC tag ged files, or vice versa. All he sees is that the MAliCE guy uploads 200 megs a week. And that makes him happy, and it should make the sneior staff of the courier group happy too.
WWN : So, it is safe to say that the best courier group is the one who uploads the most to their boards rather who carries the most files tagged?
Dorian: You can easily find the same releases tagged by 3, 4, or 5 different courier groups. I would have to say that uploading meggage to a board is more important. NO one judges an independent trader by how many files he couriers bearing hi s NAME do they?
WWN : Here is a scenario that all courier groups have - You are the Official Couriers of PNC, however one of their suppliers is a member/courier of fATE, who gets the tag?
Dorian: That is a very disturbing scenario. Unfortunately, it seems the release groups have not set any standards for that. I would like to think that the groups would agree that if they are going to have official couriers, then they should h ave all their releases given to the OFFICIAL couriers first.
WWN : Since you dislike the fine art of tagging, will MALiCE drop it in the future.
Dorian: NO.
WWN : Where do you see MAliCE in the future?
Dorian: MAliCE is here to stay I believe this time. AS long as I am around (not in a rocking chair yet!), MAliCE will always strive to be the #1 courier group in the world. A MAliCE NFO is included within the INQUiSITION package Download It Here.

Interview Conducted by Raptor on October 21, 1995.

---=[ 4. Article - NFO's and Packaging ]=-------------------------------------

Well, I guess this might be a bitch more than an article, but I'll express my views and ideas as more of a suggestion.

Every group out there, whether util/game/established/new/cool/lame/etc is the same in this respect - they package with a compression utility (ie PKZip), use an NFO, and use a DIZ. Pretty simple you would think, eh?

Afraid it's not. Most groups that are established like Razor 1911, PWA, DOD, NTA, TDU-JAM and countless others have complete NFO's and DIZ's to help the scene's layman understanding what exactly their leeching.

On the other hand we have Independents and groups who don't give a damn about what their sticking out there. A fine example of this was Vendetta (VND), and their dead now anyhow. Anyways they put out a damn vendetta EXE and a DIZ. I mean that reall y does a Sys-Op any good for file management or for those who want to know more about what their leeching. Any dude can move a file to Point A to Point B, but not all of us have ISDN lines, so we might be a little more selective in what we're downing. H ence we unpack that NFO to read what the hell we're sucking down.

This is merely a suggestion, but it would be nice or convient if groups/independents take up the idea of including a date of the release, version numbers, operating systems supported, installation instrctions (if needed), and a fairly decent descriptio n of the program.

I can understand that games' groups are in a different catagory, but the utils' scene is not even as competitive. Hell - I have sat on releases for a week or so and no one has put it out, no biggie. So what if it takes an extra few minutes to put out a description of decent length.

I think it's pretty sad when a group says - "Here's Symantec Act! v2.0" "Uh - have fun" - Cool - gotta a release but what the hell is it?

Like I said, most of the groups out there have descriptions on their releases, but a few need to improve their NFO's a bit in this area.

A DIZ should include proggy name, version number and OS - once again it makes it simple for Sys-Ops and the ever-so-important dupe checks.

There also is the rush of CD software on the market. CD's are here to stay, so we better get used to them. If a group decides to rip, make sure you say that it is a Rip. It might be obvious, but then again - some traders might be doubtful in moving the rip due to a future nuke off a board b/c it doesn't work for shit. Anyhow, that's just my beef on rips. Well maybe I'll add that people need to use ZipChunker instead of ARJ. Simple fact that ARJ does not use a 32-bit CRC integrity check on the AR J. Many groups have been burned due to ARJ compression and recompression CRC errors. Recently though, I have changed back to the ARJ compression utility but I just have to take that extra minute to check the CRC integrity.

I like to send a personal greet to TDU-JAM and HYBRID for using the simple install EXE's for all of us who do not like to deal with arj and the parameters that go along for repacking and all that jazz.

Once again - this is just a opinion and well if you think I am full of shit well - go ahead and think that. Read the next article.

---=[ 5. Internet ]=----------------------------------------------------------

INQUiSITION has a World Wide Web page site. Please come by and check it out. You can grab the Previous issues of INQUiSITION there plus the WWN archives.

Here is list of other excellent pages

If you're group has a WWW page, please leave us a not and we'll advertise here

Other Internet related news: If you are a Flight Simulator fan, there is a site where you can play against 300 other flight sim players. The site is currently beta and is free during this period. Here is the info you need:

Have fun

---=[ 6. Announcements ]=-----------------------------------------------------

On October 23, 1995 - Orion, President/Founder of PWA, announced his retirement.

---=[ 7. Closing ]=------------------------------------------------------------

We hope you enjoyed this issue of INQUiSITION, if you have any questions or comments, find us on the IRC or through e-mail.

Hopefully you enjoyed this issue of INQUiSITION. Look forward to Mr.ZigZag's article over site security, Jimmy Jamez Interview, and an upcoming debate.

INQUiSITION will have weekly meetings on Wednesday's at 9p Central.

Take it easy Orion!