In the warez scene, to nuke is to label content as "bad", for reasons which might include unusable software, bad audiovisual quality, virus-infected content, deceptively labeled (fake) content or not following the rules.[1] Duplicates and stolen releases from other pirates that do not attribute the original pirates will also be nuked.[2] When a scene release is "nuked", a message is attached to its listing informing other sceners of its "nuked" status, as well as the specific nature of the problem.[3]
Contrary to what the term implies, a nuke does not actually destroy offending content or prevent anyone from downloading it. A nuke merely serves as a cautionary flag to potential users. The person that uploaded the nuked content to a site will lose credits.
Dupe checkers first showed up on BBSes to help sysops nuke duplicate uploads. It kept a history of releases that were moved offline by storing the DIZ files included in the ZIPs. These dupe check scripts or programs allows users to search warez releases by date or name. It allows couriers to check when a release already exists on a site and the release groups avoid duplicating an earlier release of another group.[4]
At the end of the 1990s, the various IRC dupe checks were the simplest to use. The most popular dupe checks were ran out of #releases and #thescene. In 1998 a new kind of dupe check appeared. Katman, a siteop of Quadcon (QC), created a native win95 program named WinDupe. It let the user connect to an SQL database, offering greater speed and flexibility over the IRC bots. Drink Or Die created the first web dupe check.[4]
Titles can only be officially labeled as "nuked" by people who have special access to a listing database, often referred to as "nukers". The nuke is issued by a nuke command in a nuke channel.[5] For example: !nuke release reason [source] (nukes a release) !unnuke release reason [source] (unnukes a release) !renuke release reason [source] (renukes a release) !modnuke release reason [source] (modifies a nuke reason) !snuke release reason [source] (a silent nuke: not announced in announce channels) !oldnuke release reason [source] (for old releases, also a silent nuke)Erroneous nukes are usually "un-nuked" easily, by the same people who have access to issue nukes, that nukes and unnukes happen on IRC. These nuke networks have their own guidelines on how to nuke a release.[6] In 2008, twelve of those nuke networks created a coalition to work together "to ensure nukers bias, nukewars and many other problems that plague the nuke scene become a thing of the past."[7]
Local nukes or site nukes can be issued by a topsite administrator and are only applicable to that site. Each individual site has rules for which kind of releases that are allowed. e.g. no VCD releases. Hence a locally nuked release can still be valid.
The situation where a release is nuked or unnuked more than four times is called a nukewar.[7]
Example[8] of a nukewar. The first two columns represent the time when the release was pred or when a nuke was issued. The next column is the category of the release.[9] In this example two releases were released at almost the same time. 2007-03-08 04:15:26 TV Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-NoTV 2007-03-08 04:15:32 TV Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-XOR 2007-03-08 04:16:16 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-NoTV NUKED dupe.XOR.same.day 2007-03-08 04:20:21 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-XOR NUKED lost.race.to.NoTV 2007-03-08 04:21:59 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-NoTV NUKED dupe.XOR.03-07-2007 2007-03-08 04:22:46 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-NoTV UNNUKE fix 2007-03-08 04:23:12 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-NoTV NUKED dupe.XOR.2007-03-07 2007-03-08 04:23:46 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-NoTV UNNUKE NoTV.pred.first 2007-03-08 04:24:47 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-XOR NUKED dupe.NoTV.2007-03-08 2007-03-08 04:38:41 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-XOR UNNUKE is.fine 2007-03-08 04:39:23 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-NoTV NUKED dupe.XOR.2007-03-08 2007-03-08 05:18:23 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-NoTV UNNUKE won.race 2007-03-08 05:18:50 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-XOR NUKED dupe.NoTV.2007-08-03 2007-03-08 05:20:22 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-XOR UNNUKE fixing 2007-03-08 05:24:03 NUKES Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-XOR UNNUKE fix_won.race.against.NoTVAnother source shows different timestamps.[10] The clock of a computer is not always accurate. This and the difference in time zone partially explain the time difference. This shows why this nukewar was started. 2007-03-08 03:14:07 TV-XVID Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-XOR 2007-03-08 03:14:14 TV-XVID Crossing.Jordan.S06E07.HDTV.XviD-NoTV
ZoNeNET, EthNet and oneNET confirmed the precedent to leave both releases unnuked when groups pre within the same second. This did not prevent a small nukewar between the LocalNet and SanctityDenied networks in 2020.[11]
The.Game.S06E18.HDTV.x264-ASAP NUKE dupe.EVOLVE.2013-08-21/ZoNeNET UNNUKE fine_pred.same.second.so.both.rls.are.fine/ZoNeNET
The.Walking.Dead.S04E12.PROPER.HDTV.x264-2HD NUKE dupe.KILLERS.2014-03-03/ZoNeNET UNNUKE fine_both.pred.within.one.second.of.each.other_basis.has.been.to.leave.both.alone_ see.zonenets.unnuke.on.The.Game.S06E18.HDTV.x264-ASAP/EthNet NUKE dupe.KILLERS.2014-03-03_KILLERS.won.the.proper/ZoNeNET UNNUKE fine_groups.pred.within.the.same.second_precedent.is.to.leave.both.unnuked/oneNET
Another example is the nukewar about the TDRS2K10 ruleset.[12] [13] The name between the square brackets is the nuke network where the nuke originates from. Each of those networks in this example was also a council member network.
Nuked on 2009-11-14 15:15:09 [LocalNet] crap_signing.grps.are.crap_
Examples of content that could be "nuked" include non-working software, non-working cracks, videos with out-of-sync audio, watermarked videos, or music recordings with excessive "skips". The reason for a nuke is based on violations of the standards that must be followed.
Spam entries in release databases are deleted but marked as soft deleted, with the status delpre, to ensure they no longer appear in regular searches. There are several reasons for this, including instances when the release does not actually exist, when it does not originate from the scene itself (peer-to-peer), or when the name of a legitimate release becomes distorted during transmission (cut echo). One example is when a fake name is shared to monitor communication between bots and networks, but the record is later deleted with leak.test as the reason.[14]
When a release is mistakenly deleted, it is assigned the status undelpre. This can occur when releases that appear suspicious or questionable are removed. Here are various examples:[15]
VA-H0rd3z_Ov_Thee_El33t-2006-SnS EthNet: real From.The.Earth.To.The.Moon.1998.INTERNAL.Part.1.WS.DVDRip.XviD.-FRAGMENT EthNet: real INCOMPLETE-I-N-C_Am_Mic_(JMC_Qualifikation_57)-WEB-DE-2016-VOLDiES_iNT EthNet: crap.maybe_real.nonetheless Sinik_Cheb_Billal_And_Big_Ali-Bienvenue_Chez_Les_Bylkas-PROPER-x264-FR-2008-NaWaK.mkv EthNet: it.was.pred.this.way_seriously TCF-415C47197F78E811FEEB7862288306ECFD4EC3DED8B-WEB-2014-BCC EthNet: not.spam_real.release Love.Thy.Neighbor.2013.S03E06.HDTV.x264-CRiMSO EthNet: not.a.cut.echo_sitepred.BEFORE.CRiMSON.rls.and.traded.too sitepred.and.raced.before.CRiMSON
A pre network (aka a Nukenet) is a collection of databases which share information about releases among the members of the network. There have been at least 30 different pre networks.[16] [17] [18] Peers can be linked to more than one network. Linking to other network provides information which isn't available on peers local pre network. Such information can be .sfv, .m3u, .jpg, .diz or .nfo files.[19]
Each release that gets released will result as a record in a pre-database or dupe check.[20] This record will at least contain the time the release was released and the release name (the name of the folder that contains the files of the release).[21] The size and nature of the release are often provided too.[22] Nukes are linked with their release in these databases when a nuke is issued. To check if a release is nuked, a scener uses an IRC channel to query the database by typing commands. These IRC channels are called pre channels and are often not accessible for the general public.[23] The database is updated automatically through spidering topsites or by catching pre-release announcements from site channels.The purpose of these different worldwide and mirrored pre databases is to check for fakes and that for example a music album or movie isn't pred more than once and thus reducing traffic.
There are now several public websites and IRC channels that list the contents of pre-databases. Most of them are regularly updated and show nuke reasons next to their release. They can be regularly down, very slow when searching or disappeared entirely.[24] The server time is shown on some of them. According to TorrentFreak these websites are "simple archives of information that cannot be claimed by copyright holders, but anti-piracy companies apparently cannot tell the difference between reporting news and offering pirate releases for download."[25]
A pre channel is an IRC channel in which a prebot announces new warez (pre) releases in real time. Pre channels are generally provided as a convenience to members of the scene, often in conjunction with a topsite. Pre channels are typically private.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
A prebot is commonly known as an automated script in IRC channels that announces new releases and can let users query its database to view past warez release dates and nukes, among other things.[30] Another kind of prebot was adopted in 2000 due to the increased competition among release groups. This prebot automatically distributed new releases to affiliated topsites of a group to release faster and more efficiently. This solved geographical and time zone related issues.