ModCozmicZombies
Pub-Crackin 101

What are pubs?
"Pub" short for public means any anonymous port 21 ftp server
There are THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of these out there
Used to be peeps would scan for these type of machines with 1 of many
ftp scanners, Grims Ping probably the most popular
Peeps would find the "pubs" with makedir, write and read permissions
These are perfect for the distribution of files
Next a tagger would come along and make a path for the group something like
/ /pub/tagged 4/-=@PC-FXP TEAM@=-/scanned by/joe/tagged by/joe mama/filled by/wish you knew/enter/
Then finally a filler would fill it and post it on the BBS Forum for the members to login and download
Back in the early days it was alot of work, when i started in my first FXP Team
The biggest Hard Drive on the market was a 10 gig
so to find a pub with any real space was like finding gold
One good thing back then was the amount of Unix type servers that were left wide open
Unix is different from NT in many ways but 1 specifically
You can transfer files into an Unix server from Either an NT4 or another Unix server
without the use of a proxy (wingate), Xfer speeds are determined by the speed of the slowest of the 2 servers
NT to NT or Unix to NT it is necessary to use a wingate to make the X-fer happen
There are still Unix servers out there with the correct permissions for "sharing"
but due to the inability to protect your files few people use them anymore

Over time the scene grew so much that there just got to be to many people scanning, tagging & filling
i don't believe there was an IP range on the globe that was not scanned many times over
With so many people in the scene many things and Scene Rules simply fell apart
Scene rules said if a pub was tagged less than 30 days you were to leave and find another
That became impossible, EVERY pub had some kind of tag on it and to make matters worse
people found ways to protect their files by making a huge Directory Maze
At the same time there were those who found ways of making folders inaccessible
by naming the folder with an xtra space at the end, the folder when clicked on
would reply Directory not found
These tricks spread rapidly so now ya had several FXP Groups filling on the same pub
in turn this means ..... ya had tons of open ftp servers with loads of files
alot of times the group that put them there abandoned the pub you had wasted space also
That pretty much nobody could gain access to in order to recycle
OR JUST PLAIN STEAL THE STUFF

In another area of the scene are the pub stealers and "Warez Lists"
There are irc channels where you can go and get a !list of the current pubs
most lists are free but posting a site to the list gets you better access to either a private channel
and/or a more updated (realtime) list
People would go and join the FXP boards with something to offer
a list of scans usually, usually bunk or old reused lists
by contributing to the board they would get access to the better pubs that the FXP team had
They would take the pubs and go post (submit) them to the "warez lists"
Pub-Stealers as they are called will do anything to get the list of ftps on an FXP forum
The lists are always loaded with IP addresses of "at one time" open ftps

Nowadays there are still many pubs out there but for the past 3 years or so the FXP teams
took greater risks by actually scanning for ANY open exploitable machine
DCOM, RPC (before blaster) and NTPASS were the most common
SQL, IIS and NT Buffer exploits were also popular just to name a few
Once they were into a hacked machine they could setup an ftp server with remote admin
as well as bots to echo server replies into an irc channel
It was pretty extreme stuff just to sling warez
These type of servers were called "PubStros"
They required a username and pass and were usually run on non standard ports to avoid being
scanned by the anon scanners
These servers were nice because if you know much about FXP you know there are some
server "type" rules that apply to being able to transfer files between 2 servers
NT to NT you need a wingate or http 1080 proxy
Unix to Unix will FXP without any proxy
Unix to NT you can login to the nix server without the proxy on the NT side you must have a proxy
PRoxies are nice in the way they allow you to transfer files when no other way is possible
the drawback is that the speed of the Xfers will all be controlled by the proxy speed
you could have 2 100mbit servers and a 30kb proxy and the speed will be 30kb
if you had 2 100mbit Unix machines you could Xfer many times faster

Then TRoN said "Let there be Pub-Crackin"
Taking pub stealing to a whole new level never before seen in the world of warez
Pub-Crackin was a group of people who found the ftp list command that would
"break into" a locked folder on NT4/5 anon pubs
a 2nd list command to the ftp server would reply the information
needed to gain access to the locked folder
from there you run the same command and get the name of the next locked folder
and so on etc etc etc until you found the warez
Locking, renaming and deleting locked folders as well as breaking through the path
without altering anything was the pub crackers specialty
we had the skills and knowledge it took to literally take over a pub and 0wn it
we could find ALL the files put there by all groups and "steal" them
Alot of people dont know you can move files and folders on an ftp
the same way as you can your local machine
It was as simple as making our own pub-crackin tagged path
and as we found stuff move it to our stash place
from there we could recycle it or submit it to the warez lists as is
we were relentless and no files were safe when pub-crackin logged onto your pub

The pub scene in some ways has died, there arent near as many FXP boards as there was in 2002
Possibly due to the frustrations of competition in the scene many people gave up
In some ways this is good, there are probably some new machines out there that are untouched
I am certain there are new IP ranges that have been allocated in the past 2 years
which means more open/exploitable machines
The majority of the FXP teams i know that are still around only do pubstros
With the well known windows exploits being patched there are fewer exploitable machines
which could force the FXP'ers back to using pubs

In any case its good news for you if all you wanna do is FIND warez
Below is a comprehensive description of what you can do with very little resources

Now that your a bit familiar with the types of servers and what people are doin out there
yer wonderin "how can i use this shit"?
A few people got real serious about cracking pubs and made some programs
to automate the cracking process"scan" the folders, locked or unlocked, no matter how big the maze is

Using the warez lists you can avoid having to scan for ftps
Remember that if there is a anon pub alive, its tagged by many groups
Looking at the list take the IP of the pubs that have a port 21 login
with anonymous user and email and password
you can also spot them by looking for any kind of path after the IP
Instead of following the path that is on the list use just the IP and login to the root dir
here you will be able to tell a good bit about the history of the pub
look at any odd named dirs and the date they were created. i usually scan the newest ones first
Use Clowns "locksmith" to scan through the pub, each time it finds something, right clic on the root folder for the warez
and choose Copy URL to clipboard, drop it in a notepad
While locksmith is running you can make youself a temporary path to move stuff to
making dirs on an ftp is easier than on your local box
the command for makedir is mkd
you can make a folder or path from anywhere on the server using the manual process
you wont have to refresh the window after each dir creation
a path 5 folders deep would take 5 raw commands the with the path move straight into it
mkd / /                                                    
mkd / /. pc-fxp team / /                             
mkd / /. pc-fxp team /.0wned / /                
mkd / /. pc-fxp team /.0wned /stuffs / /      
mkd / /. pc-fxp team /.0wned /stuffs /here/
notice the first dir / / is a hidden
the / / after 0wned and stuffs is the lock for the dir..... yes you can mkd a locked folder

Now with Flash FXP you can login to the pub in both windows
in one window navigate to your path
the other window you will use to get into the dirs locksmith finds
go to each dir with files and use the move command to send them to your path

tools ya need
Listbox Studio
Listbox Studio Screenshot
these guys have a channel on efnet but to make things easier they made this lil app
Use it to find open anon pubs then use the next utility to see what else might be there

Clowns Utilities "locksmith"
Locksmith Screenshot
Simply login to the pub with just the ip, right click on each folder and choose "Scan FTP"
It will scan through every dir in all paths in the tree
some are fairly complex and take a while so i recommend opening several instances of Locksmith

Flash FXP
this is the scene edition alot of cool configurable stuff


Now.... not EVERY dir is gonna be stealable, and files can be locked on NT5 the same as folders
Files on the downside cannot be removed at all after they are locked, folders can
Granted you will find alot of bullshit on sites
The internet is not racist so you can find Dutch, French, Italian, German .... you name it releases
But ya never know ya may just find a motherload of stuff, or a fast pub that some FXP Group is using as a semi private dump for their team members
What you do find can be moved to a central directory then whatever site # it was on the list
wait for it to be deleted ...... then repost it
That will get you better access to search and usually better sites
I know guys that used to post 150 sites a day competing to be #1 site poster

GO HERE
for some how to's / Tips n Tricks for stealing warez