Editing Warez (section)

===Distribution via compromised FTP servers===
Prior to the development of modern peer-to-peer sharing systems and home broadband service, sharing warez sometimes involved warez groups scanning the Internet for weakly secured computer systems with high-speed connections. These weakly secured systems would be compromised by exploiting the poor [[File Transfer Protocol|FTP]] security, creating a special directory on the server with an unassuming name to contain the illegal content.<ref name="Koziol 2003 72">{{cite book | last = Koziol | first = Jack | title = Intrusion Detection with Snort | url = https://archive.org/details/intrusiondetecti00kozi | url-access = limited | publisher = Sams Publishing | year = 2003 | isbn = 978-1-57870-281-7 | page = [https://archive.org/details/intrusiondetecti00kozi/page/n92 72] }} ([https://books.google.com/books?id=W2xN6XmedWIC&dq=warez+compromise+ftp&pg=PA72 View cited page] using [[Google Books]])</ref><ref>Software Piracy Exposed: How Software is Stolen and Traded Over the Internet – By Paul Craig, Ron Honick, Mark Burnett, Published by Syngress, 2005, {{ISBN|1-932266-98-4}}, Chapter 7 – The Distribution Chain, Pages 144–145 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=cA3qL9PBR0kC&dq=warez+IRC&pg=PA145 View cited pages] using [[Google Books]])</ref>

A common mistake of early FTP administrators was to permit a directory named /incoming that allows full read and write access by external users, but the files themselves in /incoming were hidden; by creating a directory inside /incoming, this hidden directory would then allow normal file viewing.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}} Users of the compromised site would be directed to log in and go to a location such as /incoming/data/warez to find the warez content. Messages could be left for other warez users by uploading a plain text file with the message inside.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}

Hackers would also use known software bugs to illicitly gain full administrative remote control over a computer, and install a hidden FTP service to host their wares.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}} This FTP service was usually running on an unusual port number, or with a non-anonymous login name like "login: warez / Password: warez" to help prevent discovery by legitimate users; information about this compromised system would then be distributed to a select group of people who were part of the warez scene.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}

It was important for warez group members to regulate who had access to these compromised FTP servers, to keep the network bandwidth usage low.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}} A site that suddenly became very popular would be noticed by the real owners of the equipment, as their business systems became slow or low on disk space; investigation of system usage would then inevitably result in discovery and removal of the warez, and tightening of the site security.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}