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                                        | Xine - issue #4 - Phile 001 |
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come home
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 it was quite some time ago when we released the third issue, that was
may 1998. you thought we were dead isn't it? well, if you remember the
intro words from xine#3, then you didn't :) as usual we are just busy and
such for many reasons and we had to spend a lot of time to prepare this
fourth issue of xine. but finally you can get your hands on this issue
that we really hope you will like. we tried to include a lot of new techs
and code, keeping always also some easier articles that could help the
newcomer to get into this things. as in other issues even if we still stand
as a h/p/v/c group the zine is more concentrated on viruses with some
small hacking and such parts. of course remember to send some feedback
about the zine, telling us if you liked or if you didn't liked it and
expecially why, so we could try to improve future issues. of course again
a great 'thank you' to everyone that helped us in some way, with an
article, with an idea, with some weed or something else to this issue.
 many things of course happened in the scene in this so long time: new
virus zines was released (like 29A#3), a lot of new kewl viruses were
written, avers had stolen a lot of money, new people entered the virus
scene and some sadly left. i'm not going to talk too deeply about this
simply because i wouldn't like to lie too much, since i haven't been
around too much so probably i missed a lot of things aswell.
 last summer two members of ikx (starzero and me) were attending to the
first vx meeting in madrid and it was of course a very nice experience to
meet other people that share some not so usual interests. we repeated the
same great experience this year too at the amsterdam 1999 vx meeting in
the first days of august. this time the ikx representance was bigger since
n0ph attended aswell. the meeting was of course just great fun. but i
don't want to say about this anything more, we (all the guys that
attended to the meeting) are planning to write an article about it, but we
need quite some time to try to remember something and then put all the
various versions together and try to find what actually was probably going 
on at the meeting. as a small anticipation, it is planned that the 2000
meeting should be organized in moscow, so you are warned and you don't
have any excuse to miss it this time! in the meantime also the second
italian hacking meeting, the hackmeeting 1999, took place in milan but
sadly there wasn't any ikx representance there due to usual time
restrictions in our lifes. but thanks to the s0ftproject guys we had our
website mirrored in the local meeting network so we were infact also
present there. thanks again to the s0ftproject guys!
 also things in ikx group organization changed quite a lot from #3. two
new members joined, n0ph and billy belcebu that will make sure to bring a
lot of new and kewl stuff in the future issues of the zine. at the same
time two members also left, that are int13h and me. int13h leaves ikx and
the scene for time and legal problems. he wanted to send a message to the
scene out there:

 "Well, I just want to give my sincere thanks to IKX and all my friends
  in the scene for all the fun I had when I was an active virus coder.
  Programming living code was one of the most beautiful experiences in my
  life. Sincere thanks for ever"

as for me there isn't much to say infact, i just felt getting a bit bored
of the whole thing and wasn't doing much vx-wise in a long time. i got
other interests for which i spend most of my time. like someone may say,
i'll try to get a life maybe :) i could write something from time to time,
but don't expect to see too much stuff from me. but i'll of course
continue annoying ppl on irc, that's for sure. thanks to all the ikx ppl
(past and present) and to anyone in the scene that made this a cool
experience. knowing there are great ppl in ikx like starzero, murkry, n0ph
and billy i'm sure the group will do big things in the future.
 well, but enough with such things, let's go read this fourth issue of
xine! i really hope you'll enjoy it.

greetings,
b0z0