Seek n Destroy is a web based "crack" team. The team was born early January of 2003 by Punk!Dude and Cektop but the offical Seek n Destroy birthday is 7th January after the first release (a keygen) by Punk!Dude.
The team is not based from any one country, members are from nations all over the world.
Primarily active on Windows based operating systems the team is comprised, partly, of software reverse engineers that break software licensing protection schemes. Seek n Destroy has also been known to release cracks for PPC.
In their first year Seek n Destroy managed to release over 3500 cracks and keygens and by April of 2007 they were one of the few teams to have broken the 10,000 release barrier. By their 5th birthday they had achieved over 11,500 releases.
The distribution of cracks are usually in the form of software patches, keygens, cracked executables, serials and registry patches. The team is not part of "0-day" and as such do not distribute versions of entire programs with their releases. They also do not run and maintain private distribution servers of entire programs for any form of commercial gain.
Seek n Destroy releases are popular for their interesting designs and their added chiptune music. Work has been put in to creating a custom patch generator (uPPP) specifically for Seek n Destroy with their own unique template designs which, also includes keygens.
Originally Seek n Destroy was dedicated solely to the purpose of cracking software but over the years the team has matured and now includes members who do not crack software protection schemes but focuses on producing tools and utilities to aid in reverse engineering practices either for private or public use. It also has members who produce artistic work in the form of computer graphics and has PHP coders, website administrators and tutorial authors.
Being a web based team, and different to 0-day, effort is made to also share knowledge with the public of popular protection schemes, implementations or just general reverse engineering practices. This is usually in the form of papers and tutorials (text and PDF) but also includes video tutorials in Shockwave Flash.
Seek n Destroy is also popular because it has a lively shared public forum with Tuts 4 You that is not geared directly for aiding in the cracking of software or allowing the public to ask its members to crack software. The forum is based upon the sharing of information of techniques and practices and to share tools, utilities and to keep informed of latest advances in commercial and public protection schemes. The forum also allows its members to share their graphical designs, music and other atistic works.
Seek n Destroy have a public web page that lists their latest and previous releases. The large majority of the PHP coding was done by Cektop in the first few months of the teams activity. This also included a fast release system for its members with the intention of improving release times and to remove the bureaucracy like that within the 0-day community.
Over the years the site has been moved to various locations due to poor hosting and has, as a result, been through a few improvements and cosmetic changes.
Previously most members joined Seek n Destroy by announcing to an already existing member they were interested in Seek n Destroy and would like to become part of the team. They would then have to prove to the team their talents and skills either by producing and explaining their previous cracks or by completing a crackme (a small program designed to test their reverse engineering skills). Today members can join Seek n Destroy by invitation only.
Another side to Seek n Destroy, many members would like to see a return to the "old scene" days where by a crack team not only focused on cracking but produced cracktros, intros and demos. Work is already under way to produce and to interest demo and intro coders in to the team.
Seek n Destroy is also present on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) on the EFNet network on a channel called #seekndestroy. It is a live discussion forum that allows communication directly between people on the channel.
