Nuke (warez)

In the warez scene, nuke refers to labeling content as "bad", for reasons which might include unusable software, bad video/audio quality, virus-infected content, deceptively labeled (fake) content or not following the rules. Also duplicates and stolen releases from other pirates that do not attribute the other pirates will be nuked. 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.

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.

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. For example:

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. 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."

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.

Example 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. In this example two releases were released at almost the same time.

Another source shows different timestamps. The clock of a computer is not always accurate. This and the difference in timezone partially explain the time difference. This shows why this nukewar was started.

ZoNeNET, EthNet and oneNET confirmed the precedent to leave both releases unnuked when groups pre within the same second.

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Wikipedia