I assume there’s some historical reason for this, but currently, the way scene releases reach most people seems to consist of:
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Sites that track releases post the nfo file of the release; these sites generally don’t provide the release itself.
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People then look for the release via various channels and download it.
Wouldn’t it make sense for the nfo to contain the checksum of the actual release, letting pirates verify unmodified copies of it and making it easier to avoid versions that have been modified in various ways?
Obviously you’d still have to trust both the site where you got the NFO (and therefore the checksum) and the people who made the original release, but those are usually relatively trustworthy, being known people who have handled a lot of releases with no problems - a lot of the danger of viruses and the like in software piracy comes from the risk of middlemen adding something.
Modern scene dosn’t even require strict .nfo files. Most TV groups in WEB or HDTV sections just basic mediainfo and imdb link. Only the oldest and best scene groups do ascii art in nfo files.
P2P groups don’t even have .nfo files and if they do its mostly foum html with mediainfo. Some include .txt with mediainfo only. I’ve only seen EVO p2p group do decent .nfo files.
However all scene groups are required to include .sfv rar checksum files. I’ve never seen any p2p groups do this. Most p2p groups .nfo files are forum html of mediainfo.
But when scene releases leak to public and unrared, files like .sfv deleted by uploaders. But you can use srrDB.com most of there .nfo include .sfv files.
But they are mostly crc32, that’s 100% useless.