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What is Cracking ?
Cracking
is the art of taking a program and discovering what makes
it tick, how the thing performs tasks, and getting an understanding
of how it was programmed. In technical terms, cracking can
be reffered to as Reverse Engineering.
What
is it used for ?
Cracking
is used for many purposes, I expect that a lot of people crack
programs so they can get free versions. I do not,neither I
nor this website condones this method of doing things. The
idea is that cracking will allow you to test the security
of programs, or others.
Why
do people crack registration numbers ?
When
a program is released unregistered there are sections of the
program that are unavailable to the unregistered user. The
idea is that you usually enter your name, and a registration
code and the program is registered. There are many different
types of people out there in the cracking world, there are
the ones that crack so they get free programs, those that
crack so they get to see the full program, not a crippled
version before they buy it, and those that test security weaknessess
in either their own programs or others for educational purposes.
Can
I legally crack ?
Tough
call, this is where I don't really know much, and so won't
say for certain what is right or wrong. But I do know that
you cannot crack a program and then continue to use it as
if you have purchased that program.
How
to I go about cracking then ?
First
things first is to equip yourself with a computer, then a
brain then some tools and then a target.
A
Computer ?
Yes,
you will need one of these.
A
Brain ?
Although
there are many easy targets out there, there will be some
tricky ones, programmers who want to get one over the cracker,
it is like a battlefield out there....
What
tools do I need ?
I
was going to make a poor joke about hammer, but I will refrain
from being obvious. It seems that most people refer to them
as tools, so I will stick to this convention.
Just
about every program you crack you will need a set of tools,
and these are pretty much standard throughout the "scene".
W32Dasm
- This program is used as a passive approach to cracking,
it takes a standard exe, dll, ocx etc and decompiles it into
Assembly Language Format (ASM). As well as this it will build
a string list, where text within the program may be listed,
words such as Registered and Unregistered usually popup here.
SoftIce
- Opposite to W32Dasm, this program uses a live approach.
When running the program, this little gem, sits in memory
and lets you access the memory whilst the program is running.
Hexeditors
- These programs are used with either of the above, and are
used to edit the file in question, and patch it.
A
very brief account of the tools, but you will find out more
about them as you journey through the world of cracking.
-more
soon-
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