5 ms·

I really would love to learn how to crack an old piece of software like this. Any ideas on where to start if you don't know much about the software side of thin

I really would love to learn how to crack an old piece of software like this. Any ideas on where to start if you don't know much about the software side of things? I know JS and a little bit of C#, but I've never found a great path to learn stuff like this.

stevekemp 10y ago
Look around for mirrors of the old Fravia content - that was the place for reversing and cracking back in the day. For example: http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/ http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/
- userbinator 10y ago
  Fravia is a name that brings back lots of good memories... him, +ORC, and the +HCU tried to popularise the idea of "cracking tutorials" that were more than "just change these bytes", and were actually quite detailed essays on the various protections around at the time.
  - stevekemp 10y ago
    As the content was largely user-submitted there was a lot of variation in quality and style. But there were some excellent essays and introductions out there: http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/academy.htm http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/academy.htm I was definitely moved when I heard of his death, which is coming up for ten years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fravia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fravia (It was only years later I realized that +ORC was almost certainly +fravia in disguise. At the time I first read all the posts I was more trusting ..)
- ghostDancer 10y ago
  Still around! I love that the year is 19117 .
Kenji 10y ago
Attach Wireshark to the program and capture the network traffic. This might already give you some insight if it's a very simple authentication mechanism - maybe you're even able to edit your hosts.txt file and make a fake server yourself. If that fails, get comfortable with x86 assembly and dive into the code. If you're lucky, they left some symbols for the function names, which makes your life much easier.
scraft 10y ago
WireShark and OllyDbg are the usual starting places for me, both have tutorials around for them. OllyDbg in particular has guides around for by passing serial numbers, etc.

stevekemp 10y ago

Look around for mirrors of the old Fravia content - that was the place for reversing and cracking back in the day. For example: http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/ http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/

userbinator 10y ago
Fravia is a name that brings back lots of good memories... him, +ORC, and the +HCU tried to popularise the idea of "cracking tutorials" that were more than "just change these bytes", and were actually quite detailed essays on the various protections around at the time.
- stevekemp 10y ago
  As the content was largely user-submitted there was a lot of variation in quality and style. But there were some excellent essays and introductions out there: http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/academy.htm http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/mirror/fravia.org/academy.htm I was definitely moved when I heard of his death, which is coming up for ten years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fravia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fravia (It was only years later I realized that +ORC was almost certainly +fravia in disguise. At the time I first read all the posts I was more trusting ..)
ghostDancer 10y ago
Still around! I love that the year is 19117 .

Kenji 10y ago

Attach Wireshark to the program and capture the network traffic. This might already give you some insight if it's a very simple authentication mechanism - maybe you're even able to edit your hosts.txt file and make a fake server yourself. If that fails, get comfortable with x86 assembly and dive into the code. If you're lucky, they left some symbols for the function names, which makes your life much easier.

scraft 10y ago

WireShark and OllyDbg are the usual starting places for me, both have tutorials around for them. OllyDbg in particular has guides around for by passing serial numbers, etc.