With so much of my site being dominated by tutorials providing information on how to "crack" software, I felt the need to post these slightly edited e-mails I've received from several authors. In both of these cases I should like to commend the authors concerned for applying some common sense to their protection strategies as opposed to outright condemnation of the reversing community.
Dear sir, Sorry, I don't know how to call you -- webmaster, cracker... Anyway, thanks for your site -- a great information source! Just one thing. I've found a page on your site, describing how to crack my own program (Advanced Disk Catalog): Very interesting! But you've made a mistake :) First, the program has been compiled with Borland C++ (version 5.02), not C++ Builder. Second, cracking ADC is not as easy as you described. It is not possible to get a valid registration key at all, because all valid keys are stored in the program (encrypted with RSA), and when the user enters the key, it is encrypted the same way and compared to patterns. Furthermore, the program will not work correctly without valid key (part of key). You haven't investigated what functions Validate3 and Validate4 are doing; actually, they are being used when reading/writing database with more than 5 disks. First function encrypts the data (with public key), and second one decrypts them (with private key generated from registration code). So, if the registration routine is just patched, the program will crash on reading such database. Besides, there are a few CRC checks for both validate.dll and adc.exe. So, patched program will not work correctly, until you'll remove these checks, too. After all, thanks again for your work! Sincerely yours, VladimirNeedless to say, this polite e-mail response from the author generated a suitably polite reply from me, in this next e-mail Vladimir discusses ADC's protection scheme (something which he has obviously thought a lot about).
Well... Sure, it is acceptable. The onliest problem is: it is not very easy to find CRC checks (or at least, it takes time), so most (if not all) ADC crackers just miss that. The result is: they release the cracks that don't work. Well, actually, they work "somehow", but the database created with cracked version become corrupted. I hate that! I'm receiving a couple of mails each week saying "the program is buggy"; after further conversations, I detect that the authors of these letters just use cracked version. So, please put a little note about that, asking crack users not to contact me for technical support, and crack authors to test their cracks VERY carefully (especially on databases with more than 5 disks). :))) And another thing... I don't like what UCF (I think you know who they are :) is doing. From time to time, I'm receiving fraud: somebody just buy ADC using stolen credit card numbers and later put his registration code to Internet/Usenet. I'm "blacklisting" these numbers, but the "losers" (sorry, I cannot call them differently) from UCF just patch the blacklist checking. And call that "crack" (though it still requires valid registration code which has been somehow purchased). So, I prefer honest game. I'm developing the protection, and everybody can try to *crack* it. It is acceptable. But *stealing* is totally different... Sincerely yours, VladimirHere I have to agree with Vladimir, using fraudulent means to obtain any software because you aren't able to crack it is VERY lame, something I hope UCF aren't actually doing. I'd like to stress that if you use cracks then "on your head be the consequences", any unreliability in this case really isn't the authors problem.
Well, when the first beta of version 1.20 has been made available, I've got a message from Saltine [PC] that the protection is really good and he will not try to crack it anymore. But later I've seen some [incomplete] cracks from Stardogg Champion and others, and I was really disappointed... Older version -- not a problem! But cracking them is really easy, and good cracker can even found a valid registration code. Btw, if you like ADC and wanna use the registered version -- I'll send you the key :) Sincerely yours, VladimirGood on Saltine, RSA encryption is pretty much irreversable anyhow. Other cracks are always a problem. PhrozenCrew seem to hate cracking ADC, Stardogg Champion's crack fails and only recently I've seen another crack by tKc (founder of PC) which also has some serious flaws. Would you believe Vladimir did indeed forward me the correct key, sadly for you though I lost it inside a Blowfish shortly after registering :).