I read all of it. My concepts on copy protection started with his advice.Chaotikmind wrote:Also i don't know if you ever read Fravia site, he was clearly a good reverser, and he also did cracks, he probably considered it as a good way to learn.
We can trace a 5-digit sum of annual revenue to people who believed that our software had been cracked (mostly leaked serial numbers). I spend 2-3 days a year on refinements based on previous cracks. That is a *very* good ratio between effort and profit.Chaotikmind wrote:Anyway , i don't get why people are protecting their software knowing it's so easy to defeat 99% of the time, they're loosing time that could be used in a more useful way, eventually it creates problems for the end user, and it doesn't prevent cracked version to be everywhere.
I suspect in some student culture it's cool to be known as a cracker. Just like on warez forums, cracking is regarded as heroism. But it's really just twiddling bytes based on a very basic understanding of how a software works, aided by unimaginably good tools. Like Chaotikmind says, it almost always boils down to exchanging one conditional jump statement to another. As he says, it's easy in 99% of cases.resynthesis wrote:In EVERY university I've worked at there have been students (both UG and PG) who have been known to crack software.
However, the disappearance of cracker groups is often related to users that became unhappy, e.g. when the "protectionists" reversed their MO and added too high of a challenge to the next update. It's when the obeisance of the masses vanish, the urge to crack vanishes with it.
