software protections help

Hi

As Neitsa already pointed out, the best thing to learn is to try something on your own. I think what he forget to say is that you should start with more or less easy targets. It doesn't make much sense trying to reverse an ASPR protected app as a beginner.

Have a look on some shareware sites and check out some new software for serial protections and something. On this way you can see many different serial algos and how to reverse them.

If you think you are ready for some real stuff, check out a Safedisc 2 or Safedisc 3 protected game. Try to look for their softice checks and bypass them. Later in Safedisc reversing you will see code which decrypts itself in realtime, API wrappers and so on. You can find most of the stuff from Safedisc in an EXE cryper, but I always have the feeling that SD2 is easier to reverse, because they don't use as much crap code as the other protectors, so will mostly get a good look into the code.

But before you even start, check out the PE file format. Learn it, learn it, learn it. Also learn to use the Windows API for your own advantage. You can do nearly everything with the standard APIs.

I hope I could give you some advices how you can get started and learn how developers protect their products.

Greetings
Mav

thank you for your answers ! i am newbie and i dont know how to start .i think that tutorials does not help me because i dont understand the assembly .if i was buy a book about how to learn assembly this will make the things easier ?

I might be wrong, but I thin it's a bit too early for you to buy an assembler book. Try to search for good tutorials which explain also the background WHY you are patching something or WHY you should look at adress xxyyzz for a serial. If you found such a tutorial, try to find a nice Assembler reference on the net.

http://yanorel.pcupdate.easyspace.com/masm/ewtoc.html or

http://protools.anticrack.de/files/docs/asmhelp.zip

would be a good start. This will save you some money for now and still teaches you some stuff.

greetings
Mav

This ebook is good for beginners Hacker Disassembling Uncovered ... i forgot the site . so i attached (roughly large attachment >4mb ) it here. Theres another one worth mentioning although i haven't read it yet.

Exploiting Software: How To Break Code
by Greg Hoglund, Gary McGraw

i can't find ebook version of this book if somebody knows where, pls share it.

Annyone red Lord Hrun's cracking tutorial? Sounds to be a good one, but haven't tracked it down yet.

see daemon.anticrack.de, but always to protect better u have to know whats in revese is goin on try to make some connections with crc and working of you app, for example when some calculation depends on crc its very hard to find this and make REAL working, calculation's ( for example ) may depens on serial number etc itr tricky coz app may looks like working but its not working

Well, I recently stumbled accross this page which has some excellent anti cracking FAQ, especially if you are programming in Delphi

http://www.inner-smile.com/nocrack.phtml

# How to make cracking your app a little bit harder... [upd:24-Feb-2k]
# More tips you might take into consideration... [upd:24-Feb-2k]
# Advanced tips given by Assembler freaks... [upd:06-Aug-99]
# Special on Delphi reverse engineering...
# Some notes on registration numbers... [upd:06-Aug-99]
# Some notes on timebombs... [new:14-Jan-2k]
# How to find cracks for your apps... [new:21-Apr-2k]
# What to do if you found a crack for your app... [upd:19-Aug-99]
# Facts and Myths about Software pirating...
# Thoughts and letters from crackers [upd:24-Sep-2k]
# Links of interest... [upd:16-Aug-2k]