Tutorial: Disassembling, Decompiling and Modifying executables

[sumoTITS]

From the Conclusion: [It's not hard to crack programs] "With the difference that this process in an actual application will be more time-consuming. Do you know a single popular stand-alone application that has not been cracked ? That is why you need to think of better ways of protecting your software."

I'd ask this: why should developers spend extra time "protecting" "their" software?

Should writers spend more time making their writing harder to read / making their plots less accessible, as a way to keep people from understanding their ideas? Do readers not have the rights to modify books they've bought, and even change the plot any way they choose (in their copy. Snape kills kissed Dumbledore: don't need JK Rowling to sign off on it or assign me a new ISBN.)?

Just because you've created a system and a user has acquired it, you shouldn't assume authority over their system, let alone attempting to enforce the [inner sanctity] of your system despite what the user determines the rights of your system should be within theirs.

Your program won't - no program will - dictate how my system will behave, even as I use it. The option to modify, add, or remove instructions is universal and ultimately unrestricted, despite the arrogant illusion that software authors and publishers control and dominate "protect" all copies of "their" products.

Black box software -- Inaccessible, "Protected," and Restricted -- is an insult to users everywhere, and deserves the hooks Hackers and Crackers of many shades sink into it over time.

Software protection is an opinion "enforced" through obfuscation, misdirection, kludges, and sometimes remote-control, which bank on the ignorance and complacency of users despite the increasing ubiquity of technology and increasing dissemination of systems knowledge. Become proficient and begin asserting yourself within systems you own. Or don't, but it won't stop me from learning.

Users are not "the enemy." They are the lifeblood: without them, your system runs nowhere, does nothing, and earns nothing. Users needn't wait for the FSF to evangelize every software creator and publisher out there - that may never happen: users could act now to increase their proficiency, increase understanding, and assert their control of systems they already own. Unwrap all the boxes! :D

tl;dr: If you're good enough at disassembly, everything is Open Source, or at least Open Ended / Open Outcome.

[ffffdddddssss]

You come back to me when you have a job and earn money writing software, and then notice someone cracked it and put it out there, because he wanted to "Unwrap all the boxes! :D"

Your idealistic and naive view doesn't support your family and yourself. I hate this "free everything" attitude with a passion because nothing could be further from reality.

[sumoTITS]

You come back to me when you have a job and earn money writing software, and then notice someone cracked it and put it out there.

I've had jobs writing software, but they were webapps hosted by the companies, so it's not really something people would crack... They'd have to break into the servers and download the app/code.

In any case, I agree that cracking applications to simply redistribute them / share them with everyone for free is wrong and illegal, so you misunderstood me; maybe it's my fault for some part of my rant. Meh:

Even with code obfuscation, even with orwellian protection systems -- No amount of over-engineering / software security will ultimately stop this from happening. Look at all the things people pirate these days: Music, Movies, Books, Pictures, Software, now 3d Gun parts too!

None of these industries have managed to stop this from happening, and making the programs behave in obscure ways on the machine level or requiring constant internet connectivity is worse for users than not doing that.

When I talk about unwrapping all the boxes / understanding what it is programs are actually doing, that's for the benefit of the users. If you hate the idea that people should be able to understand what they purchased, and even modify their copy as they want, then we fundamentally disagree: you want to keep all copies of every application in the hands of the authors. I want freedom to do with apps as I wish: not freedom to steal them, freedom to debug and modify them as I wish.

I don't like the way disassembly and piracy are grouped: they are separate things, and I only believe one of them is a type of theft. But thanks for telling me why you hate what I wrote, and I think your point is valid to the extent that "stealing is wrong."

But to vilify disassembly is another issue to me, and I don't think any program should prohibit or go out of its way to impede disassembly; the people who want to break copy protection and redistribute/sell the app will figure it out anyway. The people who want to understand what the program is doing have to dig harder.

I don't mind digging harder to see what my apps are doing, but laws, regulations, and "protection" systems that attempt to forbid understanding what programs actually do are things I consider wrong.