Have you ever had the desire to understand what are the protections that are applied to a program to prevent its copying and illegal distribution? With the right tools, you can examine the inner workings of a program and use the technique called "reverse-engineering" to make the desired changes. You need to have extensive knowledge of assembly and hex code programming before continuing, and you will need to get yourself a "disassembler" (a program that converts machine code into assembly). Once you have gained the necessary confidence with the code, you can modify the DLLs to your liking so that the corresponding program can work correctly without being purchased, registered or activated.
Steps
Step 1. Learn to program in assembly and to manipulate the hexadecimal code
If you have the desire to learn how to "crack" a software or program (that is, how to modify the original code in order to circumvent the restrictions or the anti-copy and anti-piracy protections), you will need to have a good understanding of the code. assembly. The latter is a low-level programming language. The assembly derives directly from machine code and there is an assembly version specific to the type of hardware architecture of a computer. Most assembly languages use the binary or hexadecimal system to display code.
Step 2. Install a disassembler
In order to parse and modify the contents of a DLL, you need to use several software tools, including a disassembler. IDA Pro is a great option, as it has a built-in disassembler and debugger. There is also a free version of the program that you can download from this URL https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/support/download_freeware. However, it should be noted that the functions of the free version are limited compared to those of the full version. Alternatively, you can try using dotPeek. It is a DLL decompiler capable of decompiling the assembly code produced for the. NET framwork and displaying it in C # code. Another option available is OllyDBG, a free program that allows you to view the contents of a DLL file.
Step 3. Launch the app you want to crack using the disassembler of your choice
The procedure to follow varies slightly depending on the disassembler you have chosen to use. This way you will be able to see the list of DLL files that will be called by the application. Use a debugger to examine the functions present in the DLL file and called by the program.
Step 4. Find the feature that takes into account the free trial period
Many programs use a simple timer as copy protection. When the timer reaches zero, the user will no longer be able to access the program. For this reason, the objective is to identify the function that manages this timer and inhibit its operation.
If the program you want to crack uses a different protection system, you will need to look for the routine that manages that system
Step 5. Set a debugger breakpoint on the function that manages the timer
When you've found the routine that handles the program's timer, set the disassembler to stop executing the program just when that function is called. In this way you will be able to focus only on the code related to the function in question.
Step 6. Edit the code of the function that manages the timer
Now that you have identified the source code to modify, you can modify it so that the program continues to work correctly. For example, you can prevent the timer from reaching the limit beyond which the app is blocked from running, or you can prevent the function in question from being called within the program at every start.
Step 7. Recompile the DLLs of the new program
After making the necessary changes to the source code, you will need to recompile it to create the modified version of the program that will use your DLLs and not the original ones.
Warnings
- Software piracy is illegal, so choose to be a part of this world at your own risk.
- Changing the original version of commercial software is an illegal action.
