Manually unpacking Asprotect

[JMI]

Don't forget that Tuts are simply reports on one individual's experience with one particular version of one particular piece of software. That individual may, or may not know "what it's all about" but may simply have stumbled on the solution in a particular case.

Just as in "real life," one can not take such advice as providing the true path to enlightenment. While it may serve as an additional stepping stone, it is but one piece of a larger puzzle, which must be considered within its own frame work.

Try to consider the Tuts you read as a frozen moment in time. You usually have an ongoing contest between protector and cracker and whenever one stands still, the other has the opportunity to move ahead.

The issue with these systems is in the attempt to figure out the approach used by the protection to screw with your efforts. If you focus too hard on the small details, you might figure out how it works on this very small slice of the universe, but you will probably miss the rather larger picture of trying to figure out just what the hell the code is doing and what that tells you about what the system is attempting to accomplish.

Make notes of what is happening and where the code is taking you. There is no reason to trust that "next time" it will do the same thing, so if you have not begun to understand "what" it is doing, blindly following along isn't really teaching you anything, but 'following along." When the road and the sign paths change, you are still lost in the dark codewoods.

Trying to figure out the "what," the "how," and particularly the "why," gives you the knowledge and the tools to attack the "next" generation and the "next" protector.

Regards,