My first "crack"...

Wow, what a feeling. Typing in the reg and getting the right message. Pretty weak protection, though. I didn't have to look at ANY assembly code, so it's not a "real" crack, I guess. Here's how it went down.

VB 5.0 program, compiled to p-code.
Tools: smartcheck.
Protection: 30-day trial and disable, name and serial.

I opened smartcheck, and ran my target prog from within it, and looked at what happened when I entered a wrong name and serial. Error message, but before this was a trim() call and a bunch of mid() calls. I don't know exactly what they do, but I know they deal with string handling in VB, so I figured I had my code. Looking at each of the mid() lines individually I saw that most were only subtly changed, but the last one had a dramatic difference. Compare:

string = 0021C32C ;Hex code for something?
= "C" ;This is the username I entered.

string = 002182D4 ;More hex.
= "222411160131" ;AHA!

I tested this with different usernames, and found that it changed with different usernames. When I tried it as a serial, however, I got the error message. So I took my kid to school, did some shopping, and some thinking about why it didn't work. I mean, it was doing one of two things in my mind... 1) It was generating a string of numbers based on the name, and then using that string (mabye a val()) to create a serial based on an unseen algorithim, or 2) it was actually generating the correct serial, but I was using it correctly.

While I was out, I thought about previous (cracked) versions of this program, and remembered that the serials weren't just a string of numbers... So I googled for a crack for the old version, and observed a serial, and it's format.

xxx-xxxxx-xxxx

So I tried my serial and username again, this time with hashes in place... BINGO!

Well, that's how it happened. I'd like to think that it's a good example of a "zen" crack, but I'm too new to the game to claim that. I've done alot of reading, learned a little asm, and still have lots to do. Mabye I should write a keygen for it, might be a good learning experience.

Thanks for the ftp, and for this informative forum. Apologies if this is an inappropriate place for this.

ps. The ironic thing is that I was going to pay for this software. I acutally took steps to do so. I discovered that it is abandonware and I could not contact the programs author.