Ethics of Cracking (or lack thereof)

[pyronaught]

I've been programming computers since about 1982 when the first Apple IIs hit the market. Hacking and software pirating have existed as long as computers have been around of course, but this antisocial behavior has spread at an exponential rate following the advent of the internet. Today you can barely google on an app name without turning up 25 crack boards that are peddeling pirated versions of the program to anyone who wants it.

< insert long 5 paragraph rant fueled by being a middle aged obsolete programmer with no ability to adapt here.. about how he would like the reversing and cracking communities to stop please >


OK, let the predictable, stale, contrived responses flow...


-Kyle

[cEnginEEr]

sorry to say that this sounds more like a crap to me…..

Well…Kyle, for your information I'll explain some stuff to you so hopefully you can understand the exact meaning of "Reverse Engineering".

Hacking goes about messing with websites and cracking we all know the meaning; however reversing is neither about hacking nor cracking, it is about understanding binary world which is quite a legal stuff; just look around and you'll see a lot of usage such as anti-virus laboratories, beta testing softwares, finding OS security hole etc; I'm sure that anyone who know programming has touched RE word even for a once; this way we wanna understand\learn\improve thing; so if you don't wanna\can't understand this, then its your problem…

Originally Posted by pyronaught

...Today you can barely google on an app name without turning up 25 crack boards that are peddeling pirated versions of the program to anyone who wants it..

I agree, although those warez sites has nothing to do with reversing forums like this, however I'll tell you the reason; 99% of the programmers which put 24 hours a day for coding are too lazy to get worried about security of their own creation, they just look around the market and buy a so called 'commercial' protection without even thinking about testing its security; this is the point and I hope you will put sometime thinking about it....

And finally, reteam and woodman which I'm a member of, never been a hacking\cracking place; the admins of these forums do not allow even for a lite crack request; so you better study them before posting nonsense here….

[Devine9]

Well said cEnginEEr, and welcome Kyle.

It's always interesting to read some of these types of posts and see what some of the issues of software programmers are with our work.

I would have to agree with cEnginEEr in that I personally promote purchasing software whenever possible, and I know that there are a great deal of reverse engineers who buy all of their software including their tools. That issue aside I tend to think that the work that we do here is for good.

If in fact you have been programming since 82' and not had your head in the sand then you would know that today and even more so back then, the majority of software programming advances were discovered or created by reverse engineers or virus writers alike. (No I'm not talking about development of new products)

Finally, this internet that everyone is so fond of today would not be what it is today without this lower-class subculture as you call them. In fact the net prior to internet pornography was just simply text, and it was the porn industry which drove the marketing dollars and the general public like a moth to a light. Then came adobe, and others with software at outrageous prices for development of graphics and 3d animation. Subsequently that software was cracked and offered over to the would-be design community, eventually fueling the amateur design community that would not exist otherwise. It's been this weird paradox that has given rise to what we have today.

Unfortunately in all things that are 2 sides of the law and like it or not there seems to be a great movement of people who feel the need to quote the law (without legal training) and put down the very industries that support them in a great deal of their daily lives. Where would we be without the grey reverse engineer laws which allow for companies to reverse engineer competitors technologies and put out competitive products while ultimately lowering the price for you.

Perhaps your time as cEnginEEr mentioned would be better spent securing your software, or promoting it and increasing your sales. Of course make sure that your marketing company isn't all running off pirated software, and you don't copy a homemade solution of the net which was originally extracted from a commercial protection using these 'grey area' laws.

Keep in mind there are many software developers who make a great deal of money by means of producing software such as winzip, mirc, flashfxp, oscommerce, IDA, and others (with weak protections) who simply just modified their business model to suit their industry. But refer above and maybe find a marketing company who has good knowledge of the industry trends.

cheers,

-DR

[rendari]

they just look around the market and buy a so called 'commercial' protection without even thinking about testing its security;

...for example, some .NET protections that cost hundreds (and in some cases) thousands of dollars do not encrypt your code, or just use a simple XOR cipher.

That kind of makes the protection developers almost as big thieves as the crackers

[acidburned]

with out reverse engineering,how would devolpers and future devolpers know if there programs work,and how to make it better.just my little 2cents

[Evilcry]

Many many years ago, when I started to study Sw protections, there were many important Sw, for Structural Analysis and CAD Design, that implemented basical protections.

(Laser Micro Drilled Floppy, EEPROM Hardware Protections etc.)
all realized in an easy manner not because programmers, weren't evolved, just as a little base protection + marketing strategy.

Yeah indeed, this software, after 15/20 years now is the mostly used in CAD Ambient

If protection was too hard, no diffusion no money

It's also true that great protection schemes, comes from Cracking /RCE Attacks..

All is relative