How does one go about cracking software/games?

[Colon capital V]

Pirating software is easy enough and unlocking it with fake liscenses and whatnot is another easy task provided the .nfo is clear enough, but I never thought about the work that goes behind trying to crack said games and software and making it accessible to people.

So how do these people do it? (not a glowpost)

 

[Day Drinking]

I usually bend them until the crack forms.

 

[Admiral Throbnelius]

I think part of the process is finding the section of the code responsible for unlocking the full version, figuring out what input/inputs will unlock it, and then creating the crack executable to crack the software. I believe there are other methids as well such as tinkering with the registry edit.

 

[Moths]

Tell program not to call home to serber.

Usually circumvent the steam/other launcher stuff

Pwn denbubo

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Be a nerd who knows computer shit, touch the keyboard presumably, and voila. Hack the world.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

At a basic level, reverse engineering the raw ASM using a debugger. You find the section of the code that performs the piracy check, then remove or modify it, or try to make a local emulator for the verification. Or, for a keygen, reverse engineer the key checking algorithm to create valid ones. More modern software will use all kinds of packing and obfuscation techniques, try to kill debug processes, encryption, etc.

Shit's hard.

 

[Rozzy]

Firstly, prepare to be hunted down by the games industry, sued and thrown in jail.

 

[Toolbox]

This is a forum for gaming methheads. Kindly leave, crackie.

 

[Fascist Frederick]

Pretending to be a woman is the first step, apparently.

 

[PipTheAlchemist]

I find a sturdy-looking rock and bash the rock against the game case until the game case breaks.