Cracking

[Queso]

so what's the science behind cracking?

 

how do people make keygens for software that came out yesterday?

Are there rats on the inside?

 

I don't understand how there's this whole underground network of free software.

I know, it's illegal.

This topic is purely hypothetical.

It still happens, though, and there's little software companies can do at this point except make things harder to crack, eh?

 

still, people do it.

it amazes me.

[Buffy]

A lot of it has to do with the fact that the US Government considers encryption algorithms to be munitions. They have laws that limit export of such algorithms--even compiled ones--to "short" keys. The cynical argument is that its because the US Government wants to make sure that no one encrypts anything that the NSA can't decrypt! :)

 

What this means is that if you're a game developer or a music/movie company that wants to put copy protection on your products but wants to be able to export them, you *have* to use *weak* keys that can basically be easily broken with enough hardware in almost no time at all. Its much harder with CDs and DVDs since the algorithms/keys have to be built into the hardware, so once they get cracked, it can take years before a "new key" can be distributed widely via new players.

 

The point of course is that no matter what kind of encryption you use, it really only makes life difficult for the folks that play within the system and have their computers infected with rootkits and end up with unplayable content that they've paid for because the encryption is so rickety that it plain doesn't work.

 

A fine mess, :)

Buffy

[Queso]

haha