What's Wrong With Cracks And Patches?

Men this is Nigeria, and everyone knows that softwares we use here are 99.9% pirated copy. The next level for of us now is to pay zero naira for softwares by downloading trial versions and patching or cracking them.

Please i want to know apart from the morality in it, is there anything the guys providing the patches and cracks gain?

Yes - they gain so many things

1. They joy of cracking and hacking windows

2. For others it is a means of making income by reaping where others sowed

I don't understand point (2) above; but most sites where you can get cracks, key generation software, software serial registration numbers and so on are loaded with spyware, trojans, et cetera. When they infect your system, they make money by stealing your information, using your computer for cyber-terrorism, or showing annoying ads that you can't turn off.

I have been finding out how to crack softwares but no success yet so i would aslo be intrested on how to do so,

As far as what the website owners gain, I'd say they get to grab any software they want for free. Also, Bandwidth costs next to nothing these days (10GB/day data transfer for $5/month). Hence, they can afford to let people download huge files free of charge.

Another thing is vindictiveness. When people are fired from a job, they often want to get back at their former employer. So, if they have inside information about a software created by the company, they'd share the secret to sabotage it.

Furthermore, many people dislike Microsoft monopoly.

Personally, I don't have a problem finding softwares. Open source is my answer.

Eventually, I think all softwares will become free. The only thing people would pay for would be what is created with those softwares. For example, google is creating an online wordprocessor. Also, php has functions that let you process graphics. With a good knowledge of dhtml and ajax, most softwares can be moved online to rival their desktop counterparts.

As far as what the website owners gain, I'd say they get to grab any software they want for free.

They do not need to share their cracks and patches with the world to make use of them, so that statement doesn't make sense. Am I missing something?

They do not need to share their cracks and patches with the world to make use of them, so that statement doesn't make sense. Am I missing something?

Yes, you're missing something.

It's the spirit of sharing that makes it possible to have all those softwares available.

Mr A has Photoshop.
Ms B has Win XP.
Ms C has AutoCAD.

Ms B wants Photoshop, and gets it from a website for free. Because of the gratitude of free stuff, she decides to upload her copy of Win XP. Now the website has Photoshop, and WinXP. Ms C repeats what Ms B did, and suddenly you have a website with many different softwares.

Without sharing, you won't have these softwares.

Apart from giving u cracks and patches for free, they also get to infect ur system with the latest Worms, trojans and viruses, After all nothing goes for nothing!

most of these sites are sponsored by porn companies. knowing that most people can easily get distracted by the "sight" of porn, they tend to make lots of revenue. a cracking site i went to pops up porn pages virtually every second.

only 1 site that i know that does not have all these "nuisances" - pop up, porn, screaming ads,

africanboy is right, a great deal of them crack sites is driven by revenue from porn. And as has been said they also contain a lot of diff typa worms and all what not. However, i do not think that was the original idea in the begginings. I think the people who started them crack and serial sites started it majorly because THEY COULD. Plain and simple, and they took joy/pride in the fact that they had done something major that will affect a lot of pple. Just like peeps who create virus progs that wreck havoc have nothing tangible to gain other than the fact that THEY COULD DO IT. Like an 'e-motional' trip or high. But the crack/serial ppe probably also did it for altruistic reasons. To help pple get what they need for free, and the porn comps saw the huge traffic they pulled and pitched with the creators, offering them $$$. And as more and more programmers saw the bennefits and $ involved, they probably got into the game just for the $ and probably free email addy which they could sell. And any1 who gets stuff from them know thay they can indeed be a good thing, although also be a headache.

cant blame them, with all the effort they put - they have to be rewarded.

I think the primary reason the stuff is free is to drive traffic to their sites. P0rn websites would then advertise with them. I have noticed that somehow on the net the words "P2P, Cracks, warez, serials, porn" somehow show up side-by-side: if you see one, you will definitely see the others.

My favourite cracks site: www.serials.ws it has never failed me. Dont view ti with Micro$oft Internal Exploder, though. If u love your PC.

Cracking software could also teach you how new security algorithms go: think of what PS2 emulators do now, and the number of CD copy-protection techniques that have been beaten.

As long as it's humans that wrote the software, then it's humans that'll crack it. Persistence is the key -- especially when you have more than hundred times the guys who wrote the software trying to crack it.

It just has to give.

its like this:

- the more you share, the more you have.
- many peeps are angry at software companies
- fired-staff of software companies really like to get back at the former companies and do a lot of things
- Many of these softwares whos keygens are given for free have been re-compiled just like the original one, with a little of code inserted somewhere in-between software and the geeks that do it do it really nicely that you will never know. They might not outrightly take control of your computer coz they are the kind-hearted hackers, but ask me, how am I to prove to myself that a crazy idea works, like i want to find out the computer specs of whoever downloads it, and uses it(just for me to know how compatible my software is with different PC specs all over the world),
- if there were no hackers, there'll be no challenges in the software industry
- some of these software are already standards

As long as it's humans that wrote the software, then it's humans that'll crack it. Persistence is the key -- especially when you have more than hundred times the guys who wrote the software trying to crack it.

It just has to give.

Huh, some things are next to impossible to crack. Try cracking 2048 bit RSA encryption.

In practice, it is still effectively impossible for you or I to crack a message encrypted with a 512-bit key. An organisation like the NSA who has the latest supercomputers can probably crack it by brute force in a reasonable time, if they choose to put their resources to work on it. Now, if 512-bit presents so much headache, what do you think about 2048-bit?

Next-to-impossible doesn't mean impossible. If the Russians wanted to lay their hands on stuff that's encrypted with that they'd crack it.

if u ever used that kind of encryption for software, shebi it will still run on somebody's PC, in his memory? all it takes is to follow the decryption process in the registers and you will know what's happening: then the cracker doesnt have to crack the encryption, he only gets the process. its like knowing how M$ gereate the product key for their OS's.

@Gridlock
@Zahymaka

You don't know what you're talking about.

What is 2048 factorial?  That is how many permutations needed to crack this monster.  The most powerful supercomputer cannot do it in a million years.

Learn cryptography, then come back and prove your point to me.  Before then, be quiet.

all it takes is to follow the decryption process in the registers and you will know what's happening: then the cracker doesnt have to crack the encryption, he only gets the process.

Utter rubbish.  This has nothing to do with memory, or process, or whatever you choose to call it.  It has everything to do with sheer mangling of 1's and 0's. Lot's of 1's and 0's.


BTW, 2048 factorial = infinity

Hmm, you studied cryptology?

oasis I take exception to your "rebuke." Of course I know what permutations are. What I meant was that things crafted by human hands are ultimately broken by humans.

"Impregnable" encrypting has been broken time after time by people, so even if the supercomputer required to crack your "impossible" infinity-bit encryption doesn't exist yet, let me assure you that someday it will -- and these security systems would be obsolete.

something tells me this is going to turn into a heated argument. I back out. i will harvest the spoils when the war is over

my advice,

if u have to got to a crack site never do that on internet explorer.forget about the firewalls, antivirus et al, just don't hit with internet explorer.

somehow, somewhere u'll be tempted to look for a crack or two, netscape navigator is in a better position to protect u.

cheers

No, mozilla Firefox.

or much better, Lynx (a text-based browser)

currently what are the most famous crack sites/forums where Nigerians flock to?

If i understand you question,

Evert hing depends on indiviualm
some for fun
some to prove them self as expects
some to make some cool cash by moniting the
traffic from the site,

But the truth of the matter is that it make the
s/w company to improve on the software itself
buy updating it and fixing those issue, and that makes
life more interesting.

It fun you know, if you can test out a software for free
and if you really like it you go get a copy