CRACKING 101

CRACKING 101 - 1990 edition

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³ INTRODUCTION ³
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by SHAHIR DHUNGANA


A long time a go, in a galaxy far far away, a great
adventure took ... What, oh sorry, wrong textfile.


Hello my children. Let me introduce myself, I am the
great cracking guru BUCKAROO BANZAI (the original) and I'm
back after a couple of years of hiding (from the Feds? from
the IRS? No, from this girl MaryLou. Let me tell you, she
could ... oh well let's get back to the textfile).

Let me tell you a little history about cracking on the
IBMpc. It all started about 11 years ago with an apple IIe.
See, I owned one and always wanted to learn how to crack (I
was already a good pirate). Unfortunately, I just never
could get the hang of it.

Well anyway, then I got my PC, and right away started to
learn to program. Soon, I had pick up oh 4 languages one of
which was assemble language. So I started down the long road
to becoming a crackist.

But the road was hard since unlike the apple, there were
NO textfiles on cracking the PC. Several unprotects, but
nothing that really told you what to do. But thanks to some
of the better known crackists of the day (Thanks SPI for the
help) I got through.

It was at that point I decided to give something back.
And thus, after a long (and I mean long) night of sex, drugs
and rock and roll I started on my first cracking textfile.
(Ok, so there really wasn't any drugs)

Since then, I have written about 10 different textfiles,
4 utilities and cracked several dozen programs. So, why the
long pause, well I never really stopped cracking. I just
basicly stuck to myself. I never released any of my cracks
cause I was never first but several of my cracking programs
(most known is SECTOR-C) reached the pirate world.

So, why am I back. 3 reasons. First is because now DOC
CHECKS have taken over the scene and nobody has really
written about them (plus I'm tired of seeing my old textfiles
butchered in "CRACKING" mags). Second is because I have some
free time, and third, because it was there.

It feels kinda funny. I have written this intro file
several times, and the whole series has been rewritten. What
started off as 4 simple textfiles has grown. I have givin up
trying to write a book. What I'm doing is as a new game
reaches me, I will crack it, and then tell how it was done,
highlight the odd quirks about the crack.

I have also compiled a preaty good reference on INT 13h.
I have included it with this series. And in the near future,
I hope to release several utilities that I use to help me
crack.

As of this writing, I have 2 actual lessons done, and 2
ready to be written. For the first 2 lessons I touch on both
types on copy protection (On disk copy protection with
I.B.M.'s DRAWING ASSISTANT and dos checks with EOA's ESCAPE
FROM HELL). I still have to compose 2 more files, 1 more on
each type (usings STAR CONTROL and CHAMBER OF THE SCI-MUNTANT
PREISTEST). From there, who the hells knows.

So anyway, sit back, watch, listen, learn and if that
doesn't work, kick a small kid in the head...

-SHAHIR DHUNGANA
-the cracking guru