Sandman
Registry Crawler V1.2 - Questions 1-3
Sun Dec 6 07:13:16 1998


Greetings Crackers,

Here we are on our forth Cracking Challenge For All and I don't mind telling you that in my 'earlier' newbie days I would most proberbly have given up on trying to crack 'The File Chopper' had I not sat down and spent some seious time on it, as you all have clearly done.

The new challenge is, in many ways, an easier nut to crack while introducing a new method of protection system.

In order to give everyone a better chance to learn from this forum I have asked Princess to help where-ever she can with questions & problems that may arise from this project.. Now remember, she is still a newbie herself so try not to flood her with too much technical stuff *grin*. Thanks Princess, your assistance is greatly appreciated..:)

Here's the information you need to begin...

Program Name: Registry Crawler V1.2
Program URL: http://www.proweb.co.uk/~greenway/Files/regc.zip
Program Size: 229K

Right, here's the questions for Registry Crawler, they deal with basic information gathering about our target program. You don't really need to use Softice for any of these questions, but REGMON,FILEMON and possibly W32Dasm might be better suited for these questions, oh and some keen observations from yourself will be useful as well..:).

Question 1. Where in the System Registry does this program store it's default program settings?.

Question 2. Where does this program store it's 'days left..' counter?.

Question 3. What are the Main protection systems employed by this program? Example, is it protected with:- Nag screens,Serial protected,hidden Registration Screen, crippled/restricted functions,Time Limited,Indirect Code Addressing,Self-Modifying Code,Dongle etc etc.

Question 4. What (if any) 'interesting' files are used by this program?. Ignore the normal windows system files such as .DLL's, .SYS etc.

Well that's it for now, four easy questions to get you started..:) As always, watch out for any Red Herrings..:)

Good Luck,

Sandman