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© 1999 CrackZ. 1st November 1999.
I started this site in theory back in May 1998, initially I was planning on just having a tools page for reverse engineers (at that time traditional sources were not updating so there was a need). A few months earlier I had written a small MS Word document "The Newbies Guide To Cracking" which consisted of 15 or so programs which I had cracked, the document to this day can still be found on some tutorial repositories (in fact its still probably one of the most recent).
You can download my guide written back in May here, (42k), some of it is still relevant now. This document is virus free, sadly the passage of Internet travel has seen some instances of the document infected with a Word Macro virus (this original has of course been through 3 leading virus scanners).
My first page started at Xoom, a free provider which offered a fair amount of space and no horrid sponsorship banners (that of course has now changed), I posted my initial tools page and some small initial tutorials (borrowed from the Word document), within 2 months Xoom had closed the site (the Xoom server also had reliability issues), I'm not to this day sure why the site was closed, a lot of people who have put sites up at Xoom have suddenly been removed yet they still manage to slowbomb me with e-mail 'offers'. Shortly after, I was offered my own domain at zencrack.org, sadly this too was to last just 2 months before a combination of legal action by EmuLIVE Imaging Corp. and my discovering the domain had been obtained using fraudulent means closed the site. I should like to state that I condemn outright credit card fraud.
I was pretty down after Xoom once again censored another of my accounts and another free provider objected. Fortunately in mid-August I met someone on IRC who offered me this account, I've also taken steps to ensure that both he and this so-far brilliant ISP cannot be embroiled in any legal action.
Thus far this server has been reliable, fast and not subject to any legal action, I hope this will continue.
Essentially I regard reverse engineering as nothing more than an intellectual challenge. We all know that any man and his dog can find "warez" and "cracks" on the web, you don't need anything more than a search engine to steal software (that isn't a fair challenge). Real knowledge on the web which is free from commercial influences, smut sponsors and available to all is however a very scarce commodity, my site aims to provide the basics for everyone to learn how to reverse engineer yet I shall always try to remain advertisement free.
I do not hold any extreme political views and I certainly don't begrudge software authors a living, the web is a vast place and there are already millions of sites dedicated to illegal activities, the 99% of pirates out there aren't interested in "how" the crack was made, only "if" one is available for them. I don't welcome the "if" variety of visitors. If you are prepared to learn then you gain my respect, if you want only to take, then elsewhere is where you ought to be. In order to appeal to as wide an age group as possible, obscene language and pornographic images will never find their way onto this site.
I am personally reluctant to disclose too many of my personal details on this website, but it is no secret that I am in my 20's and from the UK (nr. Bristol if you really want to look on a map). I was fortunate enough to be educated at one of the 4 classic private schools in the city where real subjects such as Latin and ancient Greek are still taught to this day, although I fear not for much longer :-(.
Naturally I do try to spend as much time as I can away from the screen. Remember dear readers that your own time is an incredibly precious commodity indeed, so make time and indulge yourself in whichever activities you find relaxing, mine happen to be music & travel. Now if you really want to know more about me you are welcome to ask.
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