You have found Bomber Monkey's fledgling repository of cracking knowledge. Chances are you came to this via my main page, so it couldn't have been much of a challenge. I have decided to expand this modest corner of the lair to include essays on cryptography/cryptanalysis. The cause for this was my discovery that cracking is absolutely tedious and uninteresting unless you find an interesting algorithm applied in what you are cracking. The algorithm is almost inevitably going to be something related to cryptography, even if its just a hash function. The protection of a program is simply a way of authenticating your purchase. Thus all of the fun in cracking is from the cryptography in it. Now that I have supported that the cryptography is the interesting bit, you will not be shocked to learn that except for the first two essays, there will be no further essays on rudimentary cracking.

       Since I know as a fact that very few newbies will go to any length to search for a site when they can go on #cracking4newbies and ask for one, I'll also link to some good sites. The idea is that if you're reading this, clicking a link is a bit easier than going on IRC and bugging people, so I can save some trouble.

Don't Be Dumb - Bomber Monkey's all important tutorial on the basics of not being lame. If everyone on the scene read and listened to this, the world would be a better and far less annoying place.

BM's Guide to Cracking Approaches - Everyone says that the hardest part of cracking is finding the protection itself. The truth is, its all in the approach.

Random Ranting - Bomber Monkey presents some [probably unoriginal] ideas for creating respectable random sequence generators.

CrackZ Reverse Engineering for Newbies - One of the best cracking sites around. He has a very up-to-date tools section and a full selection of tutorials on everything from basic technique to dongles. Add to that that CrackZ is a very leet guy, and you aren't left with much to complain about.

Iczelion's Win32Asm Pages - If you want to write the best possible programs, you have to do it at a lower level. From the essays on this site you can easily learn to program Win32 in ASM or C/C++. Again, the owner of the site is a great guy, very helpful in all respects.

Sandman's Site - Sandman has a collection of some of the best newbie tutorials out there. If you know how to use your tools, then this site alone can make you a decent cracker. For more advanced concepts, you'll need to go elsewhere.

Mammon's Site - This site is amazing. Mammon has assembled one of the most broad and comprehensive sites on the net, coming in right beside +fravia's for size and content.

+Fravia's Site - His mirrors pop up and die like zits on a pubescent boy, so linking to one would be futile. It's mentioned here because no amount of searching effort would be so much that finding the site would not be worthwhile. fravia's site is an incredible maze of information that you would love to lose yourself in if you took a Martini-Wodka with you.

Greythorne the Technomancer - There are so many cracking sites, that a site needs something remarkable to stand out. Greythorne's does. He's a bloody cool guy too.

Cornsoup - CoRN2 is a very leet guy, and his site is right up to spec for him. Excellent programming essays, a must-visit for any programmer who does not want to suck.

Malattia's Site - Malattia rocks. Excellent site, full of interesting material, and a logo that bloody 0wnz me.