~ Software presents ~
[simtel software collections]
[underground searches]
[presents]
You'll find ANY software whatsoever on the web
You are already hovering around the last section of my site. This means that you
are now preparing to leave it.
You may have learned a lot, but, as I'm sure
you'll have understood, it's a never ending knowledge path. I'll now help you 'pack your
luggage'
for the long and dangerous trip ahead.
To go further unharmed you need weapons, both shields and swords,
and in the web world of a searcher, this means you need powerful ad hoc software.
If you don't use open source software like GNU/Linux (as you should),
it will be crucial for you to learn how to
'tweak' existing programs to
avoid being spied upon and also in order to
use them for your own purposes. Of course you need to learn how to reverse engineer (and modify)
software. Alas! Not anyone can do it and many don't have the time to master the art of assembly
and disassembly.
There is an alternative, though:
use software ad hoc. A lot of programs have been written and published (and forgotten), many
with source code, that you can re-use or modify at leisure.
You just need to fish that what you need out of
the web. And that's exactly what you (should) learn to do here...
Store
the following presents inside your pouch, my friend, work well and bring our
knowledge along with you like a dim but warm light in the darkness of the web...
| simtel software collections |
If you don't know what the simtel DOS collection is, be prepared to gasp i awe:
quick tools, code you can reuse, programs that will do exactly what you always
needed... in short: the contrary of Microsoft :-)
[http://ftp.arnes.si/simtel.net/msdos/index-msdos-pre.html]
If you don't know what the simtel Win9* collection is, be prepared to gasp i awe:
quick tools, code you can reuse, programs that will do exactly what you always
needed... in short: the contrary of Microsoft :-)
[http://ftp.arnes.si/simtel.net/win95/index-win95.html]
And , yes, before you ask, there's also a Windoze 3.1 collection for all 'afecionados'...
[http://ftp.arnes.si/simtel.net/win3.html]
I have chosen the slovenian Simtel mirror ("Slovenia" is one of the Lilliput entities
Yugoslavia has ben carved into), but there are many other available mirrors: choose the one that delivers you
the simtel files more quickly (save and modify accordingly the forms above):
Let's simply say that if you don't visit or use Simtel (that supports GNU as well) you don't know what you
loose...
As a further 'present', for your further travelling on your own, I
would like to
recall your attention on some simple software programs that could be of
some help
during your journeys.
Moreover, as an added bonus, each one of them will
offer us the opportunity to discuss and explain a specific web (or rather
"web-reversing") technique.
Readers should please contribute pointing out other
interesting applications that could be of some help for seekers.
Special disclaimer
In many cases I'll also
discuss these targets' poor protections but this is meant to improve them:
I'll try my best to
avoid helping lusers getting these programs for free,
thus those that dunnow nothing about software reversing shouldn't
be able to use the reversing info I'll give (and any
reversing savvy would crack on his own
such targets in two minutes flat anyway). Note also that
using the
usual (extremely simple) and well known ad hoc searchstrings
anyone could find ready made serials for the
versions discussed here anyway.
Programmers should thank me for pointing out the real reason these targets
have been so widely cracked
all over the web and, gefaellig, refer to my how to
protect better section in order to improve the protections of their software.
On this page
[gathering targets]
GATHERING TARGETS
Total recorder is a useful program that will allow you to fetch
streaming sounds. A very
useful feature in a world where streaming is more and more used in order to avoid lusers making copies of the goodies.
Streaming is NOT only a compression technique that
allows the viewer to watch the video or to hear the music
on the player while more packets are still being delivered
to the buffer. There's also a more subtle idea behind: to avoid you
having a working copy of that video or music.
In fact the
annoying commercial bastards would like to avoid you having even
the possibility of
fetching your video or sound data from your cache. For instance...
C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files
E:\internet\opera402\cache4
L:\Program Files\NETSCAPE\Users\emailaddress\Cache
or
wherever your browser stores your cached files...
so they resorted
to streaming
tricks. Streaming is used to play content in real-time, instead of downloading the whole file to your hard drive and then playing it back from your local computer when it finishes downloading. The video file does not stay on the viewer's computer. Each section of the file is discarded after
it is played. Because Internet connections aren't instantaneous like telephone connections, the streaming media player application you use "buffers" the packets of data on your computer to collect enough so you won't notice any interruption. To make it easier for audio data to flow through the congested Internet, audio files must be compressed.
But because of the audio compression, sound quality is sacrificed.
Today streamed audio arrives at less than CD quality or even what you would get from playing a downloaded MP3.
As you may know, TCP/IP -- the Internet routing protocol --
employs error-correction
mechanisms to ensure that all of the data in a given file makes a
safe journey from source to destination, or from server to client.
If a data packet gets lost along the way, a signal goes back along
the chain to re-request it. This is all well and good for most
Web-based transfers, but it can and does result in many slowdowns
while the client waits for all of the packets to arrive intact.
The implication of this for streaming audio is that a real-time
client, or sound player, can't afford to wait around for missing
packets; this would throw the real-time part out of synch, or
cause the player to ignore a packet it can no longer wait for and
skip ahead. NOTE that the software also discards that part of the file that has already been played to avoid lusers making copies of it. In effect, data is "streamed" to a storage bin on the client and as the file is played it "streams"
out of the storage bin to make room for more data from the server.
Therefore, designers of streaming audio products have
two options: allow the client to drop packets if they don't arrive
on time, or use a different routing protocol that doesn't use this
type of error correction. The lesser-known alternative is to
modify the TCP/IP layer with a layer called UDP. UDP favors speed
over accuracy, meaning that packets take a more constant and
direct route to the client, and that error-correction can be
turned off. If you drop a packet, just move on.
Both techniques are in use by competing streaming audio products
right now, and naturally, all companies claim that their own
approach is superior. [Internet Wave http://www.vocaltech.com],
for instance, uses TCP/IP, and argues that it is
Internet-friendly protocol less susceptible to causing severe Web
congestions because data doesn't flow along constant paths. Other
companies, such as Progressive Networks (makers of RealAudio),
claim that their tests show UDP to deliver consistently superior
performance, and that the amount of lost packets are seldom more
than 2 to 5% of total throughput--in other words, negligible.
A specific media player is needed to play each type of audio files.
RealPlayer plays RealAudio and the Windows Media Player plays its own format.
These formats can also play streaming video, but video files are usually even
larger than audio files so delivery and quality can suffer even more.
Some other audio players support the different formats, but the two big
rival companies are constantly modifying their formats, not so much
to improve performance
but rather to beat the competition
De facto, simply attempting to listen to Internet audio is confusing
enough. Competing online audio- technology companies desperately weave spells
to charm bemused users into believing their Special Version is the real deal.
Enters total recorder, that will
allow you to 'catch' the streamed wav files
on the fly.
This is a good program, and you should by all
means buy it, but unfortunately its "protection" is severely bugged
(at least this was true for version 2.2 ~ TotalRecorder.exe=479232 bytes):
Anyone deadlisting the code will
immediately find a first fixed
trap (banally searching for the string "Invalid name
or registration key"... when will programmers eventually
learn to avoid such fixed strings?).
The location is given HERE:
:4217D7 DC1D004E4500 fcomp qword ptr [00454E00] ; comp stack
:4217DD DFE0 fstsw ax ;store
:4217DF F6C441 test ah, 41 ;I'll screw you if ah = 64 dec
:4217E2 752B jne 0042180F ;good jump (fix:EB2B: always jump)
:4217E4 8BCE mov ecx, esi ;preparing "bad guy" message
:4217E6 ... ;you invalid scoundrel... ecc.
Of course the above step by step reversing is pure nonsense here, since
starting form the above routine you'll immediately hit
the flag for the so called "registered user",
which is HERE, with a sete cl standing out like a tarantola on a wedding bride's hat:
:419453 C785C000000001000000 mov dword ptr [ebp+000000C0], 1
:41945D 85C0 test eax, eax
:41945F 0F94C1 sete cl ;obvious: 0F95C1 (setne cl)
:419462 6A00 push 0
:419464 6A00 push 0
:419466 898D24100000 mov dword ptr [ebp+00001024], ecx
:41946C ...
And therefore it would be a kid's game to steal this software with a "single byte" hexediting.
Programmers, beware: this is
a classical example of a stupid protection.
Of course, once more, search-savvy humans
wouldn't even need to understand the assembly code above.
A 'code reversing' approach would be a waste of time
for lazy zombies: it can be completely bypassed through
"the lazy searching way". A simple
querystring
like the following one...
http://www.google.com/search?num=30&meta=hl%3D%26lr%3D&q=%2B%22total+recorder+2.2%22+%2Bserial.
...would do the job for any idiot.
Ah! See? Quod erat demonstrandi... such protections are so weak that
a thousand crackers will have cracked them black and blue
before dawn the very moment they go out...
yet this piece of software deserves seekers' attention
nevertheless. It can be used to register streaming audio
on the fly... Enjoy!
(c) III Millennium: [fravia+]
, all rights reserved and reversed
