I am considering purchasing two books the titles are: Code Reading & Crackproof your Software. The first said that it has a lot of good code in it (600 or so) and said it is a fact that you become better by reading good code (this being true? can someone tell me where to go to get good code to study cause I know I dont want to study any code by MS). The second book tells the ways that a programmer can protect their software and how crackers (their words not mine) go about cracking it and how to defeat them from cracking it. Your input to my purchase (weather yes or no) accompanied by an explanation would be most appreciated.


Thanks,

Jera

P.S. Happy New Year and good Reversing to All!

Probably to start with, a book called 'Assembly Language step by step' by Dauntemann can be had at any bookstore for a reasonable price. Following that I would searching this site for tuts as they are abound. This place has tuts for direct targets, so make sure you know what you want to find out. As for the second book, imho its ok, but only to get your feet wet.

Good Luck and visit us here often for stimulated discussions.

I wouldn't recommend crackproof your software, as it merely provides comments to code+ideas that are all freely available on the net. Doesn't bring anything new.

I don't know if Code Reading is good or not.

Another book in the same subject-line is Hacker Disassembling Uncovered
by Kris Kaspersky, if you are a new at reverse-engineering, the chapters on understanding code patterns will probably be useful (it's also giving a few IDA tips).. but if you are already an intermediate user.. There won't be many things you don't know/couldn't have guessed easily. (except maybe the comments on object oriented programming)

imho, books on reverse-engineering are rarely worth buying.. especially with what's available online, for free (and up-to-date).

I would say I agree if and only if you are well versed in searching on the Internet. I have taken a class at college on it and still do not seem to be very good at it. I began looking for some information on finding information on the net but so far nothing seemed to be that good. I know you all recommend the one link about it and I have been reading it but nothing that significant to helping me so far.


Thanks,

Jera

This online book is recommended by some guy.Its a good start if you want to learn asm
hxxp://www.drpaulcarter.com/pcasm/

crackproof your* is worth reading but for advanced reversers

Maybe you should'nt be knocking around MS till you actually try it. But then again, I guess you need to read my signature.

Have Phun

Hello Jera,

There had been a discussion on crackproof book. Here the link hxxp://woodmann.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4244. I personally liked the book all information at one place.

Regards, Sope.

And searching the net, my most repeated subject, for books is not all that difficult if you understant that you can use combinations of words to find what you are looking for. In this effort, your keyword would be "ebook" because that is what they are called.

So you could construct a query with combination of "list your subject here + ebook" and you will eventually find many options, both paid and "free." I have a great many ebooks of current software titles I have downloaded. I simply don't have time to read them all.

Regards,