hi there

i initially got interested in reverse engineering playing disavowed's wargame (which is now back online on w*w. mod-x.co.uk btw) .
i got back to it about 4 months ago when i moved into a new home where i got no internet connection yet... i dont own a tv either so i had to find something else to do with my time =)

i have succeded in cracking some protections and i want to share my experiences with the cracking community.

the faq says that you should not post target specific code on this board, although most of the tutorials around are target specific....

so i guess i shouldnt write "how to crack xxx" tuts but rather try explaining a generic way to crack a target.

so my questions are:
are there any kind of best practices for writing tutorials?
where should i send my tutorials? =)


cheers
koyaan

I really like this question =)
but im not qualified to answer it :P so maybe a moderator will

Howdy,

I really like this question also.

There are two ways to approach this.
If the protection is lame because people use it straight out
of the box, a generic tutorial naming a target for an example
is more then good.

If it is a protection that has some unique features or has been customized then you should name the target.

The only no-no about tutorials is including a warezed version of the program, including a keygen or serial.Anything that makes it "plug-n-play" is not good.

You can send your tutorials to any place that has such things.

Woodmann

maybe here you can post:
http://research.microsoft.com/

Yeah and try not to re-invent the wheel as far as tutorials go.
E.G Do we really need another UPX unpacking tutorial?

Hi,

Uhh, been browsing this forum for a couple of months and felt I had to contribute to this post in particular.

Good post, koyaan !

I'm currently writing a tutorial/guide on reverse engineering, and have thought a lot about including a "How to:" on writing tutorials, the do's and do not's.

I've thought little, not enough, to formulate a theory on this, but still enough to share my thoughts...

First of all you should consider your 'targets'. The most important target when it comes to writing tutorials, in particular tutorials that are reverse engineering related, is to decide which group in the scene that you want to write to.

In my opinion there are 4 groups, possibly 5, and these are:

a) Beginners
b) Intermediate
c) Advanced
d) Experts

You are probably already familiar with this "segmentation".

If you are planning on writing a tutorial for newbies then perhaps you should consider using the "re-invent the wheel" feel in your tutorial.

Also, are you writing a target-specific tutorial or a more therotical tutorial? You seem to want to write a tutorial that has more to do with theory than a specific target (even though you might use a target as an example in your theory-oriented tutorial).

You should read some of +ORC's old tutorials, he is a master when it comes to theory. Check out the way he has divided his essays (/tutorials) into sections and what he is doing in each section. Adopt the same style and approach to writing and you will be on to a good start.

Also, bad spelling and irregular grammar can really mess up an otherwise excellent tutorial. So that stuff is important too.

Good luck.

T.

If you can write something in a tutorial that includes below that would be excellent
a) Beginners
b) Intermediate

Advanced + Experts doesn't need to read tutorials and if they can write tutes which can easily understand by above categories that would be great

Regards

i will take everything said into consideration

what i am trying to write about is how to circumvent the safecast protection system
on a target where the main .exe is not packed, by injecting a call to a dll cleaning all
license data, and then patching the call to CreateMessageBoxA(nagscreen) et al
in memory so there is no need to unpack the "safecasted" dlls...

i hope this is a topic of interst, but because of my limited experiences my choices
are very limited =)

as soon as i get something together (and i got fulltime internet access again) i will publish a link on this board and would really appreciate your feedback.

koyaan

I am shocked... A serious reply by esther????

Where are we going? Armageddon?

By the way, I think that if you think too much at how to write a tut you will end up in nothing because you'll be overloaded (or you'lll end up writing a tut on tut writing ).
So, gather your objectives, take a deep breath and write with clarity in mind: interested people will read it even if it is marked as "beginner".

Best regards,

Polaris

>I am shocked... A serious reply by esther????

I'm SERIOUS what I post in here,flammings or suggestions

>Where are we going? Armageddon?

You have come back from mars?

>By the way, I think that if you think too much at how to write a tut you will end up in nothing because you'll be overloaded (or you'lll end up writing a tut on tut writing ).
So, gather your objectives, take a deep breath and write with clarity in mind: interested people will read it even if it is marked as "beginner".

If you don't think what you should write how do you begin?

What is your target audience?

What you should be includedif you are writing a cracking tute?
.....

There are lots of consideration made before writing something whether its for beginners,newbies,intermdediate and advanced.

Beginners should learn asm first rather than jumping to a cracking tute....

i thought this would fit here:
hxxp://66.98.132.48/fravia/rules.htm

cheers koyaan