LLXX
October 16th, 2006, 20:59
Unprotecting a SWF, unless it has been obfuscated or packed, is pathetically easy. There are programs out there ranging from a few hundred bytes to serveral hundred kilobytes in size that can perform that task, but you can just as easily do so with the hex editor that you hopefully already have - just delete the 'protect' record, and it's done. Read the SWF file format (a *must* if you're going to go into this area) for more information.
As for tracing through the SWF, Macromedia Flash (the development environment not the player) has a debugger, but it's rather pathetic and a pain to use. Without the original source, it cannot show the actual bytecodes nor do anything a normal binary debugger can. I can't recommend any debuggers as I've not needed to use one yet, and the only other debuggers at the moment seem to be more BARBIEs (BAsic Relocatable Binary-Injected Examiners, an acronynm from the old days of PC debugging

) which are inserted into the source code, than something of the likes of SoftICE or OllyDBG.
The guys over at OSFlash are supposedly working on one though, but there is little information at the moment: http://www.osflash.org/ofd