Crackme

A crackme (often abbreviated by cm) is a small program designed to test a programmer's reverse engineering skills.[1]

They are programmed by other reversers as a legal way to crack software, since no intellectual property is being infringed upon.

Crackmes, reversemes and keygenmes generally have similar protection schemes and algorithms to those found in proprietary software. However, due to the wide use of packers/protectors in commercial software, many crackmes are actually more difficult as the algorithm is harder to find and track than in commercial software.

Keygenme
An example of a keygenme.

A keygenme is specifically designed for the reverser to not only find the protection algorithm used in the application, but also write a small keygen for it in the programming language of their choice.

Most keygenmes, when properly manipulated, can be self-keygenning. For example, when checking, they might generate the corresponding key and simply compare the expected and entered keys. This makes it easy to copy the key generation algorithm.

Often anti-debugging and anti-disassemble routines are used to confuse debuggers or make the disassembly useless.[2] Code-obfuscation is also used to make the reversing even harder.[3]

gollark: Of course, I suppose they could try and divert it or something before it becomes doomsdayable.
gollark: Nobody will stop you because you have an orbital doomsday device.
gollark: "Excuse me, but you're not permitted to have that orbital doomsday device here, we'd like to request that you turn over control of the orbital doomsday device to a UN committee."
gollark: The Outer Space Treaty? Nobody will care about that as soon as there is *some* commercial or military or whatever gain.
gollark: They could also just launch satellites carrying metal things and mass drivers or whatever.

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-07-14. Retrieved 2008-10-31.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1893
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-10-21. Retrieved 2008-10-31.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  • tdhack.com - Includes cryptographic riddles, hackmes and software applications to crack for both Windows and Linux. Polish and English languages are supported.
  • Ollydbg - A program used both by beginners and experienced people.
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