razzia key generators

raZZia's Tutorial on Key Generators

Tools!

For tools you need a minimum of debugger like SoftIce for Windows (hence WinIce), and a C compiler with Dos libraries.

Content!

In this tutorial I will show how to make a key-gen for Ize and Swiftsearch. The protection that these programs use is the well known Enter-Name-and-Registration-Number method. After selecting 'register', a window pops up where you can enter your name and your registration number. The strategy here is to find out where in memory the data you enter is stored and then to find out what is done with it. Before you go on make sure you configure the SoftIce dat file according to the PWD tutorial #1.

Part 1: Scanline Swiftsearch 2.0!

Swiftsearch is a useful little program that you can use to search on the web. I will explain step by step how to crack it.

step 1. Start the program :)

step 2: Choose register from the menus. You will now get a window where you can enter your name and your registration number.

step 3: Enter SoftIce (ctrl-d)

step 4: We will now set a breakpoint on functions like GetWindowText(a) and GetDlgItemText(a) to find out where in memory the data that we just entered is stored. The function that is used by this program is GetDlgItemTexta (trial and error, just try yourself :) so, in SoftIce type BPX GetDlgItemTexta and exit SoftIce with the g command.

step 5: Now type a name and a registration number (I used razzia and 12345) and press OK, this will put you back in SoftIce. Since you are now inside the GetDlgItemTexta function press F11 to get out of it. You should see the following code:

lea eax, [ebp-2C] :<--- we are looking for this location

push eax

push 00000404

push [ebp+08]

call [USER32!GetDlgItemTextA]

mov edi, eax :<--- eax has the length of the string

and is stored in edi for later usage.

We see that EAX is loaded with a memory address and then pushed to the stack as a parameter for the function GetDlgItemTextA. Since the function GetDlgItemTextA is already been run we can look at EBP-2c (with ED EDP-2c) and see that the name we entered is there. Now we know where the name is stored in memory, normally it would be wise to write that address down, but we will see that in this case it wont be necessary.

So, what next? Now we have to allow the program to read the registration number we entered. Just type g and return and when back in SoftIce press F11. You should see the following code: