Cheat Engine

Csimbi · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:48 am Post subject: Keygen tutorials

I hacked a few games, was fun, now looking for other challenges.
I decided that I would like to mess around with keygens.
Problem is, I do not know anything about it.
I was wondering if there are some tutorials about this. Surely, there has to be similar patterns like with training games: find value, see who reads it, patch code (well, in this case, reverse the code to spit out a key), right?
But how do I do this in games/installers/programs, how do you recognize well-known patterns, what kind of protections to expect, etc, etc.
Yes, I found the crackmes, but for now, I am looking for a tutorial that I can learn from before I jump into the water.
Also, I saw that some keygens insert the generated keys straight into the program - I would like to know how, but I guess that's only the next step.
Can I use Cheat Engine for this purpose? What are the tools of "the trade"? I have heard about OllyDbg, but I do not have it and never used it. Are there tools that one might consider?
Thank you.

Fantasy · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 9:00 am Post subject:

Reversed Engineering is the key.
You have to know certain programming languages tho ..

http://forum.cheatengine.org/viewforum.php?f=69 <33 this is the section for you

Csimbi · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:26 am Post subject:

Hi Fantasy,
thanks. My ASM is at beginners' level, my Pascal is lower than average, my C/C++ is good enough to put pretty much any one-threaded software together. C#? Well, I am studying that, but I did not find it any better than C++, so I am not advancing on that path.

I found the section you are referring to, but there are only a very few posts in that sub-forums and I could not find
anything about keygens there.
Or, perhaps mean that the process of generating keys is similar to password cracking and I should start here: http://forum.cheatengine.org/viewtopic.php?t=333457 ?

Thanks again.

Flyte · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:32 am Post subject:

This is what you want: http://www.tuts4you.com/download.php?list.17

It's not keygen specific, but it teaches you the basics.

Csimbi · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:17 pm Post subject:

Wow. Seems to be great stuff to start with.
Downloaded the first few - this should keep me busy for a while...
Thank you!