App 3 Walkthrough
App 3 Walkthrough
If for some reason you're unable to figure out how to crack Application three, I've been kind enough to provide a guide.
-OVERVIEW-
Application 3 requires the replacement of a text string, which will then be compared with another string in the application (in this case "icrackedit" has been coded into the app). If the two strings match, it'll tell you the password.
The easiest method of modifying text values in an application is to use what's known as a "hex editor." A hex editor is a program that allows the modification of hexadecimal values in a program. They're very easy to find for free, or shareware editions. For this, I used Biew.
-TOOLS NEEDED-
Hex editor (AXE, Hackman, WinHex, Hiew, Biew, et cetera). Disassembler (to find offset of string value. I used OllyDbg32 for this).
-WALKTHROUGH-
First, load up Olly Debug, and open up app5.exe. You'll see a whole crapload of code that you don't need to worry about. Right click in the Main Code window, go to the "Search For" menu, and click on "All Referenced Text Strings." This will look for all text strings in the application.
You'll then see another window pop up with a bunch of lines of stuff, and a few text strings. Scroll through or do a search (in the right click menu, can't remember what it is right now, and I'm posting this on a school Mac) for the string "ihavnolife" or "i h a v n o l i f e"
You should come up with a string that says "ASCII Value: 'ihavnolife'" or "i h a v n o l i f e" respectively. Write down the address to the far left (004AFA for example).
Now, close out of Olly, and open App3.exe in your hex editor of choice. There should be an option to jump to an offset, which is an address in memory (what we wrote down). Jump to the offset we wrote down.
Now let's say that for some odd reason that won't work. That's mostly in theory though. The application is only 28 pages of hex, so if it doesn't find anything or says that the offset is out of range, then you can either scroll through all those pages looking at the ASCII values, oooor we could make use of Find Text.
Once again, go to the Find menu of your hex editor, make sure that you're looking for ASCII text, and try "ihavnolife" with no quotes.
Uh oh, nothing! Perhaps I'm steering you wrong? Nupe, I tried the same thing and got the same result. After searching through all 28 pages of hex multiple times, I found out an interesting tidbit about the string: there are spaces between the characters. So do another Find Text for "i h a v n o l i f e" and you should come up with something.
But I can't give away the entire thing, as a part of cracking is figuring things out for yourself =). However, I have given you most of the information you need to figure it out. Remember, there's lots of SPACES in the world, and it's a hex EDITOR.
-Nalayah
ghost 17 years ago
I changed the code, and clicked enter. But nothing happens…
Also, nice article.
buddywithgol 12 years ago
this suck i did everything you say ad still can't find the textstring. And the address start with 77