Codetappers game cracking Challenge Thread

[Codetapper]

I have heard Galahad brag several times about a challenge he issued to The Black Cat of Hoodlum, who Galahad described as a lamer. Whenever the subject is brought up, Galahad will take great pleasure in telling you how useless The Black Cat was and that he challenged him to a cracking contest to be judged by Phil Douglas. If the story is true, The Black Cat wimped out!

Now it is my turn. I do not claim to be the worlds greatest cracker. Galahad describes me as "adequate". However, I am confident enough to issue the following challenge.

If Galahad has the guts to send a working image of the game Dämonenburg to a 3rd party (preferably CAPS who could ensure the image was sent and works), I bet that I can release a working version of the game before him. I am so confident that assuming he has done any work on the game at all, he can have that as a head start and I will still beat him to release it!

Galahad: You have a week to send a working image to a 3rd party, preferably a RAW dump to the CAPS team who shall remain impartial.

Failure to accept this challenge and I will take great pleasure in saying that the "mighty" Galahad of Fairlight did not have the balls to challenge me to a cracking contest on a game that was sent to him over 3 years ago and described by the programmer as "uncrackable".

To spark interest I have also started a poll for EAB members to vote on the outcome of the challenge!

[Critter]

lol and you're from new zealand :)

I never knew we had great legacy crackers, of which group were you from in the scene?

[Methanoid]

Healthy competition never hurt anyone... May the best "big girls blouse" win! :D

[woody57]

I think this healthy competitioin within EAB is a very giood idea :agree

I will definitley have to work on providing a REAL prize for the winner in the form of a siver challenge prize cup....details to follow :great

[kriz]

Roll on the competition!!

**Ding ding ding ding**

[pbareges]

hey cody...i was thinking of replacing the challenge goal..would you agree with producing a WORKING whd install for WINTER GAMES instead ??:laughing :laughing

just kidding....you know that i'm very grateful for your great work!!! but it's been almost 3 years!!!:agree

anyway i'm sure you'll beat him!! GO AHEAD

[musashi5150]

I'm looking forward to see what's going to happen :D

On a slightly different note:- I hear a lot about Phil Douglas, how great his cracks were and how is he a reguarded authority on cracking. But who exactly was he? And what's he doing now?

[Adderly]

The first two options of the poll are unfair. What if Galahad is on vacation or anything like that? And i bet if Galahad wins we will read something like "but he had the image before Codetapper got it".... :(
Don't get me wrong, i like the idea of a competition, but it must be fair and with comparable conditions. With the unfair poll as first post the whole thread is biased against Galahad. Also that a mod is the initiator and competitor isn't helping.
If Galahad will accept with this condition he is already the moral winner...

[AMIGAZ]

The name Galahad of Fairlight means respect to me :bowdown since I saw that nanme on alot of crack intros when I was a youngster so I hope he can stand up to the challenge :great

[bippym]

Same here.. Even though I know more about what is actually going on behind the scenes I really hope Galahad stands up to this challenge and shows us why we respect him and his past..

[bippym]

I must also say that I also have the utmost respect for Codetapper too.. He does a lot for the WHD community and has also (along with Galahad) answered alot of my silly asm questions etc..

He learned some of what he knows from Galahad, and this challenge would seem to be Teacher Vs Student

May the best cracker win..

[CodyJarrett]

The first two options of the poll are unfair. What if Galahad is on vacation or anything like that? And i bet if Galahad wins we will read something like "but he had the image before Codetapper got it".... :(

Galahad's had the disk for several years now, so he's got something of a headstart over Codetapper. It's an unreleased game and he's sitting on the only existing version of it.

[Codetapper]

OK to answer a few questions:

Critter: I was never in any scene group, only learnt asm in 1997

Phil: Damonenburg is the game of choice because it has never been cracked, the author said it was uncrackable and Galahad has had the disk for years. Therefore a fair game (I haven't seen it so there is no advantage for me!)

Adderly: Galahad is around, you can see that he visits EAB everyday. He has been posting a lot about his old Carrier Command tutorial and companies that have been going broke etc. EAB even shows when all users were last online. I'm sure some of you will contact him to give him encouragement anyway! :)

I also cannot see what is unfair about the challenge. Galahad only has to accept it and send a CAPS disk image. He has a huge advantage in that he has the game already, I've never even seen it! By the CAPS team being the 3rd party that receives the game, they can report exactly how long I get to crack it before Galahad.

Galahad can beat me by the bigest margin by sending the disk to CAPS as soon as possible, and then release his version shortly afterwards. If he delays and doesn't send the disk, it is unfair on me. Hence why I proposed one week to get the game to me.

[Mad-Matt]

And if this Damonenburg turns out to actually be uncrackable ....how about a crack at the old Damage game, Must be nearing 3 years since i sent the images out ;)

[andreas]

Adderly: Galahad is around, you can see that he visits EAB everyday. He has been posting a lot about his old Carrier Command tutorial and companies that have been going broke etc. EAB even shows when all users were last online. I'm sure some of you will contact him to give him encouragement anyway!
Codetapper, please note that if Galahad has you on IGNORE, he will not be able to read any of your challenge requests.
So this might explain why several allusions made by you in the past on his "disk kidnapping campaign" have still been unanswered.

[demoniac]

Codetapper, please note that if Galahad has you on IGNORE, he will not be able to read any of your challenge requests.


As an experiment, I tried adding Codetapper on the ignore list. Since Codetapper is a mod, he cannot be added.

[Galahad/FLT]

Well Ian, Damonberg is cracked already, and the 'hard' protection was done in 2 hours, start to finish including disk finalisation.

At the moment, all the work for Damonberg is on a hard drive that I'm having trouble locating. Working from a CAPS image would be a waste of time seeing as the disk is buggered, I was lucky enough to get the correct data first time.

I'm not interested in taking up a 'challenge' with you Ian, what exactly do you think it would demonstrate? You've learnt from me..... you have nothing to teach me, people like me taught you everything you know about cracking.

Thats why I did Double Dragon 2, Magic Pockets, Dragons Breath, copy protections that even you freely admit were above your abilities.

I am currently working 12 hour days until February 10th, as well as running my own business. I can make a concerted effort to release Damonberg then.

If I find it sooner, so much the better. Thanks to Bippy for notifying me of this 'interesting' thread, I wouldn't have spotted it otherwise and would instantly have defaulted proving Codetapper is indeed a better cracker than me...... I think not! ;)

Hey Ian, never mind copyprotection challenges, I challenge you to complete the VERY VERY difficult process that is the install package for Speedball 2, that must be a really hard one, its taken like..... YEARS!

Damonberg will be released soon folks, irrespective of little diversions such as this.

[Dastardly]

I challenge you both to add a level skip to Cadaver!

Worth a try ;)

[Adderly]

Oh dear, just the way i had it anticapted. First signs at the "Games that were tough to crack..." thread and now this. As i said above, it started biased and could not ended other than this. :sad
I respect both Codetapper and Galahad and seeing two talented coders/crackers in a war makes me feeling sad. :crying
The idea of a cracking competition is still great, hopefully we can do something like this (after an emotional cool down) again in near future.
I suggest we do a "open for everyone" competition - maybe someone else will kick both Codetappers and Galahads ass.... :p
And woody57 will providing the prize! :great

[woody57]

After outside PM communication with both Codetapper & Gallahad/FLT the return of the game mentioned above is being resolved.

Once this is achieved any cracking race can then have a start date set :D