Messages in game code for crackers

[ufo]

Do forgive me for the probably silly question but, Mr. E was a double agent?

Or he cracked first then protected?

Did he get found out or was money just too enticing?

Originally Posted by DrBong

For a while there in the 90s it seemed that FLT and HF were the only ones cracking games, especially when the Amiga was in decline on the games front.

Nearly every game I picked up in the later days seemed to be a Hoodlum or on the odd occasion a Prestige, it seemed as if they were the only ones still around. On the VERY rare occasion I also found a Fairlight.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by ufo

Do forgive me for the probably silly question but, Mr. E was a double agent?

Or he cracked first then protected?

The latter. First he cracked (Oracle, Crystal etc.) and then he switched sides and coded games (and protected them).

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by ufo

Do forgive me for the probably silly question but, Mr. E was a double agent?

Or he cracked first then protected?

Did he get found out or was money just too enticing?






Nearly every game I picked up in the later days seemed to be a Hoodlum or on the odd occasion a Prestige, it seemed as if they were the only ones still around. On the VERY rare occasion I also found a Fairlight.

Quite a few of us went over to the 'light' side!

Conqueror, Mr.E, Me, Mok, Chatterbox, and obviously several demo teams and coders also moved over (Anarchy, Melon Design, The Silents, Blood Suckers, etv)

[Galahad/FLT]

Welcome Cracker!

[Gerry]

Although this messages are not from the game code but from the bootsector (Atari ST) and bootblock (Amiga), I liked and posted them.

[StingRay]

I just had a good laugh when I patched the keyboard routine of Wembley International Soccer ECS and found this:

the arcade section of this game is the intellectual property of graham blighe. if you are reading this you have disassembled or dumped it in part or whole. if it can be proved that you have profited by doing so you may be prosecuted for theft.

Looks like Graham Blighe is quite a Sherlock.

[MrX_Cuci]

Found this while sector viewing the Humans CD32 disc:
0000 : 66 72 65 65 61 6E 69 6D 61 74 69 6F 6E 0A 61 6E freeanimation.an
0010 : 69 6D 0A 67 61 6D 65 0A 0A 3B 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D im.game..;------
0020 : 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 0A 3B 20 48 ------------.; H
0030 : 55 4D 41 4E 53 20 77 72 69 74 74 65 6E 20 62 79 UMANS written by
0040 : 20 74 6F 73 68 2E 2E 2E 2E 0A 3B 20 65 78 74 72 tosh.....; extr
0050 : 61 20 47 46 58 20 62 79 20 61 6E 64 79 2E 2E 2E a GFX by andy...
0060 : 2E 0A 3B 0A 3B 20 74 68 69 73 20 67 61 6D 65 20 ..;.; this game
0070 : 74 6F 6F 6B 20 6A 75 73 74 20 6F 76 65 72 20 61 took just over a
0080 : 20 74 77 6F 20 77 65 65 6B 73 20 74 6F 20 63 6F two weeks to co
0090 : 6E 76 65 72 74 0A 3B 20 66 72 6F 6D 20 74 68 65 nvert.; from the
00A0 : 20 6F 72 69 67 69 6E 61 6C 20 35 30 30 20 76 65 original 500 ve
00B0 : 72 73 69 6F 6E 2E 2E 0A 3B 20 65 78 74 72 61 20 rsion...; extra
00C0 : 73 74 75 66 66 20 69 73 20 3A 2D 0A 3B 20 31 36 stuff is :-.; 16
00D0 : 30 20 6C 65 76 65 6C 73 0A 3B 20 63 64 20 6D 75 0 levels.; cd mu
00E0 : 73 69 63 20 0A 3B 20 61 6C 6C 20 6C 61 6E 67 75 sic .; all langu
00F0 : 61 67 65 73 20 69 6E 63 6C 75 64 65 64 0A 3B 20 ages included.;
0100 : 6E 65 77 20 70 61 73 73 77 6F 72 64 20 73 63 72 new password scr
0110 : 65 65 6E 0A 3B 20 6E 65 77 20 73 6C 65 63 74 69 een.; new slecti
0120 : 6F 6E 20 73 63 72 65 65 6E 0A 3B 0A 3B 20 74 68 on screen.;.; th
0130 : 65 20 67 61 6D 65 20 74 6F 20 6D 65 20 69 73 20 e game to me is
0140 : 66 75 63 6B 69 6E 67 20 63 72 61 70 20 2D 20 61 fucking crap - a
0150 : 6E 64 20 69 27 6D 20 64 6F 69 6E 67 20 68 75 6D nd i'm doing hum
0160 : 61 6E 73 20 32 20 6E 6F 77 20 61 73 20 77 65 6C ans 2 now as wel
0170 : 6C 20 61 6E 64 20 67 75 65 73 73 20 77 68 61 74 l and guess what
0180 : 3F 3F 3F 0A 3B 0A 3B 20 69 74 73 20 46 55 43 4B ???.;.; its FUCK
0190 : 49 4E 47 20 43 52 41 50 20 54 4F 4F 21 21 21 21 ING CRAP TOO!!!!
01A0 : 21 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 !

The original disc is labeled: fuck wank

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by StingRay

I just had a good laugh when I patched the keyboard routine of Wembley International Soccer ECS and found this:



Looks like Graham Blighe is quite a Sherlock.

Didn't one of the Barbarian coders have some delusions of grandeur about his code as well?

[WayneK]

BEAST BUSTERS:

"Why not try doing something constructive with your Amiga, like writing a game for example ??? It may be a lot more complex than protection removal and perhaps a little above your understanding but with a little patience, a lot of practice and months of hard work you may create something of which you can be proud and that people will admire you for. No swearing, No insults, Just grow up! RB 18/07/91..."

[Leffmann]

Who would "RB" be? There's no one with those initials on the Amiga team. Was it based on the Atari version, and this just happened to sneak in on one of the files?

[WayneK]

Good question, that text is at the end of the Amiga Beast Busters main game executable (after the hilariously badly implemented protection check) - but you're right I can't find anyone with those initials even listed as working for the same development team!

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by WayneK

(after the hilariously badly implemented protection check)

Spill the beans!

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Spill the beans!

If its what I think Wayne means, I think the two words "DUFF" and "COPY" might well be relevant!

Laughably poor as i recall.

[Codetapper]

File starts with a copylock, which runs then does a jmp lbC018896. Offset $954 is end of the copylock code and the start of the main game code:

lbC018896	move.w	#$7FFF,$DFF096
		lea	lbC000954,a0
		lea	$13000,a1
lbC0188AA	move.l	(a0)+,(a1)+
		cmp.l	#lbC018896,a0
		bcs.s	lbC0188AA
		lea	$13000,a1
		cmp.l	#$96C1AAFE,d0
		beq.s	lbC0188CE
		add.l	#'DUFF',a1
		add.l	#'COPY',a1
lbC0188CE	jmp	(a1)

		dc.b	'Why not try doing something constructive with '
		dc.b	'your Amiga, like writing a game for example ??'
		dc.b	'? It may be a lot more complex than protection'
		dc.b	' removal and perhaps a little above your under'
		dc.b	'standing but with a little patience, a lot of '
		dc.b	'practice and months of hard work you may creat'
		dc.b	'e something of which you can be proud and that'
		dc.b	' people will admire you for.  No swearing, No '
		dc.b	'insults, Just grow up! RB 18/07/91...',0,0,0

For non assembler programmers, this is disabling DMA and relocating the game back to address $13000. a1 is set to $13000 (start of the game code) and the copylock serial number is checked. If it's $96C1AAFE, then it simply runs the game. If it's not, it destroys the pointer by adding 'DUFF' and 'COPY' to it, which would most likely cause a complete crash. So it's pretty easy to detect when this game is cracked as it's a terrible protection implementation.

I'm not sure how many people would "admire" the programmer of Beast Busters anyway. A sloppy 17fps NTSC game in 16 colours (where the top 1/5 is a status panel), it doesn't utilise hardware scrolling and doesn't even use a hardware sprite for the crosshair!

[Galahad/FLT]

After the Copylock has finished, it decrypts the original bootblock which has some text:

"TRAX -- Fast trackdisk emulator boot code - Copyright 1988 ID2 Ltd. All rights reserved. This code may only be used under licence from ID2. Anybody found infringing our copyright will be jumped on from a very great height."

[StingRay]

Xenomorph:

Galdregons Domain loader by David Neale (G1OSS), 16/12/88 at 11:30 Many Thanks to Michael Humphrey (Fame at last!!) , Chris (Leave Phil Alone!), Mum , Dad , Foo & Andrew at PDS (THE ULTIMATE Development system.);Hi! to Shahid (Put that rusty barge pole down!!) ;Hi! to the pulsed power group A.W.E ;God help 'us all , we need it! ;Is there any tea on this spaceship ?????? ;I want a 20Mhz 386 tower NOW!!!;??????????????????????????????????????????????

[lesta_smsc]

Loving reading through these. Surprised with the foul language used! I suppose it was never meant to be seen by the 'end' user so it's ok lol.

[Bastich]

Awesome thread

[StingRay]

DiskMonTools:

You are using an illegal DiskMonTools KeyFile !!!

It is both illegal and immortal to use a program
without getting your personally registered version.

It is in YOUR hands to support the
Amiga and its programmers ...

This time you get only this warning ..., but i
could instead easyly format all your HDs ...
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!!

System stopped because of pirated Software !!!

These messages (with the typos, I like the "immortal" one best ) are all encrypted in the DMT executable.

[Sektor 83]

Hahahaha!! So THAT'S what that gobbledegook says! It's just before the routine to load the keyfile, from what I can gather? (I'm having a look at it in ReSource)...

Edit: Oh right, just noticed that the message has been encrypted by taking each letter of the original message and then replacing it with the next letter of the alphabet

[StingRay]

Exactly. See if you can spot the "decryption" (it's very simple actually) routine too.

[Sektor 83]

This is just a very WILD guess, but I'm guessing the 'illegal keyfile' routine begins at lbC001772 and ends at lbC001818 (hang loop)?

[hooverphonique]

so use an illegal copy and become immortal - I like that! :-D

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by Sektor 83

This is just a very WILD guess, but I'm guessing it begins at lbC001772?

Yep, that's correct. Decrypts all 3 texts there after it discovered a faked/black listed key.

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

so use an illegal copy and become immortal - I like that! :-D

Indeed, me too.

[Sektor 83]

In bootblock:

"Let me take you down".

In game loader:

"Be true, Unbeliever ... Stephen R Donaldson"

[mailman]

Castle Kingdoms:

"„CASTLE KINGDOMS © MUTATION SOFTWARE 1997 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.WHY ARE YOU READING THIS TEXT THERES NOTHING TO CRACK HERE M8:)"

[StingRay]

Arkanoid:

LOOK OUT FOR THE NOTE IN FRONT OF THE FINAL LOADER ! ( IF YOU GET SO FAR , MY FRIEND !!!!!! )

READ THIS FIRST Important Message !!! Code MERLIN ! Please contact Discovery Software immediately ! We need programmers like YOU ! Phone: USA (1)-301-2689877 Germany (49)-931-884822 or (49)-931-25228 ! It would be silly not to phone us !!!

These messages are revealed once the code has been decrypted.

[Sektor 83]

4-Get-It has the following not written in the game code, but in a text file snuck away in a directory called 'Psst!':

If you're reading this file, you've obviously been snooping around this
disk. If you're considering pirating this game -- Please reconsider. I
am a very poor college student and I have a hard enough time trying to get
TTR to pay me as it is without people pirating this game. O.K. enough
lecture since I doubt it will stop any pirates anyway.

Please don't futz with my program to try and "improve" it. I spent at
least 1000 hours working on it. My programs are rather sacred to me so I
will be extremely upset if I hear about futz'ed programs running around.
Besides, no one needs to "train" or "crack" the program since I left
enough backdoors in the program to make such efforts meaningless. That
is unless you think you can do better than giving the player unlimited
retries, turning on/off the time, skipping levels, showing "hidden"
passwords for every level, blowing up tiles, jumping to any level, etc.
I am not going to tell you these passwords, however, since I'm sure all
the petty little hackers who think they're bigshots killing the Amiga
software market will disassemble my program anyway. Of course turning
*OFF* the *TIMER* is a big help for when you're really stuck (hint!
hint! hint!).

Regardless of what you may think by reading the manual, the Amiga
version of 4-GET-IT has been almost exclusively a two person project.
Adisak Pochanayon did all the programming, music, sound samples, beta
testing, and some graphics and level design. Pat Dolan is responsible
for 90% of the graphics and much of the level design. Other smaller
contributions come from Chuck Needham for the 4-GET-IT logo that bounces
around and Brian McGroarty for game concept (although the Amiga version
is much improved over the IBM program and features more levels, more
magic tiles, better sound and graphics, etc.). Also we retained almost
all of Brian's boards from the IBM program in a separate file that
can be loaded into the game (read the addendum for info).

I, Adisak Pochanayon, go to school at UW Madison. I am majoring in
Electrical Engineering and am 21 years old. I can be reached at
pochanay@cae.wisc.edu or write 1301 Spring St #508, Madison WI 53715.
Pat Dolan and Brian McGroarty's telephone #'s are in the high scores.
Mine is not, but feel free to contact me.

[Sektor 83]

Found on the disk itself...

Lotus II....
------------
Another project over (nearly), another Christmas approaching.
Spare a few moments, O inquisitive one, for the thoughts of a programmer.
Long gone are the days of scrolling credits so this will have to do.


Thanks first....
----------------
To Mum and Dad for helping out, tidying up and generally being great !
To everyone at The Fish for testing the game, Craig, Ric and Nijel mainly.
To the guy at Gobowen Red Star office.


Hello to....
------------
Cath !!!!
Craig, Nijel, Clare, Tom, Iwan, Becca, Jane, Ric, Beverley, Jane,
Emma, Rich, Darren, Julie, Timmy, Suzie (9 mm), Andy, Davros, Buzz, Penny,
Dave, Rachell, Tim, Maggie, Mel, Sue, Christine, Mandy, Janet, Steve TV,
Ali in Australia, Damien, Hon, Rachel, Nige and Ged, Craigs Mum, All the
neighbours, Melissa, Tim, Will, Steve, Heather, Mark, Steve, Kim, Rachel,
Helen, Tristan, Rufus, Stuart, Emily, Hugh, Shelley, Gwenda, Jo, Carl,
Jez, Adam, Gary, Brig, Steve, Helen, Fiona, Spike, Claire, Rachel, John,
Stewart, Nick, Musky, Stav, Steve, Pete, Gareth, Steve C, Eric, Dafydd,
Cornflake, Jenny, Scott, Julian, Dmitri, Sue, Tracey, Marina, Tom, Dick
and Harry, Sammut the long lost drummer, wherever he is, the Irish guy
we met in the bar in Crete, Pat and Ian, Vicky, Wild Gill, Glyn, Mad
Fred, Mildly annoyed Kevin, Psychotic Sid, (stop that - Ed),
Kath, Ben, Ben, Chris, Jane, Matthew, Gareth, Ron and Cherry,
Tetris the cat (so named because of the odd shaped places he gets into).
Barry Leitch who did the music, Everyone I know at Gremlin, Graham, Barry,
Dave, Margaret and Max, and of course everyone at Magnetic Fields.
All the staff at the Boars Head, and anyone else I forgot....


Music....
---------
Not in the game, but listened to while programming to keep me sane(ish).
Big Country (shock horror), The Alarm, The Skids, New Model Army,
Shute the Tailor, Voice of the Beehive, Damned, Guns and Roses,
The Clash, Waterboys... The usual, the old stuff is the best.
Oh yeah, and EMF.


Food and Drinks....
-------------------
Rather like music, this section.
Coffee, Newcastle Brown, John Smiths, Guinness, Murphys, Merry Monk,
Diamond White, Lucozade Sport, Diet Orange and Vodka....
Raj Mahal Tandoori restaurant and Golden City Chinese takeaway
Pot Noodles and Pasta with Turbo sauce....


Development system....
----------------------
For anyone who's interested, an Amiga 2000 with 5Mb of ram and a 25Mhz
accelerator with 40Mb Hard disk. None of this posey PC stuff for me.
Software used - Devpac 2, Dpaint 3, Audiomaster II.
Action Replay - they are useful for programmers, really....
Also a Trilogic stereo sampler and a cheap foreign tape recorder.


Dux....
-------
Hope you like the 'free' bonus game. Now you don't think I'm going to tell
you the password, do you ? That, I'm sure you know is easy enough to find.
See if you can beat 498800 on level 9. Also just for the record, my highest
score on Rox - the free game on Lotus I was 92 seconds without autofire,
but with a cup of coffee with six spoonfulls in it.


Hints and tips....
------------------

Use Fire button to accelerate, its much easier.

Use manual gears, if you are good at it, you can easily beat the automatic
gears for acceleration, especially when changing down after hitting
something.

Get used to overtaking cars on both sides, and using the fire button on
and off to keep your speed up while not crashing into signs etc.

Learn the courses, well at least the important bits that are likely
to cause you to crash and slow down.

Forest course - learn where the logs and rocks are, otherwise a doddle.

Night course - dont hit ANYTHING; on the fast swervy section, turn very
early, watch out for the Gremlin sign.

Fog course - Watch out for missing and 'wrong' signs.

Snow course - Use the very light steering to your advantage, Try to stay
on the road and out of the snowbanks.

Desert course - Stay in the middle of the road. It can be useful to use
obstacles to get you back on course. Avoid tumbleweed.

City course - Stay on your own side, believe me. Only try to go under
lorries if they are in your way. Be even more careful not to hit anything.

Marsh course - Remember which logs to hit to avoid the water - learn where
the extra times are, and on the last section stay in 3rd gear at about 60
mph and clip the water to slow down.

Storm course - Hit all the turbos and dodge the water. Aim for the thinnest
parts of the rivers. Find the best line on the last few hundred yards.

Don't panic.

When playing in link mode, press the pause key at awkward moments to
confuse your opponent.

If you're losing badly press escape and say, 'Oops my finger slipped'....

Dont play in four player mode cause its SLOOOW....

Places to go on holiday....
---------------------------
Crete. Well I did, for two weeks anyway. Nothing to do but lie on the beach
and go out at night. Or you could try Prestatyn, nr (sunny) Rhyl.


Lotus III ????
--------------
I don't know, It's not up to me. But if we did, it would be quite fun to
release a compilation at a later date of all of the trilogy, called
Lotus 1-2-3....


The End....
-----------
Or is it ?

[lilalurl]

Seems like Amiga coders have an obsession with Lucozade (see Superfrog too).

[Sektor 83]

That was the most exciting thing that I found in Lotus Turbo Challenge II, to be honest... it was on the 'readable' part of the original disk. I *did*, through a bit of messing about, eventually manage to read in the rest of the disk to have a look at it (begins with the header 'LTC2'), but didn't find anything much exciting there - aside from the passwords for each course and the in-game texts and everything, but everyone knows that stuff anyway. Still, learned something new tonight. Back to the messing about!

[breech]

Sorry to get partially off topic, but some gold has been found in old NES roms

http://magweasel.com/2009/08/29/hidden-messagin/

[Sektor 83]

Originally Posted by breech

Sorry to get partially off topic, but some gold has been found in old NES roms

http://magweasel.com/2009/08/29/hidden-messagin/

Those are hilarious, as funny as some of messages directly aimed at crackers are, I've always particularly enjoyed reading the ones where programmers are slagging off other members of the development team or the company they're working for

[dlfrsilver]

The woman coder for having sex 6 times the last night withot showering yuk ! Covered with human jelly eekkkkkk

[zenox98]

Japanese girl covered in man-fat.

I think I've stumbled across a web-site like that somewhere .......hmmmmm

[StingRay]

Kick Off 2 german, Black Monks "crack":

- cracked by GADLER T.G. for LISA B. -

This text could be found where the disk checks were performed.
Too bad it was yet another crappy KO2 crack since the checksum checks weren't removed but the message is funny. I suppose LISA B. wasn't too happy with Mr. GADLER's KO 2 "crack". :P

[WayneK]

Maybe it was deliberate, and Lisa B collected badly cracked versions of Kick Off 2 - there were certainly enough of them

[Codetapper]

Gunshoot from Axxiom has the following message in German. Perhaps a native German speaker can do a better translation than Google did?

WER IMMER SO WEIT KOMMEN MAG UND DIESE WICHTIGEN SAETZE LIEST, DEN BITTEN WIR DIESES PROGRAMM, NICHT SO SCHNELL WEITERZUGEBEN, DA WIR EINEN VERTRAGMIT UMSATZBETEILIGUNG ABGESCHLOSSEN HABEN.ES WUERDE DIE MOEGLICHKEIT BESTEHEN, DASS DU EINORIGINAL BEKOMMST.(CONTACT: R S I (RED SECTOR))DANKE IM VORRAUS, UND NOCH VIEL SPASS BEIM KNACKEN.VIELE GRUESSE AN PATER BECKER (EXEC), DIE LEBENDE LEGENDE, D A G (TRINK NICHT SO VIEL)UND ALLE ANDEREN

Here's the Google-translate English version:

WHICHEVER COME SO FAR MAG AND PHRASES TO READ THIS IMPORTANT, PLEASE TO THIS PROGRAM, NOT SO FAST PASS, AS WE HAVE A COMPLETE INVESTMENT SALES VERTRAGMIT HABEN.ES THERE HAS THE POSSIBILITY THAT YOU GET EINORIGINAL (CONTACT:. RSI (RED SECTOR) ) Thanks in advance, AND STILL HAVE FUN KNACKEN.VIELE greetings to FATHER BECKER (EXEC), THE LIVING LEGEND, DAG (NOT DRINKING SO MUCH) AND ALL OTHER

[s2325]

http://tcrf.net/Category:Amiga_games

[zenox98]

Thanks for the link, s2325. Some interesting stuff on there, not just for the miggy.