I am asking, not offering the subject of this post.

It would be great to share. For one, I'm curious. For that matter, I'm curious how to crack an app too. But, with the plugins, such a tutorial would help the community.

Youtube preferred (does anyone read anymore?). JK.... but not really. A post would be great too.

Thanks!

 

A lot depends on the protection method implemented in the plugin.

 

not to discourage you, but it's a steep learning curve...
you'll need to understand the executable binary format of your platform. for windows i.e. .exe and in the case of plugins .dll.
once you know how the system interacts with executables you will want to learn how to use a debugger and some other tools.
oh yeah, some coding knowledge helps too.

youtube can help, but there's next to nothing focussing on audio plugins.

here's something that made me realize that i don't have enough time atm to explore reversing more in depth...

 

It's like music. You can't watch a video on the internet and say "oh good, I'm gonna crack Nexus 3 now!"
You need to actually learn stuff

 

yeah, trying to crack nexus or any other more elaborate protection scheme is probably not the place to start,
but there's certainly nothing wrong with installing ida & co. and just having a look under the hood of some small
apps like calc or notepad. also comparing cracked vs original executables can yield some insights.

anyhow, time is probably the main factor you want to consider with such endeavors.
prepare to sink countless hours into this to be on a level with the "scene" folks.

you got a surplus of nerdtime, why not learn c++ and write a plugin?

 

I would have thought best way is to infiltrate the company who make them, or is that maybe a bit too James Bond ?

 

so... no Udemy tutorials?!

 

There are plenty of non-protection specific things to learn: How to use a debugger, binary vs. hex/ASCII, API calls, x86 Assembly, and bitwise operations/logic (like what happens when you're XORing by 1, ANDing by 0, etc.) for starters. Then explore common methods for calculating checksums/CRCs.

Then there's the various common forms of crypto: AES and RSA being used frequently.

Next step would be to just jump in the shallow end of the pool and actually do it. Work your way up to the hard stuff, and hopefully you'll meet some hip and in-the-know people to give you some specific advice.

But... this is typically a classic case of "if you even have to ask, then it's not for you." If you have some very rare and odd friends willing to show you the ropes, if you're a terrific self-starter with lots of discipline and time to waste, or if you've already got a degree in computer science then the idea might be worth investigating, but in most cases it's just a pipe-dream that people should shelve.

 

However enlightening the answers have been given here so far, the steep learning curve and lack of in-the-open information preserves the craft. If how-to-crack tutorials were exposed to the public and posted on YouTube, a couple of things at least might happen: (1) DCMA and law enforcement authorities would be on the tap, (2) Manufacturers, security services, and plugin developers would change their coding methods, and (3) the web would be flooded with half-baked cracks that would do more harm than good to anyone trying before buying. I can only imagine the theads at audio forums:

Nexus 3 doesn't load -Help!
Nebula keeps crashing my system and all the HO consoles are failing on me!

Of course, there's nothing that can't be learned. Someone out here once said that nothing is uncrackable. It only takes time and commitment to it.

 

If you really want to know/start learning how to get into reversing, have a look at these nice tutorials:

Google -> "Lenas Reversing for Newbies"
or -> "SND Reversing Tutorials"
(it's both the same).

It contains the following stuff for beginners:

Spoiler: Click me!

01. Olly + assembler + patching a basic reverseme
02. Keyfiling the reverseme + assembler
03. Basic nag removal + header problems
04. Basic + aesthetic patching
05. Comparing on changes in cond jumps, animate over/in, breakpoints
06. "The plain stupid patching method", searching for textstrings
07. Intermediate level patching, Kanal in PEiD
08. Debugging with W32Dasm, RVA, VA and offset, using LordPE as a hexeditor
09. Explaining the Visual Basic concept, introduction to SmartCheck and configuration
10. Continued reversing techniques in VB, use of decompilers and a basic anti-anti-trick
11. Intermediate patching using Olly's "pane window"
12. Guiding a program by multiple patching.
13. The use of API's in software, avoiding doublechecking tricks
14. More difficult schemes and an introduction to inline patching
15. How to study behaviour in the code, continued inlining using a pointer
16. Reversing using resources
17. Insights and practice in basic (self)keygenning
18. Diversion code, encryption/decryption, selfmodifying code and polymorphism
19. Debugger detected and anti-anti-techniques
20. Packers and protectors : an introduction
21. Imports rebuilding
22. API Redirection
23. Stolen bytes
24. Patching at runtime using loaders from lena151 original
25. Continued patching at runtime & unpacking armadillo standard protection
26. Machine specific loaders, unpacking & debugging armadillo
27. tElock + advanced patching
28. Bypassing & killing server checks
29. Killing & inlining a more difficult server check
30. SFX, Run Trace & more advanced string searching
31. Delphi in Olly & DeDe
32. Author tricks, HIEW & approaches in inline patching
33. The FPU, integrity checks & loader versus patcher
34. Reversing techniques in packed software & a S&R loader for ASProtect
35. Inlining inside polymorphic code
36. Keygenning
37. In-depth unpacking & anti-anti-debugging a combination packer / protector
38. Unpacking continued & debugger detection by DLL's and TLS
39. Inlining a blowfish scheme in a packed & CRC protected dll + unpacking Asprotect SKE 2.2
40. Obfuscation and algorithm hiding

It's no basic knowledge for audio software - you have to learn everything, you can find
and you need alot of time but everyone started small so don't hesitate to try it for yourself.

 

@r4e did you know a solid place where to get it? google results always point me to tuts4you but the file/download is corrupted...

 

I would really appreciate that as well!

 

Done Is there any specific host you could recommend?

 

savihost/vsthost by http://hermannseib.com/english/

 

It isn't audio/plugin-related but can be helpful in understanding reversing process of OS X app:

 

you speak spanish?
introduccion al ollydbg desde 0 por ricardo Narvaja, Ex member of C.O.R.E
in english available too
IN SPANISH,:
foroelhacker.net (slow activity)
crackslatinos (slow activity)


visit, exetools, TUT4YOU IN ENGLISH
russian
exeL@B
arabian:
http://www.aoreteam.com
http://www.at4re.com/news.php
forum:
http://www.at4re.com/f/activity.php
see you:
http://foro.el-hacker.com/f44/100-tutoriales-de-ingenieria-inversa-por-aore-411976/ tutorials in english

how to crack a ILOK 1??? BY SND:

http://ricardonarvaja.info/WEB/CURS...ng.The.Hooked.Ring0.Int3.Stolen.Calls-SND.rar

IN ENGLISH

PLEASE MAKE A TUTORIAL HOW TO CRACK ILOK 2 AND 3......AUDIOUTOPIA

 

How to Crack A Plugin Tutorial

Having certain experiences with Cracking/Reverse Engineering i can tell you that you
won't actually find useful Tutorials on the Internet, especially for Audio-Plug-Ins!
A surprising thing concerning the disassembling of Audio Plug-Ins is also that crackers themselves
very, very seldom share their knowledge with others. Egoism or a sort of TABU...who knows?

The main difficulty in reversing software lies in the different, obfuscated terms used by software developers,
which of course use also their *secret languages* in order to prevent too easy cracking. What makes Plug-ins harder
to crack is also the fact that you have to use a host software to run them, that makes the interception of
"messages" from the Plug-Ins really tiresome, complicated. Searching for useful MAC cracking Tutorials gives
furthermore really poor results. One can find Tutorials for Windows software...(not Plug-Ins) but most of them
are in miserable, very bad quality! Again: the lack of solidarity between crackers makes cracking a "solitary mission".
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