I believe that AudioUTOPIA has a mystical aura, which smacks of legend. That lies in everyone's heart imo. So yes, Pro Tools and McDSP for sure, and pretty much all of R2R's legendary iLok releases

 

probably not in the same league as pro tools and cubase, but a special mention should go out to the pianoteq releases by dima.

 

Really?? That's bad news for me, but I haven't updated the firmware so still working here.
What firmware version brakes it?

 

I started an answer, then I realized that TS asked for most impressive crack, not the most impressive rack.
My bad.

 

logic 5 by oxygen, cubase sx by air, pro tools by audioutopia

someday r2r will manage pro tools ultimate i know they will

 

Do you think that is why we have not had anything new on certain fronts, because they destroyed it, so now have to start the game all over again?

 

xvx / PACE (Mac)

 

I was a heavy mac user back in 2010 and XVX was H U G E
Before their take on PT, there was a version where we had to install a fake soundcard to make PT work (you know, the mbox days)
A real golden age for mac, releases were flying.
Lots of fun and great memories...

 

It also had the best keygen music of any crack ever as well.

 

I think the AudioUTOPIA stuff was an inside job, and that's why it was only a one-time thing. Does anyone have any evidence that it was actually a crack, and not a leak of actual software before copy protection was applied? I think it was a software leak from someone who was either inside Avid or managed to get inside somehow.

 

I think you might be explaining more than you want to. I mean, what kind of programmer doesn't always leave their own backdoor?

 

As it was across different brands, the commonality was ILok and Avid... all the software involved was AAX stuff, which Avid has some kind of process for approving. It seems more likely to me that it was from inside Avid rather than ILok, simply because of the size of the two companies. And the fact that it only happened once makes me think it was an individual on the way out, or who shouldn't have had access, and the companies patched the security leak after. I would be happy to be shown to be wrong, but I always thought it was pretty sus.

 

You are speculating. Code Auditing is a very real process and procedure at vendors like MS and Apple; these 3rd party companies I have no clue what theirs is. But you would expect it to be adequate.

However, Windows has Millions of lines of code written by a large # of individual programmers. They make mistakes too.
People often introduce bs, as facts as well; just to obfuscate the things they don't want people to notice. Remember that the code is being added to the system by a "Trusted Vendor/Developer". Permissions don't even need to be fixed or signed in many instances.

In other instances, one might even say it appears like a Protection Racket.

"Use our lock, created by the world's best locksmith. He works for us, too. " It would only be more honest to call it uLok, or else.

 

Last edited: Nov 29, 2022

Anyone who paid very close attention back in the day knows the story, and who was behind it. It was an honest crack.

And the "leaked code" theory doesn't work anyway because software from multiple vendors was released.

 

.

Nothing from vendor to vendor matters if the attack vector is the surface above (ilok) or below (windows driver level). Right? The product in the middle of that wouldn't be using a wrapper like that and then be Fort Knox. Who would bother to do that?

 

The best crack I ever used was a bent circular knitting needle in the slots of fruit machines but that was a long time ago. I would NEVER do that sort of thing now (it doesn't work).

 

As a Mac user, OpenSSH cracks were probably the most impressive.
Also Steinberg e-licenser that happened a year ago or so.
Pitchshifter is back and cracked Pulsar P900, that was p impressive