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The Philosophy of Cracking Software

Oleh: Nofia Fitri


Each Man Kills the Things He Loves (Oscar Wilde)

Centuries ago, an inventor of America Napoleon Bonaparte stated politics is destiny today we may state technology is destiny after a million of innovations have been emergent, and giving new variant shapes of the human s life, included the technology of computer. In this modern era whereas the technology of computer spreads to the every space of the wide world, on the contrary most philosophers have been seen that a modern technology as a product of hyperintelligent has been affected the human life negatively which is brought the human being alienated through the cyber life. Hence, the critiques of philosophy towards the modern technology have to be criticized by exploring the technology as destiny use a philosophy approach itself.

Technology and the Philosophy of Alienation ? Have you ever heard the statement that the computer expert (and either hackers or crackers) sometimes more philosophically action than the philosophers themselves or the statement that the computer expert more politically perspectives than the politician themselves, or more economically oriented than the economist themselves. There is nothing in this world could standing alone from the philosophical standpoints, include d the technology development. One important thing that the philosophers have been worried about, is the advance technology which involved

human into the computer s life and go deep to exploring it has created the strange circumstances which human were alienated. Hence, the question is, whether those people who spent times with a thousand codes of computer programming were alienated? Many debates have occurred on this question. Let I start with the statements were agreed by many scholars, that at least there are two kind of human at the time when they are very busy with their own world might alienated in the individual combat with their own self. The first profession is a philosopher, they exploring the meaning of life, what is natural and what is fundamental of live motives, and else, sometimes they stuck in their own logic of thinking while the second profession is a human of technology (such a computer programmer), when they exploring a thousand of binary being alienated and mostly gone far astray in the virtual world with a thousand of programming codes as they enjoyed themselves with their activities. I would not answer the question, you re the only one who knows, have you been alienated for longer, when you execute those codes in computer programming? But however, a philosophy would never bring human go astray, lost the way or alienated, because the philosophy itself can answer every motives of human actions, included the cracking software, a sophisticated work to eliminating a thousand codes, creates something new by exploring the computer programming language. Based on that, I would like to explore the secrets of cracking software motives use philosophical point of views.

Philosophy and the Motives of Cracking Software If you ever did any cracking software, you might intimated so much with the disassembler programs such Win32dasm, or debugger Olydbg/softice Win API, Ultra Edit32, Hiew, etc. Those tools are used for crack the software you wanted,

you needed, for create something new, something different. From patching, serial fishing, hunting the serial numbers, create a KeyGens and else. Such a process of challenge, as philosophers said exploring a space and a time to find a solution for human life. Before go deeper into the philosophy within the cracking software, just for remain you, if in the previous times for cracking software we needed only 15 -30 minutes, but now? Well those programmers are seen getting smarter through their strategy on their works. For example, how many minutes do you need to find out the commands of registration? The terms such an error registration, an incomplete or incorrect information or bla..bla..bla.. Nowadays, are not that explicit written as what it should be when it appears on th e nag-screen, at the time when the body codes of a software are being traced in your dissassambler programs. Whenever you want to jump to the place you wanted to jump , to push to the command you wanted to push , to break the code you wanted to break, to patch the hole you to wanted to patch, first you should be succeed, make a through this long process because those registration commands were protected perfectly or to difficult to recognize, use a term a key based protection then you might find yourself stuck with file invalid it giving marked that you were failed, because your efforts have been in cut-down. Though you might not reach that option at the beginning process, you still have to create more ways and strategy in any case that the software has no registration option s. Furthermore, let s start to play with a philosophy in cracking software. The first motive of cracking: through one of the software cracking tutorials written by one of the university student, she stated I did cracking of software because I was dreamed about it, exploring the world and was challenged to take over bid of it. Well, it was sound so strange. This strange story could be understood like this: those software crackers are persons who love adventures, entered to the new places where no one ever has been gone before, emasculating a hundreds even a thousand codes of programming languages.

Their principle is in the adventures, when it getting harder for me, it will make me getting stronger. Hence, one of the motives of cracking software is a

pleasure for a new challenge. They like to entry a new space, a new world, to find something new, to learn a new thing as they believed challenge makes me learn a new thing. A philosopher Descartes through his very famous statement stated cogito ergo sum means by thinking therefore we exist so at the time when we re doing cracking, our brain is working hard, sometimes till we get a headache even stop from sleep, do not ever think that you re succeed for exist as a computer expert if you have not face any problem within the cracking process. In politics, when we failed to use our brain then we can use our muscle, but for the computer stuffs, what would be useful muscle is? Brain is the main t ool within the cracking process, which the cracker was asked for thinking philosophically, find something that fundamental, could be hidden and needs more and more efforts for uncover it. One of characters of a philosopher is find something essential, such a treasure in this mysterious life which human never reach before, "to boldly go where no one has gone before" (Captain Jean Luc Picard, Startrek Next Generation). The second motive is very close with the principle of distribution that those software should be useful as what they are should be, can be used for every users and someone who needs. Those software crackers are very happy when their tutorials useful for others and if their software were shared in the virtual world, giving an info about serial number, or sharing KeyGens, seems like they got a mercy from that. Moreover some of them even offered a hand to help others to crack any software. At the time when we have a discuss with a political student, philosophy and law, they would be very often mention John Rawl as they reference, a modern philosopher, a political thinker who was very famous with his principle of distribution of justice for fair. For them, who involved themselves into cracking

software acts, the distribution means fair in the virtual world, whenever they got a software which being cracked by others, they have to do the same things, giving a fair for others by freeing the software and distri bute it. The third motive is, them, who understood the political-economy point of views in cracking software. They will say those software should be useful, can be use for every user without paying expensive. Such a spirit of anti-capitalist, antihegemony and exploitation by corporations , supporting the solidarity, believed on the principle that human is free while their chain ed each other. They re free to create something, but they are chained by the place they are living, quoted from Rousseau the greatest philosopher everywhere in chains. And the last motive is for educational purposes. man was born free and he is

The Political-Economy of Software Building Now, I would like to invite you to go deeper as a computer philosopher, giving any response to the third motive of cracking software. Within the study of political-economy there is a concept of intangible assets (something valuable but can not be touch ed) this is about works created by someone. Something that exists from knowledge and skills are very valuable or it has been called as the value of information. Because a work of a programmer is so much valuable, if the creator relies on the principle of fundamental paradox of information it wont be easy for him to sell the software to the company, that simply, because he did not want his software can be monopolized by one company. But there are also some programmers who just think about money, think strategically, how to ensure that their works can attract profits, and because information is very valuable, they might think several times before giving their

software to a company. So, if the programmer did not give the information about making software, how could the company make any deal? Therefore to accommodate, it was emergent the concept that scholars have been called firms horizontal integration which the software was handled (produce and distribution) by more than one company, to guarantee that there would be no monopolizing of products. But however, the companies are profit orientation, it makes the software shall be sold expensive, considering that the profit needs to be share for more than one company. Therefore the RMS s campaign about open source and those activists who supporting the free software were to answered the needs of programmer, that they did not want the companies with profit orien tation monopolize their works. In facts, when there are more than one company, to make sure that there is no monopolize, still, the more companies, the more profit they need to reach. Well, that s political-economy. That is why sometimes as we can see, the programmer can be more politically thinking than the politician himself. Have you ever heard about the politization of anti-virus? That those viruses were created by the programmer worked for the anti-virus company. If there is no computer viruses, who is going to buy the antivirus?

Finally, can we get the points? Well, I just wanted to bring you for a little bit play with a philosophy and political-economy when we talk about the computer stuffs. Understanding the philosophy within the computer actions means that those things we have been done used the computer were not the things that emergent without any reasons, or just for fun. We are philosophers themselves who act with the motives, the meaning of life.

Now, let us give the rest of our discussion to the human with their own philosophy of life. Is it true that the programmer wanted their software were distributed to the society by paying expensive? So why don t we ask the programmer about this. Some of them may answer we are humans; we are demanded by the cost living of life. If we ask the producer or the distributors they may answer market needs products while producer n eeds capital, and the result is, al of us get advantages from it, the programmer, the distributor and the users. Enjoy it, when you re thinking philosophically, though, before those computer stuffs.

Thanks..

Acknowledgement: I thank to the greatest philosopher DESCARTES who made me always thinking for exist. My Angle Hacker KeTEk aka b374k Sang MataHarry , Aak Cakill Schumbag my dear brother, papi Whitehat and my beloved family Devilzc0ders ; koin_putih and Casper_Spy for help me to build my skills and knowledge; IHT, BHI and YF, etc (the places I can share) and those Indonesian Young Hackers who inspired me much.

*The author is a graduate student in Turkey, an Indonesian young researcher who interests on political-economy, philosophy, Hacktivism and Computer stuffs. Reach her at nofia.fitri (at) yahoo (dot) com

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