dzervas

not exactly an answer to what you ask but I wanted to share this knowledge: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/recipe

its a standard(ish) schema that many popular recipe websites use, so you can very easily parse them and do unit conversions

in Greece at least nobody gives you the option - unless it’s a very pricey service that you can pay as a package

it’s very difficult for me to describe to other people how good this setup is. it’s not “check home assistant” good. it’s not “use 1password to store your passwords” good. it’s almost “just download more ram” good

work does not define you and it doesn’t reflect your self worth.

there’s a very high chance you’re getting rob while doing it too so do it as shitty as possible (without risking your food)

nono, that’s from backtrack/kali linux

huh, good observation - my instant thought was casinos and “climbing the corporate ladders”

(I fully disagree with not voting but your point still stands)

ROCK AND STONE BROTHER!

the binding of isaac and deep rock galactic. best games I’ve ever played oh and maybe minecraft (I’m 28 and the past 2 weeks got into the mc rabbit hole AGAIN)

huh, TIL, thanks

Damn I read “my cat needed to be enthusiased and I just received her ashes” and though WTF did you do to make her so excited?

side note: enthusiased is not an english word but in greek (ενθουσιασμενος) it makes sense and it translates to “excited”

huh, you’re right! I’m trained on a different kind of code. In C# in particular, which I use mostly to do sneaky stuff (patch/inject runtime code to, um, “fix” it) and when I see a project that it’s too clean it smells

I also see python code (I code regular stuff in it) that could be written much more cleanly using monkey-patching

it’s mainly text chat but it’s a ton of fun with friends (where i imagine you’d like voice chat)

rock and stone brother!

I’ll put my vote to Deep Rock Galactic for online. It’s a game (that you MUST check out) with one of the most wholesome communities ever. Most people are super nice in the chat and I’ve made a friend or two (for me that’s a lot - I’m extremely picky cause I feel very nice with the amount of friends I have already)

damn

you have a multi-billion cluster at your disposal it seems

you can do i: int to make this error out

I’m usually on the flip side of C/C++ compilers: reversing

I tell you: MSVC is batshit crazy

i found out about htmx just yesterday and I was blown away. i think it’s an amazing idea, really

for small projects that you want to make in less than an eternity it should be very convenient

ok so first of all you need to know programming. nothing crazy but you should definitely know what a “function” “loop” or “variable” is and some basic HTTP knowledge (what is an HTTP reuest, what’s a header, etc.).

now, your target is to bypass the license check. there are many ways to go about that:

• the web way: intercept the traffic between the app and the server. maybe the app tells the server “am i licensed” and the server responds “no” and if you just change that you’re golden. to intercept traffic the golden standard is “burp proxy”
• the exported function way: I’m sure that you’ve seen that all the apps that you install come with various dlls. these are “libraries” which means that they’re a bunch of functions in a package. most times they also include the name of their functions and more often than not you’ll find a “is_user_licensed” that returns a 0 or a 1. hooking that to return 1 will hand you a win
• the exe exported function way: same as the above but the function lives inside the exe. BTW exes are exactly the same as a DLL (and you can actually execute a dll or import functions from an exe!)

you can find any function that gets called and has a name (the names are called “symbols”) using frida-trace

afterwards you can write a frida script (javascript) that either replaces the entire function or append/prepend code to it. most times you want to append code that just returns a value as to not mess with the programs internals

if you have a .net app though the whole process is WAY easier as you can read all the code of the app using a decompiler - dnspyex is the gold standard

of course not all apps are that easy to crack. it’s more of a time/mind game and less of a skill one. sure, you get much more efficient and the solutions start to “smell”, but trying to crack an app that has stripped symbols (no function names) and everything is statically compiled (all the dlls are shoved into the exe to make it harder for us) can make your life much more difficult

since this is a “starter guide” i’m gonna leave anti-reverse, anti-debug and obfuscation completely out of the discussion. unless you get a moderately good grasp what the above terms mean, don’t bother

I also didn’t talk about actual reversing with a debugger/decompiler/disassembler as I think that it’s better to find out about them as-you-go. don’t start from that. it’s intimidating

Don’t get intimidated. You’ve got it. Remember that it’s not about skill (ok don’t go cracking IDA Pro or denuvo), it’s about patience and methodology As the hacker say: Try harder and happy hacking 🙂

NOTE0: ALWAYS ask chatGPT stuff. if it refuses to answer put the question in the context of “malware research” NOTE1: I think that someone somewhere may have told me that a very popular app owned by dickheads used in the 3d printing community is a very good starting point 😀 NOTE2: You’re more than welcome to ask anything - PMs or otherwise

EDIT: I forgot to mention reversing divas: since this is such a niche thing to do and you spend your life away from grass, some people involved are in the mindset of “this is not for everyone, you’re stupid and you can’t do it, etc”. Fuckem