~ Essays ~
         to essays    essays
(Courtesy of fravia's searchlore.org)


(¯`·.¸(¯`·.¸ When your search fails - 1¸.·´¯)¸.·´¯)
(Two software searching experiences)
by batbin, and Dza Stalinskouyou Konstitoutsiyou
slightly edited by fravia+

published @ searchlores in September 2002
Yep, I have said and repeated that "everything is on the web", but I have always added: "somewhere", and -as we all know very well- this "somewhere" may at times be hard... or next to impossible... to find, alas!
We have decided to begin a special section: When your search fails: we hope that it could be of some use for the many friends that 'get stuck' during a search. As you'll easily realize, METHODOLOGY ("qualitative", not "quantitative" nor "haphazardous" seeking) is the alpha and omega of searching effectively!
If you browse around fluttering like a butterfly, instead of clearly CUTTING through the web, you'll never find what you wanted! As stated elsewhere, you should THINK thoroughly about your search approaches and querystrings BEFORE ever shooting a salve of broad simple searches on google, like any zombie - or MBA graduate - would do :-)

Batbin writes: "And others who lose out the search and the battle should get up and admit it. Otherwise it's time that is lost most, and time pays.". He's right of course, yet, as these essays demonstrate, even when he DOES NOT find exactly what he originally wanted, a ~S~eeker will always find ALMOST what he wanted :P)

Dejavu ver.3.0.21 is not 'out there'
(but Dejavu ver.3.0.20 is)
by batbin

Dear Friends,

I have something to share with you. Though it's most of the times more than common sense, sometimes people neglect what otherwise would seem the most natural thing to do (pardon my poor English).

I have found Fravia's site a month ago. Never before on the web there have been such a detailed account of the ins and outs of searching (in general) and of things that most people would not even dream of being done. It deals almost with every aspect of software engineering, not just reverse cracking but also of the intricacies of how a software rules our world, and sometimes our lives. I was delighted, like many of you and sometimes amazed as I browsed through Fravia's site. There seemed to be an endless amount of resources available herein.

I have been on the web sometime now, and have found almost anything that I wanted. It started with a very popular appz that I was using, and knowing nothing about cracks, etc. (even not hearing their names), took nearly 7 days to search to find a way to unlock the appz that I was using. The site that I found to be most resourceful at that time was cracks.am. Even today most of the cracks that I need resides there.

The point of all this. Sorry for boring you experts with trivia of my life thus. I am a translator and my client wanted me to use a software called Dejavu. It's the dongle dejavu that most of you have heard of, and it's from www.atril.com. It costs USD900.00. I will not go through the usual chore of "I don't have the money," or "I don't think that I should pay them that much," but will just say, that I don't want to "buy" the software. "Didn't" want to, that is (again, sorry for the poor English). Now I searched and searched and searched. All I could find in the web for Dejavu was a crack for ver. 3.0.18 and ver. 3.0.21. There was an essay by +Mad on how to crack a dongle (you have to be an expert to figure out what he means). But nowhere that I could find, a crack for ver. 3.0.26. And now they have the ver. 3.0.28 out, I don't think anyone cracked it yet. All I had to do was to find ver.3.0.21 and maybe I could crack it with Amok's code.

Thus I landed to +Fravia's site. I tried everything that he has suggested (for searching "Dejavu ver.3.0.21"), as far as I could afford to understand. Sometimes the language went far beyond my understanding, and I did not understand things. I went on to try the next thing. I tried all "Main" search Engines, then "local," then "regional". All the underground, and the FTP search engines. I did find ver. 3.0.20. though, through all this. I tried accmail, Usenet, MIRC. But of course I skipped some things like "trolling" "combing". I did not much understand them (yeah, maybe I am a crack myself).

And I did not want to ask you people, thinking that you might not have the time to answer (it generally does not work, asking someone, however politely, to search for something which is irrelevant for that person).

The lesson that I want to share with all of you, is that if you need a software very much, and you set yourself searching, first thing you should do is set a deadline. Say, take about 7 days to search and search and search. When you have tried everywhere (especially read +Fravia's website), and you can't find it, give up the search.

Buy the damn thing, if you require it.

Don't believe in sayings like, it's out there, everything is on the web". It might be, and most probably is, but it does need someone smarter than you to get it. Believe me, I have lost a month and a half, just for that, "it's out there," and I repeatedly did not admit myself that yeah, it sure is, but I am not the best guy to get it out of there. It's out there for real cool searchers, really smart people, not ordinary folks like me. I refused to give up and give in to the fact that I am an ordinary man (I have found every software that I needed till now, and my God, I needed a lot). I refused to believe that it's beyond me. I could not admit defeat.

I have talked much. Thank you for listening. To Fravia+, you are great!! You bring in the light, and you open everyone's eyes. But I think you should tell others too, what I said. Someone has to wake up and admit that he is unable to find it, and at that time, they should give it up. "Don't give up" will ruin some of us. I think you should warn your visitors about that. "Statutory Warning: If after trying everything here, you don't find what you are looking for, give up you dumb nutcase. It's out there, but you have to have more vision to find it."

Please don't think this is an irony, I won't dare. I respect you, and adore what you are doing. You are a real hero. I just wanted to share with you this, that I am giving up. I lost. And others who lose out the search and the battle should get up and admit it. Otherwise it's time that is lost most, and time pays.

(c) Batbin 2002

Sound forge ver.6 is not 'out there'
(but Sound forge ver.5 is)
by Dza Stalinskouyou Konstitoutsiyou

I think the following could be useful to explain how complicated even a simple search can be.

For reasons that you will understand if you try to identify the 909.wav file, like the guys on the ~S~ messageboard are trying to do, I wanted to have a working -complete- copy of Sonic foundry's soundforge.

This appz is a complete hard disk-based digital sound editor for Windoze, compatible with any sound card, that allows you to record, edit compare and play mono or stereo files, Re-edit songs by looping, reversing, stuttering and also adding hundreds of more effects.
Note that this is a spyware appz, and will call home to sonic foundry as soon as you install it. (it does not ask, it just calls home, as programmed by the wankers at sonic foundry). But I guess that if you are reading an essay on this site you'r anyway clever enough to protect yourself against these cheap tricks. Sound forge's misbeahviour does not matter much. On my copy I have inserted the string 'screw you wankers' and it will report -trough a russian proxy- as originating address an IP from nsa.gov :P)
Anyway: since this program is also useful in order to COMPARE sound tracks, I decided I needed it in order to tackle the 909.wav challenge. Unfortunately it costs more than 400 euro, and I am not ready to give out such an amount of money for a program that I will only use sporadically (I am not a music buff, actually I need it only to solve riddles :P)

So, off I go, in search of a soundforge 'free' copy.

Very soon I discovered (september 2002) some facts:

1. Sonic foundry has a version 6 out. This version is free for 30 days, but does not allow you to save files and has other crippled features. So I need a complete version. So I need a crack or a serial to have a complete working version for free.

2. The cracks for this programs abound for previous versions, but are quite rare for version 6 (at the moment, I bet you'll be able to find tons of keygens in a couple of months).

3. The registration system, both for version 6 and 5, is a "two phases" verification routine:

3.1 You need first of all a valid registration number
3.2 Your computer has a specific ID, that will be taken into account
3.3 You need as a final step also a verification number, which is in turn based on a simple algo regnum <-> specific PC-ID

As any moron knows, it is easy to find registration numbers on the web. And I quickly gathered a dozen of different registration numbers, but they wont allow you to unlock this specific software unless you have also a valid verification number, which depends on your PC specific ID number.

4. Unfortunately I am a poor software reverser myself, and anyway do not have the time to examine this software with Softice until I eventually I'll find and disable its verification routine. Yet I am, on the other hand, a fairly good seeker (at least I like to believe this :P)
So I knew I needed to search for a key generator (not just a serial number) for such a registration/verification double key protection.

I tried sound forge "version 6" keygen... no good.

5. I decided to seek for a previous version (version 5) and to use one of the many available keygens (key generators) for this version.

6. So my task is clear: First: find an older sound forge version 5; second, find a keygen for this version.

First of all I tried (wrongly) http://www.google.com/search?as_q=sound+forge +5+download&num=10&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_e pq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any& as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images but i realized that this is a mistake: many "version 5" links correspond nowadays to the more recent "version 6" that we could not find a keygen for).

So I tried first http://www.filesearching.com/cgi-bin/s?q=soundforge&t=f&d=&l=en&x=22&y=16
but here many ftp are offline during the day, so I went, even more directly to:
http://www.google.co m/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&q=soundforge5.zip& btnG=Google+Search only two references -as per today- but Bingo nevertheless :P)

and that was it, a fish 18656 kylobites heavy :P)

We still need to crack this baby, though.

Henceforth I went: sound forge 5 keygen

So what did I learn?


All this took me two hours. I still have to solve the 909.wav thinghy, though :*(
Thanks for reading these quick notes

(c) Dza Stalinskouyou Konstitoutsiyou

Petit image
Bk:flange of myth 
(c) 1952-2032: [fravia+], all rights reserved