Rate different types in reversing ?

[Jaspreet Singh]

Originally Posted by Jupiter

At first you should understand your target and type of protection it uses.

What if:
- your target is not packed
- your target doesn't use serials
- your target doesn't use registration keys
- your target is virtualised
- your target is using remote computations and remote resources
- your target is using distributed nodes and micro-services
- your target is using specific dedicated hardware
- your target is using remote authentication and authorisation

So, it looks like you're targeting only 'classic' desktop applications using classic approaches.

• No packing → no unpacking
• No serials and no keys → no key generation
• Virtualised code → de-virtualisation
• Specific hardware → hardware emulation
• Remote services → replacement services
• etc

Of course, for this question we assume that all the mentioned ways to crack it like keygen, crack are available and we want to rate which is better or worse...

@blu devil Hardware based protection is sometimes not possible to crack at all, if done correct. So I agree with you.