7 ms·

This reminds me the old days of Windows 95 when I found a software to burn CDs that had a trial version which was limited to 150MB of data or so. If you tried t

by giamma 8mo ago

This reminds me the old days of Windows 95 when I found a software to burn CDs that had a trial version which was limited to 150MB of data or so. If you tried to create a CD bigger than that it would refuse to burn and it would instead open a popup and tell you that the image exceeded the limit of XYZ blocks allowed by the trial version. So I first decompressed the executable program (Windows executable were often packed at that time [0]), then I opened a binary editor, looked for that specific number in hexadecimal notation in the binary and changed to something much higher. I was than able to burn CDs without limitation. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_compression

notpushkin 8mo ago
My grandma used to be playing casual games from a certain publisher on her PC. They were all trial versions, though, limited to 30 minutes or so. Turns out, the time left was stored in the registry, and didn’t have any validation – so when a 10 y.o. me made a quick edit, she was left with 4294967295 minutes of trial left.
- davidwritesbugs 8mo ago
  Hope she knows she still only has 3million trial days left
  - stvltvs 8mo ago
    Grandson was naive to his grandmother's mortality.
    - notpushkin 8mo ago
      Yep – she died a couple years ago. Hope she enjoys the full version of life better than the trial we live in :’)
- compsciphd 8mo ago
  back in the mid to late 90s, I got a trial for compuserve that was a free 2 month trial. I liked it as as they provided dialup PPP access so was able to use it as full time internet access. It wasn't quite "2 months" of access though. It was 1500 hours of access (which in practice > 24*62). However, their usage accounting software wasn't great. I had it setup to reconnect if the connection dropped, and they didn't do a great job seeing this, so they accused me of using 2-3k hours during those 2 months (should be impossible if always coming from the same #) and sent me a large bill (for the hours used over 1500). They eventually gave in when I showed them it was impossible and they could validate that the calls were coming from the same line due to the connection dropping and being simple reconnections.
  - hypercube33 8mo ago
    Heh there was some ad supported dial up Internet I found. you were supposed to download their browser and it'd dial in and work normal enough. I noticed it created a windows dial up connection. When you launched the browser the login info worked on this. I could just dial their server and save the username and password and use any browser or game normally.
    - nonamenoslogan 8mo ago
      Was this NetZero? I kind of recall their CDs would do something similar, launch an Ad supported version of Netscape--but if you just copied the Dial-Up connection it made, you could recreate it without the need for the Browser.
      - 486sx33 8mo ago
        Eventually NetZero forced you to use their own dialer to ensure you kept the ads running… but you could spy on the ppp connection by just opening the COM port of your modem in terminal and watching. The password was encrypted (xor?) but you could just copy and paste the value into a regular dialer lol
  - marssaxman 8mo ago
- andreaven 8mo ago
  you were lucky it was an unsigned var.. otherwise you could have gifted a very nasty trial time of -1 minute! a pretty nice anti-addiction feature :-)
  - notpushkin 8mo ago
    Hahaha. On a second thought I think it was a bit trickier and did some weird math to obfuscate the value (probably something simple, like XOR). So yeah, my actual fix was to mash buttons until I got a big enough number :D
- itsTyrion 8mo ago
  I used to patch games for my mom that had a different mechanism but also 30 min of trial. got 5 bucks for each one and mom didn't have to pay 15-30. good times and the easiest money ever

by giamma 8mo ago

notpushkin 8mo ago

My grandma used to be playing casual games from a certain publisher on her PC. They were all trial versions, though, limited to 30 minutes or so. Turns out, the time left was stored in the registry, and didn’t have any validation – so when a 10 y.o. me made a quick edit, she was left with 4294967295 minutes of trial left.

davidwritesbugs 8mo ago
Hope she knows she still only has 3million trial days left
- stvltvs 8mo ago
  Grandson was naive to his grandmother's mortality.
  - notpushkin 8mo ago
    Yep – she died a couple years ago. Hope she enjoys the full version of life better than the trial we live in :’)
compsciphd 8mo ago
back in the mid to late 90s, I got a trial for compuserve that was a free 2 month trial. I liked it as as they provided dialup PPP access so was able to use it as full time internet access. It wasn't quite "2 months" of access though. It was 1500 hours of access (which in practice > 24*62). However, their usage accounting software wasn't great. I had it setup to reconnect if the connection dropped, and they didn't do a great job seeing this, so they accused me of using 2-3k hours during those 2 months (should be impossible if always coming from the same #) and sent me a large bill (for the hours used over 1500). They eventually gave in when I showed them it was impossible and they could validate that the calls were coming from the same line due to the connection dropping and being simple reconnections.
- hypercube33 8mo ago
  Heh there was some ad supported dial up Internet I found. you were supposed to download their browser and it'd dial in and work normal enough. I noticed it created a windows dial up connection. When you launched the browser the login info worked on this. I could just dial their server and save the username and password and use any browser or game normally.
  - nonamenoslogan 8mo ago
    Was this NetZero? I kind of recall their CDs would do something similar, launch an Ad supported version of Netscape--but if you just copied the Dial-Up connection it made, you could recreate it without the need for the Browser.
    - 486sx33 8mo ago
      Eventually NetZero forced you to use their own dialer to ensure you kept the ads running… but you could spy on the ppp connection by just opening the COM port of your modem in terminal and watching. The password was encrypted (xor?) but you could just copy and paste the value into a regular dialer lol
- marssaxman 8mo ago
andreaven 8mo ago
you were lucky it was an unsigned var.. otherwise you could have gifted a very nasty trial time of -1 minute! a pretty nice anti-addiction feature :-)
- notpushkin 8mo ago
  Hahaha. On a second thought I think it was a bit trickier and did some weird math to obfuscate the value (probably something simple, like XOR). So yeah, my actual fix was to mash buttons until I got a big enough number :D
itsTyrion 8mo ago
I used to patch games for my mom that had a different mechanism but also 30 min of trial. got 5 bucks for each one and mom didn't have to pay 15-30. good times and the easiest money ever