Changes To CrackMe's / UnPackMe's / KeygenMe's

[Teddy Rogers]

Over recent months I have received a number of concerns and issues raised with the quality of the crackme forum(s). Before I start to implement changes I would like to let our community know in advance of the changes and to give people to opportunity to promote their own suggestions or improvement ideas. Of course if you think one of the suggested changes is a crap idea or needs to be refined I am interested to know. You can either reply in this topic or send me a message.

Quote

1) Forum will be divided in to sub-sections; Crackme, Unpackme, Keygenme, Android, Linux, etc.

2) A specific template must be used for all new topics containing; screenshots, files attached, details of the challenge, etc. (I am open to suggestions as to its content)

3) Solved challenges will remain unsolved until a detailed tutorial or other valid explanation/code is posted.

4) The type(s) of unpackme's allowed will be reviewed, there have been multiple concerns raised here. How exactly to manage this is still to be determined, a suggestion was to restrict posting of new unpackme topics to certain user groups so we are less likely to see trash unpackme's.

5) Topics will be reviewed and approved by a moderator before being published.

6) Introduce an awards system for quality and level of solutions posted. (I am open to suggestions as to how this would look)

Ted.

[Jasi2169]

Crackme, Unpackme, Keygenme, Android, Linux, etc.

Make it to

Windows,Android, linux so their stuff go in their directry

[ToMKoL]

14 hours ago, Teddy Rogers said:

1) Forum will be divided in to sub-sections; Crackme, Unpackme, Keygenme, Android, Linux, etc.

2) A specific template must be used for all new topics containing; screenshots, files attached, details of the challenge, etc. (I am open to suggestions as to its content)

3) Solved challenges will remain unsolved until a detailed tutorial or other valid explanation/code is posted.

4) The type(s) of unpackme's allowed will be reviewed, there have been multiple concerns raised here. How exactly to manage this is still to be determined, a suggestion was to restrict posting of new unpackme topics to certain user groups so we are less likely to see trash unpackme's.

5) Topics will be reviewed and approved by a moderator before being published.

6) Introduce an awards system for quality and level of solutions posted. (I am open to suggestions as to how this would look

Ad. 1. Either divide it by challenge type (this would be best) or by platform.

Ad. 2. Screenshots I wouldn't require them. Rather than that well detailed rules and tasks.

Ad. 3. I strongly agree with that. Crack/patch or serail isn't teaching anything.

Ad. 4. About unpackmes I would allow one or two of given packer. More is simply trash.

Ad. 5. I agree with that.

Ad. 6, Don't do that. It will kill all the fun. How will You determine which challenge is 1 point and which is 2 points and so on. For me one challege can be easy and for others hard. I'm able to produce few crackmes (all would be similiar and not exactly hard) in one day. Promoting just for that is pointless.

 

Just my few cents.

[kao]

My 2 cents:

Ad. 1. Don't see any real benefit. Android and Linux sections will host 5-10 challenges each, all the rest will be in Windows. Also, does .NET stuff go under Windows, or separate? What about mixed-mode assemblies that have both x86 and .NET code? In addition to that, it's very hard to split crackmes and keygenmes - quite a few of recent challenges employed "medal" system - bronze for crack, silver for serial, gold for keygen. That way everyone can pick a goal based on his/her skill level.

If you want to split something, split Crackmes and Unpackmes. Inside those 2 categories, tags should be sufficient.

Ad. 2. I'm all for it. Screenshot is nice, as it allows us to quickly notice anything that doesn't look like proper crackme.
Ad. 3. All for it, especially in unpackme section. Quite often just an unpacked executable is posted - without any explanation how it was done. Nobody learns anything from that.
Ad. 4. Hard to comment.
Ad. 5. Great idea - if your moderating team can react quickly. Just don't make the same mistake as crackmes.de where it takes weeks for moderators to approve stuff.
Ad. 6. Unsure. Bragging rights for being the fastest solver is usually enough.  And I kinda like the current gold/silver/bronze approach - but you can't apply it for all challenges.

Side note - it looks like currently the biggest problem is not in crackmes section but in the scripts section where EXE files are being posted with texts like "LCF-AT ur script no work plz help I pay"

 

[Teddy Rogers]

I have now implemented the changes after having taken input from all your suggestions and ideas. I am hoping the changes are enough, it will address some of the concerns that were previously raised and will introduce a bit more quality in this area. If anyone has any further suggestions or criticisms I am happy to receive them.

The existing forum has been left intact and renamed as "Archive". No new topics can be created in this forum, members can still reply to topics and download the attachments...

Ted.

[Teddy Rogers]

Due to the number of members breaking the new rules (posting solutions without any write up - even a brief one) all replies in a topic will be reviewed and approved before they are public...

Ted.

[LCF-AT]

Does it mean if a member wanna post something in this section then the reply will not post so long till you checked the post?Sounds not so smart.In that case you should check all replys of the entire forum before someone does reply anything.What about PMs?Wanna check them too as next step?Sorry Ted but sometimes your rules are choosen not very friendly and I am concerned about that what you do plan next.

greetz

[Teddy Rogers]

I have two options, run the risk of unruly members posting their "solution" that breaks the rules of that forum. If I don't see it in time there may be a number of follow on posts related to it, do I delete all those too? The other option is review all posts to prevent this from happening in the first place. The primary concern and reason for the changes were to stop people from posting these pointless replies.

I am open to suggestions on ways it can be managed/improved if anyone has any?

Ted.

[crystalboy]

@Ted My personal opinion is that you should not review all the post in the sections (i don't think that you have enough free time to handle it and will be very time consuming for you).
A solution to this problem can be that only when a tutorial or an "how to" is included to the reply with a solution then the challenge can be marked as solved.

I don't know how you can implement it, maybe this should be a rule for authors of challenges threads.

I agree with you because you want maintain Tuts4you a nice place where newbies can learn.

I am just one of several users that are trying to grow and learn from this community and i really enjoy it.