Foone🏳️‍⚧️ on Nostr: but the tl;dr for how classic cracking works. You find the spot in the program that ...

but the tl;dr for how classic cracking works.

You find the spot in the program that looks like this:

if (is_pirated()){
printf("NO WAREZ!\n");
exit(-1);
}

in the disassembly (on x86, at least) that'll look something like:

CALL (address of is_pirated)
TEST EAX, EAX
JZ (address of rest of the game)
(some code to yell at the pirate)