Code-cracking is the art of reverse engineering software for the purpose of
re-engineering it to do something not originally intended. Nowadays, the
majority of cracking is done to bypass software "security". Developers
incorporate security measures within their software to thwart piracy and
prevent unlicensed use. Crackers reverse the software, disable its
"security", and release a crack which conveniently allows others to do the
same. Users download crack and apply it to software in order to obtain
extended usage without the licensing restrictions imposed by its developer
(usually payment).

Online libraries of crack provide users access to commercial software
without paying for it. While the use of crack is illegal, its distribution
is not. Since cracks do not contain any copy-written code from the products
they crack, web sites and other distribution channels freely continue their
distribution.

Developers combat cracking to obviously protect profits and ensure proper
licensing of their products. It has been said that more than one third of
software running is unlicensed. While hard to imagine that this figure could
come from anything beyond guess work, it is nonetheless a believable and
perhaps conservative estimate.

A percentage of crack users are actually paying customers dealing with
unforgiving copy protection. Lost product disks and/or activation codes
along with poor or no product support can leave users with little recourse.
While the percentage of crack users that don't pay for software don't give
their reasons, for some, software may be unaffordable but necessary.

Hard core crackers hack million dollar protection schemes for the enjoyment
of the puzzle. Those that post their cracks additionally receive recognition
from fellow crackers. Their dissertations explain the tools and fundamentals
to newbies who may be learning to crack for the puzzle, the recognition, or
the crack itself.

While forums, knowledge bases, and "crack-me's" educate would-be crackers,
information on protecting software is scant and usually written by crackers
themselves. New tools have added to the capabilities of the cracker but new
methods of fighting crack have been slow to develop. There are many
commercial "protections" available to developers but very few, if any, have
withstood the menace. The reversible nature of software simply makes
protecting extremely difficult.

A fresh perspective has lent itself to a new technology that is changing all
of this. Protection comes, not from one method, but many. By populating
multiple protections across a program's entirety and establishing in the
software a unique dependency on each, developer can now create what might be
called "a cracker's worst nightmare".

In the same way that nature replicates unique copies of a single design,
Miracode duplicates itself with one purpose but many results. Establishing
real dependencies on these results creates a protection so intertwined with
software that one cannot be removed without severe detriment to the other.

MIRACODE protections or "security kernels" are singular in purpose but
unique in their method, code, and data. None is dependent on the other and
nothing is shared between these free agents. Each has a unique imprint and
each supports program in a unique way. Violating a program's integrity
severs that support and software becomes non-operational in the broadest
sense, effectively stalling developer's distribution vehicle - "joy ride's
over".

Revolutionary also is the way that these protections are incorporated into
software. Traditionally, program is either encapsulated or linked to its
protection. MIRACODE, on the other hand, is injected directly into source
code files and becomes embedded within a program's core operations. The lack
of any common denominator between "Security Kernels" effectively removes the
ability to find them. Miracode protections support basic program operations
and will fail only if software is engineered to violate trial licensing.
When this happens, program instability grows to significant levels making
continued usage impossible.