The main reason for cracking a program was the simplest: gaining
access to a resource without having the right to do so.
Breaking the license checks of a personal-productivity application
in the 1990s meant disassembling and ?¬?ddling with a local
copy running on your own computer, whereas today??™s nastiest
attacks have to be performed without accessing the binary of the
target process. In the former case, you are in the position of
performing any modi?¬?cation. In the latter, you have to rely on
known ?¬‚aws of the program or discover a new one. A ?¬‚aw that
can be leveraged for compromising a program is known as an
exploit.
A good part of the gain obtained from cracking had to do with
satisfying narcissistic instincts, but the chance to pocket some
change was not too far away.
The ?¬?rst forms of organized actions come from that time frame,
too. Although access was still not widespread, the falling prices
of the hardware and the rising interest in software gathered likeminded
people in cracking bands, with true ???hacking auditions???
for membership admittance and a good dose of romantic rivalries.
Again, this was very far from today??™s spamming behemoths
and systematic phishing groups.
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