Examples of cracks are: applying a patch or by creating reverse-engineered serial number generators known as keygens, thus bypassing software registration and payments or converting a trial/demo version of the software into fully-functioning software without paying for it. These methods can include modifying code directly through disassembling and bit editing, sharing stolen product keys, or developing software to generate activation keys. Cracking software generally involves circumventing licensing and usage restrictions on commercial software by illegal methods. A crack can mean any tool that enables breaking software protection, a stolen product key, or guessed password. Copy protection can be removed by applying a specific crack. Software cracking (known as 'breaking' mostly in the 1980s ) is an act of removing copy protection from a software. ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) JSTOR ( September 2013) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).
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