When I was still in school, I was the computer nerd. A doctor in town, who’s son was in my class, asked me to fix an annoyance he had with a software he used. He offered a generous compensation. It took me less than an hour to analyze and patch the program on the binary level. On a per hour base, I earned more money than he normally did…
Well, a software (I.e. a. exe file) is a long list of numbers. Some are commands like “do something when the user clicks there”, some are data, like text on a button.
If you are very familiar with those intricacies, you can change a few bytes here or there to change what the program does.
No, there are tools like “hex editors” that allow to edit a file in a more controlled way. I don’t think opening a binary file in notepad would do anything good to that file…
When I was still in school, I was the computer nerd. A doctor in town, who’s son was in my class, asked me to fix an annoyance he had with a software he used. He offered a generous compensation. It took me less than an hour to analyze and patch the program on the binary level. On a per hour base, I earned more money than he normally did…
What exactly does patching a program on the binary level entail?
Well, a software (I.e. a. exe file) is a long list of numbers. Some are commands like “do something when the user clicks there”, some are data, like text on a button.
If you are very familiar with those intricacies, you can change a few bytes here or there to change what the program does.
I’m more curious as to the process than the concept I guess. Open your exe in notepad, hold alt, and mash the numpad?
No, there are tools like “hex editors” that allow to edit a file in a more controlled way. I don’t think opening a binary file in notepad would do anything good to that file…