Zeropaid got a chance to talk with the hackmaster himself Dr. Damn. Enjoy!
ZP:Why do you hack iMesh, KaZaA, Imesh, and Grokster? What’s in it for you?
Dr. Damn: I never hacked KaZaA. (Note that I use the past tense there.) I hacked iMesh and Grokster for two reasons: nobody had hacked the latest version of eithe program, and I dislike organizations that spy on and/or force advertising on the world. Nothing is in it for me, except for knowing that I’m doing what I do best to better the world — or at least the internet.
ZP:Where do you think Filesharing is going?
Dr. Damn: I think it’s obvious to say that decentralized networks, hashing, increased security, and swarmed downloads are the way of the future. Any network that doesn’t implement these will have to offer something completely different.
ZP: Will a single application ever be as popular as Napster?
Dr. Damn: This is a flawed question, as Gnutella already has more users. FastTrack may also have more users, but I’ve found that KaZaA and Grokster lie about how many people are actually connected.
ZP: Will you continue to publish hacked versions?
Dr. Damn: Sure! Expect to see some more hacked software in the future. I may do KaZaA, LimeWire, URL Blaze, BearShare and a few others. But no promises.
ZP: What do you think of XoloX and Bearshare?
Dr. Damn: I never cared much for Xolox, mostly due to the interface bugs that were never fixed. BearShare is awful, and I think that Vinnie guy should either play by the Gnutella rules or design his own network.
ZP: Do you see file sharing development being done by companies or individuals? What’s the motivation behind the development? What do you think of Sharman Networks and KaZaA Lite? Who do you think is in the right? Do you feel that by releasing hacked versions that these companies are losing money?
Dr. Damn:I don’t know about the finances of these companies, nor do I care if they make money or not. I doubt that closed source file trading software made by big companies will last much longer considering the lawsuits are going on daily now. Obviously, you can’t stop open source. Hopefully, by the time the big guys are dead, there will be some really GOOD open source replacements. If they are truly open source, there will be no reason to hack them. If LimeWire went out of business, I’m sure the open source developers would distribute the application without the spyware. Did you know that installing LimeWire leaves behind a program called “eTraffic” that spies on EVERYTHING you do on your computer? Uninstalling LimeWire won’t get rid of it, and it doesn’t come with an uninstaller. It’s disgusting that this is even legal.
ZP: Would you be willing to share how you hack these?
Dr. Damn: I’ll cover the basics: I realized that nobody had hacked iMesh, and it seemed like it wouldn’t be too hard. It comes with a load of spyware, much of which you can opt out of installing. Two major components were installed in spite of this: Cydoor, which delivers advertisments to iMesh (and causes the program to crash) and New.net. Fortunately, New.net can be uninstalled, and Cexx.org has a replacement cd_clint.dll that prevents iMesh from downloading ads.That was the easiest part. Next, using a nifty program called “ResHack,” I opened up iMeshClient.exe and found that the layout of the iMesh window is described not as a dialog, but in a different section as string data. I sized the ad window to be zero by zero pixels, so it would not be shown on the screen. Next, I found the section that describes toolbars and deleted all the “Tell a Friend” buttons. Those are stupid, and if you do tell a friend they’ll just sell your friend’s e-mail address to some spam company. I recompiled the data and saved the file. Next, I deleted all of the files that were not needed to run iMesh, such as the Cydoor and New.net installers, and those stupid help files. Also, the Bonzai buddy icon had to go, as well as the Gator license agreement.I used Nullsoft’s NSIS install system to write a script to install iMesh. Since the original iMesh installer was nice enough to create an install.log, I just read it so I’d know what registry entries to create. (This was by far the most time consuming part of the process.)I also scripted an uninstaller, which is something the lazy programmers at iMesh failed to do. I ran the NSIS compiler to build the distributable file. All it does is install my hacked version of iMesh with none of the spyware. I’ll have to admit that it was MUCH easier to take the spyware out of Grokster, since it only has Cydoor as far as I can remember. I may release a new version of the hack soon that doesn’t take you to Grokster.com, everyone’s favorite website for popup windows. If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to ask!
