I need some advice on how to hack...... Answered

You and Adrian are correct: "hacking" in the sense of modifying the behaviour of a program, is not necessarily illegal, though it may violate license agreements, as NM noted below. That leaves the hacker (or his parents) open to civil liability. Having said that, I don't think the folks here at I'bles (i.e., us :-) take EULA's particularly seriously. If you can't open it, you don't own it.

actually when i start up halo, it advertises on the multiplayer screen to try Halo CE ,i think, which is an unsupported version where you can edit it more easily. Now this is another program but I believe it still runs off of Halo which would then modify the behavior of the program. But, i could be wrong...

I think what DJR wants is actually called a "cheat code" - things you can do to the programme whist running to make odd things happen.

Things I have seen are along the lines of "when you are on the start screen, press the left button seven times whilst holding down the circle button and you will get unlimited ammunition when using shotguns" - there are whole magazines and websites of that sort of thing.

Well, all I want to do is replace banashees with tanks........

The EULA says what it says. If you accept that concept, then by playing Halo, you have agreed to abide by its terms, period. You can't modify the program or do anything else.

If you have the Maker Attitude, then your copy of the program is yours, and you can do what you want with it. If you want hack it to replace banshees with happy hopping bunny rabbits, you can. You can't take your modified version and sell it or give it away (that's an obvious patent/copyright violation), but you can modify it for your personal use.

no, Halo trial is a free program, so i can hack it

. If you will read the EULA, you will find that reverse engineering is not allowed. Kinda difficult to hack a program without doing some RE.

Reverse engineering? You mean, everything in the program is backwards?

HAHAHAHA!

I was joking right there. I knew you would see my sense of humor.

It's just sad...look, it's okay, admitting you don't know something is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength.

Nah, I have some sort of knowledge on reverse engineering, but I just cracked on it......... *goes to wikipedia to look up teh definition*

See, you just made my point.

You don't have to know everything. In fact, you never will. It's okay. You will never learn if you don't admit you don't know everything.

ok, i said I only knew some of it, not all............

Actually there are laws which make many types of reverse engineering legal in spite of what EULAs say about it. My rule of thumb, not a perfect legal opinion, is that if you are trying to copy it to give away or sell, then it is illegal. For other things such as discovering the structure of the file format they are using are legal and cannot be restricted by EULA.

I do not know then... try searching it

Hacking is not. Cracking is. Don't mix up hackers and crackers.

Cracking?

The terms were developed by the hacker community to distinguish those who modify for the sake of curiosity, or improving operation, or just to enforce the old Open Source philosophy. "Crackers" engage in overtly illegal activity -- denial of service attacks, design and deployment of viruses/Trojan horses/worms/etc., destruction or theft of records, and so forth. What DJ Radio wants to do falls clearly in the realm of "hacking," not "cracking." However, I think he'd learn more by doing some research and figuring it out himself, rather than finding someone else to do it for him (oooh, there's my inner professor leaking out again :-).

Thank you, that helped me a lot! :-)

^{I always thought 'hackers' are bad people... Until you told me.}

You're welcome! The term originated as derogatory, just as you assumed. Over time, the "good" members of the hacker community appropriated the word to refer to themselves, and adopted "cracker" to refer to their nefarious colleagues. I have not seen "cracker" used much, if at all, in the mass media, probably because it has distinct racial/class meanings in the U.S.

I think "cracker" is hardly used because it reminds me of a druggy.......

Oh, sorry, just now saw your reply...you covered it nicely...

Yeah, but you were more concise, and you provided a reference :-)

Hacking is what the elite do. Real hackers hack for good and not evil. They attempt to solve problems, build useful programs, improve poor security systems.

Crackers, on the other hand, are just fools looking to break things. Sometimes they break sites for kicks, for no other reason than boredom. Other times they break into secure areas for more sinister reasons, such as stealing information. Real hackers look down on crackers and want nothing to do with them.

The main difference is that hackers build things, while crackers destroy things.

See this page for a more detailed explanation.

And thank you too Adrian.

You're welcome. :-)