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	iKeygen music
	iFebruary 22nd, 2018
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	i
	iI listened to Solderpunk's awesome new anonradio show, Half Hour
	iof Power, which was a fantastic assortment of chiptunes. I had
	iforgotten how fun chiptunes can be and I'd also forgotten about
	ia similar school of music that I used to be really into, Keygen
	iMusic!
	i
	iFirst, some background for those of you not immediately familiar
	iwith the concept. When downloading illegal software you often have
	ito find a crack or serial number to use it. Most software that
	irequires registration uses some mathematical and programatic
	imethod to validate the serial number that you enter. Fantastically
	ibrilliant coders will use special software to freeze the operation
	iof the program and step through its assembly operations in order
	ito discover what these validation mechanisms are.
	i
	iIf they are amazing enough, they can write a small patch to the
	iexecutable that will bypass or falsely validate a serial number as
	ivalid. The patch literally rewrites the machine code to "JMP" past
	ithe validation to a success area in memory. That's a crack!
	i
	iIf the coder is ever more amazing and sly, rather than changing
	ithe application--like a crack--they'll write their own program
	ithat can create a valid serial number by working backwards. If
	ithey can decypher how a program is validated, they can create
	ia successful string of data. This is a keygen, and in my opinion
	isome of the most sophisticated and beautiful demonstrations of
	icode in existence.
	i
	iI don't know when keygens started adding music to their little
	iprograms, but the popularity quickly took off. Interestingly, the
	imusic used for keygens often used the same technologies and
	iformats as game chiptunes: MOD, XM, or S3M [0] for example. These
	itracker formats have some amazing, unique sounds and offer quite
	ia bit of control for their musicians.
	i
	iAs the years went by, I've saved my favorite tunes, often by
	iripping them from the keygens themselves. I like to think of the
	iact of "cracking" a keygen as a kind of computer nerd poetry.
	iAlso, the music is awesome.
	i
	iIf you want to try out some keygen music for yourself, it's much
	ieasier these days. There's a great site that archives so much of
	ithe scene's music [1]. If you want to listen to my personal keygen
	imusic mix, grab the rar of my archive here [2]
	i
	iPerhaps I should have made an anonradio show of it myself, but
	iI'd rather share it secretly with all you foxy gophers.
	i

	[0] S3M format
	[1] Keygen Music
	[2] Tomasino's Keygen Mix