Why I registered mIRC

For those that don't know… mIRC is communication software, otherwise known as an IRC client. IRC (or Internet Relay Chat) to me is a place where people can come together to discuss a shared interest to form a community.

To be a part of these communities is very rewarding in essence that by networking with people you can get involved in things you wouldn’t normally be involved in, while also having the ability to seek advise or help others. The scope of IRC goes far beyond this.

I use mIRC on a daily basis to communicate with friends in these communities, I also use it as a scripting platform for many things from returning the exchange rate to locating a site via google to checking if a domain is taken. The possibilities are endless.

In light of the release of mIRC 6.3 (16-Aug-2007), and after this thread, I have decided to purchase a license.

This shocked many people as I have been infamously recognised as creating both a keygen in mIRC (regmirc.mrc) and in Eggdrop (regmirc.tcl) for mIRC that will generate a registration key. (Both of which were based on an algorithm by Nitrus).

Spending time as I did in this scene when I was younger was always fun (like anything illegal), and I enjoyed the challenges however as I have gotten older (and wiser) I’ve mostly left the scene behind.

The scene is a thank-less mess of politics and power hungry nobodies, people with far too much spare time, and no real job. No matter how many times it tries to come back, it’s always the same.

Back in the day (with the help of tonix) we even wrote a script that would use mIRC to bit write patch the “mirc.exe” to remove the CTCP version (which is hardcoded into mIRC and can’t be disabled):

//rename mirc.exe x

copy x mirc.exe

bwrite mirc.exe 1441091 x

Note: This will NOT work on recent versions, this was the correct byte position for an older version of mIRC (I forget which), besides making changes to the “mirc.exe” is against their terms, regardless whether you were able to do it from mIRC or not

We also realised the “bwrite” (which is a standard function of mIRC) could also be used to patch “mirc.exe” to make it accept any name and registration key you entered, however in recent versions a CRC check was introduced that meant making changes to “mirc.exe” would cause it to error. The regmirc keygen method always worked, and could be done within mIRC as well.

The algorithm used in the “regmirc” keygen has worked since the first public release right up until mIRC 6.3. This is the first release where the serial you enter is verified online. This is not a problem, as even though it is checked, and could come back as invalid, you could still use the software if you wanted to regardless, however you are now faced with a nag screen claiming your trail has expired, to which you must wait for the ‘continue’ button to appear use the software.

It almost goes without saying that even the online verification can be bypassed either by doing patching “mirc.exe” to over-ride or disable the check or by faking the response from the verification server using your localhost. Both these methods could be written into mIRC as a script.

But why? Here are the reasons why I shouldn’t:

• mIRC always has been there and it continues to maintain it’s position.
• I’ve coded many scripts in mIRC and have become quite established in the community.
• Khaled has replied to all my emails directly so far. He’s a nice chap.
• Obviously they’ve made a concious effort to add the online check for a reason.
• mIRC has never become unusable after the trial period has ended, although the trial period is only 30 days, you are able to continue to use it beyond that.
• I am no longer a kid, or a student, I work for a living, I have no excuse.
• Based on my ‘morals of downloading’, mIRC falls under “If you like the software and cannot live without it, pay for it”.
• I wish to invest into the future of this product.
• Once it’s paid for, it’s paid for, the license will work on all future versions of mIRC.
• It’s only $20, due to the weak dollar at the moment, that’s less than £10, i’ve spent more than that on domains I don’t even need.
• At time of writing, I have been using this copy of mIRC for 1652 days, that’s about 4.5 years.

My $20 has been long over-due.

I have nothing to hide, I have paid my dues and now I’d like to encourage others to do the same and register mIRC.