I think your ideas, though they may seem nice in theory, may not be so good

in practise.  for a start, i agree with mammon_ that your policy seems to be

discouraging crackers from writing essays, which would be done only by the

superior crackers, totally cutting off newbies, beginners (and intermediate)

crackers... for example, i have recently cracked an interesting target which

uses a tough serial algorithm based on a seed key.  i thought this would

have made an excellent essay to discuss how algos based on seed keys work...

however now i'm not so sure.



Also the idea of using old software though logical in theory isn't all that

good because nobody cracks old software.  software authors always have and

always will be damaged... most (all) of the essays's targets on your site

have been cracked by "scene" crackers, the cracks are already available, the

damage has already been done.  the last place "zombies" look for cracks is

on fravia.org... and if authors ever happen to stumble accross your site

(and if they're serious) then they can learn and make a tougher protection

next time round so your site only helps to enhance their future protections.



I think your idea of no longer accepting beginner essays was good, but so

far you have failed miserably in your bid to uphold this policy, as i have

seen numerous beginner essays since my "last beginners approach..." essay.

if you can show that you are seriously no longer going to publish beginner

essays, this will also help to filter out the "useless(!)" essays that you

refer to in your "radical plans".  although you may be bored to death with

keygen essays etc, some of us aren't, for example some of my definate

favorite essays on this site are the essay by Indian_trail on winrar, on

test4 by Croock and on the "laying eggs" target by Kox... not everyone is

interested in finding out the significance bethind the mm2048 and mm256.dll

files ;)



Another thing you may want to encourage is essay style... writing the "guts"

of your essay in the main body of the text, and referring the reader to the

assembly listing in the appendix of the essay.  this will also focus the

attention more on "genericness" and less target-specificness.  i find

nothing more boring than an introduction followed immediately by screeds of

asm code and some occasional cryptic(!) comments by the reverser. clarity

of style, and how easy an essay is to understand should also be stressed.

note: i will demonstate use of an appendix in the next essay i send you

(awaiting your confirmation "master" :) and also the idea of explaining the

protection to bring away the target-specific focus... however i think a

target is still important, so that reversers can practice for themselves

what has been preached.



Anyway i definately feel your current attitude is very demoralising to the

beginner/intermediate cracker... and contributions to the site would

dramatically decrease, and people may start losing interest in your site.

if you think that your "policy" will encourage people to concentrate more on

reversing kernels and investigating the hidden activities by microsoft then

i believe you are wrong, this attitude will just switch people off immediately.



I think you should definately be more strict on what essays you accept, but

to totaly remove all "cracking" essays would be a bad move... to generate

interest you must maintain these essays too.



If you are definately not interested then i think mammon_'s suggestion of a

new site is far more appropriate than modifying the look and feel of this

current site.but nobody likes to read old stuff :), and if you maintain the

interest of your reader and at the same time publish some quality and

well-explained essays about the topics you like then crackers of today will

become interested in these topics too (maybe :).. but as i said earlier if

you simply cut off all of these "useless" essays fravia.org might shrivel

and die :(



Finally the most important point is everyone knows your site is the best

cracking site on the net, it's what gives me and other crackers motivation

to write essays - so that we know many others will be reading it, i know its

your site and you can do what you want, but your site has become a cracker's

home over the years, if you decide to proceed with your "radical plans" then

you are letting everyone down.



                 cheers,



                 prophecy.



ps : let me know if i should bother writing this essay i had in mind...