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Most of the hackers just run a debugger and when the dialog box pops up asking for the keycode, they enter an invalid code and press OK. Then they find the place in the code (in assembly) where it does a BNE (branch not equal).
In other words, it failed the test.
Then they just put out a patch to change that to BE.
Some of the craftier coders listen in on how the code is tested and write down the mathematical steps and just perform them in reverse to create valid codes.
The toughest 2 copy protections I've seen lately were Sega Dreamcast games. They were written on 1GB CDs and it took 18 months to figure out. Bleem!, the Playstation emulator, required the original CD to play it. Nobody could figure out how to copy the CD for a long time.
The only uplifting thing in all this is the Aquarium is one of the top "illegal-to-legal" programs out there. People who go legit because it's really worth it!
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman
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