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Comment by lopkeny12ko | Hacker News Reader

I must be missing something obvious. What's malicious about the word "keygen"?

What's the issue with ssh-keygen? gpg --gen-key?

Piracy. Programs that generate activation codes for proprietary software are called keygens. They usually come with interesting musical accompaniments.

Keygens may or may not facilitate piracy, but they're not themselves piracy.

This is just some ridiculous NPM policy. What will be next? Cracks?

Yeah what was it about keygens always having the most unhinged synth soundtracks

It's part of the demoscene culture, which overlaps a lot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

https://files.scene.org/

It sparked a whole new genre, Demoscene. I miss those days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

> musical accompaniments

Can someone please explain this to me?

back in the old days, keygens were a way for hacking groups to show off, so they had cool graphics and played music.

| back in the old days

Thank you for my daily memento morì.

Back in the day, paid software used to use serial keys for activation. Keygens made valid reg keys using the same algorithm so you could pirate software easily.

"Keygens" are programs that generate valid product keys in order to crack software copyright protection. Under the DMCA or similar laws in many other countries, they are illegal to use, create, or distribute.

Jokes on them, I run a keygen almost daily, for software I don't have, because I like the cool chiptune.

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