HackFinder for PalmOS 4.x

Hacks are little pieces of code that replace or extend functions of the PalmOS. Usually hacks should be managed by a hackmanager like HackMaster or X-Master, but sometimes they patch the system by themselves, possibly risking conflicts with other hacks/applications.

To help determine whether an application installs a hack, you can use this application called HackFinder. Be sure to read the below text to understand howit works and what its report mean.

Copyright & Disclaimer

HackFinder is (c) Daniel Seifert, 2002 and (c) 79bmedia GmbH, 2003. You may use it freely but on your own risk. Copying and distributing it on any material in any way is hereby granted, but under the condition that the manual is always included and both the manual and the program itself remain unmodified.

Although every care has been taken to make HackFinder stable and work as intended, the author rejects any responsibility and cannot made liable for incorrect results, any damage, including loss of time, money or data, that result from the use or non-usability of HackFinder.

Usage and Report

To use HackFinder, just download it and install hackfinder.prc on your Palm. When you launch HackFinder, you can start the scan by tapping on the "Start Scan" button. HackFinder will now scan all installed applications and check whether they include code to install a hack. After it has done so, a report will be created and saved as a memo (you can find it by launching the Memo-Application and looking in the Unfiled category).

The report will list any application that includes a call to the SysSetTrapAddress PalmOS function. This function is used to replace or extend a PalmOS API call (that is what generally is called hack). The report will also try to list the name of the PalmOS API call that is being replaced/extended.

It should be noted however, that there is a slight chance of false hits (not veryprobably, though). Furthermore, some applications only change the API call while they are running (usually trying to increase speed or to fix some bugs in the OS while running) and will undo their change as soon as you quit the application. HackFinder is not able to detect whether an application will uninstall the hack when it finishs or whether the hack will continue to be installed even when the application is not running anymore.