Keygen
A key generator (keygen) is a computer program that generates a product licensing key, such as a serial number, necessary to activate for use a software application.
Due to close ties of the warez scene and demoscene, keygens are often accompanied with chiptunes and artistic visual representations.
Software licensing
A software license is a legal instrument that governs the usage and distribution of computer software. Often, such licenses are enforced by implementing in the software a product activation or digital rights management (DRM) mechanism seeking to prevent unauthorized use of the software by issuing a code sequence that must be entered into the application when prompted or stored in its configuration.
Key verification
Many programs attempt to verify or validate licensing keys over the Internet by establishing a session with a licensing application of the software publisher. Advanced keygens bypass this mechanism, and include additional features for key verification, for example by generating the validation data which would otherwise be returned by an activation server. If the software offers phone activation then the keygen could generate the correct activation code to finish activation. Another method that has been used is activation server emulation, this patches the program memory to use the keygen as activation server.
Multi-keygen
A multi-keygen is a keygen that offers key generation for multiple software applications. Multi-keygens are sometimes released over singular keygens if a series of products requires the same algorithm for generating product keys. In this case, only a single value encoded within the key has to be changed in order to target a different product.
Availability
Keygens are available for download on warez sites or through P2P networks. Many keygens available through P2P networks have been corrupted with malware.[citation needed] Many keygens however are often detected by Antivirus software as false positives or as a category of malware themselves.[citation needed]