ORPHANWARE The first email
Intake is by email only, at aperturesurvivor@gmail.com. There is no form and no ticket system. Include what you can from these four items:
- What the program is, and what it does for your business.
- Where it came from, if you know: vendor, approximate year, language or platform.
- What you need: maintenance, a fix, a migration, or documentation.
- Anything you have: old documentation, sample inputs, and expected outputs.
You do not need all four. A short email that covers the first and third items is enough to start a useful reply. Do not attach the binary to this first email. Until we have replied and agreed how it should travel, the binary stays with you.
Every message is read by the operator, Josiah Wilson, who directs every engagement and signs off on every result. The decompilation, reconstruction, and testing pipeline is carried out by AI agents under his direction. You will know who is accountable for your engagement from the first reply onward.
How the binary changes hands
After an initial reply, we arrange the transfer of the binary and any supporting files. If you want a nondisclosure agreement, say so in your first email. NDAs are available and routinely signed before any binary changes hands. Your binary and the recovered source are your property. They are used for your engagement, and the deliverables at the end are yours to keep, compile, and hand to any developer you choose.
What happens in the recon
Every engagement starts with the Recon Report, fixed at $45 with delivery in about 3 days. The recon inventories your program: what it does, its interface and flags, and the file formats it reads and writes. It establishes what kind of binary it is, what recovery would involve, and whether a full recovery is realistic. The report ends with an honest feasibility verdict and a scope for the work that would follow. If the verdict is that recovery is not realistic, the report says so plainly and explains why, and you have spent $45 to learn it before committing to anything larger.
You do not need to prepare the program for the recon beyond keeping it intact. Keep the original files as they are, including configuration and data files the program needs to run. If the program only runs on one particular PC, say so in your email. That fact shapes how the original behavior gets captured for later comparison.
What happens after
Upper tiers are sold only for scope agreed in a recon. Source Recovery (Standard) is $120 with delivery in about 5 days. It delivers readable recovered source and a recompiled working binary, with compile verification. Verified Recovery (Premium) is $250 with delivery in about 7 days. It adds full differential testing: the rebuilt binary and your original run side by side across thousands of generated fuzz cases, with outputs compared exactly, and documented edge cases and known limitations.
Larger work, and work spanning several programs, is quoted from the recon rather than sold as a tier. The recon scope defines what the quote covers, so the price you agree to is tied to an inventory you have already seen. There is no obligation to continue after a recon. The report is yours either way, and many owners use it simply to document what a critical program does before deciding anything.
What helps but is optional
None of this is required, and all of it shortens the work:
- Sample data the program works on, such as a small set of real input files.
- Expected outputs: a report, file, or result you know is correct.
- Screenshots of the program running, especially of screens you rely on.
- Old manuals, invoices, or correspondence that name the original vendor.
- Notes on how the program is started, and any workarounds your team uses.
If you have none of it, send the email anyway. The recon is designed to inventory a program from the binary itself.
What we will not take
We only work on binaries you own or have the right to reverse engineer. If the program belongs to an employer, a client, or a vendor, the right has to be yours to grant. We do not take malware, spyware, cracks, keygens, or DRM circumvention work, and we do not recover software so it can be resold as someone else's product. If you are unsure whether your situation qualifies, describe it in the first email and ask. A short honest answer at that stage costs nobody anything.