Re: software protection

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: Peter Young (youngpa_at_attbi.no.com.spam.please)
Date: 03/19/04 

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 15:45:51 -0600

"Howard Kaikow" <kaikow@standards.com> wrote in message news:eMp12ffDEHA.3240@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> "Peter Young" <youngpa@attbi.no.com.spam.please> wrote in message
> news:ukM6o$TDEHA.580@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> > "Ken Halter" <Ken_Halter@Use_Sparingly_Hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:Okdw9XSDEHA.1456@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > > I've never seen any reference to uncracked protection schemes. If the
> app is cool enough,
> > > someone's gonna crack it no matter how you try to protect it. Even if
> you need a hardware
> > > dongle.
> >
> > This is the one he's probably thinking of...
> > http://www.chosenbytes.com/
>
> I would not count on such claims.
>
> No way to prove that product has not been cracked.

True.

> A smart cracker, would not tell anyone that they've cracked the code, and
> likely could do a lot better than the $2000 if they were successful, if only
> be breaking apps using the protection product.

I disagree. In my experience, people crack for fun, not profit. As soon as they've solved the puzzle of some protection
scheme, they immediately want to let their peers know about it. You can google up cracks for most third-party protection
packages and for some versions of most popular applications. These guys want the world to know how clever they are and
are quick to publish their results. A search for a crack for code-lock turns up nothing. From my own investigation of
the product, the protection used is substantially better than most. The author knows his stuff.

I think the primary reason it hasn't been cracked (assuming that is true) is that there hasn't been a juicy enough
target that it protects. Code-lock is written in VB, but is compiled to p-code and is also packed. So normal debugger
sessions are useless until it's unpacked. Even then, the machine code can't be disassembled into Intel assembly because
of the p-code compilation. And the very few VB p-code disassemblers available won't work on it because the author took
the time to expoit weaknesses in those products.

The only thing I don't understand is, if it's so strong, why the author hasn't gotten any higher-profile products
protected with it. Seems odd.

-Pete

Relevant Pages

  • Re: About crackers and Dinky Dongle
    ... We use the dongles for a long time as a copy protection, ... but at the end they found out ways to crack it. ... > of these hardware keys called Dinkey Dongle. ... > which you can use to lock your app to a computer, i.e., your app would ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Securing Software with License
    ... If your app is known at all or useful, it'll be on crack sites within minutes. ... I would call this more like an annoyance to crackers more than protection really. ... These typically implement a few different ways of doing licensing, like signed xml files or serial numbers. ... Of course this is by far the most complicated and time consuming option to protect your programs, but it's perhaps one of the most "secure" things you can do and that annoys those using illegal versions the most. ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.general)
  • Re: firewall securing outgoing traffic?
    ... >> Linux has IMHO no implicit protection from that behaviour? ... if an open-source app calls home ... administration nightmare -- too many groups, too many SGID binaries. ...
    (comp.os.linux.security)
  • Re: Encrypt or hide the config in ini file
    ... The fact that the typical user of your software is "simple" doesn't imply that you don't need protection from professional crackers. ... The value of the data stored by the server is negligleble. ... If they deliberately screw up the database, it is also they who will pay you for cleaning up the mess. ... 3.- App connect with the server ...
    (borland.public.delphi.thirdpartytools.general)
  • Re: Securing data
    ... It depends on how strong you want that protection to be. ... wrote an AutoExec macro in the back-end database, ... the app, and you as the manufacturer of the app do not have the right ... Encryption seem also not to be the answer, ...
    (comp.databases.ms-access)