Re: Anti-Piracy Scheme

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance


"FrankAm" <frankamendola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1166732881.955140.5470@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
< <snipped>

PS. Maybe this will not work... but the other things that people try
for this sort of thing always seem to get cracked and wind up on the
internet. I do not want to go with a dongle thingy either.... There has
to be a way......

<snipped>

Learn from that observation - there is no way to protect an application that
is allowed to run on someone else's box. All you can do is minimize the
attack surfaces and make it as annoying and difficult as possible to crack.
Given enough incentive, time, and resources any scheme can and will be
cracked.

Dongles are the best as it is hardware and thus ups the resource
requirements for an attacker. Software schemes can be rather tight, but it
doesn't takes much in the way of consistent checking of
hashes/keys/permissions/crypt-decrypt/&etc to have an impact on performance.

Also be aware that the attacker doesn't have to break the key to actually
steal your intellectual property. He only has to remove what-ever
impediments are in his path. For example, you mentioned the default was
'unlicensed' - run both - see what's different - and go kill that 'ftp
call'. Or in the example of one major product a couple of years ago, just
get rid of the front-end (that was checking the license) by writing a
replacement.

And please don't take this the wrong way. (I know nothing about your
skill-levels) But if major software companies can't keep the bad guys out,
appreciate it is a very difficult task, and it is highly unlikely you will
do better or even just as well. You need to weight in the cost and
feasibility of purchasing a solution from the experts.

Again, please don't take this wrong, but examine your app with a critical
eye - Who are its customers? How much is it? Just how popular is it likely
to be? It is possible you are worried about nothing. <g>

Consider a subscription hybrid.

hth
-ralph


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