wei@tiger.Princeton.EDU (P Wei) (12/12/86)
I use some comercial software packages at home and at work. Somebody may not care about putting a key disk in drive A every time he wants to start up the program. One night, I had the following dream: Why bother to put copy protection on the program.? What ever the protection scheme is, there must be a starting program to do the key checking and to load the main program. Isn't every experienced assembly programmer able to 'read' through the starting codes and to 'patch' those codes in order to run the program directly from the hard disk ? By 'patch', I mean to change the code in such ways as either 'bypassing' to think the checking is passed. It is a matter of time ! Maybe one can find a student ( stupid enough !) to do it. SO, WHY COPY PROTECTION ? HP WEI wei@princeton.UUCP
theodore@puff.WISC.EDU (Theodore Tang) (12/15/86)
Breaking copy protection has been going on for years, where the hell have you been?
jda@mas1.UUCP (James Allen) (12/19/86)
"Every copy protection has been broken." Oh yeah? Can anyone show me how to copy a Macintosh "SoftLok" diskette? James D. Allen
steveb@zaphod.UUCP (Steve Brozosky) (12/20/86)
The copy protection methods are not that simple. First they are usually encrypted thus making it dificult to disasemble. In addition, most of the copy protection methods now take some of their code and put it inside the "key" of the floppy. When the program is run it takes the code out of the "key" and puts it into the program. Without that code the program would not work.
mark@ems.UUCP (Mark H. Colburn) (12/23/86)
Let's face it folks, there is not a protection scheme for software that can be written that cannot be broken. It is the same idea as sending coded messages, which it has been proven that mathematically, there is no perfectly secure method of coding available as yet. Software protection is worse that message coding, since, in almost all cases, the key for the protection is available on the diskette. Granted, some copy- protection methods may be harder to break than other, but the first person who claims that a copy protection scheme that is based entirely on software is truly unbreakable will have a lot of proving to do first. I heard a story once about a company that developed the 'perfect, unbreakable copy proctection' scheme. A fourteen year old walked the office and asked if he could try to break it. Being smug and sporting about this whole thing, they agreed. The kid walked into a room with a computer, the diskette that was protected, and a box of his own diskettes and walked out 45 minutes later and dropped an unprotected copy of the original program on the secretary's desk. Unbreakable, indeed. Now that I have bashed that to peices... Copy protection is just like the locks on your car. If you honestly beleive that locking your car will prevent a professional car thief from breaking in then you are VERY nieve. However, locking you car does prevent the casual passer-by from taking your car, or the contents thereof. Copy protection is much the same way. The software industry realizes that copy protection will not keep the dedicated 'pirate' from breaking the software, but it will keep the average Joe Blow from making copies and passing it out to all of his friends. -- Mark H. Colburn UUCP: ihnp4!meccts!ems!mark EMS/McGraw-Hill ATT: (612) 829-8200 9855 West 78th Street Eden Prairie, MN 55344
brown@nicmad.UUCP (12/23/86)
In article <107@mas1.UUCP> jda@mas1.UUCP (James Allen) writes: >"Every copy protection has been broken." >Oh yeah? Can anyone show me how to copy a Macintosh "SoftLok" diskette? This is the ibm-pc news group. The quote was meant for ibm-pc type equipment. The Mac is a different world. Ask that question in that newsgroup. -- ihnp4------\ |------------------------| harvard-\ \ | terminus: | Mr. Video seismo!uwvax!nicmad!brown | The clearing house for | rutgers-/ / | rec.arts.drwho | decvax------/ |------------------------| terminus-----/
tes@whuts.UUCP (12/25/86)
In article <103@ems.UUCP>, mark@ems.UUCP (Mark H. Colburn) writes: > Let's face it folks, there is not a protection > scheme for software that can be written that cannot be broken. > ... > Copy protection is just like the locks on your car. First of all, will all you hackers Please take the money you are saving by violating copyright protection, and buy an on-line spelling checker! Thanks. This takes me back to PC ages "B.I." (before IBM), the standing "rite of passage" for entry into the inner sanctum of your local computer club was to successfully violate the protection scheme for Visicalc (TM). Where is Visicalc now? Wiped out by competi- tors with larger advertising budgets, and more willing to pro- tect their rights via draconian measures. In a word, Visicalc was bled to death and never regained enough capital to push forward on their considerable technological lead. On a more personal note, the copy protection scheme was clever for its day. The one I broke used absolute addressing, a ROM timing loop and several sectors of the code placed on a portion of the disk, unmarked in the FAT to protect it. After breaking it, I decided that my time was too valuable to my employer--besides I am a Systems Engineer, not a hacker. I appreciate the education the experience gave me, but decided that these people needed their revenue; and I and my employer needed my creative juices applied to genuine revenue generating efforts. Oh, for the good old days. -- ----- Terry Sterkel -====---- AT&T Bell Laboratories --------- {harvard|allegra|ulysses|ihnp4}!whuts!tes ----- [opinions are obviously only my own]
jbn@glacier.ARPA (John B. Nagle) (12/27/86)
There are a number of copy protection schemes that actually work, and
they are not usually recognized as such. The most effective one is building
your own incompatible machine for your software; this strategy is used by
a number of vendors of expensive turnkey CAD systems, such as Computervision
and Intergraph. One can similarly require that a special card which performs
some useful function be installed in a standard machine before the software
will run; Cubicomp uses this approach by requiring their own display
card. These approaches work because the functionality of the special-purpose
hardware must somehow be provided before the software will run, and doing
so effectively with nothing but emulation software may not be possible.
Such strategies can be broken by building suitable cards and boxes;
although reverse-engineering custom VLSI chips is difficult, it can
be done and there are places that do it. This is beyond the capabilities
of the typical hacker, but not outside the range of abilities of some of the
low-cost clone makers in the Far East. There exist PC clones which contain
copies of the IBM ROM BIOS; such machines represent a breaking of IBM's
strategy for protecting their software by building it into their hardware.
Entry of such machines into the U.S. is illegal but there are countries that
don't prohibit such things.
Another strategy that will work for a while is putting the software
in a CD-ROM. Yes, you can copy it, but to what? If the program has
been deliberately constructed to need huge data files (imagine having the
help files stored as uncompressed color raster images) the cost of enough
magnetic disk space to store the data may exceed the cost of the program.
This is probably a temporary situation; historically, whenever optical
storage seemed to be on the threshold of acceptance, the magnetic storage
people came up with some new way to increase density and killed off another
generation of optical technology. Digital audio tape is already threatening
the compact disk, and only heavy lobbying by the music industry has delayed
its introduction in the U.S.
It is worth noting that the digital audio tape standard has been
made deliberately incompatible with compact disks, so that a digital to
digital copy is not possible by straightforward means; the sampling rates
are different. This did not happen by accident; there were major fights
in the industry and the software (i.e. music) people won out over the
hardware (i.e. equipment manufacturers), partly by threatening to have
legislation enacted taxing blank tape or recorders.
In the video world, copy protection is making a big comeback,
in the form of "Macrovision", a scheme for introducing some junk data in
the vertical interval which confuses standard VHS VCR recording
synchronization circuits. Something like 30% of new video releases are
now copy protected, and the percentage is increasing. Few consumers are
aware of this; there has been little publicity. Interestingly, Macrovision
could in theory be applied to broadcast signals. Macrovision can be
beaten by several methods, of which the simplest is copying to a Beta
machine. But most people lack the proper equipment.
Ever see a VCR with two tape drives? No? Wonder why? Again, it's
not by accident, but due to heavy lobbying from the motion picture industry.
In time, the software industry may get more political clout, and we
may well see hardware support for copy protection schemes in time. With
the right support, the protection mechanism could be made totally invisible
to the authorized user. We may yet see this happen. I would give it about
even odds of happening in the next five to ten years.
John Nagleelwell@osu-eddie.UUCP (Clayton M. Elwell) (12/27/86)
In the long run, copy protection doesn't work because of one simple fact: Anything that one person can put together, no matter how devious, someone else can take apart, especially if the second person is smarter than the first. Remember, breaking protection only has to be done once, and there are people who do it professionally. Now... do you feel safe? Better to make a product that people WANT to buy at a price they are willing to pay. I don't endorse software piracy, but neither do I endorse making life miserable for your customers. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Computers will never replace the Clayton Elwell wastebasket when it comes to Elwell@Ohio-State.ARPA streamlining office work. ...!cbosgd!osu-eddie!elwell ----------------------------------------------------------------------
elwell@osu-eddie.UUCP (Clayton M. Elwell) (12/27/86)
In article <107@mas1.UUCP> jda@mas1.UUCP (James Allen) writes: >"Every copy protection has been broken." >Oh yeah? Can anyone show me how to copy a Macintosh "SoftLok" diskette? > > James D. Allen I've done it. The thing to remember is that to break a copy protection scheme, IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO DUPLICATE THE ORIGINAL. It's actually usually much easier to modify the program itself so that it no longer cares if you've got the original or not. This lets you run things off of hard disks, RAMdisks, network file servers, and other non-stone-age storage devices. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Computers will never replace the Clayton Elwell wastebasket when it comes to Elwell@Ohio-State.ARPA streamlining office work. ...!cbosgd!osu-eddie!elwell ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rick@uwmacc.UUCP (the absurdist) (01/06/87)
In article <1162@whuts.UUCP> tes@whuts.UUCP writes: >This takes me back to PC ages "B.I." (before IBM), the standing >"rite of passage" for entry into the inner sanctum of your local >computer club was to successfully violate the protection scheme >for Visicalc (TM). Where is Visicalc now? Wiped out by competi- >tors with larger advertising budgets, and more willing to pro- >tect their rights via draconian measures. In a word, Visicalc >was bled to death and never regained enough capital to push >forward on their considerable technological lead. Ahem. I was there in the "Before IBM" days -- in fact, I was there when the Processor Technology SOL was considered to be a pretty neat thing (10 years ago). It was not common to have a "rite of passage" like this; many user groups included as members people who sold software for a living. Telling the local Apple or Radio Shack dealer that someone in your group could cut into his sales rarely struck people as a good idea, especially if they were trying to get a price break from the dealer. Visicalc was wiped out because it became an inferior product that its manufacturer and marketer didn't support properly (there were two distinct companies, which sued each other into extinction while Lotus, SuperCalc and Multiplan took over the market). The "more draconian" scheme for Lotus 123 was crackable by anyone who cared enough to look on a computer bulletin board (in one public domain collection I found 4 separate entries all of which were related to breaking this program). Borland has survived quite well without copy protection; Microsoft has dropped it from all of their products; even Lotus is beginning to reconsider their position. -- "I'll do it -- I've got the GUTS. I'm the PRESIDENT." "Maybe we should take that box away from him." "Why bother?" Rick Keir -- one floor up from the Oyster Tank -- UWisc - Madison {allegra, ihnp4, seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!rick