akk2@ur-tut.UUCP (A Kacker) (11/26/86)
I have received a lot of suggestions regarding implementation of
some kind of protection against copying from a hard disk. Among
them were suggestions to install a key lock on the floppy drives,
rewrite the BIOS etc. What I have finally decided to do is as follows:
1. Install something like PC-LOCK on the hard disk. This prevents unauthorised
personnel to access the C: drive when booting off a floppy. A
password is then required to access the hard disk.
2. Rename the COPY command in COMMAND.COM to something else, say KOPY.
3. Write a batch file COPY.BAT that calls a Turbo Pascal program which
does the following :
a) Parses the command line to see if the source is the hard disk.
b) If it isn't, it calls up the command KOPY to do the copying.
c) If it is, then it asks the User to insert a special "Key Disk"
into Drive A. It then looks for specific information on that
disk before allowing the control to be transferred to the
COPY.BAT file. This allows for legit people to copy stuff
from the hard disk. If the Key Disk is not found, then it
beeps a few times and displays a warning message. The
beeps are supposed to draw the attention of the staffperson on
duty.
d) The program should also not allow unauthorised use of XCOPY
or BACKUP to copy files. This is relatively easy to do by
writing your own XCOPY.BAT and BACKUP.BAT files.
e) But what if they rename XCOPY or BACKUP to something else on
their floppy and try to use that? The Pascal program should
be smart enough to to actually look into the code of that
file and recognize it as such.
4. Also change the file attributes of these special batch files
to make them hidden and read-only.
Now, I realize that this will not eliminate unauthorized copying
of programs because there are always ways around it. But it will
certainly make it more difficult for novice users to do so, which
make up about 80% of our user base.
I understand that there are commercial programs out there that
do things like file-encryption etc. to prevent copying from hard
disks, but I really haven't looked at them yet.
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Atul Kacker
UUCP : {allegra|seismo|decvax}!rochester!ur-tut!akk2
BITNET : AKK2@UORDBV