gabriel@bob.berkeley.edu (Gabriel/Capsim (sam)) (10/14/90)
Does anybody out there know how to remove key disk protections from programs? Having to keep the damn floppy around and in a convenient place is getting to be very annoying (especially for someone whose desk is as messy as mine). I've tried hacking on several using MacsBugs and a disassembler with no success. Breaking out into MacsBugs (I tried a brk InitFonts) invariably causes the program to crash when I do a cont, and there is usually some strange code that a disasm can't handle (self-modifying code in the protection scheme?) Short of tracing the original machine code, is there any simple way of doing this? Any advice will be most appreciated. Thanks in advance!
kaufman@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) (10/14/90)
In article <28757@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> gabriel@zion.berkeley.edu.UUCP writes: >Does anybody out there know how to remove key disk protections from programs? > Short of tracing the original machine code, is there any simple way >of doing this? I highly recommend MacNosy. The fundamental flaw in all disk protection schemes is that the first few bytes of the application must be executable, hence they can be disassembled. When you figure out what those bytes do, write a small program to do that to a copy of the program. Then use MacNosy again. You will now have more executable bytes. Repeat as needed. The only open question is who gets tired first. I have seen 4 separate layers of "encryption" that had to be waded through. On the other hand, those programs probably won't run on your fx until you get the disk hardware dependencies out, anyway. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)