[comp.sys.amiga.games] Chessamster 2100 patch - possible?

mndaily@ux.acs.umn.edu (Linda Seebach) (05/11/91)

In article <1991May07.103100.12997@cs.ruu.nl> ptavoly@cs.ruu.nl (Peter Tavoly) writes:
>Sigh.. Utter Spectum Tauri (tm)! You still don't get the point do you? Who
>do you think those 'people fed up with entering words' are? They don't have
>the manual, that is why they are 'fed up'! Those who actually bought the
>game did so because they valued it worthwhile, in contrast to those, who
>just copied it because they could get it for free. If you play it, buy it!

Bullshit. I bought the game. I still have my reciept. And I *LOATHE*
entering words from a manual. Right now my computer is over at a
friend's house doing some ray-tracing, and transfering files through
it's serial port. I could have played any of three or four chess games,
or SimCity, except that I didn't bring the manuals for all of them.
It would be reasonable if the questions were at least about things you
could reasonably learn. For instance: The Animation Studio (Disney) has
manual lookup that tells you how many letters, and gives you enough context,
that if you have a *lot* of experience with the program, you don't need
the manual to enter a word. Although I could, in theory, memorize all
umpteen (40 or so?) complete games from the back of the CM2100 manual,
I think it's ludicrous to expect me to do so...

>PS.: Manual protection schemes *cannot* be removed by commercial programs
>     like Project D etc. since they are embedded in the program code itself,
>     sometimes they are encoded as well (uhh.. from my 64 days :).

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Back in the days before I knew
either assembly (for any machine) or C, I could take a binary and break
a protection scheme. It's embedded in the program itself. Oh, gee, really?
I thought it was a shell script embedded in the startup-sequence.

What you do, see, is you find the manual protection scheme (easy enough)
and then you read through it. Somewhere, it will have two possible
branches (most likely) - one back into the routine (the Failed case) and
one into the rest of the program (success case). Replace the beginning
of the routine with a branch to the rest of the program, and leave the
rest of the routine there - it's harmless. A decent hacker can do this
in about half an hour, at most. (Admittedly, I don't know if I still
could - high-level languages have made me lazy.) It is most certainly
*NOT* impossible.

> -ThomasT.

--SeebS--
(And I'm never *going* to be Linda Seebach)
-- 
mndaily is the Minnesota Daily, and does not speak for the U of M.
Linda Seebach does not speak for the Daily.
--SeebS-- does not speak for Linda.
Marcel Marceau speaks for no one.

ptavoly@cs.ruu.nl (Peter Tavoly) (05/13/91)

In <3901@ux.acs.umn.edu> mndaily@ux.acs.umn.edu (Linda Seebach) writes:
>
>>PS.: Manual protection schemes *cannot* be removed by commercial programs
>>     like Project D etc. since they are embedded in the program code itself,
>>     sometimes they are encoded as well (uhh.. from my 64 days :).
>
>Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Back in the days before I knew
>either assembly (for any machine) or C, I could take a binary and break
>a protection scheme. It's embedded in the program itself. Oh, gee, really?
>I thought it was a shell script embedded in the startup-sequence.

Really? Hmm.. I thought it was Santa Claus! Such a nice man, isn't he?

>What you do, see, is you find the manual protection scheme (easy enough)
>and then you read through it. Somewhere, it will have two possible
>branches (most likely) - one back into the routine (the Failed case) and
>one into the rest of the program (success case). Replace the beginning
>of the routine with a branch to the rest of the program, and leave the
>rest of the routine there - it's harmless. A decent hacker can do this

A decent hacker can do it with his eyes closed, while drinking hot coco.

>in about half an hour, at most. (Admittedly, I don't know if I still
>could - high-level languages have made me lazy.) It is most certainly
>*NOT* impossible.

I did not say impossible, I said that a commercial program that does not
know *on beforehand* where the manual protection lies will most likely
not find it, unless the programmer has put a message in his code a la:
"Here I am, your friendly neighbourhood manual protection! Just change
these two pointers, and I'll be gone in a huff, never to bother you again!"

>
>> -ThomasT.
>
>--SeebS--
>(And I'm never *going* to be Linda Seebach)

 -ThomasT. (And I am never going to be Peter either, as someone quoted me
	    in this thread)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~          ____
Thomas Tavoly, Commercial Computer Science - HEAO Utrecht, NL.           / / /
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Favourite quote: "The Mac OS is amazingly complex,               ____  / / /
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